Lwów Ghetto

The Lwów Ghetto (also called the Lemberg Ghetto, Lviv Ghetto, and Lvov Ghetto), was in the city of Lwów (now Lviv, the largest city in today's western Ukraine), was one of the larger Ghettos established for Jews by Nazi authorities. Once holding over 120,000 Jews, killings and deportations to death camps reduced the population to less than 200 by the end of the war.

WWII begins: Under Soviet control

On the eve of World War II, the city of Lviv (now in Ukraine) had the third largest Jewish population in Poland, numbering 110,000 in 1939 (42%). Jews were notably involved in the city's renowned textile industry and had established a thriving center of education and culture, with a wide range of religious and secular political activity including parties and youth movements of the orthodox and Hasidim, Zionists, the Labor Bund, and communists.

Three weeks after the outbreak of the war, the city, along with the rest of Eastern Galicia, was annexed by the Soviet Union according to the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact. Under the Soviets, Lviv's Jewish population swelled further to over 200,000 individuals, as it absorbed an influx of refugees fleeing eastward from Nazi-occupied Europe.

The German conquest and Nazi pogroms

As part of the Operation Barbarossa campaign against the USSR, the German army entered Lviv on June 30, 1941. The invading German troops included a Wehrmacht legion known as the Nachtigall battalion made up of Ukrainian volunteers in German uniforms.

Immediately after the Germans entered the city, Einsatzgruppen and civilian collaborators organized a massive pogrom in retaliation for the retreating NKVD's mass-murder of approximately 2000-4000 prisoners (including intellectuals and activists) at the three prisons (so called Bryhidky prison, Łąckiego street prison and Zamarstynowska street prison). Although Jews had also been among the victims of the NKVD, they were accused by some Ukrainians of having cooperated with the Soviets.

Some authors refer to the civilian rioters as "Ukrainian nationalists", although their actual political orientation and relation to the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists is still subject to considerable debate, as the Soviet historians who for a long time had the best and often exclusive access to records of the era were under tremendous pressure to portray nationalist groups negatively. During the four-week pogrom from the end of June to early July, 1941, nearly 4,000 Jews were murdered. On July 25, 1941.

See: Controversy regarding the Nachtigall Battalion

Petlura days

A second pogrom took place in July 1941 and was named the "Petlura Days" after the slain Ukrainian leader Symon Petluracite web | author = | year = | url = http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?ModuleId=10005171 | title = Lwów | format = | work = Holocaust Encyclopedia | publisher = United States Holocaust Memorial Museum | accessdate = | accessyear = 2006] cite web | author = | year = 2004 | url = http://www1.yadvashem.org/about_holocaust/chronology/1939-1941/1941/chronology_1941_18.html | title = July 25: Pogrom in Lwów | format = | work = Chronology of the Holocaust | publisher = Yad Vashem | accessdate = | accessyear = 2006] . This pogrom was organized by the Nazis as a prolog to the total annihilation of the Jewish population of Lviv. Some 2,000 Jews were killed, primarily shot by the German military aided by Polish, Ukrainian and Jewish policemen most of whom had volunteered for their positions, after being marched to the Jewish cemetery or to the prison at the Łąckiego street.

The Ghetto

On November 8, 1941, the Germans established the ghetto in Lviv, which they called Lemberg. All of the city's Jews were ordered to move there by December 15, 1941. German police also began a series of "selections" in an operation called "Action under the bridge" - 5,000 elderly and sick Jews were selected and shot. By December, between 110,000 and 120,000 Jews were living in the Lviv Ghetto.

The Lviv Ghetto was one of the first to have Jews transported to the death camps as part of Aktion Reinhard. Between March 16 and April 1, 1942, 15,000 Jews were taken to the Klepariv railway station and deported to the Belzec extermination camp. Following these initial deportations, and death by disease and random shootings, around 86,000 Jews officially remained in the ghetto, though there were many more not recorded. During this period, many Jews were also forced to work for the Wehrmacht and the ghetto's German administration, especially in the nearby Janowska labor camp. On June 24–25, 1942, 2,000 Jews were taken to the labor camp; only 120 were used for forced labor, and all of the others were shot.

Between August 10–31, 1942, the "Great Aktion" was carried out, where between 40,000 and 50,000 Jews were rounded up and deported to Belzec. Many who were not deported, including local orphans and hospital inpatients, were shot. On September 1, 1942, the Gestapo hanged the head of Lviv’s Judenrat and members of the ghetto's Jewish police force. Around 65,000 Jews remained while winter approached with no heating or sanitation, leading to an outbreak of typhus.

Between January 5–7, 1943, another 15,000-20,000 Jews, including the last members of the Judenrat, were shot outside of the town. Many buildings were burned in order to "flush out" Jews from their hiding places. Further killings of thousands occurred sporadically throughout 1943. By the time that the Soviet Red Army entered Lviv on July 26, 1944, only 200–300 Jews remained.

Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal was one of the best-known Jewish inhabitants of Lviv to survive the war, though he was transported to a concentration camp, rather than remaining in the ghetto.

References

* Aharon Weiss, Encyclopaedia of the Holocaust vol. 3, pp. 928-931. Map, photos
*Kahana, David. "Yoman getto Lvov," (The Lvov Ghetto Diary), Jerusalem, 1978 (in Hebrew), English translation, David Kahane, "Lvov Ghetto Diary," (U.Mass.Press 1990)

Further reading

* Marek Herman, "From the Alps to the Red Sea". Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad Publishers and Beit Lohamei Haghetaot, 1985. pp. 14-60

External links

* [http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?ModuleId=10005171 US Holocaust Museum] information on Lviv
* [http://www.jewishgen.org/databases/Poland/lvov.htm Database of names from the Lviv Ghetto]