Uniwersytet Jagielloński Wydział Historyczny Instytut Historii Nr albumu: 1098589 mgr Paweł Markiewicz The Ukrainian Central Committee, 1940-1945: A Case of Collaboration in Nazi-Occupied Poland Promotor pracy doktorskiej: dr hab. Jan Jacek Bruski Kraków 2018 Contents Archival Abbreviations ………………………………………………………… 4 Other Abbreviations ……………………………………………………………. 6 Introduction …………………………………………………………………….. 8 Chapter 1: Polish-Ukrainian Relations during the Interwar Period ………… 22 Chapter 2: National Socialist Germany and the Tradition of German-Ukrainian Politics...…………………………………………………………… 36 Chapter 3: The Genesis of the Ukrainian Central Committee in the General Government 3.1: The German Invasion of Poland, Ukrainian “Uprising” and Beginnings of Organized Ukrainian Life …………………………………………. 59 3.2: The Case of Volodymyr Kubiiovych ……………………………………. 70 3.3: The GG: Initial Steps toward Ukrainians ………………………………... 76 3.4: Divide and Conquer: Organizing Deutschfreundlich Ukrainians ……….. 93 3.5: Volodymyr Kubiiovych, the UTsK and the GG Occupation Regime …… 114 3.6: The OUN and the UTsK providnyk ……………………………………… 126 3.7: The Polish Exile Government, Underground and the Ukrainian Question … 145 Chapter 4: GG Occupation Politics, Privilege-Concessions and the UTsK 4.1: The Organization of fremdvölkische Welfare in the GG ………………………………………………………………. 151 4.2: Religious Concessions – The Orthodox Question ………………………… 162 4.3: Education Concessions – Revival and Cultural Renewal …………………. 193 4.4: Media Concessions - The Ukrainian Publishing House and Press ………... 213 4.5: Economic Concessions – Ukrainian Cooperatives and Treuhandmänner … 229 4.6: The Exploitation of Ukrainians – In Service to the Reich and GG ………... 236 Chapter 5: German-Ukrainian Collaboration in the GG: Progressive Years (1940-June 1942) 5.1: The Lublin District – Nationalization and Resettlement toward a National Piedmont ……………………………………………………………… 263 5.2: The Kraków District – Attempted Ethnic Cleansing toward Nationalization in the Lemko and Zasiannia Regions ……………………………………. 295 5.3: The Warsaw District – the “Colony” of the UTsK ……………………….. 318 5.4: The Lublin District – Nationalization of “Lost” Ukrainians in the Southern Podlasie Region …………………………………………........................ 330 5.5: The Galicia District – Expansion of the Occupation and Welfare Apparatus East........................................................................................................... 343 Chapter 6: German-Ukrainian Collaboration in the GG: Chaos and Collapse (1942-April 1945) 6.1: The Galicia District – An Episode on Native Soil and the Polish-Ukrainian Conflict ………………………………………………………………… 394 6.2: The Lublin District – Ethnic Resettlement and the Polish-Ukrainian Conflict ………………………………………………………………... 450 6.3: Ethnic Chaos and Collapse of the GG …………………………………..... 495 6.4: German Political Warfare and the Ukrainian Flight West ………….......... 520 Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………………. 538 Bibliography …………………………………………………………………………. 543 Archival Abbreviations AAL – Apostolska Administracja Łemkowszczyzny AAN – Archiwum Akt Nowych w Warszawie AIPN – Archiwum Instytutu Pamięci Narodowej w Warszawie AP-L – Archiwum Państwowe w Lubline AP-P – Archiwum Państwowe w Przemyślu APSZ – Ambasada Polski w Stanach Zjednoczonych AUJ – Archiwum Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego w Krakowie BA – Bundesarchiv Berlin BA-MA – Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv Freiburg CIA-FOIA – Central Intelligence Agency – Freedom of Information Act Electronic Archive CM-APM – Council of Ministers – Archive of the Prime Minister DGdDL – Der Gouverneur des Distrikt Lublin DHF – Dziennik Hansa Franka DRRPK – Delegatura Rządu RP na Kraj E-AUVR – Elektronnyi Arkhiv Ukraїns’koho Vyzvol’noho Rukhu f. – fond KPC – Kost’ Pan’kivs’kyi Collection LAC – Library Archives Canada Ottawa HIA – Hoover Institute Archives Stanford MCF – Michael Chomiak Fond MIiD – Ministerstwo Informacji i Dokumentacji MSW – Ministerstwo Spraw Wewnętrznych OIV – Oddział IV Sztabu Naczelnego Wodza op. – opys PAA – Provincial Archives of Alberta, Edmonton PC – Paprocki Collection PISM – Polish Institute and Sikorski Museum London PJB – Proces Józefa Bühlera PUMST – Polish Underground Movement Study Trust London RdGG – Regierung des Generalgouvernement spr. – sprava sygn. - sygnatura TsDAVOUU – Tsentral’nyi derzhavnyi arkhiv vyshchykh orhaniv vlady ta upravlinnia Ukraїny Kyiv UVAN – Ukraїns’ka vilna akademiia nauk New York City VKF – Volodymyr Kubiiovych fond zesp. – zespół Other Abbreviations AK – Armia Krajowa (Home Army) BBH – Bergbauernhilfe BCh – Bataliony Chłopskie (Peasant Battalions) FNIe – Front Natsional’noї Iednosti (Front of National Unity) Gestapo – Geheime Staatspolizei (Secret State Police) GG – Generalgouvernement (General Government) KONR – Komitet osvobozhdeniya narodov Rossii (Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia) KOP – Korpus Ochrony Pogranicza (Border Defense Corps) Kripo – Kriminalpolizei (Criminal Police) NKVD – Narodnyi Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del (People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs) NSDAP (Nazi) – Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (National Socialist German Worker’s Party) NSV – Nationalsozialistische Volkswohlfahrt (National Socialist People’s Welfare) OUN – Orhanizatsiia Ukraїns’kykh Natsionalistiv (Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists) OUN-B (Banderites) – Bandera faction of OUN OUN-M (Melnykites) – Melnyk faction of OUN POW – Polska Organizacja Wojskowa (Polish Military Organization) PUN – Provid Ukraїns’kykh Natsionalistiv (OUN executive) RGO – Rada Główna Opiekuńcza (Main Welfare Council) ROA – Russkaia Osvoboditel’naia Armiia (Russian Liberation Army) RONA – Russkaia Osvoboditelnaia Narodnaia Armiia (Russian National Liberation Army) RSHA – Reichssicherheitshauptamt (Reich Main Security Office) SD – Sicherheitsdienst (Security Service) SS – Schutzstaffel (Protection Squadron) UKK – Ukraїns’kyi Kraiovyi Komitet (Ukrainian Regional Committee) UOT – Ukraїns’ke Osvitnie Tovarystvo (Ukrainian Educational Society) UNDO – Ukraїns’ke natsional’no-demokratychne ob’iednannia (Ukrainian National-Democratic Union) UNK – Ukraїns’kyi natsional'nyi komitet (Ukrainian National Committee) UNO – Ukraїns’ke natsional'ne ob’iednannia (Ukrainian National Union) UNR – Ukraїns’ka Narodnia Respublika (Ukrainian People’s [or National] Republic) USB – Ukraїns'ka Sluzhba Batkivshchyni (Ukrainian Service for the Fatherland) UTsK – Ukraїns'kyi Tsentral'nyi Komitet (Ukrainian Central Committee) UVO – Ukraїns’ka viis'kova orhanizatsiia (Ukrainian Military Organization) UVV – Ukraїns’ke Vyzvol’ne Viis'ko (Ukrainian Liberation Army) UWI – Ukrainischen Wissenschaftlichen Institut (Ukrainian Scientific Institute) USSR – Soiuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) VoMi – Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle (Ethnic German Agency) ZUNR – Zakhidnoukraїns’ka Narodna Respublika (West Ukrainian People's [or National] Republic) Introduction War compels decisions which often mean survival or death. World War II was no different. If anything, the brutality unleashed on the occupied countries of Europe, especially those in Eastern and Central Europe, only made decisions of survival more complex. For some Ukrainians for example, wartime decisions often included a vision for the future. The interwar experience of many Ukrainians in Poland, as well as the changing political face on the continent, drove them to endure a brand of fanatical nationalism which looked toward Nazi Germany to correct previous grievances and assist them in their ultimate goal – an ethnographic nation-state. Whereas their goal came up short during the fervor of self-determination following World War I, they looked toward a new war to dismantle the Versailles and Riga orders. The topic of Ukrainian nationalism, nationalist activity during World War II and the Ukrainians’ relations with Nazi Germany is one which has already been examined by various historians in one form or another. This dissertation intends to examine another aspect of Ukrainian collaboration and nationalism; one focusing on a legally-based ethnic aid committee functioning throughout the wartime period in the General Government (GG); the region of Nazi-occupied Poland not directly annexed into the Third Reich. The focal point for my examination is the Ukrainian Central Committee (UTsK), the only legally functioning Ukrainian representative body particularly since no one historical monograph is dedicated to the Committee and its role in the General Government thus far. The central pillar to this topic is collaboration. Timothy Snyder poignantly equated the act of collaborating to leaving a “lasting stain;” an indelible imprint or mark on a person, society or ethnic group.1 To fully understand the work and activity of the UTsK, placing it into the greater understanding of ‘wartime collaboration’ is imperative. To do this however, an accepted definition of ‘collaboration’ is necessary as a guide; one which best fits and reciprocates the concept of the UTsK. 1 Timothy Snyder, The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569-1999 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), 156. 2 Piotr Madajczyk, “Zdrada i kolaboracja w polskiej pamięci o II wojnie światowej.” Paper presented at the Obrazy drugiej wojny światowej i ich wpływ na stosunki międzynarodowe conference, Moscow (January 21, 2012) (accessed September 5, 2018) The phenomenon of collaboration is, as Piotr Madajczyk stated, a difficult aspect of national or state memory which correlates external conflicts with divisions created upon a society as a result of radicalization by foreign aggression and recently incurred defeats.2 Historiographically, collaboration has been examined in various aspects by numerous scholars. The reason for this, in my opinion, is because the act of collaboration was not uniform but varied not only region by region but also by occupational policies and politics in a given area. In and of itself, collaboration denotes an active relationship with the occupier for reasons of self-interest and to the detriment of an occupied population. Traditionally, acts of collaboration were examined in the context of state collaboration; the notion of cooperating with the Nazi regime by a legal state institution or entity whose basis was political and economic. Early attention of historical studies concerning collaboration in Europe during World War II focused on the well-known case of Vichy France.3 Later the works of such historians as David Littlejohn or Werner Rings expand the focus to such countries as Holland, Denmark, and the Soviet Union, i.e. the case of former Red Army General Andrey Vlasov.4 3 For example: Stanley Hoffmann, “Collaborationism in France during World War II,” The Journal of Modern History vol. 40 no. 3 (September 1968); Jerzy Eisler, Kolaboracja we Francji 1940-1944 (Warszawa: Książka i Wiedza, 1989); Gerhard Hirschfeld and Patrick Marsch (eds), Collaboration in France: Politics and Culture during the Nazi Occupation, 1940-44 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1989). 4 David Littlejohn, The Patriotic Traitors: A History of Collaboration in German-occupied Europe, 1940-1945 (London: Heinemann, 1972); Werner Rings, Life with the Enemy: Collaboration and Resistance in Hitler’s Europe 1939-1945, trans. J. Maxwell Brownjohn (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1982); Czesław Madajczyk, Faszyzm i okupacje 1938-1945. Wykonywanie okupacji przez państwa Osi w Europie vol. 2 (Poznań: Wydawnictwo Poznańskie, 1984). 5 Sławomir Dębski, Między Berlinem a Moskwą. Stosunki niemiecko-sowieckie 1939-1941 (Warszawa: Polski Instytut Spraw Międzynarodowych, 2007); Roger Moorhouse, The Devils’ Alliance: Hitler’s Pact with Stalin, 1939-1941 (New York: Basic Books, 2014). 6 John A. Armstrong, “Collaborationism in World War II: The Integral Nationalist Variant in Eastern Europe,” The Journal of Modern History vol. 40 no. 3 (September 1968). 7 Leonid Rein, The Kings and the Pawms: Collaboration in Byelorussia during World War II (New York: Berghahn Books, 2011). 8 Ruth Bettina Burn, “Collaboration with Nazi Germany in Eastern Europe: The Case of the Estonian Security Police,” Contemporary European History vol. 10 no. 2 (July 2001). 9 In particular, see the compilation works Werner Röhr (ed), Europa unterm Hakenkreuz: Okkupation und Kollaboration (1938-1945) (Berlin-Heidelberg 1994) and Christoph Dieckmann, et al (eds), Kooperation und Verbrechen. Formen der Kollaboration im östlichen Europa 1939-1945 (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2005) for articles discussing collaboration in the above-mentioned countries during World War II. See also James Mace Ward, Priest, Politician, Collaborator: Jozef Tiso and the Making of Fascist Slovakia (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2013). The focus of collaboration has shifted geographically east to Central and Eastern Europe. A prominent topic examined in this region, as well as in Western Europe, was collaboration with the Nazi occupiers in the Holocaust of European Jewry. Only recently have scholars Sławomir Dębski and Roger Moorhouse provided concrete monographs concerning Nazi-Soviet collaboration by analyzing the effects of the Ribentropp-Molotov Pact from 1939 to 1941 on the territories and peoples affected by it.5 Alongside these, scholars undertook thorough examinations of occupational collaboration in the region. For example, John Armstrong engaged in a study of collaborationism – the desire to ideologically imitate and cooperate with the Nazi occupier – among Croatian, Slovak and Ukrainian extreme right-wing nationalist circles.6 Leonid Rein undertook the complex task of examining Nazi collaboration in Belarus.7 Ruth Bettina Burn analyzed collaboration through the activity of the Estonian security police under German occupation.8 Important studies concerning collaboration in Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Ukraine have also contributed a new perspective to understandings of occupational collaboration in those countries.9 When looking at the regions of Poland occupied by the Germans, the GG and those territories annexed directly into the Reich, as well as territory occupied by the Soviet Union, recent scholarship has made greater strides toward better understanding the phenomenon of collaboration.10 Traditionally, historians (both in communist Poland and in the Polish diaspora abroad) viewed it as a non-existent phenomenon. For this reason, the common conception became that Poland never had its own Quisling. Whereas this was certainly true at the political-state level, under occupation this explanation does not completely hold water. One need only to look at the cases of Leon Kozłowski and Władysław Studnicki, two Polish interwar conservative politicians who during the war aspired to collaborate with the occupiers, to see what Mikołaj Kunicki deemed the “sliding scale” between collaboration and cooperation.11 10 Specifically concerning collaboration in the territories annexed directly into the Reich or into the Soviet Union, see Ryszard Kaczmarek, “Kolaboracja na teranach wcielonych do Rzeszy Niemieckiej,” Pamięć i Sprawiedliwość vol. 7 no. 1 (2008); Grzegorz Motyka, “Kolaboracja na Kresach Wschodnich II Rzeczypospolitej 1941-1944,” Pamięć i Sprawiedliwość vol. 7 no. 1 (2008). 11 Mikołaj Kunicki, “Unwanted Collaborators: Leon Kozłowski, Władysław Studnicki, and the Problem of Collaboration among Polish Conservative Politicians in World War II,” European Review of History vol. 8 no. 2 (2001). For a brief discussion on alleged attempts by some prominent Polish political figures to collaborate with the Nazis in 1940, see Bernard Wiaderny, “Nie chciana kolaboracja: polscy politycy i nazistowskie Niemcy w lipcu 1940,” Zeszyty Historyczne no. 142 (2002). 12 Jan T. Gross, Polish Society under German Occupation: The Generalgouvernement, 1939-1944 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979), 117-120; Madajczyk, “Zdrada i kolaboracja…” 13 Gross, Polish Society under German Occupation…, 192-193. Regarding the GG specifically, perhaps it was sociologist Jan T. Gross who first provided a deeper look into the notion of collaboration with the occupier when he analyzed Polish society under German occupation. He correctly asserted that the notion of collaboration was traditionally used in a neutral fashion to denote a sense of cooperation. Only after World War II did its understanding as a traitorous act take on a greater meaning. Unfortunately, modern Polish discourse surrounding collaboration often views it in terms of treason; a lingering effect of the postwar communist school of historiography in which collaboration was viewed in terms of treason cooperation with Nazi Germany. Thus, as Piotr Madajczyk commented, the use of the joint understanding “collaboration and treason” only strengthens emotional reactions, leading to politicization and mythologization. 12 Gross asserted that over five years of occupation, everybody in some way collaborated with the Germans. His examination of Ukrainian collaboration concluded that they achieved a great deal as the occupier allowed nationalism to unburden itself yet ultimately came up short of their prized nation-state goal.13 Even though his Ukrainian account is based on secondary source materials, I believe it is a fundamental starting-point for a deeper synthesis. In his micro historical study of German and Soviet occupation politics in the GG – specifically examining Janów Lubelski County, Marek Jan Chodakiewicz employed the understanding of accommodation to describe the “multilevel, gradational compliance with the occupiers” at the local level. Its character depended on the relative proximity to either collaboration or resistance since accommodation served as a bridge between the two phenomena.14 Whereas this understanding perfectly suits a native, intrinsic population overrun by a foreign occupier, in my opinion it does not suit a stateless extrinsic population such as the Ukrainian nationalists who between 1939 and 1940 fled Soviet occupation for the GG. 14 Marek Jan Chodakiewicz, Between Nazis and Soviets: Occupation Politics in Poland, 1939-1947 (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books 2004), 1. 15 Jacek Andrzej Młynarczyk, “Pomiędzy współpracą a zdradą: problem kolaboracji w Generalnym Gubernatorstwie: próba syntezy,” Pamięć i Sprawiedliwość vol. 8 no. 1 (2009), 104. 16 Wojciech Szatkowski, Goralenvolk. Historia zdrady (Zakopane: Kanon, 2012). 17 Anetta Rybicka, Instytut Niemieckiej Pracy Wschodniej – Institut für deutsche Ostarbeit Kraków 1940-1945 (Warszawa: Dig, 2002). A response to this work is Stanisław Salmonowicz and Jerzy Serczyk, “Z problemów kolaboracji w Polsce w latach 1939-1941,” Czasy Nowożytne no. 14 (2003). According to Frank Golczewski, the response to Rybicka’s monograph by some Polish scholarly circles is an example of denying unpleasant aspects of national history. In comparison, he stated scholarship dealing with Ukraine learned to not only acknowledge Ukrainians on both sides of the front but to include them in historic discourse. Frank Golczewski, “Poland’s and Ukraine’s Incompatible Past,” Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas vol. 54 no. 1 (2006), 47. Recent scholarship dug deeper into GG collaboration. As Jacek Andrzej Młynarczyk astutely noticed, the general conception of collaboration there was limited as in taking into account the activity of an occupied society, both the circumstances for collaborating and the impact of specific actions were often omitted from discussions. In keeping with Młynarczyk’s argument, the activity of the UTsK for example falls into the trap of being handicapped and overlooked as a result of being generally classified rather than isolated and examined in detail. Furthermore, not differentiating societal motives and assessing their actions under occupation ignores what he described as “social specificity;” the proverbial “to be or not to be” when it came to survival or elimination.15 Social specificity concerning collaboration in the GG has become a recent trend in historical studies. Wojciech Szatkowski’s study of the Goralenvolk or Highlander people in the GG and the occupational politics associated with underscoring their distinct, unique ethnicity also took into account the notion of collaboration.16 Anetta Rybicka discussed the Institute für Deutsche Ostarbeit, the Nazi “think-tank” organized in the GG to scientifically prove German racial superiority over the peoples of Eastern Europe. Her work also called into question the motives for Poles who collaborated in this undisputedly anti-Polish agency.17 Klaus-Peter Friedrich attempted to deconstruct the Polish historical narrative of being an occupied land without a Quisling. Important to the discussion of occupation and collaboration, he examined institutional components in the GG with Polish characteristics – the compulsory labor service (Baudienst), auxiliary ‘blue’ police, and the Central Welfare Council (Rada Główna Opiekuńcza – RGO; the Polish equivalent to the UTsK) – and concluded that collaboration, in the sense of cooperation, was not marginal but existed as a social and institutional phenomenon. Based off of this understanding, Friedrich defined collaboration as cooperation with the occupation authorities to the detriment of the interests of other occupied peoples or an occupied state; in particular, behavior which “places the collaborator in specific closeness to the occupier,” especially in the eyes of others.18 18 Klaus-Peter Friedrich, “Kollaboration und Antisemitismus in Polen unter deutscher Besetzung (1939-1944/45). Zu den verdrangten Aspekten eines schwierigen deutsch-polnisch-judischen Verhaltnisses,” Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft vol. 45 (1997), 819. Also ibid, “Collaboration in a “Land without a Quisling”: Patterns of Cooperation with the Nazi German Occupation Regime in Poland during World War II.” Slavic Review vol. 64 no. 4 (Winter 2005); ibid, “Zussamenarbeit und Mittäerschaft in Polen 1939-1945“ in Dieckmann, et al (eds), Kooperation und Verbrechen.... 19 Czesław Madajczyk, “Zwischen neutraler Zusammenarbeit der Bevölkerung okkupierter Gebiete und Kollaboration mit den Deutschen” in Röhr (ed), Europa unterm Hakenkreuz..., 51. 20 Tarik Cyril Amar, The Paradox of Ukrainian Lviv: A Borderland City between Stalinists, Nazis, and Nationalists (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2015), 120; Madajczyk, “Zdrada i kolaboracja….” 21 Karel C. Berkhoff, Harvest of Despair: Life and Death in Ukraine under Nazi Rule (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2004), 4-5. 22 Jan T. Gross, “Themes for a Social History of War Experience and Collaboration” in István Deák, Jan T. Gross, and Tony Judt (eds), The Politics of Retribution in Europe: World War II and its Aftermath (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), 24-26. In my opinion, Friedrich’s understanding of collaboration as cooperation best describes the activity and actions of the Ukrainian Central Committee in the General Government as it allows for a deeper examination of the topic from the point of view of the UTsK and the German occupiers. Furthermore, cooperation was precisely how occupier and occupied described this relationship. In various memorandums, notes, speeches and texts, both parties euphemistically regarded their cooperation as Zusammenarbeit, nationale Verwaltungen or Ukrainians as freiwillige Mitarbeiter.19 The notion of collaboration as cooperation also includes, in my view, the idea of collaboration afin d’état – collaboration to achieve a state under German hegemony; a practice among ambitions elites of stateless nationals including the Ukrainian nationalists of the GG – opportunism, economic benefits, attempts at survival and maintaining the substance of a nation or ethnic people, criminal aspects (meaning denunciations to the occupier, revenge, enrichment at the expense of others, or attempts to eliminate other seen as rivals) and exploiting external influences in the rivalry with other social or ethnic groups under occupation.20 Except when expressly stated in citations or from documents, collaboration will be understood in terms of cooperation since collaboration in and of itself implies a condemnation for treason. The treasonous meaning, as Karel C. Berkhoff noted in his study of the Reichskommissariat Ukraine, inhibited his primary goal of fully understanding the topic at hand.21 Thus, in the footsteps of Berkhoff, I also intend to avoid the treasonous meaning of collaboration in favor of fully understanding the topic of this study. Of course, the German factor in collaboration and cooperation can neither be overemphasized nor overlooked. As Gross commented, collaboration was an occupier-driven phenomenon; something which demanded their explicit consent. For this reason, the character of cooperation with the German occupiers in various regions of Europe was dependent on the politics and plans of the occupier to the conquered territory and its peoples.22 Furthermore, the German factor often influenced and conditioned the societal attitude of occupied peoples. For example, German politics of underscoring the multi- ethnicity of prewar Poland and recognizing ethnic groups as distinctive in the GG created an environment of discriminating some to favor others for the purpose of eliminating those discriminated. This political web caused a differentiation among occupied social attitudes – what was acceptable by one ethnic group by subordinating themselves to the new norms created by the occupier was seen by others (either of the same ethnic group or another one) as acts of crossing the line of civic responsibility or as visible proof of disloyalty to a prewar state and society.23 Whereas this caused ethnic antagonisms to flame up, between Poles and Ukrainians for example, division was also a means of control and grounding the occupation regime. 23 Salmonowicz and Serczyk, “Z problemów kolaboracji w Polsce w latach 1939-1941,” 45. 24 Ryszard Torzecki, Kwestia ukraińska w polityce III Rzeszy (Warszawa: Książka i Wiedza, 1972), 207; Gross, Polish Society under German Occupation..., 192. In accordance with Młynarczyk’s approach and Friedrich’s understanding, this dissertation will examine the UTsK topic in terms of collaboration as cooperation with the Nazi German occupation regime; becoming, in essence, the historiographical continuation of Szatkowski’s Highlander and Friedrich’s Polish studies. Within this aspect of collaboration as cooperation I intend to include: political collaboration in anti-Polish, anti-Jewish and anti-Soviet German occupational politics; military collaboration, particularly but not limited to the 14th SS-Volunteer Division Galizien; institutional and administrative collaboration, and cultural collaboration. This approach provides the greatest possibility to answer the following research questions: 1. To what degree and how exactly did collaboration as cooperation appear from the side of Ukrainian nationalists in the Ukrainian Central Committee? 2. How was collaboration as cooperation perceived and exploited by the Nazi Germans in their occupational ethno-political policies and practices? 3. In what ways did Ukrainian collaboration as cooperation and Nazi occupation politics antagonize Polish-Ukrainian relations in the General Government? What quickly became evident is the fact that both the Germans and GG Ukrainians tended to their own, separate goals during which they mutually exploited each other.24 The format of this study is essentially divided into three parts according to a problematic-chronological approach. Each part contains two chapters which, in my opinion, serve as an introduction of sorts to each succeeding section. The first section is an introduction in and of itself as the first two chapters broadly discuss Polish-Ukrainian relations during the interwar period and the German perception toward the Ukrainian question or issue following Adolf Hitler and National Socialist ascension to power. A deeper understanding of Polish interwar policies – ones which socially marginalized many ethnic minorities – toward the large Ukrainian minority which found itself in the borders of the Second Republic after World War I in turn provides a guide to understanding the rise of radical Ukrainian nationalism and their search for allies among European fascist movements – especially fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. Here, an important aspect is also how Hitler and the Nazis viewed the Ukrainian question in Eastern Europe along with their role in exploiting it to their various military and geopolitical goals. The next section examines the Ukrainian position immediately after the eruption of war in September 1939 and in the making of the General Government. Chapter three provides an understanding into the genesis of the Ukrainian Central Committee in the GG. The chapter discusses in detail the creation of localized Ukrainian centers as the precursor to the UTsK. One section also introduces in greater detail the wartime head of the UTsK Volodymyr Kubiiovych. Of equal importance is the analysis of the Nazi occupational policy for ethnic, non-Polish and non-Jewish groups in the GG. In this approach lay the Nazi German policy for ethnic occupation – divide and conquer in all aspects of life including social aid and welfare. In other words, this approach was a means of ruling non-Aryans for the benefit of Aryans. Whereas a greater explanation of German occupational policy is an aspect missing in cursory discussions concerning the UTsK, two other important contexts are also addressed in this chapter. First, I have attempted to give greater credence to the relationship between the Central Committee and the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists; an issue which was only given heretofore perfunctory attention. Second, and of equal importance, is the relationship between UTsK executives and Nazi German officials in the GG. Finally, I provided a brief synopsis of the Polish perspective toward the Ukrainian question in general and the UTsK issue in particular from the point of view of the government-in-exile and its civic and military apparatus in the GG. Chapter four builds on the Nazi policy of divide and conquer by explaining the legal and organizational basis for Polish, Jewish and Ukrainian ethnic welfare organizations in the GG with particular attention paid to the legal basis for the UTsK. Next, I address what have traditionally been seen by some historians as concessions gained by GG Ukrainians. However, since the term “concession” connotes something granted primarily in response to demands and which would imply a misconstrued Ukrainian victory of sorts in negotiations with the Nazi occupier, I have decided to use the term “privilege-concession” coined by historian Ryszard Torzecki in describing the social consents afforded Ukrainians by the German occupiers. These included: a nationalized Orthodox Church, limited cultural-educational autonomy, a Ukrainian press, and the development of a nationalized cooperative movement. I also dedicated several paragraphs to the employment of Ukrainians as trustees or Treuhandmänner; in this way attempting to recognize their role in the anti-Jewish policies of the occupier. In the sub-sections detailing each privilege-concession, I attempted to provide not only the Ukrainian reaction but also the German perspective and voice. In contrast to the privilege-concessions, one section looks into how GG Ukrainians were also exploited by the occupiers – as laborers in the GG or Reich and by meeting large agricultural consignment or harvest quotas. Here, the role of the UTsK in recruiting laborers or assisting in confiscating crop harvests emphasizes the other side of collaboration and cooperation. The third and final section is an attempted synthesis of Ukrainian life in the GG; something which is severely lacking historiographically. It is in this section where German divide and conquer policies met privilege-concessions and directly intersect with Ukrainian-Polish ethnic antagonisms. Important to these issues is the position of the UTsK and its executives. Thus, in chapters five and six I have attempted to “find” and “place” the UTsK in the discourse of Polish-Ukrainian relations in the GG during World War II. Both chapters are divided into the GG districts in which the UTsK focused its activity. This was undertaken in order to show the specificity of their work in greater detail. Chapter five examines UTsK work and Ukrainian organized life from 1940-1942, what I see as the progressive period of activity. Sections in this chapter focus on the Lublin, Kraków, Warsaw and Galicia districts (in this order). While all show to a degree the common glimpse of how the UTsK apparatus was built in each district, UTsK efforts at nationalizing less conscious inhabitants are also highlighted as part of the vision of preparing the foundation for a future Ukrainian autonomous region or state. Chapter six looks into the apogee and culmination of UTsK work in the GG; when it reached its peak only to begin a process of liquidation and flight as the eastern front buckled and the Wehrmacht began its retreat before the advancing Red Army. The first two sections discuss the increase of ethnic antagonisms in the Galicia and Lublin districts and how the UTsK reacted to it. Here I have foregone including separate sections on the Kraków and Warsaw districts as events there fell in line with larger events concerning Ukrainians and have been included appropriately and chronologically. The final two sections detail the liquidation process in the GG and the reorganization of a much slimmer UTsK apparatus in Germany and Austria right up until the end of war in May 1945. In my opinion, both chapters show the level of German ethnic divide and conquer practice in the GG while UTsK reaction to Polish-Ukrainian antagonisms emphasize a certain level of collaboration and cooperation that Ukrainians turned to the Germans for. The UTsK topic itself is not a foreign one. Western and Eastern historians have afforded it attention in one way or another. In terms of historians who addressed the topic, Ukrainian ones have yet to fully come to terms with the notion of collaboration and the Ukrainian Central Committee. Many works tend to tote the line initially defined in the postwar memoirs. Collaboration is simply mentioned as a moral necessity while the privilege-concessions are harrowed as purely Ukrainian successes and accomplishments without placing them in the greater context of wartime military events or occupational policies. This approach, for example, appeared in Oleh Shabliї’s monograph concerning Volodymyr Kubiiovych.25 Other historians, such as Volodymyr V’iatrovych or Iuriї Makar used UTsK materials – primarily Ukrainian-language documents – in their discussions on Polish-Ukrainian antagonisms, especially in the Lublin District. Makar’s three-volume series Vid deportatsiї do deportatsiї proved very worthwhile. However, their argument centers on “proving” who engaged in ethnic violence there; claiming Poles began anti-Ukrainian 25 Many works which will be cited in the subsequent paragraphs have been cited in the text of this dissertation or are found in the bibliography. For this reason I have chosen to forgo fully citing texts in the introduction. violence only to justify later anti-Polish violence by Ukrainian nationalists. This approach will be discussed below in greater detail. In addition John-Paul Himka and Larysa Holovata discussed aspects of the UTsK in their works concerning the Ukrainian press and publication houses in occupied Kraków and Lwów. In comparison to Ukrainian historians, Polish ones have devoted somewhat more attention to the Ukrainian Central Committee. In this sense, Ryszard Torzecki’s Kwestia ukraińska w polityce III Rzeszy, 1933-1945 and Polacy i Ukraińcy: Sprawa Ukraińska w czasie II wojny światowej na terenie II RP were pioneering works in examining German-Ukrainian relations in occupied Poland while attempting to find a place and voice for the UTsK in the context of Ukrainian nationalism during World War II. Torzecki’s account proved to be the standard which many Polish historians cited in their works on Ukrainian nationalism. Czesław Partacz and Krzysztof Łaba’s joint monograph included a valuable chapter dedicated to the topic of Volodymyr Kubiiovych and his vision of nationalizing what he saw as Ukrainian ethnographic territory in the Lublin District through collaboration with the German occupiers. Like their Ukrainian counterparts, some Polish historians – such as Mariusz Zajączkowski – also examined the UTsK and their reports in the Lublin District to illustrate the Ukrainian nationalist movement there in the context of Polish-Ukrainian ethnic antagonisms. In this regard, Igor Hałagida, a Polish historian of Ukrainian extraction, has provided what I believe is the best attempted tally of Ukrainian deaths in the district during the war. Although not complete, his scrupulous and detailed attempt provide a new, pragmatic and concrete view into the ethnic antagonism in the district while providing a better explanation for the violence there. Perhaps the best contribution to the topic of the UTsK has come from the side of several German historians. Frank Golczewski provided a comprehensive analysis of the UTsK in the Galicia District in the context of the Holocaust there. He provided a succinct survey concerning various aspects of collaboration on Ukrainian territory – both in the GG and in the Reichskomissariat Ukraine – in Kooperation und Verbrechen, an edited series of several articles examining various aspects of collaboration in Eastern Europe. In addition, Golczewski’s monograph Deutschland und Ukrainer 1914-1939 proved invaluable. Frank Grelka also examined the Ukrainian Central Committee in several Polish-language articles and his monograph comparing the Ukrainian nationalist movement under German occupation in 1918 and 1941/1942. Several Anglo-American historians have also dealt with the topic of the Ukrainian Central Committee. Most prominent was John A. Armstrong who based much of his discussion from Krakivs’ki Visti, the Ukrainian-language newspaper which appeared in the GG throughout the war. However, his work tends to also be more apologetic than critical of the Committee and its role in collaborating and cooperating with the Germans. Ihor Kamenetsky’s dated yet fundamental studies on the German occupation of the Reichskommissariat Ukraine and Nazi Lebensraum policy in Eastern Europe also provide a brief discussion of the UTsK, albeit cursory. In their studies on Lwów, especially portions dealing with the German occupation of the city, both Tarik Cyril Amar and Christoph Mick discussed the role of the UTsK apparatus, especially in relation to contesting Polish influence there. Gross’s monograph on Polish society under German occupation in the GG and Martin Winstone’s latest monograph are the only two English-language monographs dedicated solely to the topic of the GG. Furthermore, the UTsK topic and its head Volodymyr Kubiiovych often appear in discussions concerning the formation of the 14th SS-Volunteer Division Galizien. Monographs and studies were written by divisional officers and recruits (for example the works by Wasyl Veryha), the children or grandchildren of divisional soldiers (for example Michael James Melnyk), and historians. Ukrainian scholars tend to forgo correlating collaboration with the division but rather apologetically view it as an armed struggle against the oncoming Bolsheviks. Recent works by Per Anders Rudling and David Marples have deconstructed this vision and provided more insight into the recruitment and actions of the division. It is my hope that my examination of the division through the lens of the UTsK will only add to a more complete and balanced understanding of the Galizien Division. The above summary of scholars and their works suggests the UTsK topic is by no means unknown but, on the other hand, has yet to receive the comprehensive scholarly attention it deserves. However, those works, whether discussing the topic in a cursory or marginal fashion, helped me refine my focus and area of interest. Undertaking the task of critically examining the UTsK called for comprehensive archival research. In doing so, I have accessed materials both used by other historians as well as those not used or overlooked. The most important resource concerning the UTsK was located in the Library and Archives Canada in Ottawa. There I went through the large collection of wartime documents in the Volodymyr Kubiiovych fond. Of equal importance to the Ukrainian perspective were documents I collected from the Michael Chomiak collection in the Provincial Archives of Alberta in Edmonton. These Ukrainian materials housed in Canadian state archives were complemented by ones in Ukrainian state archives. In Kyiv, I consulted the Ukrainian Central Committee fond at the Central State Archives of Supreme Bodies of Power and Government of Ukraine. While some materials there were also in the above-named collections, I also found other pertinent resources. Regional archives, especially in the Polish state archives in Lublin (Archiwum Państwowe w Lublinie - AP-L) and Przemyśl (Archiwum Państwowe w Przemyślu – AP-P) provided a glimpse into the UTsK regional apparatus. At the Ukrainian Academy of Arts and Sciences archive in New York City, I was able to access the Kost’ Pan’kivs’kyi collection. There, his wartime diary provided valuable insight into Ukrainian activity, especially in the Galicia District. Of immense interest to me were German-language document written to the occupational authorities. This is important particularly because what Ukrainians did to Poles and vice versa cannot be reduced to escalating events concerning only these two groups but must be placed in the context of Nazi German occupational policies and plans. As I came to notice, these were often overlooked or not consulted at all by Ukrainian historians and partially by their Polish colleagues. In my opinion, these documents shed important light on the question of Ukrainian-German collaboration and cooperation. However, German-language documents in the UTsK collections only told one side of the story. To gain a complete occupational perspective, I was forced to conduct research in Poland and Germany itself. In the former, I went through all forty-three volumes of Hans Frank’s administrative diary housed in the archive of the Institute of National Remembrance (Instytut Pamięci Narodowej – IPN) in Warsaw. Spanning from October 1939 through May 1945, this collection is the definitive source concerning the policy making and day-to-day activity of the Nazi occupation regime in the GG. Certain portions or fragments of this diary have been published. For example, the German-language Das Diensttagebuch des deutschen Generalgouverneurs in Polen 1939-1945 or the Polish-langauge two-volume Okupacja i Ruch Oporu w Dzienniku Hansa Franka 1939-1945 include a wide-range of entries from throughout the war; providing thorough insight into many aspects of Frank’s administration including anti-Polish and anti-Jewish policies. Whereas these published sources of Frank’s diary prove invaluable, they unfortunately do not conver the breath of the Ukrainian question. Instead, Ukrainian-related topics or issues only appear in a secondary context. As such, what I found throughout the Frank collection provided me with a sound foundation upon which I could examine Ukrainian-German collaboration and cooperation from the point of view of the Nazi occupier. Alongside the Kubiiovych fond, the Hans Frank collection is also generously cited throughout my dissertation. In addition, I also consulted the Josef Bühler trial documents, also housed at the IPN; particularly materials dealing with the Ukrainian ethnic question in the GG. Warsaw’s Archive of Modern Records (Archiwum Akt Nowych – AAN) also contains GG administrative records which also proved valuable. The state archive in Lublin provided interesting documents associated with the administration of the governor for that district. The German state archives in Berlin (Bundesarchiv – BA) and Freiburg (Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv – BA-MA) contained materials associated with the Nazi regime including the internal affairs ministry, the foreign ministry, the police and security apparatus and the Wehrmacht. Concerning the latter, I succeeded in consulting materials in the BA-MA which assisted me in recreating the process by which Wehrmacht intelligence exploited and trained Ukrainian nationalists in preparation for the German attack on Poland. A burning viewpoint in my research was also that of the Polish one. In the AAN I sifted through various reports compiled by the Home Army (Armia Krajowa – AK) and the exile government’s Delegate for Poland. These proved very beneficial as they often focused on specific eastern issues for example or chronologically described German occupation policies and their effects on occupied society. One AAN collection which allowed me to contrast the UTsK was that of its Polish counterpart, the RGO. To gain a complete understanding of the Polish perspective, I also spent time in the Polish Institute and Sikorski Museum archives and the Polish Underground Movement Study Trust archives, both in London. As with underground reports from occupied Poland, so too were policy briefs and action plans written for the exile government based off of underground information of immense interest. Materials from the Jagiellonian University archives were also consulted. The advent of internet archival collections proved advantageous for my research as I also consulted several electronic archives. These included materials from the: Hoover Institute Archives, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Freedom of Information Act Archive, and the Ukrainian Center for the Study of the Liberation Movement archive (Arkhiv Tsentru Doslidzhen’ Vyzvol’noho Rukhu). Naturally, I could not have failed to consult and use published primary sources. Special mention is due to The Correspondence of the Ukrainian Central Committee in Cracow and Lviv with the German Authorities, 1939-1944, edited by Wasyl Veryha. Although some documents appear in some of the above-named archives, others were unique and proved worthwhile in my endeavors. In addition to these, published collections concerning AK communiques and reports, government delegate reports, and RGO reports complemented archival materials. The Litopys Ukraїns’koї Povstans’koї Armiї series proved valuable as it allowed me to gain a better understanding of how Ukrainian nationalists factions viewed the UTsK. In addition, two volumes of the Trial of the Major War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal collection afforded me an opportunity to see the immediate postwar explanation many top-ranking Nazis – especially Hans Frank – gave for their wartime actions and policies. Although not published primary sources per se, the Polska-Ukraina: trudne pytania series was also a valuable resource as it contained what could be described as a scholarly dialogue between Polish and Ukrainian historians on mutually difficult topics from the Second World War. In addition, a series of Russian-language documents sheds light on the Soviet perspective of Ukrainian-German collaboration and the UTsK. The German occupation apparatus permitted ethnic presses in the GG. As such, Krakivs’ki Visti appeared as the Ukrainian-language newspaper throughout the war. In the Jagiellonian University library I consulted issues on microfilm. The articles, announcements, and occasional cartoons proved for interesting reading and, more importantly, provided for a deeper view into UTsK and Ukrainian activity in the GG. L’vivs’ki Visti which appeared later in the Galicia District also proved a valuable resource. The German-language GG administrative journal Das Generalgouvernement also provided interesting articles dealing with ethnic issues or general occupational themes as they were written in the language of the time. This study could not be completed without the inclusion and critical examination of memoirs, diaries and recollections of prominent figures found throughout this dissertation. First and foremost, the UTsK topic was discussed and interpreted in postwar memoirs by those who worked in the Committee apparatus or in its executive board. Perhaps the best known and most cited memoirs are by former UTsK head Volodymyr Kubiiovych and his deputy Kost’ Pan’kivs’kyi. Their recollections, which will be cited throughout my study, provide, on the one hand, an interesting look into not only the organizational structure, activity and problems the UTsK faced, but also a glimpse into the mind-set of Ukrainians who collaborated with the German occupation authorities. Unfortunately, the latter aspect provides a rather apologetic explanation into the reasoning for collaboration. Memoirs and recollections of many Ukrainian nationalists who at one time or another – whether for a short or extended period of time – found themselves in the GG also proved insightful as they gave a perspective into the UTsK apparatus which its direct executives skirted away from. Many nationalist accounts detail for example the training of Ukrainian groups by Wehrmacht intelligence, their sabotage activity in southeastern Poland in early September 1939, and how they began organizing Ukrainian life under German occupation only to join the ranks of the UTsK. Often, their work in the GG among Ukrainian villagers with low levels of national consciousness meant to not only raise those levels but to mold modern Ukrainians out of them. This dissertation could not have come about without the help and advice of many individuals; professionals in the field of history. First and foremost, I am greatly indebted to dr. hab. Jan Jacek Bruski for agreeing to take me under his wing; guiding and training me to think critically. Above all, I am very appreciative of his scrupulous and meticulous attention to detail, traits which proved immensely useful in writing this dissertation and which will prove useful in the future. The working relationship which we forged over the past six years has been truly a wonderful experience. Furthermore, I am grateful to my dissertation committee members and thankful to my outside reviewers prof. dr. hab. Grzegorz Motyka and prof. dr. hab. Igor Hałagida; two scholarly pillars in the field of Polish-Ukrainian history who agreed to review my dissertation. I would also like to express my thanks to: prof. dr. hab. Krzysztof Zamorski, dr. hab. Jarosław Moklak, Professor Emeritus John-Paul Himka, Professor David Marples, Professor Jerzy Borzęcki, Dr. Gennadii Korolov, Dr. Yuri Radchenko, Ernest Gyidel, Ray Brandon, Dr. Per Anders Rudling, Professor John Micgiel, Professor Piotr Wróbel, Professor Aleksandros Kyrou, Professor Chris Mauriello, Professor Brad Austin, Professor Emeritus Roman Szporluk and Dean Anthony J. Bajdek. In addition to these individual, my family and close colleagues have also supported me throughout this journey. To them I am indebted for spending more time with my head in books and translating documents than with them. Financial assistance made my research and this dissertation possible. I was fortunate to be a recipient of the Etiuda.4 doctoral grant from Poland’s National Science Center (Narodowe Centrum Nauki). This allowed me to conduct a six-month residency at the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute. The Riochi Sasakawa Young Leadership Fellowship Foundation Grant allowed me to spend time at the University of Toronto and conduct research in the Library and Archives Canada while the Tokyo Foundation’s SYLFF Research Abroad Grant permitted me to conduct archival research in Kyiv. The Kościuszko Foundation provided me with a generous doctoral scholarship which I used to work in the Provincial Archives in Edmonton, Alberta. The Historical Faculty at the Jagiellonian University provided me with several grants which allowed me to conduct archival research in Great Britain and Germany. In addition to these, I also received scholarships from the Polish Army Veterans Association Foundation and the Polish National Alliance. For this support, I am truly blessed and honored. The concept of this dissertation has far expanded its initial expectations. In setting out to analyze UTsK activity during World War II in Nazi-occupied Poland, the intended approach was to be narrow; focusing solely on the Ukrainian aspect of collaboration and activity in the GG. In further examining documents and materials, my focus expanded exponentially. Thus, my study of the topic showed it to not only describe the life of Ukrainians in the GG but to also be a study of Nazi German occupational politics in the GG, a study of Ukrainian-German collaboration, and a voice in the burning discussion of Polish-Ukrainian relations during World War II. It is always a challenge to make sense of Eastern Europe’s shifting region or city names. For this dissertation, in which frontiers were moved and administered by rival languages, I have employed a policy of using names in their original Polish form; the way they appeared in the borders of the Second Polish Republic as the partition of Poland in 1939 by the Nazis and Soviets was as illegal and unsanctioned act of aggression. Only when quoted or described in specific contexts do such city names as Lwów or Chełm appear as L’viv or Lemberg; Kholm or Cholm. Exceptions were made for places with traditional English names in widespread use, such as Warsaw or the Dnieper River. Concerning names and surnames of Ukrainian (or Russian) individuals, I have followed the US Library of Congress system for transliteration. Chapter 1 Polish-Ukrainian Relations during the Interwar Period The changes in the map of Europe which began taking shape toward the end of World War I proved an opportune moment for many East-Central European ethnic groups to begin their long-awaited struggle for national independence; aiming to build their states on the ruins of the Habsburg, Russian and German empires. For some – such as the Poles – this worked. For the Ukrainians it did not. The collapse of Austria-Hungary and the end of the Great War caused Poles and Ukrainian inhabiting the region of Eastern Galicia to take matters into their own hands.26 On the night of October 31/November 1, organized Ukrainian military units disarmed Polish soldiers in the Lwów barracks and began seizing locations in the city center. Ukrainian civilians, primarily high school and university students, joined patrols throughout the city. The remnants of Polish military officers and local civilians soon organized local, self-defense units and counterattacked on November 1.27 On November 9, amid back and forth fighting in the city, the West Ukrainian National Republic (ZUNR) was officially proclaimed, transforming the fighting units into military units of a Ukrainian Galician Army. The Polish General Staff sent reinforcements to the city. The Ukrainians were able to push as far west as Przemyśl which they occupied; only to lose it three days later on November 12. Beginning in March and throughout May 1919, the Poles launched a counteroffensive, one which included reinforcements from Volhynia and the Polish Army from France; successfully pushing the 26 For an examination into Habsburg rule in Eastern Galicia, Polish-Ukrainian relations there and the Ukrainian national movement which arose there, see among others: Larry Wolff, The Idea of Galicia: History and Fantasy in Hapsburg Political Culture (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2012); Christopher Hann and Paul Robert Magocsi (eds), Galicia: A Multicultured Land (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005); John-Paul Himka, Galician Villagers and the Ukrainian National Movement Nineteenth Century (London: Macmillan Press, 1988); John-Paul Himka, Socialism in Galicia: The Emergence of Polish Social Democracy and Ukrainian Radicalism (1860-1890) (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983); Paul Robert Magocsi, The Roots of Ukrainian Nationalism: Galicia as Ukraine’s Piedmont (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002); Andrei S. Markovits and Frank E. Sysyn (eds), Nationbuilding and the Politics of Nationalism: Essays on Austrian Galicia (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982). See also portions of Henryk Batowski, Rozpad Austro-Węgier1914-1918. Sprawy narodowościowe i działania dyplomatyczne, 2nd ed (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1982), 15-123; Piotr Wandycz, The Lands of Partitioned Poland 1795-1918 (Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 1975), 11-14; 71-74; 126-137; 141-148; 214-228; 247-259; 277-281; 303-307; 319-323. 27 Christoph Mick, Lemberg, Lwów, L’viv, 1914-1947: Violence and Ethnicity in a Contested City (West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 2016), 137-193; Michał Klimecki, Polsko-ukraińska wojna o Lwów i Galicję Wschodnią 1918-1919 (Warszawa: Oficyna Wydawnicza Volumen, 2000), 67-115. A longstanding legacy of the Polish-Ukrainian confict over Eastern Galicia, and Lwów especially, was the contested memory of the events by both ethnic groups during the interwar period. As Mick succinctly summarized: “once the war was over, the battle over symbols and the meaning of the war began,” serving as a political myth for the two. For Poles, it symbolized the defense of territory acquired while those who perished were raised to the level of national heroes defending the states new borders. Conversrely, Ukrainians laid claims to the Listopadovyi chyn as the precursor to forming a nation-state which was cut-short. Their losses duing the battles were enshrined into the political cult of the dead which spanned the princes of medieval Rus to the Cossacks. See Mick, Lemberg, Lwów, Lviv…, 220-230; 235-245. Ukrainian Galician Army east of the Zbruch River and out of Eastern Galicia.28 Several months later, the ZUNR government went into exile in Vienna. This brief yet grueling conflict created resentment and animosity towards Poland, seen by the disgruntled Ukrainian veterans of this struggle as the main enemy of Ukrainian national aspirations. 28 Klimecki, Polsko-ukraińska wojna o Lwów i Galicję Wschodnią 1918-1919, 226-243. 29 Besides the Polish-Ukrainian War and the Polish-Soviet War, the Posnanian War erupted on December 27, 1918 between Poland and Germany; only to be settled by the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. The Silesian War, also between Poland and Germany, proceeded intermittently through three Polish national uprisings (August 16-24, 1919; August 19-25, 1919; May 2 – July 5, 1921) and was ultimately settled following the signing of the Silesian Convention in 1922. The Czechoslovak War was launched on January 26, 1919 with the Czechoslovak invasion of Cieszyn (Tešin) and was terminated by Allied arbitration on July 28, 1920. In addition, minor conflicts in Spisz (Spiš) and other regions of the Carpathian Mountains persisted until 1925. Norman Davies, God’s Playground: A History of Poland vol. 2 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005), 292. 30 The brief history of the Dnieper Ukrainian statehood spanned three phases. The period of the Central Council (Rada) under Mykhailo Hrushevs’kyi sought to form an autonomous and later independent Ukrainian National Republic (UNR). The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk – signed between the Central Powers and Bolshevist Russia – officially recognized the independence of the UNR. Lasting fourteen months, the council was overthrown and replaced after its German allies became displeased with the direction it was taking. The period of the Hetmanate saw, with the help and protection of the German army, the emergence of Pavlo Skoropads’kyi as Hetman of Ukraine. Dependent exclusively on Germany, it fell after 8 months, with limited success. The final phase centered on the leadership of the UNR Directorate, led by the socialists: writer Volodymyr Vynnychenko and later the talented journalist and self-made military man Symon Petliura. The Russian civil war and invasions by both Red and White armies as well as the Polish-Soviet War which crisscrossed Ukrainian territory and led to the eventual establishment of Soviet control over the Ukraine in October 1920, with many prominent leaders, including Petliura going into exile. Paul Robert Magocsi, A History of Ukraine (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996), 471-511; Orest Subtelny, Ukraine: A History 4th ed (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009), 345-365. 31 Norman Davies, White Eagle, Red Star: The Polish-Soviet War 1919-1920 and the Miracle on the Vistula (London: Randomhouse, 2003), 62-105; Richard M. Watt, Bitter Glory: Poland and its Fate 1918-1939 (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1998), 89-109. The Polish victory in Eastern Galicia was just one in a series of six concurrently fought wars by the new Polish Republic between 1918 and 1921.29 The gravest of all was the Polish Soviet-War; one which threatened the existence of the young Republic. The war turned into a back-and-forth struggle for territorial expansion by the Poles – to forge their eastern border on their own – and one for ideological and revolutionary expansion by Soviet Russia – to bring the communist revolution to the nations of Central and Western Europe. Small skirmishes between the Polish and Red armies following the withdrawal of German troops from the eastern front in early 1919 outside of Brest-Litovsk were the catalyst to the war. In April, Polish forces recaptured Wilno (Vilnius); occupied from January 1919 by the Red Army. With Soviet Russia in the throes of a civil war and the Red Army under pressure from all sides – from the west by Poles, south and east by Russian Whites – the Polish Army made impressive gains. By September they controlled Minsk and territory beyond it including a series of river lines extending south through the Pripet Marshes, meeting with territory controlled by the army of Symon Petliura; head of the recently formed Ukrainian People’s Republic (UNR) Directorate.30 With winter setting in and the Polish advance east stalling, Poles looked to the Entente powers for support and affirmation of their drive east against Bolshevism as Józef Piłsudski – commander-in-chief of Polish armed forces – anticipated a Soviet counterattack in spring 1920. 31 Unable to achieve any concrete gains from the western allies, Piłsudski turned to Petliura; recently run out of their homeland by White and Red forces and sheltering behind Polish lines on the western rim of Ukraine. Piłsudski supported the idea of creating a Ukrainian state on Dnieper Ukrainian territory to “significantly weaken Russia” and create a buffer zone for Poland. The alliance, concluded on April 20, 1920, formally recognized Petliura’s UNR. Concerning territorial matters, Petliura conceded western Volhynia and Eastern Galicia to Poland, who, in turn, would “cede” to Ukraine the territories between the new border and the old 1772 Rzeczpospolita's border. For Petliura, this was a last chance effort to preserve statehood in central Ukraine.32 On April 25, 1920 the joint Polish-Ukrainian armies launched a full-scale attack; capturing Kyiv by May 7th with little fighting and suffering few casualties. However, they did not stay in the city for long as in June and July the Red Army smashed through Polish lines in Eastern Galicia. By the beginning of August, five Soviet armies were approaching the suburbs of Warsaw; threatening the existence of Poland. As Polish defensive lines held firm and repulsed the Red Army attack on the Vistula bridgehead, Polish forces sliced through Soviet rear lines. The Red Army was encircled and routed on the outskirts of Warsaw with Polish forces chasing retreating Soviet forces east. As the Poles looked to march on Moscow unopposed, Lenin sued for peace.33 32 M.K. Dziewanowski, Joseph Pilsudski: A European Federalist, 1918-1922 (Stanford: Hoover Institute Press, 1969), 244-288; Jan Jacek Bruski, Petlurowcy. Centrum Państwowe Ukraińskiej Republiki Ludowej na wychodźstwie (1919-1924), 2nd ed (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Arcana, 2004) 99-164; Jan Pisuliński, Nie tylko Petlura. Kwestia ukraińska w polskiej polityce zagranicznej w latach 1918-1923 (Toruń: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Mikołaja Kopernika, 2013), 167-247. 33 Davies, White Eagle, Red Star…, 105-263; Watt, Bitter Glory…, 110-152; Pisuliński, Nie tylko Petlura…, 249-322. 34 Jerzy Borzęcki, The Polish-Soviet Peace of 1921 and the Creation of Interwar Europe (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008), 220-221. The signatories of the treaty, Polish, Russian and Soviet Ukrainian representatives, pledged “not to create and not to support” any organizations aiming at armed struggle against the other, at subverting the internal, political order of the other or claiming to be governments with claims to territory within either state. Both also agreed to ensure minority rights to those inherited nationalities. 35 For the UNR-in-exile in Poland and relations with interwar Poland, see among others: Bruski, Petlurowcy…, 455-469; ibid, Between Prometheism and Realpolitik: Poland and Soviet Ukraine, 1921-1926, trans. Teresa Bałuk-Ulewiczowa (Kraków: Jagiellonian University Press, 2016); 119-129; Emilian Wiszka, Emigracja ukraińska w Polsce 1920-1939 (Toruń: Wydawnictwo Mado, 2004). Following the armistice signed in October 1920, the Riga Treaty of March 18, 1921 officially concluded the Polish-Soviet War. The peace, signed between the two parties formally defined Poland’s eastern border and specified stipulations regarding newly inherited minorities. The southeastern border ran along the Styr-Zbruch Rivers line, incorporating western Volhynia and Eastern Galicia into Poland.34 Agreement with the Soviets caused Piłsudski to abandon Petliura whose forces were routed by the Bolsheviks. In abandoning the last territories held in Podolia in November 1920, Petliura and his army accepted internment on Polish-held territory. With Dnieper Ukraine falling to the Soviets, the UNR continued to function in exile in Poland where an émigré state center (Derzhavnyi Tsentr) was organized and functioned throughout the interwar period.35 International recognition of Poland’s eastern border came following the decision of the Conference of Ambassadors of March 14, 1923. Polish sovereignty was acknowledged over the territories of Eastern Galicia and western Volhynia. Through this recognition, the Ukrainian issue moved from the international arena to an internal, Polish state matter. Affirming their decision, the Conference obligated the Polish state to grant some kind of autonomous status to Eastern Galicia.36 The rights of non-Polish minorities were guaranteed in the Little Versailles Treaty signed in June 1919 between Poland and the Entente powers. Constitutions adopted in 1921 and 1935 guaranteed all Polish citizens the same rights and equality before the law. In reality, national minorities were often treated as second-class citizens; discriminated against at various levels; of which more below.37 36 Ryszard Torzecki, Kwestia ukraińska w Polsce w latach 1923-1929 (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1989), 20; Bohdan Budurowycz, “Poland and the Ukrainian Problem, 1921-1939,” Canadian Slavonic Papers vol. 25 no. 4 (December 1983), 475-479. 