This presentation will explore the participation of "expeditionary groups" of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists' Melnyk faction, or OUN(M), in the Holocaust in Kyiv. To what extent was the participation of members of its paramilitary Bukovynian Battalion (Bukovynskyi kurin) influential during anti-Jewish activities in the Ukrainian capital in 1941? What was the role of other members of the OUN(M) who joined police and local administrations in killing local Jews during the first days of the Nazi occupation, confiscating Jewish property, and turning over Jews who were hiding their identity to the Germans? After German repressions began against Ukrainian nationalists in the winter of 1941/42, did Melnykites continue to take part in anti-Jewish actions? The presentation is based on unpublished sources from Ukrainian, German, American, and Israeli archives, including the testimony of an OUN(M) activist, Marta Zybachynsky.
Yuri Radchenko, Director of the Centre for Inter-Ethnic Relations in Eastern Europe (Kharkiv), is doing research in Edmonton on a ten-week Kolasky Fellowship awarded by CIUS. He completed a Candidate's program in Holocaust Studies in December 2012 at Karazin University (Kharkiv National University), with a dissertation titled "Nazi Genocide of Ukrainian Jews in the Military-Administered Area (1941-43)." His research interests include the history of the Holocaust, Ukrainian-Jewish relations, collaboration with Nazis in Eastern Europe, and the history of radical right movements in Europe in the 1920s-40s. Yuri's monograph on "Hilfspolizei, Self-Government, and the Holocaust in Ukrainian-Russian-Belorussian Borderland: Motivation, Identity, Collective Portrait and Memory (1941-1943)" is being prepared for publication. His current project examines the life history of OUN leader Andrii Melnyk and his movement.