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Bodnar told the [other] Ukrainians that among the captured Jews he had discovered a Soviet

spy and that he was taking him to the district police commissar. In actual fact he took

Wiesenthal back to his own flat, on the grounds that it was unlikely to be searched so soon

again. This was the first time Wiesenthal survived. (Peter Michael Lingens, in Simon

Wiesenthal, Justice Not Vengeance, 1989, p. 8)

But the story of the forgotten Bodnar is even better than that - Bodnar not only saved you, not only risked his

life to save you, but possibly gave his life to save you. I say that because Bodnar must have known that the

punishment for saving a Jew from execution and then helping him escape would be death. And how could he get away with

it? In fact, I ask you now, Mr. Wiesenthal, whether the forgotten Bodnar did get away with it, or whether he paid for

it with his life, for as you were tiptoeing out, you were stopped, Bodnar offered his fabricated story, and then:

The German sergeant, already a little drunk, slapped Bodnar's face and said: "Then what are you

standing around for? If this is what you people are like, then later we'll all have troubles.

Report back to me as soon as you deliver them [Wiesenthal along with a fellow prisoner]." (Alan

Levy, The Wiesenthal File, 1993, p. 37)

These passages invite several pertinent conclusions which a man of integrity and conscience would have insisted

on bringing to Morley Safer's attention:

(1) You yourself, Mr. Wiesenthal, can see a Ukrainian police official having his face slapped by a German

sergeant, which serves to remind you that Ukraine is under occupation, to show you who is really in charge, to suggest

that the German attitude toward Ukrainians is one of contempt and that the expression of this contempt is

unrestrained.

(2) You yourself see also that Bodnar's flat is subject to searches, indicating that although he is a participant

in the anti-Jewish actions, he is a distrusted participant, and a participant who might feel intimidated by the

hostile scrutiny of the occupying Nazis.

(3) But most important of all, you see that the German sergeant is waiting for Bodnar to report back. Alan Levy

writes that "Bodnar was ... concerned ... that now he [Bodnar] had to account, verbally at least, for his two

prisoners" (p. 37). If Bodnar reports back with the news that you, Mr. Wiesenthal, escaped, then how might Bodnar

expect the face-slapping German sergeant to respond? For Bodnar at this point in the story to actually allow you, Mr.

Wiesenthal, to escape is heroic, it is self-sacrificing, it is suicidal. And yet the forgotten Bodnar does go ahead

and effect your escape, probably never imagining that in later years this will become an event unworthy of notice

during your blanket condemnation of Ukrainians.

What I urge you to do now, Mr. Wiesenthal, is the following:

(1) Conduct a search to determine the fate of the forgotten Bodnar, and bestow upon him the recognition that he

deserves for his heroic action. Hopefully, Bodnar is still alive, so that the recognition will not be posthumous.

Hopefully, Bodnar did not sacrifice his life to save yours, as then your ingratitude would be truly black.

(2) Bring the forgotten Bodnar to the attention of Morley Safer at 60 Minutes, and ask for some correction of the

negative image created of the Ukrainian police.

(3) Search your memory long and hard and determine a version of the story which appears to be closest to the

truth, and then publish it as the official account, because at present, the wildly different versions in your several

biographies create the negative image of someone who just spews tall tales off the top of his head, without any

consideration for making them consistent with earlier versions of those same tales. For example, Mr. Wiesenthal, what

impression do you imagine is created in the mind of a reader who is told in Justice Not Vengeance that Bodnar saved

you alone and took you to his apartment, but then is told in The Wiesenthal File that Bodnar saved you together with

another prisoner and took the two of you to the office of a "commissar" which office the two of you spent the entire

night cleaning? I will tell you what impression is created, Mr. Wiesenthal - it is that of a person lying so

clumsily, that one almost imagines that he does so in order to be caught and exposed so as to finally be able to

confess and to purge his conscience.

Sincerely yours,

Lubomyr Prytulak

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Wiesenthal Letter 15 Sep 8/97 The elusive Lviv pogrom

September 8, 1997

Simon Wiesenthal

Jewish Documentation Center

Salztorgasse 6

1010 Vienna

Austria

Dear Mr. Wiesenthal:

According to your testimony on the 60 Minutes broadcast of October 23, 1994, "The Ugly Face of Freedom," in three

days following the evacuation of the Communist forces and before the arrival of the German troops, Ukrainian police

killed between five and six thousand Jews:

SAFER: He [Simon Wiesenthal] remembers that even before the Germans arrived, Ukrainian police