Eastern Galicia Eastern Galicia (; ; ) is a geographical region in Western Ukraine (present day oblasts of Lviv Oblast, Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast, Ivano-Frankivsk and Ternopil Oblast, Ternopil), having also essential historic importance in Poland. Galicia ( ...

was the heartland of the medieval

Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia The Principality or, from 1253, Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia, also known as the Kingdom of Ruthenia, Kingdom of Rus', or Kingdom of Russia, also Halych–Volhynian Kingdom was a medieval state in Eastern Europe which existed from 1199 to 1349. I ...

, currently spread over the provinces of

Lviv Lviv ( or ; ; ; see #Names and symbols, below for other names) is the largest city in western Ukraine, as well as the List of cities in Ukraine, fifth-largest city in Ukraine, with a population of It serves as the administrative centre of ...

Ivano-Frankivsk Ivano-Frankivsk (, ), formerly Stanyslaviv, Stanislav and Stanisławów, is a city in western Ukraine. It serves as the administrative centre of Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast as well as Ivano-Frankivsk Raion within the oblast. Ivano-Frankivsk also host ...

, and

Ternopil Ternopil, known until 1944 mostly as Tarnopol, is a city in western Ukraine, located on the banks of the Seret River. Ternopil is one of the major cities of Western Ukraine and the historical regions of Galicia and Podolia. The populatio ...

in modern

western Ukraine Western Ukraine or West Ukraine (, ) refers to the western territories of Ukraine. There is no universally accepted definition of the territory's boundaries, but the contemporary Ukrainian administrative regions ( oblasts) of Chernivtsi, I ...

. Along with

Poles Pole or poles may refer to: People *Poles (people), another term for Polish people, from the country of Poland * Pole (surname), including a list of people with the name * Pole (musician) (Stefan Betke, born 1967), German electronic music artist ...

and

Ukrainians Ukrainians (, ) are an East Slavs, East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine. Their native tongue is Ukrainian language, Ukrainian, and the majority adhere to Eastern Orthodox Church, Eastern Orthodoxy, forming the List of contemporary eth ...

Jews Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

were one of the three largest ethnic groups in Eastern Galicia with almost 900,000 people by 1910. From the late 18th century until the early 20th century, eastern Galicia had the largest concentration of Jews of any region in Europe.

Under Austria (later Austria-Hungary) during 1795–1918

In 1795, Poland was divided between Russia, Prussia and Austria. Eastern Galicia became a part of Austria. Relations between Jews and Ukrainians were much more peaceful on the Austrian side of the post-1795 border than they were in the territories east of the

Zbruch river The Zbruch (; ) is a river in Western Ukraine, a left tributary of the Dniester.Збруч

multiple pogroms that occurred in Russian-ruled Ukraine did not spread across the border into Galicia. Whatever anti-Jewish political agitation existed in Galicia was limited to Polish political parties operating in areas where not many Ukrainians lived.Frank Golczewski. (2008) Sheds of Grey: Reflection on Jewish-Ukrainian and German-Ukrainian relations in Galicia. In Ray Brandon,

Wendy Lower Wendy Lower (born 1965) is an American historian and a widely published author on the Holocaust and World War II. Since 2012, she holds the John K. Roth Chair at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, California, and in 2014 was named the dire ...

(Eds.). ''The Shoah in Ukraine: history, testimony, memorialization''. Indiana University Press: pp. 117–129 The national agitation that emerged among the Ukrainian community in the second half of the 19th century was anti-Polish and anti-Jewish in nature. Such was the nature of the newspaper , founded in 1879, that in its very first issue it declared that Ukrainians in Galicia have "two terrible enemies: one of them is the clever Jew, who sucks our blood and gnaws our flesh; the other is the haughty Pole, who is after both our body and soul." In 1881, Batkivshchyna praised the anti-Jewish pogroms happening in Russian Ukraine as being directed against exploitation and truly Cossack in spirit, but advised against organizing them in Galicia, since in the end only Jews gain from them. Jews in Eastern Galicia were more likely to cooperate with Poles than Ukrainians, due to the superior political role of Poles, fear of pogroms by the mainly Ukrainian peasantry, and historically good relations between the Polish landed gentry and the Jewish community. Assimilation into Polish culture was also much higher than into Ukrainian culture, especially in 1880s. In the Austrian census of 1900, in which

