Act of Antisemitism May 2011 , Region of Lviv , village of Velikie Macti

In western Ukraine, Lviv region, village of  Velikie Macti ( Великие Мосты , litteraly 'Great Bridge' ) ,some unidentified people desecrated a Holocaust memorial .

The monument was painted up with the words "Death to Jews!" ( смерть жидам  , the word 'Жид' means 'Jew' in old slavonic but in the context in modern Russian , the meaning of this word is abusive, contemptuous and anti-Semitic . There is no equivalent in the English language  ) 

On the back side of the monument was painted up a swastika .
 
This monument was built in 2006 in the village ( where Jews do not live anymore )  , financed by citizens of Israel .
 
In this place , in 1941, 200 Jews were shot  to dead by the fascists  , many of these Jews were children.

Police officials said that the authors of this desecration had not been found. The chairman of the County Council of the village,  Jaroslav Royko , assured that the monument will be restored very soon.

On the eve of Victory Day, the Lviv regional organization of veterans of the Antifascist Committee of Ukraine issued a statement to the President of Ukraine where they called for the arrest of the criminals and asked the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry to apologize to the citizens of Israel for this insult to the memory of victims of fascism.

On the back side of the monument was painted up a swastika

"Death to Jews!"

UKRLAA OPEN LETTER

download letter as pdf file

UKRAINIAN LEAGUE AGAINST ANTI-SEMITISM (UKRLAA)
OPEN LETTER TO JEWISH FEDERATIONS AND ORGANISATIONS

I ask you to raise some very important and painful questions regarding the rehabilitation of Anti-Semitism in Ukraine and regarding the fact that several people historically implied in the killing of Jews are now been considered as heroes .                   .
This is an extremely actual topic for Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Moldavia, Romania and considering the development of the five years it is an extremely hot subject in Ukraine. Indeed, from 2005 to 2009 Ukraine was governed by the Yushenko-Timoschenko coalition regime that was completely anti-Semitic. It has to be mentioned that the whole word has been tricked by this regime who managed to get support from the European Union and The USA (Regrettably, some Jews also were duped by this regime).             .
During these five years , there were  multiple pogroms targeting Jewish cemeteries , Jewish schools , Jewish Institutes , Jewish synagogues ( criminal fires , swastikas painted up , violent physical aggressions against rabbis , etc ... ).                                               .
Thanks to GOD, due to sincere attempts to bring the truth and to bring real information about this regime, we succeed in breaking it and Viktor Yanukovych became the new president.

Now, we need to address the U.S President, the U.S senators, the members of the U.S Congress, The president of France, the Prime minister of Great-Britain in order to support the new president of Ukraine – Viktor Yanukovitch.

As an immediate result we should call for the restitution, in the whole Ukraine, of the Jewish temples in the same way that Christian temples have been given back after 1990 to the Christians. In the building of the past built synogogue (Templ) where have been sang the biggest kanthor Yosef Shmidt - in his movietheater where has been showed the hollywoodic movies. This synagogue whose the Nazis german wanted to destroy at the beginning and after then the Soviet army (the "Red army"). In other synagogue there is a sportcomplex(!!!) and there is one synagogue  where is a holly fabriane where is maken a windows and doors. In one big building of a synagogue there has been selledto the athventistim. In town Vyzhnitsa, in Chernivtsi region, was synagogue of hasidies is cituated now a Building of Culture.

May I inform you that in the Western Ukraine and Kiev, some streets and monuments are been renamed from the name of historical criminals implied in the mass-murdering of Jews: Petlyura , Bandera , Shukhevitch and others . Regional center, name of region, names of streets , towns in Ukraine, square in center of Kiev, monument in this square - cossack getman Bogdan Khmelnitsky : can we imagine that one street in Germany could be named after Adolf Hitler ?

May I recall you that Uman was the place in 1768 of a massacre of more than 30,000 Jewish (and polish) people ordered by the cossack getman Bogdan Khmelnitsky and the place of several other massacres of Jews.

Another example: every year tens of thousand of Jews from the world come to Uman to attend the tomb of Rabi Nahman to celebrate Rosh-ha-shana. And every year there are multiple problems:

·        A huge hotel belonging to the Jews (Hasidim Hotel) has been illegally taken by member of the parliament deputy Petr Kuzmenko.

·        In some other places of the city, new houses for rich people are being built on Jewish cemeteries: on the bone of Jews!

·        Pilgrims are welcomed by police forces with dogs!

