The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Why Putin uses WWII to justify acts
TEL AVIV, Israel — Vladimir Putin on Friday again painted his enemies in Ukraine as “neo-nazis,” even though the country has a Jewish president who lost relatives in the Holocaust and who heads a Western-backed, democratically elected government.
The Holocaust, World War II and Nazism have been important tools for Putin in his bid to legitimize Russia’s war in Ukraine, but historians see their use as disinformation and a cynical ploy to further the Russian leader’s aims.
Here’s a closer look at how the ghosts of the past are shaping today’s conflict:
The war that defines Russia
World War II, in which the Soviet Union lost an estimated 27 million people, is a linchpin of Russia’s national identity. In today’s Russia, officials bristle at any questioning of the USSR’S role.
Some historians say this has been coupled with an attempt by Russia to retool certain historical truths from the war. They say Russia has tried to magnify the Soviet role in defeating the Nazis while playing down any collaboration by Soviet citizens in the persecution of Jews.
On Ukraine, Russia has tried to link the country to Nazism, particularly those who have led it since a pro-russian leadership was toppled in 2014.
This goes back to 1941 when Ukraine, at the time part of the Soviet Union, was occupied by Nazi Germany. Some Ukrainian nationalists welcomed the Nazi occupiers, in part as a way to challenge their Soviet opponents, according to Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial. Historians say that, like in other countries, there was also collaboration.
Some of Ukraine’s politicians since 2014 have sought to glorify nationalist fighters from the era, focusing on their opposition to Soviet rule rather than their collaboration and documented crimes against Jews, as well as Poles living in Ukraine.
But making the leap from that to claiming Ukraine’s current government is a Nazi state does not reflect the reality of its politics, including the landslide election of a Jewish president and the aim of many Ukrainians to strengthen the country’s democracy, reduce corruption and move closer to the West.
“In terms of all of the sort of constituent parts of Nazism, none of that is in play in Ukraine. Territorial ambitions. State-sponsored terrorism. Rampant antisemitism. Bigotry. A dictatorship. None of those are in play. So this is just total fiction,” said Jonathan Dekelchen, a history professor at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University.
Holocaust distortion
Putin’s attempts to stretch history for political motives is part of a trend seen in other countries as well. Most prominent is Poland, where authorities are advancing a nationalist narrative at odds with mainstream scholarship, including using a 2018 law that regulates Holocaust speech.
That legislation sought to fight back against claims that Poland, a victim of Nazi Germany, bore responsibility for the Holocaust. The law angered Israel, where many felt it was an attempt to whitewash the fact that some Poles did kill Jews during the German occupation during World War II. Yad Vashem also came out against the legislation.
Havi Dreifuss, a historian at Tel Aviv University and Yad Vashem, said the world was now dealing with both Holocaust denial and Holocaust distortion, where countries or institutions were bringing forth their own interpretations of history that were damaging to the commemoration of the Holocaust.
“Whoever deals with the period of the Holocaust must first and foremost be committed to the complex reality that occurred then and not with wars over memory that exist today,” she said.
Israeli interests
The Holocaust is central to Israel’s national identity. The country comes to a two-minute standstill on its Holocaust remembrance day. Schoolchildren, trade groups and soldiers make regular trips to Yad Vashem’s museum. Stories of the last cohort of Holocaust survivors constantly make the news.
Israel has butted heads with certain countries, including Poland, over the memory of the Holocaust. But Israel has appeared more reticent to challenge Putin and his narrative, according to some observers, because of its current security interests. Israel relies on coordination with Russia to allow it to strike targets in Syria, which it says are often weapons caches destined for Israel’s enemies.
Israel came under fire from historians in 2020 after a speech by Putin and a separate video presentation at a meeting of world leaders in Jerusalem to commemorate the liberation of the Auschwitz-birkenau death camp, which they said skewed toward his narrative and away from the historical facts.
Israel was conspicuously muted in its criticism of Russia in the lead-up to the war on Ukraine. Commentator Raviv Drucker wrote in the daily Haaretz that Israel was “on the wrong side of history” with its response, which initially sought to support Ukraine while not rattling Russia.