Yiddish Yiddish, historically Judeo-German, is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated in 9th-century Central Europe, and provided the nascent Ashkenazi community with a vernacular based on High German fused with ...

could not be given, 77% of Jews gave Polish as their language of intercourse, 17% gave German, and only 5% gave Ukrainian. Thus, while in the first election of 1873, Jewish assimilationists and Conservatives with pro-German views formed a joint bloc with Ukrainians, in the elections of 1879 and 1885 Jews formed an alliance with Poles. Jewish candidates ran on Polish lists and entered the in parliament. In the 1907 elections, Jews, specifically

Zionists Zionism is an ethnocultural nationalist movement that emerged in Europe in the late 19th century that aimed to establish and maintain a national home for the Jewish people, pursued through the colonization of Palestine, a region roughly cor ...

, after indroduction of the

universal manhood suffrage Universal manhood suffrage is a form of voting rights in which all adult male citizens within a political system are allowed to vote, regardless of income, property, religion, race, or any other qualification. It is sometimes summarized by the s ...

, allied themselves again with the Ukrainians. As a result, the Ukrainian national movement in Galicia opposed the Jews as allies of the Polish nobility. Another pattern of conflicts was the economic competition. During the mid to late nineteenth century, Ukrainian community organizations created

cooperative A cooperative (also known as co-operative, coöperative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomy, autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned a ...

s and

credit unions A credit union is a member-owned nonprofit cooperative financial institution. They may offer financial services equivalent to those of commercial banks, such as share accounts (savings accounts), share draft accounts ( cheque accounts), credit ...

in which Ukrainians (mostly peasants) pooled their resources to buy and sell products collectively, without middlemen, and to obtain loans at low interest. Because the professions of

moneylending In finance, a loan is the tender of money by one party to another with an agreement to pay it back. The recipient, or borrower, incurs a debt and is usually required to pay interest for the use of the money. The document evidencing the debt ( ...

and shopkeeping had traditionally been Jewish vocations in Galicia, the cooperative movement – whose focus was on keeping Ukrainian capital within the Ukrainian community – also created considerable financial hardship for the local Jewish community, by eliminating many Jewish jobs. The financial hardship caused antagonism between the two communities and was a cause for Jewish emigration from Galicia. To an extent, increasing Ukrainian nationalism also contributed to greater self-awareness among the Jews of Galicia and served as an example for Jews adopting a nationalist or Zionist self-identification.

During the struggle for independence

Following the collapse of

Austria-Hungary Austria-Hungary, also referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Dual Monarchy or the Habsburg Monarchy, was a multi-national constitutional monarchy in Central Europe#Before World War I, Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. A military ...

in November 1918, eastern Galicia came under the control of the

West Ukrainian People's Republic The West Ukrainian People's Republic (; West Ukrainian People's Republic#Name, see other names) was a short-lived state that controlled most of Eastern Galicia from November 1918 to July 1919. It included major cities of Lviv, Ternopil, Kolom ...

, which controlled much of eastern Galicia for approximately nine months before losing its war against Poland. Although relations between Poles and the

were antagonistic, those between the Republic and its Jewish citizens was generally neutral or positive. Deep-seated rivalries existed between the Jewish and Polish communities, and antisemitism, particularly supported by the Polish National-Democratic Party, became a feature of Polish national ideology. A wave of

pogrom A pogrom is a violent riot incited with the aim of Massacre, massacring or expelling an ethnic or religious group, particularly Jews. The term entered the English language from Russian to describe late 19th- and early 20th-century Anti-Jewis ...

s swept parts of Poland in the fall of 1918, and many Jews came to associate the beginning of the armed Polish fight for independence with pogroms. As a result, many Jews came to consider Polish independence as the least desirable option following the first world war. In contrast to the antagonistic position by Polish authorities towards Jews, the West Ukrainian government actively supported Jewish cultural and political autonomy as a way of promoting its own legitimacy. The West Ukrainian government guaranteed Jewish cultural and national autonomy, provided Jewish communities with self-governing status, and promoted the formation of Jewish national councils which, with the approval of the Western Ukrainian government, in December 1918 established the Central Jewish National Council which represented Jewish interests in relation to the Ukrainian government and to the Western allies. The Council of Ministers of the West Ukrainian People's Republic bought

