Lori Spencer Profile picture
Jan 30, 2023 35 tweets 12 min read Read on X
In the September 8, 1919 New York Times, the president of the Ukrainian Association of Jews warned US President Woodrow Wilson of the coming genocide that had already begun in #Ukraine.

He correctly predicted the exact number — 6 million — who would die in the #Nazi #Holocaust.
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These crimes of 1918-19 were not committed against Ukrainian Jews by Germans.

They were committed BY Ukrainian nationalists who over the next 2 decades would join forces with Nazi Germany.

This was the forgotten Holocaust before the Holocaust.

200,000 Jews were slaughtered between 1917-21 in #Ukraine — by any metric, a genocide.

Yet these pogroms are not even talked about by the #Holocaust Museums in the United States and Jerusalem.

It is vitally relevant to what happened in #WWII, and in today’s #UkraineRussiaWar.
This thread ties together the historical origins of the #NazisInUkraine from the early 20th Century to the post-WWII period, using primary source documents which reveal their plans for a “master race.”
As this panel of historians accurately point out in the video lecture above, the Ukrainians targeted Jews for much the same reasons #Hitler did — because Jewry was conflated with Soviet #communism.

This thread explains the motivation to kill was political as well as racial.
By early 1919, #Ukraine was devastated by #WWI, a typhus epidemic, and a civil war with #Russia.

But the Ukrainian nationalists kept on killing their Jewish neighbors by the thousands — because they were suspected of being #communists.

youtube.com/clip/UgkxXGkWM…
The anti-communist crusade of the #NazisInUkraine continued after #WWII, and throughout the #ColdWar with the full cooperation of the US government and CIA (as well as UK’s MI6).

It continues to this very day.

Watch my report w/ @KimIversenShow here:👇🏽
From 1917-1945, nothing could stop the slaughter of Jews and #Communists in #Ukraine, Poland, #Russia and the #USSR.

The only force that stopped it was the Red Army.

The Red Army put down each and every pogrom and liberated the concentration camps.

It truly is stunning to hear the historians in this “Forgotten Genocide” program describe pogrom after pogrom in villages across #Ukraine. Each and every time, it was the Red Army who came to the rescue and put a stop to the killing.

They did it again in #WWII, as we know.
And once again, in the 21st Century, #Russia will come to the rescue of Ukrainian civilians who are being murdered by a dictatorial, genocidal #Nazi regime as you read this.

Many Ukrainians will be thankful to their Russian cousins — but history shows that many will not.
The Ukrainian nationalists were the original gangstaz, the OG #Nazis — before the #Nazi Party was even born in #Germany, before anyone had ever heard of Adolf #Hitler.

The #NazisInUkraine showed Hitler how it’s done.
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Where do you think #Hitler learned it? 🇺🇦

Where do you think we learned it? 🇺🇦

Who copied who’s homework?
🤔 🤨 Image
Take a look at this rare silent movie footage taken of the aftermath of the Ukrainian nationalists’ genocidal pogroms of 1918-19 (at 1 hour, 6 minutes in the video).

You will no doubt be reminded of the #Nazi concentration camp films of 1945. GRAPHIC⚠️

The pattern repeated over and over in #Ukraine during the Civil War; the nationalists would slaughter an entire village of Jews, the Red Army would come and put a stop to it, take care of the victims, bury the dead — then the killing would resume as soon as the Reds left town. Image
For further reading on the Ukrainian nationalists’ bloody genocide of Jews and Communists, I recommend “Pogroms in #Ukraine 1918-19: Prelude to the #Holocaust.”

books.openedition.org/obp/11043
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The author, Nokhem Shtif, wrote this book in 1920, from first hand experience with the Ukrainian nationalist “Volunteer Army” who controlled the region in that period — his recollections of these pogroms will chill you to the bone.

From the Introduction📕:
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Sctif writes of the nationalist movement growing in Germany at the same time in 1920 (which later became the #Nazi Party) taking lessons from the Ukrainians.

