NEW YORK—It was noisier than usual outside of the Ukrainian Consulate on April 25—passersby on their lunch break, and no doubt some Ukrainian officials, could not help but hear the chanting and see the signs that read: "Honk if You Hate Nazis." From the chorus of car horns sounding-off at regular intervals, it seemed that Nazis were indeed unpopular with the passing traffic on E. 51 Street in Manhattan.
Tuesday was Holocaust Remembrance Day—or "Yom Hashoa" in Hebrew—and bus loads of students from the Rambam Mesivta Jewish high school were demanding the immediate deportation and extradition of two known Ukrainian Nazi war criminals living in Queens, Jaroslaw Bilaniuk and Jakiw Palij.
Both served as part of a Nazi SS command in the Ukraine that carried out a brutal execution of 6,000 Jewish prisoners. The mass execution was code named "Operation Harvest Festival." After Adolf Hitler's fall, both men entered the United States illegally, claiming at the time to be immigrant farmers.
Among the countries that were complicit in Hitler's genocidal activities, the Ukraine was one of the worst. According to one report, the worst of its concentration camps, Babi Yar, saw 35,000 Jews shot to death in its "killing pits."
Rabbi Zev Friedman, the dean of Rambam Mesitva, led the students in demanding belated justice.
"Both of these guys should be facing trial—perhaps the death sentence—in the Ukraine, because in fact they killed Ukrainians. They happened to be Jews, but basically they were Ukrainians," said Friedman, explaining why hundreds of his students had come out to protest. He added that he is "outraged at the fact that the Ukrainian government continues to ignore this and basically tolerate the fact that one can kill Ukrainians, namely Jews, and get away with the crime without any consequences." This is not the first time this group of orthodox Jewish teachers and students have taken to the streets and rallied to have these two criminals face justice in their home country.
According to Yehuda Isseroff, a senior at Rambam Mesitva, the same group has been protesting outside the homes of the two men in Queens. Isseroff is troubled that these men, who he admits are quite elderly now, are living out their years in relative ease in a nice country like the United States.
"Basically, they are living in the U.S. off of the welfare that we as taxpayers provide for them and we think this is an outrage personally, and we wish that Ukraine will deport them back to their country and put them on trial to hopefully prosecute them," he said.
Friedman claims that the group has had some success in getting some U.S. government officials behind the cause—apparently the Ukraine, under pressure, has already asked one of the men to return. Reportedly, he has not taken his government up on that suggestion.
But Friedman appears optimistic that the two will face a trial in the end. He said, "We are in touch already with a number of congressional offices and they have vowed to bring this fight to Congress. It may mean cutting off of funds, it may mean other diplomatic means, basically to let the Ukrainians know that if they want to be part of the family of nations of the Western world… with the benefits that come with it come responsibilities as well, and part of those responsibilities are human rights responsibilities."
The Ukrainian Consulate did not make any comment as of press time.
Friedman and Isserhoff both said that the rallies, protest and government letters would continue until the day that both criminals are deported. Friedman and his staff have turned the effort into a sort of extended project for the Rambam Mesitva students—so that activism has become part of the curriculum. Friedman stressed that the experience will be very educational for the students and that he intends to maintain it as a focus as the efforts play out.
"This is an important project, we think it is an educational project—we think it's a project that any student with a sense of moral compass should be involved in, and we intend to continue pursuing this," he said.
Feeds