Yiddish-language Yiddish, historically Judeo-German, is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated in 9th-century Central Europe, and provided the nascent Ashkenazi community with a vernacular based on High German fused with ...

textbooks and visual aids for Jewish schools and provided assistance to Jewish victims of the Polish pogrom in Lviv. Ukrainian press maintained a friendly attitude towards the West Ukrainian republic's Jewish citizens, and Hebrew and Yiddish schools, cultural institutions and publishers were allowed to function without interference. Approximately one-third of the seats in the national parliament, an amount roughly equal to the share of the population, were reserved for the national minorities (Poles, Jews, Slovaks and others). The Poles boycotted the elections, while the Jews, despite declaring their neutrality in the Polish–Ukrainian conflict, participated and were represented by approximately 10 percent of the delegates. Localized anti-Jewish assaults and robberies by Ukrainian peasants and soldiers, while far fewer in number and less brutal than similar actions by Poles, occurred between January and April 1919. The government publicly condemned such actions, intervened in defence of the Jewish community, and imprisoned and even executed perpetrators of such crimes. The government also respected Jewish declared neutrality during the Polish–Ukrainian conflict. By the orders of

Yevhen Petrushevych Yevhen Omelianovych Petrushevych (; 3 June 1863 – 29 August 1940) was a Ukrainians, Ukrainian lawyer, politician, and President (government title), president of the West Ukrainian People's Republic formed after the collapse of the Austro-Hung ...

, it was forbidden to mobilize Jews against their will or to otherwise force them to contribute to the West Ukrainian military effort. In an effort to aid Western Ukraine's economy, the Western Ukrainian government granted concessions to Jewish merchants. The West Ukrainian government's friendly attitudes towards Jews were reciprocated by many members of the Jewish community. Although Jewish political organizations officially declared their neutrality in the Polish-Ukrainian struggle, many individual Jews offered their support or sympathized with the West Ukrainian government in its conflict with Poland. Jewish officers of the defunct

Austro-Hungarian Army The Austro-Hungarian Army, also known as the Imperial and Royal Army,; was the principal ground force of Austria-Hungary from 1867 to 1918. It consisted of three organisations: the Common Army (, recruited from all parts of Austria-Hungary), ...

joined the West Ukrainian military, and Jewish judges, lawyers, doctors and railroad employees joined the West Ukrainian civil service. From November 1918, ethnic Poles in the civil service who refused to pledge loyalty to the West Ukrainian government either quit en masse or were fired; these positions were filled by large numbers of Jews, who were willing to support the Ukrainian state. Jews served as judges and legal consultants in the courts in

, Stanislaviv, and

Kolomyia Kolomyia (, ), formerly known as Kolomea, is a city located on the Prut, Prut River in Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast in the west of Ukraine. It serves as the administrative centre of Kolomyia Raion, hosting the administration of Kolomyia urban hromada ...

.Alexander Victor Prusin. (2005). ''Nationalizing a Borderland: War, ethnicity, and anti-Jewish violence in Eastern Galicia, 1914–1920.'' Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, pp. 97–101. Jews were also able to create their own police units, and in some locations the Ukrainian government gave local Jewish militias responsibility for the maintenance of security and order. In the regions of

Sambir Sambir (, ; ; ) is a city in Sambir Raion, Lviv Oblast, Ukraine. It serves as the Capital city, administrative center of Sambir Raion (Raion, district) and is located close to the border with Poland. Sambir hosts the administration of Sambir urba ...

and

Radekhiv Radekhiv (, ; , ) is a city in Sheptytskyi Raion, Lviv Oblast (region) of Ukraine. It hosts the administration of Radekhiv urban hromada, one of the hromadas of Ukraine. Population: Ed Stelmach, the premier of the Canadian province of Alberta ...