Pedestrian safety has been top of mind lately. A recent column in this space addressed ways people inside and outside of cars can make the interaction between both safer and more respectful. That drew backlash from pedestrians, who felt the piece equalized the blame and responsibility between the two parties.
While any overlap in a traffic environment requires respect in two directions, that doesn’t equate the vulnerabilities of both parties.
There is no doubt that pedestrians are much more at risk of injury or death than the drivers around them, and a new Insurance Institute for Highway Safety study shows why the gap is growing.
IIHS data compiled from numbers through 2020 showed that pedestrians are far more likely to be hit by SUVS, trucks and vans than by smaller autos. Pedestrians also have a higher chance of death in those collisions because of the vehicles’ sizes and are more prone to be hit when that vehicle is turning.
Pedestrian deaths have risen 59% since 2009 to over 6,500 in 2020. This tragic increase is right in line with U.S. drivers opting for larger vehicles.
The odds increase when these vehicles turn through intersections. SUVS are twice as likely to kill a pedestrian when turning than are smaller cars. Vans and minivans are three times more likely and pickups four times more. Right turns saw even more staggering numbers, with pickups 89% more likely than a car to kill a pedestrian.
The size of the vehicle is one factor; getting hit by a giant Ford F-150 Raptor leaves a bigger mark than a Mini Cooper does. The average American vehicle size is bigger now, so an automobile is more lethal to those around it.
But sight lines are another factor, the study says.
“It’s possible that the size, shape or location of the A-pillars that support the roof on either side of the windshield could make it harder for drivers of these larger vehicles to see crossing pedestrians when they are turning,” IIHS Senior Transportation Engineer Wen Hu said in a news release about the findings. IIHS also speculates that the height of these vehicles and the length of the front ends also make seeing people and gauging their distances more difficult.
A-pillars are the bars on either side of the windshield that connect a car’s roof to its body. These have to be thicker on bigger vehicles, to lessen the chance of collapse in a rollover crash.
This would help explain why turning is more lethal, as A-pillars would interfere in those sight lines. For example, drivers waiting to turn left at a green light would likely speed up to turn left through the gap in traffic. They would advance across a crosswalk that has a walk signal, and the driver’s right A-pillar would largely obstruct the view of someone beginning to cross.
Vans, SUVS and pickups are 45%, 61% and 80% more likely, respectively, than smaller cars to hit pedestrians walking or running next to the road. Again, the size of those autos and the greater lack of spatial awareness their drivers possess are factors.
These figures should be sobering to everyone, but especially to the many of us who drive larger cars. Driving is not a luxury, but a dire responsibility, and the bigger the vehicle, the more cautious motorists should be. Yet these larger rides are classified the same as the license to drive a coupe or a sedan.
Bus and semitruck drivers need separate license classifications because the consequences are greater when they make a mistake. Drivers in trucks, vans and SUVS need to start behaving the same way.
Every driver should employ the same caution when driving in areas with pedestrians, but the onus is greater on people with bigger cars. Knowing the likelihood is greater to hurt someone in a crosswalk while turning, make sure to slow enough to check the crosswalk is clear.
In corridors with crosswalks not attached to traffic signals, drivers need to show even more restraint. We need to drive nearer to the speed limits and never assume that a crosswalk is clear — check it first. As soon as pedestrians enter that crosswalk, drive like it is theirs. They have the right of way once they are within a lane of the side of the road where a car is.
Car size is not the only factor in rising pedestrian deaths in the last decade-plus. The spike in deaths is in direct correlation with smartphone proliferation. Distracted driving no doubt has its place in the pantheon of pedestrian dangers.
Despite the rising gas prices (and all of this harrowing data), people are probably not going to flock in droves to smaller cars. But with the benefit of all that cargo space comes a great responsibility.
Hardly anyone who hits and injures or kills a pedestrian sets out that day to do so. But most people who do could easily have avoided such tragedy by being better in touch with the fact that they pilot a potentially lethal device.
And as these vehicles trend bigger and distractions become more prevalent, crossing or sharing streets becomes more dangerous for pedestrians and cyclists. Motorists need to become far more in tune with their fellow commuters’ vulnerability and turn back this awful trend.