·        The Ultra-nationalist Party «Svoboda» is making anti-Semitic demonstration before the event of Rosh-ha-shana.

·        On 27/09/10, 30,000 Jewish people from the whole world attended for Jewish holydays Rosh ha-shana near the tomb of Rabi Nahman from Bratslov. One 21-year old Jewish, Shmuel Tubul was murdered by Ukrainians anti-Semitic criminals. He was to get married in 2 months in Israel.

In the city of Lviv , after the local elections, the ultra-nationalistic party "Svoboda" won the Governmental position in Galicia (Western Ukraine - former territory of Poland) and its Anti-Semitic leader, Oleg Tyagnibok is now ruling the area.     

UEFA must remove the city of LVIV from the city organising soccer matches during EURO 2012 even.

As a result it is now necessary to call all the global Jewish community to press UEFA to cacel the of Lvov as the place for holding the UEFA championship EURO 2012 (Boycott).
                      .

The event of the congress of UEFA in Venice ( 8-9 / 12 /2011 ) should be also the occasion to officially protest against the antisemitism in Lviv .We call young Jewish people to rally Venice at this date and to protest.

May I also recall that in the regions of Lvov and Ivano-Frankovsk (Stanislaw), more than 200,000 Jews have been killed in each region by the Ukrainian fascists in 1941 during the Second World War. And now in western Ukraine they are proclaiming heroes out of Jews-killers!

When Viktor Yanoukovitch became the new president of Ukraine the amount of antisemititic acts decreased. The proclamation by Viktor Yuschenko that Stepan Bandera was a Ukrainian Hero have been definitively invalidated by the Donetsk Appeal Court . The same fate occured for all the other Ukrainians 'Nazi Hero' such as Roman Shukhevitch and all the leaders of the criminals organisations ( OUN,UPA, SS Galicia)  that murdered Ukrainian Jews during second world war .

This year , in Uman , during Rosh-Ah-Shana , the Ukrainian police arrested and expelled 6 Jews. The locals are doing many provocations in order to conflict with the Jewish people. This year the Fascist party 'Svoboda' organized a huge provocation by calling its troop to stand in Uman for the event 'Uman without the Hassidims' ( sic) . On this occasion , many youg Ukrainians went to Uman , answering to the call of 'Svoboda' , in order to fight with the Jewish pilgrims. These youg men were arrested and detained by the Ukrainian police who seized many knifes , anti-riot gas , light grenades from this people. one year ago , a Jewish pilgrim , Shmuel Tubul was murdered by Ukrainian criminals . 10 days ago , a meeting had been oganised by Svoboda and the goal was to 'expell' the Jews from the Ukrainian ground...Svoboda wrote on tracts that Jews were bringing diseases to Ukraine like the rats or the dogs ...

The previous regime , leaders of the Orange revolution lead by Timochenko and Yushenko have duped the whole world by pretending they were bringing democracy to Ukraine . The USA and Europe should stop to support these 'Orange' leaders and should stop to fund them .These leaders are now pretending to fight againt Viktor Yanukovitch , described as a 'facist' while in reality , they are the facists ! Voice of America TV and Radio Freedom should also stop to broadcast interviews of these leaders who have heavily supported 'Svoboda' in the past .

Giving money to the 'Orange revolution' Leaders results in funding Oleg Tyanibok , the facist party 'Svoboda' who have named streets after war criminals such as Roman Shukevitch or Stefan Bandera. The USAID and other fondations must stop funding 'orange' NGO non-profit antisemitic organisations.

14 october 2011, In Kiev , an estimated amount of 30,000 supporters of 'Svoboda' did rally the city to show their support to the criminal organizations of OUN and UPA and to their Hero , Stefan Bandera. They beared many panels with the picture or War Nazi Criminals .

On August 2011 , in Lviv , the old synaguogue 'Golden Rose' had been half-destroyed by Lviv authorities who wanted to build an hotel for the Euro 2012 .After an international reaction from many Jews , the struction had ben stopped . Destroying the synagogue was totally illegal since it is a part of the UNESCO international patrimony . In Kiev , the officials wanted to build an hotel on the very important place of memory of 'Babi-Yar' ( an estimated amount of 33000 jews were murdered there during the second world war ) . The Timochenko-Yuschenko regime also refused all the time to authorize the building of a memorial at the 'Babi-Yar' place . On the opposite , Viktor Yanukovitch authorized the building of this memorial , 70 years after the massacre of 'Babi-Yar'.

