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Wendy, you don't get to tell Poles, like Lemkin, who they should hate

Dustin Du Cane

13 Jul 2023 — 6 min read

Wendy, this isn’t your call…

Let’s stick our credentials up first.

I co-wrote this book with among other Phil Blood.

(cover by Ben Skipper)

Phil wrote two books:

Bandenbekämpfung - Hitler’s Bandit Hunters And the SS In Nazi Occupied Europe EBook (not using the print cover because Phil didn’t get a penny from the publisher BUT you can buy the book direct from Phil for pennies) - this is a book about Germans hunted Jews under the guise of ‘bandit’ hunting.

And Birds of Prey - about how the Luftwaffe was blooded by hunting Jews.

My credentials are being the grandson of this guy:

We all hate Nazis very very much at Fallout for personal, academic and VERY personal reasons.

I also hate Bandera VERY much.

While the German Nazis were trying to murder my grandfather, other Nazis, Ukrainian ones, were murdering people like my grandmother and her family. Great grandpa was a Pole. Great grandma was an Ukrainian. They lived happily in Lviv until the Russians, then the German Nazis and Nazi Ukrainians and then the Russians, did their murder purges again. My great grandpa and his family would have been crucified by Bandera’s Nazis.

I hate Bandera very very much. I very much hate him being glorified as an Ukrainian hero. He was a Nazi. Who spent more time killing and hating Jews and Poles than he did establishing Ukraine and fighting Russians.

I have extensively written on how much I hate this scumbag. I hate seeing red and black on the streets of Lviv, which I visited in February. These are the colors of fascism and anti-semitism. I will continue hating Bandera no matter what I’m told because I know his history.

Ukrainians don’t know his history. The version of Bandera they get is one, mostly true, the Russians presented to them. Since Russians lie a lot, Ukrainians think they lie about Bandera. Well mostly they don’t.

If you want more about this scumbag, this is a good book.

Our book continues a chapter on Lemkin.

Rafael Lemkin, the man who coined the word genocide, literally invented it, during WW2. Lemkin also authored the draft of the Genocide Convention, fighting bitterly to prevent another Holocaust or other genocide (he hated ALL genocides, which can be controversial to some for reasons that are wrong).

Rafael Lemkin, Polish Jew.

Proud to be Polish.

Lemkin went to Lviv University, then Lwów in Poland (a part of which it had been for half a millenium at that point, regardless of Austrian, not Russian, subjugation). Lwów was 40% Jewish (Polish Jewish), 40% Polish Catholic and 20% Ukrainian (Polish Ukrainian, mostly Orthodox but not necessarily - some or most were very very proud Ukrainians but had full rights as Polish citizens). It was a beating heart of Jewish culture, of the Yiddish language, of Hebrew scholarship and of deep religious Jewish debate, as well as being a jewel of Polish culture. Bandera and the German Nazis and the Russians however murdered or chased out the 80% that wasn’t Ukrainian. Like my grandmother. Lemkin’s mentor at the university and future close friend and colleague, was prof Makarewicz. A converted Jew and virulent anti-semite (publicly) and Polish nationalist. Him being publicly anti-semitic didn’t interfere with him working closely with Lemkin. Lemkin rose to legal prominence in Warsaw, working with Makarewicz on the liberal Polish criminal code which contained the first ban on war of aggression propaganda in the world, as well as a judge and prosecutor. Lemkin lost his government jobs because of a massive tabloid attack on his by the print equivalent of Fox News (which Luana as a Trump MAGA loves). But he kept his very succesful very nice legal practise. PS Lemkin worked and lived in the same building as I had a flat in Warsaw, after my legal studies. Another famous lawyer who didn’t finish Lviv University was Hersh Lauterpacht QC… who said Lviv was too antisemitic. Surprisingly he finished another even more antisemitic institution, Vienna University. Poland was anti-semitic and getting more so before World War Two. Poles, especially like my grandfather, and Poland are however not to blame for the Holocaust.

(A plaque to Lauterpacht near a square selling Bandera memorabilia - paradoxical but that’s being Ukrainian. Or Polish. Or Polish Jewish. Or Ukrainian Jewish. Or Polish Ukrainian like my ex gf or my grandmother)

Lemkin was a very proud Pole, remembering with great fondness his bucolic life in prewar Poland.

He was also a proud Zionist after the war.

Lemkin’s family was annihilated during the Holocaust. He lost dozens of relatives, including his parents.

Lemkin was also a friend of Ukraine. He full well knew Bandera, whose inredibly public trial in Poland was of obvious knowledge to a prominent lawyer who co-wrote the criminal code. The Bandera trial was full page news in Poland, even more so than the trial of the grandson of German pimp and deserter, Trumpf.

As a result of Trump fleeing mandatory conscription required of all citizens, a royal decree was later issued banishing him from the country.

Wendy, you don’t get to tell Poles or Jewish Poles like Lemkin who to forgive and who to hate. If you hate Poland, you might have a good reason to do so, there are many Polish crimes, by Poland and the Poles, against Jews and Ukrainians. But don’t tell us to hate Ukrainians. Hey I don’t get to decide for Lemkin, but I think his writing a book about Russian genocide on Ukrainians, while Bandera was still alive and a decade after the Holocaust, says what he felt to Ukrainians.

All the details on Lemkin above are sourced, referenced and covered in our upcoming book.

(Ben “Sephardic Lord of the Atlas” Skipper did the cover)

PS I’m writing this, Wendy, in my bedroom while in my living room my son is playing games with young Bohdan, a full blooded Ukrainian, adopted son of my best friend who married an Ukrainian, while downstairs there lives a very Jewish family. My son’s grandfather was the Polish ambassador to Vienna and Berlin. After WW2, my grandfather, Auschwitz survivor and victim of Nazis, translated Wagner, Nazi favorite. I wonder if they played Wagner in the Dora hell factory he slaved in, welding V2s. Wagner was played on German radio when those rockets were falling on London. My grandfather spoke better German than the Nazis who tortured him. The other grandfather and his daughter speak better German than their German colleagues.