Revealed: How veterans of Hitler’s murderous Waffen-SS are alive and well – and living in Britain
The former Nazi officers deny they took part in any crimes
VETERANS of Hitler's notorious Waffen-SS who served in a battle unit accused of war crimes are still living in Britain, The Sun can reveal.
We tracked down more than 25 ex-soldiers of the crack SS Galizien division which fought for the Nazi regime during the Second World War.
The men are some of the last surviving members of the Waffen-SS which was declared a criminal organisation at the post-war Nuremberg trials.
They include veterans who admit suppressing popular rebellions which had been backed by the Allied powers during the bloody conflict.
There are also ex-soldiers who served in a brutal SS-led paramilitary force and two officers once listed by Soviet Russia as alleged war criminals.
The SS Galizien division was formed in 1943 from Ukrainian volunteers who joined the elite fighting force and swore an oath of allegiance to Hitler.
Around 50,000 men from the Galicia region of Ukraine were allowed to join the SS because its boss Heinrich Himmler had said they were more Aryan-like.
They fought on the eastern front and smashed uprisings in Slovakia, Yugoslavia and Serbia with brutal force.
The unit was said to have massacred civilians in these countries as well as Polish nationals in Ukraine.
It also included former concentration camp guards and was led by SS officers notorious for their ability to commit murder on a huge scale.
But in a controversial move the British government allowed over 8,000 of the soldiers who surrendered to settle here after the war.
The government carried out few checks on the prisoners and claimed finding out if any were war criminals was an "impossible" task.
We have spoken to a number of the surviving soldiers who admitted they volunteered to join the SS division after it was formed in 1943.
They told how they knew nothing of any war crimes but some did admit taking part in anti-rebel campaigns.
Two men who we tracked down were officers in the SS Galizien and had been listed by Russia in 1948 as men who they claimed had committed war crimes on its territory.
But the list was ignored by the Foreign Office and the men were allowed to settle here in the UK - where they have lived ever since.
Myron Tabora, 90, and Ostap Kykawec, 92, were both lieutenants in the SS division and were listed by famous Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal as Ukrainian SS of interest.
SS personnel cards and training school rosters for the pair can still be found in archives.
They show both men took part in SS officer school training which they said took place over two years when they joined in 1943 – meaning they hardly saw any fighting.
SS officer training also involved learning about methods of controlling prisoners which involved training at the notorious Dachau concentration camp in Germany.
But both Mr Tabora and Mr Kykawec, who joined when they were 18 and 19 respectively, deny they took part in any concentration camp training.
Mr Tabora, from Lichfield, Staffs, worked as an engineer after arriving in the UK and said he had never known he was listed by Russia as an alleged war criminal.
He also told how he had never seen his SS personnel card before.
He said: "I was with the Galizien, yes. But I never fired a rifle and I was in officer school for two years.
"I went to the Austria front but I didn't know of any men committing crimes.
"But what is a war crime with what the Russians did?
"I heard about Polish people being killed in Ukraine but Poles were killing Ukrainians just the same.
"It was mutual. And what about the British Empire killing people?"
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Mr Kykawec, who lives in Keighley, West Yorks., became a textiles worker and an engineer after he came to Britain in 1947.
He told how he had also been in SS officer school for two years and had only fired weapons in training.
The 92-year-old said: "I was fighting for Ukrainian independence, that's why I joined.
"We were under German command as the Galizien.
“At first we were regular SS but then we became Waffen-SS – we wore a lion on our shirts.
"I never fought the British and Americans. I fought the Russians but the war finished before I had chance.
"We didn't take part in any crimes. We only served because nobody else could offer us the chance to fight the Russians."
The SS Galizien division has been accused of taking part in war crimes across Poland and Slovakia.
In the village of Huta Pieniacka it is thought elements of the Galizien under German command massacred up to 1,200 mainly Polish locals in February 1944.
Alongside SS Galizien Police regiments – later incorporated into the battle unit – Ukrainian SS are alleged to have rounded up villagers in their barns and burned them alive.
And those who tried to flee the stronghold of Polish resistance were also killed.
More Poles were slaughtered in the village of Pidkamin – in modern-day Ukraine – by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army with alleged assistance from SS Galizien in March 1944.
