THE LAW VERSUS HISTORY

Vasil - a young man on the photo - is a fifth son in the family of a Ukrainian Greek Catholic Priest Andriy Bandera. For his involvement to Ukrainian patriotic movement of the Galicia and activism within the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) in pre-war time Vasil was imprisoned by Polish authorities in the Bereza Kartuska detention camp. With the come of the WW2 time he got into the Auschwitz concentration camp for involvement to the Ukrainian national-liberation movement as an OUN member. In the camp he was tortured to death by Stanislav Podkulsky and Yuzef Kral, two "volksdeutsche" Poles. A few days later, in the same camp, Polish collaborators murdered his brother - Oleksa. Only their third brother - whom Germans had held in another concentration camp - survived the war.

According to the Polish new National Memory bill, this could not have happened because "Ukrainian nationalists, having being Nazi Germany collaborators, were  involved in their crimes; Polish concentration camps never existed, and the Poles did not cooperate with the Nazis." Almost forgot! The third brother's name was Stepan. 

It's because of him his famili's surmane Bandera was used by the Nazis and Communists to identify those fighting against both regimes for the freedom of own nation as "banderivtsy/banderites/banderovtsy." However, in accordance with the new Polish legislation, the situation was reversed: the struggle of Ukrainian nationalists is now considered a crime, to be viewed through the same prism as Nazi and Communist crimes.

by Volodymyr Viatrovich