37 Jerzy Tomaszewski, Ojczyzna nie tylko Polaków. Mniejszości narodowe w Polsce w latach 1918-1939 (Warszawa: Młodzieżowa Agencja Wydawnicza, 1985), 181-182. 38 Tomaszewski, Ojczyzna nie tylko Polaków..., 12-14; 50-53; Janina Stobniak-Smogorzewska, Kresowe osadnictwo wojskowe 1920-1945 (Warszawa: Rytm, 2003), 58; 101; 217-219; Volodymyr Kubiiovych, Western Ukraine within Poland 1920-1939 (Ethnic Relationships) (Chicago: Ukrainian Research and Information Institute, 1963), 26. 39 John-Paul Himka, “Western Ukraine between the Wars,” Canadian Slavonic Papers vol. 34 no. 4 (December 1992), 394-395; 397; Jarosław Hrycak, Historia Ukrainy 1772-1999. Narodziny nowoczesnego narodu, trans. Katarzyna Kotyńska (Lublin: Instytut Europy Środkowo-Wschodniej, 2000), 173; 188. About 26-30 million Ukrainians lived in Soviet Ukraine, 0.5 million in the Czechoslovak Republic and some 0.8 in Romania. Ukrainians constituted the largest ethnic minority in Poland – 16 percent (5 million) of the total population of just under 32 million. They primarily inhabited territory in the Lwów, Stanisławów, Tarnopol (about 3.5 million) and Volhynia (about 1.5 million) voivodships. The majority of Ukrainians, over 90 percent, lived in villages and small towns while cities in southeastern Poland were primarily inhabited by Poles and Jews. Throughout the interwar period and after the war, Ukrainian demographers contested Polish statistical data; claiming as many as 6 million Ukrainians inhabiting Poland; specifically western Volhynia, Podlasie, southern Polessia, and Eastern Galicia. Excluding Volhynia, the three southeastern voivodships (formerly constituting Eastern Galicia) came to be collectively called “Eastern Little Poland.” Smaller numbers of Ukrainian also lived within the southern and eastern regions of the Kraków voivodship and the eastern portion of the Lublin voivodship. Besides the autochthonous Poles in Eastern Galicia and Volhynia, Polish settlers (osadnicy), many of whom were war veterans, received land with the objective of strengthening Polish elements in those regions. This in turn irritated Ukrainian peasants who owned little land despite efforts to obtain more in the past. In addition, the Polish government isolated Ukrainians in Volhynia from their more nationally-conscious brothers in Eastern Galicia by way of creating an internal border (the so-called Sokal border). The goal was to halt the spread of Ukrainian consciousness so as to make control of Ukrainians there more manageable.38 Outside of Poland, Ukrainians also lived in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, the Czechoslovak Republic and Romania. In sum, the total Ukrainian population in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Romania for 1930/1931 numbered between 5.5 and 7 million.39 The formation of a sound state policy towards the newly inherited minorities, especially Ukrainians, presented problems to many Polish governments. A clear division appeared between two political groups. Those around Piłsudski adhered to a principle of state assimilation while National Democrats tended to see national assimilation as the best course. Regardless, administrative policies were introduced, marginalizing Ukrainian administrative, educational, religious and economic life. The most detrimental governments to Ukrainian issues were those influenced by the National Democrats. The government of Władysław Grabski continued a line of policies effecting Ukrainian socio-political, economic and cultural spheres. The most painful blow to Ukrainians was the “Lex Grabski” of 1924. Named after Stanisław Grabski, minister of the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Public Education (and brother of Prime Minister Władysław), these education and language reforms either severely limited or completely replaced Ukrainian language schools with bilingual, functionally Polish ones. While limiting students exposure to Ukrainian language and education in Polish public schools, the law resulted both in an increase of Ukrainian private schools which were allowed to be organized and function, and in the alienation of Ukrainian youth from Polish authority.40 40 Snyder, The Reconstruction of Nations…, 144; Mirosława Papierzyńska-Turek, Sprawa ukraińska w drugiej Rzeczypospolitej 1922-1926 (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1979), 220-236. The predecessor to the W. Grabski government, the Wincenty Witos one (the so-called Chejno-Piast government which aligned itself with the National Democrats), undertook a nationalist position towards the eastern territories through strengthening Polish influence in many legal, economic and cultural spheres of national life. This included the self-administration level, described as “broom tactics” as these policies intended to sweep or clean out non-Polish or uncertain elements and influences. A planned agrarian reform intended to strengthen Polish landholding in the Kresy while the tactic of colonization, in turn, sought to reintroduce Polish elements into those regions. Papierzyńska-Turek, Sprawa ukraińskaw w Drugiej Rzeczypospolitej, 191-195; Torzecki, Kwestia ukraińska w Polsce..., 84-86. 41 Marek Syrnyk, Ukraińcy w Polsce 1918-1939. Oświata i szkolnictwo (Wrocław: Krynica Design Studio, 1996), 105-109; Tomaszewski, Ojczyzna nie tylko Polaków..., 66-68. During the period between the liquidation of Ukrainian departments at Lwów University (in 1919) and the first Ukrainian-Polish government talks in March 1924, an underground or clandestine Ukrainian university, closely associated with the Shevchenko Society, functioned in Lwów. During the 1920/21 academic year, the university included 3 schools (philosophical, medical, law) with 21 departments and 101 “listeners” or students. An underground Ukrainian politechnic also functioned. Additionally, the Grabski government tackled the issue of Ukrainian higher education. Throughout the interwar period, Ukrainians aspired for a university of their own. To conciliate Ukrainian demands, the government approved a project to create a Ukrainian institute at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. However, this did not satisfy Ukrainians who desired a university, not a small institute, in Lwów.41 The matter remained unresolved. The government also implemented a state language policy in which Polish was the official language at the state and self-government levels, within the army and in such public institutions as railroads and post offices. A subsequent government regulation forbid the use of the term “Ukrainian” and only allowed the term Ruthenian (ruski) to describe Ukrainian inhabitants of Eastern Galician and Volhynia.42 42 Grzegorz Mazur, Życie polityczne polskiego Lwowa 1918-1939 (Kraków: Księgarnia Akademicka, 2007), 119-120; 148. The term “Ukrainian” would only be used unofficially and when necessary for clarification purposes. 43 Bruski, Between Prometheism and Realpolitik..., 55; Tomaszewski, Ojczyzna nie tylko Polaków..., 64-66. 44 Mirosław Sycz, “Polish Policy toward the Ukrainian Cooperative Movement, 1920-1939,” Harvard Ukrainian Studies vol. 23 no. 1/2 (June 1999), 25-45; Himka, “Western Ukraine between the Wars,” 405-406; Andrii Kachor, Muzhi ideї i pratsi (Winnipeg: Bratstvo Maslosoiuznykiv, 1974). The “Lex Grabski” severely limited education, directly affecting instruction in the Ukrainian language throughout the southeastern voivodships. It resulted in the collapse of Ukrainian primary schools, especially extensive and highly developed ones in the former Austrian partition. For example, nearly two-thirds of primary schools with Ukrainian as the language of instruction were shut down between 1924 and 1926. During the 1927/28 school year, 835 elementary schools in which Ukrainian was the language of instruction existed. By the 1936/37 school year that number dropped by almost half to 496. Conversely, the number of private Ukrainian schools increased, from 31 to 41 over that decade. Dual-language schools also rose in number, from 2121 to 2710, a direct effect of the reforms.43 Such policies were evidence for Ukrainians that the Polish state was an occupier rather than a legitimate authority. These and other reforms caused them to withdraw their loyalty to the state and develop feelings of hatred toward Poles and Poland. Perhaps the only sector where Ukrainians flourished in was the cooperative movement. By the end of the 1930s, it numbered 3,500 cooperatives with some 700 thousand members. A chief success of the movement was employing educated Ukrainians who were not afforded employment by the Polish state (15 thousand workers on the eve of the Second World War). Aside from this, publications were founded and political or cultural activity was supported. One of the most successful cooperatives was the Maslosoiuz – an exporter of butter and dairy products to Europe. However, the Polish government did limit cooperative activity to Eastern Galicia. Galician Ukrainians also organized other strong organizations. The Prosvita education society had over 11 thousand members in 1925 and sponsored over 2 thousand reading halls. The Ridna Shkola society established and maintained private schools, the scouting organization Plast contained some 6 thousand members before being officially banned in 1930, and the women’s union was active and vocal.44 The May 1926 coup d’état by Piłsudski and his supporters marked a significant point in policies toward the Ukrainian issue. Piłsudskite governments adhered to a principle of state assimilation – loyalty to the state in exchange for the development of local, self-governments and differentiation of certain Ukrainian regions in accordance with the theories of individualization, selectivity and regionalization. However, just as with the policy of national assimilation, no clear path emerged among the Piłsudskites towards state assimilation. Ideas tuned into experiments and initiatives, not only from government institutions but also from indirectly linked government agencies. A chief pillar of the Piłsudskites centered upon local governments and self-administrations; seen as the keys to both break any Ukrainian separatist aspirations and to slowly assimilate and reconcile them into the state system. The government planned to hold elections at the local administrative levels and intended to allow qualified and loyal Ukrainians to civil service positions. This approach envisioned Polish-Ukrainian cooperation toward the betterment of their region and the state. However, some National Democratic regulations were meant to remain in place. For example, Piłsudski advocated that Polish be the only state language while also strengthening the position of Polish land ownership in strategically important regions.45 45 Andrzej Chojnowski, Koncepcje polityki narodowościowej rządów Polskich w latach 1921-1939 (Wrocław: Ossolineum, 1979), 70-121; Torzecki, Kwestia ukraińska w Polsce..., 146-157. A change of policy towards Poland’s national minorities came following an August 26, 1926 meeting of the council of ministers in which Piłsudski participated. The result of this meeting ordered a revision of the minority policy; the goal of which would be to “draw these people into the Polish state system.” See Czesław Madajczyk, “Dokumenty w sprawie polityki narodowościowej władz polskich po przewrocie majowym.” Dzieje Najnowsze, vol. 4 nr. 3 (1972). 46 Timothy Snyder, Sketches from a Secret War: A Polish Artist’s Mission to Liberate Soviet Ukraine (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005), 63-82. For a first-hand account of Józewski’s work, see his memoirs: Henryk Józewski, Zamiast pamiętnika (Warszawa: Instytut Książki, 2017). The most grandiose state assimilation experiment was conducted by Henryk Józewski, a close confederate of Piłsudskis’, during his time spent as voivode (governor) of Volhynia. Józewski envisioned gaining state loyalty from Ukrainians by encouraging their cultural flourishment. In Volhynia, the state subsidized Ukrainian reading societies (many Prosvita societies were closed by Józewski, traditionally regarded by Poles as a breeding ground for radical Ukrainian nationalists), cooperative societies and theaters. Józewski pushed the Orthodox Church to assume a Ukrainian character and language in services and sponsored political representation through the Volhynian Ukrainian Alliance. He also made strides to place on equal standing Ukrainian language education by making Ukrainian a mandatory subject in Polish schools or having various subjects taught in Ukrainian in bilingual schools.46 While governments oscillated between policies of assimilation, Ukrainian political bodies voiced grievances and desires. The major Ukrainian political party in Poland was the Ukrainian National-Democratic Union (UNDO). UNDO formed from the fusion of several moderate nationalist groups in Lwów in 1925. It published a daily newspaper – Dilo – and maintained close relations with the cooperatives, the Prosvita society and the women’s union. The party saw Polish rule over Eastern Galicia to be illegitimate but participated in parliamentary elections, respecting the rules of democracy, and was vocal in criticizing state policies, demanding Ukrainian tolerance and working toward improving their cultural, political and social situation. It stood on a platform of negotiating with the Polish government on the basis of existing political realities toward establishing a Ukrainian state but rejected terror and violence for achieving it. From 1935-1939, its leader Vasyl’ Mudryi was deputy speaker of the Polish Sejm. Besides UNDO, a Communist Party of Western Ukraine was active even though it was banned by the state from its origins in 1923. The crypto-communist Ukrainian Peasant-Worker Union (Sel-Rob) was banned in the 1930s.47 47 Mirosław Szumiło, Ukraińska Reprezentacja Parlamentarna w Sejmie i Senacie RP (1928-1939) (Warszawa: Neriton, 2007), 21-51; 193-240; Ryszard Tomczyk, Ukraińskie Zjednoczenie Narodowo-Demokratyczne 1925-1939 (Szczecin: Książnica Pomorska im. Stanisława Staszica, 2006), 50-52; Snyder, The Reconstruction of Nations..., 150. For more on Ukrainian communist party, see Janusz Radziejowski, The Communist Party of Western Ukraine 1919-1929 (Edmonton: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, 1983); Roman Solchanyk, “The Foundation of the Commmunist Movement in Eastern Galicia, 1919-1921,” Slavic Review vol. 30 no. 4 (1971). Concerning Ukrainian parties in Polish parliamentary elections, see Andrzej Ajnenkiel, Parlamentaryzm II Rzeczypospolitej (Warszawa: Wiedza Powszechna, 1975) and Jerzy Holzer, Mozaika polityczna Drugiej Rzeczypospolitej (Warszawa: Książki i Wiedza, 1971). 48 Bruski, Between Prometheism and Realpolitik…, 56-59. 49 Alexander J. Motyl, The Turn to the Right: The Ideological Origins and Development of Ukrainian Nationalism, 1919-1929 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1980), 94-104; Anatolii V. Kentii, Ukraїns’ka Viiskova Orhanizatsiia (UVO) v 1920-1928 rr. (Kyiv: Instytut istorii Ukraїny NAN Ukraїny, 1998), 14-16; Frank Golczewski, Detusche und Ukrainer 1914-1939 (Paderbon: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2010), 431-455. In addition to the mainstream political groups, other Ukrainian parties also existed. A Ukrainian Radical Party (the first Ukrainian political party established in Galicia) supported programs of agrarian reform and anticlericalism. Its members, including Osyp Nazaruk, made contributions to ZUNR operations; at home and later in exile. During the interwar period, the radicals shifted towards the left yet they were steadfast in rejecting a pro-Soviet orientation. They formed an alliance with socialist revolutionaries, forming in February 1926 the Ukrainian Socialist Radical Party. A Ukrainian Social Democratic Party also existed until 1924 when Polish authorities delegalized it. Some conservative monarchists, supporters of ex-Hetman Skoropads’kyi, formed the Ukrainian Christian Organization in 1925. However, they assuaged no overriding political ambitions; supporting UNDO on major issues and consistently stressing loyalty to the Polish state. Furthermore, the Polish authorities also made efforts to create Ukrainian groups in favor of reaching an agreement with the state. These included: the Galician Khliboroby, the Ukrainian-Ruthenian Khliborob Party, the Ukrainian People’s Party, and the Ukrainian People’s Union. The Polish authorities made similar attempts in Volhynia. However, they were unable to win over the sympathy of Ukrainian society to cooperate.48 Illegal movements or organizations also played a prominent role in the life of the Polish state. Ukrainian radical nationalism was one such phenomena. Arising amidst the political chaos resulting from the failure to build a Ukrainian state, these nationalists espoused the virtues of organization, authority, solidarity and faith as essential to mobilizing Ukrainian masses toward achieving their ultimate goal – an independent Ukrainian state.49 A phenomena which appeared in all Ukrainian émigré groups during the early 20th century, it resonated strongly and engrained itself most amongst the members of the Sich Sharpshooters and the Ukrainian Galician Army. The key figurehead was Sharpshooter Colonel Ievhen Konovalets’ whose activity and outlooks led to the formation of a nationalist youth group in Eastern Galicia in 1921 and later the paramilitary Ukrainian Military Organization (UVO). He was joined in these endeavors by his fellow veteran and colleague Andrii Mel’nyk, among others. UVO represented a transition between formations of the Ukrainian revolution of 1917-1921 and those later in World War II.50 50 Roman Wysocki, Organizacja Ukraińskich Nacjonalistów w Polsce w latach 1929-1939 (Lublin: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Marii Curie-Skłodowskiej, 2003), 41-53; Petro Mirchuk, Narys istoriї OUN, 1920-1939 vol. 1 (Munich: Ukraїns’ke Vydavnytstvo, 1968), 15-16. 51 Anatolii V. Kentii, Narysy istorii Orhanizatsiї Ukraїns’kykh Natsionalistiv (1929-1944 rr.) (Kyiv: Instytut istorii Ukraїny NAN Ukraїny, 1998), 6-13; Motyl, The Turn to the Right…, 127-128. For a brief yet thorought look into the founding congress of the OUN, see Marco Carynnyk, “Foes of Our Rebirth: Ukrainian Nationalist Discussions about Jews, 1929-1947,” Nationalities Papers vol. 39 no. 3 (2011), 315-316. 52 John A. Armstrong, Ukrainian Nationalism, 2nd ed (New York: Columbia University Press, 1980), 22-23; 33-34; Grzegorz Rossoliński-Liebe, Stepan Bandera: The Life and Afterlife of a Ukrainian Nationalist. Fascism, Genocide and Cult (Stuttgart: Ibidem, 2014), 69-70; Franziska Bruder, „Den ukrainischen Staat erkämpfen oder streben!” Die Organisation Ukrainischer Nationalisten (OUN) 1929-1948 (Berlin: Metropol, 2007), 58-63; Wysocki, Organizacja Ukraińskich Nacjonalistów w Polsce..., 93-108. 53 Osyp Boidunyk, “Iak diishlo do stvorennia Orhanizatsiї Ukraїns’kykh Natsionalistiv” in Iurii Boїko (ed), Ievhen Konovalets’ ta ioho doba (Munich: Druckgenossenschaft Cicero, 1974), 359. Throughout the 1920s, a combination of organized terror – an assassination attempt on Piłsudski in Lwów, boycotting of a Polish government census, arson against Polish landowners and colonists and arrests among UVO members caused some, including Konovalets’ to flee Poland to restructure the group. Gaining full control and forming international connections, particularly with German governmental circles, he was able to add a political platform to the military organization which succeeded in convincing the embittered Ukrainian youth of Eastern Galicia. In 1929, the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) was founded. Much of its rhetoric focused on propagandizing nationalism through the masses in preparation for a national revolution that would lead to the eventual formation of a Ukrainian state while in turn serving as a base of support for the revolutionary elite.51 Administratively, the OUN consisted of an émigré executive – the provid or directorate (PUN) composed of 9 men – and a homeland executive for western Ukrainian territory in Poland. Aside from Konovalets’, the executive included: Viktor Kurmanovych, Mykola Kapustians’kyi, Iaroslav Baranovs’kyi, Dmytro Andriivs’kyi, Riko Iaryi, Roman Sushko, Mykola Stsibors’kyi, and Omelian Senyk. Out of the nine executives, five were veterans of the Ukrainian struggle for independence during and after World War I; serving in either Austrian, Ukrainian or both military formations. Conversely, the younger OUN generation who primarily served in the homeland executive in Eastern Galicia were not exposed to the violence and brutality of war. As such, they developed a romantic vision of war and violence. For them, UVO and OUN were fascinating clandestine organizations consisting of brave Ukrainians ready to die for independence. Leading members of this generation were often raised in patriotic and religious families in Eastern Galicia. Prominent younger members included Iaroslav Stets’ko, Stepan Lenkavs’kyi, Volodymyr Ianiv, Roman Shukhevych, and Stepan Bandera who, from June 1933, headed the homeland executive.52 The immediate target of UVO/OUN activity was aimed against the Polish state which they perceived as an illegitimate “enemy-occupier” of “ethnic Ukrainian territory.”53 In the 1920s and 1930s, OUN nationalists in Eastern Galicia initiated in acts of terror against the Polish government. Polish policies and positions toward Ukrainians created a ripe atmosphere for youth-initiated terror against the state. The first wave of incidents, from January 1922 through March 1923, included some 303 acts of subversion. This included arson in which private landholder’s property or public state property – post offices, railroads and police stations – were set ablaze. Often, incendiary devices were used – grenades thrown into private homes or police stations, exploding or, as in some cases, not going off at all. By 1922, some 2,200 Polish farms were set on fire. The least harmful incidents involved, for example, the defilement of portraits of Piłsudski. Attacks not only targeted Poles. Ukrainians who supported the idea of reaching an understanding with the state were also targeted, harassed or killed. In sum, between 1921 and 1939, the UVO or OUN succeeded in conducting 5 bombing assassinations and 63 documented assassination attempts. Other reported incidents included burned-out peasant and land property, telegraph and railroad tracks sabotaged, post and government tax offices robbed.54 54 Andrzej Chojnowski and Jan Jacek Bruski, Ukraina 2nd ed (Warszawa: Trio, 2006), 122-124; Alexander J. Motyl, “Ukrainian Nationalist Political Violence in Inter-War Poland, 1921-1939,” East European Quarterly vol. 19 no. 1 (1985), 50; Golczewski, Deutsche und Ukrainer 1914-1939, 434-435. Out of the 63 attempts, 36 were on Ukrainians, 25 on Poles and 1 each on a Russian and Jew. 55 Chojnowski, Koncepcje polityki narodowościowej..., 155-160; 173-174; Wysocki, Organizacja Ukraińskich Nacjonalistów w Polsce..., 129-134; Golczewski, Deutsche und Ukrainer 1914-1939, 435; 561-563; Robert Potocki, Polityka państwa polskiego wobec zagadnienia ukraińskiego w latach 1930-1939 (Lublin: Instytut Europy Środkowo-Wschodniej, 2003), 69-95. For a look into the reaction of the Ukrainian diaspora toward the pacifications, see Andrzej A. Zięba, “Pacyfikacja Małopolski Wschodniej w 1930 roku i jej echo wśród emigracji ukraińskiej w Kanadzie” in Wojcieh Frazik, et al, Przez dwa stulecia XIX i XXw. Studia historyczna ofiarowane prof. Wacławowi Felczakowi (Kraków: Wydawnictwo ITKM 1993), 79-99 and Andrzej A. Zięba, Lobbying dla Ukrainy w europie międzywojennej. Ukraińskie Biuro Prasowe w Londynie oraz jego konkurenci polityczni (do roku 1932) (Kraków: Księgarnia Akademicka, 2010), 368-386; 638. 56 Tomczyk, Ukraińskie Zjednoczenie Narodowo-Demokratyczne..., 145-163. The League of Nations report prompted talks between the Ukrainians and Poles regarding a normalization of relations. However, following the publication of documents which linked high-ranking UNDO members with UVO-OUN which, in turn, had been funded by the German government and, in accordance with the League of Nations decision supporting the Polish government’s reasons for pacification, talks broke off. 57 Himka, “Western Ukraine between the Wars,” 400. Incidents of terror (186 acts of sabotage in July-October 1930 alone) increased Polish state repression against UVO and Ukrainians in Eastern Galicia who were ‘collectively responsible’ in the eyes of the government for anti-state activity. In 1930, Piłsudski launched a retaliatory, pacification action where punitive expeditions undertook mass searches and arrests of suspected Ukrainians. Polish authorities went beyond just searching; in many instances, they destroyed agricultural equipment or buildings as well as Ukrainian cultural objects such as books and folk costumes. Those who harbored weapons were beaten and sentenced to trials while several Ukrainian high schools were closed.55 UNDO publicly protested the pacification campaign in both chambers of parliament, sending a detailed report of the destruction caused to the League of Nations.56 As John-Paul Himka explained, the chauvinistic, anti-Ukrainian policies of the Polish government stopped short of a systematic annihilation of the Ukrainian intelligentsia or the mass murder as a result of Stalin’s man-made famine in Soviet Ukraine in the 1930s. In other words, “the Ukrainian population of Poland… was constantly insulted and frustrated in its efforts, but never effectively broken.”57 Ultimately, the pacifications proved counterproductive as Ukrainian political frustration only continued to grow. In response, the OUN launched a series of retaliatory terror acts. An OUN pamphlet from 1931 blamed Jews and Poles for their plight and called for revenge: We must respond to every act of Polish oppression with a similar reprisal. When they dissolve one of our societies, let us smash a Polish society. When the police break up a meeting, let us protest against the lack of rights with actions… Let us refuse to sell milk and eggs to Polish teachers. Let us smash the windows of taverns, break up vodka bottles, and drive the Jews from the village.58 58 Quoted in Carynnyk, “Foes of Our Rebirth…,” 320. The pamphlet was entitled “How and For What We Are Fighting the Poles.” 59 Lucyna Kulińska, Działalność terrorystyczna i sabotażowa nacjonalistycznych organizacji ukraińskich w Polsce w latach 1922-1939 (Kraków: Księgarnia Akademicka, 2009), 161-173. 60 Iwo Werschler, Z dziejów obozu belwederskiego. Tadeusz Hołówko: życie i działalność (Warszawa: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1984), 312-316. 61 Rossoliński-Liebe, Stepan Bandera: The Life and Afterlife of a Ukrainian Nationalist..., 117-166; Władysław Żeleński, “Zabójstwo Ministra Pierackiego,” Zeszyty Historczne vol. 232 no. 25 (1973), 3-102. Others sentenced included Iaroslav Stets’ko (two years and six months) and Roman Shukhevych (two years). The OUN also targeted Ukrainians they claimed to be collaborating with Poles. For example, Ivan Babii, the principle of a respected Lwów Ukrainian gymnasium was killed a few weeks after Pieracki on allegations of his supposed collaboration with the Polish police. Mirchuk, Narys istroiї OUN…, 368-371. Terrorism included incidents of burning peasant and land property, sabotaging telegraph and railroad tracks, and robbing post of government tax offices.59 The greatest OUN terrorist success during this decade were the assassinations of two prominent Polish officials. Tadeusz Hołówko, an influential parliamentarian (and former head of the Eastern Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs) and strong proponent of reaching a Polish-Ukrainian understanding, was murdered on August 29, 1931 during a private convalescence trip to Truskawiec, a resort town in the Carpathians.60 Bronisław Pieracki, the interior minister, was gunned down on June 15, 1934 in Warsaw as an act of revenge for the 1930 pacifications and recent arrests of young nationalists in Lwów. The assassination served as a perfect pretext for the Polish authorities to attack the OUN. That month, about 800 OUN members were arrested in various cities and towns throughout Poland. Subsequent trials of OUN members in Warsaw (1935/1936) and Lwów (1936) accused them of either contributing in some way to the killing of Pieracki, including prior contacts or harboring the assassin, or being active in the OUN which espoused to separate the southeastern voivodships from the state. As such, the trials showed justice without being show trials. Sentences ranged from the death penalty (later to be reduced to life imprisonment) for Stepan Bandera – leader of the OUN homeland executive in Poland – to long-term and short-term sentences. Whereas the trials struck a blow to the OUN, these ramifications inversely gained further momentum for the nationalist movement. They transformed Bandera from the homeland executive leader into a symbol of the Ukrainian liberation movement; a national revolutionary fighting for independence.61 Pacifications represented one extreme method to solve the Polish-Ukrainian impasse of the 1930s. However, it was not the only one. Some sought to defuse the tense situation by other means. A group of Poles published articles and commentaries on the topic of initiating a Polish-Ukrainian dialogue. Their organ, Biuletyn Polsko-Ukraiński, connected with the co-called Promethean movement and financed secretly by Polish military intelligence (Dwójka), became a public forum for political and cultural discussions. Poles and Ukrainians centered on the bulletin believed Poland could gain the support and trust of Ukrainians by forging more sound plans of national assimilation, regional autonomy or federalization. This open-minded and realist approach envisioned state loyalty in exchange for the liquidation of objective circumstances from the side of the government which, until then, caused the majority of Ukrainians to undertake an indifferent or hostile attitude toward the state.62 62 Chojnowski, Koncepcje polityki narodowościowej..., 191-195. 63 Budurowycz, “Poland and the Ukrainian Problem, 1921-1939,” 490-492; Szumiło, Ukraińska Reprezentacja Parlamentarna..., 208. The successes led Mudryi to describe Eastern Galician territory as “yours and ours,” i.e. Polish and Ukrainian. 64 Mick, Lemberg, Lwów, L’viv..., 247. For a synthesis of Paliїv and his FNIe, see Oleksandr Zaitsev, Ukraїnskyi integral’nyi natsionalizm (1920-1930-ti) roky. Narysy intelektual’noї istoriї (Kyiv: Kritika, 2013), 329-374. An attempt was also made to negotiate a process of normalization between UNDO and the Polish government; to reconcile state security concerns with legitimate aspirations of the Ukrainian minority. Even though some positive outcomes emerged from this – greater Ukrainian representation in the Sejm and Senate, an amnesty for political prisoners and credits for economic institutions – greater concessions in the much-desired educational and social spheres remained unfulfilled.63 Radical nationalists viewed normalization with disdain. Dmytro Paliїv, a rogue OUN member who in 1933 founded the Front of National Unity (Front Natsional’noї Iednosti – FNIe) accused UNDO of breaching national solidarity through its readiness to compromise.64 As the Polish political scene took-on a more authoritarian and nationalist position beginning in 1935 – Piłsudski’s death in May 1935 being the symbolic starting point for this process – hopes for regularizing Polish-Ukrainian relations decreased. In returning to national assimilation, the Marshal’s successors resigned from their post-1926 view of society as a transnational political community. They now perceived the existence of the Polish state as solely dependent on the strength of the Polish element and not the degree of minority assimilation. They inaugurated a brief yet harsh “fragmentation through polonization” campaign with the goal of penetrating and stopping the nationalist movement in Eastern Galicia while conducting a “little pacification” campaign beginning in April 1939. The influential military officers in the government were convinced that a successful minority policy could only be conducted with the assistance of administrative and police resources. Strictly speaking, the government direction ran along a nationalist, Catholic, highly authoritarian line. The Polish Army became the political center which, at this time, influenced national minority state policy.65 As of April 1938, Henryk Józewski had been recalled from his position in Volhynia, in a sense officially abandoning that experiment and in turn, pushing for national assimilation.66 Polish police and military forces increased their activity against the widely defined ‘anti-state elements,’ arresting several thousand Ukrainians believed to be associated with the nationalism movement. 65 Potocki, Polityka państwa polskiego..., 160-165; 185; Magdalena Nowak, Narodowcy i Ukraińcy. Narodowa Demokracja wobec mniejszości ukraińskiej w Polsce (Gdańsk: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Gdańskiego, 2007), 226-230; Werschler, Z dziejów obozu belwederskiego..., 318. Following Hołówko’s murder, The National Democrat’s press wrote: “we have yet more evidence of the uselessness of the Sanacja politics regarding the Ukrainian question and right of opinion, that the Ruthenian question in Poland can only be solved under the circumstances of the absolute intensification of Polish elements on mixed territories and the absolute negation of the Ukrainian movement…” 66 Snyder, Sketches from a Secret War..., 162. 67 Konrad Sadkowski, “From Ethnic Borderland to Catholic Fatherland: The Church, Christian Orthodox and State Administration in the Chełm Region, 1918-1939,” Slavic Review vol. 57 no. 4 (winter 1998), 827-832; Papierzyńska-Turek, Między tradycją a rzeczywistością..., 262-270. General Brunon Olbrycht, commander of the 3rd Zamość Infantry Division and head of the polonization campaign in the Chełm region, claimed all Orthodox in the Chełm region to be “Russified Poles.” However, a May 1939 report by the 3rd Zamość Division to a district commander described the futility of the conversion campaign: “In the countryside, it is constantly said the army lost, the administration lost, and the Orthodox priests won.” 68 Mirosława Papierzyńska-Turek, “Uwarunkowania i skutki polityczne masowego burzenia cerkwi prawosławnych u schyłku II Rzeczypospolitej” in Grzegorz Kurpianowicz (ed), Akcja burzenia cerkwi prawosławnych na Chełmszczyźnie i południowym Podlasiu w 1938 roku. Uwarunkowania, przebieg, konsekwencje, vol. IV (Chełm: Towarzystwo Ukraińskie, 2009), 36-38; Sadkowski, “From Ethnic Borderland to Catholic Fatherland...,” 836-837. In his appellation to the Sejm, Baran, among other things, questioned if the Polish government was ready to hold those local and municipal individuals responsible for their roles in the destruction campaign and prepared to defend the Orthodox faithful from further attacks. See Cerkiew Prawosławna na Chełmszczyźnie. Przemówienia i interpelacje posłów i senatorów ukraińskich w Sejmie i Senacie (Lwów: UNDO, 1938). Ostap Luts’kyi issued a similar condemnation in the Senate. The most brutal example of heavy-handed national assimilation centered on the forced conversion of Ukrainian Orthodox faithful to Roman Catholicism begun in late 1937. Often, such conversions were led by troops of the Border Defense Corps (Korpus Ochrony Pogranicza, KOP). The Catholic Church also played a prominent role in the conversion campaign. Overall, this campaign to (re-) polonize Ukrainians proved unsuccessful in that only about 10 percent of were forcibly “converted” to Catholicism while anti-Polish antagonism increased.67 Aside from conversions, it also included the vindication of Orthodox churches, prayer houses and property throughout the eastern Lublin voivodship, particularly in the Chełm and Podlasie regions. The vindication campaign destroyed over 120 churches in the Chełm region, what equated to at least one church per village. Fire brigades and soldiers were mobilized in the actual dismantling and destruction of churches. Some Orthodox believers clashed with the destructors to defend their churched. Ukrainian parliamentarian Stepan Baran even publicly condemned the campaign in the Sejm.68 Had war not erupted in September 1939, the Polish state was planning to enact further counteractions aimed at the national consolidation of the Ukrainian (and German) minority and strengthening Polish elements. This came in response to further OUN terrorist activity in Eastern Galicia and Nazi Germany’s role in internationally playing the Ukrainian card in Subcarpathian Rus’ (of which more below). Polish elements were to be strengthened, especially in the cultural-educational, religious and economic spheres, throughout southeastern Poland. For Volhynia, plans envisioned the liquidation of the Ukrainian irredentism of that region. Such policies had not only been intended for Polish territory; plans to influence separatist feelings in the Soviet Ukraine were also conceived. All in all, a fifteen year timeframe, from 1940 to about 1955, had been proposed as the targeted period to completely liquidate the Ukrainian issue of the Second Republic.69 69 Potocki, Polityka państwa polskiego..., 203-215; Chojnowski, Koncepcje polityki narodowościowej..., 237. 70 Golczewski, Deutsche und Ukrainer 1914-1939, 953-956; Emil Horoch, “Plan eliminacji Ukraińców ze służb publicznych i ważniejszych gałęzi własności prywatnej w województwie lubelski w latach 1939-1941” in Zygmunt Mańkowski (ed), Pogranicze. Studia z dziejów stosunków polsko-ukraińskich w XX wieku (Lublin: Uniwersytet Marii Curie-Skłodowskiej, 1992), 43-46. In the Lublin voivodship, where the destruction of Orthodox churches and parish buildings was still fresh, civil administrators drew-up plans to ethnically cleanse Ukrainian-populated territories in favor of Poles – to create what they called a “bastion of polishness” around Ukrainian or German villages. A bold three-year plan to eliminate all “foreign elements” (Ukrainians and Germans) from public service and private property ownership through a process of “national consolidation” was drawn-up. The first phase (1939) targeted nationalists, communists, and those who expressed irredentist desires or who presented a security risk. The second phase (1940) intended to those workers remaining in the public sector as well as those disclosing their national distinctiveness (particularly teachers); in sum over 250 Ukrainians. The final phase (1941) intended to clean-up all remaining elements from public service completely and deporting the remaining Ukrainians onto territory with “no Ukrainian problems.”70 While the outbreak of war prevented such far-reaching measures, their planning illustrated the extent to which Poles were preparing to remove Ukrainians from public life. In Frank Golczewski’s eyes, the Lublin Plan prefigured the postwar deportations and ethnic cleansing undertaken by communist authorities in 1947 – known as Akcja Wisła. As Polish-Ukrainian relations ended strained on the eve of war, the policies and tactics undertaken by various governments did not lead toward assimilation of any kind but rather toward ethnic marginalization. This in turn caused anger and hatred toward the Polish state, something that nationalists fed off of. Consequently, the radical rhetoric and actions of Ukrainian nationalists brought upon the masses unwarranted reprisals by the government. The outbreak of war in 1939 and the collapse of Poland fulfilled a wish for the Ukrainian nationalists, creating a hope and void which they intended to fill. Chapter 2 National Socialist Germany and the Tradition of German-Ukrainian Politics Of equal importance to a study of Ukrainian events during World War II is the German position and their policies toward the Ukrainians during the interwar period. Of particular interest is Hitler’s and National Socialist visions and policies toward Ukrainian politics in East-Central Europe. German attention toward Ukraine during the late nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century focused on two political-economic interests: as a source of raw materials or as a pawn to be used in diplomatic or geopolitical games against Russia and later Poland and the Soviet Union.71 These interests were, in turn, pillars in the Nazi visions and approaches toward the Ukrainian question. 71 Andreas Kappeler, “Ukrainian History from a German Perspective,” Slavic Review vol. 54 no. 3 (autumn 1995), 693-694. 72 Subtelny, Ukraine: A History, 345-354; Stephan M. Horak, The First Treaty of World War I: Ukraine’s Treaty with the Central Powers of February 9, 1918 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988), 20-47. The genesis of German-Ukrainian relations came two decade before Hitler’s rise to power. The eruption of the Russian Revolution in 1917 forced the provisional government to sue for peace with Germany on the eastern front in order to consolidate internal power. The recently convened Central Council (Rada) in Kyiv, under the leadership of the influential historian Mykhailo Hrushevs’kyi, viewed the moment as an opportunity to transgress from an autonomous region within a federal Russian republic to an independent state. As peace talks between the Central Powers (Germany and Austria-Hungary) and Soviet Russia began in Brest-Litovsk in December 1917, a Ukrainian delegation was dispatched with the task of demanding recognition of a Ukrainian state consisting of Galicia, the Chełm lands, Bukovina and Transcarpathian Ruthenia. Whereas the Soviet delegation opposed Ukrainian participation, the Central Powers supported it as they favored the disintegration of the former tsarist empire and building several friendly state on its western fringes. International recognition of Ukrainian statehood also meant saving the authority of the Central Council and ceasing further Bolshevik advances into Dnieper Ukraine from Soviet Ukrainian territory. As only an independent state could conclude an international treaty, the Central Council issued its fourth universal on January 25, 1918 proclaiming the independence of the Ukrainian People’s Republic (UNR). On February 9, the Ukrainian representation in Brest signed a separate peace with the Central Powers which recognized the authority of the Central Council. Soviet Russia also signed a separate peace in which it was forced to recognize the UNR. Most important were the secret clauses which stipulated Germany and Austria-Hungary would give Ukraine military help in exchange for deliveries of much needed foodstuffs. Military help came quickly as a combined 450 thousand man strong army arrived in Kyiv to oust the Bolsheviks.72 German public opinion positively assessed the Brotfriede or “bread peace” signed with the UNR. In Ukraine, both German military units were anxious to restore order so as to expedite the removal of foodstuffs. In sum, their occupation lasted 9 months. In that time, the Central Council lacked a local administration, failed to maintain order and – most importantly for the Germans – could not promise the much needed foodstuffs. As such, the German military administration introduced martial law and began taking control away from the Council. Between April 24 and 26 1918, the military administration agreed to replace the Council with a conservative government under Hetman Pavlo Skoropads’kyi; a period commonly referred to as the Hetmanate. Even though Skoropads’kyi was proclaimed Hetman by a congress of the League of Landowners, his time as head of state was simply a Ukrainian cover for German military administration. While the Hetman succeeded in concrete educational reforms and reestablishing a bureaucratic apparatus, public reaction was overtly negative as he was unwilling to undertake land reforms so important to the Ukrainian peasants. As peasant discontent with German requisitions grew, spontaneous revolts spread throughout Ukraine. With the collapse of the Central Powers – and with it German occupation – imminent, the Ukrainian opposition formed an insurrectionary government, the Directory, which openly declared a rebellion against the Hetmanate. As Directory forces encircled Kyiv, negotiations with the defeated Germans who remained ended with assurances of a safe passage back west. On December 14, 1918, the German garrison evacuated the city, taking Skoropads’kyi with them.73 73 Golczewski, Deutsche und Ukrainer 1914-1939, 240-244; 298-306; 323-326. 74 Torzecki, Kwestia ukraińska w polityce III Rzeszy, 108. The Ukrainian issue remained prominent among government circles during the period of the Weimar Republic. The defeat in World War I left Germany thirsting for a return to Eastern European affairs. A group of intellectuals supported the idea of maintaining the “Ukrainian card” as a counter to Soviet eastern intentions. However, in the spirit of the Rapallo Treaty, this was put on the back burner. Instead, attention was given to Ukrainian nationalist causes in Eastern Galicia as that region fell to post-World War I Poland. As Ryszard Torzecki noted, without exposing the problem of fighting for Dnieper Ukraine, Weimar Germany turned their focus from 1920 to 1932 to the Ukrainian issue in Eastern Galicia.74 Immediately after World War I, Ukrainian émigré life in Weimar Germany grew. The diaspora consisted primarily of Hetmanites – Pavlo Skoropads’kyi and his conservative-monarchist supporters – as well as UVO nationalists who moved their executive to Berlin in 1926. Concerning the Hemanites, thanks to Skoropads’kyi’s contacts with highly placed friends in the German government, he received a yearly pension of 10 thousand marks; assuring him a comfortable life in his Wansee villa. Aside from him, the prominent intellectual (and Skoropads’kyi’s former ambassador to Vienna) Viacheslav Lypyns’kyi moved to Berlin from Vienna in 1926. He is widely considered to have been the chief ideologue of conservative monarchism.75 75 For a better analysis of Lypyns’kyi and his role in the Hetmanite movement, see Alexander J. Motyl, “Viacheslav Lypyns’kyi and the Ideology and Politics of Ukrainian Monarchism,” Canadian Slavonic Papers vol. 27 no. 1 (March 1985). 76 Golczewski, Deutsche und Ukrainer 1914-1939, 469-487; 520-546. 77 Ibid, 431-455; 547-570. The Hetmanites consisted primarily of former Ukrainian aristocrats, wealthy landowners and intellectuals. They established the Ukraїns’ka Hromada, a nominally apolitical society which served as a center for émigré life. From 1921 to 1926, Hromada published Ukraїnske Slovo. Thanks to their efforts, the Ukrainian Scientific Institute (Ukrainischen Wissenschaftlichen Instituts – UWI) was opened in Berlin in 1926. Its work was subsidized by the German foreign office, education ministry and military circles. Its first curator was Wilhelm Groener – former military man who oversaw the German occupation of Ukraine in 1918, colleague of Skoropads’kyi’s and a Weimar defense minister. Aside from publishing scholarly journals in German and Ukrainian, the UWI also hosted lectures and served as a special think-tank which supplied the Weimar Republic with information concerning historical, cultural, ethnographic, geopolitical or technical issues. With Weimar Germany on proper terms with the USSR, the Hetmanites proved a comfortable Ukrainian émigré circle as they shared international contacts (especially in England, the United States and Canada) and espoused no overtly radical anti-Soviet ideology while their intellectuals were socially respected. Up until 1930, the Hetmanites stood as a united group. Afterward, internal fragmentation created several vying circles. By the time Skoropads’kyi was able to corral them back together, they became useless for the Nazi Germans who turned their attention to the radical Ukrainian nationalists.76 Galician Ukrainian nationalist interests for collaboration with Weimar Germany lay in military matters for their form of sabotage and subversion in Poland. UVO and later OUN officials, including Konovalets’, made contacts with top German military and intelligence officers. For Weimar Germans, the scar of losing eastern territory after World War I to Poland still remained fresh. Revanchism, whether it was the lands lost to Poland or France, was a prominent political issue. One factor which linked Germany with Ukrainian nationalists was their mutual vision of Poland as an enemy. Exposing and publicizing the plight of the Ukrainian minority in Poland allowed Germany to also question the handling of the German minority there. For instance, the press gave generous attention to the 1930 pacification campaign in Eastern Galicia. German funds also supported nationalist newspapers and journals, provided members with passports and arranged military courses for them while the state provided them with an area in which they could function rather openly and, most importantly, undisturbed. In return, the UVO and OUN provided the Germans with espionage services. For the nationalists, the German desire to overturn the Versailles order resonated emphatically with them.77 After the rise of Adolf Hitler and his National Socialist German Workers (Nazi) Party to power in 1933, Reich policy toward the lands of East-Central Europe and Eurasia centered on the idea of “inner colonization.” Hitler fully believed in the destiny of his Reich to rule over vast swaths of territory in the east. While working on his manifesto Mein Kampf in prison, he was introduced to the Lebensraum theories of Karl Haushofer who viewed the territory between Germany and the Soviet Union as the natural area for geopolitical expansion.78 Once conquered, these territories would be subsequently Germanized through a system of both economic exploitation and population changes. The latter meant to include mass deportations, forced labor, and mass murder as instruments to achieve colonial aims.79 78 Ihor Kamenetsky, “German Colonization Plans in Ukraine during World Wars I and II” in (eds) John-Paul Himka and Hans-Joachim Torke, German-Ukrainian Relations in Historical Perspective (Edmonton-Toronto: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies Press, 1994), 100-106. 79 Wendy Lower, Nazi Empire-Building and the Holocaust in Ukraine (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005), 18-19. 80 The excerpt came from Heinrich Himmler’s propaganda publication Der Untermensch, reprinted in appendix 2 of Ihor Kamenetsky, Secret Nazi Plans for Eastern Europe: A Study of Lebensraum Policies (New York: Bookman Associates, 1961), 189-192. 81 Alan E. Steinweis, “Eastern Europe and the Notion of the ‘Froniter’ in Germany to 1945” in Keith Bullivant, et al, Germany and Eastern Europe: Cultural Identities and Cultural Differences (Amsterdam-Atlanta, GA: Rodopi, 1999), 59-63. 82 In his writings, Hitler spoke of a march of the new Teutonic Knights toward Russia, to not only conquer it but to also reinvigorate and continue Germany historical role in organizing it as, in his view, the Jews contributed to its ruin. He wrote: “…the organization of a Russian state formation was not the result of the political abilities of the Slavs in Russia, but only a wonderful example of the state-forming efficiency of the German element in an inferior race… Lower nations led by Germanic organizers and overlords have more than once grown to be mighty state formations and have endured as long as the racial nucleus of the creative state race maintained itself. For centuries Russia drew nourishment from the German nucleus of its upper leading strata. Today it can be regarded as almost totally exterminated and extinguished. It has been replaced by the Jew… He himself is no element of organization but a ferment of decomposition… And the end of Jewish rule in Russia will also be the end of Russia as a state.” Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf (Munich: Franz Eher, 1933), 751-753. Regardless of the level of racial indoctrination and superiority among top Nazi decision makers, the territory of the east was viewed as a manifest destiny; as “black earth that could be a paradise, a California of Europe.”80 This idea of taming the eastern frontier for future Lebensraum had its tradition in German discourse which equated it to American westward expansion and the conquest of the frontier by a racially superior peoples while also stressing the importance of human migration into new spaces; something which opened the conquered peoples in those spaces to new social, economic or cultural opportunities.81 This idea of bringing Western European culture to the peoples of Eastern Europe echoed in the rhetoric of the German occupation regimes throughout the war. Whereas Germany lost its African colonies after World War I, Hitler looked near, not far, for future living space. For Hitler, the “jackpot” for German colonization and living space was the Soviet Union. His writings during the interwar period were filled with anti-Russian, anti-Semitic ideological language.82 In his view of the unfairly punished, post-World War I state and the internal instability and disorganization of the Weimar Republic, the Jew proved to be Hitler’s central dynamic in his worldview of racial showdowns. Without this enemy, as Nazi thinking went, there was no struggle, no global threat, and no enemy to be vanquished.83 In his political, global vision, Hitler first anticipated the conquest of German archenemy France. Alliances with fascist Italy and Germanic England were to be precursors to his vision of gaining Lebensraum in the east at the expense of the USSR before achieving a state of global domination (Weltherrschaft).84 83 Timothy Snyder, Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning (New York: Tim Duggan, 2015), 23-28; Lower, Nazi Empire-Building and the Holocaust in Ukraine, 22-23; John Connelly, “Nazis and Slavs: From Racial Theory to Racist Practice,” Central European History vol. 32 no. 1 (1999), 9-13. 84 Sławomir Dębski, Między Berlinem a Moskwą. Stasunki niemiecko-sowieckie 1939-1941 (Warszawa: Polski Instytut Spraw Międzynarodowych, 2007), 67-68. 85 Works worthwile to consult on this topic are, among others, William H. Hagen, Germans, Poles, and Jews. The Nationality Conflict in the Prussian East, 1772-1914 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980); Günther Stökl, Osteuropa und die Deutschen. Geschichte und Gegenwart einer spannungsreichen Nachbarschaft (Stuttgart: Hirzel S. Verlat, 1998); Hubert Orłowski, „Polnische Wirtschaft.“ Zum deutschen Polendiskurs der Neuzeit (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1996). 86 Karol Fiedor, et al, “The Image of the Poles in Germany and of the German in Poland in the Inter-War Years and its Role in Shaping the Relations between the Two States,” Polish Western Review vol. 19 no. 2 (1978), 201-228. Anti-Polish prejudices were a common phenomenon in Germany, especially following the partitions of the 18th century. Racist stereotypes suggested Poles to be dirty, disease-ridden and incapable of building a state. Notions of disorder and stupidity were summed-up in the colloquial term “polnische Wirtschaft” – literally “Polish economy” but often meaning “Polish muddle.”85 Independent Poland became symbols of the shock of German defeat and humiliation; something deemed by the revanchist Weimar Republic as a seasonal state on a low civilizational and economic level without any organization or prospects for development.86 German revanchism toward correcting the Versailles settlement was invigorated by the revived and expanding field of scholarly study – Ostforschung or “Eastern research.” Developing during the Weimar Republic, Ostforschung supplied long-range historical arguments with which to challenge purported Slavic inferiority in the east. For instance, scholars contested any Polish claims of “primeval Slav land” to what they continued to see as eastern Germany. Scholars argued that migrations – of either German volk or kultur – were the quintessential factors which created “German soil” and the “German right” to reclaim them. Often, pre- and medieval history was emphasized in the fight for Germandom. Furthermore, as Burleigh stated, both trends stood in a functional relationship to German governments as pre-history in particular supplied long-range historical arguments with which to challenge the Poles. Later scholars and researchers put their knowledge to work at the expense of the Nazi regime. In turn, the regime imbued this research as some aspects “proved” and “legitimized” Nazi racial dogma. Scholarly work practically contributed to the statistical and cartographical location of persons in the east. As Burleigh argued, deportations, resettlements and mass murder used by the Nazis throughout occupied territory were all rooted in scientific, modern methods of categorization: card indexes, card-sorting machines, charts, graphs, maps and diagrams. Thus, Ostforschung scholarship dehumanized non-German easterners and “legitimized” racial theories and practices.87 87 Michael Burleigh, Germany Turns Eastward: A Study of Ostforschung in the Third Reich (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 9; 29-32. Medieval history provided a prism through which a contemporary analysis of the Soviet Union was made. More on the topic of Nazi categorization as a form of identification and control can be learned from Götz Aly and Karl Heinz Roth, Nazi Census: Identification and Control in the Third Reich, trans. Edwin Black (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2004). 88 Dębski, Między Berlinem a Moskwą..., 71-72; 89 For Polish diplomatic moves in this matter see especially: Marek Kornat, Polityka równowagi, 1934-1939. Polska między Wschodem a Zachodem (Kraków: Arcana, 2007), 21-59; 200-306; 353-384; Marek K. Kamiński and Michał J. Zacharias, W cieniu zagrożenia: Polityka zagraniczna RP 1918-1939 (Warszawa: Warszawska Oficyna Wydawnicza "Gryf", 1993), 91-228. 90 Zynovii Knysh, Pered pokhodom na skhid. Spohady i materiialy do diannia Orhanizatsiї Ukraїns’kykh Natsionalistiv u 1939-1941 rokakh vol. 1 (Toronto: Sribna surma, n.d.), 95. 91 Golczewski, Deutsche und Ukrainer 1914-1939, 580-581; 688-690; 740-744; Grzegorz Motyka, Wołyń ’43 (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 2016), 26-36. The most important foreign OUN executive representatives Since Hitler was fixated on expanding German living space at the expense of the Soviet Union rather than simply returning to pre-Versailles borders, his approach toward Poland after his assumption to power was based on pragmatic, political necessity. With Germany leaving the League of Nations only deepening its international isolation, Hitler looked for an escape through normalizing Polish-German relations. Even though he did not renounce any claims toward Poland, he believed problems could be resolve through negotiations and political pressure instead of force. In 1934, a 10-year declaration of non-aggression was signed between the two states. In his anti-Bolshevik crusade, Hitler looked to rein Poland in as a partner; making it a Vorposten or “bastion of civilization in the east” securing the Reich from Bolshevism. His ultimate vision was for Poland to become a client state of the Reich by, among others, subordinating it internationally to German interests.88 However, Polish diplomacy of the 1930s maintained the standard of equidistance between Berlin and Moscow through appropriate relations with both.89 During the second part of the 1930s, Benito Mussolini in Italy and Adolf Hitler in Germany proved tantalizing voices for the revanchist OUN who looked to revise the status quo created by the Versailles Treaty. In Italy, OUN men trained alongside Croatian Ustasha ultranationalists in paramilitary camps. Leading OUN member Mykhailo Kolodzyns’kyi even taught military courses there. As OUN nationalists saw it: “These powers desired change and only through a change of the current state [of affairs] could the Ukrainian issue be realized.”90 For their part, countries such as Germany or Lithuania supported the OUN as they too viewed Poland as enemies and laid claims to territory which fell to Poland after World War I. Whereas Ukrainian nationalists developed a fascist ideological mindset, German relations with the OUN were interrupted following the signing of the 1934 Polish-German non-aggression declaration and after the assassination of interior minister Pieracki when German authorities turned over the suspected assassin Mykola Lebed’ to Polish authorities. Essentially, from 1934 until 1938, German-Ukrainian political cooperation was tentatively put on hold although contacts between the OUN and German officials remained.91 in Europe were Riko Iary in Germany, Ievhen Onats’kyi in Italy, Ivan Reviuk-Bartovych in Lithuania and Andrii Fedyna in Danzig (Gdańsk). Golczewski, Deutsche und Ukrainer 1914-1939, 561. 92 The fundamental monograph on the topic of Ukrainian nationalist ideological thought and development during the interwar period is Oleksandr Zaitsev, Ukraїns’kyi integral’nyi natsionalizm (1920-1930-ti): narysy intelektual’noї istoriї (Kyiv: Krytyka, 2013). Among Dontsov’s writings, Natsionalizm stands out as a pioneering work. For Dontsov’s ideology, see Motyl, The Turn to the Right…, 61-85; Tomasz Stryjek, Ukraińska idea narodowa okresu międzywojennego (Toruń: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Mikołaja Kopernika, 2013), 110-190; Grzegorz Rossoliński-Liebe, “The Fascist Kernel of Ukrainian Genocidal Nationalism,” The Carl Beck Papers in Russian and East European Studies no. 2402 (June 2015), 9-11; Carynnyk, “Foes of Our Rebirth…,” 318-319. Other prominent and influential OUN ideologues included Iaroslav Orshan, Volodymyr Martynets’ and Ievhen Onats’kyi. For Martynets’, see Carynnyk, “Foes of Our Rebirth…,” 322-323 and Rossoliński-Liebe, “The Fascist Kernel of Ukrainian Genocidal Nationalism,” 27. For Onats’kyi, see Rossoliński-Liebe, “The Fascist Kernel of Ukrainian Genocidal Nationalism,” 11-14. 93 Oleksandr Zaitsev, “Viina iak prodovzhennia polityky. Posivnych Mykola. Voienno-politychna dial’nist’ OUN u 1929-1939 rokakh,” Ukraїna Moderna no. 18 (2010), 239. Kolodzyns’kyi’s militant ideas crystalized during his internment on Lipari, an island to the northeast of Sicily in the Mediterranean Sea. As a result of assassinations committed by the fascist Croatian Ustasha in October 1934 on King Alexander I of Yugoslavia and French foreign minister Louis Barthou, Italian fascists, who collaborated with their Croatian counterparts, were forced to cut all ties with them. In doing so, the Italians interned many Ustasha members on Lipari along Whether speaking of the exiles or members of the homeland executive in Poland, both OUN generations adopted fascist principles as fundamental for the nationalist movement. They emphasized the value of the nation above all, to be served and maintained no matter the cost. OUN ideologues preached and developed theories into ideas. Although not a member of the OUN, Dmytro Dontsov was considered to be its spiritual father. His writing and visions were most influential among Ukrainian youth. He was vocal in urging them to break with traditions and existing political parties by creating their own revolutionary fascist movement. He emphasized the unique aspect of Ukrainian nationalism – terming it “active nationalism” – and argued it not be considered part of international fascism. In the 1930s, his writings popularized German and Italian fascism while also taking on a concerted anti-Semitic tone. Furthermore, he justified “amorality,” i.e. fanaticism and violence, as a means to justify reaching the ultimate end – obtaining a state.92 Mykhailo Kolodzyns’kyi developed a “war doctrine” for Ukrainian nationalists in which he outlined a strategy for an OUN uprising which propagated a war cult and a Ukrainian vision of imperialism which intended to the race and extend national territory. He envisioned an uprising following a doctrine of ‘building a state from the first village.’ In his view, these villages would stand as small insurgent republics. They would slowly expand their control to subsequent villages, communes and counties before declaring during the second phase a Ukrainian state and reorganizing partisan brigades into a regular army to attack and seize larger towns and cities. He viewed control of Lwów, Przemyśl, Brześć and the Lemko region as the bare minimum toward shaping a western Ukrainian border and forming a ‘Ukrainian fortification system.’ Furthermore, he believed an uprising as the opportune time to also cleanse Ukrainian territory of Poles – “literally wipe-out the last leg of Polish elements in western Ukraine and in this way concluding Polish claims to the Polish character of these lands” – and Jews – “the more Jews killed during the uprising, the better for the Ukrainian state.”93 with 10 OUN instructors who trained the Croat nationalists (Mussolini gained Ukrainian nationalist sympathy as he, on several occasions, voiced his positive support for the creation of an independent Ukraine which would isolate his ‘Italian’ Balkans from Soviet Russia). Among those Ukrainians interned was Kolodzyns’kyi. 94 Rossoliński-Liebe, “The Fascist Kernel of Ukrainian Genocidal Nationalism,” 14-18; Carynnyk, “Foes of Our Rebirth…,” 319-320; 325-326; Andrii Mel’nyk, “Zhytomyrs’kyi-Organs’kyi. Ppolk. Mykola Stsibors’kyi” in Orhanizatsiia Ukraїns’kykh Natsionalistiv 1929-1954 (Paris: Persha Ukraїns’ka Drukarniia v Frantsiї, 1954), 40-41. 