Earlier this week, the president of Israel gave a speech in Kyiv that discussed Ukrainians’ participation in the Holocaust. Ukrainian nationalists were not amused.
Reuven Rivlin made his remarks at a session of the Ukrainian parliament commemorating the 75th anniversary of the Babyn Yar massacre, when Nazi invaders slaughtered 33,771 Jews in a Kyiv ravine from September 29-30, 1941. The lawmakers who invited him to speak may have expected him to dwell on the crimes committed against Ukrainian Jews by Germans. But Rivlin chose to also address the actions of Ukrainian collaborators who assisted the Nazis in mass murder.