Waffen-SS Galizien division: The crack unit notorious for brutality and suspected of war crimes
- Made up of Ukrainian volunteers and commanded by notorious German SS officers noted for their brutality
- Fought on the eastern front and smashed uprisings in Slovakia, Yugoslavia and Serbia with brutal force
- Smashed at the Battle of Brody by the Red Army in mid-1944 but recovered and incorporated the notorious Galizien police units
- Thought to have burned up to 1,200 mainly Polish villagers alive in February 1944 in village of Huta Pieniacka
- Believed to have assisted in the massacre of 150 Polish locals at a monastery in the village of Pidkamin in March 1944
- Included members of the feared SS-led 31st Punitive Battalion which murdered more than 100 prisoners in 1944 and killed 44 civilians and five children in the Polish village of Chlaniow
They attacked a monastery and killed around 150 locals – many of which had tried to escape.
The regimental commanders of the Galizien division were notorious German SS officers noted for their brutality.
The division had been smashed at the Battle of Brody by the Red Army in mid-1944 but recovered and incorporated the notorious Galizien police units.
But efforts to trace men who committed war crimes has proved difficult – with Scotland Yard closing its investigation into the Galizien after re-opening it in 2006.
Other elements in the Galizien include members of the feared SS-led 31st Punitive Battalion (ULS) co-founded by wanted US citizen Michael Karkoc who became the commander of the 2nd company.
The unit carried out atrocities including the murder of more than 100 prisoners in 1944 and wiping out the Polish village of Chlaniow – killing 44 civilians including five children.
It also took part in the savage operation to suppress the Warsaw uprising in 1944 before becoming part of the Galizien.
One member of Karkoc's ULS company was Mychajlo Ostapenko, 90, who still lives in Nelson, Lancs., where he settled after surrendering to the Brits in 1945.
The former miner and great-grandfather is found on military rosters, payment lists and documents showing he was a rifleman in the unit.
He confirmed he was a member of the unit but claimed he was laid up in hospital for nine months with appendicitis before being held by the British army in the Rimini POW camp in northern Italy.
A number of other ULS men had settled in the UK including choir singer Dmytro Wiazewycz, from Oldham, Gtr Manchester, who was interviewed just before his death in 2015.
Another SS Galizien volunteer Jaroslaw Wenger, 93, told how he helped capture rebels in Yugoslavia and Serbia on campaign in 1945.
The partisans - led by Josip Tito - were the most effective resistance against Hitler's rule and were supported by the allies with Brigadier General Fitzroy Maclean their permanent liaison from Britain.
Grandfather Mr Wenger, a retired factory worker who still has photos from his time during the war, told of one operation in which they captured rebels who had shot their commander.
He said: "In Yugoslavia we once went to a farm and there were some communist partisans having breakfast.
"They started to shoot against the group – two of them escaped, three we managed to catch and they had injured our leader very badly.
“We took him to the nearest hospital and we were very annoyed about that.
"The three partisans we captured we took them to the German army police – what they did with them I did not know. We were very angry.
"Russian agents had been helping them. Yes I fired my weapon, sometimes I used a machine gun - I don't remember if I killed anyone.
"Maybe I did, maybe I did not. We never committed any crimes against the people - the Germans sent us to those countries."
Another man who had joined the Galizien was Michailo Fostun who had helped put down the Jewish uprisings in Warsaw in 1943 and the liquidation of the Bialystok ghetto with 60,000 men, women and children slaughtered.
The 79-year-old academic, who lived in Wimbledon, south London, had also trained at the Trawniki concentration camp where tens of thousands were murdered and admitted he was part of the SS before his sudden and violent death in 2004.
Several men we approached also refused to discuss their roles in the Galizien during the war.
The Foreign Office had found it a hopeless task to screen the 8,000 SS men who surrendered to the British and were held at Rimini after the war.
But they had refused to return them to Soviet Russia and instead allowed them to settle in Britain – despite Home Office misgivings about potential war criminals.
Many continued to live in the UK while others moved on to Canada and Australia.
Brigadier General Maclean had been sent to interview the men but complained it was a hopeless task.
He said: "We only have their own word for it that they have not committed atrocities or war crimes."
Holocaust researcher Dr Stephen Ankier has helped track down SS men and war criminals in Britain and overseas.
He said of the Galizien: "According to war crime inquiry studies, the British screening of the Waffen-SS and Galizien Division held in Rimini during 1947 was woefully inadequate.
"Although the Galizien has never been found guilty of war crimes, accusations have persisted for years that they were responsible for atrocities against civilians in Huta Pieniacka and in Nizna Boca.
"For these Ukrainians, fighting for Nazi Germany rather than Soviet 'Bolshevik' Russia was the lesser of two evils.
"Their hope seems to have been to finish on the winning side and then to gain an independent Ukraine.
“But being a fragile old man must never be a reason to gift an amnesty to a murderer."