, approximately a third of the police force were Jews. Jews fielded their own battalion in the army of the West Ukrainian People's Republic. and Jewish youths worked as scouts for the West Ukrainian military. In general, Jews made up the largest group of non-ethnic Ukrainians who participated in all branches of the West Ukrainian government. The liberal attitudes towards Jews by the West Ukrainian government could be attributed to the cultural influence of Austria-Hungary, whose tradition of inter-ethnic tolerance and cooperation affected the West Ukrainian intelligentsia and military officers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Between the First and Second World Wars

After Polish victory over the West Ukrainian People's Republic in the

Polish–Ukrainian War The Polish–Ukrainian War, from November 1918 to July 1919, was a conflict between the Second Polish Republic and Ukrainian forces (both the West Ukrainian People's Republic and the Ukrainian People's Republic). The conflict had its roots in ...

, Galicia's Jews and Ukrainians found themselves living within the Polish state – and were that state's largest ethnic minority groups. During this time relations between the two communities were initially positive – reflecting decades of previous cooperation – but subsequently deteriorated. In the early 1920s Ukrainians and Jews, at the initiative of Jewish leader

Yitzhak Gruenbaum Yitzhak Gruenbaum (, Hebrew language, Hebrew and Yiddish: ; 1879–1970) was a Polish and later Israeli politician. He was a leader of the Bloc of National Minorities and one of the top Zionist leaders in Second Polish Republic, interwar Poland. ...

, formed a unified

Bloc of National Minorities Bloc may refer to: Government and politics * Political bloc, a coalition of political parties * Trade bloc, a type of intergovernmental agreement * Voting bloc, a group of voters voting together * Black bloc, a tactic used by protesters who wear ...

which sought to defend both groups' interests in the Polish government.Emanuel Melzer. (1997). No way out: the politics of Polish Jewry, 1935–1939 ine loco Hebrew Union College Press, pp. 113–130. Yitzhak Gruenbaum 1948

Relations between Ukrainians and Jews soured somewhat when, in 1925, Jewish political leaders signed a separate agreement with Poland in order to guarantee certain rights for their community. Ukrainian leaders accused Jews of preferring to reach an agreement with the Polish government instead of maintaining solidarity with the Ukrainians.Howard Aster, Peter J. Potichnyj. (1990). ''Ukrainian-Jewish relations in historical perspective.'' Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Alberta, pp. 410–411. The assassination in 1926 of Symon Petliura,

Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...

's exiled president, by Sholom Schwartzbard – a Jewish relative of victims of pogroms in

central Ukraine Central Ukraine (, ) consists of historical regions of left-bank Ukraine and right-bank Ukraine that reference to the Dnieper River. It is situated away from the Black Sea Littoral North and a midstream of the Dnieper River and its basin. The ...

– served to significantly furthermore undermine Ukrainian Galician attitudes towards Jews. Although Petliura was unpopular in Galicia due to his agreement to cede Galicia to Poland in exchange for Polish assistance in the war against the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

, his assassination and the subsequent acquittal of Schwartzbard sparked outrage within the Galician Ukrainian community. It was widely assumed that Schwartzbard was a communist agent, and his assassination of Petliura promoted the stereotype of Jewish cooperation with

Bolshevism Bolshevism (derived from Bolshevik) is a revolutionary socialist current of Soviet Leninist and later Marxist–Leninist political thought and political regime associated with the formation of a rigidly centralized, cohesive and disciplined p ...

. The assassin's acquittal by a French court and defence by a French lawyer – and his support from the Jewish community around the world – suggested to many Ukrainian Galicians that the Western democracies, Jews, and Communists were all opposed to the idea of an independent Ukraine – an idea that contributed to Galicians' orientation towards Germany in the interwar period. In 1930, the coalition between the Jewish and Ukrainian parties collapsed due to the Ukrainian parties no longer wanting to run under its name. When in 1935 the largest Ukrainian political party, the

