The defects of the 60 Minutes broadcast as so multifarious, that it is difficult to capture them

in one brief statement. If one were to attempt to do so, then the statement might mention that

60 Minutes misrepresented the historical record, provided mistranslations of statements

originally made in Ukrainian, suppressed pertinent information concerning Ukrainian-Jewish

relations during World War II, encouraged retrogressive notions of collective guilt, altered the

dates on which events were supposed to have occurred, doctored the sound track, accepted dubious

and implausible statements from sources whose credibility had not been established or whose

credibility should have been suspect, and generally in numerous instances employed questionable

evidence to point to conclusions that were untrue, provocative, and inflammatory. There follows

below an outline of the chief defects of this 60 Minutes broadcast.

CONTENTS:

Preface

The Galicia Division

Quality of Translation

Ukrainian Homogeneity

Were Ukrainians Nazis?

Simon Wiesenthal

What Happened in Lviv?

Nazi Propaganda Film

Collective Guilt

Paralysis of the Comparative

Function

60 Minutes' Cheap Shots

Ukrainian Anti-Semitism

Jewish Ukrainophobia

Mailbag

A Sense of Responsibility

What 60 Minutes Should Do

PostScript

The Galicia Division

60 Minutes' chief piece of evidence for Ukrainian anti-Semitism and predilection for Naziism

seems to be the official celebrations commemorating the Galicia Division. Elderly men in

civilian dress are shown wearing military insignia in a recent reunion in the city of Lviv,

Ukraine (Lvov in Russian, Lwow in Polish, formerly Lemberg). Mr. Safer informs us that

"Thousands of Ukrainians joined the SS and marched off to fight for Naziism," and that "Nowhere,

not even in Germany, are the SS so openly celebrated," and that "Many of the Ukrainian men of

Lvov who marched off as members of the SS never returned - killed fighting for Hitler."

The impression created in the viewer's mind is that these veterans are unanimously guilty of war

crimes and crimes against humanity, that they were once supporters of and now continue to be

admirers of Hitler, that they sympathized with Nazi ambitions during World War II, that they are

the remnants of a much larger group of Ukrainians who shared a similar orientation, and that as

their reunion was sanctioned by the Lviv City Council and the Ukrainian Catholic Church, similar

charges must apply to Ukrainians generally. To all this, however, I must echo Cardinal

Lubachivsky's words: "It is not true!"

The Galicia Division was recruited by the Germans only well into the war, in the summer and fall

of 1943 when they were beginning to experience setbacks on their Eastern front. That the

Galicia Division was considered an "SS" division does not bear the significance given it by 60

Minutes - it was a Waffen SS division, which is quite a different thing: "Like other German

volunteer units, the Division Halychyna [Galicia] was included in the 14th Grenadier Division of

the SS-Waffen." (Ukraine: A Concise Encyclopaedia, Volume 2, p. 1088.)

Five qualities of the Galicia Division make it a most atypical component of the stereotype of

the SS: (1) it was strictly a combat unit and so played no role in the management of

concentration camps or death camps, (2) its Ukrainian members wore a lion rampant instead of an

"SS" on their right collars during most of the life of the division, (3) it was accompanied by

Ukrainian chaplains who attended to the spiritual needs of the troops, (4) it was kept separate

from other German forces, and (5) it was created with the proviso that it never be used against