Lviv pogroms (1941)
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The Lviv pogroms were the consecutive pogroms and massacres of Jews in June and July 1941 in the city of Lwów in Eastern Poland/Western Ukraine (now Lviv, Ukraine). The massacres were perpetrated by Ukrainian nationalists (specifically, the OUN), German death squads (Einsatzgruppen), and urban population from 30 June to 2 July, and from 25 to 29 July, during the German invasion of the Soviet Union. Thousands of Jews were killed both in the pogroms and in the Einsatzgruppen killings.
Ukrainian nationalists targeted Jews in the first pogrom on the pretext of their purported responsibility for the NKVD prisoner massacre in Lviv, which left behind thousands of corpses in three Lviv prisons. The subsequent massacres were directed by the Germans in the context of the Holocaust in Eastern Europe. The pogroms were ignored or obfuscated in Ukrainian historical memory, starting with OUN's actions to purge or whitewash its own record of anti-Jewish violence.
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Background
Lviv (Polish: Lwów) was a multicultural city just before World War II, with a population of 312,231. The city's 157,490 ethnic Poles constituted just over 50 per cent, with Jews at 32 per cent (99,595) and Ukrainians at 16 per cent (49,747).Template:Sfn On 28 September 1939, after the joint Soviet-German invasion, the USSR and Germany signed the German–Soviet Frontier Treaty, which assigned about 200,000 km2 (77,000 sq mi) of Polish territory inhabited by 13.5 million people of all nationalities to the Soviet Union. Lviv was then annexed to the Soviet Union.Template:Sfn
According to Soviet Secret Police (NKVD) records, nearly 9,000 prisoners were murdered in the Ukrainian SSR in the NKVD prisoner massacres, after the German invasion of the Soviet Union began on 22 June 1941.Template:Sfn Due to the confusion during the rapid Soviet retreat and incomplete records, the NKVD number is most likely an undercounting. According to estimates by contemporary historians, the number of victims in Western Ukraine was probably between 10,000 and 40,000.Template:Sfn By ethnicity, Ukrainians comprised roughly 70 per cent of victims, with Poles at 20 per cent.Template:Sfn
Prior to the German invasion of the Soviet Union, Ukrainian nationalists, specifically the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), had been working with the Germans for some time. The Lviv faction of OUN was under the control of Stepan Bandera. One of his lieutenants was Yaroslav Stetsko, a virulent antisemite. In 1939, he published an article in which he claimed that Jews were "nomads and parasites", a nation of "swindlers" and "egotists" whose aim was to "corrupt the heroic culture of warrior nations". Stetsko also railed against the supposed conspiracy between Jewish capitalists and Jewish Communists.Template:Sfn
Pogroms and mass killings
First pogrom
[[File:Bundesarchiv_Bild_101I-186-0160-12,_Russland,_Misshandlung_eines_Juden.jpg|thumb|Local Ukrainians abuse a Jew, probably during the pogrom in July 1941.Template:Sfn Photo was taken by a Wehrmacht propaganda company.]] At the time of the German attack on the Soviet Union, about 160,000 Jews lived in the city;Template:Sfn the number had swelled by tens of thousands due to the arrival of Jewish refugees from German-occupied Poland in late 1939.Template:Sfn OUN's preparations for the anticipated German invasion included May 1941 instructions for ethnic cleansing to its planned militia units; the instructions specified that "Russians, Poles, Jews" were hostile to the Ukrainian nation and were to be "destroyed in battle".Template:Sfn Flyers distributed by OUN in the first days of the German invasion instructed the population: "Don't throw away your weapons yet. Take them up. Destroy the enemy. ... Moscow, the Hungarians, the Jews—these are your enemies. Destroy them."Template:Sfn
Lviv was occupied by the Wehrmacht in the early hours of 30 June 1941; German forces consisted of the 1st Mountain Division and the Abwehr-subordinated Nachtigall Battalion staffed by ethnic Ukrainians. That day, Jews were press-ganged by the Germans to remove bodies of NKVD's victims from the prisons and to perform other tasks, such as clearing bomb damage and cleaning buildings. Some Jews were abused by the Germans and even murdered, according to survivors. During the afternoon of the same day, the German military reported that the Lviv population was taking out its anger about the prison murders "on the Jews ... who had always collaborated with the Bolsheviks".Template:Sfn During the morning of 30 June, an ad hoc Ukrainian People's Militia was being formed in the city.Template:Sfn It included OUN activists who had moved in from Krakow with the Germans, OUN members who lived in Lviv, and former Soviet policemen—who had either decided to switch sides or who were OUN members that had infiltrated the Soviet police. The OUN encouraged violence against Jews, which began in the afternoon of 30 June, with active participation from the Ukrainian militia who could be identified by armbands in national colours: yellow and blue. Former Soviet policemen wore their blue Soviet uniforms, but with a Ukrainian trident instead of a red star on their hats.Template:Sfn
During the evening of 30 June, Ukrainian nationalists proclaimed an independent Ukrainian state. Signed by Stetsko, the proclamation ("Act of restoration of the Ukrainian state") declared OUN's affinity and future collaboration with Nazi Germany which, according to OUN, was "helping the Ukrainian people liberate themselves from Muscovite occupation".Template:Sfn At the same time, the news was spreading around the city about the discovery of thousands of corpses in three city prisons in the aftermath of the NKVD massacres.Template:Sfn
A full-blown pogrom began on the next day, 1 July. Jews were taken from their apartments, made to clean streets on their hands and knees, or perform rituals that identified them with Communism. Gentile residents assembled in the streets to watch.Template:Sfn Jewish women were singled out for humiliation: they were stripped naked, beaten, and abused. On one such occasion, a German military propaganda company filmed the scene. Rapes were also reported.Template:Sfn Jews continued to be brought to the three prisons, first to exhume the bodies and then to be killed.Template:Sfn At least two members of the OUN-B, Ivan Kovalyshyn and Mykhaylo Pecharsʹkyy, have been identified by the historian John Paul Himka from photographs of the pogrom.Template:Sfn
Although Jews were not considered by the OUN to be their primary enemies (this role was reserved for Poles and Russians), they likely targeted Lviv Jews in an attempt to curry favour with the Germans, in the hopes of being allowed to establish a puppet Ukrainian state. The antisemitism of OUN's leaders, especially Stetsko's, was also a contributory factor.Template:Sfn
Einsatzgruppen killings
Sub-units of Einsatzgruppe C arrived on 2 July, at which point violence escalated further. More Jews were brought to the prisons where they were shot and buried in freshly dug pits.Template:Sfn It was also at this point that the Ukrainian militia was subordinated to the SS.Template:Sfn In addition to participation in the pogrom, Einsatzgruppe C conducted a series of mass-murder operations which continued for the next few days. Unlike the "prison actions", these shootings were marked by the absence of crowd participation. With assistance from Ukrainian militia, Jews were herded into a stadium, from where they were taken on trucks to the shooting site.Template:Sfn
The Ukrainian militia received assistance from the organisational structures of OUN, unorganized ethnic nationalists, as well as from ordinary crowds and underage youth.Template:Sfn German military personnel were frequently on the scene as both onlookers and perpetrators, apparently approving of the anti-Jewish violence and humiliation. During the afternoon of 2 July, the Germans stopped the rioting, confirming that the situation was ultimately under their control from the beginning.Template:Sfn