Ukrainian National Democratic Alliance The Ukrainian National Democratic Alliance (UNDO) (, ) was the largest Ukrainian political party in the Second Polish Republic, active in Western Ukraine. It dominated the mainstream political life of the Ukrainian minority in Poland, In spite of the worsening attitudes towards Jews within the Ukrainian community, political cooperation between Jews and Ukrainians did continue throughout the 1930s. When the Polish government attempted to limit the kosher slaughter of meat, Ukrainian political parties voted alongside their Jewish colleagues against this ban out of a feeling that limiting Jewish practices would set a precedent for limitations of their own traditions by the Polish state. This act of solidarity with the Jews was then condemned in the Polish press. When Jews were attacked by Poles in Brześć in 1937, an article in the Ukrainian press condemning this pogrom was titled "After the Jews Will Come Our Turn." In the face of increasing anti-Ukrainian actions by the Polish state, Ukrainian leaders began to once again call for cooperation between Jews and Ukrainians, while at the same time condemning supposed Jewish support for Communism. In spite of their criticism towards Jews, Ukrainian political leaders consistently rejected Polish offers of mutual cooperation against the Jews. While the mainstream Ukrainian political parties cooperated with the Jews, and the leaders of the largest Ukrainian political parties refused to explicitly encourage antisemitic acts, the underground radical rightist

Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists The Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN; ) was a Ukrainian nationalist organization established on February 2, 1929 in Vienna, uniting the Ukrainian Military Organization with smaller, mainly youth, radical nationalist right-wing groups. ...

(OUN) – operating illegally in Galicia – developed close ties with the Nazi regime in Germany. Founded in 1929, the OUN was originally a fringe movement within eastern Galicia, although its popularity grew throughout the 1930s in response to Polish persecution against the Ukrainian community, often provoked by the OUN's terrorism. Initially supportive of Jews,In an article published in 1930, OUN's chief ideologist Mykola Stsyborsky denounced the anti-Jewish pogroms of 1918, stating that most of its victims were innocent rather than Bolsheviks, wrote that Jewish rights should be respected and that the OUN ought to convince Jews that their organization was no threat to them, further stating that Ukrainians ought to maintain close contacts with Jews nationally and internationally. In: Myroslav Shkandrij. (2009). 'Jews in Ukrainian Literature: Representation and Identity.' New Haven: Yale University Press, pp. 152–153 the OUN later spread propaganda against Jews and organized attacks against them, such as during village riots in the Sokal area in 1933.

During the Soviet Annexation of Western Ukraine (1939–41)

In September 1939, Poland was invaded and divided between

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...

and the

(USSR), with most of Eastern Galicia falling under Soviet rule. Although the Soviets initially sought to win over the local Ukrainian population, their policies grew increasingly repressive. Ukrainian organizations not controlled by the Soviets were limited or abolished. Hundreds of credit unions and cooperatives that had served the Ukrainian people between the wars were shut down, and Ukrainian libraries, reading rooms, and newspapers were similarly closed. Mass arrests led to the deportation of up to 500,000 Ukrainians from regions annexed by the USSR between 1939 and the German invasion.Paul Robert Magocsi. (1996). ''A History of Ukraine''. Toronto: University of Toronto Press During Soviet rule, eastern Galicia experienced a large influx of Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi terror on the other side of the new German-Soviet border; hundreds of thousands of Jews arrived in the territories newly annexed by the USSR. The civilian administration in those regions annexed from Poland was drawn mostly from the occupation force of eastern Ukrainians and Russians; only 20% of government employees were from the local population. It was falsely assumed by many Ukrainians that a disproportionate number of people working for the Soviet administration which was repressing western Ukrainians came from within the Galician Jewish community. The reason for this belief was that most of the previous Polish administrators were deported, and the local Ukrainian intelligentsia who could have taken their place were generally deemed to be too nationalistic for such work by the Soviets. In reality, although Ukrainians and Jews replaced the Polish administrators, most positions were staffed by ethnic Ukrainians from the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, in the eyes of many Ukrainians, the Jews came to be associated with Soviet rule, which contributed to rising anti-Jewish sentiments.Ukrainian Collaboration in the Extermination of the Jews during the Second World War: Sorting Out the Long-Term and Conjunctural Factors
by John-Paul Himka, University of Alberta. Taken from ''The Fate of the European Jews, 1939–1945: Continuity or Contingency'', ed. Jonathan Frankel (New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), Studies in Contemporary Jewry 13 (1997): 170–189. In addition, Jews were often blamed by Ukrainians for allegedly denouncing Ukrainians to the Soviet authorities, resulting in the Ukrainians' arrest and deportation. This idea also served to markedly increase antisemitic feelings among Ukrainians.

