Home

Home Schedule
Conferences Round Tables
All-Ukrainian Competition of Students Works Annual Seminar for History Teachers Study - Trip"Teaching the Holocaust - Perspectives and Approaches", GHWK, Berlin Study - Trip "History of the Holocaust in Ukraine and Poland" Study - Trip “The Fate of Jewish Communities of Ukraine and France: A Comparison“ Educational Fellowship at Yad Vashem Authority Teaching Materials against Antisemitism, Discrimination and Xenophobia (OCSE/ODIHR) Other projects and completed projects
Information-pedagogical bulletin "Lessons of the Holocaust" Scholarly Journal "Holocaust and modernity" (2005-...) Bulletin "Holocaust: Contemporary Research" Scholarly publications Educational publications Library of the Holocaust Memoirs Publications of the project "Connecting Memory"
Our Staff Contacts
Commemoration Genocide of the Roma of Ukraine Babyn Yar No Child History Kyiv Stones
Book announcements Catalog Online

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)]

Announcements

More

Latest News

  • The banality of evil: from Auschwitz to Mariupol

    The YouTube channel "10 Questions to a Historian" featured an interview about the history of the Auschwitz death camp, which has become an undisputed symbol of Nazi crimes in World War II. This is the story of how some people (including educated and seemingly mentally healthy people) killed other people on a scale and systematic basis that had never been seen before. The "banality of evil" was that the virtue of loyalty turned bureaucrats into committed genocide performers.

    [More]
  • Threats of totalitarianism today. Public lecture

    On 2 April 2024, a public lecture by historian Anatolii Podolskyi, Head of the UCHS, was held at the Kyiv Cooperative Institute of Business and Law. Threats of totalitarianism today. Comparison of the Nazi crimes and modern russian ideology in the war against Ukraine was the topic.

    [More]
  • Recommendations for the preparation of student competition works

    Dear colleagues and participants of the XXIV Medvinsky All-Ukrainian Student Competition "History and Lessons of the Holocaust"! The UCHS team has prepared recommendations and useful tips for the preparation of competition entries in one post for your convenience.

    [More]
  • Kovel: the Life and Death of the Jewish Community

    Kovel: the Life and Death of the Jewish Community/ Petro Dolhanov. — Kyiv : Ukrainian Center for Holocaust Studies, 2023. — 101 p.

    [More]
  • Bulletin «Lessons of the Holocaust», № 1 (77), 2024

    Dear colleagues! The fresh issue of information-pedagogical bulletin of UCHS «Lessons of the Holocaust», № 1 (77), January-March, 2024 has been published.

    [More]
More

Top