There are many places like Babi-Yar' in the whole of Ukraine . We should build a big memorial for remembering the Holocaust dedicated to all the places in Ukraine where Jews were murdered , not only for 'Babi-Yar',  like the big memorial in Paris and Washington for the Holocaust.

1,5 millions of Ukrainians jews have been murdered by the Nazis and the collaborationaists. During the regime of Timochenko and Yuschenko , no officials have even been seen attending the commerations of 'Babi-Yar'.

The municipality of Lvov want to name the new stadium of Lvov , build for the Euro 2012 soccer cup , the 'Stepan Bandera' Stadium. 

The  antisemitic novel  from the writer Vassili Chklyar , 'The Black Crow' has won the Chevchenko State price. The former president Yuschenko wants to raise money from Ukrainian people to produce the film in Hollywood. 

The leaders of the 'Orange revolution' want revenge , they have fool Ukraine , Europe and the whole world. They are now proclaiming that Viktor Yanukovych is a dictator and is doing political repression. It's entirely false.What they want , in reality, is Ukraine to restart its antisemitic politics.

In the City of Chernovtsy (Cernovitz) , the municipality service destroyed, from 2009 to 2010 a number of Jewish tombs while they were cutting and burning old trees and they did not pay attention to the damages.                   .
There was, of course, a ban to cutting trees in the Jewish cemetery because this place is considered as a culture -historical sanctuary and must be therefore protected .but the municipality did not care about this ban.

As a conclusion, we should empower and enforce the existing TAGLIT and MASA programs and we should increase the number of Jewish trips for young people to the place of murdering of Jews in Ukraine (and other places of Jewish Holocaust).

Sincerely yours,

The President of the Ukrainian League against Anti-Semitism,
Baruch Fichman

Email: baruch2000@gmail.com
website: http://uklaa.blogspot.com

UA-58000 Chernivtsi, UKRAINE

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Rabbi Nahman 's Tomb in Uman

Meeting of the Neo-Nazi Party "SVOBODA" and its leader Oleg Tyagnibok in front of the statue of Stephan Bandera , a nazi collaborationist and war criminal implied in salughtering of jews during World War Two  

Neo-Nazi manifestation in Lvov in SS uniforms ( Western Ukraine ) where 200,000 Jewish people
 were murdered during World War Two !

Stephan Bandera with SS officers during the second world war 

Portrait of  Stephan Bandera , considered as a messianic leader in modern Western Ukraine in the current process of "heroization" of WWII war criminals 

Роман Шухевич ( Roman Choukhevitch ) , the Ukrainian war
criminal , in its Wafen SS commander uniform  , many streets in Ukraine ( including in Chernivtsi ) bear his name currently after the actions of the former prime minister Timochenko and the regime Ioushenko-Timoschenko !

Svatiskas painted up in the Sevastopol Memorial

 A 'Roman Choukevitch' Street in Chernivtsi

 The 'Kurin' memorial to the glory of people who murdered Jewishs in Chernovtsy

The Memorial to Bander in Lvov

 Memorial to Stefan Bandera in Ternopil !

Monument to Stefan Bandera in Ivano-Frankovsk

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We need to call out for creating economical and financial sanctions, the EBRD, World Bank, USAID must stop funding-support the regions of Western Ukraine who are rehabilitating and making heroes with Jews killers.

A compilation of Videos

Ukraine glorifies Jewish massacres

This video underlines and stresses the role of the Nationalism Ukrainian Army in the massacre of Jews during WWIII . It also explain how the Timoshenko-Iouchenko governement tried to rewrite history by proclaming that the criminals leaders of these organisations were 'Heroes' .

Anti-Semitism on Rise in Ukraine Ahead of Presidential Election

This video from 2010 detail the rise of Antisemitism slogans and protests in Ukraine during the 2010 Elections .

Rewriting Ukrainian history

This video explains how the Ukrainian 'Orange' Governement has been rewriting History and especially how it has been using the Holodomor ( terrible Famine in Ukraine in 1933 -but also in the whole of the USSR )   to pretend that this the result of Soviet Jews efforts to exterminate the Ukrainian people .

'Just Ask" Humoristic Cartoon

'We're Just Ukrainian Patriots' Humoristic Cartoon

2004-report from UCSJ: Union of Councils for Jews in the Former Soviet Union

Check this report from UCS (Union of Councils for Jews in the Former Soviet Union) about the acts of Antisemitism in Ukraine , it strongly corroborates our analysis and own investigations .

