Kuropas talk on "Ukrainophobia" attracts 500 in Toronto (04/19/98)

Kuropas talk on "Ukrainophobia" attracts 500 in Toronto

by Andrij Kudla Wynnyckyj
Toronto Press Bureau

TORONTO - A two-week campaign of front-page announcements in the local Ukrainian-language media brought out approximately 500 people to the Ukrainian Cultural Center to hear U.S.-based activist Dr. Myron Kuropas speak on the topic "Ukrainophobia: From Demjanjuk to Odynsky" on March 29.

The event was organized by the Ukrainian Canadian Congress Toronto Branch, which in January established the Committee for Justice in response to the hiring of the former director of the U.S. Office of Special Investigations (OSI), Neal Sher, as a consultant to Canada's war crimes unit at the Department of Justice.

In introducing the afternoon's main speaker, UCC Toronto President Maria Szkambara decried the federal government's decision to discontinue prosecuting war criminals in criminal courts and pursuing the "civil court" option of denaturalization and deportation of individuals suspected of war crimes. She denounced the proposed changes to the country's Immigration Act that would further legitimize this course of action.

Ms. Szkambara said that hiring Mr. Sher was an unwelcome introduction of U.S. methods into a Canadian judicial process. She added that since January about 26,000 postcards and letters protesting Canada's current war crimes policy and the employment of Mr. Sher had been sent to Ottawa.

Dr. Kuropas, also a columnist of The Ukrainian Weekly, told his Canadian audience that the campaign to denaturalize and deport those suspected of complicity in Nazi war crimes "had little to do with justice" and was primarily the result of the Jewish community's effort to keep the memory of the Holocaust alive, and that to this end pressure is exerted on various governments.

The Chicago-based educator said that this was a worthy aim, but because the Jewish community uses a "good cop, bad cop" approach to handle the issue, the "bad cops" are allowed free reign to defame Ukrainians.

Dr. Kuropas said that in the 1970s, during investigations into John Demjanjuk's alleged complicity in war crimes, OSI officials would tell Ukrainians: "We're only after one man, not the entire community. Why is he so important to you?"

The columnist rejoined: "Then it seemed like a cloud of stories rose up - three-quarters of the trial [in Cleveland] was about Ukrainian anti-Semitism."

As "bad cops," the Dr. Kuropas listed the Anti-Defamation League, the World Jewish Congress and the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles and Toronto. Dr. Kuropas said the American Jewish Committee are the "good cops" through whom dialogues are engaged with all other groups.

He also said the OSI was "tailor-made for Ukrainophobes," and accused its current and former officers Neal Sher, Allan Ryan and Eli Rosenbaum, of harboring animosity towards Ukrainians.

Dr. Kuropas recounted an incident he said highlighted Mr. Sher's hostility. After the Ukrainian community in the U.S. petitioned [the Reagan administration's] Attorney General Edwin Meese for a meeting with representatives of the OSI, Mr. Sher and others were asked if the office would hire a Ukrainian attorney to assist in investigations.

"We told them: 'If you find any Nazi war criminals, we don't want them in our community; we also suffered and we want to know who they are and where they are,'" Dr. Kuropas related.

The Chicago activist said when the Ukrainian delegation suggested the OSI would have more credibility if one of their number was appointed, "Sher stood up, he went ballistic, and shouted at us: 'Are you accusing us of being unjust? Are you suggesting that Jews can't be fair?' Mr. Meese had to tell him to sit and calm down," Dr. Kuropas recalled.

In response to a question about the possibility for constructive relations to be established, Dr. Kuropas, a recipient of the AJC's David Roth Ethnic Bridge Builder Award in 1996, replied: "I think there is an opportunity to build bridges. The hostility to Ukrainians exists primarily because [Jewish community leaders] lack information."

But he cautioned that those willing to engage in dialogue with the Jewish community should be prepared initially to be blocked from speaking to any Jewish gatherings and blocked from having their articles appear in Jewish community newspapers.

"When you start your work," Dr. Kuropas said, "there will be no reciprocity. [Jewish activists] will be given their opportunity to talk to our people and print their views in our press, but don't expect the same in return."

Dr. Kuropas contends that while most Jews likely do not feel animosity to Ukrainians, many in the "nomenklatura" of Jewish community organizations "do not consider it to be in their interest to foster an improvement in relations with Ukrainians," and that this was a formidable stumbling block to overcome.

The columnist said that Ukrainians should not be discouraged, continue to insist that contentious matters be included on the agenda for meetings, and build up contacts "with those in the media who live up to journalistic ethics."

After Dr. Kuropas' presentation, Olya Odynsky-Grod, daughter of Wasyl Odynsky, a Toronto man facing denaturalization proceedings, called on Ukrainian Canadians, "as citizens, as taxpayers, to demand how the government can find $75,000 to pay Neal Sher even as it cuts money to health and education programs in our country."

Ms. Odynsky also thanked the UCC for its support.

To conclude the proceedings, UCC Committee for Justice member Ihor Klufas announced that several local credit unions had made donations to further the committee's work. Four institutions announced donations of $1,000 or less.

Mr. Klufas also encouraged those in attendance to sign petitions and letters as part of the ongoing drive to lobby the Canadian government.