Enlarge image
Ambassador of Ukraine in Germany Andriy Melnyk
Photo: IMAGO/M.
Popow / IMAGO/Metodi Popow
The debate about the statements made by the Ukrainian Ambassador to Germany Andriy Melnyk about the controversial nationalist Stepan Bandera continues.
The German government's anti-Semitism commissioner, Felix Klein, has therefore called on Ukraine to join the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA).
The reason for this is the statements made by the Ukrainian ambassador to Germany, Andriy Melnyk, about the former Ukrainian nationalist leader Stepan Bandera, who was murdered by a KGB agent in Munich in 1959.
"This intergovernmental organization is the appropriate forum in which the issues raised by Mr. Melnyk can be discussed in an internationally differentiated manner," said Klein of the Funke media group.
Ukraine has so far been reluctant to join the IHRA.
"The debate triggered by Ambassador Melnyk should prompt us to seek admission as soon as possible," he said.
Bandera's controversial role in World War II
Nationalist partisans from western Ukraine were responsible for ethnically motivated expulsions in 1943, in which tens of thousands of Polish civilians were murdered.
Their leader Bandera was himself imprisoned in Sachsenhausen concentration camp, but is held ideologically responsible for the crimes.
Bandera is considered a national hero in Ukraine in part due to his fight for the country's independence from the Soviet Union.
Others see him as a fascist and war criminal who cooperated with the National Socialists.
Melnyk himself is considered a supporter of Bandera.
In an interview, the ambassador said: "Bandera was not a mass murderer of Jews and Poles." There is no evidence for that.
Melnyk also commented on Bandera in the SPIEGEL top-level discussion.
Anti-Semitism Commissioner Klein said he found Melnyk's comments problematic.
"They feed the Russian narrative in the current conflict and tend to cause division and misunderstanding among friendly states."
col/dpa