This older report is also of interest .

Neo Nazi mob abuses war vets in Ukraine 9 may 2011

This a very sad example of what the neo-nazis groups are capable of in the city of Lvov . This happened during the commeration of the victory of the Soviet Union againt the Nazi armies . The ugliness of this is striking : these Banderas assaulted old men , women and childs . You'll note that the local forces are not in a hurry to protect the veterans and those who want to celebrate the Victory day event . Look at the video untill the end , you'll hear interesting political comments regarding the responsability of the previous regime in order to enforce these neo-nazis and antisemitics organizations .

Other videos of interest :

 

About Antisemitism and Revisionism in Ukraine

The following article from 11/07/2006 : http://ukraines.fr/spip.php?article1 by claude rainaudi underlines and explain the rise of Antisemtism and Revisionism in Ukraine during the Iouchenko-Timochenko regime . It is unfortunatly in French . Here is a translation performed by us and here what the author says ! , we are sure it'll help our followers to better understand the threat of Antisemitism in Ukraine : 

This is a translation of an article published in French in July 2006 :

About Antisemitism and Revisionism in Ukraine

"In some regions of Ukraine, the rise of anti-Russian racism seems, once again, to be deeply linked with the rise of Anti-semitism. 

The following recent event was reported by the Union of Councils for Jews In The Former Soviet Union:

A member of the Ukrainian Chamber of Deputies explained very seriously, publically, the difference between a Jew and a "Youtre" (Kike) and the difference between a Russian and a "Russkof (Moskal). 

This deputy, Oleg Tyagnybok, had already done similar provocative actions, in September 2005,  when he started a petition requesting an investigation into "organized Jewry" . This petition had also been signed by another member of the Chamber of Deputies, Ivan Spodarenko - also head of the so-called ‘Silski Visti’ newspaper .

Oleg Tyagnybok was one of the leaders of the "orange revolution" 
He was excluded on the late  from the party of Viktor Yushchenko (Yushchenko) .

As for the ‘Silski Visti ‘, this newspaper was recently awarded a medal from Viktor Yushchenko  for its "quality journalism".

 Many Jewish organizations had been whistleblowing for months: 
Anti-Semitism is back in Ukraine, in its most extreme form, and to the highest rank of political power. 

 ( ... ) [The author , Claude Rainaudi , explain that he wrote about this article by 'accident' since he was originally looking informations about the Ukrainian Gas crisis of 2006 .] (...)
 

During this research, a recurring element caught my attention, the outrageous anti-Semitic and anti-Russian public political positions in this country as well as the support given by the  leaders of the "orange revolution" ( who are now governing Ukraine ) to such positions 

To give an idea of ​​the situation, the largest private university in Ukraine, The Graduate School of Administration in Kyiv, organized last June, a conference calling for the expulsion of Jews .These conference was attended by representatives of the governing ‘Orange’ party. The Israeli website "antisemitism.org.il" broadcasted this information as : "anti-Semitic Conference at The Administration College in Kiev"

  ( ... ) [The author explain that he doesn't understand why these facts are not being reported by the European newspapers , he explain that he don't want to analyse the situation in detail but only whish to express his astonishment . He also underlines that one shouldn't consider that not all ukrainians are antisemitic since  Tyagnybok was finally fired from its party ] (...)

'Svoboda' Neo-Nazi demonstration in Lvov

"400,000 Ukrainian Jews have invaded Ukraine among the Nazi troops"

But I think it is also important to note that in the recent past, and while they were outrageously refered to by the U.S. as "democrats" (!) Viktor Yushchenko (Yushchenko), Alexander Moroz and Yulia Timochenka the Key figures of the Orange Revolution in Ukraine have formally defended the Silski Visti newspaper,while it has just published , after numerous anti-Semitic articles, a prime piece of revisionist propaganda.
Indeed, in their edition of September 30, 2003, The Silski Visti published an anti-Semitic article whose content was almost surreal  , entitled 'The Jews in Ukraine today, the reality without myth'. The article claimed, among other things, that not less than 400,000 Ukrainian Jews  had joined the Nazi troops to invade Ukraine and ... to steal the gold from the Ukrainians. This issue came after a tiresome litany of anti-Semitic positions, including, for example, the rehabilitation of the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" and some paraphrases of Mein Kampf in several issues .

