A Holocaust perpetrator was just celebrated on US soil. I think I know why no one objected.

If you’re wondering about the state of Holocaust remembrance in 2025, a foreign government recently celebrated a Holocaust perpetrator on United States soil — and no one raised an eyebrow.

On March 9, Ukraine’s Chicago consulate posted photos of Consul Serhiy Koledov participating in a commemoration for Nazi collaborator Roman Shukhevych, whose troops massacred Jews and Poles. This is the story of how that event, at St. Joseph the Betrothed Ukrainian Catholic Church in Chicago, happened — and why some of the same people who usually speak out against Holocaust revisionism are refusing to say anything about it.

Holocaust distortion continues to be a rampant problem, with monuments to monsters going up regularly. But continuing celebrations of Shukhevych, whose men were responsible for many thousands of deaths during World War II, stand out: The U.S. State Department’s Special Envoy on Holocaust Issues has twice highlighted Shukhevych glorification as an example of Holocaust revisionism.

Similar condemnations have come from the World Jewish Congress, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, and Israel.

Why? For starters, unlike some other collaborators, Shukhevych actually served in Nazi uniform. He was a hauptmann, or captain, in the Nachtigall Battalion, an auxiliary police unit in the Third Reich military that participated in the deadly 1941 Lviv pogrom.

After getting hands-on experience in conducting a genocide with the Germans, Shukhevych went on to lead the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, a paramilitary group that butchered thousands of Jews and between 70,000 and 100,000 Polish villagers.

So why does Ukraine still insist on lionizing him?

Well, first of all, it’s a mistake to ascribe that insistence to Ukraine, unilaterally. Two million Ukrainians died fighting against the Nazis and their lackeys. Only a portion of the country’s populace today will defend its Nazi collaborators; millions more revile them. Saying Ukraine idolizes Shukhevych is like saying America idolizes Robert E. Lee.

But those who do honor Shukhevych vehemently deny that they’re commemorating a Nazi collaborator. They instead dub him a “hero” and “freedom fighter of Ukraine” who resisted Moscow — those are exact terms used by the Chicago consulate in describing the March commemoration. They insist his memory has been unfairly smeared by Russia. They’ll even claim that the UPA saved Jews, a lie that’s been disproved by scholars.

These excuses are similar to those peddled by fans of the Confederacy and, more currently, Hamas. That’s what Holocaust revisionism is: an act of transforming war criminals into role models.

Almost anyone affiliated with a political movement can claim to be a freedom fighter. The Hamas militants who butchered, kidnapped and raped civilians in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, were, to some, fighting for freedom. The question is: Whose freedom, and the freedom to do what?

The freedom Shukhevych fought for — and exercised — was freedom to slaughter Jews in ditches and murder Poles in particularly graphic fashion, including by crucifixion.

So why are so many so hesitant to call out celebrations of his memory?

Neither Chicago’s main Jewish federation nor the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum responded to numerous requests for comment. I met the same silence from the Anti-Defamation League — which, the same week as the ceremony at the Chicago consulate, lambasted podcaster Joe Rogan for an episode featuring a man who traffics in Holocaust revisionism.

Rogan is extremely influential. But surely a fete for an actual Holocaust perpetrator should warrant mention, too?

It was silence, as well, from Rep. Brad Schneider, who represents Chicago’s north suburbs. In 2022, Schneider, who is Jewish, proudly announced that he was drafting legislation to censure Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene for comparing former President Joe Biden to Adolf Hitler. “She owes the American people, the survivors and families of those persecuted by the Nazis, and every family of what is still the ‘Greatest Generation’ an immediate apology,” he proclaimed.

If Ukraine doesn’t want to be accused of honoring Nazis, the first thing to do is quit honoring Nazis.

One would think the representative who couldn’t sleep knowing someone compared Biden to Hitler would be aghast at the celebration of a Nazi collaborator in his backyard. But Schneider’s office didn’t respond to requests for comment.

I suspect that much of the reason why has to do with the broad movement for solidarity with Ukraine amid its ongoing war after Russia’s 2022 invasion. I’ve been told that drawing attention to Ukraine’s penchant for honoring Nazi collaborators feeds into the Kremlin’s attempt to paint Ukrainians as Nazi lovers.

But it isn’t justifying that war to make the point that if you don’t want to be accused of honoring Nazis, the first thing to do is quit honoring Nazis.

Indeed, the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine has been a godsend for Shukhevych fans. People rightfully outraged by Russia’s war crimes now think twice about criticizing Kyiv, or its emissaries elsewhere. Those who glorify Holocaust perpetrators cynically weaponize this sympathy to commit brazen acts — like throwing a lovefest for a Third Reich hauptmann in the heartland of a nation that lost more than 405,000 men in the fight to defeat the Nazis and their allies.

I look at photographs of the Jews hunted and murdered by Shukhevych’s men in Lviv and elsewhere and ask myself: If I were them, how would I feel about my fellow Jews — safe, privileged Jews with jobs in Congress, or with organizations that collect millions to fight antisemitism — failing to speak out when my tormentors get cheered as heroes?

How far we have fallen to even require the question.

Lev Golinkin is a regular contributor to the Forward whose work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, CNN, NBC, The Boston Globe, Politico Europe, and Time.com. His memoir, A Backpack, a Bear, and Eight Crates of Vodka, chronicles his immigration from Ukraine.