Fast ForwardChurch moves to cover Philadelphia monument to a Nazi military formation — temporarily
The monument, located in St. Mary’s Ukrainian Catholic Cemetery in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, bears the divisional insignia of the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS. Courtesy of Lev Golinkin
By Lev Golinkin September 12, 2023
The Ukrainian Catholic Church in Philadelphia announced plans to temporarily cover a controversial monument to a Nazi military formation whose existence in a suburban cemetery was reported by the Forward last month.
The monument, located in St. Mary’s Ukrainian Catholic Cemetery in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, is in the shape of a large cross bearing the divisional insignia of the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS — the combat branch of the Nazi Party that participated in the slaughter of Jews during the Holocaust. SS Galichina, as the division is commonly called, carried out massacres including burning alive hundreds of Polish villagers in 1944.
The Forward was the first news outlet to draw attention to the monument’s existence and history, as part of a three-year effort documenting more than 1,600 statues, streets and other memorials around the world that honor Nazis and Nazi collaborators. It was previously noted in a May tweet by Moss Robeson, a researcher of Ukraine’s far-right; the Philadelphia Inquirer, local TV stations and other publications followed the Forward’s article, and the American Jewish Committee and other groups put pressure on the church to remove the monument.
The Inquirer reported Tuesday afternoon that the church planned to cover the monument. “Given the current attention surrounding the monument, the Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia said in a Facebook post, the cross will be covered “while our discussions ensue with the community in order to prevent vandalism and with the goal of conducting an objective dialogue with sensitivity to all concerned.”
Jason Holtzman, director of the Jewish Community Relations Council at the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia, said Tuesday that a meeting between the archeparchy and local Jewish organizations is scheduled for later this month. “I think this is a great first step,” Holtzman said of the decision to cover the monument. “We hope that through a fruitful dialogue they will be willing to go even further and remove the monument.”
He added: “There should be no memorial that glorifies a Nazi SS unit in Philadelphia or anywhere in the entire world.”
The Federation initially learned of the monument’s existence last month, after the Forward began inquiring about it. The Philadelphia-area branches of the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committe, both of whom also denounced the memorial, are expected to attend the meeting with the archeparchy.
As the Forward reported Aug. 28, the monument in Elkins Park is one of two honoring SS Galichina — renamed the 1st Ukrainian Division of the Ukrainian National Army shortly before the end of World War II — that were hiding in plain site in the United States. The other is on the side of a Ukrainian credit union building in Warren, Michigan, a city of 140,000 people near Detroit.
Marches and monuments honoring SS Galichina in other nations including Canada have been condemned by Jewish organizations and the governments of Ukraine, Germany and Israel.
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