95 Marek Wojnar, “The Struggle for Dominance in Eurasia: “The International Politics of Ukrainian Nationalism” by Bohdan Kordiuk in the Context of Geopolitical Concepts of the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists during the 1930s,” Studia z dziejów Rosji i Europy środkowo-wschodniej vol. 52 no. 3 (2017), 102-125. Prominent OUN member Mykola Stsibors’kyi created a political system which came to be called natsiokratiia or “dictatorship of the nation” – a blueprint for how the OUN would create and rule its state imbued with fascist values, cultural norms, and aesthetics. According to Mel’nyk, he was the chief OUN theoretician and a talented propaganda master. One of the chief reasons for Stsibors’kyi’s inventing this political system was to convince OUN nationalists that their movement was unique and independent of other fascist movements, i.e. fascist in content but national on the surface. He argued the OUN did not copy foreign models but made its own nationalist politics, a genuine phenomenon he called on all patriotic Ukrainians to support. Furthermore, Stsibors’kyi discussed a “transformation of races” into “new ethnic collectives” with the Ukrainian nation above all. He also spoke of cleansing ethnographic territory of “foreign parasites” in order to eliminate any and all future internal threats once the national revolution was unleashed.94 Besides Stsibors’kyi, Bohdan Kordiuk’s writings also presented the geopolitical thought of the OUN in the 1930s, arguing the importance Ukraine was to play in Europe and Asia. As he claimed, foreign policy solely belonged to the nationalists and was thus the only Ukrainian variant. In the east, he proposed Ukrainian nationalists lead the charge in liberating the “enslaved peoples” of the Soviet Union, ultimately destroying it. In its place, the OUN would build their form of messianism and imperialism based on ideas of freedom and national rule. On the other hand, in the west, he saw an Italian-German-Ukrainian triumvirate as the mechanism solving central European affairs. In Kordiuk’s opinion, all 3 were in communion with the vision of a new world order. He called Ukrainian nationalists “co-creators” of the new order and the Ukrainian people the Herrenvolk in the east.95 On May 23, 1938, Ievhen Konovalets’ was assassinated in Rotterdam by NKVD agent Pavel Sudoplatov. While alive, he was able to maintain control over the generational gap between OUN members; preventing the issue from superseding nationalist aims. On October 11, 1938, the so-called narrow OUN executive chose Mel’nyk its head; according to the will of Konovalets’. This accentuated a visible division forming within the organization along generational lines; with loyalists siding either with Mel’nyk or the homeland executive Stepan Bandera. A prime example of this was the fact that the executive – consisting exclusively of older-generation nationalists – in no way reflected OUN rank and file membership consisting of young Galician Ukrainians. Crucial to fascist movements was a strong, charismatic leader. Unfortunately, Mel’nyk’s traits of calmness and dignity made little impression on the revolutionary youth whose ideal leader was an iron-willed conspirator. He was viewed by them as weak while, as Armstrong succinctly noted, his character did not prepare him to be the leader of a terroristic conspiracy.96 These differences would come to head later during the war. 96 Armstrong, Ukrainian Nationalism, 36-42; Wysocki, Organizacja Ukraińskich Nacjonalistów w Polsce..., 366; 386-388. The act was made public several days later. According to Wysocki, it was during a meeting with Omelian Senyk in Free City of Gdańsk that Mel’nyk learned of Konovalets’ will – to have Mel’nyk succeed him in the future. 97 Golczewski, Deutsche und Ukrainer 1914-1939, 943-944; Mirchuk, Narys istoriї OUN vol. 1, 573-582. The succinct definition of the Führerprinzip was taken from Diemut Majer, “Non-Germans” under the Third Reich: The Nazi Judicial and Administrative System in Germany and Occupied Eastern Europe, with Special Regard to Occupied Poland, 1939-1945, trans. Peter Thomas Hill, et al. (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press 2003), 10-11. 98 Quoted in Golczewski, Deutsche und Ukrainer 1914-1939, 934. 99 Mark Mazower, Hitler’s Empire: How the Nazis Ruled Europe (London: Penguin Books, 2009), 54-55. To celebrate the collapse of the short-lived Czechoslovak state in the Sudetenland, in October 1938, full Wehrmacht military honors were paid at the graves of 56 Germans killed during combat with Czech soldiers at the end of World War I. A wreath was also laid at the tomb of the founder of the Sudeten Nazi Party. 100 Hitler chose this moment to extend a hand to Poland for two key reasons. First, with Poland contributing to the break-up of Czechoslovakia by annexing the Zaolzie region three Warsaw into a state of international isolation. This was seen as a possible chance for bilateral talks between Berlin and Warsaw. Furthermore, the thought in Berlin went that Poles might even be grateful for German recognition over their annexation of the region. Second, until the outbreak of war with France – what Hitler envisioned for 1940 – he saw internationally subordinating Poland to the Reich as a priority. The thought went that in being reliant on Germany, Poland would not side with the French and would create a buffer zone separating the Reich from the USSR. Dębski, Między Berlinem a Moskwą…, 73-74. The second great OUN congress adjourned in Rome adopted many of the concepts OUN ideologues and theoreticians voiced. Accordingly, the nation would be represented by and subordinate to the leader or vozhd’; a term copied from fascist and national socialist terminology. Absolute authority was vested via the Führerprinzip style of leadership – a principle in which the entire nation, from families to central institutions representing them are represented by one leader in possession of ultimate power. In other words, Mel’nyk was responsible only to God, the nation, and his conscience while the OUN executive became an executive organ at his disposal.97 In a later letter to Ribbentrop, Mel’nyk asserted the OUN was “ideologically akin to similar movements in Europe, especially to National Socialism in Germany and Fascism in Italy.”98 After the Anschluss of Austria in 1938, Hitler turned his attention to the German ethnic minority inhabiting the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia. In demanding the cession of the region to the Reich, the French and British agreed to these demands in the hope they stave off armed conflict on the continent.99 Following his victory, Hitler proposed a new offer to regulate matters with Poland: annexation of Gdańsk into the Reich, an extraterritorial highway to connect the Reich with Eastern Prussia via to so-called Polish Corridor, and entering into an anti-communist pact.100 The effects of Munich also revived the Ukrainian question when, in late 1938, Prague agreed to the creation of autonomous Subcarpathian Rus’ in October-November. This was seen by many Ukrainians, especially the OUN, as a step toward establishing an independent state and a logical option for that purpose since in 1938, Germany maintained a pro-Polish political line while the Soviet Union remained off limits. As such, this was the OUN’s first chance to use Hitler’s recently won territorial concessions as an inspiration to mobilize for revisionism of their own. According to Stakhiv, the OUN was gambling for a possible German-Soviet war and, being ideologically close to Nazi and fascist Italian rhetoric, was prepared to support one.101 In a note to Hitler, Iaryi proposed Subcarpathian Rus’ be independent and serve as an anti-Bolshevik stronghold or base under the leadership of the OUN. Mel’nyk sent a plenipotentiary – Oleh Olzhych-Kandyba – to the region to represent the executive while others were sent on diplomatic missions to, among others, Vienna and Slovakia. In Khust, the OUN also began organizing self-defense units into a national defense force christened the Carpathian Sich. Young radicals from Eastern Galicia – as many as about 2 thousand – also migrated to the region.102 101 Ievhen Stakhiv, Kriz’ tiurmy, pidpillia i kordony (Kyiv: Rada, 1995), 55-56. Even though the official name of the province remained Subcarpathian Rus’, a proviso in the constitutional amendment which granted autonomy to the region permited the use of the alternate name – Carpatho Ukraine. The later pro-Ukrainian government of the autonomous provice used the altenative designation in all its official communiques. Paul Robert Magocsi, With Their Backs to the Mountains: A History of Carpathian Rus’ and Carpatho Rusyns (Budapest-New York: Central European University Press, 2015), 274-275. 102 Frank Grelka, Die ukrainische Nationalbewegung unter deutscher Besatzungsherrscahft 1918 und 1941/42 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2005), 174; Golczewski, Deutsche und Ukrainer 1914-1939, 813-814; 817; 820; Wysocki, Organizacja Ukraińskich Nacjonalistów..., 388-390; Iulian Khymynets‘, Moї sposterezhennia iz zakarpattia (New York: Karpats’kyi Soiuz, 1984), 60-89. The OUN executive’s first platform for Subcarpathian Rus’ envisioned rebuilding Czechoslovakia into 3 independent states – Czechia, Slovakia and Carpatho Ukraine. On the example of Poland annexing the Cieszyń region in October 1938, the OUN envisioned attaching Carpatho Ukraine to what they viewed as Ukrainian western ethnographic territory – Eastern Galicia, western Volhynia, Polesia, the Chełm-Podlasie region. 103 Paul Robert Magosci, The Shaping of a National Identity: Subcarpathian Rus’, 1848-1948 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978), 241; Mick, Lemberg, Lwów, L’viv…, 245-246; Stanisław Żerko, Stosunki polsko-niemieckie 1938-1939 (Poznań: Instytut Zachodni, 1998), 137-138. Reports to the Reich foreign office from Poland indicated that calls for self-determination resonated among Galician Ukrainians and earned Hitler, and German politics in general, their sympathy. Manifestations of solidarity with the autonomous region often ended in violence and suppression from the side of the Polish police. For example, a special service was held in Lwów’s St. George Greek Catholic Cathedral. During the sermon, Subcarpathian Rus’ was referred to as the cradle of independent Ukraine and voiced the hope that “our land here [Eastern Galicia] will become free.” Afterwards, young Ukrainians took to the city streets, chanting their support of Ukraine. The Polish police dissipated the demonstration but crowds returned and turned rowdy; smashing the windows of the Słowo Narodowe editorial office. In response, Polish students demonstrated in the city center, chanting “Away with the haidamaks” and smashing Jewish and Ukrainian institution windows. The police arrested Poles and Ukrainians; more of the latter – 6.103 Nazi diplomacy envisioned exploiting Ukrainian nationalist irredentist aspirations in Subcarpathian Rus’ to strong-arm a political solution to Polish-German relations and ultimately to corral them, along with Hungary and Slovakia, into an anti-communist alliance. For their part, the Poles were most concerned over irredentism boiling over and spilling directly into Eastern Galicia. Polish diplomats in Uzhorod and later Khust looked on and reported of the increasing number of Carpathian Sich fighters, the arrival of German advisers and how terror used against all internal opponents led to the dissolution of all non-Ukrainian parties.104 In being the chief arbiter over a newly-delineated Czechoslovak-Hungarian border following the Vienna arbitrations in November 1938, Hitler proved that Germany not only stifled Hungarian ambitions of annexing all of Subcarpathia (and Polish wishes for a common border) but that he would also act as protector of Ukrainian interests.105 However, because the issue directly touched so many East Central European nations, the Führer could “change gears” over his position on the issue as it seemed fit. 104 Golczewski, Deutsche und Ukrainer 1914-1939, 815-819; 834-849; Jan Jacek Bruski, “In Munich’s Shadow: The Ukrainian Question in Polish Foreign Policy (October 1938-March 1939),” New Ukraine-Nova Ukraina no. 11 (2011), 30-32. 105 To this effect, the Poles actively supported Budapest by also engaging in sabotage activity in Subcarpathia under the code-name “Crowbar” (Łom). For more on this Polish operation, see among other Paweł Samuś, et al, Akcja “Łom.” Polskie działania dywersyjne na Rusi Zakarpackiej w świetle dokumentów oddziału II Sztabu Głównego WP (Warszawa: Oficyna Wydawnicza Auditor, 1998) and Dariusz Dąbrowski, Rzeczpospolita Polska wobec kwestii Rusi Zakarpackiej (Podkarpackiej) 1938-1939 (Toruń: Europejskie Centrum Edukacyjne, 2007). 106 For example, the Ukrainian language was required in all schools while newspapers were staffed with Ukrainophiles, were publishing in literary Ukrainian and emphasized the Ukrainian character of the autonomous province. However, the Ukrainohile cabinet was unable to fully eradicate or silence pro-Hungarian and Russophile sympathies. Magocsi, With Their Backs to the Mountains…, 275-277; Bruder, „Der ukrainische Staat erkämpfen oder sterben!”…, 107. For a detailed discussion into Subcarpathia’s first autonomous government and policies, see Magosci, The Shaping of a National Identity…, 234-239. 107 Victor Shandor, Carpatho-Ukraine in the Twentieth Century: A Political and Legal History (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997), 139; Stakhiv, Kriz’ tiurmy, pidpillia i kordony, 56; Mykhailo Shvahuliak, “Ukraїns’ke pytannia v mizhnarodnykh politychnykh kryzakh peredodnia druhoї svitovoї viiny (1938-1939),” Visnyk Lviv Univ no. 35-36 (2000), 303. According to Shandor, some in Subcarpathian Rus’ even began adopting Nazi symbols in public, such as raising the right arm in the fascist-style of salutation. German calls for autonomy and self-determination convinced many Ukrainians that they would find a home in the ‘New Europe’ being propagandized. The Reich supported the change of government in the region, from one headed by a Russophile, Hungarian sympathizer to one under the Ukrainian Monsignor Avhustyn Voloshyn, as well as autonomy for the province within Czechoslovakia. For its part, the Voloshyn government, consisting of Ukrainophiles – and described as modeled on authoritarian principles by Prague – took an overtly pro-Ukrainian position toward internal matters.106 Among Ukrainians, pro-German sympathies abound. For example, the January 22, 1939 anniversary of the unification act between the Ukrainian People’s Republic and the West Ukrainian People’s Republic was accompanied with such slogans as: “uncle Hitler and father Voloshyn will help us…” Riko Iaryi played a quintessential role in drumming-up pro-German sympathies in the autonomous government of Subcarpathian Rus’.107 However, the Reich was also conscious of greater geopolitical possibilities. Whereas Hitler may have exploited nationalist desires against Poland, he sought to avoid arousing Soviet fears of Ukrainian irredentism as it did not serve any purpose yet. Furthermore, he was aware of the fact that the Soviets reaffirmed their 1932 treaty with Poland. This left the door open for a possible anti-German alliance or unwarranted Soviet intervention in the matter.108 As such, the Reich distanced itself from any and all identity claims in Subcarpathia, thus avoiding sparking a Ukrainian domino effect in the region. Besides being an ideal diplomatic “trump card,” Germany was interested in some form of economic cooperation, particularly importing raw materials from the region. Furthermore, on January 15, 1939, an agreement was reached to send 10 thousand workers from the region to the Reich. In this way, Hitler entertained Ukrainian desires to serve Reich interests and, in so doing, became, with little wide-spread agitation, a supposed protective power of the autonomous region.109 108 Albert S. Kotowski, ““Ukrainisches Piemont?“ Die Karpatenukraine am Vorabend des Zweiten Weltkrieges,” Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas vol. 49 no. 1 (2001), 89-90; Żerko, Stosunki polsko-niemieckie 1938-1939, 157-166. 109 Grelka, Die ukrainische Nationalbewegung…, 177; Magocsi, The Shaping of a National Identity..., 239. Aside from loosing its administrative center of Uzhorod, Subcarpathian Rus’ also lost two other large cities – Mukachevo and Berehovo. This cut the province off from direc trail contact with the rest of Czechoslovakia. 110 Osyp Boidunyk, Na perelomi (Uryvky spohadiv) (Paris: Natsionalistychne vydavnytstvo v Evropii, 1967), 35; Shandor, Carpatho-Ukraine in the Twentieth Century…, 139; 166-167; Wysocki, Organizacja Ukraińskich Nacjonalistów..., 393. The idyllic and romantic views of Galician Ukrainians who controlled the the Carpathian Sich fighting force prompted a conflict with Voloshyn and other “fathers” of Carpatho Ukraine. Voloshyn threathened them with arrests. Even though the Galician Ukrainians continued to claim the Sich fighters were subordinate to the head of the autonomous government, they continued to pursue their own aims and politics. 111 Dębski, Między Berlinem a Moskwą…, 77; Żerko, Stosunki polsko-niemieckie 1938-1939, 201-210. During a January 1939 meeting between Ribbentrop and Polish foreign minister Józef Beck in Berlin, the former assued his Polish colleague that the Germans had no intentions for the Ukrainian issue; assuring they were prepared to defer Poland priority over the issue and to cooperate together over the matter. Shvahuliak, “Ukraїns’ke pytannia v mizhnarodnykh politychnykh kryzakh…,” 307. Aside from concrete German assurances and obligations toward Subcarpathian Rus’, a key problem of Ukrainian nationalist efforts in the region was the lack of determined action by the émigré OUN executive and conversely, excessive activity by radical Galician Ukrainians. From the side of the émigré executive, Iaryi was unable to acquire weapons for the Carpathian Sich fighters; something which later earned him accusations of doing Germany’s bidding, i.e. the peaceful liquidation of the Subcarpathian issue. Meln’yk sought to avoid openly involving the OUN in events as he believed it went against the Germans who he viewed as the guarantors of Subcarpathian independence. Young Galicians were described as out of touch with the real situation in Subcarpathia; idealizing events rather than coming to terms with the specificity of conditions there. According to Shandor, their revolutionary approach did not fit into the Subcarpathian struggle for statehood; one which demanded diplomacy, not revolutionary force. Neither did they come to terms with Mel’nyk’s idle position. Rather, they saw the Carpathian Sich force as the guarantor of state stability.110 In trampling the Munich agreement, Hitler made a clear signal to Warsaw – either accept his terms and become a vassal of the Reich or suffer the same fate since international treaties meant nothing to him. He attempted to win-over the Poles and Hungarians to his vision of continental expansionism on last time. However, Poland made it clear it wanted no part in an anti-communist crusade nor would it agree to the Reich’s territorial terms.111 On March 14, 1939, Hitler dismantled Czechoslovakia into the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia while Slovakia declared its independence only to become a client state dependent on Germany. Ukrainians in Subcarpathia followed suite and declared independence; announcing the birth of Carpatho Ukraine. Battles broke out in Khust between Czechoslovak troops and Sich fighters in the new state. That same day – in accordance with Hitler’s consent and unbeknownst to Ukrainians – the region was occupied by some 40 thousand Hungarian troops, something the Ukrainians resisted but to no avail. Voloshyn sent a cable to the Reich foreign office informing of both events, pleading for Carpatho Ukraine to become a protectorate of Nazi Germany. In response, he was informed the Reich was in no position to provide protection so as not to trigger unwanted armed conflict with Hungary or Poland. By March 16, the Hungarians easily dispatched the Sich fighters and occupied the entire province. Warsaw wholeheartedly supported the Hungarian annexation as it created their much-desired common border and, more importantly, removed the threat of Ukrainian irredentism.112 112 Golczewski, Deutsche und Ukrainer 1914-1939, 898-909; Magocsi, With Their Backs to the Mountains…, 276-278; Żerko, Stosunki polsko-niemieckie 1938-1939, 251. For a first-hand, foreign, on the ground account of these events, see Michael Winch, Republic for a Day: An Eye-Witness Account of the Carpatho-Ukraine Incident (London: Robert Hale, 1939). 113 Provid Ukraїns’kykh Natsionalistiv, “Proidenyi shliakh” in OUN 1929-1954, 15. 114 Iaroslav Haivas, Koly kinchalasia epokha (Chicago: Ukraїns’ka-Amerykans’ka vydavnycha spilka, 1964), 11. The brief Carpatho Ukrainian episode showed how nationalist aspirations were sacrificed by Hitler, becoming instead a “trump card” in the political game against Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and the USSR. Even though internal criticism abound between the émigré and homeland executives, the episode was used as further proof of foreign occupation and suppression of Ukrainian irredentist desires. It served as a romantic rallying call to support the OUN and their fight against all occupiers of Ukrainian territory. Thus, it symbolized a continued struggle against Poles and Hungarians during the war while supporting this lore afterwards. For example, Mel’nyk later recalled it as the “baptism” of the OUN’s struggle for independence: “The heroic struggle of Carpatho Ukraine was an active stand against the politics of the Axis Powers, and here the OUN indeed provided a prelude to World War II, denying with arms in hand the division into spheres of influence determined by Hitler.”113 This postwar rhetoric – albeit heroic in context – served rather to cover-up and absolve Ukrainian cooperation and collaboration with the Axis Powers. Neither did German sentiments wane afterward. OUN member Iaroslav Haivas later wrote: “During the events in Carpatho Ukraine, the overwhelming majority of the Ukrainian political world believed in the good will of the Germans, if not to help, then at least not to be hostile to the reconstruction of a Ukrainian state. For a long time, this belief was the foundation of our political calculations.”114 The German consul in Lwów noted the mood among Ukrainians could again be pro-German. They continued to place their hope of achieving an independent state on the shoulders of the Germans. He concluded, “[t]he glue which binds Ukrainians together despite all internal dissention is their hatred of the Poles.”115 115 Quoted in Mick, Lemberg, Lwów, L’viv…, 248; Grelka, Die ukrainische Nationalbewegung…, 181-182. The German consulate in Lwów was in fact the Czechoslovak one. Following the Münich crisis, the German Reich took over many of the assets of the former Czechoslovakia, including diplomatic posts. 116 Aside from leading German military intelligence, Wilhelm Canaris, initially a supporter of Hitler, became a prominent anti-Führer voice; associating himself with high-ranking German military officers in favor of removing Hitler from power. In February 1944, at the behest of Himmler, Hitler abolished the Abwehr and dismissed Canaris. An SS summary court later found him guilty of treason and sentenced him to death. On April 9, 1945 he was executed at the Flossenbürg concentration camp. See Michael Mueller, Canaris: the Life and Death of Hitler’s Spy Master (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2007) and Richard Bassett, Hitler’s Chief Spy: The Wilhelm Canaris Betrayal (New York: Pegasus Books, 2011). 117 Leszek Gondek, Działalność Abwehry na terenie Polski 1933-1939 (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Ministerstwa Obrony Narodowej, 1974), 257-259; Zynovii Knysh, Rozbrat: spohady i materiialy do rozkolu OUN u 1940-1941 rokakh (Toronto: Sribna surma, 1960), 76. 118 Torzecki, Polacy i Ukrańcy..., 63; Gondek, Działalność Abwehry..., 260-262; Armstrong, Ukrainian Nationalism, 35; 42. 119 Golczewski, Deutsche und Ukrainer 1914-1918, 437; 701-712; Carynnyk, “Foes of Our Rebirth…,” 325. When Iaryi later sympathized with the Bandera faction of the OUN, he was denounced by the Melnykites and became a target of anti-Semiticism. The response was triggered by a letter writte by Bandera to Mel’nyk in which the former was outraged over Stsibors’kyi’s Jewish connection. In his white book on the “Iaryi-Bandera diversion-rebellion,” Stsibors’kyi defended Mel’nyk and his executives as legitimate OUN head and responded by labelling the Bandera group a destrictive clique. He claimed Bandera was a puppet of Iaryi’s who had been plotting against the OUN executive. The July 1941 “black book of rebellion” issued by the Melnykites was more vocal toward Iaryi. He was accused of being a Czech-Jewish crossbreed, misappropriating OUN funds, dismissed Bandera as simplay a tool of his (Bandera was described as Iaryi’s “goy,” a leader appointed by “Rabbi Iaryi”) and ultimately dismissed both as Bolshevik tools. Carynnyk, “Foes of Our Rebirth…,” 326-328. Throughout the interwar period, German military intelligence (Abwehr) intensified contacts with the OUN.116 During the 1930s, when this relationship was inseparable. Through Free City of Gdańsk, the Germans supplied nationalists with arms and explosives which served their terrorist activities against the Polish state. There, as in Austria following its annexation into the Reich, young OUN members received formal intelligence and diversionary-sabotage training from Abwehr officers.117 Ukrainian nationalists filled the Abwehr void of intelligence infiltration in southeastern Poland. Iaryi also served as an Abwehr confidant (codenamed ‘Karpat’ and ‘Konsul-2’); being the informant and intermediary between Konovalets’ and Canaris and later between Mel’nyk and Canaris.118 As financial officer of the OUN executive, he pocketed some of the money the Germans were contributing to the nationalists to purchase a luxurious villa near Berlin. His personal life raised questions among some as to his Ukrainianness. He was born into an ethnically-mixed family – his father was Czech while his mother was a Polish Jew. A former Galician Army cavalry officer and colleague of Konovalets’, after the war he settled in Vienna and later Berlin where he made contacts with leading Nazi officials. The fact that he married a Jewish woman made matters worse for him. Even though she spoke good Ukrainian, and Iaryi declared himself to be Ukrainian, some ranking OUN men saw this as a problem.119 His office in Vienna became an important contact point for nationalists from Subcarpathian Rus’ and Eastern Galicia.120 According to Iaroslav Haivas, Iaryi gained an air of superiority as many nationalists admired him as if he were their “patron and bread-giver.” A phrase which irked Haivas came from a close confidant of Iaryi’s: “sotnyk pays – sotnyk orders.”121 120 Knysh, Rozbrat…, 70-71 121 Iaroslav Haivas, Volia tseny ne maie (Toronto: Sribna surma, 1971), 159-160. 122 Torzecki, Kwestia ukraińska w polityce III Rzeszy..., 169-170. 123 Phillip-Christian Wachs, Der Fall Theodor Oberländer (1905-1998). Ein Lehrstück deutscher Geschichte (Frankfurt: Campus Verlag, 2000); 49; 60; Burleigh, Germany Turns Eastwards..., 145-146. Oberländer caustically described his definition of the “struggle for ethnicity abroad:” “… [it] is nothing other than the continuation of war by other means under the cover of peace. Not a fight with gas, grenades, and machine-guns, but a fight about homes, farms, schools, and the souls of children, a struggle whose end, unlike in war, is not foreseeable as long as the insane principle of nationalism of the state dominates the Eastern region, a struggle which goes on for generations with one aim: extermination!” 124 Ray Brandon, “Koch, Hans” in Handbuch der völkischen Wissenschaften: Personen - Institutionen - Forschungsprogramme – Stiftungen (München: K.G. Saur, 2008), 326-330. During the period of 1938-1939, the Breslau (Wrocław) branch of Abwehr made contacts with Ukrainian politicians, social activists, and academics while also disseminating en masse OUN pamphlets and brochures, ones confiscated by the Polish police in Eastern Galicia.122 It was in the city’s Abwehr branch where military intelligence contracted Ostforschung scholars. Among the academics who later worked in the military or civil occupation administration of the GG and maintained close contacts with Ukrainians was the economist Theodor Oberländer of the East German Economic Institute in Königsberg. His political philosophy included a vision of drawing East Central European ethnic groups toward Germany to combat communist threats, i.e. the Jews. For him, positive features of ethnic non-Jewish easterners, including ethnic Germans, was their antisemitism; what he viewed as an “army” of eight million. Since the spring of 1938, he was recruited into the Wehrmacht and was commissioned as an intelligence operative for the Breslau Abwehr post where he worked in foreign sabotage.123 Another key figure to later Ukrainian-German contacts in the GG was Hans Koch. The son of an Evangelical priest, he was born in 1894 in Lwów to a family of German colonists; the ancestors of which settled in Eastern Galicia in the late 18th century. Following military service during World War I, he was mobilized into the Galician Army in 1918 where he served until his unit was taken prisoner by the Soviets in 1920. Upon returning to Vienna, he studied East European history, obtaining two doctoral degrees and a habilitation focusing on church history and theology. As he wrote: “In Russia and Ukraine I found my field of specialization: the history of Eastern Europe.” In 1932 he joined the Austrian NSDAP. Two years later, he began an academic career; first at the University of Königsberg and from 1937 at the University of Breslau.124 At the former, he met a young Oberländer. In Breslau, where he focused on Polish and Ukrainian history, Koch was director of the Osteuropa-Institut. His work there began a period of intensive cooperation with various Nazi bodies, the Wehrmacht, and state administrators. As director, he promoted his intellectual interests through the institute’s agenda. Prior to the outbreak of war, from 1937 to 1939, it investigate and analyzed problems and themes associated with Polish, Czechoslovak or Ukrainian history and politics. During the German diplomatic game over the Subcarathian Rus’ question, Koch was censored from publishing responses to the political on-goings or even historical essays. In early spring 1939, the institute undertook an intense, anti-Polish propaganda campaign; providing essays and reports for the foreign ministry. By the beginning of the war, the activity of the institute was suspended as many of its members were either drafted into the army or involved in the resettlement of Volksdeutsche from the east. His political orientation was typical for German, Austrian, and Ukrainian émigré intellectuals and scholars of the time who collaborated with the Nazis as a means of supporting Ukrainian political and cultural aspirations during occupation. On August 21, 1939 Koch was called-up as a reserve lieutenant in the Wehrmacht and assigned to the Breslau Abwehr branch. 125 125 Hans-Jürgen Bömelburg, “Das Osteuropa-Institut in Breslau 1939-1940. Wissenschaft, Propaganda und nationale Feindbilder in der Arbeit eines interdisziplinären Zentrums des Osteuropaforschung in Deutschland” in Michael Garleff (ed), Zwischen Konfrontation und Kompromiss. Odlenburger Symposium: „Interethnische Beziehungen in Ostmitteleuropa als historiographisches Problem der 1930er/1940er Jahre“ (München: R. Oldenbourg, 1995), 62-65; Andreas Kappeler, “Hans Koch: The Turbulent Life of an Austrian Ukrainophile,” Journal of Ukrainian Studies vol. 33-34 (2008-2009), 258-259; 261. 126 With imminent war on the horizon, the Moloda Hromada contacted the OUN provincial executive, suggesting they make preparations for a general uprising together. The OUN deferred to cooperate. Struve believes the nationalists did not want to share its influence as the actual Ukrainian military force with the weaker Hromada group. Kai Struve, Deutsche Herrschaft, ukrainischer Nationalismus, antijüdische Gewalt. Der Sommer 1941 in der Westukraine (Oldenbourg: De Gruyter, 2015), 96; 99. The report of contacts between Koch and Paliїv came from the Lublin voivode. Golczewski, Detusche und Ukrainer 1914—1939, 954. Aside from making contacts with OUN members, Koch, as early as 1937, made contacts with his old Galician Army colleague Dmytro Paliїv. According to the Breslau Abwehr, he also headed a conspiratorial organization of Galician Army veterans, the Moloda Hromada. Members included Andrii Palii and Mykhailo Khronov’iat. Both men served as directors of the Maslsoiuz cooperative at one time while Khronov’iat also chaired the Sokil physical fitness society in the 1930s.126 Their German intelligence contact was Alfred Bisanz, of which more below. Once it was clear that Poland definitively rejected any alliance with Nazi Germany, Hitler ordered in April 1939 to prepare for the invasion of Poland under the operative codename Fall Weiß. A propaganda campaign was immediately undertaken to implant Nazi attitudes and convince Germans that the Reich had no other choice but to attack Poland. For Hitler the British guarantees toward Poland from March 31, the joint Polish-British declaration from April 6 and the signing of the Polish-British common defense pact in August 1939 provided the figurative ammunition for anti-Polish propaganda. Tomasz Szarota described this period – from the spring of 1939 until the outbreak of war – as a “psychological war of nerves” in preparation for armed conflict. The Nazis reverted their previous official line in relation to Poland and portrayed it as a tool of the British, an artificial creation of Versailles, a “seasonal state” mired in polnische Wirtschaft, an eternal enemy. Furthermore, Nazi propaganda exploited Polish policies toward its ethnic minorities, Germans in particular, as examples of the state’s inability to respect international treaties and agreements. All this meant to convince public opinion of the necessity for Poland to disappear from Europe as well as to serve as an alibi for an occupation apparatus.127 127 Dębski, Między Berlinem a Moskwą…, 79-85; Żerko, Stosunki polski-niemieckie…, 292-293; Tomasz Szarota, “Poland and Poles in German Eyes during World War II,” Polish Western Affairs vol. 19 no. 2 (1978), 229-235. 128 Beginning in 1939, the Polish authorities were informed of OUN activity toward preparations for an uprising in Eastern Galicia. OUN member Volodymyr Tymchyi played a key role in preparations. However, a lack of internal coordination and agreement shelved this project. Wysocki, Organizacja Ukraińskich Nacjonalistów w Polsce…, 339; 349-352; Grzegorz Motyka, Ukraińska partyzantka 1942-1960 (Warszawa: Rytm, 2006), 65-66. 129 Quoted in Andrii Bolianovs’kyi, Ukraїns’kyi viis’kovi formuvannia v zbroinykh sylakh Nimechchyny (1939-1945) (L’viv: L’vivs’kyi natsional’ny universytet im. Ivana Franka, 2003), 28. 130 Shvahuliak, “Ukraїns’ke pytannia v mizhnarodnykh politychnykh...,” 309-310; Mirchuk, Narys istoriї OUN vol. 1, 585. The German consul even suggested informing OUN émigrés that, thanks to German pressure, the Hungarian government agreed to given Subcarpathian Rus’ autonomy. The OUN homeland executive in Poland question the executive whether they gained concrete assurances for 1.) Ukrainian autonomy or statehood in Eastern Galicia; and 2.) assurances that the USSR would not invade or attack Ukrainian territory following the creation of ehtier from the Germans. The OUN executive gained neither. 131 Andrzej Szefer, “Dywersyjno-sabotażowa działalność wrocławskiej Abwehry na ziemiach polskich w przededniu agresji hitlerowskiej w 1939r.” in Biuletyn Głównej Komisji Badania Zbrodni Hitlerowskich w Polsce vol. XXXII (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Prawnicze, 1987), 271-272. With Hitler’s and the foreign offices’ agreement, the Abwehr planned to exploit Ukrainian nationalists during the invasion of Poland for sabotage-subversive work in what they deemed would be a “Ukrainian uprising.”128 Initial German military plans envisioned exploiting the angst of Galician and Volhynian Ukrainians to stage an uprising. An aid to the German ambassador in Warsaw urged to use all measure to instigate an uprising as a pretext to invade Poland. “The relationship between Berlin and Lwów functions wonderfully,” he reported, “particularly through the German youth party in Poland. Dissatisfaction over Carpatho Ukraine left to its own fate gone.”129 Ukrainian nationalists viewed this as the beginning of their long-awaited path to statehood; hoping a foreign power would aid their self-determination. Mel’nyk even went so far as to urge OUN executives to prepare a constitution for a “Western Ukrainian State.” The German consul in Lwów urged that talks with OUN be kept secret while supporting them of autonomist and irredentist desires. In Shvahuliak’s eyes, German ideas of a Ukrainian uprising stemmed from their search for a pretext and justification to invade Poland – to protect minority rights.130 However, until Soviet intentions were clear to the Germans, the question of a Ukrainian uprising was postponed. Regardless, plans to train Ukrainian continued. For military intelligence, the large anti-Polish OUN proved to be a formidable reservoir for their sabotage and subversive work. The Abwehr’s second department (Abteilung II) was dedicated to foreign sabotage. Here, operative groups were organized into combat (K) or sabotage (S) squads. The former were usually larger in number; their assignments primarily included occupying strategic objects or attacking specific military positions. The latter were small taskforces focused on infrastructure and communication destruction – blasting railroad lines or interrupting electrical/water supplies and interrupting telephone communications.131 Erwin Lahousen, the intelligence officer responsible for eastern reports and head of the second department, entered into concerted talks with the OUN. Helmuth Groscurth was also a prominent figure in foreign sabotage intelligence. Abwehr post VIII men in Breslau were in turn commissioned to organize a “Ukrainian uprising.” In Poland, the Abwehr organized Ukrainian combat and sabotage groups. The former was organized in Eastern Galicia as the Kampf Organisation Ost-Galizien (K-Organisation).132 A May 30, 1939 intelligence report claimed of between 12 and 25 thousand deployable men. Among them were Ukrainians: former military men, cooperative members or Sokil members including Khronov’iat. They were under the commander of Colonel Alfred Bisanz. Born in 1890 in the German village of Dornfeld in Eastern Galicia, he served in the Austrian army during World War I and later in the Ukrainian Galician Army. After combat, he settled on his small estate near Lwów. Bisanz maintained close contacts with Lahousen and old army colleagues, both Ukrainian and Austrian-German, including Koch. Contacts with the latter allowed the Abwehr to build an agent network in Eastern Galicia.133 132 Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv (BA-MA) Freiburg, RW 5/123, Ergebnis der Besprechung mit den II-Referent der Amten VIII und XVII, July 3, 1939, pp. 13-14; RW 5/147, Lahousen note to Abwehr branch VIII and XVII, August 19, 1939, p. 160. 133 Struve, Deutsche Herrschaft, ukrainischer Nationalismus, antijüdische Gewalt..., 97. 134 “Meldunek wrocławskiej placówki Abwehry o stanie ilościowym grup dywersyjno-sabotażowych w Polsce w maju 1939 roku,” in Szefer, “Dywersyjno-sabotażowa działalność wrocławskiej Abwehry...,” 294. 135 BA-MA, RW 5/147, Abwehrstelle VIII – Stand der II-Organisation in Polen, June 30, 1939, p. 57. 136 “Notatka II Oddziału Abwehry w Berlinie z rozmowy z inż. Wolanskym, organizatorem ukraińskich grup sabotażowych we wschodniej i południowo-wschodniej Polsce (July 14, 1939),” in Szefer, “Dywersyjno-sabotażowa działalność wrocławskiej Abwehry...”, 308-310. 137 Struve, Deutsche Herrschaft, ukrainische Nationalismus, antijüdische Gewalt…, 101. K-squads plans centered on causing large-scale subversion and disorder in southeastern Poland; to elicit a “little war” behind Polish military lines. An intelligence report from May 1939 outlined in detail their envisioned tasks: clearing the Stanisławów voivodship of Polish military and police forces, occupying territory spanning along the Dniester-Zaleszczyki-Halicz-Mikołajów-Sambor line and gaining control of the Sambor-Sanok-Nowy Sącz railroad line. This region was to be used as a staging area: “…from this line carry out raids into northern Ukraine with the aim of further cleansing Ukrainian areas of Polish holdings.”134 One month later, an intelligence report noted the region between Lwów and Kołomyja was to be reorganized by Bisanz who declared 4 thousand men for the job. Territory west of Lwów to the Polish-Slovak border was also to be organized by K-squads.135 Abwehr headquarters in Berlin informed Breslau of the visit in July 1939 of a certain “engineer Wolansky” who reported on the state of Eastern Galician S-squads with the intent of collaboration with the Breslau branch.136 This was in fact Ievhen Vrets’ona, a member of the OUN and chemical engineer who assumed the pseudonym “Ostap Volians’kyi” while serving in the Carpathian Sich. After his release from Hungarian captivity in June 1939, he arrived in Germany.137 According to Vrets’ona’s report, 23 Ukrainian sabotage groups were organized in Eastern Galicia. Each contained about 7 members and were poorly equipped, lacking proper weapons and explosives. He urged equipment be made readily available and smuggled into Poland before the state tightened border control. He also identified strategic railway lines in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia (23) to be destroyed by the S-squads upon the outbreak of war and Polish military mobilization centers to attack. Other assignments he envisioned for the S-quads included destroying telephone lines or setting fire to grain and feed facilities.138 138 “Notatka II Oddziału Abwehry w Berlinie z rozmowy z inż. Wolanskym, organizatorem ukraińskich grup sabotażowych we wschodniej i południowo-wschodniej Polsce (July 14, 1939),” in Szefer, “Dywersyjno-sabotażowa działalność wrocławskiej Abwehry...”, 308-310. 139 BA-MA, RW 5/123, Abw. Nr. 664/39 g. Kdos. II/1 (ON), gez.: Döhring, June 13, 1939; Iulian Khmynets‘, Moї sposterezhennia iz Zakarpattia (New York: Karpats’kyi Soiuz, 1984), 117; Shvahuliak, “Ukraїns’ke pytannia v mizhnarodnykh politychnykh...,” 309. According to Khmynets‘, the Hungarians initially released 60 Sich men who travelled on to Austria. He also claimed that Hungarians allowed the release of Ukrainians not born in Subcarpathia first and foremost. 140 Sushko used the pseudonym “Sych” throughout his life. During World War I, he commanded a company of the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen before being captured and interned by the Russians in 1916. After his release, he organized the Sich Riflemen in Kyiv. He was later named colonel in the UNR army. He confounded UVO and was its home commander between 1927 and 1931. In assisting to organize the OUN, he served in its military department. Andrii Mel’nyk, “Kindrat-Sych. Polk. Roman Sushko” in Orhanizatsiia Ukraїns’kykh Natsionalistiv 1929-1954, 37-39. 141 BA-MA, RW 5/699, g. Kdos. Abw II/Ch., gez. Lahousen, July 15, 1939, pp. 2-3; Golczewski, Deutsche und Ukrainer 1914-1939, 987-992; Chinciński, Forpoczta Hitlera…, 273-274. The Vienna Abwehr branch (XVII) also organized a combat group in eastern Slovakia composed of 360 Sudeten Germans and 300 Volksdetusche. Their assignment – besides recruiting local volunteers from eastern Slovakia so as to boost the number of men up to 1,200 – was to latch the Polish-Slovak border in order to secure the back of Ukrainian legion operations. “Informacja Oddziału II Abwehry w Berlinie o stanie I zadaniach Organizacji “K” na terenie Słowacji (August 21, 1939),” Szefer, “Dywersyjno-sabotażowa działalność wrocławskiej Abwehry...”, 329. Parallel to the Ukrainian diversionary groups, in mid-June 1939, Lahousen met with Colonel Roman Sushko – head of the military section of the OUN executive – to discuss the possible deployment of OUN émigrés east. Lahousen was prepared to arm them with pistols, automatic machine-guns and grenades as well as to transport them, via Romania and Slovakia, deep behind Polish lines. In response to German proposals, the Hungarian government agreed to release captured Carpathian Sich men and allow them travel to Germany.139 By July, 160 Ukrainians – disguised as mining laborers and as such aptly codenamed Bergbauernhilfe (BBH) – were training in a covert camp outside of Salzburg, Austria. Plans were discussed with the army general staff to covertly train up to 500 Ukrainians; ultimately 600 were trained. Camouflaged under their labor codename, the Abwehr called these Ukrainian diversionaries “freedom fighters” (Freiheitskämpfer) who were members of the short-lived Carpathian Sich formations or OUN members. They were placed under the OUN command of Colonel Roman Sushko; an old colleague of Mel’nyk and veteran of the struggle for Ukrainian independence.140 Major Hans Dehmel of the Vienna Abwehr branch was charged by the military intelligence to oversee Sushko and the Ukrainians.141 Training for the BBH-men began in 1938 in Austria; independent of the events in Subcarpathian Rus’. One camp was in the mountainside village of Saubersdorf (outside of Wiener Neustadt), where Iaryi had a villa. The other was in the hills along the Himsee in Bavaria.142 After the Carpatho Ukrainian debacle, young Sich members who arrived in Germany or Austria were sent by the OUN executive to the camps for “special courses.” Training spanned from practical army drills to military theory and ideological indoctrination. The former were taught by either Nazi criminal police (Kripo) or regular police (Shupo) officers. Stakhiv described ideological courses in Saubersdorf: 142 Golczewski, Deutsche und Ukrainer 1914-1939, 979; Bolianovs’kyi, Ukraїns’kyi viis’kovi formuvannia..., 25-26. 143 Stakhiv, Kriz’ tiurmy, pidpillia i kordony, 77; Knysh, Perek pokhodom na skhid vol. 1, 106. The ideological courses there were led by Ivan Gabrusevych (alias “John”) of the OUN who at one time worked in the Berlin press office. According to Iaroslav Haivas, Gabrusevych closely collaborated with Iaryi. Haivas, Volia tseny ne maie, 158. 144 Liubomyr Hirniak, Na stezhkakh istorychnykh podii. Karpats’ka Ukraїna i nastupni roky. Spohady i materiialy (New York: n.p., 1979), 260-266; Stakhiv, Kriz’ tiurmy, pidpillia i kordony, 75-76; 78; Knysh, Pered pokhodom na skhid vol. 1, 111-112. According to Stakhiv, some young Ukrainians were sent to the Saubersdorf camp by Baranovs’kyi as punishment. For what, he does not say. The OUN executive was in contact with the Japanese from 1937. According to Kapustsians’kyi, their first contacts came in Warsaw in 1934. Golczewski, Deutsche und Ukrainer 1914-1939, 980. 145 In Cyrillic, the name is as follows: Військові Відділи Націоналістів – BBH. Hirniak, Na stezhkakh istorychnykh podii..., 291; Struve, Deutsche Herrschaft, ukrainische Nationalismus, antijüdische Gewalt…, 102; Golczewski, Deutsche und Ukrainer 1914-1939, 989. In December 1939, the OUN issued a set of guidelines for awarding BBH men with a special badge in recognition of their service in what they perceived as a Ukrainian nationalist armed unit. The guideline was reproduced in Knysh, Pered pokhidom na skhid vol. 1, 119-120. I must say the course program that [Ivan] Gabrusevych conducted was actually, one hundred percent, borrowed from fascist ideology. I remember learning of the Nation: the nation must have its own language, territory, history, culture and the most important of all – Europeanism. Only European countries could be Nations. We asked: ‘And what about Japan?’ – ‘Japan is not a nation because they are not Europeans.’ A racist approach. The OUN executive was also presented in the fascist light. As Stakhiv recalled, this came during lessons on the topic of the Führerprinzip. Here, Mel’nyk was labelled the vozhd’ of the OUN, Senyk the chancellor, and Baranovs’kyi president. In discussing the works of Drakhmanov or Hrushevs’kyi, the term ‘democratic’ or ‘democracy’ was only used in concert with the word ‘lost;’ in other words, meaning it was dead in the eyes of OUN ideologues.143 The conspiratorial nature of the training and camp life was felt immediately. Initially, trainees could not leave the camp grounds or have any contact with the outside world. This later changed as in Saubersdorf, Iaryi permitted the men to attend a local movie theater once a week. In the camp, they all used aliases. The OUN executive brass often visited both camps; in Saubersdorf Baranovs’kyi, Senyk and Iaryi while in the Himsee – General Mykola Kapustians’kyi and Sushko. During one visit, a Japanese military attaché from Berlin accompanied Iaryi. Aside from training and indoctrination, the men were used by military intelligence to smuggle arms into southeastern Poland via Slovakia in the event of war breaking out.144 Ukrainian nationalists viewed the Bergbauernhilfe as either the Sushko or Ukrainian “Legion” or the ‘military unit of the nationalists,’ which, when written in Cyrillic, corresponded to the same acronym as the German ‘BBH.’145 From the moment in spring 1939 when political-military talks began between Poland, France and Great Britain, Hitler tentatively shelved plans to form an anti-communist crusade in favor of coming to terms with the Soviets for two key tactical reasons: to thwart any western plans of courting the USSR into an anti-German alliance and to rid himself of the Polish problem. By isolating Poland in forging an alliance with the Soviets, Hitler hoped the “shock value” would be enough to prevent any ideas of western intervention in a Polish-German conflict. For the Soviets, in turn, an alliance with the Reich meant an opportunity to rebuild international state prestige. A mutual liquidation of Poland, viewed as the then strongest element in East-Central Europe, would open the door for territorial revision by both parties and creating spheres of influence at the expense of the region; making both the German Reich and the USSR “great” continental powers once again. On August 23, 1939, the 10-year Nazi-Soviet pact (or the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact) was signed. Both parties promised to, among others, withhold from engaging in acts of aggression against the other, to negotiate common matters, and to forgo entering into third-party coalitions against each other. The terms of the secret protocol de facto divided-up Poland and created spheres of influence for both signatories.146 German-Soviet negotiations in August 1939 halted military intelligence plans toward exploiting Ukrainian nationalists. Not only did it halt the planned use of Ukrainian diversionaries but it also let to a close monitoring of Ukrainian centers and prominent figureheads in Berlin and Vienna, including press centers, offices, and such men as Iaryi and Skoropads'kyi.147 146 Martin Broszat, Nationalsozialistische Polenpolitik 1939-1945 (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Bücherei, 1961), 11-15; Dębski, Między Berlinem a Moskwą…, 87-95. 147 BA-MA, RW 5/499, Das Tagebuch von Erwin Lahousen, pp. 6-7; Torzecki, Polacy i Ukraińcy…, 20-22; 33; Chinciński, Forpoczta Hitlera..., 304. According to Lahousen’s journal, the order of priority in monitoring Ukrainians went as follows: OUN émigrés in Berlin, the Ukrainian press bureau in Berlin, Oberleutnant Kurt Graebe in Berlin, the OUN office in Vienna, the BBH camp in Saubersdorf and finally Iary. Graebe was born in Karniszewo (near Gniezno, Greater Poland). During the interwar period, he served in the Sejm as a parliamentarin from the minority party. Much of his interwar work focused on German minority and national issues in Poland; from 1919-1937, he headed the German Federation for the Protection of Minority Rights in Bydgoszcz. As a member of the minority party, German-Ukrainian political relations in interwar Poland germinated through him. He maintained relations with Iaryi. In the early 1930s, he was vocal in placing Berlin’s Ukrainian Scientific Institute (Ukrainisches Wissenschaftliches Institut) under the influence of the OUN émigrés instead of Skoropads’kyi’s Hetmanites. Graebe described the OUN and its members as “Ukrainian national socialists.” He informed Berlin, for example in 1937, of the failure in Polish-Ukrainian normalization efforts. Golczewski, Deutsche und Ukrainer 1914-1939, 452; 454; 648-649; 667. 148 BA-MA, RW 5/699, Nr. 20/39 Chef., gez.: Lahousen, August 4, 1939, pp. 4-6. The Abwehr did not give-up on the Ukrainians. In his August directive, because of pressing time constraints, Lahousen called for the intensification of training Ukrainian BBH-men in two fields. Armed training focused on weapons usage, shooting exercises, and explosives handling. Unarmed training provided basic military skills: map reading, terrain recognition, field camouflage, medical assistance, reconnaissance, and object destruction.148 On August 18, Mel’nyk was put on high alert to prepare for deployment east, if the German political situation so required. That same day, Lahousen noted of keeping arms out of the hands of the Ukrainians slated for incursion behind Poland’s defensive lines. Instead, they would be filtered and distributed through Abwehr posts in Slovakia. Weapons, some 4,500 Austrian rifles and 25 light machine guns, were prepared and would be handed out by Abwehr branches in Slovakia upon their receiving orders to do so; in this way activating the “Ukrainian uprising” and the “little war” behind Polish military lines.149 149 BA-MA, RW 5/499, Das Tagebuch von Erwin Lahousen, pp. 2-3. 150 BA-MA, RW 5/147, K-Organisation Ost-Galizien, July 31, 1939, p. 126. 151 BA-MA, RW 5/499, Das Tagebuch von Erwin Lahousen, p. 5. 152 Ibid, pp. 5-7; 10. 153 Hirniak, Na stezhkakh istorychnykh podii..., 266. Bisanz was to amass his diversionaries along the Polish-Slovak border – between the Dukla Pass and Medzilaborce where the Abwehr would arm 4 thousand diversionaries. The Abwehr was also prepared to provide weapons to the Iaryi group, i.e. BBH-men also to be stationed in the area.150 The question of whether or not to employ the BBH-men vacillated in the days leading up to the war. On August 23, upon the signing of the Nazi-Soviet Pact, their mobilization and transfer to the Polish-Slovak border was abruptly halted as “the foreign policy situation requires a particularly cautious and careful leadership and monitoring of all events in the Ukrainian organizations. Any sign of a change in sentiment or refusal is to be reported immediately.”151 That same day, Lahousen noted that disposition toward using the BBH-men was favorable if only in a purely military-diversionary and not political sense. The foreign ministry advised they be ordered to strike after the outbreak of war, not prematurely while they be placed under the supervision of the military mission in Bratislava. Two days later, plans were put on hold pending an official statement from the foreign office. On august 28, Lahousen issued instructions which prohibited the BBH battalions from acting until matters were clarified with the Wehrmacht general staff.152 Liubomyr Hirniak recalled his “war euphoria” once Ukrainian BBH-men received word that they would be used in the attack on Poland: Can you imagine what happened in my soul after I heard these words? Can the joy for this reason be expressed? They tore apart my chest. From them, the blood in my veins began to flow in a stormy stream because in a month we go to Poland. With arms in hand!153 How did the OUN envision the Ukrainian uprising in southeastern Poland? According to Haivas, Iaryi proposed a concept of selecting or filtering out non-Ukrainians in OUN controlled regions after their authority was stabilized. He believed they would compromise themselves in some way, thus making them an easy target to remove. The OUN executive envisioned employing Kolodzyns’kyi’s military doctrine during the envisioned uprising following the German attack on Poland to being the process of liberating Eastern Galicia and forming a state from the first village reached. These were the instructions which Mel’nyk meted out to Sushko, ones envisioning the BBH-men to “complete relevant assignments of the nationalist movement.”154 In turn, these instructions were meted out by Baranovs’kyi to, for example, Haivas, who was tasked to accompany BBH-men into southeastern Poland as an OUN commissar, with assignments to: 154 Haivas, Volia tseny ne maie, 157; Bolianovs’kyi, Ukraїns’kyi viis’kovi formuvannia..., 35-36. 155 Haivas, Volia tseny ne maie, 161; Golczewski, Deutsche und Ukrainer 1914-1939, 995-997. 156 Hirniak, Na stezhkakh istorychnykh podii..., 272-273. 157 Osyp Boidunyk was a former officer of the Ukrainian Galician Army and the Army of the Ukrainian People’s Republic, was an active member of the UVO in the 1920s. During its transformation into the OUN, he participated in the constitutional congress and served on the executive council from 1930 to 1931. Entsyklopediia Ukraїnoznavstva (ed) Volodymyr Kubiiovych, vol. 1 (L’viv: Naukove Tovarystvo im. Shevchenka, 1993), 149. 158 Bolianovs’kyi, Ukraїns’kyi viis’kovi formuvannia..., 34-35. Andrzej L. Sowa believes the BBH batallions were penetrated by the Polish intelligence who sent reports to the army general staff of Wehrmacht troop concentrations and movements in Slovakia with plans to occupy Lwów. Andrzej L. Sowa, Stosunki polski-ukraińskie 1939-1947. Zarys problematyki (Kraków: Towarzystwo Sympatyków Historii, 1998), 72-73. Chinciński showed that Polish authorities did indeed know of German plans to use Ukrainians as diversionaries. The starosta in Krosno received information from a trusted source (August 24, 1939) that the Germans undertook actions toward causing unrest and turmoil in Eastern Galicia, especially along the Polish-Slovak border. Furthermore, the source informed of individual or small groups of Ukrainian diversionaries penetrating into Poland from either Reich or Slovak territory and of the OUN – inspired by the Germans – preparing for sabotage-terrorist acts. Chinciński, Forpoczta Hitlera…, 305. 159 BA-MA, RW 5/499, Das Tagebuch von Erwin Lahousen, p. 10. …immediately make contacts with the organizational network, assist it in wide-range development in this area so that it covers every populated point and, if possible, as much of the active elements; to take part in the development of a police system, the leader of which will be assigned later and to build and maintain along the Carpathians [Mountains] contacts with territory and the center abroad, until the organizational center is moved to the country.155 On August 31, BBH-men were prepared for transport to northeastern Slovakia, to the border with southeastern Poland. Again, Hirniak’s recollection serves to capture the mood of the BBH-men: August 31. The unit is enthused. We stored our clothing and documents in the warehouse. That means we’re going! With joy we put on uniforms of the former Czech infantry. We impatiently await our departure. We already wanted to be on the Polish border to immediately strike borderland posts. And then to L’viv!156 On the eve of war, two BBH battalions numbered 280 total men. Alongside Sushko who commanded the two battalions, OUN executives Iaroslav Baranovs’kyi and Osyp Boidunyk157 were attached to his staff to politically advise and control on-the-ground situations. Osyp Karachevs’kyi, former lieutenant in the Polish army, commanded one battalion while Ievhen Hutovych commanded the other. Junior officers consisted of former Carpathian Sich men, UVO members or nationalists of the OUN homeland military bureau from Eastern Galicia. The battalions were assigned to Wehrmacht Group South.158 Under August 31 – 17:30 hours, Lahousen noted: “At 14:30 hours the Führer gave the order to trigger Fall Weiß for 1.09.1939 at 04:45 hours…”159 Chapter 3 The Genesis of the Ukrainian Central Committee in the General Government There are no great works without doing small things Volodymyr Kubiiovych (April 15, 1940) 3.1 The German Invasion of Poland, Ukrainian “Uprising” and Beginnings of Organized Ukrainian Life The eruption of World War II, beginning with the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany on September 1, 1939, shook and ultimately dismantled the Versailles order created in 1919. For Poland and its people, the invasion and subsequent occupation unleashed a terror the likes of which no one had yet experienced. Even though Polish-Ukrainian attitudes were taxed prior to the outbreak of war, the invasion prompted legal Ukrainian political parties to side with the Polish state with a desire to ultimately prevent the suffering that the population was now vulnerable to. An August 24, 1939 UNDO platform declared: “Ukrainian society will fulfill its civic duty…superimposed by the fact of belonging to the Polish state.” During a Sejm session of September 2, UNDO leader Vasyl’ Mudryi, while accepting the August memorandum, further underscored Ukrainian desires to fulfill their civic responsibilities including the ultimate sacrifice for the state as the abandonment of the Carpatho Ukrainian question as well as the German-Soviet pact created disappointment toward German plans for Ukrainians and a necessity to side with a contending force.160 160 Polish Institute and Sikorski Museum (PISM) London, Ministerstwo Spraw Wewnętrznych (MSW), folder A.9/V.32, Deklaracja Narodniego Komitetu UNDO, 24 August 1939; Mychajło Szwahulak, “Stanowisko i udział Ukraińców w niemiecko-polskiej kampanii 1939 roku” in Polska-Ukraina: trudne pytania, vol. 4 (Warszawa: Światowy Związek Armii Krajowej – Związek Ukraińców w Polsce, 1999), 51-52; Mirosław Czech and Mirosław Sycz, “Sprawy polsko-ukraińskie w czasie II wojny światowej. Rozmowa z docentem Ryszardem Torzeckim.” Zustriczi no. 3-4 (1990), 104. 161 The overall Ukrainian mindset towards service in the Polish army during the interwar period had been split following the March 1923 Conference of Ambassadors decision to include Eastern Galicia into the borders of the Second Polish Republic which gave legal precedent for recruitment of soldiers from this territory. During a debate in the Sejm, a Ukrainian member of parliament stated that the territorial position the Ukrainians found themselves in was against their will while service in the armed forces was equated to “the most tragic, The defense of Poland included Ukrainian citizens activated or called-up for army service during the delayed general mobilization in late August and September.161 Prior to the unbearable burden” particularly since a part of the Ukrainians were forming their own nation and a subsequent part was forced to strengthen a “foreign nation.” Conversely, Ukrainian nationalist organizations saw service in the army as a benefit for their militaristic causes; they emphasized the necessity of officer training. Waldemar Rezmer, “Stanowisko i udział Ukraińców w niemiecko-polskiej kampanii 1939 roku” in Polska-Ukraina: trudne pytania vol. 4 (Warszawa: Światowy Związek Armii Krajowej – Związek Ukraińców w Polsce, 1999), 16-17. 162 Tadeusz Antoni Kowalski, Mniejszości narodow w siłach zbrojnych Drugiej Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej 1918-1939 (Torun: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Mikołaja Kopernika, 1999), 120; Rezmer, “Stanowisko i udział Ukraińców...,” 24; Szwahulak, “Stanowisko i udział Ukraińców ...,” 56-57. 163 Vasyl’ Shehliuk, “Iak rosa na sontsi:” Politychnyi roman-khronika, napysanyi na osnovi spohadiv kolyshn’oho diiacha OUN-UPA L.S. Pavlyshyna (L’viv: Feniks, 1992), 37-38; Pavlo Shandruk, Arms of Valor trans. Roman Olesnicki (New York: Robert Speller & Sons, 1959), 169. As Shandruk noted, the stipulations of the Ukrainian contract officers agreed upon with the Polish state included one which allowed the officers the right to terminate their contracts, particularly in the event of war against Germany. 164 Torzecki, Polacy i Ukraińcy..., 24-25. 165 Golczewski, Deutsche und Ukrainer 1914-1939, 1013. For a Ukrainian perspective of the Bereza Kartuska detention facilities, see for example the memoirs of Volodymyr Makar, Bereza Kartuz’ka: Spominyny z 1934-35 rr. (Toronto: Liga Vyzvolennia Ukraїny, 1956). outbreak of war, out of 156 thousand citizens actively serving in the armed forces, Ukrainians comprised 10 percent (15,729). Mobilization and war included a large number of reservists. The Polish military planned to mobilize a total of 1.5 million Poles. In actuality, between 950 thousand – 1 million successfully mobilized between September 9 and 14. The actual number of Ukrainians who served in the Polish army during the September campaign ranged. Some estimated between 106 and 111 thousand Ukrainians fought while others proposed a broad estimate of 100 to 200 thousand. It can be safely assumed that no more than 120 thousand Ukrainians served in the Polish Army. Similarly, the number of Ukrainian prisoners of war ranged. One estimate suggested 60 thousand men found themselves in German captivity with no more than 20 thousand in Soviet captivity. Others proposed between 110 and 120 thousand Ukrainians in German captivity and over 42 thousand taken by the Soviets.162 Regardless of the actual numbers, Ukrainian military service at all levels was overall good. Ukrainians fought on the frontlines against the advancing Wehrmacht throughout western Poland. Others assisted in the defense of Warsaw and Lwów. While Ukrainian officers were in the minority, some, like Luka Pavlyshyn, were taken prisoner; only to later escape and eventually join the OUN. Others like Colonel Pavlo Shandruk, through his service during combat in the Zamość region, gained recognition for heroism and bravery. A contract officer of the Polish Army during the interwar period, he later reminisced of his moral obligation to fight: “It was unthinkable to be wearing the uniform of a Polish soldier and to take it off at a time of Poland’s calamity – in any case I never even considered it, and most of our contract officers stayed in the armed forces and conducted their duty honorably.”163 In a letter sent to him, General Władysław Sikorski lauded the honor which the Ukrainian soldier preserved in accordance with the affirmation made by the Ukrainian representation during the last session of parliament on September 2.164 The destabilization of Poland led to the release of many Ukrainians imprisoned by the prewar government just prior to war's outbreak in Siedlce, Brześć on the Bug or in the infamous Bereza Kartuska prison.165 As early as September 5, the government ordered the release of political prisoners with sentences of 10 years or less; by September 9 and 10, political prisoners and criminals were released throughout central and eastern Poland with explicit orders to head east. Among them were OUN activists Mykola Lebed, Mykola Klymyshyn and Stepan Bandera – men who would later assume leadership roles within the Banderite fraction of the OUN. Bandera fled to Lwów but, due to the Soviet advance, was forced to take a detour and stop in Rawa Ruska.166 166 Torzecki, Polacy i Ukraińcy…, 27; Mykola Klymyshyn, V Pokhodi do Voli vol. 1 (Toronto: 1975), 266. Klymyshyn estimated that, apart from Bandera, some 15 thousand Ukrainian political prisoners were freed from Polish prisons. 167 Knysh, Pered pokhodom na skhid vol. 1, 100. 168 BA-MA, RW 5/352, Nr. 037/39g Ausl. I: Außen- und militärpolitische Nachriten, September 5, 1939, p. 35. The report also mentioned Hungarian propaganda agitating Galician Ukrainians to join their side. 169 Helmuth Groscurth, Tagebücher einer Abwehroffiziers 1938-1940 (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1970), 202-203; Knysh, Pered pokhodom na skhid vol. 1, 112. 