Military cooperation of the Jewish population of Galícia with the West Ukrainian People’s republic (1918–1923) (original) (raw)
Related papers
Academia Letters, 2021
This chapter attempts to reify the vicissitudes of Ukrainian and Jewish political paradigms in the Time of a Ukrainian strive for an independent state in East Galicia, 1918-1923. The article analyzes geo-political realities as they were perceived by the Ukrainian and Jewish political establishments and public opinion. The course of analysis follows the line of existential borderline situations pertaining to each of the given community. These existential situations overall relate to the call of choice with regard to political and military alliances, electoral support and acceptance or unacceptance of the governing power (Poland). In conceptual terms the article elicits paradigms of mutual Ukrainian and Jewish mistrust, lack of compassion and often implementations of typical but not reflective clichés. Proclamation of West Ukrainian National Republic, the Battle for Lviv in November 1918, the course of Polish-Ukrainian War in 1918, 1919, the electoral campaign of 1922 for Polish Parliament (Sejm) and the corresponding mutual reflections, all in all comprise the contextual background, presented in this article. The article draws on the periodical of the Time, personal statements and memoirs and on the interwar monographs and collective works with regard to the Ukrainian, Jewish and Polish mutual vexations. Modern secondary literature on the subject has also been taken into consideration.
Ukrainians-and-Jews-A-Symposium-1966.pdf
Introduction Viewed in historical perspective the question of Ukrainian-Jewish relations is an extremely important one, not only as regards the Ukrainian and Jewish peoples, but also in the light of world peace and international well-being. First of all, a substantial part of Europe's Jewish population lived in Ukraine for several centuries. There they shared the lot of the Ukrainian people in their misery and the ongoing struggle for freedom and national emancipation. Relations between Jews and Ukrainians were clouded at times by mutual accusations that followed upon bitter conflicts affecting both peoples adversely. During both World War I and World War II the interrelations of Ukrainians and Jews reached the highest point of tension. It was at these times that the Ukrainians were making supreme efforts to attain freedom and national independence. They had to wage a long drawn out and desperate struggle, at times against two or even three aggressive neighbors who had designs on the natural resources of Ukraine. With that in view, these neighbors opposed the aspirations of the Ukrainian people to freedom and national statehood. As one of the largest and most active minorities in Ukraine, the Jews often found themselves between hammer and anvil. They endeavored to maintain ronunlikely neutrality, or else found themselves associated with forces that the Ukrainians came to oppose as they reached for independence. This situation, unhappily for both groups, occasioned tension and recriminations. Jews charged that Ukrainians were anti-Semitic, while Ukrainians maintained that the Jews en masse were supporting Russian policies and were providing personnel for the Russian communist police apparatus in Ukraine. Fortunately for both peoples, these charges are greatly exaggerated. While anti-Semitic excesses occurred in Ukraine during the revolution, and especially during the Nazi occupation of Ukraine in 1941-44, these oannot be charged to the Ukrainian people as such All the historical evidence proves the opposite. The Ukrainian community rejected the anti-Semitic pogroms as inconsistent with the Ukrainian democratic traditions and way of life. During the short-lived Ukrainian independent state (1918 1920)) the Jews were granted national-personal autonomy in Ukraine. Jewish ministers were appointed to the Ukrainian government. The Hebrew language was on the currency of the Ukrainian government. In the time of Hitler's barbarous rule in Ukraine) hundreds of Ukrainians were executed by the Gestapo for giving help and shelter to persecuted and hunted Jews. The late Metropolitan Andrew Sheptytsky of the Ukrainian Catholic Church issued two notable pastoral letters in defense of Jews. Subsequently Himmler is said to have ordered his arrest. It was only the Nazi debacle at Stalingrad that dissuaded the Nazi police from arresting Metropolitan Sheptytsky. On the other hand) while some Jews occupied prominent positions in the NKVD and MVD before and during World War II and served in Ukraine in the generally oppressive apparatus of Oommunist Russia) the rank and file of Jews in Ukraine suffered just as much from Moscow)s totalitarian rule as did the Ukrainians. Today the situation has changed to an appreciable degree. The Jews have succeeded in establishing their own state of Israel)' there thousands of Jews) including a great number from Ukraine) have found a new life in freedom. But the Ukrainians are still enslaved and persecuted. And some 900POO or 1POOPOO Jews still in Ukraine experience with them the ruthless oppression and persecution directed by the Kremlin. Moscow has always played the classic game of divide et impera (divide and rule). It has been using anti-Semitism as a powerful weapon against Jews and Christians alike. The notable example was the publication in 1963 in Kiev of Judaism without Embellishment, by Prof. Trofim K. Kichko, under the auspices of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR. This understandably created worldwide