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Bjorn Westlie. My Father’s War

(Translated from Norwegian by D. Nikandrov, M. Schchyrba; published by UCHS)

During the Second World War a young Norwegian Petter Westlie was a Nazi supporter and a Waffen-SS volunteer to fight for Gemany on the Eastern Front. When his son Bjorn grew up to realize his father’s actions, he broke off with him. It was only in many years that Brojn felt that his father wanted to tell his son about this past. Finally, Petter Westlie recorded the story on tape for him.

The story is about an unusual relationship between a man and his father, and also about the experience young Norwegians gained in military service after Nazi attack on the Soviet Union. The author researched all available historical sources to compare his father’s story with facts. He also made a trip in his father’s traces to the sites in Ukraine where the soldiers of invading military squads (including Petter Westlie) committed crimes against hundreds of thousands of civilians, foremost the Jews of Ukraine.

[See the book (in Ukrainian)]

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  • New section #PhotoHistory on our social network

    The Ukrainian Center for Holocaust Studies has launched a new section on its official Facebook page, Photo_History, where we remind participants of the Center's projects of important and memorable moments of our research and teaching activities and collect feedback, reflections, and memories of these projects from different years.

     

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  • Raihorod and Sobolivka: the Life and Death of Jewish Communities

    Raihorod and Sobolivka: the Life and Death of Jewish Communities/ Natalia Derevyanko. — Kyiv : Ukrainian Center for Holocaust Studies, 2023. — 137 p.

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  • HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY OF UKRAINE!

    Dear friends and colleagues, happy Independence Day of Ukraine!

    This holiday has always been a symbol of national pride, unity and freedom for us. But today, when our country is going through one of the most difficult periods in its modern history, this holiday has taken on even greater importance. The price we pay for our desire to live in dignity in a united, independent and successful European state is extremely high.

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  • THE ANNUAL EDUCATIONAL SEMINAR-SCHOOL "THE HISTORY OF THE HOLOCAUST IN UKRAINE: RESEARCH, EDUCATION, COMMEMORATION"

    The Ukrainian Center for Holocaust Studies, in cooperation with the Yad Vashem Memorial (Jerusalem), held an annual seminar-school the History of the Holocaust in Ukraine: Research, Education, Commemoration.

     

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  • Presentation of the project "Bykivnia, Babyn Yar, Bucha - Between the massacre and memory about it".

    Today, it is important not only to compare the crimes of the three dictatorial regimes, but also to explain their nature, under what circumstances there is a real possibility of mass murder and its justification. This project shows that it is possible and worthwhile to compare the two totalitarian regimes of the twentieth century without diminishing the memory of either of them, and that it is also worth analysing Ruscism in the context of communism and Nazism.

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