Jewish-Ukrainian relations in Eastern Galicia
Encyclopedia
Eastern Galicia formed the heartland of the medieval Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia and currently exists within the provinces of Lviv
, Ivano-Frankivsk
, and Ternopil
in modern western Ukraine. Along with Poles and Ukrainians, Jews were one of the three largest ethnic groups in Eastern Galicia with almost 900,000 people by 1910. Indeed, from the late 18th century until the early 20th century eastern Galicia had the largest concentration of Jews of any region in Europe. During the 19th century Galicia and its main city, Lviv (Lemberg in Yiddish), became a center of Yiddish
literature. Lviv was the home of the world's first Yiddish-language daily newspaper, the Lemberger Togblat. Jews constituted 1/3 of the population in many cities and dominated parts of the local economy. This article describes the relationship between eastern Galicia's Jews with the numerically largest portion of the population, the Ukrainians.
. 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
that had become a part of Russia. The multiple pogroms that occurred in Russian-ruled Ukraine did not spread across the border into Galicia, where Jews and Ukrainians were engaged in political cooperation. Whatever anti-Jewish political agitation existed in Galicia was limited to Polish political parties operating in areas where not many Ukrainians lived. The Jewish and Ukrainian communities cooperated with each other politically. For example, in the 1907 elections, Jews in rural areas agreed to vote for Ukrainian candidates while Ukrainians in urban areas agreed to vote for Zionist candidates. As a result of this cooperation, for the first time Jews won two seats in the parliament.
In spite of the positive political cooperation between the two communities, conflicts existed due to economic competition. During the mid to late nineteenth century, Ukrainian community organizations created cooperative
s and credit unions 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
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.
as the least desirable option following the first world war. Although Jewish political organizations 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, particularly after they were recognized as a national minority by the Ukrainian government. Jewish officers of the defunct Austro-Hungarian army joined the West Ukrainian military
, and Jewish judges, lawyers, doctors and railroad employees joined the West Ukrainian civil service. Jews were also able to create their own police units and fielded their own battalion in the army of the Western Ukrainian People's Republic
, commanded by Ludvig Chorny-Rosenberg. The Council of Ministers of the West Ukrainian People's Republic bought Yiddish-language
textbooks and visual aids for Jewish schools and provided assistance to Jewish victims of the Polish pogrom in Lviv
. Approximately one-third of the seats in the West Ukrainian national parliament – an amount roughly equal to their share of the population – were reserved for 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. The government fought antisemitic acts by punishing robbery with execution, and respected Jewish declared neutrality during the Polish-Ukrainian conflict. By the orders of Yevhen Petrushevych
it was forbidden to mobilize Jews against their will or to otherwise force them to contribute to the Ukrainian military effort.
, 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
– formed a unified Bloc of National Minorities
which sought to defend both groups' interests in the Polish government.
Relations between Ukrainians and Jews soured somewhat when – in 1925 – Jewish political leaders signed a separate agreement with Poland in order to grantee 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. The assassination in 1926 of Symon Petliura, Ukraine
's exiled president, by Sholom Schwartzbard
– a Jewish relative of victims of pogroms in central Ukraine – 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
, 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. 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
, came to an understanding with the Polish state, antisemtitic actions – neither encouraged nor condemned by Ukrainian leaders – increased within Ukrainian society.
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
(OUN) – operating illegally in Galicia – developed close ties with the Nazi regime in Germany. Initially supportive of Jews, the OUN later spread propaganda against Jews and organized attacks against them, such as during village riots in the Sokal area
in 1933. 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.
and the Soviet Union
(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.
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. 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.
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 Ukrainian National Democratic Alliance
, and chief of the Ukrainian delegation in the pre-war Polish parliament
. 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 Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists
– which operated in the underground – as the only political party with a significant organizational presence left among western Ukrainians.
