Sir: Nina Tuckman dismisses (Letters, 10 December) 'the embittered Slavonic
emigres' she has met because 'it is history that millions of them fought for and work- ed for the Nazis during the war'. It is true that millions of Slovaks, Croats and, in largest numbers, Ukrainians, took the view that 'my enemy's enemy is my friend', as in- deed did Churchill when Hitler invaded the USSR. The Slovaks who opposed Czech hegemony and the Croats who sought in- dependence from Serbian control may perhaps be criticised for miscalculating relative evils, but our sympathies must sure- ly go out to the Eastern Ukrainians.
Stalin's decision to crush Old Bolshevik Ukrainians and then most traditionalist Ukrainians who showed nationalistic devia- tions was followed by the imposed famine of 1932-33. This genocidal policy ranks with the Turkish destruction of the Arme- nians and the Nazi slaughter of the Jews among the most hideous barbarities of our century. The suffering Ukrainians naturally sought any alternative to the atrocities of Stalin, which so many Soviet sympathisers condoned. It was a cruel tragedy for the Ukrainians that their enemy's enemy was his equal in wickedness and inhumanity. Were I an exile from Ukraine would not my heart be embittered? Since I am an Englishman, shall I not seek deterrence against such a fate as theirs?
G. G. Partington
25 Monastery Street, Canterbury
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