170 Dębski, Między Berlinem a Moskwą..., 107-110; 117-118. The Ukrainian matter was not the means by which the Germans attempted to induce the Soviet Union into attacking Poland. Ribbentrop approached the Hungarians with propositions of granting them Polish territory near Subcarpathian Rus (including the cities of Sambor and Turka). Even though the Hungarians refused to take-up German offers, had they done so, it would have come at the expense of the stipulated Soviet sphere of influence. In a similar way, the Germans also flirted with the Lithuanians; proposing them the annexation of the Vilnius region. Sławomir Dębski correctly noted On September 3, 1939 Mel’nyk met with the eastern department head of the foreign office in Berlin. The OUN vozhd’ was told in no uncertain terms that Ukrainian armed involvement against Poland lay neither in Ukrainian or German interests. That early in the war, the foreign office believed all of Poland would fall to Germany. As such, he urged Mel’nyk to reserve his forces for the future.167 Immediately following the invasion, Wehrmacht Group South reported of anti-Polish moods along the Polish-Hungarian border: “Sabotage acts are piling up, the Ukrainians are terrorized by the Polish side.”168 As of September 10, when Wehrmacht Group South reached Przemyśl – and the Soviet sphere of influence – General Walter Walimont prepared a call to the Ukrainians. In his service diary, Abwehr officer Helmuth Groscurth noted under September 10 that western Ukrainian territories were to fall within the Soviet sphere of interest. In this way, Groscurth wrote, “we gave up the Ukraine for the third time!” Several hours later, he wrote: “Release the Bergbauernhilfe from police duties!” He was undoubtedly aware of instances in which BBH-men were used for guard or police duties.169 Certainly, the German decision of whether or not to unleash a Ukrainian nationalist-inspired uprising behind their offensive lines vacillated during the first weeks of war; plans changing by the day or even by the hour. Here, it is necessary to remember that Berlin treated the Ukrainian matter as their “ace in the hole,” i.e. a concerted form of pressure to induce Moscow to attack Poland as quickly as possible. Failure to do so equated to the possibility of new state entities forming on the Soviet’s doorstep. Since the Nazi-Soviet pact failed to thwart Poland’s western allies from intervening in the conflict as Hitler had envisioned, albeit only formally at the moment, the Germans needed to alleviate military forces in the east to defend their western borders from a possible British-French attack. The Reich began pressuring its ally into fulfilling its end of the pact as early as September 4.170 that both incidents showed the uncertainty among Reich officials of whether or not the Soviet would fulfill their promises during the first week of the war. 171 BA-MA, RW 5/499, Das Tagebuch von Erwin Lahousen, p. 15; Golczewski, Deutsche und Ukrainer 1914-1939, 999; Groscurth, Tagebücher einer Abwehroffiziers 1938-1940, 203. 172 Norber Müller, et al. Das Amt Ausland/Abwehr im Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (Koblenz: Bundesarchiv, 2007), 129-131. After the Soviet invasion of Poland, former German ambassador to Poland Hans von Moltke was ordere to prepare a memorandum concerning the eventual creation of some sort of Polish state under German protection. He believed this was possible only after also gaining some eastern territory occupied by the Soviets; he envisioned an eastern border running along the Grodno-Przemyśl line. Only in this case did he believe the Germans could win-over Poles to their side. He envisioned some 12-15 million inhabitants in this “Polish state;” what he saw as a buffer between the Reich and USSR. Moltke believed creating a “Polish state” strictly on Reich-occupied territory was impossible. On September 25, 1939 the German ambassador in Berlin was told in no uncertain terms by Stalin that no remnants could be left from Poland. After this, Stalin proposed exchanging Lithuanian territory for the Soviet-occupied Lublin region. Dębski, Między Berlinem a Moskwą…, 126-127. 173 Mueller, Canaris: The Life and Death of Hitler’s Spymaster, 164; Groscurth, Tagebücher einer Abwehroffiziers 1938-1940, 357-359; Golczewski, Deutsche und Ukrainer 1914-1939, 1001. 174 Groscurth, Tagebücher einer Abwehroffiziers 1938-1940, 268; Knysh, Pered pokhodom na skhid vol. 1, 100. The draft constitution draw-up by Stibors’kyi envisioned an authoritarian-totalitarian state led by a vozhd’ who would be accountable only to God, nation and conscience. Other articles stipulated a Ukraine for Ukrainians. A Melnykite “state planning commission” was organized in 1939/1940 to deliberate other legislation for the future On September 11, the Wehrmacht telephoned the foreign office, calling to trigger an uprising on Ukrainian territory in southeastern Poland. Groscurth noted this was declined temporarily by the foreign office with “great confusion” abounding over the situation. Several hours later, Hitler decided to postpone the uprising as, once unleashed, he envisioned it turning against both Poland and the Soviet Union.171 The next day, Canaris and Lahousen met with Hitler on his personal train in Upper Silesia. Various options for Poland were discussed: a new partition along the demarcation line agreed upon with the USSR, the creation of a quasi-autonomous rump Polish state (Reststaat) or the subdivision of what remained to create an independent west Ukrainian state from Galicia; something along the lines of the ethnic dismemberment of Czechoslovakia.172 Canaris received orders to make preparations with the Mel’nyk group for a revolt in Eastern Galicia in case a final decision was reached for an independent Ukrainian state “which has as its goal the destruction of everything Polish and the Jews.” However, in no way could it politically expand toward Soviet Ukraine.173 Mel’nyk then met with Canaris in Vienna. The intelligence chief congratulated him on “the successful resolution to the western Ukrainian question.” It was to become independent. However, Lahousen warned Mel’nyk not to get his hopes up quite yet as the matter still remained indefinite. Regardless, Mel’nyk and the OUN executive hastily set to work on a coalition government led by Omelian Senyk and consisting of OUN and Galician nationalists. The Germans also agreed to transmit radio propaganda to Ukrainians in Poland. According to Groscurth, Mel’nyk broadcast from a military radio station in Vienna to Ukrainians in Poland, calling on them to welcome Wehrmacht troops as they came “as a friend of the Ukrainians.” A radio station in the Slovak city of Prešov was also left to the OUN’s disposal. On September 12, Groscurth noted in his journal that the Abwehr ordered the Ukrainian BBH battalions to begin activity.174 Several days later, Canaris gave concrete state. This included land reform, giving the state the right to confiscate land from all those deemed “foreigners.” Carynnyk, “Foes of Our Rebirth…,” 324. 175 BA-MA, RW 5/499, Das Tagebuch von Erwin Lahousen, p. 17. 176 Sowa, Stosunki polsko-ukraińskie..., 77; 80; Chinciński, Forpoczta Hitlera..., 306. The topic of Ukrainian anti-Polish occurences and attacks in southeastern Poland during the September campaign has yet to gain the scholarly attention it deserves. Concerning the question of who may have instigated the occurences and how. Aside from Ukrainian nationalists and the Germans, Sowa also believes that Soviet conspirators and diversionaries may have contributed to provoking local people against the crumbing Polish state so as to cause havoc and disorganization behind an eventual Polish-Soviet front line. 177 Torzecki, Polacy i Ukraińcy…, 27-29; Bolianovs’kyi, Ukraїns’ki viis’kovi formuvannia…, 37; Knysh, Pered pokhodom na skhid vol. 1, 128. The “trophies” of the Ukrainian Legion for September 1939 included: 7 cannons, 34 heavy cannons and machine guns, 80 light machine guns, 14,850 grenades, trains and 54 mechanized vehicles. 178 Struve, Deutsche Herrschaft, ukrainischer Nationalismus, antijüdische Gewalt..., 109-117; Sowa, Stosunki polsko-ukraińskie..., 84-88. 179 Mirchuk, Narys istoriї OUN vol. 1, 586-587; Knysh, Pered pokhodom na skhid vol. 1, 128; Stepan Goliash, “Perekhid cherez kordon pidpil’nykiv z Berezhanshchyny” in Volodymyr Makar (ed), Boiovi druzy. Spomyny vol. 1 (Toronto: Ukrainian Echo, 1980), 323-324. orders: the Ukrainian military staff was to immediately contact Wehrmacht Group South while Mel’nyk was to be at his disposal. To discuss the issue with Ukrainians, Canaris ordered Iaryi leave Kraków and meet with him.175 On the ground, the nationalists ordered Ukrainians to prepare for what they thought would be eventual Polish repressions or anti-Ukrainian manifestations. Following the Soviet invasion of Poland on September 17, 1939, Ukrainians engaged retreating Poles or even advancing Soviets. These occurrences varied from aversion toward the Polish army (expressed for example in the reluctance or refusal by some Ukrainians to feed soldiers) to armed skirmishes or attacks on them and civilians. In some towns, Ukrainians formed ad hoc militias, wearing blue and yellow armbands and even arming themselves from leftover weapons following Polish-German battles. In the southeastern borderland city of Przemyśl for instance, members of the quickly formed Ukrainian civil guard briefly captured it following the Polish retreat. In response, the Polish police conducted raids or manhunts on OUN members as was the case in parts of Eastern Galicia.176 Between September 10 and 15, battles erupted in parts of Eastern Galicia; what could be described as provocative-offensive subversive acts. The impetus for this may have been the Wehrmacht occupation of Sambor on September 11. In Stryj, Ukrainian nationalists succeeded in running out the remnants of the local police before retreating Polish soldiers removed them.177 Incidents occurred in which innocent civilians fleeing the Germans were the target of attacks; either robbed or murdered. Settlers and landowners were also the target of Ukrainian revenge against the old Poland. Polish historians cautiously suggest that as many as 2 thousand Poles fleeing the German invasion east fell victim to Ukrainian attacks in two counties of the Stanisławów and Tarnopol voivodships.178 OUN historiography also recalls the battles against retreating Polish policemen or soldiers. According to one ‘insurgent,’ attacking retreating Poles was the best way to capture valuable weapons. Knysh claimed some apprehended Poles were turned over to the oncoming Soviets in parts of Eastern Galicia.179 Sushko, Baranovs’kyi, Boidunyk and their driver Kost’ Meln’yk reached Sambor on September 15 where they set-up temporary headquarters with the purpose of moving to Lwów as soon as possible. Andrii Mel’nyk accompanied them. In Sambor, Drohobycz and Stryj, the two confiscated Polish police and starosta archives.180 BBH-men quickly organized Ukrainian administrations in villages along the Polish-Slovak border. New administrators swore an oath of loyalty to a non-existent Ukraine. Perceived colonists, i.e. non-autochthons of the region – teachers, priests, or administrators – sent to strengthen Polish elements were arrested. Tell-tale symbols of the “new authority” in these regions were Ukrainian flags hung from churches and public buildings. As Knysh described, every OUN member knew what was expected of him: to grasp authority in their hands, to destroy all enemies and to instill a Ukrainian character throughout their territories.181 In other words, this was Ukrainian nationalist revenge for twenty years of Polish marginalization and anti-Ukrainian policies boiling over. The German attack on Poland combined with the state of panic and chaos caused by it proved the opportune time for the OUN to right those wrongs. 180 Mel’nyk, “Kindrat-Sych. Polk. Roman Sushko” in Orhanizatsiia Ukraїns’kykh Natsionalistiv 1929-1954, 39; Boidunyk, Na perelomi, 47-48. Boidunyk recalled that Sushko made some sort of contact with the German command and that he “quickly exploited this for Ukrainian matters and Ukrainians,” this relates to his role in saving the lives of two local Ukrainians who were sentenced to death by an ad hoc German military “court” for not disclosing weapons which they possessed upon a German investigation. 181 Knysh, Pered pokhodom na skhid vol. 1, 125-127. 182 Carynnyk, “Foes of Our Rebirth…,” 326. 183 Sowa, Stosunki polsko-ukraińskie..., 72. 184 Knysh, Pered pokhodom na skhid vol. 1, 129. 185 Struve, Deutsche Herrschaft, ukrainischer Nationalismus, antijüdische Gewalt..., 118. Moreover, attacks on Poles and the swift ukrainization of village administrators in southeastern Poland combined OUN doctrines. It echoed Kolodzyns’kyi’s vision of building a state “from the first village” while beginning Stsibors’kyi’s 1939 plan for national revolution. The process envisioned ethnically cleaning Soviet Ukraine, Galicia and Volhynia of “foreign parasitic growth” by first killing off “[a] large part of the Russian, Polish and other immigrants.” The rest would be removed by legislative and administrative means. After concluding treaties, the nationalist Ukrainian government would demand non-Ukrainians be repatriated.182 For the OUN, stage one of their national revolution was underway as they sought to “liberate” Ukrainians from what remained of Poland. Ukrainian nationalists viewed the uprising as their liberation from Polish rule. In total, the OUN counted a total of 7,729 insurgents participating in combat operations in 183 locations throughout 20 Eastern Galician and Volhynian counties between September 1 and 23.183 Knysh claimed the Soviets had no one to liberate as Ukrainians freed themselves with the help of the OUN.184 As Kai Struve astutely concluded, the use of Ukrainians in this fashion by the Germans – creating a military unit and causing disturbances behind enemy lines – was a successful test-case; parallels from which would be drawn from and repeated by them later in preparations for their invasion of the USSR.185 For their part, both Berlin and Moscow used the Ukrainian incidents as propaganda to further prove to the international community their thesis of Poland’s spontaneous collapse and to justify their invasions as protecting ethnic minorities.186 However, for Hitler, friendly relations with the Soviets at the expense of Poland proved more important than a Ukrainian “uprising.” 186 Sowa, Stosunki polsko-ukraińskie..., 79. For example, Sławomir Dębski cited an article by propaganda head Andrei Zhdanov which appeared in the Soviet newspaper Pravda on September 14, 1939. Dębski, Między Berlinem a Moskwą…, 120. 187 Waldemar Lotnik, Nine Lives: Ethnic Conflict in the Polish-Ukrainian Borderlands (London: Serif, 1999), 11. 188 To legitimize their newly conquered regions, the Soviets conducted “elections” in October 1939 among the inhabitants of former Eastern Poland; mainly targeting Ukrainians and Belarusians but also Poles and Jews. Falsification and terror tactics resulted in those newly-occupied regions becoming part of the USSR. For Poles and Ukrainians who remained there, this meant persecution, sovietization, imprisonment, extermination and forced deportation. Collective farms were organized while active Ukrainian nationalists who remained were either arrested or went underground. Jan T. Gross, Revolution from Abroad: The Soviet Conquest of Poland’s Western Ukraine and Western Belorussia (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988), 91-113; Bogdan Musial, „Konterrevolutionäre Elemente sind zu erschießen.“ Die Brutalisierung des deutsch-sowjetischen Krieges im Sommer 1941 (Berlin-München: Propyläen, 2000), 50-55. 189 Archiwum Akt Nowych (AAN) Warszawa, German microfilm collection, MF-466, Abschrift: Reise-Eindrücke in Westgalizien, November 16, 1939, p. 10. By mid-September 1939, German and Soviet military forces were meeting at various points in what had been eastern Poland. Waldemar Lotnik recalled the sight of the provincial town of Hrubieszów being exchanged between the two occupiers: “We were invaded first by the Germans, then occupied by the Soviets and finally handed back again to the Germans, all in the space of a fortnight.”187 In Brześć Litewski, a parade marked the transition of occupation from German to Soviet, in accordance with their August 1939 non-aggression pact. A similar transfer took place in Lwów.188 The attitude of Ukrainians during the German attack on Poland quickly crystalized into an image of distrust and treason. A German report describing attitudes in western Galicia captured this sentiment and the rumors it caused: … the Poles claim Ukrainians carry the blame for the destruction [of the state] and only then do Germany, England and, last but not least, the incompetent Polish government. Polish circles in Kraków even claim of more than 500 Ukrainians (!) serving in the Gestapo; whose main task is to persecute and torture Poles. To fall into the hands of a German Gestapo man is not so bad, say some Poles, “but falling into the hands of a Ukrainian, this is a most cruel fate.” The Polish public exaggerated rumors related to this. The descriptions of the Ukrainian uprisings in Eastern Galicia and Volhynia are reproduced with a shudder. They are called “the Ukrainian knife in the back of fighting Poland.”189 On September 20, Hitler finalized the extent of German military lines in eastern Poland; an issue which caused contention among tops Wehrmacht officials. It ran from Chyrów in the south, through Przemyśl, dividing the city along the San River; to the Vistula, Narew and Pisa rivers before reaching the Reich border. This delineation de facto left Eastern Galicia and Lwów to the Soviets.190 To prevent unwanted Ukrainian nationalist incidents, on September 23 the Reich foreign ministry forbid further radio broadcasts or the dissemination of propaganda leaflets into former Polish Eastern Galicia.191 With the region falling to the Soviets, Riko Iaryi, in a meeting with Lahousen, declared Ukrainian political interests had to be temporarily abandoned in order to save whatever national substance possible from Soviet occupation. The next day he travelled with the Abwehr to Lwów to determine what could be done for Ukrainians. Iaryi estimated some 300 to 500 thousand possible refugees. He suggested Kraków as a collection point for those who looked to flee Soviet occupation.192 190 Dębski, Między Berlinem a Moskwą…, 124-125. Some Wehrmacht officers viewed the Nazi-Soviet demarcation line as damaging since the oil fields around Drohobycz – something the Germans could not afford to lose especially with the Reich experiencing petroleum shortages – would fall to the Soviets. Colonel Walter Walimont even went so far as to personally propose changes to the delineation to the Sovier military attache. In his revised version, Lwów and territory to the east of it would fall into the German sphere of influence. With Eastern Galicia falling to the Soviets, this not only meant forfeiting the oil reserves but also losing control over rail lines directly connecting Silesian industrial regions with much more substantial oil reserve regions in Romania. 191 BA-MA, RW 5/499, Das Tagebuch von Erwin Lahousen, p. 20. 192 Ibid, p. 18. 193 Makar, et al, Vid deportatsiї do deportatsiї… vol. 1, 389-391; Antonina Mytiuk, “Shcho z namy zrobyly?” in Myroslav Ivanyk (ed), Krov ukraїns’ka, krov pol’s’ka... Trahedia Kholmshchyny ta Pidliashshia v rokakh 1938-1948 u spohadakh (Toronto: Association of Ukrainians Zakerzonnia, 2014), 43; Vitalii Sivak, “Krov ukraїns’ka, krov pol’s’ka...” in Ivanyk (ed), Krov ukraїns’ka, krov pol’s’ka..., 71-72. 194 “Niemiecko-sowiecki układ o granicy i przyjaźni (September 28, 1939),” “Tajny protokół dodatkowy do niemiecko-sowieckiego układu o granicy i przyjaźni (September 28, 1939), ” “Tajny protokół dodatkowy do niemiecko-sowieckiego układu o granicy i przyjaźni w sprawie współdziałania w zwalczaniu polskiego ruchu oporu (September 28, 1939),” “Poufny protokół dotyczący porozumienia zawartego przy okazji podpisania niemiecko-sowieckiego układu o granicy i przyjaźni (September 28, 1939)” in Agresja sowiecka na Polskę w świetle dokumentów, 17 września 1939 r. vol. 1 (Warszawa: Bellona, 1994), 227-233. While hostilities with Poland were still ongoing, on September 28, 1939 a German-Soviet frontier treaty was signed in Moscow. The terms included the Red Army ceding parts of the prewar Lublin voivodship they occupied to the Germans who, in turn, gave up Lithuanian territory from their sphere of influence. During the brief 4-day occupation, the Soviets disarmed former Polish soldiers or police men; ordering them to simply go home. They also searched-out former members of the Communist Party of Western Ukraine; organizing village meetings. Vitalii Sivak described one such propaganda meeting in Modryń where NKVD men promised villagers a new life under Soviet rule – doctors in every village, free education in Ukrainian, collectivizing farms, parceling large estates; in sum, work for all. Whereas this may have appealed to some, at the same time Sivak recalled seeing Red Army soldiers retreating east with plundered farming machinery.193 In liquidating the Polish state, Nazi Germany and the USSR saw themselves as responsible for maintaining peace and order in the region by guaranteeing inhabitants a “peaceful existence.” The de iure delineation of a Nazi-Soviet border was to be the foundation of friendly relations between the two. Plans were agreed upon for a population transfer between the two; German from the Soviet zone would be sent west, Ukrainians and Belarusians from the German zone east.194 Whereas Hitler initially forbid any Eastern Galician Ukrainians to “violate the demarcation line” with the USSR, this changed as Ribbentrop informed the Abwehr to permit them to pass through the German-occupied zone toward Subcarpathian Rus’ or to resettle in areas west of the new Nazi-Soviet border. The overriding condition for Ukrainian resettlement was abstaining from any open political activity.195 As German forces retreated west, so too did many Ukrainian nationalists and prominent political figure including members of the Ukrainian Legion. In some regions, departing Germans facilitated Ukrainians in moving west with them.196 Volhynian Ukrainians also fled. Their destinations varied – some remained in borderland cities such as Przemyśl, Jarosław or Chełm while others moved as far west as Kraków. In total, between 20 and 30 thousand Ukrainians fled to German occupied territory.197 Sushko and other top-ranking OUN men chose the town of Krosno as a temporary stopover and regrouping point for nationalists fleeing Eastern Galicia. There, legionaries and BBH men were demobilized by Sushko. In turn, some were quickly put to work by the military administration. According to Ievhen Norym-Hutovych, he and his BBH unit – numbering some 250 strong – were ordered to “cleanse” portions of the Polish-Slovak borderland of “Polish remnants” hoping to flee to Romania or Hungary. Together with a hastily-organized Ukrainian militia, he and his BBH men “fished out” soldiers and officers hiding in forests or on farms.198 195 BA-MA, RW 5/499, Das Tagebuch von Erwin Lahousen,, pp. 19-20. 196 Tymotei Mats’kiv, Z-nad Dnistra na Kanads’ki preriï (Edmonton: Ukraїns’ki Visti, 1963), 124-125. 197 Volodymyr Kubiiovych broadly described this as “several thousand” at first, specifying 30 thousand later. Ryszard Torzecki estimated that as many as 20 thousand Ukrainians fled the Soviet Union, this included about 18 thousand from the regions of Subcarpathia and Bukovina. Roman Ilnytzkyj also suggests that about 20 thousand fled west. Volodymyr Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Heneral’nii Huberniї 1939-1941 (Chicago: Vydavnytstvo Mykola Denysiuk, 1975), 47; 182; Torzecki, Kwestia ukraińska..., 193; Roman Ilnytzkyi, Deutschland und die Ukraine vol. 1 (Munich: Osteuropa-Institut, 1955), 245, 249-251. 198 Norym-Hutovych recollections in Knysh, Pered pokhidom na skhid vol. 1, 113. 199 Oleh Shablii, Volodymyr Kubiiovych: Memuary, Rozdumky, Vybrani lysty vol. 2 (Paryzh-L’viv: Feniks, 2000), 704. Between October and December 1939, Ukrainian life in German-occupied Poland underwent two brief yet distinct processes. The first came at the local level; what Volodymyr Kubiiovych – the later head of the Ukrainian Central Committee – termed the creation of “spontaneous committees.” The second produced a concrete Ukrainian representative organization for occupied Poland. In a letter to Professor Zenon Kuzelia, Kubiiovych described the recently arrived Galician refugees as “young, political prisoners (for example, Bandera) interned in Bereza [Kartuska], some villagers and older intelligentsia” – such as Vasyl’ Mudryi, Volodymyr Zahaikevych, Roman Smal’-Stots’kyi, Ivan Kedryn; Dmytro Dontsov was said to be on his way. Their mood was described as “trifling.” Some travelled on to the Reich while others remained closer to Eastern Galicia.199 On October 2, 1939, Galician Ukrainians wrote a letter to German authorities in Berlin, claiming their right and duty to represent Ukrainian interests, including prisoners of war, in occupied Poland. They also suggested a Ukrainian police force be created and pledged their help in assisting the authorities create a Ukrainian administrative apparatus, something which would in turn organize an education system and a Ukrainian-language press. However, the Germans had no intention of creating a political representation. Mudryi, one of the signatories, was told that the Germans would not recognize him in any representative capacity on account of his prewar political role.200 200 Stepan Kacharaba and Iaroslav Komarnyts’kyi, Vasyl’ Mudryi – Hroads’kyi diiach, polityk, publitsyst (Drohobych: Derzhavnyi pedahohichnyi universytet im. Ivana Franka, 2009), 147-148. According to Bohdan Osadchuk, Mudryi remained in Kraków and “waited with packed suitcases” for General Władysław Sikorski, prime minister of the Polish exile government, to invite him to work within the exile parliament. This invitation never came. Basil Kerski and Andrzej Stanisław Kowalczyk, Wiek ukraińsko-polski. Rozmowy z Bohdanem Osadczukiem (Lublin: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Marii Curie-Skłodowskiej, 2001), 24. Jan Jacek Bruski writes that Foreign Minister August Zaleski urged Polish diplomats in Bucharest to facilitate Mudryi’s move from Kraków to France. However, the Poles were only willing to offer Mudryi an opportunity to cooperate with the pro-Polish Ukrainian Committee in Paris and not a position in the exile parliament. According to Bruski, it is plausible that Mudryi ultimately hesitated to place his lot on the Polish card and work with the Sikorski government; instead deciding to remain in the GG. Jan Jacek Bruski, “W kręgu spraw prometejskich i ukraińskich. Jerzy Giedroyc w Rumunii 1939-1941” in Magdalena Semczyszyn and Mariusz Zajączkowski (eds), Giedroyc a Ukraina. Ukraińska perspektywa Jerzego Giedroycia i środowiska paryskiej „Kultury” (Warszawa-Lublin-Szczecin: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, 2014), 76-77. 201 Knysh, Pered pokhodom na skhid vol. 1, 72-74; Boidunyk, Na perelomi, 50-52; Hirniak, Na stezhkakh istorychnykh podiї, 294. Ukrainians were formally placed into a displaced persons camp (Lager für Volksdeutsche und ukrainische Flüchtlinge) organized the by Wehrmacht authorities in a village outside of Krosno. According to Knysh, the camp contained only Ukrainians yet the army authorities were adamant the name include Volksdeutsche as they did not want to provoke the Soviets over aiding refugeess from their occupation zone. Former BBH men also guarded the camp. 202 Boidunyk, Na perelomi, 52-55. The Ukrainian representatives also proposed the abolition of the Apostolic Administrator in the Lemko region, a position created during the interwar period by the Polish government to control the Lemko people and, more importantly, to prevent Ukrainian influences from penetrating into that region. The Ukrainians proposed either attaching the Lemko region to the Przemyśl Greek Catholic eparchy (diocese) or to form a separate, own Greek Catholic eparchy. Had the latter been realized, an exchange for pro-Ukrainian priests and hierarchs would have taken place. The next day, October 3, in the southeast Polish town of Krosno – what quickly became the temporary headquarters of the OUN in German-occupied Poland – remnant members of the BBH, Carpathian Sich fighters, and recently arrived nationalists fleeing Eastern Galicia met with the goal of consolidating, shaping and building Ukrainian national life in occupied Poland. Some BBH-men performed guard duty before the building used by the OUN.201 It was during a meeting here that Sushko laid the foundation for a Ukrainian social uprising. This entailed: a reactivation of the Prosvita Society, Ukrainian primary schools and gymnasiums with Ukrainian teachers, a university or Ukrainian faculty at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, revival of cooperative societies, control of oil refineries in the Lemko region “so as they would pass into Ukrainian hands,” greater Ukrainian representation in local administration, the creation of a Ukrainian police or militia, and a permanent Ukrainian representative alongside the GG administration. A memorandum summarizing the demands was sent to German officials.202 Volodymyr Kubiiovych, who would become involved in welfare and social work, praised the nationalists’ eagerness: “They often gave the initiative to take control of lower Ukrainian administration, expansion of cooperatives and schools.”203 203 Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Heneral’nii Huberniї, 52. 204 Zygmunt Mańkowski, Między Wisłą a Bugiem 1939-1944. Studium o polityce okupanta i postawach społeczeństwa (Lublin: Wydawnictwo Lubelskie, 1978), 69-70. 205 Iurii Makar, Kholmshchyna i Pidliashshia v pershii polovyni XX stolittia (L’viv: 2003), 32-33; Bohdan Huk (ed), Zakerzonnia. Spomyny voiakiv UPA, vol. 4 (Warszawa: Tyrsa, 1998), 42. 206 Myroslav Kharkevych, Ia vas ne zabuv. Spomyny 1935-1945 (New York-Chicago: Ukrainian American Freedom Foundation, 1997), 67; 207 Tadeusz Filar, “Ukraińcy w Krakowie.” Krakowskie Zeszyty Ukrainoznawcze, vol. 1-2 (1992-1993), 434-435. 208 Mats’kiv, Z-nad Dnistra na Kanads’ki prerii, 130. The Krosno deliberations were not unique however. Simultaneously, other localized committees or councils sprang-up throughout Ukrainian communities in occupied Poland. A Ukrainian National Council (Ukraїnska Natsional’na Rada) functioned in Sanok. In the Zasiannia region (territory along and to the west of the San River), ones formed in Przemyśl and Jarosław. The Chełm and Podlasie regions contained the most committees. There, the Central Chełm Committee (Tsentral’nyi Kholms’kyi Komitet) emerged. On October 17, 1939, a group of Chełm Ukrainians “from all levels of social life” visited the city’s Wehrmacht commandant, professing their loyalty to the occupiers and asking for help in improving their social position.204 Chełm Ukrainians also looked for justice over the prewar campaign unleashed against the Orthodox Church. They suggested revitalizing Orthodox life through a church committee. Led by former Sejm deputy Semen Liubars’kyi (Szymon Lubarski), they met with Germans in Kraków and demanded a resolution to religious matters. This appeal fell on deaf ears. In many Chełm villages, Ukrainians even overtook local authority; creating self-appointed administrations and police forces.205 As the major city of western Galicia, Kraków became a center for Ukrainian refugees who saw the city as their wartime Mecca or new Lwów.206 Geographically close to Eastern Galicia, it contained a historic, albeit small, Ukrainian community during the Habsburg period. The Jagiellonian University allowed for courses in Ruthenian literature to be taught. St. Norbert’s Church, located on Wiślna Street, served the Greek Catholic faithful since the days of the Habsburg Empire when Austrian authorities transferred it to them from the Roman Catholic Norbertine Sisters.207 In autumn 1939, St. Norbert’s stood at the center of émigré life as it became the first stop for incoming Ukrainians. The organization of refugees took on a greater tone following the arrival from Przemyśl of Dr. Volodymyr Zahaikevych whose goals included finding employment and providing aid for the incoming refugees. Later, along with working within the UTsK, he worked in the Kraków appeals court.208 An organizational meeting at the Prosvita building on Jagiellońska Street brought together 200 Ukrainians of various political backgrounds and led to the creation of the Ukrainian Aid Committee for Refugees and Prisoners in Kraków (Ukraїns’kii Komitet Dopomohy Bizhentsiam i Polonenym v Krakovi). The committee’s activity, especially its ability to make contact with the German military administration, led to aid dispersed among an estimated 2,500 Ukrainian prisoners of war in detention camps located in the immediate suburbs of Kraków and 300-500 refugees in transit camps. Upon their release, the POWs often joined the committee. The majority of them were young OUN members. Their influx led to demands for a transition and for committee leadership to pass to OUN activist Volodymyr Horbovyi.209 In calling for the creation of a Ukrainian state in the immediate future on ethnographic territory, including the Chełm and Lemko regions, a later committee declaration echoed nationalist influence.210 209 Library and Archives Canada (LAC), Volodymyr Kubiiovych fond (VKF), MG 31 D 203, volume 25, folder 4, Pochatky Orhanizatsiї Ukraїns’koї Emihratsiї v H.H., n.d. 210 Karol Grünberg and Bolesław Sprengel, Trudne sąsiedztwo. Stosunki polsko-ukraińskie w X-XX wieku (Warszawa: Książka i Wiedza, 2005), 535. 211 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 25, folder 4, Protokol shyrshykh skhodyn ukraїns’koї emihratsiї v Krakovi, October 15, 1939. 212 Ibid. The first introductory meeting of the refugee committee occurred on October 15, 1939. A crowd of 400 people sat or stood in a meeting hall before a stage; gazing up at a Ukrainian Trident hanging on a blue and yellow tapestry with Nazi flags to the left and right. Above this were two portraits – one of Konovalets’ and another of Hitler. A German representative from the local prisoner camp was in attendance and, at the behest of the committee leader, was called to sit at the head table with the Ukrainians; to at least portray an image of friendship. The meeting began with a general summary of committee work in aiding war prisoners and refugees while describing pressing difficulties – a lack of stable funds to financially assist those most in need. The committee collected donations from those in attendance, a total of 1000 złotys. Next, elections were held in which Horbovyi prevailed as leader. Included in the executive was Volodymyr Kubiiovych, who headed educational matters.211 In his inaugural speech, Horbovyi outlined his vision for the near future: “our guiding work…will lead us to where we escaped from: onto our native land, prepared for great tasks – building an independent Ukrainian State.” The final words were spoken by Zahaikevych who proclaimed: “Although our path is rigid and at times uneven, our idea is great! We will carry out standard high with faith in our glorious future!” The meeting concluded with a translation of the proceedings for the German guest, shouts of Slava Ukraїni! and Heil Hitler! – as the protocol noted “to respect our German guests” – and the singing of the Ukrainian national anthem.212 As a result of the elections and new leadership board, the refugee committee received a political undertone while the OUN gained a strong public presence in the GG. 3.2 The Case of Volodymyr Kubiiovych A figure of growing importance in the development of Ukrainian welfare and life in the GG was Volodymyr Kubiiovych. Born on September 23, 1900 in the Austrian Galician town of Neu Sandez – currently the Polish town of Nowy Sącz – he was raised in an ethnically-mixed family. His Ruthenian father Mykhailo was of the Greek Catholic rite while his Polish mother Maria Dobrowolska was Roman Catholic. In such cases, sons were traditionally raised in the Greek Catholic rite. According to Golczewski, Kubiiovych identifying himself in that way was an example of subjective self-identification – an unclear feature of national self-analysis and categorization yet something which offered him several options.213 213 Golczewski, Deutsche und Ukrainer 1914-1939, 948. 214 Kubiiovych, Meni 85, 38. Much of this sub-chapter is based on my previous article. See Paweł Markiewicz, “Volodymyr Kubijovych’s Ethnographic Ukraine: Theory into Practice on the Western Okraїny.” Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas vol. 64 no. 2 (2016). 215 Archiwum Uniwersytetu Jagiellingońskiego (AUJ), Teczki akt doktorskich podania o dopuszczenie do egzaminów ścisłych, ocena pracy, załączniki 1860-1945 – W. Kubijowycz, sygn. WF II 504, p. 9-13; Kubijovych, Meni 85, 42-43. In his memoir, Kubijovych described that the inspiration for analyzing his dissertation topic came after participating in a week-long field geographic field excursion led by Professor Sawicki through the Gorgany range. As he mentioned, much of his research included field excursions in and around this range, documenting village life, speaking with villagers and local priests. This research also allowed him to be Eastern Galician, Ukrainian territory. 216 AUJ, Teczki akt habilitacyjnych z lat 1862-1945 – W. Kubijowycz, sygn. WF II 121, Jagiellonian University Faulty of Philosophy Protocol of Colloquium regarding Habilitation of dr. Włodzimierz Kubijowicz, 9 May 1928. 217 PISM, MSW, folder A.9.III.2d/9, MIiD Biuro Geograficzne: uwagi dotyczące Włodzimierza Kubijowicza, October 6, 1943. 218 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 1, folder 4, Kurator Okręgu Szkolnego Krakowskiego, May 16, 1939; volume 1 folder 4, Poświadczenie przynależności, May 24, 1924; AUJ, sygn. WF II 121, Ministry of Religious Denominations and Public Enlightenment, (MWRiOP) document, August 16, 1928; LAC, MG 31 D 203, “Biographical Notes and Materials” series, volume 1 folder 4, Kurator Okręgu Szkolnego Krakowskiego, 16 May 1939. During the Polish-Ukrainian War, Kubiiovych briefly served in the Galician Ukrainian Army. He saw combat, participating in the Czortków offensive before being routed east to the Zbruch River. He was discharged after contracting typhus.214 Kubiiovych returned home and soon attended the Jagiellonian University in Kraków where he earned his doctorate (1923) in geography with a dissertation focusing on the anthropological geography of the Gorgany range of the eastern Carpathian Mountains.215 In 1928 he wrote and defended his habilitation concerning population displacement of peoples in the European portion of the Soviet Union. Once again, his work received high praise from his reviewers and advisor while his habilitation lecture was positively evaluated by the philosophy faculty’s administrators.216 Socially, he was said to be a pleasant and interesting.217 Kubiiovych put his titles to work in two purely educational, academic ways. In between earning his doctorate and working on his habilitation, he worked part-time as a teacher in Kraków. After his habilitation, he began working as an associate professor of anthropological geography at the Jagiellonian University’s philosophy faculty. In 1939, while working at the university, he also became a permanent teacher at the combined middle and high school.218 In Kraków, Kubiiovych regularly met with Ukrainian professors, including the literary specialist Bohdan Lepkyi. He engaged with Ukrainian geography students and oversaw their club. In 1930, he edited a journal compiled by those students at the Institute of Geography. He later described it as the first such geographic collection on western Ukrainian territory and the second in the world.219 The publication raised the ire of institute director Jerzy Smoleński who wrote that the essays presented in the “Rusyn brochure” were published without his prior knowledge and without the institute’s consent. In a letter to the university rector, Kubiiovych explained: “None of the published texts had in mind introducing political, anti-Polish or anti-state tendencies… In publishing the Zbirnyk, neither I nor any of the authors had in mind any disloyalty toward the Jagiellonian University or Polishness.”220 As punishment, he was “discretely” removed from his position as secretary of the Polish Geographic Society’s Kraków branch. In his memoirs, he recalled the incident which caused him to minimize contacts with Smoleński and other Polish geographers.221 219 The edited students work was entitled Naukovyi Zbirnyk Heohrafichnoii Sektsiї pri Ukraїnskii Studentskii Hromadi w Krakovi. 220 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 1, folder 7, Kubiiovych letter to UJ rektor, January 20, 1931. 221 Marek Radomski, “Sprawa pozbawienia prawa wykładu docenta UJ, dra Włodzimierza Kubijowicza w czerwcu 1939 roku,” Zeszyty Historyczne, nr. 123 (1998), 30-31; Oleh Shablii, Volodymyr Kubijovych: Entsyklopediia zhyttia i tvorennia (Paryzh – L’viv 1996), 91-92. 222 Shablii, Volodymyr Kubiiovych: Entsyklopediia…, 54-56; 78-88; 93-94. This runs contrary to his memoirs in which Kubiiovych stated his Ukrainian mindset did not pose any problems during his career. 223 AUJ, “Kubijowicz, Włodzimierz” fond, sygn. S II 619, MWRiOP document January 7, 1930, MWRiOP document 22 May 1930, MWRiOP document October 20, 1930; LAC, MG 31 D 203, volume 1 folder 8, Passport – Poland (1936). The result of Kubiiovych’s publication incident had a rather positive effect on his academic development as he began forming a closer relationship with the Shevchenko Society in Lwów, begun in 1927 (he became a member in 1932), and other Ukrainian academic centers, especially, beginning in 1932, in Germany. This was a logical transition as his most recent experience showed the difficulties of publishing Ukrainian topics among Polish scholars – “the majority of Polish geographers were of an anti-Ukrainian mindset” – especially if the arguments or data presented contested accepted research or official state positions.222 From 1930 to 1939, he devoted himself to lecturing at the Jagiellonian University and fieldwork on an anthropological geographic survey of the Carpathian Mountains. For his research and work, he received not only time off from his university duties but also financial scholarships from the Ministry of Religious Denominations and Public Enlightenment for travel to Czechoslovakia and Romania.223 He also began research into the question of Ukrainian ethnographic territory. Here, his work took on a strong Ukrainian tone as he strove to compile maps and diagrams depicting population data independent of official state records. The goal of his research not only had academic but also political implementations. He intended to prove that the Polish state was neither ethnically nor territorially homogenous by showing the existence of Ukrainians. Whether he intended to or not, such scholarship could also prove ideologically useful. Presenting Ukrainians and non-Ukrainians within a geographic and statistical scope on territories they inhabited could serve as an educational piece for Ukrainian awareness by defining to a new generation of nationalists what exactly Ukrainian ethnographic territory meant and looked like.224 224 Shablii, Volodymyr Kubiiovych: Entsyklopediia…, 56-57. 225 Kubiiovych, Meni 85, 37. 226 Radomski, “Sprawa pozbawienia prawa wykładu...,” 32-33. In contrast to Kubiiovych, Prof. Bohdan Lepkyi and Prof. Ivan Zilynskyi, 2 full-blooded Ukrainians, both worked at the Jagiellonian University without any major problems primarily because their interests and work did not touch upon the political aspects of Poland’s Ukrainian minority. Many ethnic Poles perceived Kubiiovych, who was raised in a mixed Polish-Ukrainian family, who was raised in a Polish environment and in Polish schools and universities, as ungrateful, acting contrary to Polish interests. In his wartime diary, Edward Kubalski, noting the death of Lepkyi on July 21, 1941, wrote of him as someone who “belonged to those Ruthenians with whom one could get along with and cooperate.” Edward Kubalski, Niemcy w Krakowie. Dziennik 1 IX 1939 – 18 I 1945, (eds) Jan Grabowski and Zbigniew R. Grabowski (Kraków-Budapest: Wydawnictwo Austeria, 2010), 147. 227 Oleh Shablii, Volodymyr Kubiiovych. Memuary, Rozdumy, Vybrani lysty vol. 2 (L’viv: Naukove tovarystvo im. Shevchenka, 2000), 677-678. Unfortunately for Kubiiovych, his determination to present what he considered an objective geographic and ethnographic profile of Ukrainian territory was a topic which directly contested recent state census records. He admitted this in his memoirs: “when my academic work began – in the sense of the majority of Poles – it was harmful to Polish matters…”225 In challenging official state records, ones he believed falsified the true Ukrainian composition of the eastern territories, he fell into conflict with “the then Polish top, which stood on the evident line of destroying Ukrainianess.”226 Conscious of the ramifications his work could have on him, Kubiiovych continued to search for an outlet for his research and findings. In 1935 he wrote to Dmytro Dontsov, the editor of Visnyk, with the idea of publishing his conclusions for the Polesia, Chełm and Podlasie regions, all which refuted official census records. He lamented to Dontsov about difficulties he had with the publication of his Atlas Ukraїny i sumezhnykh kraїv in Poland: “…because it was difficult to get along with countrymen [Poles], even more difficult was corresponding with them. The distance between Honolulu and Kraków was shorter than that between Lwów and Kraków.”227 His geographic atlas of Ukraine (Atlas Ukraїny i sumezhnykh kraїv) was eventually published but in Lwów under the patronage of the Shevchenko Society. Such incidents of completing research formally as a worker at the Jagiellonian University yet publishing under the patronage of the Shevchenko Scientific Society raised the indignation of university administrators who questioned his loyalty – either to the university or to the scientific society or, read differently, to Poland or to Ukraine. Kubiiovych presented his atlas maps and diagrams during scientific conferences in Lwów, Berlin, Prague and Sofia. In Sofia, he spoke in Ukrainian, causing Polish listeners to leave the room. During other conferences, he “proudly disseminated” his newest map depicting Ukrainian ethnographic territory and inhabitance; all this, as one report noted, while acting as a Polish geographer.228 In 1936, he presented his maps and diagrams of “Ukrainian ethnographic territory” at the Geography Institute at Berlin University, organized in concert with the Ukrainian Scientific Institute (Ukrainisches Wissenschaftliches Institut, UWI). During his lecture, he estimated that some 400 people (mostly Germans) attended. Included in the audience were Hetman Pavlo Skoropads’kyi and Professor Albrecht Penck. His lecture on Polish-Ukrainian relations at the German Society for the Study of Eastern Europe was also attended by a Polish intelligence agent who reported that Kubiiovych understood his research repudiated the unreliable Polish census of 1931 and that only his scientific methods reflected the true population image.229 228 PISM, MSW, folder A.9.III.2d/9, MIiD Biuro Geograficzne: uwagi dotyczące Włodzimierza Kubijowicza, October 6, 1943; Shablii, Volodymyr Kubiiovych: Entsyklopediia…, 82. Based on his November 1932 lecture at the Ukrainian Scientific Institute in Berlin, an article appeared in the second volume of the Beiträge zur Ukrainekunde journal series. Wladimir Kubijowitsch, Die Verteilung der Bevölkerung in der Ukraine (Berlin: Ukrainischen Wissenschaftlichen Institut, 1934). 229 Oleh Shablii, Mandrivky Volodymyra Kubiiovycha (L’viv: Feniks, 2000), 57-58; Golczewski, Deutsche und Ukrainer…, 721. After the war, Kubiiovych was convinced only the Gestapo knew of his lecture and not Polish circles. Kubiiovych, Meni 85, 180. 230 Shablii, Volodymyr Kubiiovych: Entsyklopediia…, 81-82; Shablii, Volodymyr Kubiiovych. Memuary, Rozdumy, Vybrani lysty vol. 2, 682; Radomski, “Sprawa pozbawienia prawa wykładu...,” 41. 231 PISM, MSW, folder A.9.III.2d/9, MIiD Biuro Geograficzne: uwagi dotyczące Włodzimierza Kubijowicza, October 6, 1943. Polish criticism of Kubiiovych and his scholarship was very harsh during the mid-1930s especially since the Poles saw him, a state worker of a Polish university, as using his position to promote Ukrainian institutions and ideas. To them, these were signs of nationalism and anti-state sympathies. In attempting to organize a showing of his maps and diagrams in Warsaw, he received a note from the prime minister’s press bureau dissuading him from this. It stated he can only research Ukrainian territory east of the Zbruch River; his maps claimed of showing ethnic territory west of it. His rationale for organizing the display in Warsaw was threefold: so the Shevchenko Society could “show itself” and its work in the capital, to show “Ukrainian propaganda” and to assuage Polish accusations of conducting trips to Berlin and not Warsaw. Described as the “creator of largely scientific justifications for the political aspirations of his people,” he was seen as forgetting about the principle of objectivity in academia; instead allowing himself to be swept up in a political, nationalist temperament.230 Kubiiovych’s work was discussed in the press. An article in the nationalist Warszawski Dziennik Narodowy criticized him for attending a conference as representing the Jagiellonian University while at the same time claiming to represent the Shevchenko Society and displaying his maps. The author questioned whether Kubiiovych’s main goal was to be a professor at a Polish university or a Ukrainian agitator; if the latter, then the author suggested he resign from the university.231 Polska Zbrojna, the official organ of the Ministry of Defense, questioned how he could still be a university worker after presenting his theories. The article suggested that he used his title and position only to add greater credibility to his theses which expressed a “clear political-propaganda character.” His atlas was seen as ammunition for foreign propaganda which doubted Poland’s claims of being a nation-state.232 An article in the February 22, 1939 edition of the Ilustrowany Kurier Codzienny mentioned that French theorists were consulting his works in relation to gaining an understanding of the Ukrainian issue in East-Central Europe. A hand-written comment on the archival version of the newspaper read: “This is how Kubiiovych is showing off on anti-Polish brochures, as if the Jagiellonian University was giving them out officially. Is there no authority to either discipline or terminate him?”233 232 Golczewski, Deutsche und Ukrainer 1914-1939, 949; Shablii, Volodymyr Kubiiovych: Entsyklopediia…, 95-99. In his memoirs, Kubiiovych proudly wrote that he indeed used his title and position at the Jagiellonian University for Ukrainian work. Kubiiovych, Meni 85, 62. 233 AUJ, sygn. S II 619, Ilustrowany Kurier Codzienny nr. 53, February 22, 1939; Radomski, “Sprawa pozbawienia prawa wykładu...,” 42-44. 234 AUJ, „Protokoły posiedzeń Rady Wydziału z lat akademickich 1925/26-1938/39” fond, sygn. WF II 49, Protocol 830/39: VI zwyczajne posiedzenie Rady Wydziału Filozoficznego U.J., May 5, 1939, p. 432; AUJ, sygn. S II 619, MWRiOP document June 16, 1939. During a vote at the final Philosophy Faculty council session, out of 36 votes, 24 were in favor of suspending Kubijovych; 10 were against and 2 abstained. 235 PISM, MSW, folder A.9.III.2d/9, MIiD Biuro Geograficzne: uwagi dotyczące Włodzimierza Kubijowicza, October 6, 1943. 236 Golczewski, Deutsche und Ukrainer 1914-1939, 950; Shablii, Volodymyr Kubiiovych. Memuary, Rozdumy, Vybrani lysty vol. 2, 704-705. 237 Kubiiovych, Meni 85, 64. Such criticism caused university authorities to debate and consider suspending him from his duties. During three council sessions of the Faculty of Philosophy, Kubiiovych’s fate was decided. On June 16, 1939 he received a formal statement from the Ministry of Religious Denominations and Public Enlightenment suspending him from lecture duties at the Jagiellonian University indefinitely.234 A wartime report by the exile government in London noted that Kubiiovych concealed his anti-Polish attitude in fear of it preventing him from gaining financial support for his research. It also noted: “However, during sincere conversations or in confidential talks, he revealed his negative position toward the Polish state. Also, he always added how he as an enemy of the USSR.”235 Losing his jobs as university lecturer and high school teacher, Kubiiovych fell into a state of melancholy. Taking to pen and paper, he wrote Zenon Kuzelia looking for other options. He expressed his desire to leave Poland as “for now, I have nothing to do here and I want to get away.” He looked to Berlin, to the contacts he made during his lectures and presentations at the UWI and to his positive relations among German scholars. He was open to work in various academic institutions yet was unfamiliar about the influence of Nazi policy on academia. As a professional geographer and one who specialized on Polish territorial ethnography, demography and statistical research, he was even open to working for the German civil administration [Zivilverwaltung] “which needs a certain academic-practical” worker.236 He later described considering illegally crossing the border to flee Poland so as to save himself from Polish repressions.237 In his postwar memoirs, Kubiiovych recalled his feelings just prior to the outbreak of war. He believed his termination from university work was the first step toward government persecution – detention, internment, arrest or imprisonment – as was the case with many suspected Ukrainians between 1938 and 1939. Certainly the danger struck him as unexpected especially in a country which at least in theory upheld the freedom of scholarship and academia, hitherto only causing informal inconveniences.238 During the summer of 1939, while living in Myślenice – some 40 kilometers south of Kraków, he recalled this was where he was when war broke out: “This was lucky because on September 1 the police came to my apartment [in Kraków] and wanted to send me to Bereza Kartuska.” Polish reports indicate a different reason for the police knocking on his door. Possible police interest in him may have stemmed from the fact that he failed to report to his designated military barracks after the general mobilization was issued; becoming, in the eyes of the state, a draft dodger.239 Laying low in Myślenice, he arrived in Kraków at an opportune time – before the arrival of the Germans but immediately after the evacuation of the Polish civil administration and, more importantly, the police. 238 Ibid; Golczewski, Deutsche und Ukrainer 1914-1939, 950. 239 PISM, MSW, folder A.9.III.2d/9, MIiD Biuro Geograficzne: uwagi dotyczące Włodzimierza Kubijowicza, October 6, 1943. 240 For an examination of the Intelligenzaktion in these territories, see for example Maria Wardzyńska, Był rok 1939. Operacja niemieckiej policji bezpieczeństwa w Polsce. Intelligenzaktion (Warszawa: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, 2009). Jan Sziling analyzed the fate of Polish Cahtolic clergy during, but not limited to, the early German pacification in these territories. See Jan Sziling, Polityka okupanta hitlerowskiego wobec Kościoła Katolickiego 1939-1945 (Poznań: Instytut Zachodni, 1970). According to Borodziej, an estimated 42 thousand Poles were executed in the western Polish territories annexed into the Reich between September and October 1939. Włodzimierz Borodziej, Terror i polityka Policja niemiecka a polski ruch oporu w GG 1939-1944 (Warszawa: PAX, 1985), 22. 241 Okupacja i ruch oporu w Dzienniku Hansa Franka 1939-1945, vol. 1 (eds) Stanisław Płoski, et al (Warszawa: Książka i Wiedza, 1970), 116-117; 122-123; Dieter Schrenk, Hans Frank. Biografia generalnego gubernatora, trans. Krzysztof Jachimczak (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 2009), 150. Prior to coming to Kraków, Frank’s temporary seat of authority was Łódź. On September 25, 1939 Hitler approved creation of the Łódź and Kraków military districts in central and southeastern Poland; ones encompassing the future territory of the GG. Beside the military apparatus was a Chief of Civil Administration – Frank in Łódź and Austrian Nazi Arthur Seyß-Inquart in Kraków. Frank also maintained authority over Poland as a whole. Martin Winstone, The Dark Heart of Hitler’s Europe: Nazi Rule in Poland under the General Government (London: Tauris, 2015), 28. 3.3 The General Government: Initial Steps toward the Ukrainians Following Poland’s collapse, an immediate, brutal process of Germanization ensued in the prewar Polish territories incorporated directly into the Reich.240 Territory not directly annexed was officially decreed by Hitler on October 26, 1939 to form the ‘General Government for Occupied Polish Territories’ (from here on – GG). To oversee this administrative creation, he appointed Reich minister and personal lawyer Hans Frank as general governor who, in his proclamation to the people of the GG, foreshadowed a bleak future: “Under fair authority all will work for their daily bread. There will be no room for political instigators, economic hyenas, and Jewish exploiters in the region under German authority.” He officially assumed power in Kraków, the administrative capital, on November 7, 1939; a ceremony conducted with much pomp and flair.241 The GG was created from the left-overs after the Germans and Soviets annexed what they wanted and became one of five early colonies created following Hitler and Stalin carving-up of Poland. It contained characteristics of colonial political novelties and distinctions – the administration carried on under a system distinct from yet subordinate to its national territory with a separate bureaucracy and separate civil servants. The region was viewed as a colonial settlement meant for economic exploitation and conversion into a metropolitan territory of the Reich by means of state-directed immigration and extermination.242 Here the Germans started by smashing what had existed in their revolution to “develop” the east. Only after did they get down to the business to find legal forms for the new fait accompli created. 242 David Furber, “Near as Far in the Colonies: The Nazi Occupation of Poland,” The International History Review vol. 26 no. 3 (September 2004), 551-553. Besides the General Government, the four other colonies created were the Warthegau, Danzig-West Prussia, Zichenau and East Upper Silesia. Even though they were annexed directly into the Reich, they were treated to carious colonial experiments. Concerning the conquest of Poland and creation of the GG, Furber compared it to the Italian conquest and reorganization of Ethopia. 243 Archiwum Instytutu Pamięci Narodowej (AIPN) Warszawa, Dziennik Hansa Franka (DHF), GK 95/2, Protokoll über die 1. Konferenz der Abteilungleiter, December 2, 1939, pp. 18-19. As early as the summer of 1940, Frank submitted plans to the Reich Chancellery to fully incorporate the GG into the Reich by a Führer decree. In 1942, the Reich interior ministry proposed the GG be incorporated in the form of a Reichsgaue. Both plans were ultimately rejected. Frank also commissioned Bühler to prepare a study into the potential for a complete transfer of the GG to the Reich administration. The General Governor even snewed of the GG one day becoming a “homogenous Reichsgau” led by a Reichsstatthalter. IPN, GK 95/20, Tagebuch 1942: August bis September, pp. 202-205; GK 95/20, Abschließende Betrachtungen zur Entwicklung des letzten Vierteljahres (August 28, 1942), pp. 216-217. 244 Majer, “Non-Germans” under the Third Reich…, 268-269; Marek Mączyński, Organizacyjno-prawne aspekty funkcjonowania administracji bezpieczeństwa i porządku publicznego dla zajętych obszarów polskich w latach 1939-1945. Ze szczególnym uwzględnieniem Krakowa jako stolicy Generalnego Gubernatorstwa (Kraków: Wydawnictwo PROMO, 2012), 153-154. For example, Reich criminal law or the Civil Code of the Reich were either adopted substanially or in full. Reich judgements could be enforced in matters of law or judicial assistance. Furthermore, Frank sought to achieve a certain harmony between the GG and Reich with the aim of an immediate customs and economic union. German economic theorists saw the GG as ripe for exploitation. Their plans envisioned the development of preexisting economic structure there in order to later envelope the GG into the Reich-proper. Hitler viewed it as a military spring-board for his main prize – German living space at the expense of a conquered Soviet Union. Frank echoed these visions when speaking of the GG as the Reich’s Nebenland, or borderland, and first colonial territory. While constituting a component of the German sphere of influence, he hoped to see the region absorbed into the Altreich in the future.243 As a colony, the GG received a specific administrative character and structure in that it was neither a separate state from the Reich, nor a protectorate; nor did it constitute a component portion of the greater Reich. Rather, it became its own quasi-state meant to function in the Reich’s racial, political, and economic interests but was separated from it with an administrative border, a separate internal currency and foreign currency exchange. However, it did contain simplified forms of Reich principles in administrative, legislative and judiciary sectors. It was directly subordinate to the Führer who personally appointed the general governor.244 Its exclusive administrative structure, as well as the later official change of its title from the ‘General Government for Occupied Polish Territories’ to simply the ‘General Government’ diminished any left-over illusions of it being the prewar home of the Polish nation. This change represented the desire to forsake any affiliation with the Polish people, prewar sovereignty and the state as, in German eyes, it became extinct. Since the prewar Polish state was extinct, treatment of occupied territory was viewed by the Germans as an internal Reich matter; something outside the jurisdiction of international laws. As such, German confiscations, expropriations, destruction, looting, mass-murder and extermination were “legal measures of the internal German state powers in domestic German territories of those belonging to the German Grossraum.” To non-Germans, the change in nomenclature left the “new political creation up in the air without any territorial foundation.”245 With Frank at the helm, the central GG administration consisted of 12 departments.246 245 Majer, “Non-Germans” under the Third Reich…, 265-266; Czesław Madajczyk, Generalna Gubernia w planach hitlerowskich (Warszawa: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1961), 34-48. The change in name designation occurred on July 12, 1940. 246 Departments of: Internal Affairs, Finance, Justice, Economy, Food and Agriculture, Forestry, Labor, Propaganda, Science and Education, Building (infrastructure), Railways and Post. 247 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/4, Tagebuch 1940: Zweiter Band – April bis Juni, pp. 44-45; Trial of the Major War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal, vol. 12 (Nuremberg 1947), 6. 248 Schrenk, Hans Frank…, 151-152; 160. Hans Frank ruled his colony like his own, private kingdom. At the opening of the German judicial system in the GG, he urged German judges to develop a “colonial, legal system.” As he saw it, and as Nazis viewed their role for the east, his appointment took on a historic, messianic role – he was entrusted with the task of turning Poland into an ideal, Germanic territory. He spoke of his position after the war as one driven to contribute to the triumph of national socialism: “In my own sphere I did everything that could possibly be expected of a man who believes in the greatness of his people and who is filled with fanaticism for the greatness of his country, in order to bring about the victory of Adolf Hitler…”247 Reich propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, who criticized the haste of Frank’s decisions and work, summarized his rule: “Frank feels more like the king of Poland than a representative of the Reich… Frank does not govern, he rules… King Stanislaus, as the old party comrades refer to Frank, seems himself to be a Polish ruler and is surprised that the guard does not honor him when he enters into any German official building.”248 Being the ruler of his own territory and a life-long admirer of Hitler, he soon became a ‘little Hitler,’ convincing himself and others around him that he answered to no one but the Führer. He viewed himself as Hitler’s untouchable right-hand man. Karl Lasch, the then governor of the Radom District, described his brother-in-law Frank as such: He was not… an example to us. He spent his time wandering from palace to palace in a magnificent limousine with a guard of honor, listening to music, entertaining, and attending banquets. There is nothing about him that is natural, nothing that is straightforward: everything is a theatrical pose, serving to satisfy his arrogance and intoxication with power. His flatterers have persuaded him of his resemblance to Mussolini, assuring him that he is destined to play the same role as il Duce… Whether consciously or unconsciously, Hans Frank began aping Hitler. He began using Hitlerian catchphrases… He established his own Berghof in the hills of Zakopane. He certainly did have something in common with an amateur play-actor thirsting for a heroic role.249 249 Quoted in Martyn Housden, Hans Frank: Lebensraum and the Holocaust (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), 81-82; 85-86. 