) hastily created by the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists
after the occupation of the Lviv participated in this pogrom
. During the four-week pogrom from the end of June to early July 1941, it is alleged that nearly 4,000 Jews were murdered. Similar actions throughout eastern Galicia would claim tens of thousands of more Jewish lives.
which claimed between 2,000 and 5,000 lives, were particularly prone to anti-Jewish activities but were not alone in doing so. For example, in Zbarazh 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 Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists
(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 (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. 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 German. Despite the UPA's involvement in the killing of some Jews, there were cases of Jewish participation within the ranks of UPA, including fighters, and medical personnel
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 a 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 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
played a particularly helpful role for the Jews during the war. Its leader, Andrey Sheptytsky
, 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. 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, concealed 150 Jews, primarily children, in Ukrainian Catholic Studite monasteries. In contrast to such activities, some Ukrainian village priests incited people against the Jews, although others saved them.
Lviv Oblast
Lviv Oblast is an oblast in western Ukraine. The administrative center of the oblast is the city of Lviv.-History:The oblast was created as part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic on December 4, 1939...
, Ivano-Frankivsk
Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast
Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast is an oblast in western Ukraine. Its administrative center is the city of Ivano-Frankivsk. As is the case with most other oblasts of Ukraine this region has the same name as its administrative center – which was renamed by the Soviets after the Ukrainian writer, nationalist...
, and Ternopil
Ternopil Oblast
Ternopil Oblast is an oblast' of Ukraine. Its administrative center is Ternopil, through which flows the Seret River, a tributary of the Dnister.-Geography:...
in modern western Ukraine. Along with Poles and Ukrainians, Jews were one of the three largest ethnic groups in Eastern Galicia with almost 900,000 people by 1910. Indeed, from the late 18th century until the early 20th century eastern Galicia had the largest concentration of Jews of any region in Europe. During the 19th century Galicia and its main city, Lviv (Lemberg in Yiddish), became a center of Yiddish
Yiddish language
Yiddish is a High German language of Ashkenazi Jewish origin, spoken throughout the world. It developed as a fusion of German dialects with Hebrew, Aramaic, Slavic languages and traces of Romance languages...
literature. Lviv was the home of the world's first Yiddish-language daily newspaper, the Lemberger Togblat. Jews constituted 1/3 of the population in many cities and dominated parts of the local economy. This article describes the relationship between eastern Galicia's Jews with the numerically largest portion of the population, the Ukrainians.
Under Austria (later Austria-Hungary) in (1795–1918)
In 1795 Poland was divided between Russia, Prussia and AustriaThird Partition of Poland
The Third Partition of Poland or Third Partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth took place in 1795 as the third and last of three partitions that ended the existence of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.-Background:...
. 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
Zbruch River
Zbruch River is a river in Western Ukraine, a left tributary of the Dniester.It flows within the Podolia Upland starting from the Avratinian Upland. Zbruch is the namesake of the Zbruch idol, a sculpture of a Slavic deity in the form of a column with a head with four faces, discovered in 1848 by...
that had become a part of Russia. The multiple pogroms that occurred in Russian-ruled Ukraine did not spread across the border into Galicia, where Jews and Ukrainians were engaged in political cooperation. Whatever anti-Jewish political agitation existed in Galicia was limited to Polish political parties operating in areas where not many Ukrainians lived. The Jewish and Ukrainian communities cooperated with each other politically. For example, in the 1907 elections, Jews in rural areas agreed to vote for Ukrainian candidates while Ukrainians in urban areas agreed to vote for Zionist candidates. As a result of this cooperation, for the first time Jews won two seats in the parliament.
In spite of the positive political cooperation between the two communities, conflicts existed due to economic competition. During the mid to late nineteenth century, Ukrainian community organizations created cooperative
Cooperative
A cooperative is a business organization owned and operated by a group of individuals for their mutual benefit...
s and credit unions in which Ukrainians (mostly peasants) pooled their resources to buy and sell products collectively
Ukrainian cooperative movement
The Ukrainian Cooperative Movement was a movement based primarily in Western Ukraine that addressed the economic plight of the western Ukrainian people through the creation of financial, agricultural and trade cooperatives that enabled western Ukrainians to pool their resources, to obtain less...
