JTA - 10.02.2004

Ukrainian Bookseller Is Neo-Nazi


By Walter Ruby

KIEV, Ukraine (JTA) —  Sergei Shalivsky staffs one of the book tables in the heart of Kiev, but with one difference: Nearly all of the books on Shalivsky's table are dedicated to Ukrainian nationalism and anti-Semitism.

In a recent interview with JTA, Shalivsky, a pleasant-looking 33-year-old man whose affable smile seems somehow at odds with his rippling biceps and military-like bearing, cheerfully admitted to supporting a Ukrainian version of Nazism.

In today's Ukraine, Shalivsky's views appear to be extreme.

Still, after a period of declining anti-Semitism in Ukraine during the past few years, anti-Jewish views have undergone something of a resurgence during the run-up to Ukraine's Oct. 31 elections.

"All of Ukraine's problems can be traced to Zionism, to the greedy Jews who have grabbed our natural resources for their own ends. A nation should be the owner of its own house, but the money accumulated by Jewish oligarchs" is "transferred out of the country to work on behalf of the Jews, rather than for Ukraine," he says.

"In fact, the Jews have been a cancer in Ukraine since the days of the Pale of Settlement," he adds. "Today, the ideology of Jewish world domination emanates from the Chabad movement, which has become very strong here in the former homeland of the Lubavitcher Rebbe."

Shalivsky is among scores of Kievites who can be found on summer afternoons standing before folding tables and selling books on Independence Square in the heart of the city.

Shalivsky's books include Russian- and Ukrainian-language versions of such notorious tracts as "Mein Kampf," "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion," Henry Ford's "The Eternal Jew" and the latest works of American white supremacist David Duke.

Shalivsky believes that the Nazi takeover of Germany was mainly a positive development, but that Hitler made two huge mistakes: killing 6 million Jews, which "allowed the Jews to act like they were the victims;" and going to war with the Soviet Union, which, he said, "caused a deep conflict between the two main Aryan peoples, the Germans and the Slavs."

Asked whether he, like Hitler, has genocidal aspirations against the Jews, Shalivsky replied, "It is impossible to speak seriously today about killing Jews, but, at the very least, the Jewish oligarchs must be forced to return to Ukraine the billions of dollars they have stolen from us and apologize for what they have done."

In the upcoming Ukrainian elections, Shalivsky prefers the principal opposition candidate, Victor Yuschenko, to the pro-government candidate, Victor Yanukovych, because both Yanukovych and his boss, President Leonid Kuchma, are controlled by the Zionists, he says.

He adds that "Yuschenko is rather a weak man, but at least he spoke out against the government's attempt to close down Silski Visti," a large circulation newspaper that published a notorious article last year claiming that 400,000 Jews served in the S.S. during the German invasion of Ukraine in 1941. "By doing that, Yuschenko showed that he and those behind him are not fully under Zionist control."

Shalivsky says he is a member of Batkivshina, a shadowy underground organization whose name means Motherland.

The group is one of a number of tiny ultranationalist Ukrainian groups that, "really understand what is going on in this country. All of these groups have the Cossack warrior spirit and contain a coterie of people ready to die for our cause," he says.

"At present, only a small percentage of the Ukrainians masses understand what we are saying; most of them have been brainwashed by consumerism. Yet I believe we will come to power in five or 10 years, because, over time, the people will grasp the fraud being perpetuated on them."