A Complaint was filed by Alexander Chlayen, head of the Ukrainian Anti-Fascist Committee and a respected member of the Jewish community. The anti-Semitic newspaper was prosecuted for incitement to racial hatred, Because the rarity of this accusation in Ukraine, it gave it a certain solemnity. While trying to clear itself by claiming that the article's author, Vasily Iaremenko had paid the article as a commercial , Vasily Grouzine, one of the leaders of Silski Visti turned the screw even further. Not only the number of 400,000 Jews voluntarily enlisted into the Nazi hordes (not only in Ukraine ...) seemed to him "not far from reality," but he justified the article in question - and all the similars articles they published - by claiming : "I think the intention of Zionism is that Jews lead the world. "

(...) [The author explain that , when questioned about this , some of the leaders of the 'Orange' revolution told that they had thought that the amount of 400,000 Nazi Jews was a bit exagerated but that they couldn't know every bit of WWII History .](...)

On 30 January 2004, Viktor Yushchenko, Yulia Timoshenko and Alexander Moroz came to the aid of the anti-Semitic rag by issuing a statement titled "Keep your dirty hands off the Silski Visti" and called their troops to take to the streets in order to support this newspaper , flanked on the occasion by members of the UNA-UNSO and his leader , Andrei Shkil .

Here is what can be read on the websites of these organisations : "The next millennium will witness the escalation of fighting between two opposing worlds - the Aryans and the Semitics - between the forces of good and evil. Ukraine, under the leadership of UNA-UNSO will be at the vanguard of the Aryan civilization. That the 'Youtres' are servants of the devil is evident from the Bible, the Talmud, the Torah, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and throughout the history of the 'youtre' people. Who created the Satanic teachings of Communism? Who built this Empire of Evil that what was the USSR? Who were the members of the Cheka? Who destroyed the churches, killed by starvation our people and destroyed the elite of Ukraine? ... The Germans were right when they organized their book burning (sic) "... . Etc..

Victor Yushchenko, according to an article by Ana Shinder in Ukraine Now , installed  on its website a forum entitled "Beware of the Jews" .
convicted in first instance, the Silski Visti were acquitted on appeal, under pressure from the street .

(..) [ The rest of the article deals with the U.S politics abroad]  (...) "
 Article by Claude Rainaudi , Adaptation by Joseph Litchblau

Answer to the article from The Jewish Chronicle article - 18/03/2011

Dear Editor, 

We react to the article you have published in your edition of 18/03/2011 (“street of shame”).

First of all, we would like to thank you for your article but we also want to underline some facts and to comment some of the testimonies published in your article :

1) Regarding Bandera and the Ukrainian war criminals :

The streets that are being named after Ukrainian Nazi criminals (e.g. Bandera, Shukhevitch , … )  and the monuments (statues, etc …) that have been erected to their memories are not only located in Kiev but in the whole of West Ukraine . In the city of Chernovtsy – the city where we are based - one can find one street named ‘Roman Shukhevitch Vul’.

This is exactly like if there was a street named ‘Heinrich Himmler Strasse’ in Munich or a street named ‘Rue Pierre Laval’ in Marseilles.

This must not be tolerated at any cost and must be fought.

Maybe that the precise history of Ukrainian war criminal is not very well known but facts are clear: Bandera and Shukhevitch (to mention only these two ones) were anti-Semitics, collaborationists and Nazi criminals. The fact that they are now being considered as ‘Heroes’ by West Ukrainians is deeply abnormal .I would like to mention that the collapse of the USSR have led to an official Ukrainian nationalistic propaganda and to the publishing of false history books by Revisionists Ukrainian writers with the clear intention to try to convince not only Ukrainians but also foreigners that these ‘Heroes’ were not ‘really anti-Semitic’ and were not ‘really Nazis’.

At this moment in time, one of the pillars of the foundation of the modern Ukrainian state is based on Anti-Semitic criminals that are considered as ‘Heroes’ .Beyond all, that is very disquieting because their importance is growing everyday.

Should we conceal this fact, like officials do because of the fear of a civil war between the eastern part and the western part of Ukraine? Should we adopt the ‘official Kiev’ attitude that consist in admitting that these historical figures were Nazi criminals but were also Heroes (sic)? Should we stay in the comfort of the center of Kiev, in a bubble, completely disconnected of the Ukrainian reality? Should we stay in the comfort of a big lie? I guess not.

The history of Ukrainian nationalism is very complicated and the Ukrainians have this very special ability to obfuscate the truth and to dissimulate the reality to foreigners.