250 Curzio Malaparte, Kaputt, trans. Barbara Sieroszewska (Warszawa: Czytelnik, 2000), 84-85; 103. A valuable insight into the feudal style of life among the Nazi elite of the GG was conveyed by Italian journalist Curzio Malaparte, a guest of Frank’s at his private residence – the royal Wawel Castel, renamed the Burg. In 1944, he published his recollections there in the ironically entitled Kaputt. He described his reaction upon entering the general governor’s office: On Frank’s command two large, glazed doors were opened and we entered the loggia. “Here is the German Burg” said Frank, showing with a broad arm movement the immense silhouette of the Wawel, cut off sharply by the backdrop of blinding white snow… The frost was so cold that our eyes watered. I closed mine for a moment. “It looks like a dream, doesn’t it?” asked Frank. Sitting across from Frank – the “German king of Poland” – at his immense, mahogany table adorned with two bronze candelabras, where he deliberated over the future of Poland, Malaparte wrote: Frank sat across from me in a high, stiff-backed chair, as if this were the throne of the Jagiellonians or Sobieskis and was seriously convinced that he was the embodiment of Poland’s royal, chivalrous traditions. A naïve pride glistened on his face with pale, flushed cheeks on which an eagle nose accented a will of complete vanity and uncertainty. Shiny black hair, combed to the back, revealed a high forehead, one white with a shade of ivory… “All the people of the New Europe” said Frank, “and the Poles, first and foremost, should feel proud having in Hitler a just and austere father. Do you know what the Poles think of us? That we are a nation of barbarians.” “Does this offend you” I asked with a grin. “We are a nation of masters, not barbarians: Herrenvolk. My one ambition” declared Frank, resting his hands on the edge of the table and leaning back, “is to raise the Polish nation to an honorable position within European civilization.”250 The administrative structure of the GG itself further convinced Frank of his Hitler-like role there. A March 1941 directive expanding administrative functions reconfirmed its uniform character. Executive power fell into the hands of the secretary of state – Josef Bühler – and his deputy while the power of the general governor centered around providing the executive with direction or guidelines, leading the most important meetings, and representing the GG beyond its borders. To better illustrate this division in western political terms, if the General Government were to function on the basis of a state, Bühler served as its ‘prime minister’ while Frank was ‘head of state.’ In other words, Bühler governed and Frank ruled; the later de facto possessing administrative competencies and the former de jure executing them. This administrative structure, with comprehensive powers of the general governor, were modeled on the status of foreign states or autonomous regions.251 251 Majer, “Non-Germans” under the Third Reich..., 267; Mączyński, Organizacyjno-prawne aspekty funkcjonowania administracji..., 156-157. 252 Max du Prel (ed), Das Generalgouvernement (Würzburg: Konrad Triltsch, 1942), xv. 253 Snyder, Black Earth…, 106-107. Legally, Poland ceased to exist following the signing of the German-Soviet Pact of Friendship and Economic Cooperation on September 28, 1939. Concerning the bloody aspect, it was during the Polish campaign and the construction of occupation regimes – whether in the GG or in the annexed territories – that Reinhard Heidrich first unleashed the Einsatzgruppen, task forces of policemen and SS members led usually by either party or SS men of long standing. The liquidation of Poles included eliminating the intelligentsia or anyone simply deemed an enemy to the occupiers. The bloody work of the Einsatzgruppen in occupied Poland became a training ground of sorts for more brutal work later in the east. 254 Maria Wąsik, “Urząd Kreishauptmanna w hitlerowskim aparacie władzy w Generalnym Gubernatorstwie” in Czesław Pilichowski (ed), Zbrodnie i sprawcy: Ludobójstwo hitlerowskie przed sądem ludzkości i historii (Warszawa: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1980), 519-525; Chodakiewicz, Between Nazis and Soviets..., 74; Housden, Hans Frank: Lebensraum and the Holocaust, 124. An ethical problem which many Poles encountered when working as low-level civil servants was the mandated declaration all non-Germans were obligated to sign; something introduced in November 1940. The signator agreed to faithfully complete their responsabilities in obedience to the German administration while declaring all ties or allegiances sworn to the Polish state or Polish political organizations void. Maciej Mitera, Zwyczajny faszyzm. Położenie prawne obywateli II Rzeczypospolitej w Generalnym Gubernatorstwie 1939-1944 (Warszawa: Agencja Wydawnicza CB, 2017), 102. Along with its borders, Poland’s former administrative structure was also dismantled; except at the lowest town and village levels. A key issue faced by GG administrators was how a small-number of Germans were to rule over so many non-Germans; a true colonial conundrum. Encompassing 150 thousand km2 by 1942, the GG contained 18 million inhabitants: 80% Polish, 12% Jewish, 6% Ukrainian, 1% German and 1% other.252 Overcoming this problem meant creating an administration which combined Nazi racial doctrine toward non-Aryans with a legal codex demeaning their right of existence; something following the precedent Timothy Snyder termed “in ink” and “in blood” created after the destruction of Poland.253 In total, the GG was divided into 4 districts: Kraków, Lublin, Radom, and Warsaw. Later, in 1941, a fifth Galicia District was added. Each was administered by a governor appointed by Frank. Each district was subdivided into counties (Kreise), patterned after prewar Polish ones, and headed by a Kreishauptmann. Their deputies – Landkommissare – administered sub-divisions of counties. Urban-districts were also created, headed by Stadthauptmann. These third-tier administrators were often Nazi party leaders, combining administrative and ideological power. In theory, they controlled everything at the local levels, managing all institutions and aspects of social, political, cultural religious, and economic life. No legal transactions could take place without his knowledge. He oversaw the rationing of food and industrial products while also deciding over property confiscation and population deportations. No public employee could quit or be hired without his permission.254 GG structures and names given to them were borrowed from Austria-Hungary. As the majority of its territory previously belonged to Austria before 1918, it was hoped that this would cause the least amount of friction.255 All levels of the administration were headed by a motley array of lawyers from Munich, surplus civil servants from Austria or former Reich prisoners. A problem which beset the GG from the outset was the lack of skilled administrators; something which throughout the war Frank lamented over. The problem was such that even the Reich foreign office contacted the Reich interior ministry, requesting for lists of ethnic Germans suitable for administrative duties. Needless to say, the quality of administrators was overall rather poor. According to Bogdan Musiał, they were common criminals, failures, adventurers and soldiers of fortune, disciplinarily transferred and previously sacked officials, “visionaries of the East” and fanatical Nazis with no knowledge of Polish.256 At the lowest administrative levels, often non-German locals such as Poles or Ukrainians were used. This was deemed by Frank to be self-administration for the fremdvölkische peoples of the GG. 255 Furber, “Near and Far in the Colonies…,” 552-553. 256 Bogdan Musiał, Deutsche Zivilverwaltung und Judenverfolgung im Generalgouvernement. Eine Fallstudie zum Distrikt Lublin 1939-1944 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1999), 85-86; Broszat, Nationalsozialistische Polenpolitik..., 52; 71-72; Burleich, Germany turns Eastwards..., 187. In January 1944, Frank estimated that (excluding railway workers and policemen), there were 4-5 thousand administrators in the GG. 257 Majer, “Non-Germans” under the Third Reich..., 276-284; Winstone, The Dark Heart of Hitler’s Europe…, 43-44; Schenk, Hans Frank..., 151-158. The GG administration was based on the concept of “Unified Administration;” regarded as the ideal form of administration for colonial and semi colonial territories by experts. All levels of administration were based on the Führerprinzip. Authority lay in the hands of one man, the head of the administration at a given level. In each district, administrative functionaries were fully subordinate to Kreishauptmänner who in turn reported directly to their governors who answered to Frank. In strengthening the lowest levels of administration, Frank hoped to alleviate the highest levels from tedious matters so it could govern smoothly. In turn, this meant keeping mid-level administration in check so that no district governor could supersede his authority. This pyramidal system of ‘checks and balances’ was held together by Frank’s principle of “unity of administration” (Einheit der Verwaltung), something he hoped would be a model for the Reich. His theory sought to prevent government agencies from competing for jurisdiction while also preventing any unnecessary interference from Berlin. His attempts at creating a country, rather than leaving the region as a labor reserve subject to its own fate as Hitler saw it, caused much criticism among top Reich officials. Goebbels expressed his distaste: “[Frank] wants to create out of Poland a model country. He is moving too far. This should not be done and he should not be doing it…” As of 1943, the GG numbered just under 30 thousand administrative workers.257 Frank contested that introducing law and order into his territory equated to the GG’s path to Germanization. A problem which beset the GG throughout the war was the clash between law and racial ideology. Formerly Hitler’s private lawyer and a relatively senior figure in the Reich, Frank strongly identified himself with the Notification of German law. He served as president of the Academy of German Law, which he founded, as well as head of the constitutional law section of the Nazi party. As general governor, he saw himself as the supreme authority in the GG; the proverbial ‘be all, end all.’ He sought to colonize the GG with Nazi judges, staffing his administration with men from his legal academy to supervise the development of law there. This was all the easier since in the GG, where the overwhelming majority of the population were non-Germans, there was no de facto competition from the outset with Reich law as in the annexed territories. As Major commented, in the GG, new ground was broken both in terms of racial policy and the treatment of non-Germans. For leading German racial ideologues, including Hitler, Himmler, and Heydrich, the GG was to be a region where German authorities were not bound by the law.258 258 Majer, “Non-Germans” under the Third Reich..., 287-288; Housden, Hans Frank: Lebensraum and the Holocaust, 62; Mazower, Hitler’s Empire…, 251. 259 Gross, Polish Society under German Occupation, 41. 260 H. Graul, “Die Landschaft des Generalgouvernements” in Du Prel (ed), Das Generalgouvernement, 16. Frank quoted in Majer, “Non-Germans” under the Third Reich…, 292. Even though he portrayed himself as the bearer of law and order, Frank wished to give concrete form to Hitler’s notion of Lebensraum through his harsh and, at times, unpredictable forms of rule. This free hand stemmed from the fact that, on the one hand, the Germans, early in the war, had no definite idea, aside from vague visions of Germanic colonization, of what to do with the GG while, on the other, their policy of straightforward, brutal aggression provided no guidance toward solving the first issue.259 Frank gave form and definition to the territory by imbuing the ‘spirit of eastern conquest.’ Quite simply, the GG was imagined to be a “cultural gradient” between the backward Slavic east and the German-dominated and racially superior Mitteleuropa. Thus, his historic mission became one in which he drove to reestablish the supremacy of the cultured Herrenvolk over the barbaric Untermenschen. Frank’s perception of the GG resembled his conquest spirit. All things Polish were to be destroyed – including the Polish nation-state tradition – and every aspect of his realm was to be coordinated anew. He once compared the relationship with Poles in the GG to that “between an ant and a greenfly.” This could not be said of Ukrainians, whose brief nation-state tradition was destroyed by Poland and the Soviets; only to be liberated by the Germans and, if need be, to be built-up under German supervision. Whereas the German man was either physically or culturally “proven” superior, GG racial and legal ethnic policies also “proved” Ukrainian preeminence over Poles, albeit it for political reasons, in the cultural concession-privileges bestowed upon them.260 The GG was to also be a labor reservoir for its own needs and those of the Reich. These undertakings intended to turn prewar Poland into both, a German springboard to the east and Germanic, colonial land. Concerning the latter, the GG “German East” envisioned strong settlements in and around cities and towns as centers of German rule with the remaining local, non-German population segregated from the Germans and working the land as laborers.261 As Majer noted, this was a true colonial vision in which the “ruling class” (Germans) would rule over the masses (non-Germans). 261 Housden, Hans Frank: Lebensraum and the Holocaust, 81-82; 102; Majer, “Non-Germans” under the Third Reich…, 264. 262 Steinweis, “Eastern Europe and the Notion of the ‘Frontier’ in Germany…,” 63-64; Winstone, The Dark Heart of Hitler’s Europe…, 13; Majer, “Non-Germans under the Third Reich…,” 289. 263 Trial of the Major War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal, vol. 11 (Nurmeberg 1947), 44. 264 Heinz Höhne, Zakon trupiej czaszki, trans. Sławomir Kędzierski (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Wołaszański, 2006), 291-292. 265 Götz Aly and Susanne Heim, Architects of Annihilation: Auschwitz and the Logic of Destruction, trans. A.G. Blunden (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2002), 175-180. 266 Housden, Hans Frank: Lebensraum and the Holocaust, 171-172. 267 Boidunyk, Na perelomi, 59-60. The greatest threat to Frank’s monopoly on authority was the SS and police; what he often referred to as a “state within a state.” SS chief Heinrich Himmler viewed the GG as a racial ‘dust bin’ where supposed inferior peoples from the rest of Hitler’s empire could be thrown and made to toil and die.262 Hans Lammers, head of the Reich Chancellery, recalled of the crude nature of resettlements to this dust bin, “… people were simply shoved into the General Government.”263 In viewing the GG as a dumping-ground, Himmler was prepared to later turn it into a “Greater German” settlement area for SS men, discharged soldiers, deserving party members and settlers from the east. This would entail a mass deportation and killing-off campaign.264 To prevent such over-population, civil officials lobbied to prevent dumping into the GG. Instead, they wished to deport population surpluses and worthless workers from the GG.265 Such notions differed from GG administrative visions. During a speaking tour through Berlin, Munich, Heidelberg, and Vienna in 1943, Frank insisted that “a nation does not allow itself to be governed by force… The German nation lives freely by virtue of its law and can never be compelled to become a Volksgemeinschaft by force.” Concerned over the shift from law to police power, he told students in Munich that brutality “in never synonymous with strength.” Speaking of the future of Europe, he noted that no new order could exist without law while warning of National Socialist ideals hinting of a police state.266 Frank’s administrative conflicts with the SS continued throughout the war and created a divide between him and the security apparatus with each derisive of the other. The organization of committees throughout the eastern and southeastern GG provided a foundation on which Ukrainian nationalists could build upon. Whereas the Kraków group aided incoming and imprisoned Ukrainians, the Sushko one in Krosno worked most actively in determining the situation of other regional committees by dispatching couriers and contacting local German authorities with the intent of creating an OUN social base. In many instances, they succeeded in gaining nominal representation alongside Landrats; such as in Sanok, Krosno, Jasło, Gorlice and Krynica.267 In other regions, they made contacts with OUN émigrés; together undertaking educational and cultural activity. Seeking temporary asylum in the GG, young nationalists received orders to assist in raising Ukrainian national consciousness throughout the ethnographic borderlands; a region seen as backward. These “apostles” travelled from village to village and town to town, promoting national ideals. According to Haivas, their work reportedly met with immediate satisfaction from villagers: “these young people are creating miracles before our eyes. We pleasantly look upon their work with wonder. The villages liked them so much that they do not want to let them go when they are transferred to another village.”268 268 Haivas, Koly kinchalasia epokha, 26-27; Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Heneral’nii Huberniї, 57-58; Boidunyk, Na perelomi, 61-62. 269 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 17, folder 21, Konferenciia predstavnykiv riznykh oseredkiv, November 16, 1939. 270 Golczewski, Deutsche und Ukrainer 1914-1939, 772-794; Knysh, B’ie dvanadsiata, 145-146; Iurii Kovalenko, “Ukraїns’ke Natsional’ne Ob”iednannia (UNO) v Nimechchyni” in Orhanizatsiia Ukraїns’kykh Natsionalistiv 1929-1954, 379-383. Ukrainian committees lacked centralization. A strong proponent of this was Sushko. He envisioned a central Ukrainian organization, under the guidance of the OUN. Organizing a central representation meant gaining the permission of GG administrators. For this reason, Sushko, Boidunyk and several others convened a conference in Kraków to meet with GG Ukrainians. Problems, needs, questions and suggestions were discussed. All expressed the need for more workers to expand educational, cooperative and social sectors. The Hrubieszów delegate complained of OUN émigrés ruining matters, working within their small groups and excluding others. The topic of a Ukrainian center was also mentioned, one which the delegates agreed, should find itself on ethnographic Ukrainian territory yet, had differing opinions as to where it should be located. For example, the Hrubieszów representative proposed Chełm. Ironically, the Chełm delegate proposed Jarosław as it was “in the middle of our [Ukrainian] territory.” A representative from Sanok welcomed the idea of Krosno serving as the center.269 From this conference came the idea to form the Ukrainian National Union (Ukraїns’ke Natsional’ne Ob’iednannia – UNO). Founded in 1933 by Petliurites as a legal association in Germany, its activity quickly dwindled with only a few members. Toward the end of 1937, the OUN expropriated and reinvigorated it from an organization with a shadowy existence to one whose membership grew rapidly; from some three dozen to several hundred in 1939. For nationalists, UNO became their legal, public organization. After war erupted, UNO organized the numerous Ukrainians coming to Germany. In 1942, it numbered 57 thousand members. The goal was to consolidate Ukrainians with the intent of using them in the future liberation struggle. Social work meant raising consciousness and national principles “so that UNO members will be prepared for active work in the liberation struggle” while education was to be done in the spirit of the central role of the nation – the nation above everything! Within the UNO, the same idea of Ukrainian nationalism was propagated with the same pathos as with the OUN. With branches in Berlin, Vienna and Prague, the Kraków one was envisioned to serve as an additional contact point for the Melnykites within occupied east-central Europe while organizing Ukrainian émigrés under their influence.270 The Germans were fully aware of what the Ukrainians hoped to gain under their administration. Social concessions were the starting-point; the ultimate goal was a Ukrainian state on ethnographic territory. One German report underscored the need for a uniform attitude toward them. Aside from humanitarian aid for Ukrainian refugees, including job creation, it was suggested to develop their organized social life; all the more so since they were described as positively disposed to and supportive of the occupier. Social concessions, especially in those areas in which they were previously disenfranchised under the Poles, were seen as the best method to gain Ukrainian loyalty.271 271 AAN, German microfilm collection, MF-466, Abschrift: Reise-Eindrücke in Westgalizien, November 16, 1939, pp. 13-15. 272 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/1, Tagebuch des Herrn Generalgouverneur für die besetzten polnischen Gebiete vom 25. Oktober bis 15. Dezember 1939, p. 76. Underlined in the original. Kubiiovych claimed this meeting was conducted in Kraków in his memoirs. Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Heneral’nii Huberniї, 61. 273 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 26, folder 2, Denkschrift von Ukrainer aus den Besetzen Gebieten des ehemaligen polnischen Staates, November 17, 1939. Also in Wasyl Veryha, The Correspondence of the Ukrainian Central Committee in Cracow and Lviv with the German Authorities, 1939-1944 (Edmonton – Toronto: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, 2002), 41-44. 274 Ibid. On November 17, 1939 a delegation headed by Sushko and Kubiiovych presented their wishes to Frank on behalf of GG Ukrainians. The meeting was held in Sanok as, according to Frank’s diary, he was on a two-day regional inspection of petroleum fields in Western Galicia. The entry for that day read: In Sanok, a traditional Ukrainian folk group welcomed the General Governor with bread and salt. Dr. Karanovich [sic! Kubiiovych], leader of the delegation, thanked the General Governor for liberating the Ukrainian people from Polish oppression.272 In his further remarks, Kubiiovych called for the “free development of the Ukrainian population living in the greater-German Reich.” To ensure this, he called for administrative, economic, educational and religious (Orthodox and Greek Catholic) developmental freedom. To guide this development, he suggested permitting a Ukrainian organization with a leader “empowered with full trust from the German administration.” Development was to unfold under the protection of the Germans who were seen as the force to remove all threats and dangers to Ukrainian denationalization.273 The Ukrainians placed high hopes in the new German administration to correct previous Polish state prejudices and injustices. These included: returning unjustly seized Orthodox churches and property, especially the Chełm cathedral; greater representation in the civil administration – courts, police, railroads and post offices, etc. – and permitting the Ukrainian language legal status in ethnically-mixed or Ukrainian-majority areas. Invoked longstanding Ukrainian admiration for German history and development, Kubiiovych concluded with “Heil Hitler! Slava Ukraїni!”274 Along with giving Frank a memorandum summarizing their wishes, Kubiiovych also included an attachment containing Ukrainian population figures for eastern and southeastern Poland based on his 1936 conclusions. These figures and later maps presented to the Wehrmacht and civil authorities were drawn-up by him at the behest of the Abwehr.275 275 Kubiiovych, Meni 85, 172. 276 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 27, folder 3, Vertraulich November 17, 1939; Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Heneral’nii Huberniї, 63-65. In his memoir, Kubiiovych claimed Frank telling the delegation: “Gentlemen, you will have as much as you can gain for yourselves but gain wisely.” Kubiiovych, Meni 85, 90. 277 Heinrich Kurtz – Kubiiovych described him as someone to whom the Ukrainians owed a great debt. Born in Silesia, he was a historian and archeologist by profession. Prior to the outbreak of war in 1939 he worked at the German consulate in Lwów. During that time he made contacts with various Ukrainian activists, including Kubiiovych, and maintained them following the collapse of Poland when he was stationed in Kraków. At the beginning of the war he served in the Abwehr as a cultural representative and later in the department of education and propaganda within the administration of the GG. Kubiiovych, Meni 85, 170. 278 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 17, folder 21, Protokol zasidannia, November 17, 1939. 279 Ibid, Statut Ukraїns’koho Natsional’noho Obiednannia, December 1939. While Kubiiovych in his memoirs credited Boidynuk for designing the UNO statute, Boidunyk in his memoirs took no credit for it, modestly describing the event. See Boidunyk, Na perelomi, 69. Frank guaranteed Ukrainians the right to national development. He expressed his desire to assist in their cultural, economic and social work and urged all they communicate their needs to the necessary GG administrators. However, he made no mention of a national organization. Specifically concerning the Chełm Cathedral and church property, Frank described it as a “question of national meaning” for the Ukrainians and promised to return it to them as soon as possible.276 Following the meeting, the delegation met with Abwehr officers to further discuss matters. Heinrich Kurtz,277 who organized the meeting with Frank that day, suggested a favorable situation formed to begin organizational work. After presenting them with the necessary GG contacts, Kurtz began by discussing the issue of staffing an envisioned Ukrainian central administration. He suggested Sushko distinguish between ordinary and extraordinary activists because “the staffing of higher positions in the administration must be treated carefully.” Sushko agreed, stressing the enormous responsibility in selecting men. Concerning organizational structure, Kurtz explained that the head of the organization would be a provid or executive and would include representatives for cultural, economic and organizational affairs. Speaking of territorial structure, he suggested building upon the regional quasi-councils. Additionally, he advised creating a large Ukrainian publishing house in Kraków as a cultural foundation (stiftung) headed by Kubiiovych and Zilyns’kyi.278 Convinced they received a “green-light” to create a representative organization, the Ukrainians compiled an UNO project statue. Besides specifically outlining the roles of executives, the project, designed by Boidunyk, emphasized itself as the official representative of GG Ukrainian interests before the occupiers. A bold point described the UNO’s use of national symbols, in particular claiming it had the right to continue using the official Ukrainian national yellow-and-blue flag and Trident coat of arms.279 Following its internal acceptance, it was sent to the authorities for formal acceptance. As the project statute travelled onward, a five point internal summary of envisioned UNO activity suggested a greater political tone to be guided by the OUN. First and foremost, the UNO would be a Ukrainian émigré organization with the goal of the “real and complete unification of all living, creative forces of the Ukrainian Nation” no matter the region they originated from or the party or ideology they represented. Principally, the UNO would stand on a platform of “unity of the Ukrainian Nation” and a “national-social Ukrainian State as a geopolitical unit” to respond to the interests of the entire Ukrainian nation. It intended to be an organization of “real internal reconciliation” towards the Ukrainian émigrés, not allowing for internal political or religious fratricidal struggles; striving instead towards harmonious cooperation. To lead the organization and to be a single, pan-Ukrainian representative, the UNO would “strive to create a sole Ukrainian national leadership.” The summary stipulated the “development of a national program for state building,” one projected to respond to the ideological demands and the political situation in which the Ukrainian problem currently found itself in through mutual cooperation as a close assignment of the organization.280 OUN nationalists, those in Kraków and abroad, envisioned UNO as a stepping-stone which would bring them closer to Eastern Galicia. In the GG, they looked to externalize their nationalist agenda through the interests of GG Ukrainians. 280 Ibid. Portions cited underlined in original version. 281 Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Heneral’nii Huberniї, 65-66; Armstrong, Ukrainian Nationalism…, 47. 282 AAN, German microfilm collection, MF-466, Abschrift: Reise-Eindrücke in Westgalizien, November 16, 1939, p. 13. Ivan Kedryn also mentioed of the Germans stipulating autochthonous Ukrainians lead GG Ukrainian life. Ivan Kedryn, Zhyttia-podiї-liudy. Spomyny i komentari (New York: Chervona kalyna, 1976), 361. 283 Knysh, Pered pokhodom na skhid vol. 2, 98-99. The nomination of a providnyk showed the degree of competition for influence within the burgeoning GG Ukrainian movement. In postwar recollections, Kubiiovych and others claimed the most logical choice of leader to be Sushko particularly since he was already known to the Germans. However he claimed such a choice would prove to be politically dangerous as it could upset the Nazi-Soviet alliance by supporting the nationalists so close to the new ally’s delineated border, a gesture which may cause the Soviet Union to prepare for attack. This position was later repeated as fact by other historians.281 However, this postwar explanation diverted attention away from the direct German role in the matter of organizing GG Ukrainian life as an intelligence report expressly stressed that any representative center was to be led by autochthonous Ukrainians, i.e. endemic to the territory of the GG and not émigrés or refugees imported from the Reich or Eastern Galicia.282 According to Knysh, Bisanz was a strong proponent of Dmytro Paliїv, his colleague from the Galician Army days and an opponent of the OUN, to lead Ukrainian life in the GG. However, the OUN could not come to terms with this.283 The dismissal of Paliїv and Sushko’s prompted the proposition of two other candidates: Horbovyi – Banderite leader of the Kraków refugee committee; and Mykhailo Khronov’iat, the engineer from Sanok who actively participated in cooperative life and veterans affairs as well as being an Abwehr contact. The nomination of the latter came from several Ukrainians and Kurtz. Horbovyi was nominated by Iaroslav Starukh, a chief associate of Bandera.284 284 Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Heneral’nii Huberniї, 65-66; Klymyshyn, V pokhodi do voli vol. 1, 284. 285 Knysh, Pered pokhodom na skhid vol. 2, 99. 286 Kubiiovych, Meni 85, 89-90; Klymyshyn, V pokhodi do voli vol. 1, 284-285; Kedryn, Zhyttia-podiї-liudy…, 361; Mats’kiv, Z-nad Dnistra na Kanads’ki prerii, 131. According to Kedryn, Dmytro Paliїv proposed Kubiiovych for the leadership position. 287 Knysh, Pered pokhodom na skhid vol. 2, 99-100. 288 Bohdan Hnatevych served as chief of staff in the UVO. As a member of the OUN, he was involved in anti-Polish sabotage in Eastern Galicia. He was one of many OUN members put on trial by the state in 1936 and sentenced to a two-year prison term. Golczewski, Deutsche und Ukrainer 1914-1939, 436; 560; Rossoliński-Liebe, Stepan Bandera: The Life and Afterlife of a Ukrainian Nationalist…, 151; 159. 289 Kubiiovych, Meni 85, 90. Whereas both sides pushed for their respective candidates and claimed validity, the Germans present – Kurtz and Bisanz – were to approve a head; preventing any elections per se. To meet German demands of an autochthonous Ukrainian leading future GG organized life, Sushko proposed Kubiiovych.285 This was met with mixed reactions. Banderites argued he was an unknown personage with unknown political allegiances; an independent who throughout his life was, for the most part, outside the mainstream of Ukrainian patriotic and nationalist activity in Eastern Galicia. However, positive aspects were also seen: he was an experienced academic and author who, through the years he spent living in Kraków, understood the position of Ukrainians who found themselves in the GG. Furthermore, his active involvement within the city’s aid committee showed that he could form relations, cooperate and work with various groups regardless of their political outlooks. His ability to speak with the German authorities, both literally and figuratively, and his contacts with them were also seen as important qualities.286 Melnykites viewed him as a good, honest, ideological Ukrainian patriot who was respected by all.287 Certainly the Germans approved the choice of Kubiiovych – a non-Eastern Galician, non-émigré Ukrainian with no concrete political orientation. This meant he could be trained to loyally look toward the GG authorities for social concessions rather than the OUN for example. The meeting resulted in the development of an executive board, with Kubiiovych leader. Bohdan Hnatevych288 was named his deputy; Boidunyk was assigned organizational matters, Khronov’iat economic affairs and Iaroslav Rak the youth department. Professor Ivan Zilyns’kyi was charged with heading the cultural-educational department.289 Apart from Kubiiovych and Zilyns’kyi, both academics who lived and worked in Kraków prior to the war, the other executives were OUN members. The Abwehr maintained close contacts with Ukrainian nationalists and took the lead over Ukrainian issues in occupied Poland. The relationship between Kubiiovych, nationalists, and German military intelligence ran deep. From the side of the Abwehr, Koch was a prominent contact. Kubiiovych was introduced to him by Dmytro Paliїv; the two knowing each other from their days in the Galician Army. Koch’s office in Kraków, located at 26 Grüne Straße (Sarego Street), was referred to by Ukrainians as the Kochstelle. It occupied the same building as the offices of the refugee committee and the OUN Melnykite leadership. Key personages in the office included Oberländer, Kurtz and Bisanz who expanded the Abwehr network onto occupied Polish territory. They exploited old army relationships to forge new ones with the OUN. Two or three times a month, the troika of Oberländer, Sushko and Kubiiovych met to discuss Ukrainian issues. Oberländer even supplied the Ukrainians with cash from the Abwehr funds.290 290 Ibid, 169; 171. Paliїv told Kubiiovych that the acquaintance of two such Eastern specialists (Koch and Kubiiovych) could also be advantageous for Ukrainian matters. 291 Ulas Samchuk, Na bilomu koni. Spomyny i vrazhennia (Winnipeg: Vydannia tovarystva Volyn’, 1972), 32-33. 292 Kubiiovych, Meni 85, 88; 171; Samchuk, Na bilomu koni..., 34. 293 The Ukrainian refugee camps in Kraków were cared for by the National Social Welfare Service (Natsionalsozialistische Volkswohlfahrt – NSV). Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Heneral’nii Huberniї, 47. 294 Shchehliuk, “…Iak rosa na sontsi…” 45; Knysh, Pered pokhodom na skhid vol. 2, 29-30. The Kochstelle became an early contact and meeting point for Ukrainian nationalist refugees. At some point in the war, besides Sushko, many of the Melnykite brass – Mykola Stsibors’kyi, Omelian Senyk, and Oleh Olzhych – worked in or passed through the five rooms occupied by them in the building. Senyk led the triumvirate of Zynovii Knysh, Iulian Vasylian and General Mykola Kapustians’kyi in the organizational bureau. Ulas Samchuk recalled the bustle in the building: “Here was a constant commotion. People were coming and going.”291 Working in Sushko’s office, Kubiiovych got to know the Abwehr men. He recalled the Kochstelle being “swarmed by Ukrainian runaways from Galicia who came to Koch for advice and help.” This hustle and bustle reminded Samchuk of the commotion in Voloshyn’s office in the Subcarpathian capital of Khust.292 Knysh, who arrived in Kraków in early 1940, described his impression of the Kochstelle: All three floors of the tenement house at 26 Grüne Straße were occupied by Ukrainians. On the first floor Sych [Col. Sushko] had his office. Actually, the organizational center of the OUN was under the camouflage of a charity office for refugees, a sign on the door of which read: Dr. Winter – Volkswohlfartsbureau.293 Before the later Ukrainian Central Committee was established, the first relief campaign was concentrated in the hands of the OUN under the leadership of Sych. Here, information was obtained, friends met, meetings were held, and all kinds of plans were discussed. From here the first instructions were sent into the field, into the borderland areas along the Bug and San, and into the Lemko region. Whoever wanted to find an apartment in Kraków came here; whoever was looking for work also came here. Everyone wanted to talk to Colonel Sushko, whether it was necessary or not. This took time, but he did not throw anyone out and received everyone. He also had the apartment on the ground floor and there only the OUN had access. Here, typewriters and copying machines were running, underground literature was printed, and it was also a communication center for couriers and liaison men from the country [i.e. Soviet-occupied Eastern Galicia – P.M.].294 26 Grüne Straße contained the entire Melnykite revolutionary apparatus in the GG. Next door at number 20, the Banderites had their offices on the ground floor of that tenement house while such prominent nationalists as Roman Shukhevych or Iaroslav Rak lived in apartments above.295 Outside the official, beaurocratic atmosphere of the OUN offices, Sushko and other prominent nationalists, such as poet Oleh Olzhych, met and entertained at the Kaffee Cristal, a coffeehouse owned by Bisanz. This café, as well as the Café Poltava near the Kochstelle, seemed to be meeting spots for Ukrainians in the city, serving as a location for continuing their brand of Vienesse coffeehouse politics. An advertisement in a German-language Kraków travel guide noted of daily concerts and dancing every Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday there. The café Fenix was also a prominent meeting point for Kraków’s Ukrainians.296 295 Zynovii Matla, Pivdenna pokhidna hrupa (Munich: Nasha Knyhozbirnia, 1952), 5; Shchehliuk, “…Iak rosa na sontsi…” 45; Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Heneral’nii Huberniї, 60. In between the two buildings at 22 Grüne Straße lived high-ranking UTsK officials along with their families. 296 Kedryn, Zhyttia-podiї-liudy..., 359-360; Samchuk, Na bilomu koni..., 35; Levko Lukasevych, Rozdumy na skhylku zhyttia (New York: St. Sofia Ukrainian Orthodox Publishers, 1982), 224. Advertisement for Bisanz’s Kaffee Cristal in Heinrich Kurtz, Führer durch die Stadt Krakau, 2nd ed. (Krakau: Buchverlag Deutscher Osten 1942), 105. 297 Klym Dmytruk, “Who are the Diviziynyks?” in Yevhen Valevsky (ed), Their True Face, part 4 (Kyiv: Ukraina Society, 1979), 17. 298 Klymyshyn, V pokhodi do voli vol. 1, 293-294. 299 Following the war, Fr. Michael Korzhan served as the CIA’s chief agent dealing with Ukrainian émigré life circles in Europe between 1947 and 1961. He was active among the Ukrainian community of West Germany following the assassination of Stepan Bandera, compiling a report entitled “Delving behind the Scenes of the Death of Stepan Bandera.” See Serhii Plokhy, The Man with the Poison Gun: A Cold War Spy Story (New York: Basic Books, 2016), 148-153. During his postwar Soviet investigation, Bisanz described and recalled of the Abwehr organizing and directly supervising the UTsK. Speaking of his role, he stated: “I was charged with directing UTsK activity. Without the Abwehrstelle’s permission and my personal clearance, Kubiiovych had no right to include any person in the Committee or take any action.” Furthermore, he described his part in financing the Committee: “Each month, throughout 1940, I personally handed Kubiiovych and UTsK secretary-general Hlibovits’kyi a sum of 50-60 thousand złotys.”297 Banderite Mykola Klymyshyn described Sushko as simply being Bisanz’s puppet who only did as the other told.298 Sushko also maintained close contacts with the Germans of the Abwehrstelle in Kraków. He recruited and contracted nationalists to work for the German intelligence service. According to the postwar deposition of Fr. Michael (Mykhailo) Korzhan,299 a Ukrainian Orthodox priest from Eastern Galicia who was recruited by Sushko for intelligence service with the occupiers, the OUN head in Kraków envisioned to train a future cadre of Ukrainian intelligence men through training and work for the Germans; men who would be vital for a future Ukrainian state. In his CIA testimony, Korzhan explained that his work centered on the observation and reporting of those who crossed the German-Soviet border from Eastern Galicia and determining whether they were refugees or Soviet agents. In turn, he was to recruit and use those escapees as his informers, running them into the Soviet occupied zone and gathering information, primarily dealing with NKVD borderland placement.300 300 Central Intelligence Agency – Freedom of Information Act Electronic Archive (CIA-FOIA), “REDSOX: Transmittal of Material on Michael Korzan, June 23, 1952” (accessed June 26, 2017), 301 Golczewski, Deutsche und Ukrainer 1914-1939, 1008; Haivas, Volia tseny ne maie, 229; Knysh, Pered pokhidom na skhid vol. 1, 118-119. 302 “Meldunek organizacyjny i raport polityczno-gospodarczy (August 9, 1940)” in Armia Krajowa w dokumentach, vol. 1, 70; “Sprawy organizacyjne, informacje wywiadowcze, raport o sytuacji w kraju, sprawa łączności i pieniędzy (Febraury 8, 1940),” in ibid., 109; Grzegorz Motyka, Tak było w Bieszczadach. Walki polsko-ukraińskie 1943-1948 (Warszawa: Oficyna Wydawnicza Volumen, 1999), 77. 303 Czesław Partacz, “Próby porozumienia polsko-ukraińskiego na terenie kraju w czasie II wojny światowej” in Polska-Ukraina: trudne pytania vol. 5 (Warszawa: Światowy Związek Żołnierzy Armii Krajowej – Związek Ukraińców w Polsce, 1999), 53-54. The Abwehr also created new work for former BBH-men. Immediately after the Soviet occupation of Eastern Galicia and their withdrawal to the German zone in Sanok, Major Dehmel of the Abwehrstelle in Vienna who originally spearheaded the development of the BBH battalions, gave Sushko new assurances. These included drafting Ukrainians into GG police duties on ethnically-mixed or Ukrainian majority territory – an incognito OUN military unit – in the GG. He also purportedly offered the legion to conduct guard duties on the GG-Hungarian or GG-Slovak borders.301 Ukrainians were trained by Abwehr and SD services for Werkschutz or factory security services. In mid-November, BBH men were officially demobilized from their service. Three groups numbering 200-300 men each were left to the authority and disposal of the SD. Many were used by them as border guards along the GG- Slovak border. Such units were armed and uniformed in either surplus Polish military uniforms with different caps or in ones with distinctive blue-yellow colors. To ingratiate the Germans, they “specialized” in catching Poles (underground couriers or demilitarized soldiers hoping to rejoin free Polish military forces in the west) crossing the borders with Slovakia or Hungary. For their ‘captures,’ the Germans paid them 20-25 złotys per person. From December 1939 to March 1940 alone, in the vicinity of Komańcza, they captured some 80 individuals attempting to cross the border illegally.302 In December 1939, a secret police-intelligence school was organized in the Carpathian guesthouse “Samara” under the watch of SS-Sturmbannführer Hans Krüger. There, a small group of 20 Ukrainians completed a five-month training course, after which they were sent to work as prison guards, particularly in Jarosław, Rzeszów, and Tarnów.303 As of late September 1940, armed Werkschutz training soon moved to camps organized near the Quenz Lake (Quenzsee) in Brandenburg, Germany following Frank’s decision to forego exercises on GG territory. By the end of October 1940, Lahousen noted of 100 Werkschutz-trained Ukrainians leaving Brandenburg for GG service. In dawning the navy-colored Werkschutz uniforms, nationalists saw them transform from farmers into boisterous soldiers.304 In Tarnów, the occupiers organized a so-called cadet school while in Zakopane a training camp was maintained. Some of these men were later used in overseeing detail work or as prison guards as well as in anti-Polish and anti-Jewish campaigns.305 Others received paramilitary training as Selbstchutz, self-protection forces. Bruno Streckenbach – a Gestapo man appointed GG police and security head in November 1939 – noted of such Ukrainians and proposed their later use, assigning them to either auxiliary police work or as agent-provocateurs “where they could serve as experts of the country and the people, and as the enemies of Poland.” Overall, he assessed the Ukrainians positively: “They are outstanding for the type of work assigned to them, and are particularly valuable because of their Polish hostility.” However, German supervision was unquestioned as the constant fear of irredentism and rebelliousness among Ukrainians lingered.306 Ukrainians were also conscripted for Sonderdienst service – a special police formation created for Germans inhabiting the GG. According to Włodzimirz Borodziej, this was Frank’s private police force which assisted in later infiltrating circles associated with the Polish underground.307 304 BA-MA, RW 5/499, Diensttagebuch Abwehr II, pp. 97-98; Torzecki, Polacy i Ukraińcy..., 53; Kharkevych, Ia vas ne zabuv..., 75. 305 Stefan Mękarski, et al, “Die Südostgebiete Polens zur Zeit der deutschen Besatzung (Juni 1941 bis Juni 1943). Verwaltung und Nationalitätenprobleme.” Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas no. 16 vol. 3 (September 1968), 389; Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Heneral’nii Huberniї, 179. 306 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/9, Sitzung des Reichsverteidigungsausschusses, March 2, 1940, pp. 74-75. A recent addition to the topic of Volksdeutscher Selbstschutz formations and their activity in the annexed Polish territories is Zapomniani kaci Hitlera. Volksdeutscher Selbstschutz u okupowanej Polsce 1939-1940. Wybrane zagadnienia, (eds) Izabela Mazanowska and Tomasz Ceran (Bydgoszcz-Gdańsk: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej 2016). 307 Borodziej, Terror i polityka. Policja niemiecka..., 26. 308 Adam Hempel, Pogrobowcy klęski. Rzecz o policji „granatowej” w Generalnym Gubernatorstwie 1939-1945 (Warszawa: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1990), 54-55; Torzecki, Kwestia ukraińska w polityce III Rzeszy, 202. Hempel’s monograph remains the best one on the topic of the Polish auxiliary police (the so-called blue police). For an Englich-language study into the formation concentrating on the question of its role in the Holocaust, see Jan Grabowski, Hunt for the Jews: Betrayal and Murder in German-Occupied Poland (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2013). The topic of Jewish ghetto police formations and their role in the Holocaust is still in need of scholarly attention and analysis. Both Poles and Ukrainians contained auxiliary police formations, ones directly subservient to the GG SS and police chief. The Ukrainische Hilfspolizei was officially called to life by Frank on December 17, 1939. Full-time status of policemen was not initially impressive as, by mid-1940, it did not exceed one thousand men. As of mid-1940, only 134 auxiliaries served in the Lublin District while slightly more – 154 – worked in the Kraków one. Numbers substantially increased. By 1942, 2 thousand men served in the auxiliary police while in 1943, following the attachment of Eastern Galicia to the GG and the expansion of the police apparatus there, that numbered doubled to 4 thousand.308 The fact that the auxiliaries were subject to the orders of GG security officials was something Kubiiovych bemoaned: “the Ukrainian auxiliary police does not contain its own [Ukrainian] district command but consists largely of separate, organizationally unrelated parts.” He believed this and the poor arming of auxiliaries (with antiquated rifles or pistols) lay in line with German intentions to restrict, scatter and ultimately keep them in a weak yet compliant state. However, the haste with which the auxiliary force was formed combined with the recruitment base from which to choose policemen influenced the quality of cadres. Aside from few exceptions, prewar social marginalization prevented Ukrainians from training and serving. Men recruited often came from rural backgrounds who, when guided in the right direction, could be exploited for various means.309 However, in some cities, such as the newly re-christened Deutsch-Przemyśl, Commissioner Dr. Ludwig Hahn did not hide his pro-Ukrainian feelings toward the auxiliaries: 309 Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Heneral’nii Huberniї, 37; Hempel, Pogrobowcy klęski..., 54-55. In October 1941, a training center for GG Ukrainian auxiliary policemen was opened in Lwów; replacing the short-lived ones in Kraków and Lublin. The commandant was Jerzy Walter, a Volksdeutsche Pole who previously served as captain in the Polish auxiliary police in Chełm. He was automatically advanced to the position of major in the Ukrainian auxiliary service. 310 Archiwum Państwowe w Przemyślu (AP-P), Akta Miasta Przemyśla, sygn. 2275, Der Stadthauptmann Deutsch-Przemysl Bericht, 1940, p. 3. 311 Knysh, Pered pokhidom na skhid vol. 1, 119. 312 Boidunyk, Na perelomi, 70; Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Heneral’nii Huberniї, 71-72. 313 Arlt, Polen-, Ukrainer-, Juden-Politik im Generalgouvernement..., 31. We want to make Deutsch-Przemyśl into a Ukrainian fortress and to conduct here exceptionally friendly pro-Ukrainian politics, so long as this will be in our interests; currently it undoubtedly is. That is why the image of the city, as a Ukrainian fortress, must emanate more and more, especially in the case of the existence [within it] of the Ukrainian police.310 Whether in the Werkschutz, Selbstschutz, or in auxiliary police duties, OUN executives also look favorably on their work as amicable; men who “performed their duties till the end, faithfully serving the Ukrainian people and the Organization of Ukrainian nationalists…”311 3.4 Divide and Conquer: Organizing the Deutschfreundlich Ukrainians in the GG While Ukrainians awaited for the approval of the UNO project statute by GG administrators, they did not sit idly by. In accordance with Kurtz’s instructions, the UNO undertook a ‘bottom up’ approach in consolidating their authority, beginning with the regional councils throughout the GG. During two meetings held in Kraków on December 26 and 28, delegates from the Chełm and Jarosław councils declared their subordination to the UNO.312 That same month Kubiiovych expressed his readiness to build and organize a Ukrainian aid committee; a decision coming following talks with Ukrainian political, church and OUN representatives.313 For the GG civil administration, a key question was how to legally control the fremdvölkische, non-Germans in their new administrative borders. Concerning non-Jews, they looked toward the tried tactic of divide et impera to not only achieve their colonist and racial goals for the GG but to also exploit, as much as possible, the ethnic groups they inherited. Here, the principle of divide and conquer was synonymous with racial inequality of non-Germans. Diemut Majer termed this the “principle of special law” – the classification of German and occupied citizens into ‘Aryans’ and ‘non-Aryans’ or ‘Germans’ and ‘non-Germans.’ This legal separation deprived ‘non’ elements of human rights and social protection. As Majer noted, it also deprived non-Germans of paid labor without public means; “a psychic death before the physical one.” As the first Reich colony created from the spoils of war, the authorities envisioned creating a legal and administrative framework toward non-German people that would be a blueprint for future Nazi conquests in the east.314 314 Majer, “Non-Germans” under the Third Reich…, xvi-xvii; 267. 315 Ibid, 270-274. 316 Bogdan Musiał, “Niemiecka polityka narodowościowa w okupowanej Polsce w latach 1939-1945.” Pamięć i Sprawiedliwość vol. 2 no. 6 (2004), 15-16; Chodakiewicz, Between Nazis and Soviets..., 144. Legal segregation of GG Jews underwent four phases: segregation and discrimination; isolation, total isolation, and resettlement or evacuation (which meant in essence extermination). Majer, “Non-Germans” under the Third Reich…, 284-286 317 “Sprawy Ukraińsko-Polskie od września 1939 do listopada 1941 – przewidywania na przeszłość,” (November 15, 1941), Armia Krajowa w dokumentach, vol. 2, 139. The colonial definition of the GG was also reflected in its policies of oppression and suppression – implemented through the theory of sub humans (Untermenschen) – via the racial fragmentation of the local, non-German population. Experts urged a patriarchal system be created under German sovereignty. On the one hand, non-Germans were to be segregated and assimilation prevented while on the other, they were to be supported and administered as much as possible. The subject peoples were to be preserved in “ethnic-racial sovereignty” and oriented toward Nazi racial principles.315 The instigation of historic Polish-Ukrainian antagonisms set in motion this policy of ethnic fragmentation toward the elimination of Untermenschen. The occupiers realized their political goals in part by realizing the suggestions of German experts, and in part through varying, most often violent, brutal means: terror and genocide; deportation and resettlement; forced labor; group expropriation and pillaging; liquidation and suppression of cultural life. These measures were not uniform but differed according to the various GG ethnic groups and in accordance with Nazi goals and plans. Where Poles were viewed in terms of economic usefulness, designated as slave laborers before being completely eliminated, and Jews were to be completely exterminated, Ukrainians meant to prove economically and politically useful in marginalizing and assisting, whether consciously or not, in ‘weeding-out’ other non-Germans.316 The Polish underground noted of the German policy with relation to the Ukrainians; one of exploitation especially in the “economic oppression of Poles,” that is, giving the Ukrainians certain concessions not granted them. However, the report stressed these concessions as small while making no efforts at affording them any political measures.317 The free Poles in London, through their underground channels, were familiar with the German’s policy of splintering the two Slavic groups. A report indicated how the occupier’s caste system placed the Ukrainians on a perceived even level with the Germans; the relationship of collaboration between the two non-Polish groups was described as a “political weapon” against both, the Poles and the Soviets. However, their approach toward the Ukrainians was “politically slim.”318 Concessions given to them at the expense of Poles or Jews – differentiating Ukrainians and granting them full rights as Reich citizens in contrast to Poles or filling veterinary or medical positions with them – were described as the creation of a “Ruthenian [Ukrainian] Republic” by the German.319 In other words, the Poles viewed German-Ukrainian collaboration in terms of political-propaganda without the occupier openly forming a pro-Ukrainian platform.320 318 PISM, MIiD, folder A.10.3/9, List na temat sprawy ukraińskiej, November 20, 1940. 319 “Sprawy organizacyjne, informacyjne wywiadowcze, raport o sytuacji w kraju, sprawa łączności i pieniędzy,” (February 8, 1940), Armia Krajowa w Dokumentach vol. 1, 108. 320 PISM, MIiD, folder A.10.3/10, Niemiecka propaganda ukrainizmu – w okupowanej Polsce, n.d. 321 Burleigh, Germany turns Eastwards..., 155-186. Dr. Otto Reche compiled a memorandum entitled “Basic Principles on the Demographic-Political Securing of the German East.” It explained the necessity of acquiring Raum for the German people (“The German people needs a new settlement area bordering its existing frontiers of at least 200,000 km2), ethnic settlement which called for the emptying all non-German ethnic elements, races and peoples from the Raum (“We do not need a bastard population there with Polish characteristics and Polish cultural incapability which is determined by blood!”), specific territorial stipulations, and a racial contextualization of the uselessness of non-Germans in the annexed territories. Tantamount to the creation and implementation of racial laws or means by which to divide or remove non-Germans were academic specialists. Scholarship was to take account of political priorities while academics were to advice politicians. In Nazi rhetoric, many intellectuals found similar echoes or goals as in their scholarship; ranging from territorial revisionism to reordering Europe along racial lines. The war provided them with an opportunity to prove the value of their research and theories. A November 1939 paper outlined the task of the Ostforscher or “eastern researcher” during and after the war: “Research will be one of the principal means of strengthening the legitimacy of German action.” With the advent of war, thousands of maps were ordered by the Wehrmacht, Luftwaffe and civil administrations. Maps, charts and graphs were also created proving German historical claims in the east – place names or the extent of ethnic Germandom. Ostforshung scholars were instrumental in delineating new boundaries in the annexed Polish territories and resettling ethnic Baltic Germans to those regions in place of expelled Poles and Jews.321 The General Government’s administrative needs provided the Publikationstelle (PuSte), an academic think-tank in the orbit of the Reich interior ministry, an opportunity to demonstrate its resourcefulness. Frank was also quickly convinced of the value of Ostforscher specialists to his regime; a PuSte office was opened in Kraków on January 1, 1940. The office’s tasks included: producing maps and statistics for the administration; and compiling scholarly and publicist work based on local archival or library sources – a German guide to Kraków, research on Polish-Reich relations during the Middle Ages, studies on German culture and art in Polish history, and the economic structure in the GG. All this was to prove the dominance of Germandom over everything Polish. Eastern “researchers” contributed to creating, and later working in, the Institute for German Development work in the East, guidelines on renaming streets in GG towns, or providing convincing data legitimizing ethnic deportations and resettlements. It is interesting to note that one of the street names recommended for change were those named after Pieracki “who was notorious because of his measures against the Ukrainians and German ethnic groups in Poland.” As Burleigh summarized, the work of the PuSte office and Ostforscher ranged from symbolic and historical to radical attempts to change the face of Poland; showing how selective history could conform with the dictates of the Nazi ideology.322 322 Ibid, 190-197. The guidelines for renaming streenames of towns in the GG (August 22, 1940) called for main squares in all towns to be christened “Adolf Hitler Square” while “obliterating” all names associated with anti-German personalities, events or Jews; and renaming them with names “closely bound up with the history of Germandom” or German cultural achievements. 323 Ernst Klee, Das Personenlexikon zum Dritten Reich. Wer war was vor und nach 1945? (Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer Verlag 2003), 18-19; Frank Mecklenburg, “Von der Hitlerjugend zum Holocaust. Die Karriere des Fritz Arlt in Jürgen Matthäus and Klaus-Michael Mallmann (eds), Deutsche, Juden, Völkermord. Der Holocaust als Geschichte und Gegenwart (Darmstadt: WBG 2006), 87-99. 324 Götz Aly and Karl Heinz Roth, Die restlose Erfassung: Volkszählen, Identifizieren, Aussondern im Nationalsozialismus (Frankfurt am Mein: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 2000), 72-74; Burleigh, Germany turns Eastward..., 215-216. Aly and Roth noted that the department, where SS-Hauptscharführer Adolf Eichmann began, made contact with Arlt in July 1936. For his published results, see Fritz Arlt, Volksbiologische Untersuchungen über die Juden in Leipzig (Leipzig: S. Herzel, 1938). A third area in which Ostforscher proved invaluable was in policy toward the subject peoples; something which pivoted on the recognition of the existence of various ethnic groups. Not only was this another means by which the Germans underscored the extinction of the superfluous, artificial and imperialistic Polish-Versailles state but it lay the foundation for dividing non-German ethnic groups under their control. A central figure in this policy-making was Fritz Arlt. He joined the NSDAP in 1932. Having completed his studies in theology, anthropology, and sociology in Leipzig, he entered the SS in 1937 before taking on his post in the GG beginning in 1939; an administrative tour which lasted until September 1940.323 In conjunction with his scholarly work and as a representative of the local Nazi racial-political office, he carried out an ‘ethnic-biological’ investigation of the population of Leipzig. This involved a deep examination of the city’s Jewish population – places of birth, addresses, number of children, occupations, etc. His results created a card catalogue of the city’s Jews; containing personal information and, most importantly, their level of Semitism: whether they were full, three-quarter, half or one-quarter Jews. His results were published in 1938 while his card catalogue served as a model for the card index on Jews being created by the SD. After his time in Leipzig, he worked as an assistant professor at the university in Breslau where he made contacts with the SD and Abwehr.324 During the September campaign, Arlt was attached to a Wehrmacht division in western Poland. He was recruited by the military occupation apparatus to conduct research and create procedures for them to deal with the newly inherited ethnic groups. He agreed and reported to GG civil administrators where he proposed plans for a bureau to oversee the welfare of the ethnic groups. Josef Bühler, the future GG secretary of state and the man Arlt met with, was happy to gain a knowledgeable linguist and bureaucrat within his administration especially since many early civil servants were employees of Frank’s legal office in Munich with little practical administrative experience: “They were ignorant of the country, the language, the population, their future administrative territory but they were of good will.” At 27 years old, Arlt headed the GG population and welfare bureau from November 1939 until September 1940. His background and experience earned him a free hand in constructing it, placed under the authority of the internal affairs department.325 In his postwar interrogation, Bisanz described Arlt as a “pupil of Hans Koch.” Indeed, he closely collaborated with Koch and Oberländer; gaining more insight into Ukrainian questions.326 325 Arlt, Polen-, Ukrainer-, Juden-Politik im Generalgouvernement..., 26-28; Aly and Heim, Architects of Annihilation..., 130. From September 1940 until May 1943, Arlt was transferred to Silesia where he planned to construct Jewish-racial catalogues. Prior to his transfer there, Kubiiovych and the UTsK organized a special banquet in his honor, bidding him farewell while all attendees took in a performance of Kraków’s Ukrainian Choir. “Vidїzd d-ra F. Arlta z Krakova,” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 1 no. 89 (September 11, 1940), 2. In Silesia, he carried out the resettlement of 35,000 people as well as the inventarization and seizure of property from “foreign races.” This meant determining whether property left behind by Jews sent to concentration camps was either allocated to German settlers or appropriated by the state. Burleigh, Germany turns Eastwards…, 216. 326 Struve, Deutsche Herrschaft, ukrainischer Nationalismus, antijüdische Gewalt..., 167-168fn102; Aly and Heim, Architects of Annihilation..., 136. 327 Josef Bühler (ed), Das Generalgouvernement. Seine Verwaltung und seine Wirtschaft (Krakau: Berverlag Krakau 1943), 81; Burleigh, Germany turns Eastwards..., 215-216. 328 Knysh, Pered pokhodom na skhid, vol. 2, 98; Kubiiovych, Meni 85, 167. 329 Arlt, Polen-, Ukrainer-, Juden-Politik im Generalgouvernement..., 29; 35; 57; Torzecki, Kwestia ukraińska w polityce III Rzeszy..., 155. As a racial specialist, Arlt also handled GG demographic questions. He maintained that the various ethnic groups – Poles, Ukrainians, Górale, Russians, White Russians and Jews – all exhibited differing attitudes toward the occupation administration. The special treatment of these groups undertaken by his bureau regulated uniform self-help and welfare assistance as well as created a set of regulated guidelines, uniformly applicable at all administrative levels of the GG. At the same time, he also organized a resettlement office which resettled hundreds of thousands of people under difficult circumstances.327 Knysh described Arlt as an average beaurocrat with little understanding of the nationality issues in the GG. Rather, he claimed his position was effortless, something which saved him from frontal service. In his memoirs, Kubiiovych diminished the role Arlt played in constructing ethnic policy around population and welfare issues, claiming it no fault of Arlt’s that the Ukrainian social issue was “squeezed into the narrow statue of organizational aid.”328 Fritz Arlt modified Nazi racial concepts to suite GG legal needs by first internally consolidating ethnic groups.329 Work over population and welfare distribution in his newly-created bureau – ambiguously titled ‘department of population management and welfare’ – made him responsible for reorganizing state welfare under wartime conditions under the dispensation of ethnic policy. This included: organizing public soup kitchens, negotiating with the International Red Cross and overseeing population policy including the supervision of religious communities and resettlement operations. Poles, Ukrainians, Germans, and Jews all had dedicated sub-bureaus in his department. Arlt’s activities and focus were determined by overpopulation and attendant population movements. As such, welfare distribution had to be reorganized in such a way so as to take into account, first and foremost, German needs. Simultaneously, welfare distribution subconsciously integrated ethnic groups into the rigorous Nazi system of monitoring; an additional administrative means to surveil attitudes and opinions of the newly inherited sub-human groups.330 330 Aly and Heim, Architects of Annihilation…, 130-131. 331 BA, R 52 II/247, Bericht über den Aufbau der Verwaltung im Generalgouvernement vom Juni 1940, p. 182. 332 Quoted in Aly and Heim, Architects of Annihilation..., 131. 333 Arlt, Polen-, Ukrainer-, Juden-Politik im Generalgouvernement..., 27. 