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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)

First, truly spontaneous pogroms, free from Einsatzgruppen

influence, did not take place; all outbreaks were either organized

or inspired by the Einsatzgruppen. Second, all pogroms were

implemented within a short time after the arrival of the killing

units. They were not self-perpetuating, nor could new ones be

started after things had settled down. (Raul Hilberg, The

Destruction of the European Jews, 1985, p. 312)

Fearing that substantiation for the Wiesenthal-Safer Lviv pogrom did exist somewhere

and that I had merely overlooked it, I made enquiry to leading Holocaust historian,

Raul Hilberg, on 15Sep97. Professor Hilberg was good enough in his reply of 15Dec97

to outline for me instances that he knew of anti-Jewish activity conducted in that

area at that time, and none of these instances gave credence to the Wiesenthal-Safer

Lviv pogrom.

Perhaps the most telling piece of evidence that the Wiesenthal-Safer Lviv pogrom was

a fabrication is unearthed upon trying to substantiate it in Simon Wiesenthal's own

writing. In one place, Simon Wiesenthal has the anti-Jewish activity postdating the

arrival of the Germans, and mentions neither the number of fatalities nor the

duration:

The Ukrainian police ... had played a disastrous role in Galicia

following the entry of the German troops at the end of June and the

beginning of July 1941. (Simon Wiesenthal, Justice Not Vengeance,

1989, p. 34, emphasis added)

And later in the same account, Simon Wiesenthal does mention a Lviv pogrom of three

day's duration, but again without mentioning the number of fatalities, and again

unambiguously placing it after the German occupation:

Thousands of detainees were shot dead in their cells by the

retreating Soviets. This gave rise to one of the craziest

accusations of that period: among the strongly anti-Semitic

population the rumour was spread by the Ukrainian nationalists that

all Jews were Bolsheviks and all Bolsheviks were Jews. Hence it

was the Jews who were really to blame for the atrocities committed

by the Soviets.

All the Germans needed to do was to exploit this climate of

opinion. It is said that after their arrival they gave the

Ukrainians free rein, for three days, to 'deal' with the Jews.

(Simon Wiesenthal, Justice Not Vengeance, 1989, p. 36, emphasis

added)

Also, whereas on your 60 Minutes broadcast you gave the impression that Simon

Wiesenthal was making his appearance on 60 Minutes in the role of an eyewitness to

the Wiesenthal-Safer Lviv Pogrom, or at least as a researcher who had documented it,

yet in the quotation immediately above, Simon Wiesenthal's use of "It is said that"

gives the contrasting impression that he is no more than passing along a rumor

concerning events that he has neither witnessed nor verified.

In conclusion, the Wiesenthal-Safer story of a massive pre-German Lviv pogrom is not

supported in historical writing, and is even contradicted by other testimony, some

of it leading Holocaust historian Raul Hilberg's, and some of it your own expert

witness Simon Wiesenthal's. Thus, unless you are able to substantiate the

Wiesenthal-Safer pre-German Lviv pogrom, you will invite the conclusion that it

never took place, and that your implanting it into the minds of 30 million 60

Minutes viewers constituted an attempt on the part of two individuals Simon

Wiesenthal and yourself - to fabricate a piece of history.

In Fact, the Consensus Seems to be that in

the Days Prior to German Occupation, it

was the NKVD that was Killing Ukrainians

In contrast to what appears to be a lack of substantiation of the Wiesenthal-Safer

story that in the days prior to German occupation Ukrainians were murdering Jews, I

do in my reading keep stumbling across quite a different story - that in the days

prior to German occupation, it was the NKVD that was murdering Ukrainians. Below

are 22 such statements. These statements were discovered not through any systematic

or exhaustive search, but rather only through casual reading. A systematic and

exhaustive search would turn up a much larger number of such statements.

In order to demonstrate that the NKVD had a general policy of killing Ukrainians

prior to retreating, of which the Lviv massacre was but a single instance, I include

descriptions of such killings in several locations.

"NKVD," in case you are interested, is an acronym for the Russian "Narodny

Komisariat Vnutrenikh Del," which translates as "National Commissariat of Internal

Affairs," and which bland title gives no hint of the NKVD's true role.

Please note that the block quotation immediately below is attributable to Simon

Wiesenthal, and that in it he demonstrates an awareness of the NKVD massacre of

Ukrainians, such that omitting mention of this massacre on your 23Oct94 60 Minutes

broadcast, The Ugly Face of Freedom, must be considered not an oversight, but a

willful suppression of relevant information:

(1) Thousands of detainees were shot dead.

When the German attack came on 22 June the Soviets had no time to

take with them the people they had locked up. So they simply