Orest Subtelny Orest Subtelny (, 17 May 1941 – 24 July 2016) was a Ukrainian-Canadian historian. Born in Kraków, Poland, he received his doctorate from Harvard University in 1973. From 1982 to 2015, he was a Professor in the Departments of History and Polit ...

. (1988). ''Ukraine: A History''. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, pp. 455–457. The rising tide in Galicia of anti-Jewish sentiment among Ukrainians during Soviet rule was accompanied by the complete removal from Ukrainian society of moderate or liberal forces within that society when the Soviet authorities abolished all local Ukrainian political parties and arrested and deported most of the moderate politicians it could find – such as Dr. Dmytro Levitsky, the head of the moderate, left-leaning

. Ultimately 20,000 to 30,000 Ukrainian activists would flee Galicia to German-occupied territory. The elimination by the Soviets of the individuals, organizations, and parties that represented moderate or liberal political tendencies within Ukrainian society left the extremist, violent, and increasingly antisemitic

– which operated in the underground – as the only political party with a significant organizational presence left among western Ukrainians.

Under German rule (1941–1944)

During the Conquest

When the Germans conquered eastern Galicia in 1941, they exploited Ukrainians' perceptions of the links between Jews and Communism and encouraged brutal acts of revenge against the Jewish community by Ukrainians. The Germans flooded Ukraine with anti-Jewish propaganda and anti-Semitic posters.Philip Friedman (1980). Ukrainian-Jewish Relations During the Occupation. in ''Roads to Extinction: Essays on the Holocaust.'' Philip Friedman (ed.) New York: Conference on Jewish Social Studies, pp. 176–205 Immediately before withdrawing from western Ukraine, Soviet security forces massacred over 4,000 prisoners in Lviv and around 10,000 throughout western Ukraine in other prisons. Despite the deportations, Barbarossa surprised the NKVD, whose jails and prisons in the annexed territories were crowded with political prisoners. Rather than releasing their prisoners as they hurriedly retreated during the first week of the war, the Soviet secret police killed them. NKVD prisoner executions in the first week after Barbarossa totaled some ten thousand in western Ukraine and more than nine thousand in

Vinnytsia Vinnytsia ( ; , ) is a city in west-central Ukraine, located on the banks of the Southern Bug. It serves as the administrative centre, administrative center of Vinnytsia Oblast. It is the largest city in the historic region of Podillia. It also s ...

, eastward toward

Kyiv Kyiv, also Kiev, is the capital and most populous List of cities in Ukraine, city of Ukraine. Located in the north-central part of the country, it straddles both sides of the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2022, its population was 2, ...

. Comparable numbers of prisoners were executed in eastern Poland, Byelorussia,

Lithuania Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, P ...

Latvia Latvia, officially the Republic of Latvia, is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is one of the three Baltic states, along with Estonia to the north and Lithuania to the south. It borders Russia to the east and Belarus to t ...

, and

Estonia Estonia, officially the Republic of Estonia, is a country in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, and to the east by Ru ...

. The Soviet areas had already sustained losses numbering in the hundreds of thousands from the Stalinist purges of 1937–38. “It was not only the numbers of the executed,” historian Yuri Boshyk writes of the evacuation murders, “but also the manner in which they died that shocked the populace. When the families of the arrested rushed to the prisons after the Soviet evacuation, they were aghast to find bodies so badly mutilated that many could not be identified. It was evident that many of the prisoners had also been tortured before death; others were killed en masse.” Although Jews had also been among the victims of the Soviet massacres, they were accused as a group by some Ukrainians of having cooperated with the Soviets. Before the massacre, the Germans and the Ukrainians spread rumors implicating the Jews in killing Ukrainian political prisoners. Crowds of Ukrainians – sometimes relatives of those murdered – assaulted, tortured, raped and murdered Jewish civilians as German soldiers took pictures. The Ukrainian People's Militia (which soon became the

Ukrainian Auxiliary Police The Ukrainian Auxiliary Police (; ) was the official title of the local police formation (a type of hilfspolizei) set up by Nazi Germany during World War II in Eastern Galicia and '' Reichskommissariat Ukraine'', shortly after the German occupati ...

