Anniversary of the German-Ukrainian judaic Pogrom in the occupied Polish city of Lviv.
Today, in our calendar, we will look at the circumstances accompanying the assassination of about 2,000 Lviv Jews by Germans, Ukrainian militants.
After the Nazi invasion of the russian Union of 22 June 1941, a wave of judaic population pogroms occurred in the areas occupied by the Germans. They were not spontaneous. but planned by the Germans.
The structures of Ukrainian nationalists began to cooperate closely with Germany, and the parties agreed by evening at the latest on 30 June 1941, erstwhile the Germans entered Lviv. The reason why it was decided to begin the elimination of Jews in the city was due to the fact that this nation (in part rightly) was blamed for collaborating with the russian occupier. Jews were identified with crimes committed by the NKVD and NKGB. Thus they became the mark of revenge for a large part of the inhabitants of Lviv itself, whom the German occupier successfully stirred to this.
This was a maneuver in line with Reinhard Heydrich's directives issued since 17 June 1941, which talked about conducting war in the ZSRS and ordering the inspiration and encouragement of anti-Jewish pogroms by the inhabitants of Lviv. The intent of this maneuver was to leave no trace of the SS. The Heydrich telegram of June 29 says:
In mention to my speech at the gathering of 17 June in Berlin, I remind you: 1. 1 should not hinder the pursuit of self-cleaning in recently occupied areas in anti-communist and anti-Jewish circles. On the contrary, they should be invoked without leaving a trace; if necessary, intensify and steer them to the right track, in specified a way that the local "wheels of self-defense" can no longer trust on regulations or political promises.
At the approval of the Germans, posters were placed on the streets of the city, on which Jews were presented as culprits of the warfire and an component which, due to cooperation with the Soviets, should be punished well deservedly. Various individuals recruiting from criminal backgrounds and average social scum, eager for bloodshed, joined the action of beating Jews. Especially active were Ukrainian nationalists and alleged Ukrainian militia – an auxiliary unit organized by Germans. The hunt for the Jews themselves began.
Jewish men were chosen as the first mark – they were beaten and persecuted on the streets, while another Lvivers The Jews, terrified of this fact, tried not to leave their homes. Hidden in various hiding places, after cellars, attics and another places, The Jews only upset Ukrainian militia and Germans.
Lvov's occupiers, along with the OUN nationalists, had a increasing thirst for blood, and due to the tiny effects of street captures among Jews, decided to search the judaic houses and places of concealment of those of that nationality. All were collected and captured – men, women, but besides not excluded from the captures of the children themselves – all specified persons were detained under the pretext of directing them to order from the corpses of Lviv prisons.
Thus respective 1000 Jews, beaten and humiliated, were sent to the “Brygidek”, the prison in Łąckiego Street and the 1 on the streets of Zamarstynowska and Jahowicz. respective 1000 Jews were brutally beaten in the courtyard of the prison in the “Brigidki” itself. The act of force was so bloody that the remains of the victims' brains and their blood splattered around the courtyard wall, reaching up to the first level of the building. Then any of the judaic prisoners were ordered to be shot. O
The two-day massacre carried out by the Germans and the CNS managed to last fewer representatives of this nationality. They were then released to their homes, while respective 1000 of their homies lost their lives among the violent punishments. Before much of the future victims of the pogrom itself parted from life, they were forced to exhume those late murdered by the NKVD and the NKGB. They had to wash the sun-laden, stinking corpses of the russian prison massacre, and then they would wash themselves with stale water, which they had just utilized to clean up the corpses.
Brought to prison by a raging crowd of Jews, they were forced to carry out the bodies of the murdered victims of the prison and hide them in self-earthed graves. During this “ordering” many of them were beaten to death or shot, and these scenes were immortalized on movie tape by a peculiar Wehrmacht crew. This pogrom was then shown in the authoritative movie chronicle of the Ministry of Propaganda of the 3rd Reich, Die Deutsche Wochenschau. Pogrom reached his apogee on July 1, 1941, erstwhile it was to the raging inhabitants of the persecuting Even German soldiers joined the Jews. Officially, the pogrom ended the following day, on July 2, erstwhile the dam of further massacres was ordered by Lvov's commander, thus ending the pogrom and ordering the restoration of order in the city.