, without middlemen, and to obtain loans at low interest. Because the professions of moneylending
Moneylender
A moneylender is a person or group who offers small personal loans at high rates of interest.-See also:* Microfinance - provision of financial services to low-income individuals....
and shopkeeping
Shopkeeper
A shopkeeper is an individual who owns a shop. Generally, shop employees are not shopkeepers, but are often incorrectly referred to as shopkeepers. Today, a shopkeeper is usually referred to as a manager, though this term could apply to larger firms .*In many south asian languages like Hindi, Urdu,...
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
Zionism
Zionism is a Jewish political movement that, in its broadest sense, has supported the self-determination of the Jewish people in a sovereign Jewish national homeland. Since the establishment of the State of Israel, the Zionist movement continues primarily to advocate on behalf of the Jewish state...
self-identification.
During the struggle for independence
Although relations between Poles and the West Ukrainian Republic 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 pogroms 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 independenceSecond Polish Republic
The Second Polish Republic, Second Commonwealth of Poland or interwar Poland refers to Poland between the two world wars; a period in Polish history in which Poland was restored as an independent state. Officially known as the Republic of Poland or the Commonwealth of Poland , the Polish state was...
as the least desirable option following the first world war. Although Jewish political organizations 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, particularly after they were recognized as a national minority by the Ukrainian government. Jewish officers of the defunct Austro-Hungarian army joined the West Ukrainian military
Ukrainian Galician Army
Ukrainian Galician Army , was the Ukrainian military of the West Ukrainian National Republic during and after the Polish-Ukrainian War. -Military equipment:...
, and Jewish judges, lawyers, doctors and railroad employees joined the West Ukrainian civil service. Jews were also able to create their own police units and fielded their own battalion in the army of the Western Ukrainian People's Republic
Ukrainian Galician Army
Ukrainian Galician Army , was the Ukrainian military of the West Ukrainian National Republic during and after the Polish-Ukrainian War. -Military equipment:...
, commanded by Ludvig Chorny-Rosenberg. The Council of Ministers of the West Ukrainian People's Republic bought Yiddish-language
Yiddish language
Yiddish is a High German language of Ashkenazi Jewish origin, spoken throughout the world. It developed as a fusion of German dialects with Hebrew, Aramaic, Slavic languages and traces of Romance languages...
textbooks and visual aids for Jewish schools and provided assistance to Jewish victims of the Polish pogrom in Lviv
Lwów pogrom (1918)
The Lwów pogrom of the Jewish population of Lwów took place on November 21–23, 1918 during the Polish-Ukrainian War. In the course of the three days of unrest in the city, an estimated 52-150 Jewish residents were murdered and hundreds injured, with widespread looting carried out by Polish...
. Approximately one-third of the seats in the West Ukrainian national parliament – an amount roughly equal to their share of the population – were reserved for 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. The government fought antisemitic acts by punishing robbery with execution, and respected Jewish declared neutrality during the Polish-Ukrainian conflict. By the orders of Yevhen Petrushevych
Yevhen Petrushevych
Yevhen Petrushevych was a Ukrainian lawyer, politician, and president of the Western Ukrainian National Republic formed after the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian empire in 1918.-Biography:He was born on June 3, 1863, in the town of Busk, of Galicia in the clerical...
it was forbidden to mobilize Jews against their will or to otherwise force them to contribute to the Ukrainian military effort.
Between the First and Second World Wars
After Polish victory over the West Ukrainian People's Republic in the Polish-Ukrainian WarPolish-Ukrainian War
The Polish–Ukrainian War of 1918 and 1919 was a conflict between the forces of the Second Polish Republic and West Ukrainian People's Republic for the control over Eastern Galicia after the dissolution of Austria-Hungary.-Background:...
, Galicia's Jews and Ukrainians found themselves living within the Polish state
Second Polish Republic
The Second Polish Republic, Second Commonwealth of Poland or interwar Poland refers to Poland between the two world wars; a period in Polish history in which Poland was restored as an independent state. Officially known as the Republic of Poland or the Commonwealth of Poland , the Polish state was...
