Lviv pogroms

The Lviv pogroms was a of Jews living in and near the city of Lviv in the Nazi-occupied Ukraine) that took place in July 1941 during World War II.

During the interbellum, Lviv had the third-largest Jewish population in Poland, which swelled further to over 200,000 Jews as refugees fled from the Nazi's.

Immediately after the Germans entered the city, "Einsatzgruppen" aided by civilian collaborators organized a pogrom.

The Lviv ghetto was established after the pogroms, holding some 120,000 Jews, most of whom were deported to the Belzec extermination camp or killed locally during the following two years. Following the pogroms, "Einsatzgruppen" killings, harsh conditions in the ghetto, and deportation to the Nazi concentration camps, including the Janowska labor camp located on the outskirts of the city, resulted in the almost complete annihilation of the Jewish population. When the Soviet forces reached Lviv in 1944 driving out the Nazi occupation, only 200–300 Jews remained.

Controversy on facts

Holocaust scholars attribute the killing to Ukrainians under the direction of the Ukrainian nationalists.] [Shmuel Spector. [http://books.google.com/books?id=USW9-xQ85FwC&pg=PA46&dq=lvov+jews+massacre+1941+ukrainian&sig=ACfU3U1GffWD6HqGzT1DCy-Omb_1hRSnvA The Holocaust of Ukrainian Jews.] In: Zvi Y. Gitelman. "Bitter Legacy: Confronting the Holocaust in the USSR." Indiana University Press, 1997.] [Abraham J. Edelheit, Hershel Edelheit. [http://books.google.com/books?id=ilnACY97x4kC&pg=PA209&dq=lvov+jews+1941+oun+pogrom&lr=&ei=GPyJSJPjNoSgiwH1yMHnAQ&sig=ACfU3U3bjQHvqJJ7GvwdYfdUaZmsiZIo8Q#PPA209,M1 History of the Holocaust: A Handbook and Dictionary.] Westview Press, 1994.] [Martin Dean. [http://books.google.com/books?id=RuT0f9nmQdgC&pg=PA177&dq=lvov+jews+1941+pogrom+dean&lr=&ei=qP2JSPKgBJ7SigH79tHnAQ&sig=ACfU3U0i-vehEDs5aThwHUuaxI8HCdIqWw "Collaboration in the Holocaust: Crimes of the Local Police in Belorussia and Ukraine, 1941–44."] Macmillan, 1999.] However the killers' actual political orientation and relation to the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists is still subject to debate.Fact|date=July 2008

During the four-week pogrom from the end of June to early July 1941, nearly 4,000 Jews were murdered. On July 25, 1941, a second pogrom, called "Petliura Days" after Symon Petliuracite web | author = | year = | url = http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?ModuleId=10005171 | title = Lvov | 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 Lvov | format = | work = Chronology of the Holocaust | publisher = Yad Vashem | accessdate = | accessyear = 2006] , was organized; nearly 2,000 more Jews were killed in Lviv, mostly shot in groups by civilian collaborators after being marched to the Jewish cemetery or to Lunecki prison.

Russian sources are quite specific with regard to the pogroms. The Russian historian Sergei Chuyev wrote: "That on June 30 in Lviv the German administration started mass repressions. The commander of the "Einzatzgruppen C" Dr. Rasch had incriminated the death of those incarcerated in the Lviv jails to the "Jews from the NKVD" which became the spark for the terror against the Jews and Poles of Lviv. In the bloody murder of the Jews the Einsatzgruppen under the command of brigadeerfuhrer SS Karl Eberhard Schenhardt took prominence. The sections of this group under the command of H. Kruger and W. Kutshman on July 4 murdered 23 Polish professors and their families. On July 11 two more were killed, and later the former prime-minister of Poland, professor Bartel. In the Autumn of 1941 a ghetto was formed in Lviv" [* RUSSIAN:Chuyev, Sergei Ukrainskyj Legion - Moskva, 2006 p. 180.]

The initial number of 4,000 deaths was originally the number ascribed to the Ukrainian and Polish political prisoners who were killed in their cells by the Soviets during the Soviets' withdrawal. It seems to have wandered over to the Lviv pogrom.

An international commission was set up at The Hague in the Netherlands in 1958 to carry out independent investigations. The members were four former anti-Hitler activists: Norwegian lawyer Hans Cappelen, former Danish foreign minister and president of the Danish parliament Ole Bjørn Kraft, Dutch socialist Karel van Staal, Belgian law professor Flor Peeters, and Swiss jurist and member of parliament Kurt Scoch. Following its interrogation of a number of Ukrainian witnesses between November 1959 and March 1960, the commission concluded as follows:

After four months of inquiries and the evaluation of 232 statements by witnesses from all circles involved, it can be established that the accusations against the Battalion Nachtigall and against the then Lieutenant and currently Federal Minister Oberländer have no foundation in fact. [ [http://www.alfreddezayas.com/Chapbooks/Lembergmassacre.shtml LembergNKWEmassacres ] ]

A valuable source of a detailed study of archival documents of this period is de Zayas' book "The Wehrmacht War Crimes Bureau, 1939-1945" [Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2000 edition. See [http://www.alfreddezayas.com/Chapbooks/Lembergmassacre.shtml The Lviv Massacre] .] Sections regarding the investigation of the Lviv attrocities are available online [http://www.alfreddezayas.com/Chapbooks/Lembergmassacre.shtml|here] .

One should keep in mind that in Autumn 1959 the Soviet press mounted a major disinformation campaign against the then minister in the West German Adenauer cabinet, Theodor Oberländer, who in 1941 had been commander of the Nachtigall Battalion made up of a couple hundred Ukrainian volunteers. The Soviets accused him and the Ukrainian battalion of participating in the SS murders in Lviv. On 1959 September 5 the "Radianska Ukraina" newspaper wrote:

Eighteen years ago the fascists committed a horrendous crime in Lviv in the night of 29 - 30 June 1941. The Hitlerites arrested on the basis of prepared lists hundreds of Communists, Communist youth, and non-party members and murdered them in brutal fashion in the courtyard of the Samarstinov Prison.

These accusations were picked up by the Western press and eventually led to Oberländer's resignation. The investigation by the district attorney's office in Bonn, however, completely cleared him. [ [http://www.alfreddezayas.com/Chapbooks/Lembergmassacre.shtml The Lviv Massacre] ] Notwithstanding, the accusations against Oberländer and the Nachtigall Battalion have kept resurfacing in Western outlets.

References