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Communists who had just left might return that very same day and resume the slaughter, starting

first with any who had dared to lift a vengeful hand. For all they knew, this was just the calm

before a new storm, just a few hours' respite while names were taken for the next round of NKVD

executions. And the last person to lift a hand against would be a Jew because the Jew had

traditionally occupied the position of authority:

From the Ukraine Einsatzkommando 6 of Einsatzgruppe C reported as follows:

Almost nowhere can the population be persuaded to take

active steps against the Jews. This may be explained by the

fear of many people that the Red Army may return. Again and

again this anxiety has been pointed out to us. Older people

have remarked that they had already experienced in 1918 the

sudden retreat of the Germans. In order to meet the fear

psychosis, and in order to destroy the myth ... which, in the

eyes of many Ukrainians, places the Jew in the position of

the wielder of political power, Einsatzkommando 6 on several

occasions marched Jews before their execution through the

city. Also, care was taken to have Ukrainian militiamen

watch the shooting of Jews.

This "deflation" of the Jews in the public eye did not have the desired

effect. After a few weeks, Einsatzgruppe C complained once more that the

inhabitants did not betray the movements of hidden Jews. The Ukrainians were

passive, benumbed by the "Bolshevist terror." Only the ethnic Germans in the

area were busily working for the Einsatzgruppe. (Raul Hilberg, The Destruction

of the European Jews, 1961, p. 202)

The picture painted by Raul Hilberg is not at all the one of Ukrainians enthusiastically

slaughtering Jews that was painted by Morley Safer in his 60 Minutes broadcast:

The Slavic population stood estranged and even aghast before the unfolding

spectacle of the "final solution." There was on the whole no impelling desire

to cooperate in a process of such utter ruthlessness. The fact that the Soviet

regime, fighting off the Germans a few hundred miles to the east, was still

threatening to return, undoubtedly acted as a powerful restraint upon many a

potential collaborator. (Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews,

1985, p. 308)

Raul Hilberg is not the only historian testifying to the fact that the Einsatzgruppen organized

and instigated the pogroms, and that they were disappointed by the results. Leo Heiman below,

for example, reaffirms this, and adds the detail that the pogromists had a short attention span

with respect to the German-inspired motive of anti-Semitism, being instead readily diverted by

"looting and plunder." "Lemberg," of course, is Lviv:

The results of diligent Nazi efforts to organize "Ukrainian pogrom mobs" were

disappointing.... According to official German documents introduced by the

prosecution during the Eichmann trial, the Nazi commander of S.D. Einsatzgruppe

"Kommando Lemberg" complained to his superiors that "...to rely on local people

to take the law of retribution in their own hands, and themselves carry out

final solution measures against Jews, is hopeless. We organized several action

groups, but they soon degenerated into ordinary pogrom mobs, more interested in

looting and plunder than in energetic and forceful measures against Jews. The

number of Jews eliminated by mobs runs less than two thousand in my area of

operations, and the damage done by mobs to property, as well as the disruption

of order, does not justify this kind of action. I have no choice but to employ

my own men." (Leo Heiman, Ukrainians and the Jews, in Walter Dushnyck,

Ukrainians and Jews: A Symposium, The Ukrainian Congress Committee of American,

New York, 1966, p. 60)

In reading the above Einsatzgruppe report, many question come to mind. Just how would a pogrom

mob be organized?
– Might it be staffed entirely by criminals held in custody by the Germans?

What weapons would be given the pogromists? Would it be safe to give incarcerated criminals

weapons and then to release them on their own recognisance? Obviously, they would tend to

escape and then, being armed, would be particularly dangerous to recapture. Wouldn't armed

Germans have to accompany the pogromists in order to steer them to the proper targets, to keep

them from getting out of control, and to make sure that weapons were returned?
– In which case,

how much of the killing would be done by the supervising Germans? What was the ethnic

composition of these pogromists? Above I cited Raul Hilberg stating "Only the ethnic Germans in

the area were busily working for the Einsatzgruppe," which brings us to the realization that a

pogrom within Ukraine is not necessarily a pogrom perpetrated by Ukrainians, and so brings us

also to the question of how many of the pogromists were Germans, Russians, Poles, or Jews?

Raul Hilberg discusses two motives for the Nazis to incite pogroms in Ukraine, the second of

which will be of particular relevance when we discuss further below the origin of the historical

documentary footage broadcast by 60 Minutes:

Why did the Einsatzgruppen endeavor to start pogroms in the occupied areas?

The reasons which prompted the killing units to activate anti-Jewish outbursts

were partly administrative, partly psychological. The administrative principle

was very simple: every Jew killed in a pogrom was one less burden for the

Einsatzgruppen. A pogrom brought them, as they expressed it, that much closer

to the "cleanup goal".... The psychological consideration was more