– 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
Yitzhak Gruenbaum was a noted leader of the Zionist movement among Polish Jewry between the two world wars and of the Yishuv in Mandatory Palestine, and the first Interior Minister of Israel.-Education and journalistic career:Gruenbaum was born in Warsaw, Poland...
– formed a unified Bloc of National Minorities
Bloc of National Minorities
Blok Mniejszości Narodowych , was a political party in the Second Polish Republic, representing a coalition of various ethnic minorities in Poland, primarily Ukrainians, Belarusians, Jews and Germans. The Bloc was co-founded by Yitzhak Gruenbaum, a Polish-Jewish politician...
which sought to defend both groups' interests in the Polish government.
Relations between Ukrainians and Jews soured somewhat when – in 1925 – Jewish political leaders signed a separate agreement with Poland in order to grantee 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. The assassination in 1926 of Symon Petliura, Ukraine
Directorate of Ukraine
The Directorate, or Directory was a provisional revolutionary state committee of the Ukrainian National Republic, formed in 1918 by the Ukrainian National Union in rebellion against Skoropadsky's regime....
's exiled president, by Sholom Schwartzbard
Sholom Schwartzbard
Sholem Schwarzbard was a Bessarabian-born Jewish poet and anarchist, known primarily for the assassination of the Ukrainian nationalist leader Symon Petliura...
– a Jewish relative of victims of pogroms in central Ukraine – 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
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, 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
Cheka
Cheka was the first of a succession of Soviet state security organizations. It was created by a decree issued on December 20, 1917, by Vladimir Lenin and subsequently led by aristocrat-turned-communist Felix Dzerzhinsky...
, and his assassination of Petliura promoted the stereotype of Jewish cooperation with Bolshevism. The assassin's acquittal by a French court
French Third Republic
The French Third Republic was the republican government of France from 1870, when the Second French Empire collapsed due to the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, to 1940, when France was overrun by Nazi Germany during World War II, resulting in the German and Italian occupations of France...
and defence by a French lawyer
French people
The French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...
– 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
Ukrainian National Democratic Alliance
The Ukrainian National Democratic Alliance, was the largest Ukrainian political party in the Second Polish Republic, active in territory that is currently Western Ukraine. It dominated the mainstream political life of the Ukrainian minority in Poland, which with almost 14% of Poland's population...
, came to an understanding with the Polish state, antisemtitic actions – neither encouraged nor condemned by Ukrainian leaders – increased within Ukrainian society.
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
Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists
The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists is a Ukrainian political organization which as a movement originally was created in 1929 in Western Ukraine . The OUN accepted violence as an acceptable tool in the fight against foreign and domestic enemies particularly Poland and Russia...
(OUN) – operating illegally in Galicia – developed close ties with the Nazi regime in Germany. Initially supportive of Jews, the OUN later spread propaganda against Jews and organized attacks against them, such as during village riots in the Sokal area
Sokal Raion
Sokal Raion is a raion in Lviv Oblast in western Ukraine. Its administrative center is Sokal. It has a population of 94 500.It was established in 1939.-External links:*...
in 1933. 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.
During the Soviet Annexation of Western Ukraine (1939–1941)
In September 1939 Poland was invaded and divided between Nazi GermanyNazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
and the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
(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
Ukrainian cooperative movement
The Ukrainian Cooperative Movement was a movement based primarily in Western Ukraine that addressed the economic plight of the western Ukrainian people through the creation of financial, agricultural and trade cooperatives that enabled western Ukrainians to pool their resources, to obtain less...
that had served the Ukrainian people between the wars were shut down, and Ukrainian libraries, reading rooms
Prosvita
Prosvita is a society created in the nineteenth century in Ukrainian Galicia for preserving and developing Ukrainian culture and education among population....
, 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.
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. 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.
