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Historian: â€œYushchenkoâ€™s father collaborated with Nazi while being in captivityâ€

16 April 2008 08:33 (UTC +04:00)

Biography of Andrei Yushchenko, father of Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, called Andrei Yushchenko: Personality and â€œthe legendâ€ and published by Yuri Vilner appeared in Moscow. APA reports, the book is prefaced with an epigraph from an interview given by Viktor Yushchenkoâ€™s brother, Pyotr, saying: â€œWe used to drink very good coffee in the family, to which Dad taken to while being in captivity.â€
Yuri Vilner defined his task this way: â€œBiography of the Ukrainian presidentâ€™s father has become one of the most discussed topics in Ukraine in recent yearsâ€¦ From the very start of his public career Viktor Yushchenko has been declaring a specific vision of the history of World War Two, has not been shy of his sympathy for the Nazi units of OUN-UPA and has not been drawing the line between Soviet soldiers and Nazis. Some of his opponents considered Yushchenkoâ€™s revisionism as the result of his education in the family, that is why the personality of his father was drawing special attention; it was known that Andrei Yushchenko spent most time during the war in captivity.â€
As a result of an extensive research based on analysis and comparison of autobiographies written by Andrei Yushchenko, Yuri Vilner comes to a conclusion that â€œit is indisputable that Andrei Yushchenko was repeatedly lying about his biography. In particular, he was lying about events in his life before the war, about circumstances under which he was taken in captivity and about what he was doing during the war. It indisputable that by those lies Andrei Yushchenko was trying to conceal true facts of his biography regarding his being in captivity. He made a concentrated effort to conceal being in captivity in the beginning and in the end of the war. Besides, he evidently was trying to keep back the fact of being in some of the camps where he was listed in the documents as a prisoner of war. Analysis of the documents allows us supposing with a high level of confidence that Yushchenko collaborated with Nazis during the war as a â€œcamp Polizeiâ€ and then an undercover informer. It is the willingness to conceal the fact of collaboration with the Nazis that can explain why Yushchenko used to hush up or distort true facts of his biography during the war.â€
In the end of the book, Vilner outlines prospects of his work: â€œFurther examination of biography of Andrei Yushchenko can clear once and for all the question of his collaboration with the enemy and the forms of it. It is evident that the Ukrainian Security Service will hardly assist in finding the truth, because Andrei Yushchenko is the father of the current president. Nevertheless, most documents of the captive camps and concentration camps having to do with the name of Andrei Yushchenko are archived outside Ukraine, mostly in the territory of Russia. Significant part of the Third Reich archives is also stored in Russia. Finally, copies and extractions from many filtration cases proceeded by security services of the Soviet republics against suspects in collaboration with the enemy are also stored in Russia. Besides, archives of Russian security services contain copies of documents from correspondence held in the framework of the filtration cases. Part of the archives is in Germany and the United States. Concentrated effort regarding those archives can also assist in investigating the Yushchenko case under the condition the German and the US authorities do not classify details of the true biography of the current Ukrainian president.â€