Many ‘tricks’ are being used by the revisionist biographers of Bandera and by the revisionist historians of the related organizations (OUN-B, etc …) in order to convince the ‘external’ world that these people and their organizations were not ‘really’ Anti-Semitics (They just murdered or helped to murder everybody that was not a pure Ukrainian race)and that the ‘Banderas’ eventually fought the German (which is completely grotesque since the Banderas had been totally integrated in the local SS divisions until the very end of WWII).

2) Regarding the non restitution of the Jewish buildings:

In your article , Chabad’s Rabbi Menachem Mendel said (*) :

‘Of course that there are Jewish buildings or property from before the Second World War or the Communist period, which now belong to the government, but I guess that if we will ask for it back — we will receive. Don’t forget that Jews in Ukraine are only two or three per cent of the population, so of course we are the minority here.”’

One may first precise why the Jewish population in Ukraine is currently so low:

-         The collapse of the Soviet Union led gradually to a situation of impoverishment of the population and many Jews had no other choices but to migrate to Israel.

-         The Soviet Union was a multicultural society and racism was officially banned in all the soviet republics. After its collapse, many forms of Racisms and Anti-Semitisms raised in the former republics and especially in Ukraine and that also led many Ukrainians Jews to move definitely to Israel.

For example, in the city of Chernovtsy whose 50% of the population was Jew before the Second World War, even after the Holocaust and the integration of North Bukovina in the Ukrainian Soviet Republic, the Jewish population and culture remained important. From 1991 to 2009, most of this Jewish population had no choice but to move to Israel. This is the general comment of the ‘average’ Ukrainian citizen: “There are very few Anti-Semitism Problems in current Ukraine because 'we' forced all the Jews to leave during the last 20 years” … and some even add with an horrible smile , “Those that we didn’t kill during War world II”. 

The fact that the Ukrainian Government would give back the Jewish Buildings if they were asked to is completely unrealistic. In the only town of Chernovtsy, that would mean giving back more than 50% of the heart of the city!

Regarding the appropriation of Jewish buildings, one must understand the following process:

When the Soviet Union won the Second World War, it took incidentally control of western Ukraine. The USSR was the winner and to some historical logic (‘the winner takes it all’) it might have the right to appropriate itself the Jewish building since , for the USSR , private property was not really existing so that these buildings , like any others were to being used for and by the people . Since the communist society was supposed to be perfectly atheist, all churches, religious temples were closed, used for archiving. Since all citizens were equals and defined as workers , there was no point to consider a ‘Jewish Theater’ or a Synagogue .For example, in Chernovtsy, the Jewish house, a big building located in the center of the city, was transformed into a place for culture, dance theater, etc …The synagogue was transformed into a movie theater . The Jewish schools were transformed into public communist schools.

Now, when the USSR collapsed, what kind of rights had the buyers and the sellers of this former Jews real-estate? It is very clear that only because of corruption several people managed to ‘buy’ or illegally acquire or transfer the former Jewish real estate .The fact that the Ukrainian ‘state’ took possession of the vast majority of this real estate is also perfectly abnormal .On the opposite, all the Orthodox churches were not only restituted free of charge to the Orthodox Clergy but also thoroughly restored. 

Some old synagogues had been bought by ‘businessmen’ who curently use them as warehouse for cattle or as garages. How did these ‘businessmen’ took possession of the buildings?

3) Regarding the big recurring problems with the pilgrimage in Uman:

One must understand that many Ukrainians simply do not work, do not have access to culture facilities .They just stay in the streets doing nothing (most of the time they are drunken) and when they see a foreigner they start to provoke him with a xenophobic attitude . So one can easily imagine their reactions towards Jewish pilgrims! (**)

This is obviously a ‘Hot’ subject in Ukraine and nobody really wants to tell the truth about it. But from our point of view, this is important to bring the light on it and to fight what we consider as an emerging disquieting  threat.

U.K.R.L.A.A

(*) : (I also add, on a very personal note, that the idea of the Ukrainian ‘state’ giving back something that belongs to them only if – kindly – asked to, is really comic. I guess they might be willing to give back some of the Jewish real estate they own if one pay the price - usually 10 times the price of the building - to be paid cash in U.S dollars to their offshore account –

Joseph Litchblau)

(**)  Regarding the tensions in Uman between the 'locals' and  Jewish pilgrims , one can have a look at the following article that relates the death of Shmuel Tubul while he was on a pilgrimage to Uman .

Article  from The Jewish Chronicle