Ukrainian Nationalists and the Holocaust. John-Paul Himka

      

      ibidem-Press, Stuttgart

      For Chrystia

      who stood beside me

      Contents

       Acknowledgments

       Abbreviations

       Introduction

       1. Historiography

       2. Sources

       3. The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists

       4. The First Soviets, 1939–41

       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

       8. Conclusions

       Bibliography

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