''The Lemberg Mosaic'', subtitled the "Memoirs of Two who Survived the Destruction of Jewish Galicia", is a book on

The Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...

by Jakob Weiss. This work brings to light the relatively obscure history of the systematic and total destruction of Jewish

Lemberg Lviv ( uk, Львів) is the largest city in Western Ukraine, western Ukraine, and the List of cities in Ukraine, seventh-largest in Ukraine, with a population of . It serves as the administrative centre of Lviv Oblast and Lviv Raion, and is o ...

(Lwów, now

Lviv Lviv ( uk, Львів) is the largest city in western Ukraine, and the seventh-largest in Ukraine, with a population of . It serves as the administrative centre of Lviv Oblast and Lviv Raion, and is one of the main cultural centres of Ukraine ...

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

). It is presented in the format of a biography, detailing the struggle for survival of four families in the backdrop of two back-to-back invasions of the city and surrounding region by both the Soviets (1939) and the Germans (1941).

Overview

Before the Second World War Lviv was known as

Lwów Lviv ( uk, Львів) is the largest city in western Ukraine, and the seventh-largest in Ukraine, with a population of . It serves as the administrative centre of Lviv Oblast and Lviv Raion, and is one of the main cultural centres of Ukraine ...

. After the

Treaty of Versailles The Treaty of Versailles (french: Traité de Versailles; german: Versailler Vertrag, ) was the most important of the peace treaties of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June ...

and the rebirth of modern Poland (the

Second Polish Republic The Second Polish Republic, at the time officially known as the Republic of Poland, was a country in Central Europe, Central and Eastern Europe that existed between 1918 and 1939. The state was established on 6 November 1918, before the end of ...

), Lwów (formerly, Lemberg) became the third largest city in Poland with the third largest Jewish population (after

Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...

and Lódz). Some sources call the destruction of this once vibrant Jewish community the "Holocaust by Bullets," or the "

Shoah The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ar ...

of Jewish Galicia" or the "Ukrainian Holocaust." Recent forensic evidence as uncovered and analyzed by researchers like the French priest, Father Patrick Desbois, has corobborated the testimony of both survivors and eyewitnesses that well over one million and perhaps as many as 1.5 million Jews were brutally murdered in World War II during the Nazi invasion of the easternmost region of Poland, also known as Galicia, today's

West Ukraine Western Ukraine or West Ukraine ( uk, Західна Україна, Zakhidna Ukraina or , ) is the territory of Ukraine linked to the former Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia, which was part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Austrian ...

Afterword by Dr. Berthold Zarwyn

The book's Afterword was penned b
Dr. Berthold Zarwyn
himself a native of the city and survivor of the

Lemberg ghetto Lviv ( uk, Львів) is the largest city in western Ukraine, and the seventh-largest in Ukraine, with a population of . It serves as the administrative centre of Lviv Oblast and Lviv Raion, and is one of the main cultural centres of Ukraine ...

. In it, he details his own eyewitness account of what transpired during the Nazi invasion, including participation of the Ukrainian militia, the

Ukrainian Auxiliary Police The ''Ukrainische Hilfspolizei'' or the Ukrainian Auxiliary Police ( ua, Українська допоміжна поліція, Ukrains'ka dopomizhna politsiia) was the official title of the local police formation (a type of hilfspolizei) set up b ...

and the local populace in the atrocities - primarily targeting the Jews in the city and the surrounding region of eastern Galicia (

District of Galicia The District of Galicia (german: Distrikt Galizien, pl, Dystrykt Galicja, ua, Дистрикт Галичина) was a World War II administrative unit of the General Government created by Nazi Germany on 1 August 1941 after the start of O ...

). In his comments, a cross reference is made by Dr. Zarwyn to a specific Ukrainian auxiliary police officer, John Kalymon who was stripped of his United States citizenship for falsifying his role as a guard in the Lemberg Ghetto. Dr. Zarwyn has made a significant contribution to the continuing efforts to bring former Nazi collaborators to justice such as Kalymon who is currently the subject of a criminal prosecution by a Munich tribunal as

Operation Last Chance Operation Last Chance was launched July 2002 by the Simon Wiesenthal Center with its mission statement being to track down ex-Nazis still in hiding. Most of them were nearing the end of their lifetimes, hence the operation's name. Efraim Zuroff is ...

continues. The Munich prosecution of Kalymon is now before same court (led by the same prosecutor) that tried and convicted the infamous

John Demjanjuk John Demjanjuk (born Ivan Mykolaiovych Demjanjuk; uk, Іван Миколайович Дем'янюк; 3 April 1920 – 17 March 2012) was a Ukrainian-American who served as a Trawniki man and Nazi camp guard at Sobibor extermination camp, M ...

as an accessory to the murder of 27,900 Jews.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lemberg Mosaic, The The Holocaust in Ukraine The Holocaust in Poland History of Lviv Ukrainian collaborators with Nazi Germany Aftermath of the Holocaust History books about the Holocaust History books about Ukraine