“In #Germany the German nationalists are screaming right now for what the Volunteer Army did three years ago in Ukraine.” Image
“Historical tradition pointed the pillagers against the Jews,” he wrote. “The generals and politicians sat back and watched, and they were quietly pleased…

And they counted on this criminal mind-set to achieve another aim: to drive out the Bolsheviks and take #Russia back.” Image
The Ukrainian nationalist Volunteer Army targeted local Hewish communities for rape, pillage, and mass extermination for one central reason:

The Jews were accused of being “Russian collaborators.” (Based on false pretexts & lies.)

Is any of this starting to sound familiar? Image
The areas of #Ukraine where these horrific genocides occurred a century ago during the civil war with #Russia — #Kharkiv, #Rostov-On-Don, #Odessa — are the same places where blood spills now in the #RussiaUkraineWar️. 🩸

books.openedition.org/obp/11058
The Ukrainian and German nationalists first began to fraternize and coalesce during Germany’s brief conquest of Ukraine during #WWI. Throughout 1918 Ukraine was occupied by 250,000 Habsburg and 400,000 German troops. Seventeen Russian provinces (as well as Poland) were occupied. Image
German military censorship was introduced for all newspapers.

The first to be closed down was the Russian-language newspaper Kievskaia mysl´ (Kyivan Thought), which had been Leon #Trotsky’s employer for many years.

The anti-Bolshevik crackdowns began immediately.
The Russian language newspaper had offended the Germans by suggesting that they risked antagonizing the Ukrainian peasantry with their behavior as conquerors.

The newspaper was allowed to reopen after it promised not to print articles critical of the Germans.
It was here that the Germans began to forge ties with the Ukrainian nationalists, whom they saw as valuable allies in the fight against Bolshevik #Russia.

“The Germans had the best contacts w/ the Ukrainian nationalist parties.” Image
The German occupiers took note of how the Ukrainian nationalists Volunteer Army dealt with Jews particularly! Image
Then, the Poles occupied #Ukraine for a brief spell — and continued the ferocious massacres of Bolsheviks and Jews suspected of sympathies to #Russia. Image
Some historians believe if #Germany had given the Ukrainian nationalists the independence they demanded during the first occupation of #Ukraine in #WWI or the second occupation in #WWII — #Russia would have been defeated, and #Hitler’s heir might stand astride Europe today.” Image
Source: Ukrainian Nationalism 1939–1945. By John A. Armstrong. 1955. (New York: Columbia University Press; Toronto: Oxford. xi, 322pp.)
Volume 12, Issue 1
doi.org/10.1177/002070…
If this thread left you feeling a bit anxious about the current #UkraineRussiaWar, the Western powers & #NATO assure you that #Zelensky has the situation under control and there are absolutely, positively NO #NazisInUkraine!

Nothing to see here! 👀
Finally, if you’d like to learn more, please read this new book by Jeffrey Veidlinger, the University of Michigan history professor seen in the video.

His book on this subject was years in the making, and was vital to my own understanding of this very complex history. 📕
@AriannaPaul8 Those Cold War years were critical, as the CIA & MI6 were actively using the Ukrainian Banderite militias to try and overthrow the #USSR — yet Khrushchev & Brezhnev either did not take the threat seriously, or didn’t do enough to put the #NazisInUkraine in prison.

However..
@AriannaPaul8 Khrushchev, to his credit, did carry out Stalin’s wish to get Stepan #Bandera. Khrushchev gave the order to KGB for Bandera’s 1959 Assassination.

The Soviets did capture & kill a LOT of these Ukrainian #Nazis in the Cold War era, but obviously didn’t catch them all!
@AriannaPaul8 The Ukrainian resistance groups were very resourceful at evading capture.

They had CIA & MI6 funding, and safe houses set up in a network all across West Germany, outside Soviet jurisdiction. These guys had hideouts in the Bavarian alps, just like their boy #Hitler…
If you enjoyed this thread, please consider buying me a book. 📕 (who knows? Your book just might inspire me to write another mega-thread!)

You can also drop a 💰 tip or pick a gift from my Wishlist! 🎁

giftapp.com/reallorispencer

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More from @RealLoriSpencer

Feb 4
On February 22, 1972 the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine hijacked Lufthansa flight 649, demanding a $5 million ransom for the release of 192 onboard.