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 Ukrainian National Democratic Alliance
Ukrainian National Democratic Alliance
The Ukrainian National Democratic Alliance, was the largest Ukrainian political party in the Second Polish Republic, active in territory that is currently Western Ukraine. It dominated the mainstream political life of the Ukrainian minority in Poland, which with almost 14% of Poland's population...
, and chief of the Ukrainian delegation in the pre-war Polish parliament
Sejm
The Sejm is the lower house of the Polish parliament. The Sejm is made up of 460 deputies, or Poseł in Polish . It is elected by universal ballot and is presided over by a speaker called the Marshal of the Sejm ....
. 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 Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists
Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists
The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists is a Ukrainian political organization which as a movement originally was created in 1929 in Western Ukraine . The OUN accepted violence as an acceptable tool in the fight against foreign and domestic enemies particularly Poland and Russia...
– which operated in the underground – as the only political party with a significant organizational presence left among western Ukrainians.
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. 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. . 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 militia (which later became the Ukrainian Auxiliary PoliceUkrainian Auxiliary Police
The Ukrainische Hilfspolizei was a German mobile police force that operated in the General Government beginning on July 27, 1941. The total number enlisted numbered slightly more than 35,000. 6,000 of them - including 120 low-level officers - served in the District of Galicia...
) hastily created by the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists
Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists
The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists is a Ukrainian political organization which as a movement originally was created in 1929 in Western Ukraine . The OUN accepted violence as an acceptable tool in the fight against foreign and domestic enemies particularly Poland and Russia...
after the occupation of the Lviv participated in this pogrom
Pogrom
A pogrom is a form of violent riot, a mob attack directed against a minority group, and characterized by killings and destruction of their homes and properties, businesses, and religious centres...
. During the four-week pogrom from the end of June to early July 1941, it is alleged that nearly 4,000 Jews were murdered. Similar actions throughout eastern Galicia would claim tens of thousands of 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 1941Lviv pogroms
The Lviv pogroms were two massacres of Jews living in and near in the city of Lwów, the occupied Republic of Poland , that took place from 30 June to 2 July and 25–29 July 1941 during World War II. 700 Jews were killed in the rioting by some Ukrainian nationalists and Ukrainian militia and further...
which claimed between 2,000 and 5,000 lives, were particularly prone to anti-Jewish activities but were not alone in doing so. For example, in Zbarazh 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 Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists
Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists
The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists is a Ukrainian political organization which as a movement originally was created in 1929 in Western Ukraine . The OUN accepted violence as an acceptable tool in the fight against foreign and domestic enemies particularly Poland and Russia...
(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 (UPA), a large underground military force controlled by the OUN, engaged in the ethnic cleansing and killing of Poles and destruction of Polish villages
Massacres of Poles in Volhynia
The Massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia were part of an ethnic cleansing operation carried out by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army West in the Nazi occupied regions of the Eastern Galicia , and UPA North in Volhynia , beginning in March 1943 and lasting until the end of...
. 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. 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 German. Despite the UPA's involvement in the killing of some Jews, there were cases of Jewish participation within the ranks of UPA, including fighters, and medical personnel
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 a 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 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
Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church
The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church , Ukrainska Hreko-Katolytska Tserkva), is the largest Eastern Rite Catholic sui juris particular church in full communion with the Holy See, and is directly subject to the Pope...
played a particularly helpful role for the Jews during the war. Its leader, Andrey Sheptytsky
Andrey Sheptytsky
Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky was the Metropolitan Archbishop of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church from 1901 until his death. During his tenure, he led the Church through two world wars and seven political regimes: Austrian, Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, Soviet, German National Socialist , and...
, 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
Assassination
To carry out an assassination is "to murder by a sudden and/or secret attack, often for political reasons." Alternatively, assassination may be defined as "the act of deliberately killing someone, especially a public figure, usually for hire or for political reasons."An assassination may be...
with excommunication. 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, concealed 150 Jews, primarily children, in Ukrainian Catholic Studite monasteries. In contrast to such activities, some Ukrainian village priests incited people against the Jews, although others saved them.