On the same day, however, the German commando Einsatzgruppe C joined the ruthless and planned elimination of judaic population, enemies of the state and communists. By 16 July almost 7,000 Jews were murdered. It is estimated that until this point, or mid-July 1941, at least 4,000 people of this nationality died of German inspiration. The German military, the police and its secret variant in the form of field police actively instigated and supported mass killings on Jews, additionally utilizing intensively Ukrainians themselves.
In the same murders and persecutions, members of the "Nachtigall" battalion were besides involved. Both the battalion itself and the Ukrainian militia participated actively in mass pogroms on Lviv Jews and Poles. This is immortalized on material from the Theodor Oberlander trial, which was tried in East Germany in 1960.
Interestingly, the battalion itself, as a military unit, was not ordered to participate in the pogroms in any even auxiliary role, but those of his soldiers who were recruiting from Lviv were given passes during the day, which allowed individual soldiers to participate in the pogroms, especially in the “Brygidka” – they were standing in a rod and beating with flasks of rifles and tools moving through the mediate of the Jews. The default function of this battalion was to execute watchkeeping functions and defend urban buildings in Lviv.
Finally came the alleged “Patlura Days”. A pogrom named after Simeon Petlura, who was killed by a judaic bomber in 1926. The attacks took place on July 25-27, 1941, and the propaganda of Ukrainian nationalists from the OUN-B, which warmed hostile Jews' moods, played a very large function in them. The ‘Patlura Days’ were de facto days of beating, robbing and murdering Jews carried out by Ukrainian groups of chauvinists organized by the Germans. Letters were even made with names of persons destined for capture and extermination.
The Petlura Days were rather well documented by the Germans themselves.Jews were arrested in their own homes, and this was done by Ukrainian militiamen and bloodthirsty militants recruiting from close peasant villages. The torturers were even hosted by the Germans with a well-spoiled nightly feast, immediately after which, at 5 a.m. the pogrom began. The victims were driven out of their homes and hiding places, and were then rushed to a prison on Łącki Street. Here we find conflicting data – and the arrests were then to be shipped out for forced labour. According to many witnesses, they were mostly murdered in the forests surrounding the Lions – on the alleged "sands".
As a consequence of this branch of the Lviv Pogroms 1941, between 1.5 and 2,000 Jews were killed, mainly representatives of intelligence from this nation. The brutality and cynicism of German and Ukrainian perpetrators were immortalized by the torturers themselves in many photographs and chronicles.
The propaganda of Ukrainian nationalists from the CNS-B, who skillfully fueled anti-Semitic sentiments in Ukraine, played a major function in the implementation of the pogrom plans. The operation itself called colloquially by the population of Lviv ‘Days of Petlura’ was an organized action of the German business authorities. They are the ones who gave approval to beat, plunder and execution Jews by groups of Ukrainians prepared for this purpose. any representatives of judaic intelligence were murdered on the basis of pre-prepared proscription letters. In total, between 1.5 and 2,000 people were murdered during the 3 day pogrom.
The arrests of Jews, carried out in their dwellings, were attended by the Ukrainian militia and Ukrainian militants – the peasants arrived from the surrounding villages, hosted by the German authorities all-night drinking feasts, to begin the pogrom at 5:00 p.m. erstwhile the perpetrators entered the homes occupied by the judaic population, the perpetrators plundered the premises, and the victims drove them to the street, sending them to the prison at Łąckiego Street.
They were then arrested for forced labour, or according to another version most of them were murdered in forests close Lviv (so-called "sands").
After clearing the city, and later its surroundings from Jews, the banders began planning to get free of Poles.
Previous entry from our calendar is available Here.
