An article appeared in the Jerusalem Post this morning which cites Eduard Dolinsky, the director of the Ukrainian Jewish Committee, as reporting that the Kiev city council may be set to rename a street in Kiev after a notorious Nazi collaborator. If the motion is passed, the street will bear the name of Volodymyr Kubiyovych, who during the Holocaust was heavily involved in the formation of the Waffen-SS Galizien, a Nazi military force made up of Ukrainian volunteers. A public vote is under way with Kubiyovych’s name being the leading contender for renaming the street.
The Post reports that Kubiyovych was a strong supporter of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN-M), and in April 1941, he requested the creation of an autonomous state within Ukraine in which Poles and Jews would not be allowed to live. Later in the war, in 1943, Kubiyovych took on a key role in the formation of the Waffen-SS Galizien and publicly announced his willingness to take up arms and fight for the Nazi cause. After the war he became known as a scholar of Ukrainian culture, and his Nazi past was whitewashed.