indignation and protests. Some Jewish leaders unthinkingly ascribed the publication of the book to "Ukrainiasi anti-Semitism/) failing to discern that the true culprit was the Soviet government itself. Today Prof. Kiohkds book has been withdrawn from circulation and he himself is said to have been assigned some obscure post in the Soviet admistration. But damage to the Ukrainian name was done with tening effect. Such was the intention of Moscow in ordering the publication of Prof. Kichko's book in the first place. The approach to a positive solution of the Ukrainian-Jewish problem should not be obscured by either hatred or emotion. The fact is that the future of Ukrainian-Jewish relations very much depends upon the leaders of these two peoples on this side of the Iron Curtain. They should exercise judicious wisdom in appraising and analyzing the relations which have bound the two peoples for centuries. With such an aim in mind) this Symposium is being published by the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America. It includes a number of Jewish writers: Leo Heiman and Dr. M. Broida of Israel)' Dr. Judd Teller and Eugene Sanjour of the United States. There also are articles by outstanding Ukrainian American writers: Dr. Matthew Btachiso, Prof. Roman Smal-Stocki, Dr. Lew Shankowsky, Dr. Lev E. Dobriansky and Walter Dushnuck, There are historical testimonies of several Ukrainian and Jewish witnesses about the assistance given to Jews by Ukrainians during the Nazi occupation of Ukraine in 1941-44. There are included official statements and pronouncements of the Ukrainian government regarding Jewish autonomy and the pogroms in Ukraine, statements of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America and the Ukrainian Canadian Committee denouncing the anti-Semitic publication in Kiev, and other important statements. It is sincerely hoped that this Symposium will provide important source material for those interested in the plight of Jews in the Soviet communist empire, and also for those who study the history of the Ukrainian people and their aspiration to freedom and independence. THE EDITORS
MORESHET , 2022
Eastern Galicia and Volhynia were inhabited by Ukrainians, Poles, and Jews, for centuries. Although Ukrainians made up the majority of the population in these two regions, they were less present in cities such as Lviv than in villages and small towns. Before World War II, Jews in both regions accounted for about 10 percent of all inhabitants, Poles about 25 percent in eastern Galicia and 15 percent in Volhynia, and Ukrainians 60 percent in eastern Galicia and 70 percent in Volhynia. 2 As a result of the first and second partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1772 and 1793, eastern Galicia was incorporated into the Habsburg Empire and Volhynia into the Russian Empire which held also south, central and eastern Ukrainian territories and regarded them as parts of Russia. This geopolitical order changed only after World War I. In November 1917, Ukrainians proclaimed a state in Kiev and in November 1918 in Lviv, but they did not succeed in keeping either of them. In 1921 eastern Galicia and Volhynia were officially incorporated into the Second Polish Republic and almost all other Ukrainian territories constituted the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. 3 During the interwar period, about 20 percent of all Ukrainians lived in the Second Polish Republic and 80 percent in the Ukrainian Socialist Soviet Republic. Poland was a multiethnic state which discriminated against Ukrainians and other minorities and treated them as second-class citizens. 4 In order to prolong the fight for a Ukrainian state, Ukrainian veterans of the First World War founded the Ukrainian Military Organization (UVO, Ukraїns'ka Viis'kova Orhanizatsiia) in Prague in 1920, and in 1929 the OUN in Vienna. The latter particularly attracted many young Ukrainians in Poland. The OUN ideology combined radical nationalism with racism, antisemitism, fascism, cult of war and violence, antidemocracy, and anti-communism. It collaborated with the Germans and other fascist movements such as the Ustaša and the Italian Fascists, and attempted both to establish a Ukrainian state and to turn it into a fascist dictatorship. 5 In September 1939, eastern Galicia and Volhynia were incorporated into Soviet Ukraine. At that time several hundred OUN members left Ukraine and remained in the General Government, where they were trained by the Nazis and prepared a plan to establish a Ukrainian state after the German attack on the Soviet Union. In 1940 the OUN split into the OUN-B (leader Stepan Bandera)
Holocaust and Genocide Studies, 2020
This study examines the German-sponsored Ukrainian Legion of Self-Defense (Ukrains'kyi Legion Samooborony, ULS), both its rank and file and its Ukrainian and German officers. Drawing upon sources in German, Ukrainian, American, and Israeli archives, the authors analyze the Legion's command structure, its relationship to the Third Reich, and its relationship to the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists branch led by Andriy Atansovich Mel'nyk. The presentation of the political and military careers of lower-, mid-, and upper-level Legionnaires reveals their participation in killings of Jews, Poles, and other Ukrainians. The authors also identify the motivations of many of the actors. A close analysis of one case of German and Ukrainian "cooperation" in the Holocaust and other mass murders, this article relates to the debate over whether Holocaust perpetrators were "Ordinary Men."