334 Fritz Arlt, Übersicht über die Bevölkerungsverhältnisse im Generalgouvernement (Krakau: Volkspolitischer Informationsdienst der Regierung des GG, 1940), 21; 24. The first progress report of the population and welfare bureau explained its purpose: “… an agency that concerns itself specifically with the ethno-political structure of said territory; for collecting ethno-political data of all kinds – historical, ethnological, racial, statistical, etc. – to form the basis of any practical work of administration…”331 In a more detailed analysis of his welfare program in the confidential Volkspolitische Informationen journal, Arlt argued that had welfare remained in the hands of GG populations to provide for themselves, solidarity among the inhabitants would be unavoidable; something which in no way lay in the interests of the occupier. Instead: The guiding principles of our welfare work in the GG are therefore political in character. All welfare issues must be handled in accordance with German racial and population policy. This will safeguard us against allowing our welfare work to be influenced solely by charitable and humanitarian considerations, when instead we should be guided constantly by the national and ethno-political interests of the German Reich… [to develop] a planning strategy [for the GG] based largely in the purely numerical ratio of its inhabitants… to be able to rule more easily.332 Thus, the population and welfare bureau of the internal affairs department of the GG served as the legal means by which the policy of divide and conquer would be implemented among ethnic groups. As Arlt argued, whoever offered help would win-over any oppositionists.333 He was also a strong proponent of controlling what he saw as the greatest drain on the resources of the GG – population numbers. Controlling this, he believed, was in turn critical to the success of welfare work. According to him, the main drain on the GG were the Jews. In 1940 he publicly proposed the complete deportation of Jews, something which “would reduce the pressure on Lebensraum in the GG by something like 1,500,000 Jews.” His aim was to decrease population density and provide greater labor opportunities for non-Jews. As he wrote: Through a process of sociological restructuring some of these people could then take over those jobs in industry, commerce and the skilled trades that were previously held by Jews. This would be a major contribution towards the social regeneration of the Polish rural proletariat. At the same time it would reduce overemployment in the agricultural sector and thus create a further opportunity for dealing constructively with the problem of overpopulation.334 This solution was not only meant to socially re-engineer the Poles but also the Ukrainians, an overwhelming agricultural ethnic group. Once the Jewish element was completely removed, Arlt believed “the influx of the peasant class to the towns and cities” would follow. Only in this way could the GG “social structure be gradually altered.”335 335 Fritz Arlt, Die Ukrainische Volksgruppe im Generalgouvernement (Krakau: Volkspolitischer Informationsdienst der Regierung des GG, 1940), 7; 17. 336 Snyder, Black Earth..., 106-107. Of course, as Snyder further explained, the destruction of the Polish state was achieved through the racial-legal means – in “ink,” as he wrote – as well as through brutal-racial means – in “blood.” It was during the Polish campaign and during the construction of an occupation regime – whether in the GG or in those territories directly annexed into the greater Reich – that Reinhard Heidrich first unleashed the Einsatzgruppen, task forces of policemen and SS members led usually by either party or SS men of long standing. The liquidation of Poles included eliminating the intelligentsia or anyone simply deemed an enemy to the occupiers. The work of the Einsatzgruppen in occupied Poland became a training ground of sorts for more brutal work later in the east. 337 Eugeniusz Guz, Jak Goebbels przygotował wrzesień (Warszawa; Czytelnik, 1969), 89. 338 Grelka, “Polityka narodowościowa niemieckich władz okupacyjnych we wschodniej Polsce...,” 72. 339 Walther Föhl, “Die Bevölkerung des Generalgouvernements” in du Prel (ed), Das Generalgouvernement, 28. A historian by trade, Föhl joined the SA in 1933 and the SS in 1935. In 1936 he headed the NSDAP genealogical research department (Sippenforschung der NSDAP). From September to December 1939 he served in an auxiliary police regiment stationed in Warsaw. Following the creation of the GG administrative apparatus, Föhl was assigned to the Population and Welfare department. There his work focused on GG Jews and Volksdeutsche. During the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, he was attached to the Abwehr unit in Wehrmacht Group South where he collaborated with Hans Koch in Eastern Galician and Ukrainian territory. In January 1943 he returned to the GG and his work in the Population and Welfare department which at that time provided logistical assistance during Aktion Reinhard and other ghetto-clearing operations. After the war he worked as an archivist in Kempen. Gerhard Rehm, “Die andere Seite der Medaille – Der Archivar Dr. Walther Föhl im Dritten Reich,” Heimatbuch Kreis Viersen no. 68 (2017) and Gerhard Rehm, “ Die andere Seite der Medaille – Der Archivar Dr. Walther Föhl im Dritten Reich (Teil 2),” Heimatbuch Kreis Viersen no. 69 (2018). The German invasion of Poland was undertake with the logic that it could not exist as a sovereign state. Occupation meant the geographic appropriation of territory rather than the subjugation of a prior state or polity. German lawyers contended that Poland was not a state and, as such, a place without a sovereign over which they were now masters. Prewar laws were declared null and void. By this logic, Hitler destroyed the principle of state citizenship.336 More importantly, through that destruction, he also overturned prewar Poland’s Achilles heel – the minority policy, especially its Ukrainian one. Just before the outbreak of war, a Nazi press directive was issued, ordering: “it is undesirable to speak of the Polish mosaic state. This expression is reserved for the future.”337 The future came after Poland’s collapse; the time seen as ripe to ethnically dismantle the prewar state to justify its non-existence. Nazi racial doctrine socially engineered the Polish multi-ethnic state into a feudality with a modern caste hierarchy based on race. Soon, national or ethnic identity lost value as these groups were affiliated with tribes of peoples; reinforcing the colonial vision of the GG.338 Dr. Walther Föhl, Arlt’s colleague in the population and welfare bureau, argued that the official name of the GG was changed not as much for political reasons but to rather remove the connotation of the territory being solely Polish but rather multi-ethnic.339 Whether ideologically or politically motivated, or motivated by both, the GG authorities deconstructed the existing state of affairs and, through a process of social engineering based heavily on ethnopolitics – creating a uniform national or ethnic community by excluding persons recognized as ethnically worthless – divided the newly inherited ethnic groups into ‘useful’ or ‘useless’ ones; offering the option of collaboration to those who were willing to conform to this standard and to those particularly seen as valuable – either politically or ideologically.340 The racial categorization of these groups became, in turn, the ideological means of implementing divide and conquer tactics among ethnic groups. Arlt viewed racial and social concepts as one: “The social stratification in the population of the GG is at the same time a racial stratification.” He believed racial construction explained ethnic attitudes. In turn, those attitudes led each group to a certain understanding of history and a definitive world view.341 340 Piotr Madajczyk, “Social Engineering: Between Biopolitics and Ethnopolitic” in Social Engineering in Central and South-East Europe on the Twentieth Century Reconsidered (Warsaw: Institute of Political Studies-Polish Academy of Sciences, 2017), 16; 33-34; 38-39. 341 Arlt, Übersicht über die Bevölkerungsverhältnisse im Generalgouvernement, 35; 41. 342 BA, R 52 II/247, Bericht über den Aufbau der Verwaltung im Generalgouvernement vom Juni 1940, p. 182; LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 17, folder 21, Zum Schluss der Sitzung, 1940. 343 Aly and Heim, Architects of Annihilation..., 132. 344 Arlt, Übersicht über die Bevölkerungsverhältnisse im Generalgouvernement, 1-2. 345 Arlt, Polen-, Ukrainer-, Juden-Politik im Generalgouvernement..., 64; Kubiiovych, Meni 85, 172. Through the introduction of racial criteria into welfare work, Arlt intended to “exert influence indirectly on the ethno-political situation” through a premeditated policy of selection and discrimination. He echoed these plans toward the GG Ukrainians during a government meeting, saying: “We must approach the treatment of this entire question with no romanticism. Only considerations for the Reich must guide our efforts. We must again reiterate that we are the rulers and the Ukrainians must work for us in a positive sense.”342 As Götz Aly and Susanne Heim indicated, his welfare program included a graduated system of social benefits and exclusions, from food rations to expropriation and forced labor.343 In his population guidebook Fritz Arlt spelled-out an ethnic policy which intended to foster smooth administration over the newly conquered territories. He argued that only after understanding the ethnic composition of the fremdvölkische peoples could constructive administrative work among “foreign species” be achieved. Ethnic differentiation was to be propagandized whenever possible to prevent treating non-Germans as a single lot. Administrators were to have a clear understanding of the racial and biological characteristics of non-Germans to treat them “according to their nature and kind.” He suggested one means by which officials could learn to discern ethnic differences was through fomenting disputes among Poles, Ukrainians and Jews.344 Arlt contextualized the Ukrainians, with the help of Kubiiovych’s statistical materials and scholarly work, as well as all non-German ethnic inhabitants of the GG, in terms of race and ethnicity. It is entirely possible Kubiiovych’s materials were also the same ones he prepared for Koch and the Abwehr.345 To Arlt, racial and social concepts were seen as one: “The social stratification within the GG population is at the same time a racial stratification.” He believed racial construction explained ethnic attitudes which led groups to a certain understanding of history and a definitive world view.346 Poles and Ukrainians were contextualized in terms of race and ethnicity. Racial approaches categorized them according to value so as to determine where each fit into the new German hierarchy where the dominant Aryan race reigned supreme. The fremdvölkische non-Polish ethnic groups, such as the Ukrainians or the Górale, were sandwiched above Poles, Jews, and Gypsies yet below the Germans, Reichsdeutsche and Volksdeutsche.347 346 Arlt, Übersicht über die Bevölkerungsverhältnisse im Generalgouvernement, 35; 41. 347 Georg Hansen (ed), Schulpolitik als Volkstumspolitik. Quellen zur Schulpolitik der Besetzer in Polen 1939-1945 (Münster: Waxmann Verlag, 1994), 24. According to Majer, the Germans gave form to their understanding of racial Volksgemeinschaft by declaring the various races (Dalo-Nordic, Dinaric, Alpine, East Baltic, and Mediterranean) to be similar to one another. This “scheme” justified the supremacy of the Nordic “master men” or “God-men” as Hitler described them. Majer, “Non-Germans under the Third Reich...,” 39. 348 Arlt, Übersicht über die Bevölkerungsverhältnisse im Generalgouvernement, 37-38; 40-41. Nazi racial “experts” viewed the GG as a racially-mixed territory (Rassenmischungsraum). Arlt categorized Poles in terms of a bastardized race rooted in east (oriental) and eastern Baltic traits but also containing an admixture of Mongaloid and Armenoid influences. These stemmed from the Mongol invasions of the 13th century and the longstanding presence of Jews in the Polish space. This mixed racial composition explained, in Arlt’s opinion, the Poles “typical political individualism;” what he described through the quip: eight Polish men with at least five differing opinions but none willing to yield their opinion in favor of the others. Nordic elements among Poles stemmed from German colonizers who settled in these areas throughout history and became high officials, nobles, landowners, or merchants; in other words, the elite in comparison to Polish peasants. In contrast to the pure Nordic elements present in the Germanic race, the Poles racially-mixed roots, he wrote, prevented any concrete harmony between the ethnic composition of the Polish population and its racial components. This racial hodgepodge proved far too tainted to be considered Aryan.348 According to Nazi racial lexicon, lower “species” such as the Poles, deserved no political existence. The immediate eradication of state-forming elements – the Polish intelligentsia for instance – by the Germans turned occupation into a race war – extermination of vital racial forces of the enemy only to exploit low-level elements. The intelligentsia and elite were after all deemed greedy exploiters who enslaved Poles and non-Poles alike. The German theory of Polish internal mismanagement and lack of order – embodied in the xenophobic stereotype Polnische Wirtschaft – was claimed to be widely known since the term “has been incorporated into the European vocabulary.” In the German mindset, they came to “civilize” the low strata of Poles. Lothar Weirauch, Arlt’s deputy and later successor, described the Germans as historic cultural colonizers who settled Polish territory on numerous occasions throughout history. Now it was their task to liberate the Polish peasant from the noble and have them work in building the German Reich.349 349 Lothar Weirauch, “Die Volksgruppen im Generalgouvernement,” Europäische Revue nr. 8 (1942), 251-252; Snyder, Balck Earth..., 107-112. 350 Föhl, “Die Bevölkerung des Generalgouvernements” in du Prel (ed), Das Generalgouvernement, 27. A historian by trade, Föhl joined the SA in 1933 and the SS in 1935. In 1936 he headed the NSDAP genealogical research department (Sippenforschung der NSDAP). From September to December 1939 he served in an auxiliary police regiment stationed in Warsaw. Following the creation of the GG administrative apparatus, Föhl was assigned to the Population and Welfare department. There his work focused on GG Jews and Volksdeutsche. During the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, he was attached to the Abwehr unit in Wehrmacht Group South where he collaborated with Hans Koch in eastern Galician and Ukrainian territory. In January 1943 he returned to the GG and his work in the Population and Welfare department which at that time provided logistical assistance during Aktion Reinhard and other ghetto-clearing operations. After the war he worked as an archivist in Kempen. Gerhard Rehm, “Die andere Seite der Medaille – Der Archivar Dr. Walther Föhl im Dritten Reich,” Heimatbuch Kreis Viersen no. 68 (2017) and Gerhard Rehm, “ Die andere Seite der Medaille – Der Archivar Dr. Walther Föhl im Dritten Reich (Teil 2),” Heimatbuch Kreis Viersen no. 69 (2018). 351 Ibid, 27-28; 32-40. To make such determinations Nazi racial “experts” in part cited and used materials compiled by Polish scholars Oskar Kolberg, Eugenia and Kazimierz Stolyhwo, Jan Czekanowski, Jan Mydlarski and Stanisław Śrokowski. Connelly, “Nazis and Slavs: From Racial Theory to Racist Practice,” 18-19. 352 Aly and Heim, Architects of Annihilation…, 115. To further prove to non-existence of Poles, the Polish ethnicity was deconstructed. Walther Föhl, head of the GG interior ministry, described the learning process he and his colleagues went through. According to him, the occupation period broke preconceived notions of Poles belonging to the family of Slavic peoples: The postwar period has opened our eyes to the profound differences among the Slavic family of peoples, and thanks to the rapid progress of the field of racial science we have learned to identify the structural differences within the individual peoples. During the present ethnic cleansing of East Central Europe, we have started to use ever more precise methods of ethnography and racial science to take apart the notion of the Pole…350 Poles were divided into tribes living around and along the Vistula River space. Their two historic homelands were specified as Masovia and Lesser Poland. The former region’s inhabitants were described as “careless and daring daredevils, lively, cheerful and enterprising, but also self-centered and dogged,” and was inhabited by Łowiczers in the lowlands, Podlachiens, and Kurpiers. Lesser Poland included Lubliners, Rzeszovians and Cracovians who were said to be “belligerent and hot-blooded… dexterous in his work but not systematic or persistent…” Overall, the people of central Poland were deemed “impulsive, of low intelligence and emotionally unstable.”351 Even the Polish language was described in Karl Baedeker’s GG travel guide as fictitious. Rather, it was a collection of dialects with thousands of words borrowed from German; a subsequent case for the German foundation of that culture.352 Although a glimpse of Germanic northern traits was seen in the aristocracy, both they and peasants, the argument went, were incapable of cultural creativity but predisposed to inferiority complexes and organizational disharmony in the regions they inhabited or administered; a continuation of the classic German concept of Polnische Wirtschaft or Poland’s unique form of ‘mismanagement.’ Weirauth echoed this concept in his report on GG ethnic groups, “The term ‘Polish economy,’ which has been incorporated into the European vocabulary, represents the typical identification of Poland’s lack of order.”353 Based on biological and historic differences, both Arlt and Weirauth concluded that the Poles were deemed unfit for assimilation into the German nation as this would only taint and culturally devalue that dominant race.354 353 Weirauch, “Die Volksgruppen im Generalgouvernement,” 251; Hagen, Germans, Poles, and Jews..., 31-37. 354 Arlt, Übersicht über die Bevölkerungsverhältnisse im Generalgouvernement, 39; 41-42; Weirauch, “Die Volksgruppen im Generalgouvernement,” 253. 355 Arlt, Die Ukrainische Volksgruppe im Generalgouvernement, 21; Connelly, “Nazis and Slavs: From Racial Theory to Racist Practice,” 4-6. 356 Walter Föhl, “Die Bevölkerung des Generalgouvernements” in Josef Bühler (ed), Das Generalgouvernement. Seine Verwaltung und seine Wirtschaft, 50-57. According to Connelly, Föhl’s Ukrainian conclusions came as later as 1942/1943 largely because Polish ethnographers devoted very little attention or time to the study of Ukrainians. Despite the lack of dependable studies, he cited Ukrainian geographer Stepan Rudnyts’kyi, Polish ethnographer Sawicki and the Austrian German Sacher-Masoch. Connelly, “Nazis and Slavs: From Racial Theory to Racist Practice,” 19. Any scientific research or study to the topic of ‘Ukrainians’ during the interwar period may have been seen by university or state authorities as treasonous to the Polish policy of recognizing Ukrainians as Ruthenians. 357 Arlt, Übersicht über die Bevölkerungsverhältnisse im Generalgouvernement, 46-47. In a similar fashion, Ukrainians were also described as racially mixed yet different from their Polish, Russian or Belarusian neighbors. Overall they too were considered racially mixed. Among GG Ukrainians, the dominant racial element which appeared among them was the Dinaric one; one shared by such south Slavs as Bulgars and Croats.355 Recognizing Ukrainians as racially similar to two German Slavic allies equated to a means of convincing administrators of the possibility for collaboration with and Nazi leadership over them. Föhl categorized the GG Ukrainians as supposedly consisting of Dolynianer, Buzaner, Pidhirianer, Batken, Batiuken, Opolaner and Podolianer sub-groups.356 In Arlt’s opinion the Ukrainians were predisposed to Germanization, whether in the émigré movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century – some of whose members settled in Austria or Germany – or among those Galician Ukrainians previously under Habsburg rule. The upper class was said to have stronger Nordic characteristics. Their nationalist, political-ideological struggle differentiated them from other racial groups. However, as Arlt wrote, because emancipation and definition stemmed from a racial and not political struggle, Ukrainians could not yet be viewed in racial terms as their historic irredentist struggles were politically based. Furthermore, it was the Germans who “liberated” the Ukrainians for their political purpose of destroying Versailles Poland. Instead Arlt saw them as capable of creating a unique ethnic culture of their own under German leadership.357 To convey a more detailed image of who exactly the GG Ukrainians were, Arlt composed a guidebook entitled Die Ukrainische Volksgruppe im Generalgouvernement. Colloquially speaking this was a “Ukrainians for dummies” guide for administrators or civil servants unfamiliar with the issue or the politics surrounding it. First and foremost the guide identified the existence of the Ukrainian ethnic group to further disqualify Versailles Poland, claiming the state consisted of non-Polish territory and peoples. Conversely, Ukrainians were legalized as a distinct ethnic people with a historic and cultural tradition. According to Arlt the aspects covered in his guide were all political realities the occupier had to come to terms with and understand in order for administers to become future eastern experts.358 358 Arlt, Die Ukrainische Volksgruppe im Generalgouvernement, 5-8. 359 Ibid, 13-16. 360 Ibid, 29-30. 361 Weirauch, “Die Volksgruppen im Generalgouvernement,” 254. The guide described such aspects as Ukrainian history, the Ukrainian language, religious adherence and political orientations; some of which were underscored as anti-Polish and anti-Soviet. It answered important questions such as who Ukrainians were – neither little Russians nor little Poles; where their historic ethnographic living space lay and what Ukrainian culture consisted of. In discussing the delineations “Ukraine” and “Ukrainian” the guide argued its historic roots – dating to records from the 12th and 13th centuries – to prove their ethnic existence. Such descriptions as “Little Russians” or “Ruthenians,” Arlt concluded, were adopted by Russians or Poles as a means of uprooting what they saw as separatism and irredentism. In other words, using those terms was dissuaded since “Ukraine” and “Ukrainian” contained what he deemed “international reputation” and represented the entire Ukrainian volk.359 Socially the Ukrainians consisted primarily of peasant farmers who occupied rural territory. Those Galician Ukrainians who fled to the GG from Soviet occupation represented a slim urban elite who, on the one hand could guide the rural peasants and, on the other, be led by the Germans. Citing Kubiiovych’s prewar scholarship he also defined Ukrainian Lebensraum in the GG – an area in the southern and eastern borders of the GG lying around such natural features as the Bug and San Rivers and the Carpathian Mountain ridge. Small “splinters” of Ukrainians also appeared in the western GG.360 By deconstructing Poles into tribes living around the Vistula River, German racial theory packaged them into what was regarded as their ethnographic territory in the central GG. Conversely, territory inhabited by Ukrainians was recognized as their ethnographic living space; something prewar Polish governments never did publicly. For ethnically-mixed areas, the argument went that Poles and Jews occupied cities and towns preventing Ukrainian peasants from any social matriculation by keeping them in a state of backwardness. This would no longer be so under the Germans. With the German attack on Poland, prewar prejudices against the Ukrainians were propagandized as have come to an end. The hostilities Ukrainians harbored toward both, the Poles and Bolsheviks, caused them to “show their willingness to cooperate in the work of the GG” while also expressing their willingness toward the success of the new European order. Perhaps most importantly, the occupiers could not ignore the “firmly rooted hostilities” between the two largest ethnic GG groups.361 A concise piece compiled by scholar Arnold Weingärtner and published in August 1939 in the journal Volksdeutscher Ruf was reprinted again in 1940. Its title – “The Ukrainians: a 45 Million People Fighting for its Right” – subsequently echoed German political mindset and approach toward that group – ethnic recognition. He dispelled the myth of them being ‘Little Russians’ and stateless people; the principality of Kyivian Rus, the Khmelnyts’kyi hetmanate and the brief, post-World War I states being historic examples against that longstanding argument. Weingärtner also dispelled the myth that the Ukrainians were historically isolated and lacked culture by emphasizing that they never lost contact with the western world. He called attention to the recent mishandling of the Ukrainian minority by the Poles. Then, he concluded: “The Ukrainian problem must be solved sooner or later.”362 Indeed, in the offices of the GG and Reich, it was being solved in such a way as to benefit the Germans and their occupation plans. 362 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 27, folder 16, Die Ukrainer. Ein 45-Millionenvolk kämpft um sein Recht, January 25, 1940. 363 BA, NS 19/1737, Denkschrift Himmlers über die Behandlung der Fremdvölkischen im Osten, May 28, 1940; Connelly, “Nazis and Slavs: From Racial Theory to Racist Practice,” 19. 364 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/9, Dienstversammlung der Kreis- und Stadthauptmänner des Distrikt Lublin (4 März 1940), p. 169. According to John Connelly, the above mentioned racial “science” and social engineering corresponded to and reinforced the logic of occupational politics, including Arlt’s population and welfare concepts. Furthermore, they firmly reinforced Himmler’s “Thoughts on the Treatment of Alien Population in the East” – a framework for handling ethnic groups in the GG: In our treatment of the foreign ethnic groups in the east we must endeavor to recognize and foster as many such individual groups as possible, i.e., apart from the Poles and the Jews, the Ukrainians, White Russians, Gorales, Lemkes, and Kaschubians. If there are any more ethnic splinter groups to be found, then these too… I mean to say that we not only have a major interest in not uniting the population in the east, but, on the contrary, we need to divide them up into as many parts and splinter groups as possible. 363 Between March and April 1940, a vision for the Ukrainian question began taking on a definitive tone. During a March 4 meeting among Lublin District authorities, Frank urged to measure all future Ukrainian accommodations through the lens of benefits for the Germans. Far-reaching compromises, in his opinion, could prove damaging to his policies. For this reason, he suggested a case-by-case approach toward questions as they arose.364 Regarding one of the chief desire of Ukrainians there, the return of seized churches to the Orthodox faithful, he cautioned that their vindication and return “proceed slowly and gradually” to prevent causing any indignation or open hostility between Poles and Ukrainians over this “subtle yet important issue.” He approved of the return of the Chełm Catholic cathedral, identified as the “greatest desire as far as the Ukrainians go,” but also warned to avoid broadcasting this principle agreement publically until an appropriate time be chosen for the return.365 To convince some district authorities of the importance of the religious issue for instance, Abwehr head Wilhelm Canaris assisted the civil authorities in personally convincing district SS and police chief Odilo Globocnik to agree to the cathedral transfer; something which Arlt noted Frank could not do on his own.366 365 Ibid, pp. 169-170. 366 Arlt, Polen-, Ukrainer-, Juden-Politik im Generalgouvernement..., 35. 367 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/9, Dienstversammlung der Kreis- und Stadthauptmänner des Distrikt Lublin (4 März 1940), pp. 178-179. 368 “No. 1.53: Soobshchenie L.P. Berii, I.V. Stalinu i V.M. Molotovu o deiatel’nosti ukrainskikh natsionalistov na territorii General-gubernatorstva (July 12, 1940)” in Ukrainskie natsionalisticheskie organizatsii v gody vtoroi mirovoi voiny vol. 1, eds. A.N. Artyzov, et al (Moscow: Rosspen, 2012), 157. 369 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/9, Sitzung des Reichsverteidigungsausschusses, March 2, 1940, pp. 68-70. 370 Georg Gerullis, a German Balt, earned his doctorate in Baltic philology in 1919. His academic career included: professor in Baltic and Slavic languages at the University of Leipzig; professor of Baltic philology at the University of Königsberg (where during the 1936/1937 year he served as rector); professor of Baltic philology at the Berlin University. From 1936 he was also a corresponding member of the Saxon Academy of Sciences (Sächsische Akademie der Wissenschaften) in Leipzig. He joined the NSDAP in 1930 and the SA in 1932. Alongside his academic career, he also worked in state institutions. In 1933 he was a ministerial director A chief concern still weighing heavily on GG and Reich administrators was their mutual relations with the Soviet Union. Frank echoed this in his opinion toward the Orthodox issue: “I tend to the view that we should do this job silently… The Führer raised great concern that no danger arises from relations with the Ukrainians that could affect the relationship between Germany and the Soviet Union. Do everything you can to prevent any form of irredentist propaganda!”367 With respect to their pact with the Soviet Union, Hitler, on several occasions, underscored that any relations with the Ukrainians could not hurt that friendship as, to him, that alliance superseded all Ukrainian opportunist desires. The Soviets paid close attention to Ukrainian borderland matters. For instance, a Soviet agent reported of increasing agitation among GG Ukrainians for an independent state. He specifically claimed Ukrainian nationalists in Chełm of declaring how the Germans will force the USSR to relinquish Kyiv to them. Of course, this was all the more concerning as it meant it would come at the expense of the Soviet Ukrainian territory; both land annexed into the USSR following the collapse of Poland as well as prewar Ukrainians SSR territory.368 Further clarification toward the GG Ukrainian issue undertook were hammered out during a Reich defense committee meeting in Warsaw. Frank claimed Hitler personally ordered his subordinates to give special care and attention to the Ukrainian question, emphasizing the need to exploit that element as an anti-Polish, pro-German one. Above all, the German authorities intended to prevent the organization of Ukrainian life in the GG to be controlled by émigré Ukrainians, whether Petliurites or nationalists. Rather, they looked toward a policy which could be led by and exploited by them: “Our policy is German policy, if necessary, it should be at the expense of the Ukrainians.”369 Military intelligence also presented their views by Abwehr operative Georg Gerullis.370 In relation to the Chełm region, in the East Prussian cultural ministry. Klee, Das Personenlexikon zum Dritten Reich…, 181; Michael Grüttner, Biographisches Lexikon zur nationalsocialistischen Wissenschaftspolitik (Heidelberg: Synchron, 2004), 59. 371 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/9, Sitzung des Reichsverteidigungsausschusses, March 2, 1940, pp. 70-71. 372 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/2, Abteilungsleitersitzung, September 12, 1940, pp. 219-220. where Ukrainians were described as “wealthy farmers, strongly mixed with Poles, without their own leadership,” it was necessary to strengthen intrinsic elements. One suggestion was to return the Orthodox churches there to them. As military intelligence saw it, the church could assist in winning over the Ukrainians to their side while simultaneously separating them from the Poles. Additionally, the promotion of Ukrainian mayors and auxiliary police men was proposed to further win them over. For the Krakow district, a bold proposal was even made to free the Greek Catholics from their union with Rome; presumably to create a church loyal to the GG and Frank.371 Frank conveyed these conclusions to Lublin district administrators, outlining the approach toward the Ukrainian question there. He excluded the thought of entertaining a political party or national minority in the region: “the Ukrainians are acknowledged as their own people, but on the condition that any form of irredentist, anti-Soviet propaganda be omitted.” Whereas he permitted certain laws and language rights, more far-reaching issues, such as allotment of buildings for schools, courts or the transfer of churches, were to be agreed upon mutually between himself and the district officials. Frank also denounced Ukrainian plans of exploiting their relationship with the occupier and position in the GG as a tool toward creating a greater Ukrainian (großukrainische) state: “…Ukrainians are indeed friends of the German people, but they are not trustworthy. Please maintain the best possible relations with them but always with a certain distance.” He ordered all GG officials to avoid any mention of “greater Ukraine” during ceremonies and festivities but also to prohibit Ukrainians from displaying national flags during military parades. Perhaps most importantly, he forbid officials in participating as invited “guests” in military parades in which the Ukrainians would appear as official representatives of the territories under their authority. He emphasized: “Since the Ukrainians live on the territory of Greater Germany, they are (so to speak) members [Angehörige] of the German Reich and not representatives of Greater Ukraine on German territory.”372 The general governor definitively spelled out his policy toward GG Ukrainians during an April administrative meeting. Their good behavior, in that no incidents occurred between them and the Soviets in borderland areas they occupied, was viewed by him as a statement of loyalty toward the Germans. As such, Frank said they would be rewarded. Returning Orthodox churches, especially the cathedral in Chełm, was described by him as giving them a firm commitment to maintain their distinct, national life. Furthermore, the Führer gave his permission to open schools to train practical professionals such as doctors or engineers. Whereas no pan-Ukrainian organization would be permitted, a self-help and welfare organization was; one envisioned to give rise to “the non-binding community life of the Ukrainians.” Frank concluded by ordering his officials, “Incidentally, it would be advisable that you advance the General Government principle: divide et impera.”373 He also reiterated Himmler’s idea of fragmenting the prewar Polish state by differentiating various ethnic and national groups. In his comments in Warschauer Zeitung, the general governor contested that the GG was not an ethnically Polish territory: 373 Ibid, Abteilungsleitersitzung, April 12, 1940, p. 121. 374 Quoted in Antoni B. Szcześniak and Wiesław Z. Szota, Droga do nikąd. Działalność Organizacji Ukraińskich Nacjonalistów i jej likwidacja w Polsce (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Ministerstwa Obrony Narodowej, 1973), 69-70. Frank’s comments appeared in the October 27, 1940 issue of Warschauer Zeitung. 375 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/20, Tagebuch 1942: August bis September, pp. 109-110. 376 “Pislia odnoho roku pratsi. Promova hen. Hubernatora min. d-ra Franka z nahody nimets’koho rizdva,” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 1 no. 151 (December 24, 1940), 2. The view of liberator-liberated was mutual. Among Belarusian, Lithuanian and Ukrainian circles, the Germans were viewed as liberators from either Polish or Soviet rule; even as a potential ally in gaining or re-gaining independence. Conversely, a phenomena appeared in which each rivaled the other in a war for influence and land – those with nominally better positions under occupation or within auxiliary security services in turn gained a better position than their historical opponents in the anticipated fight for statehood. Motyka, “Kolaboracja na Kresach Wschdnich II Rzeczypospolitej 1941-1944,” 184. 377 Lars Jockheck, Propaganda im Generalgouvernement. Die NS-Besatzungspresse für Deutsche und Polen 1939-1945 (Osnabrück: Fibre, 2006), 274-275. 378 AIPN, Proces Józefa Bühlera (PJB), GK 196/303, Die Volksgruppen im Generalgouvernement, n.d., p. 33. … Our assignment is to lead the nationalities of this area. I speak consciously of nationalities as it would be a falsely to describe this country as a Polish region. Here live Poles, Ukrainians, Górale, Lemkos, Hutsuls, Jews, Belarusians and Little Russians. These nationalities were the subject of oppression from the side of the so-called Polish republic. Only the Germans guaranteed their just treatment.374 In a speech to NSDAP party members, he spelled out the need for a pro-Ukrainian policy: The Ukrainians are a special exception [in comparison to the Poles]. I must conclude that in the interest of German policy, tension between Poles and Ukrainians be maintained. The 4 or 5 million Ukrainians we have in the GG are extremely important as a counter to the Poles. I have therefore always tried to keep them in a somewhat politically contented mood in order to prevent them from coming together with the Poles.375 In Ukrainians, GG administrators saw a nominal ally for their ideological anti-Polish, anti-Jewish (and later anti-communist) crusade. Frank equated them to a subject people liberated from foreign rule. His 1940 Christmas proclamation reiterated this notion. Poles were to come to terms with the new Germanic order while Ukrainians “from the beginning loyally behaved toward the tasks of the General Government and submitted themselves to its disposal. For them, the hour of the GG’s creation became their hour of freedom.”376 The GG press propagandized the thesis of “minority liberation.” The interwar period was painted as a period in which the Poles – being a “far higher standing ethnic group” – sought to destroy the “subhuman” non-Poles: Ukrainians, Volksdeutsche, etc.377 An article concerning GG Ukrainians noted: “Almost more than the Germans, Poles persecuted the Ukrainian people with an indelible hatred in the old Polish state… The Ukrainians lost much of their character through this centuries-long national struggle.”378 Being historically deceived by Poles and claiming of over 1 million lost to assimilation during the interwar years, Frank stated loyal Ukrainians deserved German leadership and correlated their socio-cultural development as a German humanitarian mission.379 Furthermore, by deconstructing the prewar Polish state apparatus, the Germans overturned Ukrainians from being the “bad, naughty child” of the Second Republic to the “ideal pupil” of the GG. Arlt correlated the so-called Ukrainian emancipation with racial maturity: “The emancipation of the Ukrainian ethnic group led them over the past several years to a process of Germanization, what resulted in a model… which leads to differentiating Ukrainians, in comparison to other ethnic groups, in terms of race.”380 379 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/6, Tagebuch 1940: Vierter Band – Oktober bis Dezember, p. 21. 380 Grelka, Die ukrainische Nationalbewegung..., 206; Arlt, Übersicht über die Bevölkerungsverhältnisse im Generalgouvernement, 46-47. 381 Broszat, Nationalsozialistische Polenpolitik 1939-1945, 60-61. 382 Quoted in Zamojszczyzna-Sonderlaboratorium SS. Zbiór dokumentów polskich i niemieckich z okresu okupacji hitlerowskiej vol. 2, ed. Czesław Madajczyk (Warszawa: Ludowa Spółdzielnia Wydawnicza, 1977), 70-71. 383 Johannes Sachslehner, Zarządca do spraw śmierci. Odilo Globocnik, eksterminacja i obozy zagłady, trans. Monika Kilis (Warszawa: Proszyński i S-ka, 2016), 105-107. However, the fremdvölkische policy in the GG was not without its critics. Arlt’s approach of exploitation and influence through welfare and aid represented a counter-concept, albeit less brutal, to the radical, racial views echoed by Himmler and his subordinate security and police officials in the GG. Local police leaders were expected to combine ideological loyalty with brutal efficiency in Germanizing the east.381 In many cases, such as in confrontations with Lublin district SS and police chief Odilo Globocnik, Arlt was powerless in ethnic issues. For example, when he looked to intervene for Poles and Ukrainians after receiving reports of police brutality, he often came up short. From the outset of his appointment, the Lublin SS chief saw himself as the authority in the district, discounting the civil governor and authorities. As early as autumn 1940, he was in a policy spat with Governor Ernst Zörner who saw his wild and unauthorized round-ups and executions of Jews as detrimental to war production. In his diary, Goebbels expressed his view that the sight of such political imprudence could force a man to tear his hair out of his head: We in the Reich are conducting a total war along with all its consequences, subjecting all physiological and ideological goals toward the one ultimate goal of the final victory. Meanwhile, in the occupied areas such incidents occur as if we lived in times of peace… I could spend hours pulling on the ears of those responsible for this state… This example once again shows the lack of responsible leadership in the Reich and in the occupied territories.382 Members of Artl’s population and welfare department also complained of Globocnik's ruthless behavior. During one meeting, Globocnik referred to their plans of using the Jews as an internal labor source for GG projects as a “circus.”383 Furthermore, Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich, chief of the Reich Main Security Office (RSHA), frequently intervened directly to Frank against Arlt. The SS and police considered the welfare organizations as dens of possible conspiracy and centers for anti-German opinion-making; a fifth-column in the GG. Himmler even viewed Arlt’s ethnic approach as very liberal in comparison to Nazi racial doctrine. District police officials looked with antipathy toward the aid networks created by Arlt and, perhaps more so, toward receiving requests by the local civil authorities to refrain from intervening in ethnic matters.384 Neither was Frank spared. In condoning the ethnic policy, he was later accused of promoting Ukrainian and Polish interests over that of Volksdeutsche.385 384 Arlt, Polen-, Ukrainer-, Juden-Politik im Generalgouvernement..., Torzecki, Polacy i ukraińcy..., 53; Matthäus and Mallmann (eds), Deutsche, Juden, Völkermord..., 98; Aly and Heim, Architects of Annihilation..., 102-114. 385 Grelka, “Polityka narodowościowa niemieckich władz okupacyjnych we wschodniej Polsce...,” 80. 386 Veryha, The Correspondence…, 70-72. 387 Ibid, 73-76. Throughout March and April 1940, a combination of fieldtrips and meetings in Kraków defined an active course for the Ukrainians, one which pursued to strengthen the regional committees while still awaiting approval for recognition of the center. The conclusions reached echoed the need for an organized Ukrainian center to manage the ethnic community. While they awaited the occupier’s decision toward the UNO project statute, Kubiiovych stated they would continue to organize aid committees; something the Abwehr encouraged. Even though their work would be regionally limited, he noted their cooperation with local German administrators as of tantamount importance. He also questioned local Polish discrimination, seen as the glaring problems for Ukrainian organized life: “Why impose on them [Ukrainians] the hated Polish policemen, of which they, simply said, insulted, abused and violated them with weapons? Why again are Poles rehired in [administrative] offices and the Polish language reintroduced in contrary to the Ukrainian [regional] character?”386 What Kubiiovych proposed was the creation of an ethnic (völkische) organization, what he called the Ukrainian main aid committee (Ukrainische Haupthilfeausschuss) to plan and coordinate the social work of regional committees with the occupiers. This would create what he deemed a “national link,” tying the peripheries together to a center and forming a relationship between the Ukrainians and the German administration at all levels. The regional committees would pursue social welfare initiatives such as organizing aid, assisting in the “rational and systematic placement” of Ukrainians in administrative positions, organizing economic life and cultural enlightenment; youth education, physical fitness and creating local fire brigades. He emphasized the need to revitalize prewar institutions which focused on social education and wellness: Prosvita Society, the Sils’kii Hospodar agricultural society and the Sokil physical fitness society. This “psychological calming and relaxation,” he argued, would entice Ukrainians to work and produce.387 In April, a two-day congress of Ukrainians from throughout the GG was called to resolve and define the regional committees and a center. 57 delegates represented 27 committees. On the eve of the congress, Kubiiovych delivered a lecture to the guests. He described the historical background of Ukrainian organized life during the Polish-German war and detailed the current state of GG Ukrainian affairs. He sycophantically thanked the Wehrmacht and Hitler for “having saved us from the Polish yoke.” He extolled the military advance of the army which “destroyed the Polish state” and “brought them to the doorstep of the West Ukrainian capital” – Lwów. He did not fail to mention the contribution of the Sushko Legion and regular Ukrainians: “we can say with pride that our people also participated actively in the war against Poland, namely by the soldiers of the Ukrainian Legion, through the Ukrainian uprising in the hinterland of the Polish Army and by the sympathy of the whole Ukrainian population, which helped the advance of the German troops.”388 It is evident from these comments that the OUN regarded the armed skirmishes between Ukrainians and retreating Poles in September 1939 as part of a ‘national uprising.’ 388 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 17, folder 21, Vortrag von Prof. Dr. Kubijowytsch, April 12, 1940. 389 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 18, folder 2, Protokol Zїzdu, April 14-15, 1940. 390 Vasyl’ Omelianovych Hlibovyts’kyi was a journalist and Ukrainian Greek Catholic nationalist activist from Eastern Galicia. He was the son of a Greek Catholic priest and related to Bohdan Lepkyi and Zenon Kuzelia. He studied at the Greek Catholic seminary in Lwów and Munich; however he was never ordained a priest. He organized and headed the Greek Catholic youth organization Orly and editied its ideological newspaper. Fleeing Soviet occupation, he and his supporters settled in Jarosław where he was instrumental in organizing a Ukrainian committee there. He represented the Zasiannia region during conferences in Kraków and accompanied Kubiiovych and Sushko during their November 1939 meeting with Frank in Sanok. Because of his religious background, Sushko nicknamed him “Jesuit” and “black spirit” (chornyi dukh). He served as Kubiiovych’s deputy until 1942; later becoming the third man in the UTsK structure behind Kubiiovych and Kost’ Pan’kivs’kyi. Under constant German surveilance in Kraków – where he was forced to stay as they did not permit him to travel to Lwów – he later worked in the Ukrainian publishing house to be “off the radar.” He fled the GG in 1944 with the publishing house to Vienna before reaching Bavaria by war's end. He settled in Munich where he was treated for a recurring nervous disorder. Kubiiovych believes Hlibovyts’kyi, who could not come to terms with living in exile, returned to Soviet-occupied Lwów where he was presumably arrested as a Nazi collaborator and deported east. Kubiiovych, Meni 85, 130-134. The first discussed concerned a central policy. Arlt spoke from the GG perspective, noting the UNO project statute was rejected yet mentioned of guidelines being worked out regarding the functioning of aid committees; ones which foresaw the activity of one pan-Ukrainian organization with subcommittees and delegates in the field. In this, Kubiiovych saw two positive characteristics. First, accepting these guidelines would be the final step towards finally legalizing committees throughout the GG. Second, although they would limit the capabilities of a center, it did not hinder envisioned work at the regional levels.389 During deliberations, Vasyl’ Hlibovyts’kyi390 raised the issue of a leader for the envisioned organization. He nominated Kubiiovych, the current ‘trusted man’ vis-à-vis the occupation authorities to head this position. He urged delegates to approve him “to be the leader of our life, something that is necessary for our moral comfort and for people from other places who dare to question his person.” Following a vote, Kubiiovych was elected central leader, a motion approved with applause. After the war, he claimed this confirmed his appointment to head a Ukrainian center in the GG from November 1939. In this way, he attempted to diminish the role the Germans played in organizing Ukrainians. He claimed the form given to the future UTsK by them was of secondary importance as he was entrusted and authorized by Ukrainian society to work in his capacity as committee head.391 However, the presence of Arlt and Bisanz during the congress dispute this. The latter reminded delegates the assignment of the committees: to organize and guide welfare, not political work. Pleased with the choice of Kubiiovych as central leader, Bisanz emphasized the need for further German-Ukrainian collaboration.392 It was this congress which called to life the regional aid committees and a central one – the Ukrainian Central Committee – as a steering body to represent Ukrainian interests before the GG authorities. 391 Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Heneral’nii Huberniї, 81. 392 LAC, VFK, MG 31 D 203, volume 18, folder 2, Protokol Zїzdy, April 14-15, 1940. 393 Grelka, Die ukrainische Nationalbewegung..., 195-196; Kolianchuk, Ukraїn’ska viis’kova emihratsiia u Pol’shchi 1920-1939, 157; 198. 394 Wiszka, Emigracja ukraińska w Polsce, 1920-1939, 26-80. 395 BA, NA 43/32, Betrifft: UNR-Regierung der Ukrainer in Polen, January 19, 1940, p. 261. The congress adopted the Ukrainian Central Committee name of the émigré organization which functioned in interwar Poland. Subject to the UNR-exile political center, the interwar UTsK was the coordination point for all Ukrainian associations and organizations with a well developed network of regional branches throughout the eastern territories inhabited by Ukrainians.393 The two committees shared glaring similarities. Both were created to give social aid and relief to the Ukrainians on Polish territory. At least officially, both were apolitical in nature and appearance. However, both were envisioned by their political supervisors to be used in their respective liberation movements. Structurally, the interwar committee contained an internal administration with social and welfare relief departments – organizational, financial, cultural-educational, humanitarian, prisoner relief, and legal; the GG committee would have an almost identical composition. The UNR committee had regional subcommittees; the GG committee did too. It organized Ukrainian schools, choruses, student aid societies, female societies; the GG committee would also.394 According to the Reich foreign office, the interwar aid committee played a major social role for Dnieper Ukrainians in Poland.395 Accordingly, the foreign office was open to replicating the Polish Ukrainian-committee model. Just as the interwar UTsK represented Ukrainians – officially apolitically – before the Polish authorities, so too did the Germans envision an UTsK representing Ukrainians – also officially apolitically – before them. The choice of this name and the antecedence connected with it was no accident. It spoke loudly of the OUN’s vision of the central committee becoming its administrative, legal embryo; activated and exploited during the liberation movement when the opportunity arose. Just as with their predecessors, this central committee would mask an administration that could serve as a future government apparatus for a Ukrainian state. For their part, the German authorities accepted the use of the Ukrainian Central Committee or Ukrainische Hauptausschuss as the Kraków committee was the main or central one within the network of regional welfare committees. In their eyes, this was intended to be the central committee for aid and relief, nothing more. On April 19, 1940 a Ukrainian delegation participated in an audience with Governor General Frank at the Wawel Castle during which he officially permitted the aid committees to function in the GG. They were led into the audience by Arlt and Kurtz. Kubiiovych began by congratulating and wishing all the best for Adolf Hitler on his upcoming 51st birthday: “We wish, on the eve of the Führer’s birthday, that he will have much strength and health to achieve his goal of victorious order throughout Greater Europe, and that God may bless the struggles of the German people.” As a token of their thanks, Ukrainian children dressed in folk costumes presented Frank with hand-decorated Easter eggs, a symbol of hope and “belief in the fulfillment of the mission of the Führer.” They also presented gifts for Hitler. The first was an album, wrapped in red Morocco leather, decorated with the Ukrainian coat of arms with a dedication to Hitler. Other gifts included a colored woodcutting hand decorated with Ukrainian national patterns, embroidered hand towels, a hand carved wooden plate decorated with Ukrainian national pattern and a hand carved wooden box ornately designed which contained 9 hand-painted Easter eggs.396 Frank acknowledged the loyalty of the Ukrainians toward his regime and cooperation between them. His rewards included the promised return of the Chełm Cathedral and the creation of Orthodox eparchies, a regulation of Ukrainian education and more representation throughout local administration. For their part, Kubiiovych expressed their thanks for the close bond created between the two thus far: “Mr. General Governor, we want to be true to our mission… to help peacefully and quietly in all of your great tasks and give thanks through our diligent cooperation for the gifts we received from you.”397 Upon concluding the audience, Frank treated the children to chocolate and a souvenir photograph. The members of the delegation and the German authorities bound their loyalty and newly-gained privileges over a glass of cognac.398 396 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 17, folder 21, Bericht über die Delegation der Ukrainer beim Generalgouvernement anlässlich des Geburstages des Führers, April 19, 1940. The inscription in the album read: “The Ukrainian people in the General Government, from the Ukrainian territories of the Lemko and San regions, the Chełm and Podlasie regions extend to the Führer of the Greater-German Reich warm congratulations on his birthday. With these congratulations we include a vow of faithful cooperation for the benefit of the Greater-German Reich.” 397 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/4, Tagebuch 1940: Zweiter Band – April bis Juni, pp. 92- 95. An hour prior to their audience, Frank received a Highlander (Górale) delegation which also expressed warm wishes of congratulations for Hitler on his upcoming birthday. The delegation thanked Frank for the care and support they found under his administration by expressing their pleasure in that their longing to be liberated from the Poles and Jews was finally fulfilled. 398 For a visual rendition of such ceremonies (the new year’s visit of Kubiiovych to Galicia District Governor Otto Wächter), see net-film.ru, “Zvukovyi tyzhnevnyk General’noho Gubernatorstva (1944)” (accessed October 7, 2018), To begin the administrative process of legalizing the aid committees in the population and welfare department, Fritz Arlt prepared a temporary guide. They would be located alongside German regional or city administrators with delegates in townships and villages. In the GG Internal Affairs Department, Kubiiovych would be their correspondent while also heading the central committee in Kraków. His tasks included presenting proposed candidates for the aid committees or delegates to the GG authorities for approval. The assigned role of the aid committees included the organization of “free social welfare” in cooperation with the German authorities at the local levels, to carry out the general welfare and care of Ukrainians and to collect and disperse material and financial funds to those in need.399 A special Ukrainian desk was created in the population and welfare department, headed by Bisanz, to be the intermediary between the Ukrainians and the GG authorities. In some ways, this was seen as a Ukrainian “ministry” in the GG administration. Its competencies included: handling all Ukrainian affairs solely for German interests, collaborating with all GG administrative institutions for uniform solutions to Ukrainian matter, compiling internal reports and materials concerning the Ukrainians, supervising the UTsK and aid committee activities, and receiving correspondences (reports, complaints and wishes) from the UTsK.400 399 Tsentral’nyi derzhavnyi arkhiv vyshchykh orhaniv vlady ta upravlinnia Ukraїny, Kyiv (TsDAVOVUU), Ukraїns’kyi Tsentral’nyi Komitet – Krakiv, Pol’shcha (UTsK), f. 3959, op. 1, spr. 5, Arlt Ukrainian Aid Committee report, May 4, 1940, p. 19. 400 BA, R 52 II/247, Bericht über den Aufbau im GG, July 1, 1940, p. 187. 401 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 17, folder 21, November 17, 1939. Through this guide, the German authorities de facto recognized Ukrainian organized life in the GG under the Ukrainian Central Committee. From this point, Kubiiovych and the central committee set to work to organize the aid committees throughout the occupied region, to bring them under the influence of the center while also defining specific regional assignments and roles. 3.5 – Volodymyr Kubiiovych, the UTsK and the GG Occupation Regime Important to the study of organized Ukrainian life in the General Government is the German opinion toward Kubiiovych and the UTsK as well as his views of collaboration with the occupier. To represent Ukrainian interests before the occupier and to work solely amongst the GG Ukrainians, the role of the Committee’s leader resembled that of an ambassador and intermediary. During the first Ukrainian-German meeting in November 1939, the Ukrainians defined an envisioned leader as someone who would be “bestowed with the full confidence of the German [occupation] government.”401 As UTsK leader, Volodymyr Kubiiovych became that trusted man. In his memoirs, Kubiiovych referred to those GG administrators involved in Ukrainian matters as “our German friends.” According to him, these were men who saw the need for organizing the Ukrainian ethnic group in the GG and providing them with certain rights; who were friendly and cordial in relations and who often collaborated with them. In other words, these were also individuals favorably disposed to the Ukrainians them if only to strengthen the GG divide and conquer ethnic policy. He held Abwehr officer Hans Koch in high esteem as he assisted Ukrainians flee Soviet occupation and, through the Kochstelle, provided welfare for them in the GG. Furthermore, he disclosed all Ukrainian issues discussed among GG authorities with Kubiiovych. Kurtz provided valuable assistance in Ukrainian cultural life and in the publishing sector. Governor Otto Wächter was acclaimed for his pro-Ukrainian policy in the Galicia District as he understood the need to collaborate with them there. The same was said about his deputy Otto Bauer, some with who Kubiiovych claimed he could speak frankly and openly about everything over coffee.402 402 Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Henera’lnii Huberniї, 59-61; Kubiiovych, Meni 85, 163-173. 403 Arlt, Polen-, Ukrainer-, Juden-Politik im Generalgouvernement..., 28; Kubiiovych, Meni 85, 167-168. 404 Kubiiovych, Meni 85, 167-168. 405 Ibid, 147- 149; Knysh, Pered pokhodom na skhid, vol. 2, 98. Another friend of the GG Ukrainians was Fritz Arlt; a man whom Kubiiovych claimed he was introduced to by Paliїv in Kraków. However, according to Arlt, the two met before the war when he became aware of the fact that Kubiiovych was conducting research in Koch’s Osteuropa-Institut in Breslau. A meeting was arranged in Katowice between the two men by a mutual colleague, Myron Luts’kyi of Maslosoiuz. It is likely Arlt served as an Abwehr contact with Kubiiovych. After meeting him, Arlt recalled his impressions: “Kubiiovych enjoyed a high reputation among the Ukrainians. He had a good connection with the Ukrainian political groups, the representatives of the parties, the resistance organizations, the youth movement and the Ukrainians working in social welfare.”403 Their later meeting in Kraków was a reunion of sorts. Kubiiovych described his relationship with Arlt as cordial even though the German maintained what he felt to be an air of racial superiority. Whereas on the one hand, the two took in a mutual excursion through the Tatra Mountains, on the other, Kubiiovych recalled Arlt once telling him: “I like Ukrainians and happily help them but if I received the order to eliminate them, I would execute it.” Regardless, Kubiiovych held him in high regard for his role in assisting the GG Ukrainians maximize their work within the limited framework of the aid committee statute.404 Kubiiovych also spoke well of Alfred Bisanz, the Abwehr agent later turned Ukrainian referee in Arlt’s population and welfare department. Because of his birth in Eastern Galicia and service in the Ukrainian Galician Army, Kubiiovych categorized him in his memoirs as a Ukrainian coworker. Having fled Soviet occupation in October 1939 and after making contact with him in the GG, Kubiiovych wrote that they took to like each other – Bisanz was impressed by his academic position while Kubiiovych respected his honesty and heartfelt approach to Ukrainian matters. He, like Koch, also kept Kubiiovych abreast of all administrative issues concerning Ukrainians. Unofficially, the two men spoke Ukrainian between themselves. Spending one Christmas Eve at Bisanz’s home, Kubiiovych recalled his melodic voice singing Silent Night. Knysh also recalled Bisanz in favorable terms: “Although a German, he associated with Ukrainians for several years, he was open to our hopes and honestly tried to help where he could; unfortunately his authority was very limited.”405 In his relations with the occupier, Kubiiovych literally spoke the Nazi language as his proposals described a “shared grammar” of nationalism and authoritarianism.406 Initially, the occupation became his outlet to vent built-up frustrations the trauma his academic experiences in interwar Poland caused. In the Germans, he found a nominal ally against everything that was Polish or Soviet. Furthermore, he found ways to exploit the formal assurances and concessions gained from the occupiers for the absolute benefit of the GG Ukrainians. Whether this came at the expense of Jews or Poles was indifferent as he espoused anti-Jewish, anti-Polish sentiments to emphasize the Ukrainian deutschfreundlich image. In turn, the Germans recognized and appreciated all signs of Ukrainian loyalty.407 He used his position to lobby for ukrainization in all aspects of social life, to propose political solutions to the Ukrainian question and to intervene in issues concerning Ukrainians – from resettlement to aiding prisoners or freeing unjustly held ones in German prisons or labor camps; to scrutinizing and complaining of German injustices being done toward Ukrainians in the GG. 406 Amar, The Paradox of Ukrainian Lviv…, 128-129. 407 Grelka, Die ukrainische Nationalbewegung…, 198-199; Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Henera’lnii Huberniї, 43. 408 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 17, folder 21, Vortrag von Prof. Dr. Kubijowytsch, April 1940; Bericht über die Delegation der Ukrainer beim Generalgouverneur anlässlich des Geburstages des Führers, April 19, 1940. 409 Veryha, The Correspondance…, 241; 552. 410 Amar, The Paradox of Ukrainian Lviv..., 128. 411 Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Heneral’nii Huberniї, 83. He claimed audiences with Frank were conducted based on a prepared schematic with his texts approved beforehand. In speaking Nazi, he paid homage to Hitler and other officials, recognizing their superiority, thanking them for liberating the Ukrainians from either the Polish or Bolshevik “yoke” and seeing in them the most advantageous partner for Ukrainian national self-development. He accentuated the idea of a mutual relationship as benefitting Ukrainians and Germans. He gave tangible examples of mutual cooperation and common outlooks, which, according to him, began in September 1939 with the men of the Sushko Legion fighting alongside the Wehrmacht. He wrote to Frank, describing Ukraine as the “outpost of European culture,” with Ukrainians first engaged in “a fight to the death against Bolshevism” in 1918.408 He categorized Poles and Jews as “hostile saboteurs and concealed communists” who denounced Ukrainians to the authorities or, in the case of the Jews, exploited Ukrainian peasants.409 As such, Ukrainian historian Ivan Krypiakevych described him as a man driven by ambition, personal resentment and hatred of both, the Soviet Union and Poles.410 In notes, memorandums or meetings with the Germans, he most often described collaboration in the sense of positive cooperation (Zusammenarbeit). Conversely, they also viewed collaboration in terms of positive euphemisms – nationale Verwaltungen, or freiwillige Mitarbeiter. Kubiiovych later attempted to explain ‘speaking Nazi’ as a necessity created by the occupiers and their totalitarian regime in which “from time to time, we had to make loyalty declarations.”411 Besides speaking Nazi, Ukrainians in the GG also searched and reached for any sort of connections not only with the master Germanic race but to also ideologically differentiate themselves from other Slavic Untermenschen. Much of this continued the anthropological arguments historian and statesman Mykhailo Hrushevs’kyi outlined in his multi-volume History of Ukraine-Rus in which he contextualized the Ukrainian race in terms of that discipline. He concluded the Slavs being racially mixed with the Polish and Russian types differing from the Ukrainian one.412 412 Mykhailo Hrushevs’kyi, History of Ukraine-Rus’. From Prehistory to the Eleventh Century, eds. Andrzej Poppe and Frank Sysyn, trans. Marta Skorupsky, vol. 1 (Edmonton: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, 1997), 46-47. 