The skyjackers also had a celebrity hostage: 19 year-old Joseph Kennedy, son of #RFK — their human bargaining chip. Image
Young Kennedy had been touring India with his uncle and aunt, Senator and Mrs. Edward M. Kennedy.

The Senator's wife, Joan, had accompanied Joseph to New Delhi while her husband returned to the United States, but left India ahead of her nephew.

Joe boarded the plane alone.
The PFLP hijackers seized the plane about an hour after it took off from New Delhi, around 1 a.m.

Bombay air control authorities said they received this message from the plane: “Call us victorious Jidda. If you call us Lufthansa, we won't answer you.” ✈️
Read 44 tweets
Dec 16, 2023
When he was arrested after the #RFK assassination, one of Sirhan’s appellate lawyers says there was a newspaper clipping in Sirhan’s pocket that discussed the incongruity of Kennedy’s advocacy for the oppressed while also supporting Israel over Palestine. bentley.umich.edu/news-events/ma…
Sirhan’s friend and appellate attorney says he cannot be certain there was not some sort of conspiracy, but has little doubt Sirhan shot Kennedy. “Sirhan never said there was somebody else,” Jabara insists.

The official motive for Sirhan’s murder of #RFK was “anti-#Zionism.” Image
Sirhan blamed his murderous rage on trauma he had suffered as a child in Palestine.

At age 4 he witnessed the bombing of Damascus Gate, the death of his older brother, a man disemboweled by a bomb and the family was forced to relocate after Israel was created in 1948.
Read 91 tweets
Dec 3, 2023
Nazi Germany waged an extensive propaganda campaign to spread Nazi ideology in the Arab world.

University of Maryland Prof. Jeffrey Herf and American University Prof. Richard Breitman discuss how Nazi ideology still lingers in the 21st Century.

Prof. Breitman served as director of historical research for the Nazi War Criminal Records Interagency Working Group, which helped to bring about declassification of more than eight million pages of U.S. government records under the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act.
If some of these talking points sound familiar today, now you know where they originated…
Read 42 tweets
Dec 1, 2023
THREAD

According to an April 25, 1966 Tom Wicker article in the New York Times (“CIA: Maker of Policy, or Tool?), President #Kennedy vowed privately to an aide after the Bay of Pigs incident in Cuba, that he would “splinter the CIA in 1000 pieces and scatter it to the winds.”
#JFK didn’t complete his mission to fully destroy the CIA (some believe the Agency got him first) — but here’s what he DID do.

In June 1961, two months after the Bay of Pigs — he issued National Security Action Memos (NSAM) 55 and 57.

history.state.gov/historicaldocu…
NSAM 55 called for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, not the CIA, to be his primary military advisors.

NSAM 57 declared “any large paramilitary operation wholly or partly covert… is properly the primary responsibility of the Department of Defense with the CIA in a supporting role.”
Read 15 tweets
Nov 8, 2023
CIA chief visiting with both Mossad and Hamas this week.

Let that sink in… 🤨 axios.com/2023/11/05/cia…
What if the CIA wasn’t merely “tracking” Hamas’ plan to attack Israel a month ago today, but actively encouraging the attack?

Why no action taken on the prior warnings?

Just a reminder that… 👇🏻 Image
Read 23 tweets
Nov 2, 2023
#RFKJr grew up in a family that strongly supported #Israel. He says he was “shocked” when his kids came home from college with views of Israel as an evil, apartheid state.

No matter what side you take, I hope you’ll listen to RFK argue his position.

It is important to understand the history of why generations of Democrats (and Republicans) have supported Israel.

It all started in 1944, when both parties adopted planks in their platforms advocating for a Jewish state in Palestine.

A fascinating story that Benjamin Netanyahu’s father played a key role in. Read this thread 🧵…
#RFKJr’s views on Israel were largely shaped by his father, who instilled those values in him as a child.

Then came 1968.

Imagine believing that a Palestinian murdered your dad… only to have your mind changed after 45 years. I tell that story here.👇🏻

Read 34 tweets

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