During the Second World War large numbers of inhabitants of central, eastern and southern Europe joined the German Armed Forces. Among them were around 250,000 soldiers who identified themselves as Ukrainian. They served in the Wehrmacht, as well as the Waffen SS; a considerable number of them also served in the auxiliary police. They were motivated to join the German Armed Forces by a combination of different factors. This article aims to shed some light on the broad range of circumstances that facilitated the recruitment of thousands of Ukrainians to fight on the side of the Third Reich. It discusses several well-known formations that were comprised of Ukrainians, such as the Nachtigall and Roland battalions and the Waffen SS ‘Galicia’ Division, as well as other units that have not been widely discussed in an academic context.
East European Politics and Societies and Cultures, 2020
The question, if and to what extent the Ukrainian nationalists murdered Jews in Volhynia and eastern galicia during the Holocaust, has haunted Jewish and Ukrainian communities in various countries of the Western world during the entire Cold War. It also puzzled german historians of eastern europe and Nazi germany. Historians, although in theory responsible for investigating and clarifying such difficult aspects of the past, have for various reasons not investigated them or they investigated only other aspects of the Holocaust in Ukraine. This article briefly explains how factions of the Ukrainian diaspora invented a narrative that portrayed Ukrainian nationalists as antigerman and anti-Soviet freedom fighters who did not kill or harm any Jews during the german occupation of Ukraine. In the next step, it shows how testimonies and other sorts of documents left by survivors from Volhynia and eastern galicia can help historians understand the role that ordinary Ukrainians and the OUN and UPa played in the Shoah in western Ukraine. Finally, it asks why it took Ukrainian, german, Polish, Russian, and other historians so many years to investigate and comprehend the anti-Jewish violence of the Ukrainian nationalists, if relevant documents were collected and made accessible as early as in the middle 1940s.
Ukrainians in Compulsory Military Service in the Polish Armed Forces (1921-1939)
RUKKAS, Andrii. Ukrainians in Compulsory Military Service in the Polish Armed Forces (1921-1939).
Since about one third of Polish citizens in the 1920-1930s belonged to ethnic or national minorities, the Polish army was also a multinational institution. One of the largest minority groups liable for military service was the Ukrainians. Therefore, the main goal of this article is to characterise the compulsory and volunteer military service of Ukrainians as Polish citizens within the Polish armed forces. Accordingly, the legal grounds for military service will be analyzed at the beginning. This will be followed by a description of the organizational structure of the conscription campaigns, especially within the context of the establishment of state structures in Eastern Poland. Furthermore, the aim of this article is to study most of the specific features of the service of Ukrainians as a national minority in the Polish Armed Forces between the two World Wars.
The Holocaust and the Hungarian Occupation Forces in the West-Ukrainian Territories
Alternatives, Turning Points and Regime Changes in Russian History and Culture - Materials of the First International Conference for Young Scholars of Russian Studies at the Centre for Russian Studies in Budapest, 19-20 May, 2014 (Ruszisztikai Könyvek XLI.), 2015
The Hungarian Royal Army occupied more than half million square kilometres in the Soviet Union between 1941 and 1944. During the occupancy the soldiers of the Hungarian Occupation Forces were instrumental in the destruction of Ukrainian Jews. It has two reasons: the Hungarian units collaborated with Germans and the Hungarian Army was anti-semite in partisan war. In my writing I demonstrate through examples of two Hungarian units the ambivalent Jewish Policy of the Hungarian Army in the occupied Soviet territories. The members of the 49/II and 50/I battalions were involved in the liquidation of ghettos in Gaysin and its countryside in 1941–1942.