413 Stepan Rudnyts’kyi, Ukraine: The Land and its People (New York: Rand McNally, 1918), 165-167. He described the Ukrainian “race” as “of tall stature, with long legs and broad shoulders, strongly pigmented complexion, dar, rich, curly hair, rounded head and long face with a high broad brow, dark eyes, straight nose, strongly developed elongated lower part of the face, medium mouth and small ears.” 414 Stepan Rudyts’kyi, Chomu my khochemo samostiinoї Ukraїny, ed. L.M. Harbachuk (L’viv: Svit, 1994), 39. 415 Ibid, 299. 416 Rossoliński-Liebe, “The Fascist Kernel of Ukrainian Genocidal Nationalism,” 21-24. Modern Ukrainian geographer Stepan Rudnyts’kyi, who provided Hrushevs’kyi’s historical theory with a geographical component and whose works Arlt consulted, argued that Ukrainians, based on physical characteristics, showed little anthropological similarities to Poles, Belarusians, and Russians. All three “stand very close to one another, while the Ukrainian is very different from all his neighbors and, from an anthropological point of view, holds an entirely independent position.”413 Moreover, an independent nation equated to an independent race; the two going hand in hand with one another. He explained this concept as a “large community, the shape of whose bodies is similar to that of each other, but different from those of other nations.”414 He also praised eugenics as a means of national purification, saying “On the one hand, we should enable as many healthy and racially full-fledged exemplars of the nation as possible to marry and breed. On the other hand, we should not allow sick or racially less valuable exemplars to do that.”415 Racial and eugenic thought became an integral part of the modern Ukrainian nationalist revolution. In turn, this scholarship significantly impacted OUN ideology as well as UPA genocidal policy as radical nationalists adopted the thoughts or slogans for their own needs without fully studying academic context or intentions of the authors. OUN racism related to the idea of independence (samostiinist’), arguing that Ukraine should become an independent state as a particular race, which needed a nation-state to fully develop its features, inhabited it. To him, OUN racism traced back to the nationalist extremist Mykola Mikhnovs’kyi’s appeal, “Do not marry a foreign woman because your children will be your enemies.” This, he noted, OUN members took literally. To the Ukrainian nationalists, racism and eugenics equated to purifying the nation, culture, and language from foreign influences – Polish, Russian, or Jewish – as means to obtaining a pure Ukrainian ‘race.’ This form of racism, Rossonliński-Liebe concluded, was typical for radical movements in nations that were provinces of foreign empires or substantially influenced by other cultures.416 During the war, Ievhen Pelens’kyi, through his scholarly specialization in Slavic ethnology, attempted to correlate Ukrainians as racially influenced by the Nordic Aryans. He claimed that the magic and symbolism of pagan Christmas and New Year folk traditions linked Aryans and Ukrainians, the former viewed by him as “settled peasants,” from Varangian influences spanning the early Kyivian period.417 In turn, Dr. Rostyslav Iendyk argued of the Nordic and Dinaric races being most dominant among western Ukrainians. In 1934 Iendyk wrote a biography of Hitler for Knyhozbirnia Vistnyk, a series edited by Dmytro Dontsov and printed by his publishing house. Hitler was presented as a modern, trendsetting politician; the embodiment of a movement that guaranteed peace and order for Europe. As one of Dontsov’s most faithful followers, he developed a focus on blood and its purity during the interwar period. He continued this approach during the wartime period. In his racial analysis, he contributed the presence of other races within the Ukrainian ethnic group to continental wars spanning the centuries. As he explained, this stemmed from ethnic groups transgressing their borders and intermingling on foreign land.418 According to this understanding, racial differentiation came as a result of Ukrainian expansion and not invasion. 417 Eugen Pelenskyj, “Arische Tradition beim ukrainischen Weihnachtsfest,” Das Generalgouvernement vol. 1 no. 4 (January 1941), 45-46. 418 Rostyslav Iendyk, “Antropolohia ukraїntsiv” in Heohrafiia Ukraїny, (ed) Volodymyr Kubiiovych, 2nd ed (Krakiv-L’viv: Ukrains’ke Vydavnytstvo, 1943), 334-340; Myroslav Shkandrij, Ukrainian Nationalism: Politics Ideology, and Literature, 1929-1956 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015), 87; 97-98; Rossoliński-Liebe, Stepan Bandera: The Life and Afterlife of a Ukrainian Nationalist..., 79. His interwrar works included Antropolohichni prykmety ukraïns'koho narodu (1934) and Rehit Ariadnyka (1937). He also published Vstup do rasovoï budovy Ukraïny in 1949. As Shkandrij explained, his first book purported to be a study of varying racial types; asserting that psychological and cultural features dependd upon racial origins. Some race, he suggested were inferior. In categorizing ethnic groups by race, Iendyk classified Jews as “Oriental type,” Ukrainians as closer to the “Nordic type” dominant in Europe. Interestingly enough, he devoted a great deal of attention to describing physical appearance – skull formation, eyes, hair, etc. – and included photographs of well-know personages as illustrative examples. Dmytro Paliїv’s picture is presented as “primarily Nordic but with an Armenoid addition” while a caricature of “a Bolshevik agitator” served to illustrate the “Oriental type.” Also in 1934, a biography of Mussolini was published by Mykhailo Ostroverkha as the first volume of the Knyhozbirnia Vistnyk. In 1937, a biography of Francisco Franco also appeared. As geographer and regional anthropologist (ethnographer), Kubiiovych also viewed Ukrainians through the anthropological context in defining its racial foundation. As a student of the Rudnyts’kyi school of geography, who was in turn a student of the German geographer Albrecht Penck, Kubiiovych’s maps, diagrams and charts echoed the Volksboden and Kulturboden understandings of Penck. Whereas his Ostforschung models were used to legitimize German territorial belonging and cultural supremacy, Kubiiovych’s understanding of Volksboden and Kulturboden defined Ukrainian ethnographic territory and the distinctiveness of Ukrainian language, culture and traditions. His theory of ethnographic Ukrainian territory also lay in Rudnyts'kyi’s thesis of historic belonging; the notion that no matter where territory inhabited at some point in history by Ukrainians found itself, it maintained a connection with that ethnic group thanks to their deep-rooted relationship with the native land. This, he claimed, was never fully eradicated; neither by the Mongols nor by the Poles or Russians.419 In his piece in the monthly journal Das Generalgouvernement, an edition dedicated to the ethnic groups of the GG, Kubiiovych argued GG Ukrainians constituted only a small portion of greater, ethnographic Ukrainian territory. For him, those in the Lemko region, in territories along the San River, in the Chełm and Podlasie areas constituted four natural, ethnographic units of Ukrainian territory which was an exponent of Greater Ukraine.420 419 Burleigh, Germany turns Eastwards..., 25-26; Rudnyts’kyi, Chomu my khochemo samostiinoї Ukraїny, 95-97. 420 Wolodymyr Kubijowytsch, “Die Ukrainische Volksgruppe,” Das Generalgouvernement vol. 1 no. 3 (December 1940), 14-19. 421 Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Heneral’nii Huberniї, 352. 422 Kost’ Pan’kivs’kyi, Roky nimets’koї okupatsiї (New York-Toronto: Zhyttia i Myshli, 1965), 174. 423 Fritz Arlt, Die Ordnung der Fürsorge und Wohlfahrt im Generalgouvernement (Krakau 1940), 4. 424 Torzecki, Polacy i Ukraińcy..., 54. 425 Homo Politicus [Ivan Kedryn], Prychyny upadku Pol’shchi (Krakiv: Ukraїns’ke vydavnytstvo 1940), 110. An important question to ponder is what Kubiiovych, through the UTsK, aimed to achieve in collaborating with the German occupiers. After the war, Kubiiovych defended collaborating with such men as Arlt, Bisanz, Koch or Oberländer as proving very beneficial for Ukrainian issues since they helped gain contacts with German bureaucrats and strengthened the position of the UTsK in the GG.421 Certainly, collaborating with the Nazis strengthened Ukrainian reliance on them; what the Germans hoped and envisioned. Their divide and conquer approach also ensured no rapprochement between Ukrainians and Poles. After all, as Kost’ Pan’kivs’kyi, a non-OUN nationalist collaborator from Lwów and Kubiiovych’s later deputy recalled, collaboration with the Germans intended to keep anything and everything that was Polish away: “Our refusal to cooperate with the administration would mean a return to Polish times, our places would be occupied by Polish Volksdeutsche or Poles…this would be even worse.”422 Ukrainians collaborated with the Germans as they viewed the occupation as an opportunity to advance their agenda. Whether this came at the expense of Poles or Jews was a moot point as the occupiers believed Ukrainians would unwillingly collaborate with either once those two were stripped of legal rights.423 All levels of UTsK administration were rife with Ukrainians working for the Abwehr, SD or Gestapo.424 Ukrainians also had little grounds to demonstrate loyalty to the defeated Polish state, one which refused to provide an environment for national evolution. Ivan Kedryn echoed this sentiment in his wartime monograph which claimed prewar Poland’s approach toward and handling of minority questions (especially its anti-Ukrainian position) created such an unbearable atmosphere that: Every non-Pole in Poland wanted change. “Let it be worse if only different” – this position, although politically illogical yet psychologically understandable, was expressed primarily by Ukrainians and Belarusians. And because of this – in accordance with historical truth – it is necessary to state the fact that at the moment of Poland’s collapse, none of the minorities sympathized with her!425 Thus, collaboration with Germany was a reaction of Ukrainian political factors to the events for which Warsaw, and later Moscow, bore responsibility in the recent past. Once non-Ukrainian elements were removed, they looked to make-up for what they lost in the past by going in the offensive, i.e. to swiftly rectify prewar socio-cultural marginalization by strengthening national consciousness to later make concrete claims.426 426 Frank Grelka, “Ukrainizacja w dobie podporządkowania ras. Ukraiński Centralny Komitet w Generalnej Guberni w latach 1939-1941,” Biuletyn Ukrainoznawczy no. 8 (2002), 116; Jurij Kyryczuk, “Problem ukraińskiej kolaboracji w czasie II wojny światowej” in Polska-Ukraina: trudne pytania vol. 9 (Warszawa 2002), 247; Torzecki, Polacy i Ukraińcy..., 56. 427 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 17, folder 27, Protokol zasidannia UTsK v uriadi H.H., October 14, 1942. 428 “Z nadiieiu na zustrich maibutn’oho,” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 3 no. 3 (January 7, 1942), 1. 429 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/20, Tagebuch 1942, August 15, 1942, pp. 109-110. 430 “No. 1.84: Dokladnaia zapiska V.N. Merkulova I.V. Stalinu o deiatel’nosti ukrainskikh emigrantskikh organizatsii za kordonom (April 6, 1941) in Ukrainskie natsionalisticheskie organizatsii… vol. 1, 236. In the broadest sense, the occupier created an atmosphere for collaboration in which ethnic groups cooperated with them to not only survive but to revise previous injustices in the wake of the new order created. Kubiiovych described the purpose of the UTsK as being the intermediary between GG Ukrainians and the administration while also supporting German-Ukrainian cooperation.427 Ukrainians saw in Nazism the revisionist power on the continent and a catalyst for change. For example, in his 1942 New Year’s message, Kubiiovych noted that even though Ukrainian irredentist aspirations were not fulfilled after the German attack on the USSR, over a two year period, German “blows” caused the defeat of Ukraine’s “eternal gravediggers” who in the past built their future on the corpses of Ukrainians.428 The regime looked favorably on those willing to loyally cooperate so long as it did not harm their racial-legal politics. To divide and conquer Poles and Ukrainians, tense antagonisms were exploited whenever possible to gain the greatest racial and economic benefits for Berlin. According to Frank, such exploitation also meant preventing any solidarity from forming between the two groups against them.429 Quite often, the occupier played on the nationalist aspirations and yearnings of Ukrainians (as signaled above in the Soviet report) – a state of their own or autonomous territory they could call “ethnographically” Ukrainian. At times references were made to a Greater Ukrainian state, even though Frank expressly prohibited the use of the term, to maintain a state of allegiance and obedience with the occupied Ukrainians. For instance, a Reich education ministry representative who spoke to a Ukrainian meeting in Chełm in 1940 reportedly stated: “You must wait a little longer and you will see your Great Ukraine, a free state; rest assured that Hitler is no less worried about you than the German people but it is difficult to fight on two fronts. We gave you Ukrainian schools, Ukrainian institutions, permission to work in the police; we gave you the Polish lands and churches, we treat you with confidence and therefore we need a little more patience…”430 Whether Hitler would approve of such a state or territory was a moot point as the vision or hope of a future state, especially in the early years of the war, superseded logical thought. In a meeting with Ukrainians in Chełm, Kubiiovych described early successes of collaboration in terms of a cycle which produced greater returns for social gains as a result of closer contacts with the occupier. He explained this in the sense that each meeting with either Frank or other GG administrators presented the Ukrainians with concrete achievements. Furthermore, he believed collaboration improved their national prestige in the eyes of the Germans.431 For Ukrainians, this was the beginning of their long-awaited, envisioned national emancipation and signaled the improvement of social life, at first following the collapse of the Polish occupier, and later the Soviet one. Kubiiovych understood the pragmatic and ideological ideas of dependence and loyalty to Germany. Sympathizing with the nationalist OUN Melnykite faction subsequently molded his pro-German orientation; something which was unreserved among them.432 431 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 18, folder 3, Orhanizatsiia Ukraїns’koho Tsentral’noho Komitetu ta ioho zavdannia, 1940/1941. 432 Stefan Mękarski, et al, “Die Südostgebiete Polens zur Zeit der deutschen Besatzung (Juni 1941 bis Juni 1943). Verwaltung und Nationalitätenprobleme.” Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas no. 16 vol. 3 (September 1968), 390. 433 Czesław Madajczyk, “Zwischen neutraler Zusammenarbeit der Bevölkerung okkupierter Gebiete und Kollaboration mit den Deutschen“ in Werner Röhr (ed), Europa unterm Hakenkreuz: Okkupation und Kollaboration (1938-1945) (Berlin-Heidelberg: Hüthig, 1994), 51; Grelka, Die ukrainische Nationalbewegung..., 197-198. 434 Madajczyk, “Zwischen neutraler Zusammenarbeit der Bevölkerung...” in Röhr (ed), Europa unterm Hakenkreuz..., 51; Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Heneral’nii Huberniї, 421. 435 Kubiiovych, Meni 85, 104. In between his explanation, Kubiiovych gave an example of what he often heard from German NSDAP members or SS men in conversations “by the shot glass,” “You are so sympathethic and positively disposed to us but if only you were to know what is being prepared for you all…” He clarified that during such less-official meetings, he was given water in his shot glass. 436 Veryha, The Correspondence…, 468-469. Kubiiovych’s correspondence with various ranking German officials documents a certain type of strategic and propagandistic, mindful collaboration; all aimed at organic work throughout the GG.433 Practically, he did not want Ukrainians to meet the common fate of the Poles and Jews: “we had no reasons to suffer German oppression… and, at the same time, to become disloyal toward the Germans.”434 He looked to use the relationship formed with the occupation authorities to not only save the Ukrainian substance but to also create out of it a nationally-conscious ethnic group. He expressed such intentions in his postwar memoirs: “One has to admit that from all the territories [occupied by the Germans], we in the GG had the best living conditions. The future was unknown to us and further German occupation could have brought worse consequences upon us but we had to do that which the given moment demanded… But our duty was to legally defend Ukrainian interests within the German reality.”435 He viewed Ukrainian hopes through the World War I perspective in which German victory equated to a Ukrainian victory; German defeat meant the defeat of Ukrainian national ideals. Victory was described throughout occupation as a common destiny for both nations in the east.436 He echoed such a vision by writing: “A new Europe is being born, one in which the Ukrainian nation will find its place, under the circumstance however that we will surrender ourselves and create a new order… German dominance will also be our dominance and that is why cooperation with the Germans… lays in our interests.”437 437 Quoted in Grelka, Die ukrainische Nationalbewegung..., 193. 438 Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Heneral’nii Huberniї, 43-44. 439 Dieter Pohl, Nationalsozialistische Judenverfolgung in Ostgalizien 1941-1944. Organisations und Durchführung eines staatlichen Massenverbrehens (Munich: R. Oldenbourg, 1996), 41. 440 Grelka, Die ukrainische Nationalbewegung..., 199-200; Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Heneral’nii Huberniї, 177. 441 Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Heneral’nii Huberniї, 359. 442 Amar, The Paradox of Ukrainian Lviv…, 129. In Kubiiovych’s opinion, closer German-Ukrainian collaboration stemmed from the hopelessness for any German-Polish cooperation. Because of this “German factors learned to differentiate Ukrainians from Poles and to meet their simple demands.”438 In the short-term, the work of the UTsK meant to facilitate the everyday social life of Ukrainians in the GG. However, long-term objectives went further, anticipating to nationalize a burgeoning nationally-conscious population by means of the intelligentsia as well as through advantageous political situations in order to clearly define Ukrainian ethnographic territory at the expense of Poles and Jews. Certainly, he must have been well aware of the consequences his demands for the social betterment of GG Ukrainians had at the expense of Poles or Jews.439 Kubiiovych wrote of these goals in this way: “And the UTsK and local committees… exerted efforts so that our people got the appropriate work, in particular, to fill Ukrainians in civil service positions and in the local administrations on our territories not reserved exclusively for the Germans. We exploited the moment of German administrative reorganization…” All this in the hope of a “reunion” with Western Ukraine in the new European order being created.440 By way of the occupier’s social concessions, he hoped to create the embryo of a modern estate system or system of ukrainized social groups – clergy, intelligentsia (civil administrators and merchants) and common, nationally-conscious peasants – throughout perceived ethnographic territory: This work, the various aspects of which we came to learn, headed toward increasing the Ukrainian state of ownership by removing Polish influences and strengthening the national consciousness of local populations to then transition to an offensive position and win back at least a portion of that which we lost in the past. In particular, additional effort was needed to create our third estate by securing the urban administrative stratum and ukrainizing cities. We hoped to solve this task by way of our widely-established social-educational activities.441 In fluently speaking Nazi, the face Kubiiovych presented to the Germans, as Tarik Cyril Amar described, was that of “a kindred spirit, an up-to-date right-wing völkish totalitarian” attune to the opportunities offered by the occupiers and their envisioned new order.442 In other words, he too advocated for a place for Ukraine in the new European order being built by the Germans at the expense of its historic enemies. One question which deserves brief answering is the following: how did the Soviet Union – allied with Nazi Germany until 1941 and enemies with them thereafter – view the Ukrainian nationalist question in the GG? Undoubtedly, Ukrainian nationalism was viewed as a danger to any future short-term or long-term plans for Sovietization. Interesting enough, in the newly annexed and incorporated former Polish territories the USSR gained via the secret protocol to the 1939 Nazi-Soviet Pact, the Soviets, like the Nazi Germans, exploited prewar Poland’s handling of ethnic minority issues against the dominant Polish population; deemed a class enemy of the state. Indeed the Red Army invaded eastern Poland under the pretext of socially liberating Belarusians and Ukrainians from the “Polish yoke.” In combating the Poland of the masters (pańska Polska), the Soviets aimed to win-over the allegiance of the lower classes, the younger generation and parts of the intelligentsia. Following the shame elections which incorporated former eastern Polish territories into the Ukrainian (and Belarusian) Soviet Socialist Republic, Poles were relegated to the status of a national minority while Ukrainians became a titular nationality taking precedence over Poles and Jews in administrative positions, culture and education. Specifically concerning education, the prewar Jan Kazimierz University was sovietized – renamed Ivan Franko University – or, as Ola Hnatiuk described: “with one swift motion the autonomy of the university was liquidated in favor of a Soviet centralized form of administration.” Furthermore, the number of Polish primary schools dropped between 1939 and 1940 – from 4,907 to 984 – while Ukrainian ones increased exponentially from 371 to 5,336.443 443 Mick, Lemberg, Lwów, Lviv…, 262-269; Ola Hnatiuk, Odwaga i starch. (Wrocław: Wojnowice, 2015), 241. For a specific discussion on the Sovietization of education and culture in Eastern Galicia, see Hnatiuk, Odwaga i starch, 240-331. 444 Timothy Snyder, Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin (New York: Basic Books, 2010), 127-129; 131-134; Amar, The Paradox of Ukrainian Lviv, 55-57; Mick, Lemberg, Lwów, Lviv…, 273. According to Mick, out of the 220 thousand deported fro all of Poland’s eastern territories, 25 thousand were Ukrainians. In a similar way as the German occupiers in the GG, the Soviets overturned the prewar Polish social order. The Second Polish Republic was reviled during public meetings and in the communist press. Every Polish intellectual was considered a spy and enemy. Registering for compulsory internal passports provided an ideal opportunity to begin mass deportations of Poles deemed dangerous to the state: military veterans, foresters, civil servants, policemen and their families. Some 22 thousand army officers, policemen and reservists – members of the prewar elite – were massacred by the NKVD in the Katyń Forest, Ostashkov and Starobel’sk. A series of four major deportations targeted Poles in 1940 and 1941; deporting an estimated 220 thousand to Siberia or Kazakhstan where they toiled in labor camps and braved the extreme elements to survive. Incidentally, during the final wave of deportations in 1941, several thousand Ukrainians were also removed. OUN members were also arrested and imprisoned or placed before show trials and sentenced to death.444 In the summer of 1940, the Soviets approach changed as they realized the majority of Ukrainians anti-communists and sympathizers of the OUN; sympathies they could not win over. In turn, Poles were given more cultural concessions: they had better chances of gaining administrative jobs, teachers were rehired, artists were courted and the number of Polish publications expanded. Ironically, thanks to the Nazi-Soviet border created at the expense of prewar Polish territory, Ukrainians who fled to the GG or found themselves in Prague, Vienna or Berlin were spared Sovietization or repression while the Galician form of nationalism flourished albeit under German surveillance or with nominal German permission. However, under Soviet occupation, Galician Ukrainians met Dnieper Ukrainians as west met east. Some Ukrainian nationalists who remained in the Soviet zone, like Kost’ Pan’kivs’kyi (who would later become Kubiiovych’s deputy), viewed the meeting as positive in that Soviet occupation broke the circle of “petty Galician-Ukrainian concerns” to impose a pan-Ukrainian perspective.445 Others, such as prewar parliamentarian and women’s activist Milena Rudnyts’ka viewed eastern Ukrainians as a foreign lot capable of change. She believed that Galician Ukrainian nationalism was to be the tool by which they could be taught and “converted.” However she ultimately came to realize that Soviet rule was reshaping Ukrainians while Soviet miseducation among easterners was irreversible.446 She ultimately fled to the German occupation zone. 445 Kost’ Pan’kivs’kyi, Vid derzhavy do komitetu (New York-Toronto: Zhyttia i mysli, 1970), 23-24. 446 Amar, The Paradox of Ukrainian Lviv, 76. Pro-German and overt anti-Soviet sympathies made Ukrainian nationalists enemies in the eyes of the USSR. This was true throughout the war; whether during the honeymoon of Nazi-Soviet collaboration or after their divorce. Soviet reports described the UTsK and its apparatus as the de facto and de iure “organ of the General Government and the fascist Nazi party…” All members, including Kubiiovych and Pan’kivs’kyi, were simply labelled “Hitler’s accomplices” and “the worst enemies of the Ukrainian people.” Of course, ‘Ukrainian people’ meant Ukrainians under Soviet domination. One detailed NKVD report stated: This is a gang of faithful dogs and German assistants… which has nothing in common with the Ukrainian people. These are Germans agents in the Ukrainian environment, they are typical representatives of the Ukrainian-German nationalists. Specific examples of the Ukrainian pro-German line were presented. For instance, the November 1939 meeting between the Ukrainian delegation and Hans Frank in Kraków was seen as an assurance from the Ukrainian side to “fully serve Hitlerite Germany” by assisting the GG occupation authorities in their activities among Ukrainians there. Convincing Ukrainians for labor service to the Reich or in the GG and assisting in confiscating harvest quotas – what was deemed “brisk robbery” – only further convinced the Soviets that the UTsK actively contributed to the exploitation of Ukrainians (viewed as members of the Soviet family of Slavs) by assisting the German occupier in doing their dirty work.447 447 “No. 3.27: Iz spravki zamestitelia nachal’nika Otdela po bor’be z banditizmom NKVD USSR V.G. Burylina v NKVD USSR o deiatel’nosti Ukrainskogo tsentral’nogo komiteta (UTsK) v oblastiakh USSR, vkliuchennykh v distrikt Galitsia (April 2, 1944)” in Ukrainskie natsionalisticheskie organizatsii… vol. 2, 116-118; 120. 448 Ibid; “No. 1.56: Doklad nachal’nika 5 Otdela UGB NKVD USSR V.G. Shevchenko nachal’niku 5 Otdela GUGB NKVD SSSP P.M. Fitinu o deiatel’nosti OUN v Germanii (August 8, 1940)” in Ukrainskie natsionalisticheskie organizatsii… vol. 1, 163. 449 “No. 1.81: Spravka nachal’nika 1 Upravleniia NKGB SSSP P.M. Fitina narkomu gosbezopasnosti USSR P.Ia. Meshiku ob ukrainskikh natsionalisticheskikh organizatsiakh v Germanii i Pol’she (February 28, 1941)” in Ukrainskie natsionalisticheskie organizatsii… vol. 1, 227. Prior to the split in the OUN and as the Melnykites heavily influenced the OUN executive, a Soviet report incorrectly described Kubiiovych as a member of the Kraków Melnykite provid. Even following the nationalist split, Soviet reports continued to correlate the UTsK as an organ under the direct political leadership of the OUN. Specifically, Kubiiovych’s past – his service in the Galician Ukrainian Army – was described as counter-revolutionary and anti-Bolshevik. He and all UTsK officials were deemed longstanding enemies of the USSR and German or Polish intelligence “agents” while at the same time members of the UVO, OUN or other undefined counter-revolutionary groups.448 Soviet notes also indicated how German occupier’s pro-Ukrainian line – whether it was transferring former Polish buildings or Catholic churches to Ukrainian hands or permitting for a flourishing of Ukrainian schools – intended to serve as a demonstration of what was perceived as being a “friendly attitude” toward the Ukrainian nationalist movement. Whereas Soviet policies on the former southeastern Polish territories also displayed an initial positive attitude toward Ukrainians, only to later be slated for Sovietization, the German attitude certainly concerned them since it showed no obvious intention of Germanizing or eliminating the Ukrainians early in the war. German politics created what the Soviets described as a hostile Ukrainian nationalist element proclaiming anti-Soviet rhetoric. A report specifically cited Kubiiovych’s words from a 1940 meeting in Kraków as he described the need for Ukrainian specialists in what he believed would be a German expansion east in the near future: ... Now it is necessary to train specialists as when we occupy Ukraine with the help of the Germans, we must have our own people everywhere as we cannot rely on those specialists who are under Soviet rule. Now the 17th army is moving towards the Soviet border; it means the hour of returning to your native land will soon come. We must mobilize all forces for this.449 All examples of Ukrainian collaboration with the GG occupation regime found in Soviet reports served to incriminate GG Ukrainians and UTsK members as nationalist rabble-rousers cooperating with the fascist Nazis, being exploited by them, and developing an obvious anti-Soviet mentality. In other words, they were enemies in the eyes of the Soviets. Even though the Soviets and Germans shared a common border and collaborated with one another, their relationship was mired in mistrust and political conspiracy. As the war later turned in favor of the Soviets, this evidence was enough to serve as an immediate death sentence to any GG Ukrainians who fell into Soviet hands. 3.6 – The OUN and UTsK Providnyk To best understand Kubiiovych and the UTsK, it is necessary to examine the relationship between the OUN and UTsK, particularly how the former influenced the latter. From its outset, the UTsK was dominated by nationalists, both from Eastern Galicia and Volhynia as well as émigrés from Germany or Austria. In occupied Kraków, the Melnykites organized an executive for the GG headed by Sushko. The Lemko, Chełm and San regions all had local Melnykite networks with subsequent branches throughout cities and counties.450 They supplied the UTsK with men who worked in the field. However, they were not the only ones. All Committee levels consisted of a hodge-podge of men of different political orientations: Melnykites, Banderites, Petliurites, Hetmanites, socialists and Paliїv loyalists. For example, by April 1940, some 27 UTsK department heads and 33 aid committee delegates were recruited from among the Petliutrites.451 Within the UTsK, Kubiiovych was able to unite a very diverse political spectrum – from Petliurite émigrés to radical young nationalists. Under the Committee’s apolitical umbrella, they facilitated everyday civil life in the short term while creating a cadre of nationally conscious politicians for the envisioned reunification of GG ethnographic territory with Western Ukraine in the postwar Neuordnung.452 450 Zynovii Knysh, B’ie dvanadsiata (Spohady i materiialy do diiannia OUN na peredodni nimets’ko-moskovs’koї viiny 1941r.) (Toronto: Sribna surma, 1961), 50-55; Torzecki, Kwestia ukraińska w polityce III Rzeszy, 197. 451 Kolianchuk, Ukraїn’ska viis’kova emihratsiia u Pol’shchi 1920-1939, 178. 452 Grelka, Die ukrainische Nationalbewegung…, 199. 453 BA, NS 43-32, Untitled list of various Ukrainians in occupied Poland, n.d., p. 266. 454 Kubiiovych, Meni 85, 91; 95; Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Heneral’nii Huberniї, 338. The question of Kubiiovych’s political outlooks and orientations during the war provide valuable insight into the political aspect of his role as UTsK head and Ukrainians representative in the GG. Although a nationalist, Volodymyr Kubiiovych was never a member of either OUN faction. A German foreign ministry report labelled him as belonging to UNDO.453 Rather, he was influenced by and empathized with the ideological, nationalist, and pro-German outlook of the Melnykites. The fact that Melnykites dominated UTsK positions, primarily but not limited to the top-tier ones during the first half of the war, also earned him this association. After the war, he claimed the association was “undeserving.” In the same breath, he described his relationship with the Melnykites, and such men as Sushko, as overall good, crassly explaining that it stemmed from practical reasons – they were the strongest Ukrainian organization at the time with a national vision he could relate to. He even considered such men as Melnykite Osyp Boidunyk to be his mentor and teacher.454 Criminalization and dissolution of prewar political parties, whether Polish or Ukrainian, splintered the ethnic groups who could no longer look toward those men, now marginalized, monitored, arrested or executed, to represent them before the new occupiers. Polish elites were seen by the Germans as a political threat. Hitler concluded that the more dangerous Poles were to simply be killed. By the spring of 1940, Frank was set on eliminating the educated, clergy and politically active Poles; what ultimately came to be known as the Außerordentliche Befriedungsaktion or simply A-B Aktion. He envisioned this being an internal GG matter since not all could be sent to Reich concentration camps: “That which we declare to be the leading strata in Poland must be eliminated; we must secure their successors… and get rid of them at an opportune time.” By the time the Aktion begun on May 16, police reports claimed 2 thousand men and several hundred women associated with the underground already in custody. Their ultimate fate was either being sent to concentration camps or mass executions in the Palmiry Forest outside of Warsaw. Similar scenes were carried out in the other GG districts. In total, some 3,500 political prisoners were executed.455 455 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/9, Polizeisitzung, May 30, 1940, pp. 347; 355-358; Winstone, The Dark Heart of Hitler’s Europe…, 62-66; Lukas, The Forgotten Holocaust…, 8-10; Snyder, Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin, 146-150. Prominent Poles executed in the Palmiry Forest during Aktion A-B included: Maciej Rataj, former marshal of the Sejm; Mieczysław Niedziałkowski, a leading socialist; Jan Pohoski, deputy-mayor of Warsaw; Janusz Kusociński, a 1932 Olympic gold medalist in track. For a discussion of the effects of the A-B Aktion in the Polish intelligentsia and elite in the Warsaw District, see Tomasz Szarota, Okupowanej Warszawy dzień powszedni (Warszawa: Czytelnik, 2010), 78-80; Władysław Bartoszewski, Warszawski pierścień śmierci 1939-1944. Terror hitlerowski w okupowanej stolicy (Warszawa: Świat Książki, 2008) 59-159. 456 Ilnytzkyj, Deutschland und die Ukraine vol. 1, 258. 457 Mękarski, et al, “Die Südostgebiete Polens...,” 390. 458 Knysh, Pered pokhodom na skhid vol. 2, 102-103. The elimination of intellectuals and political parties allowed for illegal or clandestine nationalist movements to gain a footing. This was the case of the OUN. As Roman Il’nyts’kyi recalled: “The OUN had no competition in its claim to take over the leadership of the whole Ukrainian policy in their hands. It was at the same time the only political organization that exerted its influence in the fatherland and was the strongest and most influential among the political parties abroad.”456 From 1939 to 1941, Kubiiovych was the Melnykites chief lobbyist in the GG, due equally to his prominence as UTsK head and his contacts with influential German officials. In other words, he played the role of official Melnykite leader in the GG while Mel’nyk remained an éminence grise.457 On the one hand, the Melnykites viewed OUN presence in the UTsK as their opportunity to influence and form Ukrainian life in the GG and émigré life under German occupation. On the other however, the fact that neither Kubiiovych nor his deputy were not OUN members was seen as the nationalists missed opportunity to implant members in central UTsK positions458 As Bohdan Osadchuk recalled, Kubiiovych maintained an air of individualism as he never saw himself directly subordinate to Melnykties. Kubiiovych also echoed this in later recollections. This also gained him political authority. As the nationalists worked conspiratorially, either underground or in the forests, he worked openly and publicly.459 459 Kerski and Kowalczyk, Wiek ukraińsko-polski. Rozmowy z Bohdanem Osadczukiem, 26-27; 32; Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Heneral’nii Huberniї, 334; 338. Here, Bohdan Osadchuk incorrectly claimed that Kubiiovych was not associated with the nationalists. 460 Golczewski, “Die Kollaboration in der Ukraine,” 160. 461 Grelka, Die ukrainische Nationalbewegung…, 207. 462 Knysh, B’ie dvanadsiata..., 143-146. 463 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 18, folder 17, Do Vel’myshanovnoho Pana Polkovnyka Andriia Mel’nyka, May 7, 1941. 464 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 26, folder 12, Denkschrift betreffend die Bedeutung der Ukraine für die Neuordnung Europas, June 10, 1941. Contacts between Kubiiovych and the Melnykites did not begin with the outbreak of war in 1939 but stemmed back to his scholarly travels to Berlin prior to the war.460 After the debacle of nationalist irredentist aspirations in Subcarpathian Rus’, the GG stood as their next, natural focus. On the other hand, Kubiiovych’s efforts in lobbying Ukrainian interests before the occupation authorities at the Wawel Castle resembled the efforts of Ukrainian nationalists to legalize a Carpatho Ukrainian government and consolidate its autonomous status in the post-Munich Czecho-Slovak federation.461 Zynovii Knysh, a key figure in the organizational hierarchy of the OUN-M and UTsK office manager in Kraków, described the early relationship the Melnykites shared with the Committee as very important to maintain since it represented an organization which “felt at home” in its work. In other words, it was not an émigré organization working on foreign soil but could make claims to working on what was seen as ethnographic Ukrainian territory. Whoever looked for inroads to GG Ukrainian society looked to do so through the UTsK. Perhaps most importantly, the OUN-M sanctioned Kubiiovych and the Committee in the eyes of Ukrainians as a legitimate organization.462 During the first years of occupation, Kubiiovych saw in Mel’nyk the leader of a future Ukraine, someone he staked his vision in. In a letter to the OUN leader following the German invasion of the USSR, he conveyed the hope that Mel’nyk would lead all Ukrainians, regardless of political outlook, and placed his support in him. Whereas in June and July 1941 early German intentions toward Ukrainian irredentism remained uncertain, he promised the UTsK would work jointly with Mel’nyk; each informing one another of their respective activities. As he wrote: “in your hands Colonel we desire to place the fate of our Nation.”463 Conversely, he proposed the person of Mel’nyk as the führer for a future Ukraine in a memorandum to Hitler, writing: “He [Mel’nyk] is regarded by us as the only worthy man to whom you can entrust the leadership of the Ukrainian nation.”464 The relationship between Kubiiovych and the UTsK, on the one hand, and the Melnykites on the other was reciprocal. During a meeting in Berlin between Kubiiovych and OUN leaders (including Mel’nyk, Omelian Senyk and Sushko), a mutual agreement was reached. For their part, the Melnykites would morally support the Central Committee throughout the GG as well as protect its legitimacy and authority within Ukrainian society. As UTsK head, Kubiiovych pledged to avoid undermining the political, representative role of the OUN-M.465 Younger nationalists referred to these men as “national parents” who sat-out émigré activity in coffeehouses and cafes. Quick to lecture and criticize, they were seen as “honest Ukrainian patriots among whom are many naïve connivers who believed they were capable of outsmarting all sorts of Führers and Leiters…”466 465 Knysh, B‘ie dvanadsiata, 152-153. 466 Kharkevych, Ia vas ne zabuv..., 69. 467 Klymyshyn, V pokhodi do voli vol. 1, 285. 468 Boidunyk, Na perelomi, 73-74; Kedryn, Zhyttia-podii-liudy..., 361; Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Heneral’nii Huberniї, 336; Bilyns’kyi, D-r Toma Lapychak..., 24. This was something they envisioned all along as the 1939 Melnykite-dominated UNO project statute for occupied Polish territory clearly defined it being built on the principle of providnytstvo or strong, authoritarian leadership. 469 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 17, folder 21, Statut Ukraїns’koho Natsional’noho Obiednannia December 1939; Kubiiovych, Meni 85, 89. In his Ukraїntsi v Heneral’nii Huberniї, published before his memoirs, Kubiiovych included the term “authoritarian” in his modest definition of the providnyk system. In his memoirs he omitted this adjective. 470 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 17, folder 21, Vortrag von Prof. Dr. Kubijowytsch, April 12, 1940. With Melnykite influence in the top echelons of UTsK administration so prevalent, it was no surprise the Committee was internally organized to emulate the nationalist style of leadership. Melnykite Osyp Boidunyk, head of the UTsK organizational department and member of the nationalist leadership board, saw to this. It was he who travelled throughout the GG to various Ukrainian territories, subjecting those regional committees to the central one in Kraków by either placing loyalists in positions of leadership or surrounding leaders chosen from among the local Ukrainian population with nationalists who indirectly influenced them. The Banderites were aware of the importance of Boidunyk and his position as he defined the political line of the UTsK. However, they were unable to influence him as he definitively associated himself with the Melnykites.467 What emerged at the top Committee level resembled an unofficial Melnykite PUN. As head of the UTsK, Kubiiovych was providnyk or leader who imbued the Führerprinzip style of leadership which the Melnykites injected into the Committee. This style of leadership was essential of all hierarchical structures. Surrounding him in the executive apparatus were nationalists. With such competent, educated men in position of leadership, the UTsK executive formed a corps from which a future Ukrainian state apparatus could be constructed.468 This reserve was something which the Banderites did not yet possess. As such, the UTsK was a test-case or laboratory for Melnykite ideologues. According to Kubiiovych, in a providnyk system, the leader was the most important.469 Creation and engraining that system was one of the earliest goals of his work. During a lecture delivered to a congress of Ukrainian representatives in Kraków in 1940, he already claimed “some of the [regional] committees were organized uniformly under the Führerprinzip…”470 After the war, he admitted this form of leadership not only best represented the style of the time – “our partner was Germany with their leadership system” – but was also the best to achieve immediate, short term goals of quickly building and expediently nationalizing social life. The Polish underground described Kubiiovych legitimizing the superiority of the Führerprinzip style of leadership over all other forms.471 What arose in the UTsK was an authoritarian style of leadership, one which demanded obedience to the head who was prepared to excommunicate opponents. 471 Lucyna Kulińska and Adam Roliński (eds), Kwestia ukraińska i eksterminacji ludności polskiej w Małopolsce Wschodniej w świetle dokumentów Polskiego Państwa Podziemnego 1942-1944 (Kraków: Księgarnia Akademicka, 2004), 205; Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Henera’lnii Huberniї, 332. 472 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 27, folder 7, Avtorytarna zasada n.d. 473 Motyl, The Turn to the Right…, 151. 474 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 27, folder 7, Avtorytarna zasada n.d. 475 Kedryn, Zhyttia-podiї-liudy…, 361. 476 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 26, folder 32, Pro Memoria, February 29, 1940. The meaning and vision of leadership and the leader were defined in a short, philosophical UTsK guide entitled “Authoritarian Principles.” Here, the understanding of authoritarian leadership was explained as a mutual trust between steering and executive factors; between the leader and executors, between top and bottom. According to the guide, a mutual relationship was necessary for authoritarian leadership to be successful. The steering factor had to have the “utmost trust in the leader in order to completely surrender themselves to him.”472 The principles between steering and executive factors resembled the principle of duty for OUN members, as approved following the first OUN congress in 1929: to obey the instructions of the leadership and all of the directives or resolutions of all OUN organs.473 The “spirit” of this system centered on the providnyk, someone who undertook initiatives on his own and who was the highest authority from which, according to the guide, he could not be recalled. Interesting enough, differentiation as made between providnyk and dictator as the former did not simply dictate his thoughts or orders. Some benevolence was expected; he was to listen to the advice of his coworkers, to intervene in matters following a consideration of opinions from given specialists from which consensus or decisions could be drawn.474 The providnyk was to emulate authoritarian control while the UTsK was to monopolize and encompass all aspects of Ukrainian social life.475 Nationalist theory was put into practice, redefining Ukrainian communities throughout the GG. A memorandum written to the German authorities suggesting the structure and character for a Ukrainian organization stated that the head would operate according to authoritarian principles.476 Boidunyk justified respect for this form of leadership from local activists as something which national interests demanded. He described the relationship of the local or peripheral aid committees to the Central Committee as lying in the leader: Professor Kubiiovych answers before Ukrainian society and the Germans and himself knowns when and where mistakes need to be corrected. This belongs to him exclusively and to no one else. That is why you must completely forget the notion that everyone can do as they please. Everyone must do that which the providnyk orders.477 477 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 18, folder 2, Protokol zїzdu ukr. Dop. Komitetiv Liublyns’koї Oblasty, January 7-8, 1940. 478 According to Grzegorz Rossoliński-Liebe, such criticism was characteristic of fascist thought among Ukrainian nationalists. Rossoliński-Liebe, “The Fascist Kernel of Ukrainian Genocidal Nationalism,” 14-16. 479 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 18, folder 3, Orhanizatsiia Ukraїns’koho Tsentral’noho Komitetu ta ioho zavdannia, 1940/1941. 480 Chomiak, Chrystia. Interview with Paweł Markiewicz. Personal interview. Edmonton, Alberta (Canada), 1 August 2015; Shablii, Volodymyr Kubiiovych: Entsyklopediia…, 11. 481 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 17, folder 21, Vortrag von Prof. Dr. Kubijowytsch, April 12, 1940. In talks and meetings with regional Ukrainians, Kubiiovych presented the authoritarian style of leadership as a pyramid – each level of representation subject to its subsequent superior, with the leader at the top. Strong authority did not come from “shaky democracies” but from the “manly leadership system.” This view was characteristic of nationalist rhetoric which presented authoritarianism as the best alternative to other governing models; bipartisanship and democracy being described as elements dangerous to social development.478 Influential authority and a strong leader were seen by Kubiiovych as natural for the Ukrainians, not only for the time being but also for the future and had to be maintained at all costs: “In terms of our state building, this is a matter of enormous weight; that is why we must pay attention to it and make efforts so that the idea of our own Ukrainian authority not be foreign or even partially realized on our native foundation.”479 Kubiiovych imbued his UTsK leadership position, becoming the focal point of Ukrainian organized life, the center through which everything, in essence, filtered through. Some of his leadership qualities stemmed from his past in which he was able to work with the youth or intellectuals, both Ukrainian and Polish. Other qualities he learned during his time as leader, aggressively representing and solving problems as best he could to benefit the Ukrainians position within the GG. However, he also emulated a persona of a hardline nationalist, someone with the ability or skill to get many to follow him.480 During his lecture to the congress of regional Ukrainian delegates, he summarized the early period of work toward Ukrainian organization in occupied Polish. Whereas he applauded the work of Dr. Volodymyr Horbovyi in aiding Ukrainian refugees in Kraków. In his eyes, this was the past, albeit the very brief past. He clearly accentuated the fact that under his leadership meetings with Frank were held while Sushko chose him “führer” of the GG Ukrainians. Cooperation with the German authorities and intervention in all Ukrainian matters lay with him for, as he stated: “I was the steward for the Ukrainians in the offices of the general governor.”481 In other words, he viewed himself as the Ukrainian’s chief diplomat before the Frank administration. As UTsK head, Kubiiovych signed Ukrainian-language memorandums, minutes and reports as “providnyk” and “Leiter” or “führer” on German-language ones. His position also earned him respect from among social circles. Kubiiovych’s 40th birthday in 1940 included special well-wishes for achievements in his work on the first page of Krakivs’ki Visti.482 During inspections and field-trips, he was greeted with pomp and circumstance; in the style of a true führer. During a school inspection in the town of Włodawa for example, the principal received Kubiiovych while standing at attention in a military-like style with teachers lined up beside him. School children, dressed in traditional folk costumes, greeted him with folk dances while villagers, often the parents of the children, observed in the background.483 During the two-day ceremonies associated with the transfer of the Chełm cathedral, Kubiiovych was greeted in an emotional tone by the local Ukrainian head: “We welcome You, Mister Professor, as the providnyk of all Ukrainians, who now live on territories occupied by the German authority…As a symbol of happiness I present into Your hands bread and salt as a display of the riches of the Chełm lands.” He received a bouquet of flowers from a young girl dressed in a traditional folk costume. As a symbol of thanks, he kissed her on the forehead.484 Such episodes were a recurring theme in his travels throughout the war.485 In his memoirs, Kubiiovych claimed to be opposed to the cult of personality formed around him; something he insisted was a fait accompli created by those around him.486 However, no evidence suggests that during the war he sought to stop it. 482 “40-littia urodyn Providnyka UTsK v Krakovi,” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 1 nr. 95 (September 25, 1940), 1. The short article included a summary of Kubiiovych’s intellectual and academic achievements along with a comment regarding his unjust demission from work at the Jagiellonian University for “anti-Polish activity, in particular for his stubborn and restless work for Ukrainian academia.” 483 Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Henera’lnii Huberniї, 632-633. Kubijovych was greeted in a similar way by Ukrainian school children in Stryj. “Stryi vitaie provid UTsK,” Lvivs’ki Visti vol. 2 no. 154 (July 12-13, 1942), 3. 484 “Peredacha Soboru,” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 1 no. 43 (May 27, 1940), 4. 485 For example, see “Providnyk UTsK na naradakh Komitetu v Sambori,” Lvivs’ki Visti vol. 2 no. 152 (July 10, 1942), 2. 486 Kubiiovych, Meni 85, 132. 487 “U den’ sv. Volodymyra,” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 3 nr. 164 (July 28, 1942), 1. In other cases, he was praised for his accomplishments as scholar or UTsK head. Such reverence came during the feast of St. Volodymyr, Kubiiovych’s patron and namesake. Ironically, in 1942, the Kraków and Lwów Ukrainian newspapers published articles on his topic but from two different perspectives. Krakivs’ki Visti wrote of Ukrainian successes in the Chełm and Zasiannia regions as “undoubtedly tied to the person and activity of Professor Volodymyr – the conqueror.” His educational and academic background led him to the “responsible work” of leading Ukrainian national life and formed the basis for “any kind of responsible social and political activist.” The article described this as a harmonious union between education and the “struggles of the Ukrainian nation.”487 The Lwów newspaper wrote of him as “always at the forefront” of Ukrainian matters. Recapitulating his life, it described Kubiiovych as taunted in his youth by Poles because of his mixed ethnicity yet overcame the psychological trauma to strive toward Ukrainian national development through his academic scholarship and pedagogical work. The article summarized his leadership as “worthy and beneficial” for Ukrainian society and proclaimed: “he showed so much tact and character in respect of which we must bow our heads before his stately person – giving him the Latin moniker semper tiro” or ‘always learned.’488 488 “Zavzhdy na stiitsi. U den im’ianyn Providnyka UTsK,” L’vivs’ki Visti vol. 2 no. 167 (July 28, 1942), 1. The article described his decision to apply to the Jagiellonian University in Kraków: “Registering at the university in Kraków, during the first year he envisioned a personal goal of achieving a deep understanding, to become a university professor, to come to Ukrainian society prepared and to enrich Ukrainian academia with a monumental work which could raise the status of Ukrainians among their neighbors” 489 Golczewski, Deutsche und Ukrainer 1914-1939, 1011; Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Henera’lnii Huberniї, 336. 490 Kulińska, Działalność terrorystyczna i sabotażowa ..., 180. 491 Motyl, The Turn to the Right…, 147. 492 Szumiło, Ukraińska Reprezentacja Parlamentarna..., 41-42. Nationalists saw their positions within aid committees or social institutions as a test-range to prepare them for future work on Ukrainian territory. To monopolize influence, they often prevented other, non-nationalists who did not share their sympathies, from social work as they were the only self-perceived measure of national good in the GG. Through their roles in administrative positions, education or cooperatives, the nationalists rose to become a “state-bearing” power in the GG.489 With influence through the local apparatus, the OUN looked to monopolize the UTsK executive administration and turn it into their de facto wing in the GG. The first step in achieving monopolization was to either neutralize or remove those deemed ideologically dangerous to their plans. Even though Knysh claimed after the war that Dmytro Paliїv and his supporters were by that time marginal and weak, with similar outlooks and political rhetoric, the nationalists saw in that group a possible rival. Paliїv, like many Galician Ukrainians, served in the ranks of the Sich Riflemen and in the Ukrainian Galician Army. With this military background, he joined his colleagues in co-founding the UVO, the OUN’s predecessor. He remained closely associated with the nationalists until they radicalized and saw terror as an open response to Polish injustice; he did not. This is ironic partly because he was arrested and imprisoned in 1921 for his role in an attempted assassination on Marshal Piłsudski in Lwów.490 A nationalist through and through, his decision engage in public political life stemmed from the belief that exclusiveness would be harmful to future nationalist goals.491 Following his time in prison, he joined the central committee of UNDO and served as a member of parliament before once again being imprisoned, this time on charges of anti-state outspokenness and association with the illegal nationalist movement. A political maverick, he and his party supporters sought to gain control of UNDO’s leadership, openly opposing the party’s normalization project with the Polish state, especially at the local government level. As editor-in-chief of Novyi Chas, he labelled those politicians as “the supporters of settlement” and claimed “from now on there is no room for compromisers.”492 Banned from UNDO in 1933, he founded the FNIe, a Ukrainian nationalist party which opposed both UNDO normalization and OUN terror, becoming its leader in 1936.493 493 Piotr Majewski (ed), Posłowie i Senatorowie Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej 1919-1939: Słownik biograficzny, vol. 4 (Warszawa 2009), 312-313; Entsyklopediia Ukraїnoznavstva, ed. Volodymyr Kubiiovych vol. 5 (L’viv 1996), 1926; Tomczyk, Ukraińskie Zjednoczenie Narodowo-Demokratyczne, 163-179. 494 Kubiiovych, Meni 85, 118-119; Oleh Kypchyns’kyi (ed), Dmytro Paliїv. Zhyttia i dial’nist’ 1896-1944. Zbirnyk prats’ i materialiv (L’viv: Naukove Tovarystvo im. Shevchenka, 2007), 60-61. Kubiiovych claimed Paliїv saw no sense in transplanting the prewar Ukrainian political parties and movements active in Eastern Galicia onto the Ukrainian-ihnabited territories of the General Government. Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Henera’lnii Huberniї, 90. 495 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 18, folder 17, Skoropads’kyi letters to Paliїv, August 7, 1940 and September 18, 1940. After the outbreak of war in 1939, he fled Soviet occupation of Eastern Galicia by settling in Krynica. He travelled to Kraków and contacted his old colleague Kubiiovych who knew him from meetings at the Shevchenko Society in Lwów. Paliїv opposed Sushko’s vision of placing UNO under centralized OUN control as this appeared to him as a “reconstitution of the OUN.” Instead, he favored a representative, coalition organization consisting of Ukrainians of various political outlooks. Additionally, he expressed little fondness towards his old OUN colleague Sushko. Both knew each other from their days as founding members of the UVO. The feelings were mutual. Speaking about Paliїv to Kubiiovych, Sushko said: “Forgive me Professor, forgive me, but this Paliїv, he…”494 Paliїv expressed his desire to organize a financial base to assist in financing nationalist work in the region. To gain more recognition and follower among Ukrainians in Kraków, Paliїv attempted to organize a veterans association consisting of Petliurites and Hetmanites. Presumably, he looked to revive the prewar Moloda Hromada veteran organization by reconnecting with his old colleague and Abwehr man in Kraków, Hans Koch. It is likely German military intelligence looked to revive the veteran group if only to possess a counterweight to the OUN. To gain support from the Hetmanites, Paliїv contacted Skoropads’kyi. Their brief correspondence illustrated Paliїv’s desire to search for contacts among non-nationalists in order to gain support for his anti-OUN crusade. The Hetman empathized with the desire to unite Ukrainians but urged Paliїv to halt any preemptive activity, suggesting he monitor the happenings instead and wait for more opportune circumstances.495 Unable to gain the Hetman’s formal approval, Paliїv undertook meetings in Kraków on his own initiative among veterans. Association with Paliїv was viewed by the nationalists as a sign of treachery while accusations of contact with him was propagandized as a betrayal of their cause. For example, one of the charges Bandera levelled against Mel’nyk and the nationalist board to undermine their claims to leading the nationalist movement was purported coquetting of Paliїv who he claimed to be completely German-orientated. Kubiiovych recalled an incident in Kraków. He and Paliїv were walking together when “an UTsK associate grabbed me in flagrati, took a picture of us, and showed it the following Sunday [to Ukrainians] before church as sad proof that the UTsK head spoke with an ideological enemy of the OUN.”496 496 Zynovii Knysh, Rozbrat. Spohady i materialy do rozkolu OUN 1940-1941 rokakh (Tornoto: Sribna surma, 1960), 347; Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Henera’lnii Huberniї, 338. 497 Iurii Kopystians’kyi, “Z moho zhyttia i pratsi v Iaroslavshchyni v rr. 1934-44” in Miroslav Semchyshyn and Vasyl’ Borodach (eds), Iaroslavshchyna i Zasiannia 1031-1947 (New York-Paris-Sydney-Toronto: Shevchenko Scientific Society, 1986); Kharkevych, Ia vas ne zabuv..., 72, 74-75; Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Henera’lnii Huberniї, 91-92. Kharkevych believed Skrypchenko received trusteeship over the sugar refinery in Przeworsk thanks largely to his prewar contacts in Berlin. He recalled Skrypchenko’s anti-Polish position. During a reception, at which he was dressed in a traditional Ukrainian vyshyvanka, he publically humiliated his Polish wife by announcing to all that she was no longer his spouse since as a Pole, she hindered his work in Ukrainian affairs, particularly in organizing armed Ukrainians. Bursting into hysterical tears, she ran out of the reception, never to be seen in Przeworsk again. 498 Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Henera’lnii Huberniї, 92. 499 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 18, folder 21, Protokol, July 25, 1940. The first dissention within the executive ranks of the UTsK in late July 1940 in the aptly named Skrypchenko Affair. What began as a localized issue turned into a discussion of direct Committee consolidation and submission to the OUN-M. Oleksandr Skrypchenko, a veteran of the UNR army, was a Treuhänder of a sugar refinery in Przeworsk, a town lying on the railroad between Rzeszów and Jarosław in southeastern Poland. Myroslav Kharkevych, who briefly worked in the factory, described him as a “handsome, grey-haired, older gentleman with a mustache similar to Hilter's… on his arm was a yellow band with Treuhänder written in German.” In rebuilding the refinery and increasing production for the Reich and Wehrmacht, he gained the favor of the occupiers. In turn, he used that favor to make the factory into a Ukrainian fortress. The Werkschutz guards - colloquially called “Ostrogoths” – consisted of Ukrainians and were turned into his personal security force. He viewed them as his personal army while the guards also shared this vision. He associated with former Ukrainians veterans as well as made inroads with UTsK executives Mykhailo Khronov’iat and Iurii Krokhmaliuk (a Paliїv loyalist). Perhaps worst off, in the eyes of the OUN, were his purported contacts with Paliїv.497 Skrypchenko’s confidence and contacts prompted him to make public appearances criticizing Ukrainian work in the GG. These, Kubiiovych recalled, took on a theatrical appearance as he wore an ornately-decorated vyshyvanka and was accompanied by his “Ostrogoths.” He became a self-appointed spokesman of Ukrainians in Przeworsk, usurping authority from the aid committee delegate there.498 To investigate the issues, special UTsK conferences were held. During the first meeting, Kubiiovych, in his opening remarks, underscored the aim of the investigation: to expose those UTsK members involved in the affair as they harmed organized Ukrainian life, bringing upon it unwanted political consequences.499 Volodymyr Hlibovyts’kyi, the head of the Jarosław aid committee and UTsK executive presented the accusations against Skrypchenko – undermining Committee influence. He listed Skrypchenko’s sympathizers, notably Paliїv. Furthermore, Hlibovyts’kyi recalled Paliїv’s damning remarks against Kubiiovych: “The person of the Professor is clearly comical. We lost a geographer and did not gain a politician. There is a mess there [in the UTsK] and we need to fix it.” Examples were presented incriminating Paliїv of anti-committee activity. These including talks with Frank and other Germans without Kubiiovych’s consultation; what he described as “going behind the back of the leader” and complicating German relationships with Ukrainians.500 500 Ibid. 501 Ibid. 502 Ibid. 503 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 20, folder 16, Dekliaratsiia holovy i starshyny Ukraїns’koho Kliubu v Krakovi, July 10, 1940; Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Henera’lnii Hubernii, 92. 504 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 18, folder 21, Protokol, July 25, 1940. 