ibidem-Press, Stuttgart
For Chrystia
who stood beside me
Contents
3. The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists
5. Anti-Jewish Violence in the Summer of 1941
6. The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and the Ukrainian Police in German Service
7. The Fate of Jews in the Ukrainian Nationalist Insurgency
Acknowledgments
I have received support for the research that went into this book from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada; Pinchas and Mark Wisen Fellowship at the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum; Killam Fund, University of Alberta; Support for the Advancement of Scholarship, Faculty of Arts, University of Alberta. I am very grateful for their generosity.
It has been a pleasure working with ibidem-Verlag, particularly with Jana Dävers, Valerie Lange, and Andreas Umland. I appreciate their guidance and respect for an author’s vision of a book.
I have many people to thank. Although I am responsible for all the views put forward in this volume, I have had a great deal of help along the way. Persons who need to be singled out for their contribution to the appearance of this study are Vadim Altskan, Tarik Cyril Amar, Omer Bartov, Andriy Bolianovsky, Jeffrey Burds, Marco Carynnyk, Martin Dean, Sofia Dyak, Ernest Gyidel, Wendy Lower, Jared McBride, Oleksandr Melnyk, Ada Ogonowska, Dieter Pohl, Antony Polonsky, David Lee Preston, Per Anders Rudling, Roman Solchanyk, Wiesław Tokarczuk, and Larry Warwaruk. The following scholars worked at one point or another as research assistants for this book: Eduard Baidaus, Natalka Cmoc, Eva Himka, Rylan Kafara, Taras Kurylo, Mariya Melentyeva, Michal Mlynarz, Oksana Mykhed, Iaroslav Pankovskyi, and Grzegorz Rossoliński-Liebe. Those who read and helped me rework chapters were Raisa Ostapenko, Alan Rutkowski, the East Europeanist Circle at the University of Alberta led by Heather Coleman, and participants in the Danyliw Seminar in 2018. I wish I had the words I need to express the depth of my gratitude.
Abbreviations
AŻIH Archiwum Żydowskiego Instytutu Historycznego
BA-MA Bundesarchiv/Militärarchiv, Freiburg
CPSU Communist Party of the Soviet Union
DALO Derzhavnyi arkhiv L’vivs’koi oblasti
DAIFO Derzhavnyi arkhiv Ivano-Frankivs’koi oblasti
DARO Derzhavnyi arkhiv Rivnens’koi oblasti
DAZhO Derzhavnyi arkhiv Zhytomyrs’koi oblasti
EM Ereignismeldungen UdSSR des Chefs der Sicherheits-polizei und SD (title varies)
f. folio
HDA SBU Haluzevyi derzhavnyi arkhiv Sluzhby bezpeky Ukrainy
KGB Komitet gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti
KPZU Komunistychna partiia Zakhidn’oi Ukrainy
NANU Natsional’na Akademia nauk Ukrainy
NKGB Narodnyi komissariat gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti
NKVD Narodnyi komissariat vnutrennikh del
NTSh Naukove tovarystvo im. Shevchenka
op. opys
OUN Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists
OUN-B Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (Bandera faction)
OUN-M Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (Melnyk faction)
P Polish
PUN Provid ukrains’kykh natsionalistiv
r.g. record group
Ro Romanian
RSHA Reichssicherheitshauptamt
SB OUN Sluzhba Bezpeky Orhanizatsii ukrains’kykh natsionalistiv
SBU Sluzhba Bezpeky Ukrainy
SD Sicherheitsdienst
spr. sprava
TsDAHO Tsentral’nyi derzhavnyi arkhiv hromads’kykh ob ”iednan’ Ukrainy
TsDAVO Tsentral’nyi derzhavnyi arkhiv vyshchykh orhaniv vlady ta upravlinnia Ukrainy
TsDIAL Tsentral’nyi derzhavnyi istorychnyi arkhiv Ukrainy, m. L’viv
TsGAOR Tsentral’nyi gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Oktiabr’skoi revoliutsii, vysshikh organov gosudarstvennoi vlasti i organov gosudarstvennogo upravleniia SSSR
UCRDC Ukrainian Canadian Research and Documentation Centre
UHVR Ukrains’ka holovna vyzvol’na rada (Ukrainian Supreme Liberation Council)
UNDO Ukrains’ke natsional’ne demokratychne ob”iednannia (Ukrainian National Democratic Union)
UPA Ukrains’ka povstans’ka armiia (Ukrainian Insurgent Army)
USHMM United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
UVO Ukrains’ka viis’kova orhanizatsiia (Ukrainian Military Organization)
V verso
YIUN Yahad-in Unum Testimony
YVA Yad Vashem Archives
Introduction
The Theme and Plan of the Book
This study concerns the participation of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and its armed force, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (Ukrains’ka povstans’ka armiia, UPA), in the destruction of the Jewish population in Ukraine under German occupation, 1941-44. There were three major phases in which the nationalists contributed to the mass murder. (Since I do not use the definite article before OUN and UPA, readers would be advised to pronounce these terms as acronyms: o-OON, oo-PA.)
First, militias organized by OUN were key actors in the anti-Jewish violence of the summer of 1941, in the immediate aftermath of the German invasion of the Soviet Union. The militias arrested Jews in order to subject them to forced labor, humiliation, and murder; thousands of those arrested were executed by German units, mainly Einsatzgruppe C and Waffen-SS Division “Wiking.” The Ukrainian nationalist militias assembled the Jews for the Germans’ violence, since they could identify Jews more easily than the invaders and knew the localities, including Jewish neighborhoods in the