) hastily created by the

after the occupation of Lviv participated in this pogrom. During the four-week pogrom from the end of June to early July 1941, it is estimated that nearly 6,000 Jews were murdered. Similar actions throughout eastern Galicia would claim tens of thousands more Jewish lives.

Under German administration

Due to Nazi antisemitic policies, Ukrainians willing to work in the civil service or state administration often chose to adopt antisemitism in order to become favored by the German overlords. Thus, many Ukrainians who before the war had not shown antisemitism or who had even been friendly towards Jews adopted a sort of "circumstantial antisemitism" in order to help their careers and acquire wealth or power in the new administration. Ukrainian police, who organized the "Petliura Days" pogrom in Lviv in 1941 which claimed between 2,000 and 5,000

Richard Breitman Richard David Breitman (born 1947) is an American historian best known for his study of The Holocaust. Richard Breitman is an American historian who has written extensively on modern German history, the Holocaust, American immigration and refug ...

. ''Himmler and the 'Terrible Secret' among the Executioners.'' Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 26, No. 3/4, The Impact of Western Nationalisms: Essays Dedicated to Walter Z. Laqueur on the Occasion of His 70th Birthday (Sep. 1991), pp. 431–451 lives, were particularly prone to anti-Jewish activities but were not alone in doing so. For example, in

Zbarazh Zbarazh (, ; ; ) is a small city in Ternopil Raion, Ternopil Oblast, western Ukraine. It is located in the historic region of Galicia (Central Europe), Galicia. Zbarazh hosts the administration of Zbarazh urban hromada, one of the hromadas of Ukr ...

, Ukrainian students marched through the town singing anti-Jewish slogans before destroying the Jewish cemetery's headstones, and a pogrom in the town of Delatyn was organized by a local Ukrainian music teacher. The underground

(OUN) displayed an ambivalent attitude towards Jews. According to German documents, the wartime OUN was willing to either kill or to help Jews depending on what they believed was more politically advantageous to them. During the war, the

Ukrainian Insurgent Army The Ukrainian Insurgent Army (, abbreviated UPA) was a Ukrainian nationalist partisan formation founded by the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) on 14 October 1942. The UPA launched guerrilla warfare against Nazi Germany, the S ...

(UPA), a large underground military force controlled by the OUN, engaged in the ethnic cleansing and killing of Poles and destruction of Polish villages. Jews hiding from the Germans with Poles in Polish villages were frequently killed by the UPA along with their Polish saviors, although in at least one case they were spared as the Poles were murdered.Timothy Snyder. (2008). "The life and death of Volhynian Jewry, 1921–1945." In Brandon, Lowler (Eds.) ''The Shoah in Ukraine: history, testimony, memorialization.'' Indiana: Indiana University Press, pg. 101 The UPA, many of whose leaders believed in a link between Jews and Bolsheviks and who saw that Jews tended to join underground Communist partisan groups, also liquidated bands of armed Jews hiding from the Germans in the forests. In some cases, they even coordinated their activities with the Germans.Frank Golczewski. (2008). "Shades of Grey." In Brandon, Lowler (Eds.) ''The Shoah in Ukraine: history, testimony, memorialization.'' Indiana: Indiana University Press, pp. 142–143 Despite the UPA's involvement in the killing of some Jews, there were cases of Jewish participation within the ranks of the UPA, including fighters and medical personnel.Philip Friedman. ''Ukrainian-Jewish Relations During the Nazi Occupation.'' In Roads to Extinction: Essays on the Holocaust. (1980) New York: Conference of Jewish Social Studies. pg. 189 and footnotes pp. 204–205. Friedman noted that he personally met one Jewish physician and his wife who had been with the Bandera group and knew of another physician and his brother who also served in the UPA and settled near

Tel Aviv Tel Aviv-Yafo ( or , ; ), sometimes rendered as Tel Aviv-Jaffa, and usually referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the Gush Dan metropolitan area of Israel. Located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline and with a popula ...

after the war. In contrast to the antisemitic crimes committed both by members of the administration working for the Germans and by the Ukrainian anti-German Underground, many individual Ukrainians helped to conceal Jews. According to German documents, between October 1943 and June 1944, approximately 100 Ukrainians in Galicia were sentenced to death for hiding Jews. Philip Friedman notes that this implies a large number of Ukrainians aiding Jews, because the 100 executed represents only those who were caught (many more were never caught, or were given lighter sentences rather than executed), that often those found hiding Jews were executed immediately without a trial and therefore without their cases making it into official records, and the death sentences cover only a limited period of time. Those rescuing Jews include former servants, peasants, members of the Ukrainian intelligentsia, and middle class.

