The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (Mel’nyk Faction) and the Holocaust: The Case of Ivan Iuriiv

This article explores the career path of Ivan Iuriiv, a supporter of the faction of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists led by Andrii Mel’nyk (OUN-M). During World War II Iuriiv joined Sonderkommando 10a of Einsatzgruppe D, and as a member of this detachment he played an active role in the extermination of Jewish communities in occupied territories of the Ukraine and the RSFSR. The author uses unpublished sources from German, Ukrainian, American, and Israeli archives to examine Iuriiv’s political views, his involvement in Nazi crimes, his role as an OUN-M activist in the creation of Ukrainian auxiliary police forces in occupied Soviet territories, and his postwar fate in Western Europe and Canada. This close examination of Iuriiv’s career and experiences contributes to our understanding of the participation of ethnic Germans in the Holocaust.