Foresters A forester is a person who practises forest management and forestry, the science, art, and profession of managing forests. Foresters engage in a broad range of activities including Restoration ecology, ecological restoration and management of Pr ...

frequently helped Jews hiding in the woods. For example, with the help of 35 Ukrainian and 5 Polish foresters, 1,700 Jews were concealed in the forests of Przemyslany district according to a report by a Ukrainian forester. The

Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC) is a Major archiepiscopal church, major archiepiscopal ''sui iuris'' ("autonomous") Eastern Catholic Churches, Eastern Catholic church that is based in Ukraine. As a particular church of the Cathol ...

played a particularly helpful role for the Jews during the war. Its leader,

Andrey Sheptytsky Andrey Sheptytsky, OSBM (; ; 29 July 1865 – 1 November 1944) was the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Metropolitan of Galicia and Archbishop of Lviv from 1901 until his death in 1944. His tenure in office spanned two world wars and six political r ...

, was described by Philip Friedman as "always friendly" towards Jews, proficient in the Hebrew language and who communicated with the Jewish community in the Hebrew language. In February 1942, Sheptytsky addressed a letter to Heinrich Himmler condemning anti-Jewish actions which resulted in the German administration closing the Ukrainian National Council. In November 1942, Sheptytsky published an article in the official newspaper of the Ukrainian Catholic church entitled "Thou Shalt Not Murder" and threatened those who murdered for political reasons with

excommunication Excommunication is an institutional act of religious censure used to deprive, suspend, or limit membership in a religious community or to restrict certain rights within it, in particular those of being in Koinonia, communion with other members o ...

. Not limiting his actions to words, Sheptytsky played an active role in saving members of the Jewish community. Sheptytsky at his own residence hid fifteen Jews, including Lviv rabbi David Kahane and two sons of Lviv's chief rabbi Ezekial Lewin. Additionally, he and his brother, the monk

Klymentiy Sheptytsky Klymentiy Sheptytsky (, ; 17 November 1869 – 1 May 1951) also known as Klymentiy of Univ () was the archimandrite of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Order of Studite Monks and a hieromartyr. He was also the Russian Catholic Apostolic Exarch ...

, concealed 150 Jews, primarily children, in Ukrainian Catholic

Studite The Monastery of Stoudios, more fully Monastery of Saint John the Forerunner "at Stoudios" (), often shortened to ''Stoudios'', Studion or ''Stoudion'' (), was a Greek Orthodox monastery in Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul), the capital of th ...

monasteries. In contrast to such activities, some Ukrainian village priests incited people against the Jews,Philip Friedman (1980). Ukrainian-Jewish Relations During the Occupation. in ''Roads to Extinction: Essays on the Holocaust.'' Philip Friedman (ed.) New York: Conference on Jewish Social Studies, pp. 199–200. Friedman notes that in the town of Skalat a Ukrainian priest was part of a delegation giving an anti-Jewish petition to the German authorities, and that in Jablonica a Ukrainian priest incited local

Hutsuls The Hutsuls (Hutsul/; ; ) are an East Slavic ethnic group spanning parts of western Ukraine and northern Romania (i.e. parts of Bukovina and Maramureș). In Ukraine, they have often been officially and administratively designated a subgro ...

against Jews, resulting in several Jews being dragged from their beds at night and drowned in a nearby river. although others saved them.

References

Ashkenazi Jewish culture in Europe Society of Austria-Hungary Ukrainian nationalism Jewish Polish history Jewish Ukrainian history

Bibliography

* {{Cite book , last=Himka , first=John-Paul , title=Ukrainian-Jewish Antagonism in the Galician Countryside During the Late Nineteenth Century , year=1990 , editor-last=Aster , editor-first=Howard , location=Edmonton , chapter=Ukrainian - Jewish Relations in Historical Perspective , editor-last2=Potichnyj , editor-first2=Peter J.