505 Ibid. Paliїv was then called out to respond to the accusations. He began by urging for the internal Committee consolidation by moving away from nationalist influences, explaining Ukrainian activity functioned on a wider scale by other groups such as the Hetmanites or Petliurites who vied to represent Ukrainian interests. “In this situation,” he said, “the UTsK falls farther back, is left behind and loses momentum.”501 He admitted to often denigrating Kubiiovych with no qualms or misgivings. He warned nationalist unwillingness to share their power with other groups would only lead to more Skrypchenko’s challenging regional UTsK authority. Only after Kubiiovych called for a need to divorce with the OUN did he believe a broader, true representative organization would arise.502 Next, Paliїv explained the purpose of the Ukrainian Veterans Club, something Skrypchenko was also involved in organizing. The nationalists viewed it as a possible threat to their influence. The club’s declaration of July 10, 1940 pledged to unite all Ukrainian veterans regardless of political orientation. Seeing themselves as forming a Ukrainian avant-garde to keep order, the declaration professed to be at the disposition of a Ukrainian leadership, one which they were ready to assist in organizing while hoping that their initiative would not be slighted or disregarded.503 He told the assembly the veterans club de facto existed – a move to leverage immediate concessions from the nationalists – while Kubiiovych needed to come to terms with them. If not, he cautioned a vying non-nationalist Ukrainian body would challenge the Committee for German recognition. Acknowledging his meeting with Frank, he claimed to have represented the OUN and his FNIe, not the UTsK.504 After those remarks, Kubiiovych interjected himself into the debate. In response to the comments defaming his character, he claimed to have undertaken UTsK leadership as he viewed this as a “national good.” He asserted the Committee was neither a “gate” nor a “screen” for the OUN. To this, Paliїv pointed to Sushko and Bisanz, observing the deliberations. Concerning Paliїv’s talks with Frank, he reiterated the necessity to inform him of all such meetings. Finally, Kubiiovych praised the work of the young nationalists who, according to him, undertook the most work throughout the Ukrainian territories while others from different orientations did not “rush to work,” a retort at Paliїv’s criticisms.505 The subsequent conference dedicated to the affair of July 28, 1940 discussed the connection between UTsK executives and Paliїv. He was once again accused of opportunism – politically colluding to undermine nationalist influence in the UTsK in a “search for roads to come out on top.” UTsK executives Khronov’iat and Krokhmaliuk were called to voluntarily resign from work. Their connections to Skrypchenko were propagandized in OUN leaflets distributed throughout Kraków accusing them of collaboration.506 For his part, Khronov’iat denied any involvement in undermining UTsK leadership through his involvement in the veterans club, admitting to no active “mutiny” because, as he explained, they worked openly, not secretly. According to him, Skrypchenko, through the veterans club, sought to pull Paliїv away from political activity.507 506 Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Henera’lnii Hubernii, 92. 507 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 17, folder 21, Protokol zasidannia Provodu UTsK, July 28, 1940. 508 Ibid. 509 Veryha, The Correspondance…, 113-114. With regard to the OUN, Arlt conveyed why consolidation by them was impossible: (1) it was an underground organization; (2) it represents an organization that is not influenced by its leadership but from the streets; (3) those educated and trained to destroy work were unfit to construct tangible results. Furthermore, he informed Kubijovych that the OUN was not the only political channel of the German authorities, indicating that they also supported to some degree the Hetmanites and Skoropads’kyi. A final explanation was made by Paliїv concerning the veterans club. Initially, he claimed the organizers sought to nominate Sushko its leader. He declined the position on account of the Hetmanite involved. However, with the Hetmanites also declining involvement, Paliїv turned to Khronov’iat, exploiting him, as stated during the conference, “like a ladder.” Deliberations led to definite results. Following calls for those involved to resign, Kubiiovych cogently summarized the matter. He stated the UTsK relied on the German authorities; a reality that all had to accept. Calling attention to Paliїv’s rumor of the Committee being a reconstitution of the OUN and his desire to become a leader of his own, Kubiiovych described them “dangerous.” He denounced any “wars against the nationalists” and suggested harnessing their strength, especially within the veteran’s club which he believed should be under the auspices of the Central Committee.508 German interest also peaked in the internal UTsK disagreement as Bisanz sat-in on both UTsK conferences. In a memorandum to Kubiiovych, Fritz Arlt began by calming his hastily-made proposition to resign following accusations that he knew of veteran club activities and accepted, for the UTsK fund, donations from Skrypchenko. According to Arlt, this rash decision would be a disaster for the Ukrainian question in the GG. Whereas Kubiiovych urged the dismissal of committee executives to not affect relations with the occupiers, Arlt conveyed his opinion of the situation. He criticized the idea of consolidation tactics, whether by the OUN or other political groups, as impossible especially since the authorities did not approve of free and open political rivalry or representation.509 Arlt also reiterated the purpose of the UTsK – the only legal Ukrainian representation in the GG – and its influence by the OUN. This relationship raised the poignant question: should the Committee exist as a “sovereign organization” – i.e. not under the influence of a concrete political group or movement – or a “subordinate” one? According to him, if the UTsK traversed the sovereign route, it would be imperative to recruit strong-willed and skillful members to eliminate other influences. In choosing the subsidiary route, one described as “troublesome,” the UTsK would have to subordinate the OUN to it. This was virtually impossible.510 Arlt made his needs toward Kubiiovych evident: to maintain his loyalty to, first and foremost, the occupier by alienating him and the UTsK from OUN influences. To achieve this, he urged Kubiiovych to find his own place among GG Ukrainians. 510 Ibid, 114-115. 511 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 18, folder 7, Protokol zasidannia UTsK, June 30, 1940. 512 Kubiiovych, Meni 85, 86-87; Kupchyns’kyi (ed), Dmytro Paliїv…, 61-62. 513 Volodymyr Kosyk, Rozkol OUN (1939-1940). Zbirnyk dokumentiv (L’viv: L’vivs’kyi Derzhavnyi Universytet im. I. Franka, 1997), 49; Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Heneralnii Hubernii, 336. 514 Kosyk, Rozkol OUN…, 46; 48-49. Here, Knysh was most concerned with the Hetmanites gaining influence in the UTsK. The result of the Skrypchenko Affair stopped an attempt at destabilizing Kubiiovych’s authority as UTsK leader and, more importantly, nationalist influence within it. A new UTsK executive was chosen, described by Kubiiovych as undertaking an “apolitical position.”511 Kubiiovych claimed in his memoirs that he maintained contacts with Paliїv throughout the war. Unable to penetrate and liberate the UTsK from nationalist influence, Paliїv retired to Krynica.512 According Knysh, Kubiiovych undertook the removal of Paliїv sympathizers from within the UTsK at the behest of the nationalists.513 It also prompted the Melnykites to discuss whether it was time for them to capitalize on their removal. In writing to Iaroslav Baranovs’kyi, Knysh mentioned the opportunity arose to “capture the UTsK in one fell swoop, placing it under our influence.” According to him, action from the side of the Melnykties was of grave importance in that by not supplying Kubiiovych with replacements, key positions would be filled with non-nationalists, causing them to loose influence in the sole, legal Ukrainian representative organization in the GG.514 While Ukrainian nationals were consolidating and strengthening their new base created in the GG, the OUN was in the midst of a fierce internal conflict. The release of imprisoned younger OUN members from prewar Polish confinement in 1939 contributed to the developing generational difference and mindset appearing within the OUN. The younger were more radical than their counterparts and more inclined to forge their liberation struggle on their own yet never renounced assistance from movements with similar ideological outlooks. The older generation centered on the military tradition of the UVO and were convinced of their right to lead its successor, the OUN. The radicals rallied around Bandera who contained qualities the older nationalists lacked – courage and determination.515 Demands presented by Bandera to Mel’nyk during their meeting in Rome in early 1940 led to no reconciliation.516 The Bandera group convened in Kraków in February 1940 and self-constituted a revolutionary faction of the OUN (OUN-R) or the Banderites; from this point on distinguishing themselves from the Melnykites. They succeeded in gaining mass appeal among nationalists in Eastern Galicia. Even though negotiations and talks continued between Banderites and the older Melnykites, no consensus was reached. In April 1941, the Banderites organized the second great congress of the OUN in Kraków where they “legalized” their position, in turn “delegalizing” the Melnykites. In this way, they officially confirmed their actions of a year earlier. Furthermore, the factional split turned the Melnykites into what the Banderites saw as a new internal enemy contesting their legitimacy and support.517 515 Torzecki, Polacy i Ukraińcy..., 44; Golczewski, Deutsche und Ukraine 1914-1939, 1013; Motyka, Ukraińska partyzantka, 77-78; Armstrong, Ukrainian Nationalism, 54-55. The generation difference was accentuated by younger member criticism toward the role nationalist played in the ultimate debacle of irredentist aspirations in Subcarpathian Ru and their questioning of Mel’nyk’s legitimacy toward the leadership of the OUN following the assassination of Konovalets’ in 1938. This nomination was a sign for the younger members to seize power. Bandera was also a proponent of initiating a popular uprising in Eastern Galicia to create a center for the Ukrainian liberation movement. Although Mel’nyk was not opposed to partisan liberation, he aired on the side of formidable international circumstances dictating the best time for such an uprising. Grelka, Die ukrainische Nationalbewegung…, 147-148; Bruder, “Den ukrainischen Staat erkämpfen oder streben!”…, 118-119. 516 The demands presented by Bandera included proposing Mel’nyk and other executives from the leadership board emigrate to neutral Switzerland and represent the OUN on an international areana; suggesting the creation of two autonomous OUN centers (one on German-occupied territory and another in North America); active OUN participation on the side of Finland in their war with the Sovier Union, and removing two men considered traitors from the executive leadership – Omelian Senyk and Iaroslav Baranovs’kyi. The latter was accused of being a Polish agent. However, according to Motyka, a subsequent reason for Bandera’s disdain for him was their competition for the sympathy of Anna Chemeryns’ka. Mel’nyk did not agree to the demands, instead offering Bandera an advisory position in the OUN executive. Motyka described this as a slight toward Bandera. Motyka, Ukraińska partyzantka, 78. Calls for the removal of OUN leadership executive and Melnykite ideologue Mykola Stsibors’kyi resembled an ethnic polarization strategy, something which repeat itself later on. Bandera accussed Stsibors’kyi of being a Bolshevik spy on account of his relationship with a Russian Jewish woman. In using the Judeo-Bolshevik claim to discredit Mel’nyk and his supporters, Bandera introduced anti-Semitic arguments into the factional dispute. Bruder, “Den ukrainischen Staat erkämpfen oder streben!”…, 120. 517 Rossoliński-Liebe, Stepan Bandera: The Life and Afterlife of a Ukrainian Nationalist…, 172-181; Bruder, “Den ukrainischen Staat erkämpfen oder streben!”…, 120. In response to letters sent by Bander and Stets’ko informing of the existence of a revolutionary faction, Mel’nyk put them before the OUN tribunal. For their part, Bandera and Stets’ko published an announcement informing all OUN members that the revolutionary faction decided Mel’nyk to no longer be the nationalist leader; the new leader being Bandera. On September 27, 1940, the tribunal officially removed Bandera from the OUN. For the German opinion of the nationalist split, see Grelka, Die ukrainische Nationalbewegung…, 152-155. 518 In his memoirs, Ievhen Stakhiv recalled how the nationalist battle for influence translated to the UNO in the Reich. He described the battle for the hearts of minds of Ukrainian student in Berlin and Vienna by both nationalist factions. Discussion and recruitment often took on a heated tone while the Gestapo monitored and recruited Ukrainians as commissioners to student affairs. Both factions also vyed for influence among Ukrainian The internal OUN split caused both fractions to discredit each other in a struggle to consolidate positions and win over uncommitted elements. The Reich and GG became theaters of this struggle with influence in all levels of social and organized life at the center of contention.518 Neither was the UTsK spared in what Kubiiovych called the “fight between the laborers in Berlin. He admitted to working as a Bandera agitator in the Siemens factory. Stakhiv, Kriz tiurmy, pidpiliia i kordony, 86-87. 519 Armstrong, Ukrainian Nationalism, 58-59; Kedryn, Zhyttia-podiї-liudy..., 359-360; Matla, Pivdenna pokhidna hrupa, 5. Born in Sambor, Dmytro Hrytsai-Perebyinis joined the UVO during his universtity studies in Lwów. In 1932 he became head of the military bureau of the OUN country executive for Western Ukrainian territory. In this capacity, he worked closely with Roman Shukhevych. A year earlier he attended a meeting of Galician and émigré nationalists organized by Riko Iaryi in Gdańsk. Iaryi was attempting to convince the Galician Ukrainians to resume espionage work for the Germans in Poland. Hrytsai-Perebyinis was arrested in Lwów in 1932. In 1934 he was arrested again and sent to the Bereza Kartuska prison where he served a two-year sentence. In April 1938, he took part in the aglomeration of Ukrainian organizations in Vienna into an Austrian branch of the Berlin based, Melnykite dominated UNO. In 1939, he was again arrested and sent to Bereza Kartuska. During the war, he was closely associated with the radical nationalists and Bandera. He was a member of the OUN-B provid and later its head of its military staff. After the third OUN-B congress he became Shukhevych’s chief of staff in the Banderite UPA. In 1945, on Shukhevych’s orders, he headed for western Germany by way of Czechoslovakia. He was arrested by Czechoslovak authorities near the Bavarian border before committing suicide. Petro Mirchuk, Narys istroiї OUN vol. 1, 296; 299; 435; 567; Golczewski, Deutsche und Ukraine 1914-1939, 566; 769. Torzecki, Polacy i Ukraińcy…, 238; 317. 520 Stakhiv, Kriz tiurmy, pidpiliia i kordony, 87. 521 Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Heneral’nii Hubernii, 337; 346; Kubiiovych, Meni 85, 95; Mats’kiv, Z-nad Dnistra na Kanads’ki prerii, 132. OUN and UTsK.” Banderites made an attempt at taking over UTsK headquarters in Kraków. Non-OUN Committee executives viewed the incident as an annoyance rather than a threat. Since UTsK headquarters were also Melnykite headquarters, this was an attack on them as well. In response, Sushko and a group of armed Ukrainians – presumably Werkschutz men – raided neighboring Banderite headquarters; succeeding in disrupting their clandestine press and seizing some documents. This forced the Banderites to move their propaganda operation to Banderite Dmytro Hrytsai-Perebyinis’ apartment with technical operations conducted in an apartment on nearby Dietla Street.519 Although Ievhen Stakhiv conducted Banderite agitation in Berlin, his later description of it can certainly relate to scenes in the GG: I have to admit that in their war, both OUN groups, and I among them, behaved shamefully, conducting demagogy, balderdash, defamation – the worst that could have been. Then we were 22 to 24 years old and this seemed normal to us… We used uncultured, anti-social methods including denunciations.520 Whereas inter-OUN conflicts flared up into incidents of open violence on the streets of Kraków, the majority of ideological conflicts between nationalists occurred in the field. Aid committees and cooperatives throughout the eastern and southeastern GG became scenes of Melnykite or Banderite agitation. Kubiiovych noted that these men often failed to find a balance between their political and social work – local organization heads used their positions to recruit young Ukrainians into the nationalist ranks or financial secretaries “borrowed” funds for the nationalist movement. A conflict of interest emerged as nationalists were motivated by their political convictions and loyalty to their respective fraction rather than loyalty to the UTsK, Kubiiovych and social work in general. Vying for influence caused what Kubiiovych termed “moral havoc,” especially among the youth, and, perhaps worst of all, presented the negative side of Ukrainians to less-conscious ones in the Chełm or Lemko regions. Rivalry often discouraged non-nationalist Ukrainians from joining aid committees.521 Those from outside the OUN camp recalled the incompetence of nationalists in solving pressing social problems, something which often led to outbursts of aggression. Conversely, he claimed Kubiiovych attempted to attract Ukrainians to engage in social work while also attempting to quiet nationalist agitation.522 522 Kerski and Kowalczyk, Wiek ukraińsko-polski. Rozmowy z Bohdanem Osadczukiem, 29; Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Heneral’nii Huberniї, 346. 523 Bohachevs’kyi, Na vozi i pid vozom, 127. 524 Kerski and Kowalczyk, Wiek ukraińsko-polski. Rozmowy z Bohdanem Osadczukiem, 29. 525 Huk (ed), Zakerzonnia. Spomyny voiakiv UPA, vol. 4, 50. 526 TsDAVOVUU, UTsK, f. 3959, op. 2, spr. 48, Zvit predstavnyka viddilu propahandy UTsK na Liublins’kyi dystrykt za sichen', February 2, 1941, p. 9. 527 Polish Underground Movement Study Trust (PUMST) London, Oddział IV Sztabu Naczelnego Wodza (OIV), file A.268, Report of 2nd Lt. Flegel-Cepiński, March 5, 1942. 528 Jerzy Stempowski, W dolinie Dniestru. Pisma o Ukrainie, (ed) Andrzej Stanisław Kowalczyk (Warszawa: Towarzystwo Więź 2014), 187. Some disagreements were trifle: “One Banderite – the other a Melnykite. One hung his trident, the other one threw it out and hung up his trident.”523 Working in the Chełm aid committee, Bohdan Osadchuk saw firsthand how vying nationalist influences caused problems and hostile outbursts “which in these frontal conditions meant a possible national catastrophe.”524 The Chełm aid committee was one at the center of Banderite-Melnykite contention. Representatives of both factions travelled throughout the Chełm region; each distributing leaflets or pamphlets criticizing the other in an effort to recruit local supporters. Mykola Kukharchuk recalled unsuccessful incidents of nationalist recruitment: “there was no evident need [among the locals] to subordinate themselves to one or the other [faction] because affairs among us, from the beginning, were solely practical and not political.”525 Up for grabs in the region were Ukrainians with a low level of national consciousness; ones who identified themselves with their religion and ripe for political molding. A 1941 report by an UTsK propaganda representative described an obvious divide within society there caused by nationalist work – the older generation being hesitant to take an active part in organized social life as they were not entrusted with an important position for the renewal of Ukrainian life by the younger nationalists.526 To prevent them from recruiting locals, Orthodox priests even disseminated pamphlets and warned their faithful to avoid listening to “those who came with luggage from Lwów… in case of anything, they will take off with their luggage while the local inhabitants will remain.”527 The upsurge in Orthodoxy in the eastern portions of the Lublin district equated to defending it from Greek Catholicism and, in turn, from nationalists. Such was the opinion formed by Jerzy Stempowski following his critical reading of correspondences in Krakiv’ski Visti. He wrote: “Germanophile influences of the Greek-Catholic papists thwart German attempts at controlling territory with the assistance of German-trained Galician Ukrainians.”528 Vying for influence among OUN groups within local UTsK branches caused crises. In Tomaszów Lubelski, Bohachevs’kyi recalled scuffles between Banderites and Melnykites; something which spilled over into the cooperative there. He described replacements from Chełm as “political neophytes who had no idea what was going on.”529 In a special address appearing in Krakiv’ski Visti, Kubiiovych called for a stop to demoralization and a return to the idea of sacrifice as a guiding principle in social development.530 529 Bohachevs’kyi, Na vozi i pid vozom, 123. 530 “Za oboronu ideinosty i zhertvennosty,” Krakivs’ki Visti no. 2 vol. 57 (March 3, 1941), 1-2. 531 TsDAVOVUU, UTsK, f. 3959, op. 2, spr. 2, Bohdan Osadchuk report to Krakivs’ki Visti editor, January 29, 1941, p. 19. 532 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 24, folder 7, Zvit z poїzdok do Kholma, February 7, 1941. 533 Archiwum Państwowe w Lublinie (AP-L), Der Gouverneur des Distrikt Lublin (DGdDL), sygn. 248, Der Kreishauptmann des Kreises Cholm – Ukrainische Hilfskomitee in Cholm, February 7, 1941, p. 115; LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 18, folder 9, Bericht für den Monat Januar 1941, February 3, 1941. 534 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 24, folder 7, Zvit z poїzdok do Kholma, February 7, 1941. 535 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 24, folder 6, Zvit chyslo 3, February 28, 1941. Within the Chełm aid committee, nationalist allegiances also spilled over. Osadchuk sent correspondences to Krakivs’ki Visti editors describing the tense situation. The Banderites aimed to transform that aid committee into their center. One meeting ended in an attack on a Melnykite by Banderites who pushed him out of the meeting house, beating him outside. Other non-nationalists – Petliurites and Hetmanites – denounced the violence and described incidents as acts committed by bandits. Poles exploited such incident to strengthen their positions, spreading rumors of committees being slated for liquidation because of the infighting. Osadchuk called for an immediate solution to the issues by appointing a strong head to refocus committee attention toward socio-cultural work.531 Banderites later accused the aid committee head Mykola Mostovych, a Volhynian Melnykite, and his coworkers of unfairly dispersing aid materials received by the committee. This pressure caused Mostovych to resign; something Kubiiovych accepted.532 To quell instigation and to maintain control over that aid committee, he sent a special UTsK commissioner, Roman Faigel, to temporarily oversee matters until the committee was formally reorganized.533 While all Ukrainians were welcomed to work within its ranks, emphasis was placed on working toward committee goals rather than pursuing individual, political ones; seen as opportunism. While awaiting Gestapo approval of a new executive, subsequent meetings led to scuffles and mayhem. Many older Chełm Ukrainians, disturbed by the infighting, pleaded for the Kraków men to put an end to it once and for all. Approval by the Gestapo and Kreishauptmann Hager briefly remedied the fractional struggle.534 In his report to Krakivs’ki Visti, Osadchuk wrote of the damaging effects of the Banderites political war. The replacement of Mostovych with the non-nationalist prewar Petliurite naval lieutenant Sviatoslav Shramchenko was met with satisfaction among Chełm Ukrainians. Although initially skeptical in seeing a non-Chełm native head the aid committee, the fact that he completed his high school education in the city as well as his military and non-political background were convincing enough and raised the hope that this would end extreme nationalist in-fighting at the expense of Chełm Ukrainians.535 Another play was made in Chełm toward internal consolidation in the weeks leading up to the German attack on the USSR. This, Osadchuk wrote, was led by Banderite Iaroslav Rak who proposed organizing meetings throughout the county in efforts to choose representatives to the OUN-B national congress in Kraków; the goal of which was to organize a unified Ukrainian émigré front. Even though the aid committee head Shramchenko refused to permit meetings, Rak turned to his Banderite colleagues and organized two at the local Ukrainian bank; under the management of a Banderite. Aside from them, Hetmanites and Petliurites attended while Stepan Baran led the proceedings. Soon, the meeting turned into a vetting session by the Banderites against the UTsK. At this, many simply walked out, seeing the futility of the gathering. The next day, a subsequent meeting was held with an identical program. Once again proceedings broke down into petty squabbles between political orientations. Some described the desire for consolidation as a “lark” and called its organizers “punks.” Hetmanite representatives again renewed their loyalty to Skoropads’kyi. Petliurites shouted “Shame! Muscovite shame!” and swiftly left. In this way, the last attempts of the Banderites to overtake control in Chełm turned into a political fiasco. As Osadchuk summarized: “The bad aftertaste of political dilettantism along with unhealthy methods of remedying our political life have left Chełm.”536 536 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 24, folder 7, Zvit chyslo 6: Nastroï v Kholmi, June 12, 1941. 537 Klymyshyn, V pokhodi do voli vol. 1, 293-294; Il’nyts’kyi, Dumky pro ukraїns’ku vyzvol’nu polityku, 87-88. 538 Kerski and Kowalczyk, Wiek ukraińsko-polski..., 29; 32. 539 Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Heneral’nii Hubernii, 346-347. 540 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 17, folder 24, Presova konferentsiia, November 19, 1942. In removing or purging Banderites from aid committees, Banderite Mykola Klymyshyn claimed the Melnykites capitalized on their close relationship with Bisanz and the Abwehr in overpowering the Banderites or removing them from mutually organized agencies. This was the case of Iaroslav Starukh’s removal from the UTsK. According to Klymyshyn, this created a difficult environment as many began denouncing nationalists to Bisanz who turned to the Gestapo for assistance.537 Even with the replacement of Banderites or Melnykites with more moderate Ukrainians, such as Petliurites, they were still unsuccessful in making concrete gains as the nationalists continued to view them as those disgraceful Ukrainians which renounced Eastern Galicia to the Poles.538 Kubiiovych viewed the Banderites as the element which, in their pursuit to legitimize claims of nationalist leadership, disrupted the socio-cultural revolution taking place in the GG. This, he argued, forced the UTsK to put aside important work to concentrate on unnecessary political disputes. Worst of all, he bemoaned the fact that the youth was pulled away from their social work to bolster nationalist cadres.539 Throughout the war, he viewed the Banderites as an annoyance, disrupting UTsK work and German-Ukrainian relations. He summarized their tactics during one meeting: “The actions of the Banderites are naïve – with the perspective of Auschwitz – such actions from our side would be madness. Although led by the youth, older hysterical [people] are also at fault – and this is called national work in comparison to “boorish” UTsK work.”540 Neither did the Banderites show any sympathy toward the UTsK. Once their collaboration with the Germans soured, and once they added the Germans to their list of enemies, they looked upon the UTsK and its branches simply as collaborators. One report stated: “In every [aid] committee several officials are at the service of the Gestapo… The Orthodox church in Kholmshchyna is completely reliant on the German authorities.”541 Another described them as German lackeys who “sold themselves out” to the disposition of the occupiers, realizing in part their politics by executing instructions obediently: “Committee representatives collect quotas for the Germans, conduct worker-slave recruitment to German captivity, they call on Ukrainians to be completely loyal to the Reich; and from time to time they organize fine gatherings for the Germans “in order to maintain German-Ukrainian friendship.””542 They viewed Kubiiovych as chief opportunist who through his collaboration with the Germans was harming their national revolution. The Banderite underground press condemned him and his deutschfreundlich comments as unrepresentative and illusionary. In their view, he did not express the true desire of the Ukrainian masses (what should be read as the Banderite principles) – to see the Germans leave Ukrainian territory once and for all. They warned him against further collaboration by threatening: “Ukraine will remind Mr. Kubiiovych of his dirty service with the bloodthirsty occupier.”543 541 Quoted in Czesław Partacz and Krzysztof Łada, Polska wobec ukraińskich dążeń niepodległościowych w czasie II wojny światowej (Toruń: Centrum Edukacji Europejskiej, 2003), 105. 542 “Fragment sporządzonego przez podziemie OUN przeglądu stosunków społeczno-politycznych wiosną 1943r.” in Polska i Ukraina w latach trzydziestych-czterdziestych XX wieku... vol. 4, 1273. 543 Litopys Ukraїns’koї Povstans’koї Armiї vol. 24, eds. Jurij Majiwskyj and Yevhen Shtendera (Toronto: Litopys UPA, 1995), 121-122. The Polish underground commented on the Banderites and their national revolution: “They also resonate slogans of hatred. Ukraine’s enemies are: Poland, Russia, Germany, Hungary and Romania. Ukraine’s enemies are the allied nations… Repudiation toward the Melnykites, toward all political movements not theirs, toward the Ukrainian intelligentsia, to Kubiiovych, Sheptyts’kyi, the entire older generation – including their fathers – this is how the Banderites envision building Ukraine.” Kulińska and Roliński (eds), Kwestia ukraińska i eksterminacja ludności polskiej…, 202. 544 Grelka, Die ukrainische Nationalbewegung…, 199; Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Heneral’nii Hubernii, 344. Even though nationalist infighting handicapped UTsK work temporarily, Kubiiovych also saw it in positive terms as the purges prevented the Banderites from gaining control of the Committee base in the GG. Furthermore, Kubiiovych succeeded in defending the apolitical character and achievements of the UTsK from succumbing to political interests. This in turn guaranteed further cooperation with the occupiers. Conversely, the Banderites were unsuccessful in marginalizing Kubiiovych. This was the “emancipation” from OUN influences he later described in his memoirs. However, he maintained at least one aspect of Melnykite rhetoric – he continued to collaborate with the Germans with the hope that Ukrainians would be involved in the construction of the new European order on their autonomous, ethnographic territory after war's end.544 Internal UTsK purges and reshuffling also made Kubiiovych’s claims of being the representative of GG Ukrainians all the more legitimate. He matured into this role and began what Arlt had previously suggested – finding his place among GG Ukrainians. Edward Kubalski, observing daily life in occupied Kraków, noticed that by June 1941, Kubiiovych was growing to the rank of a future Ukrainian Führer.545 Following an audience with Kubiiovych, writer and publicist Ulas Samchuk, who described him as the average height, bald, calm and concentrated professor, questioned why he headed the UTsK. He came to learn that Kubiiovych “belonged to that widespread caste of people who see themselves as called by a greater power for the role of vozhd.” He called Kubiiovych’s visions and projects for Eastern Galicia as “pathetic and theoretical.”546 545 Edward Kubalski, Niemcy w Krakowie..., 142. 546 Sachuk, Na bilomu koni…, 34-35. 547 Kosyk, Rozkol OUN…, 46. 548 Knysh, B’ie dvanadsiata..., 151-154. Knysh noted that only Mel’nyk could call Kubiiovych to order.547 According to him, the OUN needed to teach Kubiiovych how to clearly delineate a line and how not to cross it. They explained to Kubiiovych that he was neither a Ukrainian political leader nor competent in political matters in relation to the Germans. To be a political representative, the Melnykites argued he needed the support of the entire Ukrainian nation; something they lacked. However, this did not stop Committee executives from dreaming ambitious visions of Kubiiovych, as Ukrainian leader, sitting at a future postwar peace conference following German victory.548 The German attack on the Soviet Union further helped Kubiiovych reshape the UTsK as many Banderites left the ‘old’ GG for Eastern Galicia. The later German suppression of Banderite irredentist aspirations in Lwów as well as the arrests of Melnykites and Banderites placed the UTsK in a non-rivaled position until mid-1943. As will be seen, with the occupier eventually expanding the Committee apparatus east, Kubiiovych was able to claim being the representative of a broader Ukrainian mass before the Germans. In working with Petliurites, socialists, FNIe supporters or simply non-OUN nationalists, he adapted the authoritarian providnyk organizational base created by the Melnikites to place him in an unrivaled position. This confidence allowed him to speak with GG authorities as the unrivalled Ukrainian representative. Developing wartime events prompted him toward a more overt political line. 3.7 Polish Exile Government, Underground and the Ukrainian Question In discussing the activity of the UTsK on occupied Polish territory, it is essential to also mention, albeit briefly, how Polish authorities – the exile government reconstituted in Paris and later London and its underground apparatus in the GG – perceived the Kubiiovych Committee while approaching to solve the Ukrainian question. After 1939 the Polish state ceased to exist as an independent entity following its conquest, partition and extralegal means by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. However, a government-in-exile was reconstituted, initially in Paris (and Angers) and later in London, according to article 24 of the 1935 constitution. As such, it mimicked the prewar state structure: a president served as figurehead with some executive powers while governing power was vested in the executive represented by the prime minister and council of ministers. Polish armed forces which fought alongside allied forces in the west were also reconstituted and under the supervision of the commander-in-chief.549 The exile government’s connection with occupied Poland came at two levels: civilian and military. The activity of the former was coordinated by the Government Delegate for Poland; the latter by the commander of the clandestine armed forces – the Home Army (Armia Krajowa – AK).550 Whereas the exile government was officially recognized by the allies, it was not the only representative claiming to speak for the Poles. After 1942 Polish and Soviet communist partisans germinated; leading to the creation of rival underground civilian and military representations. 549 Eugeniusz Duraczyński, Rząd polski na uchodźstwie 1939-1945. Organizacja, personalia, polityka (Warszawa: Książka i Wiedza, 1993), 35-105; Stefan Korboński, The Polish Underground State: A Guide to the Underground 1939-1945 (New York: Hippocrene Books, 1981), 14-70. For a broader examination into the exile government during and after the war, see the collected essays in Zbigniew Błażyński (ed), Władze RP na obczyźnie podczas II wojny światowej 1939-1945 (London: Polskie Towarzystwo Naukowe na Obczyźnie, 1994). The government-in-exile constituted a political coalition comprised of the Polish Peasant Party, the Polish Socialist Party, the Labor Party, and the National Party. Ministries in the exile government included: internal affairs, information and documentation, foreign affairs, treasury, industry and trade, and social welfare. The council of ministers also included many ministers without portfolios. For an understanding into the role of couriers between the exile government and the underground in occupied Poland, see the first-hand recollections: Jan Karski, Story of a Secret State (Georgetown: Georgetown University Press, 2014) and Jan Nowak Jeziorański, Kurier z Warszawy (Kraków: Znak, 2014). 550 Chodakiewicz, Between Nazis and Soviets..., 181. Previously the AK was known as the Union of Armed Struggle (Związek Walki Zbrojnej). 551 PISM, Council of Ministers – Archive of the Prime Minister (CM-APM), folder PRM.36, Stan sprawy ukraińskiej w chwili obecnej, September 6, 1940. Sikorski was skeptical toward a project drawn-up by the Komitet Ministrów dla Spraw Kraju which suggested, besides a promise to resepct the rights of the Ukrainian minority in postwar Poland, building an independent Ukrainian state at the expense of the USSR. Furthermore, the project stipulated that in the event a future Ukraine decided for federation with Poland, a border correction would be made to benefit the Ukrainians. According to Partacz, this was viewed by Sikorski as a return to the Piłsudskite politics of federalization. Partacz and Łada, Polska wobec ukraińskich dążeń…, 18-19. For the Polish exile government, solving the Ukrainian question equated to a definitive position concerning the future shape of Poland’s postwar eastern border and would be a test-case determining the extent of Polish influence in East-Central Europe. To avoid the mistakes of their predecessors, General Władysław Sikorski, prime minister and commander-in-chief of Polish armed forces, announced the equality of all minorities in postwar Poland. Concerning the importance of reaching an understanding with the Ukrainians, analysts urged to develop a policy toward cooperation especially when the fate of Poland’s prewar eastern territories would be decided by force. Without joint cooperation, analysts feared “foreign elements” would turn Poles and Ukrainians against each other in efforts to assume dominance those territories.551 However, this left-out an important topic for discussions and negotiations – revising the territorial status quo ante bellum of the Riga Treaty. Throughout the war, the exile government made worthwhile attempts toward contacting Ukrainian circles with the intent of coming to terms with them in order to prevent another possible Polish-Ukrainian war. Jerzy Giedroyc, the later publisher of the literary-political journal Kultura who served as secretary to the Polish ambassador in Romania (from September 1939 to November 1940), made contacts with Ukrainians there with the hope of finding allies. Even though Polish-Ukrainians meetings were held, they were often theoretical with little actual results.552 Jerzy Stempowski, essayist and literary critic who fled to Hungary and Switzerland before collaborating with Giedroyc and Kultura after the war, offered to use his contacts among Eastern Galician Ukrainians as a basis for concerted talks by the exile government.553 552 Bruski, “W kręgu spraw prometejskich i ukraińskich....” in Giedroyc a Ukraina..., 72-90. By the fall of 1939, Giedroyc made contacts with many Ukrainians in occupied Poland, including Vasyl’ Mudryi and Volodymyr Kubiiovych. According to Bruski, Giedroyc played a prominent role in attempting to move Mudryi from occupied Poland to Paris. He also aided in issuing a Polish passport to Dmytro Dontsov – formally a Polish citizen – who came to he embassy in the spring of 1940. Polish exile circles also had plans to exploit Dontsov in a pro-Polish role. Actual results of Polish-Ukrainian talks in Romania consisted of Polish help in publishing and distributing Ukrainian-lanugauge newspapers and leaflets. In February 1941, Giedroyc left Bucharest for Istanbul in mid-February 1941 alongside personnel of the British embassy. 553 Stempowski, W dolinie Dniestru..., 132-135; 250. 554 Partacz and Łada, Polska wobec ukraińskich dążeń niepodległościowych..., 19-41; 58-67. The pro-Ally, anti-totalitarian position of the UNR exiles was evident in a September 1, 1939 article appearing in their official newspaper Tryzub: “In attacking Poland, the German Reich exposed Europe and the world to the dangers of suffering, ruin and misery. Regardless of the development of events, Ukrainians know perfectly well where their place is in this terrible and decisive global drama… We stand on the side of France, England and Poland. Standing by their side we know that we will fight for the defense of truth and justice, for the right of our people to owning an independent state…” 555 Polish underground talks and negotiations with Ukrainian in ccupied Poland is best discussed and examined extensively in Czesław Partacz, “Próby porozumienia polsko-ukraińskiego na terenie kraju w czasie II wojny światowej” in Polska-Ukraina: trudne pytania vol. 5 (Warszawa: Karta, 1999). A brief episode of collaboration between the AK and UPA occurred after the war. Here, see Grzegorz Motyka and Rafał Wnuk, Pany i rezuny. Współpraca AK-WiN i UPA 1945-1947 (Warszawa: Volumen, 1997). 556 “Sprawozdanie sytuacyjne Piotra Jarockiego (“Wojnickiego”) (September 29, 1943)” in Archiwum Adama Bienia. Akta narodowościowe (1942-1944), eds. Jan Brzeski and Adam Roliński (Kraków: Księgarnia Akademicka 2001), 294. Attempts were also made to collaborate with pro-Polish Ukrainians – Petliurite émigrés representing the Ukrainian National Republic-in-exile. After the occupation of Warsaw, where the UNR-exiles were centered, a reorganized UNR émigré government in Paris around former Prime Minister Viacheslav Prokopovych – who automatically assumed the mantle of UNR-exile president – and a Ukrainian Committee. The group quickly made contacts with exile Poles who continued to subsidize them, albeit in a limited capacity. In exchange, they expressed loyalty toward the anti-Hitler coalition and engaged in talks to create a Ukrainian military unit under either French or Polish command in the west.554 In the GG, the Polish underground also entered into talks with Ukrainians in order to reach a common consensus however with little concrete results.555 Among the three main Ukrainian political trends in the GG – the OUN, UTsK, and Greek Catholic Church – a Government Delegate for Poland report noted there was no sign of an organizational factor which could play a leading role in Ukrainian matters.556 The most pressing issue which kept the Polish government and its representatives in occupied Poland from reaching any agreement with Ukrainians was the question concerning land and borders. Immediately from the outset of its constitution, the Polish exile government declared (on November 22, 1939) its war aims. These included regaining independence and emerging from the war territorially undiminished, i.e. the reemergence of a Polish state in its pre-1939 borders. Throughout the war, Sikorski, and later his successor Stanisław Mikołajczyk, underscored the inviolability of those borders. This in turn contested Ukrainian independentist desires as they viewed the Eastern Galician territories of the Second Republic as the basis for their future state.557 557 Partacz and Łada, Polska wobec ukraińskich dążeń…, 18; 305-333. 558 For exile government Krakivs’ki Visti press reports from 1942, see the collection in PISM, MSW, folder A.9.V/22. 559 Snyder, The Reconstruction of Nations…, 156; Stempowski, W Dolinie Dniestru…, 163; Sowa, Stosunki polsko-ukraińskie..., 105; This was the opinion of Adam Zieliński who wrote to Stempowski in December 1941. Zieliński, born in Buczacz (Tarnopol voivodship) was a Polish historian, lawyer and diplomat who worked in the Polish mission in Lisbon, Portugal during the war. 560 Chodakiewicz, Between Nazis and Soviets..., 142-143. The underground structure and exile representatives paid close attention to the work of the UTsK; in turn keeping London abreast of its activity. One way to track UTsK thought during the war were press reports compiled from articles primarily in Krakivs’ki Visti and L’vivs’ki Visti. Often, they summarized what was considered the most important or interesting materials published. These included any examples of Ukrainian pro-German sympathies – whether expressed verbally or as seen in UTsK accomplishments.558 The general notion among Poles, especially those in the underground, toward Ukrainian collaboration with the occupier – whether German or Soviet – was equal to treason and a national betrayal particularly since the most of the Ukrainians involved were citizens of the Polish state. Ukrainian collaboration with the occupier, arguably rational from the side of those who yearned to found a state and build a nation, created the image of a pro-Nazi (or pro-Soviet) community hostile to Poland. Ukrainian actions from 1939 and 1940 were seen in the light of a disloyal internal minority seeking independence on the heels of state destruction by totalitarian powers. They were seen as a group prepared to seize the state’s moment of weakness by plotting with external enemies. Some even described them as “a Trojan horse in our own home: a fifth column – in one word, Ukrainians from 1939.”559 The GG divide and conquer policy toward the ethnic minorities only reinforced this stereotype. Any form of perceived privilege, whether it was a Ukrainian being appointed to head a village in place of a recently purged Pole or Ukrainian schools being opened where Polish ones were closed down, constituted powerful “proof” against Ukrainian elites and villagers. Thus, what Poles saw as real or imagined Ukrainian crimes caused Polish hostility.560 Bohdan Osadchuk explained the Polish opinion and view of the occupier’s pro-Ukrainian line; crystalizing in what he termed the “Ukrainian betrayal myth.” He expounded that even though Ukrainians remained loyal to the state in September 1939 with no mass anti-Polish uprising breaking out then, the incidents initiated by Ukrainians in eastern and southern Poland then created a distinct image among Polish on-lookers: Our Ukrainians are acting like traitors because they are accepting [administrative] positions from the Germans; they are allowing themselves to be bribed. What are they creating? Schools without the agreement of Poles? By what right? After all they are our citizens! Therefore they are traitors!”561 561 Kerski and Kowalczyk, Wiek ukraińsko-polski. Rozmowy z Bohdanem Osadczukiem, 31-32. 562 PISM, MIiD, folder A.10.3/9, List na temat sprawy ukraińskiej, November 20, 1940; “Sprawy Ukraińsko-Polskie od września 1939 do listopada 1941 – przewidywania na przyszłość (November 15, 1941),” Armia Krajowa w dokumentach, vol. 2, 139. 563 Kubalski, Niemcy w Krakowie..., 93. 564 AAN, Delegatura Rządu RP na Kraj (DRRPK), sygn. 202/III/193, Sprawozdanie sytuacyjne, 1943, p. 83. 565 “Sprawozdanie sytuacyjne Piotra Jarockiego (“Wojnickiego”) (September 29, 1943)” in Archiwum Adama Bienia..., 285-286. 566 PISM, MSW, folder A.9/8a, Uwagi dotyczące Włodzimierza Kubijowycza, October 6, 1943. The report also mentioned that he did not hide his hostile attitudes toward the Soviet Union. As will be seen in more detail later, when Germans maintained tight control of ethnically-mixed regions, Polish hostility equated to scare-tactics and beatings of prominent local Ukrainian civic leaders. Killings occurred later in the war as German control over certain regions waned. When this occurred, perceived Ukrainian collaborators were targeted by the Polish underground as executing them was less likely to bring German reprisals against Polish civilians. The Polish exile government and underground viewed Kubiiovych in terms of the leading Ukrainian Quisling in the GG who was being exploited by the Germans to deepen Polish-Ukrainian antagonisms in the hope of gaining Ukrainian autonomy.562 In his wartime diary, Edward Kubalski described Kubiiovych as a “well-known Polack devourer (polakożerca).”563 His overt pro-German position was viewed as treasonous. A report from the government's Delegate for Poland categorized him as a Ukrainian opportunist, the “flagship man” of those circles.564 Underground reports emphasized his politics vis-à-vis the occupier: on the one hand, to gain, through German help, the most privileges possible for Ukrainians in order to assume the strongest position in all aspect of ethnic life while, on the other, assisting and aiding the occupier wherever it could be beneficial to them. Kubiiovych’s pro-German rhetoric was received and equated to Nazi propaganda; reaffirming in Polish eyes an image of him as a Ukrainian collaborator and “mouth piece” in every negative sense of the term.565 A biographical report described him as an active and bright professor and researcher who strayed off of the right, Polish path. His academic work took on political tones and, through unofficial, non-Polish materials, undermined prewar state census and population data. In frank or private conversations, the report went on, he disclosed his negative position toward the Polish state.566 Furthermore, his scholarly approach toward defining Ukrainian ethnographic territory in the GG was called into question. As one report concluded: “Kubiiovych included within ‘Ukrainian ethnographic territory’ all Polish areas on which even a tiny Ukrainian or Ruthenian minority lived. In this way, [his] conceived ‘Ukrainian ethnographic territory’ reached practically to Białystok, Warsaw and Kraków.”567 567 PUMST, OIV, file A269/71, Ukraińska akcja na Chełmszczyźnie i Podlasiu (oraz Łemkowszczyźnie i Posaniu), November 21, 1942, p. 67. 568 PISM, MSW, folder A.9/8b, Informacje z terenu krajów nadbałtyckich w sprawach ukraińskich, November 20, 1943; “Meldunek organizacyjne i raport polityczno-gospodarczy (January 9, 1940),” Armia Krajowa w Dokumentach vol. 1, 70. 569 PISM, MIiD, folder A.10.3/12, Zagadnienie ukraińskie, November 1942. 570 PISM, CM-APM, folder PRM.88.1.3, Uwagi działu narodowościowego Ministerstwa Informacji i Dokumentacji w bieżących sprawach ukraińskich, January 25, 1942. Other notes placed him on the same level as Emil Hácha, the wartime Czech collaborator. To Kubiiovych was added the epithet “bad politician” who led the Konovalets’, i.e. Melnykite, camp in occupied Poland.568 Ukrainians such as Kubiiovych, Bandera or Mel’nyk were seen by Polish authorities as having made political compromises with the Germans; conducting a moral wrong in comparison to Poles: “…Ukrainian leaders do not show that rigid restrained, moral and political attitude that characterizes the Polish people…”569 Whereas the exile government was keen to engage in talks with Ukrainians throughout the war to reach some sort of rapprochement, members of the OUN and Ukrainian nationalists were to be chose with “great caution” because of their overt anti-Polish attitudes and collaboration with the Nazis.570 However, as will be seen later, this does not mean that the underground did not listen to OUN nationalists or Kubiiovych when approached by them. Chapter 4 GG Occupation Politics, Privilege-Concessions and the UTsK The German administration has guaranteed the Ukrainians, within the scope of possibility, wide-ranging cultural and administrative autonomy. - Max du Prel, GG Propaganda Department head571 571 Max du Prel, Podręcznik dla Generalnego Gubernatorstwa w Polsce (Krakau: Buchverlag Ost, 1941), 91. 572 Kedryn, Zhyttia-podiї-liudy..., 363-364; Torzecki, Polacy i Ukraińcy…, 56. 573 PISM, MIiD, folder A.10.3/12, Wyciag z komunikatu nr. 8 Sztabu Naczelnego Wodza Oddzial II, February 15, 1941. Du Prel’s cited comment conveys the opinion among GG civil administrators toward the Ukrainians under their authority. With the GG being Frank’s realm of law and order, this chapter begins with an examination of the UTsK legal status in the GG, especially in the context of the German divide and conquer policy. To further drive Poles and Ukrainians apart while, at the same time, catering to the sentiments of their newly-liberated Slavs, the occupier bestowed certain concessions; permitting Ukrainians greater autonomy in socio-cultural matters, ones they were previously marginalized in under the Poles, to in turn gain their loyalty but to also vent-out nationalist frustrations or angst in a controlled way. Kubiiovych viewed these as privileges; the first step toward creating a Ukrainian social estate system consisting of nationalized clergy, a native, nationalized intelligentsia (including administrators and merchants), and a nationally-conscious peasant class for a future Ukraine. After the war, this disillusioned myth became a standard yet, as Kedryn commented, concessions were induced by the UTsK with bribes for German officials or by showering Frank with gifts during official audiences. Because Ukrainians and Germans viewed the social gains in differing ways, I have chosen to classify them according to Ryszard Torzecki’s terminology of ‘privilege-concessions;’ a term which I believe reflects their mutual collaboration and the notion of each side exploiting the other for their own gains.572 For their part, the Poles viewed any such estates as attempts by the occupier to forge a new bourgeoisie, something they deemed to be a “fake class.”573 4.1 The Organization of fremdvölkishe Welfare in the GG In examining and understanding the racial and ideological motives behind GG population and welfare policy, it is necessary to turn to the legal and practical aspects of it to understand how and on what basis the Ukrainian Central Committee functioned. Frank’s background as a lawyer and his experiences and training in government prepared him to establish from scratch a state apparatus and legal system in the GG. He was filled with a zest to turn ideas and ideologies into practical laws.574 Racially dividing Poland’s prewar inhabitants into racial tribes resonated in GG laws; ones for “former Polish state citizens” and Jews.575 574 Housaden, Hans Frank, Lebensraum and the Holocaust, 76; 88. An important figure and close collaborator of Frank’s who coordinated the legislative process in the GG was Dr. Albert Weh. Andrzej Wrzyszcz, “Hierarchia aktów prawnych wprowadzonych przez okupanta niemieckiego w Generalnym Gubernatorstwie w latach 1939-1945,” Studia Iuridica Lublinensia nr. 22 (2014), 701-707. 575 Mitera, Zwyczajny faszyzm..., 82. 576 Bogdan Kroll, Rada Główna Opiekuńcza (Warszawa: Książka i Wiedza, 1985), 27-49. 577 Arlt, Die Ordnung der Fürsorge und Wohlfahrt im Generalgouvernement, 5. 578 Kroll, Rada Główna Opiekuńcza, 50- 53; Ronikier, Pamiętniki 1939-1945, 24. Columbia P. Murphy headed the American Red Cross group while MacDonald, a Quaker, represented the Hoover Commission. As Ronikier recalled in his memoirs, his role in organizing and distributing American aid sent to Poland by Herbert Hoover contributed to their amicable relations. In a similar fashion as their Ukrainian counterparts, Poles also organized ad hoc welfare and aid organizations or continued worn in prewar ones immediately following the eruption of war in 1939.576 The amount of uncontrolled Polish and Ukrainian committees raised alarm among the Germans as they were yet under the control of the occupation apparatus. According to Arlt, the destruction of Poland called for an overhaul and the legal revision of state-sponsored welfare. He claimed the prewar system was a subsequent tool of state-sponsored polonization aimed at ethnic minorities (especially Germans and Ukrainians). In turn, he associated this as a subsequent example of “the tragic racial-ethnic Polnische Wirtschaft.”577 In Arlt’s eyes, GG state-sponsored welfare would be more representative, including the various prewar ethnicities previously marginalized. Aside from political and racial motives, a subsequent factor which prompted the German occupier toward revising the welfare system was the interest of Americans in sending aid to occupied Poland. Following German-American negotiations, the first American mission – consisting of representatives of the American Red Cross and the Polish Food Commission (commonly referred to as the Hoover Commission) – arrived in November 1939 to assess welfare needs and to make contacts with officials. In talks with Adam Ronikier, Polish GG welfare representative, the Americans discussed the terms of for an institution to distribute aid throughout the GG: solely Polish in character, directly under the control of the Americans and possessing a monopoly over distributing goods to all other welfare and aid organizations. However, any organization had to be approved by the Germans who had no intention of allowing it to continue the work of prewar welfare institutions or be directly subservient to outside bodies such as the International Red Cross.578 The occupier was also directly interested in the issue of American aid on their territory. Frank learned of the American propositions from SS-Standartenführer Wilhelm von Janowsky of the NSDAP People’s Welfare (Nationalsozialistische Volkswohlfahrt – NSV) in early November 1939. The general governor opposed any idea of uncontrolled American-Polish contacts. However, he agreed to American aid to be distributed through a properly- organized, GG controlled institution.579 Before year's end, Arlt was tasked with entering into talks with Poles toward creating a welfare organization. He attempted to revise the existing Polish Red Cross to meet new German terms and become the agent of aid in the GG but to no avail. At the same time, von Janowsky entered into talks with Warsaw Poles. He envisioned revising the prewar capital's social aid committee to encompass the entire GG; going so far as presenting the men with a drawn-up statute and call to the Polish people. While central welfare issued remained unclear, the NSV provided some aid to German-occupied Poland. For example, the large Ukrainian internment camp in Kraków benefited from NSV foodstuffs.580 579 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/1, Tagebuch des Herrn Generalgouverneurs für die besetzen polnische Gebiete vom 25. Oktober bis 15. Dezember 1939, p. 61. The NSDAP People’s Welfare was created in 1933 as the only state-sponsored charitable aid organization in the Reich. By 1939, some 27 million Germans were receiving various types of NSV-sponsored social welfare: old-age insurance, rent supplements, unemployment and disability benefits, nursing home care, interest-free loans for newlyweds and healthcare insurance. It operated daycare nurseries, holiday homes for mothers and distributed additional food to large families. Götz Aly, Hitlers Volksstaat: Raub, Rassenkrieg und nationaler Sozialismus (Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer, 2005), 580 Kroll, Rada Główna Opiekuńcza, 55-56; Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Heneral’nii Hubernii, 47. Arlt envisioned moving Polish Red Cross headquarters from Warsaw to the new GG capital Kraków with the Germans being the authority choosing its head; moves intending to make it directly dependent to the GG authorities while maintaining its international status. The Poles explained that any changes to the statute would force them to inform the International Red Cross in Geneva; something which would propel revisions to Polish welfare and relief work onto an international stage. 581 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/1, Tagebuch des Herrn Generalgouverneurs für die besetzen polnische Gebiete vom 25. Oktober bis 15. Dezember 1939, pp. 108; 113-114. 582 AAN, Rada Główna Opiekuńcza (RGO), sygn. 6, Arlt letter to Ronikier, 1940. Needless to say, the idea of Berlin dictating and organizing welfare work in Frank’s GG did not sit well with him. As an administrator who answered only to Hitler, he opposed Reich authority extending its grip into his territory. To prevent this, Frank subordinated von Janowsky to the GG internal affairs department. The latter proposed reorganizing Polish welfare to prevent Poles from finding any pretexts for non-charitable aims. Frank approved of this approach but ordered GG officials to be vigilant.581 Whereas Poles, like Ukrainians, prepared organizational statutes, the occupier was not ready to allow a Polish central institution – envisioning to provide welfare to Poles and Polish Jews – to monopolize aid over all GG ethnic groups. The Ukrainians initially proposed creating a counter institute of their own to oversee their welfare matters. This proved unacceptable as the occupier envisioned one central ethnic welfare institution for the GG. Ukrainians later requested to be included in the Polish council on the grounds of being a prewar Polish national group. Some civil administrators urged for a separate welfare body for Polish Jews.582 German visions of Polish monopolization of welfare correlated with a dangerous possibility – exploiting charitable welfare by the Poles for anti-German activity and international contacts. To solve the matter, the authorities called to life a central welfare council for the GG (Haupthilfausschuss für die Generalgouvernement) to coordinate the three newly-created, ethnically distinct welfare organizations: the Polish Main Welfare Council (Rada Główna Opiekuńcza – RGO), a Jewish Self-Help Society (Jüdische Soziale Selbsthilfe), and the Ukrainian Central Committee. The central welfare councils' executive board consisted on 7 members – 5 Poles, 1 Jew and 1 Ukrainian. Following the expansion of GG borders in 1941, the board was restructured to meet the influx of Ukrainians: 4 Poles, 2 Ukrainians and 1 Jew.583 Arlt originally proposed Vasyl’ Mudryi for the Ukrainian position before Kubiiovych was named UTsK head.584 583 Czesław Łuczak, Polityka ludnościowa i ekonomiczna hitlerowskich niemiec w okupowanej Polsce (Poznań: Wydawnictwo Poznańskie, 1979), 573; Arlt, Die Ordnung der Fürsorge und Wohlfahrt im Generalgouvernement, 110; Kroll, Rada Główna Opiekuńcza, 63. Prior to the change of the official GG title, the central welfare council was called the Hauptausschuss für die besetzen polnischen Gebiete. 584 AAN, RGO, sygn. 6, Arlt letter to Ronikier, 1940; Ronikier letter to Mudryi, June 26, 1940, p. 13; Ronikier letter to Kubiiovych, June 27, 1940, p. 16. 585 Ronikier, Pamiętniki 1939-1945, 39. According to Ronikier, during a meeting with Mudryi and Mykhailo Sopuliak, the former proposed mediation over the pressing issue of aid distribution. The three agreed to Stanisław Badeni (Polish aristocrat, historian and lawyer from Eastern Galicia who was familiar with Ukrainian issues) to serve as mediator over the issue as his opinions were seen as objective and fair by both sides. After some research, Badeni concluded that Ukrainians comprised 5.5 percent of the GG population. 586 Arlt, Die Ordnung der Fürsorge und Wohlfahrt im Generalgouvernement, 5. Adam Ronikier, head of the Polish RGO and central welfare council, described his first meeting with Kubiiovych over talks concerning aid distribution to GG Ukrainians. He recalled the difficulty in coming to terms with him as Kubiiovych was “currently such a zealous Ukrainian nationalist that for him, the principles of fairness concerning Ukrainian interests did not exist.” During their talks, Kubiiovych claimed Ukrainians comprised 15 percent of the GG population. Ronikier claimed this figure included Ukrainians from Eastern Galicia and was not representative of the current situation. To this, Kubiiovych cut the talks short and abruptly left.585 After the Lemko region was included into the understanding of ethnic Ukrainians in the GG, they comprised 7 percent of the population. As such, the UTsK received 7 percent of America welfare. After the attachment of Eastern Galicia to the GG, this number increased. This solution fit into the German vision of welfare in the GG as it aimed to alleviate the central administration from these matters by instead placing responsibility on the respective ethnic welfare councils. In essence, the occupier created an arena for further ethnic antagonism as they envisioned the committees to remain in a constant state of hostility among one another at the local levels over pressing supplies (such as medicine, foodstuffs, clothing, etc.) or medical and social care. Arlt contextualized this aspect of divide et impera, writing: Our assumptions over matters of social welfare and aid are then political in nature. All questions associated with aid and social welfare are solved according to German racial and ethnic policies… In order to exert indirect influence on ethnic groups, our social welfare is assigned the task of deciding who aid is given to, the amounts given and observing the ethnic groups to ensure that no low-level socially-inspired political movements are being born.586 The role of the central welfare council was relegated to dispersing material aid received by the GG authorities via the German Red Cross along with dealing with the GG authorities in matters concerning welfare. The Red Cross commissioner in the GG – initially Louis Sanne; later Hugon Heller – was the intermediary between the central welfare council and the population and welfare bureau of the GG internal affairs department.587 However, as Czesław Łuczak noted, the council’s work was handicapped as each committee preferred directly negotiating with the Germans on their own with the hope of gaining more favorable outcomes in this way.588 Although administratively burdensome for the occupiers, they were surely pleased with the fact that no cohesion formed among the ethnic committees. 587 Hugon Heller, “Das Deutsche Rote Kreuz im Generalgouvernement” in du Prel (ed), Das Generalgouvernement, 75; 77. 588 Herbert Heinrich, “Aufbau und Organisation der freien Wohlfahrt” in Arlt, Die Ordnung der Fürsorge und Wohlfahrt im Generalgouvernement, 30; Łuczak, Polityka ludnościowa i ekonomiczna..., 573. 589 BA, R 52 III/6, Ordnung der ukrainischen Wohlfahrt, May 4, 1940, pp. 76-81. Also in Arlt, Die Ordnung der Fürsorge und Wohlfahrt im Generalgouvernement, 127-128. 590 Arlt, Die Ordnung der Fürsorge und Wohlfahrt im Generalgouvernement, 113-114. The Polish RGO and Jewish Self-Help Society's statues also contained articles defining who they worked for – Poles and Jews respectively. 591 Ibid, 120-123. Essentially, every legal step of the UTsK was to be reported to the GG authorities. Projects pertaining to the development of self-standing charitable institutions needed German approval. The internal affairs department was to be notified of all executive meetings, ones held between the 3rd and 7th of every month. German and Ukrainian language protocols were drafted with the German version sent to the authorities. A monthly report outlined activities, details of aid received, financial statements and balance. An annual report The first directive legalizing UTsK work in the GG was Arlt’s temporary aid committee guideline; adopted on May 4, 1940. It designated the role of aid committees at the county and city-district levels. Each committee consisted of a five-man executive. Besides the committee head, a secretary oversaw organizational questions. The other areas of welfare were: work-economic aid, youth-family aid and financial management. Their assignments concerned overseeing welfare and distributing aid, including goods and money, along with organizing or maintaining existing charitable institutions. The intermediary between the aid committees and the GG population bureau was Kubiiovych.589 Statues (Satzung) officially called to life all three ethnic welfare committees in the GG. The Ukrainian one officially declared the UTsK the organization overseeing the distribution of welfare, aid and finances among the aid committees as well as indirectly cooperating with international welfare organizations by directly working with the German Red Cross. To prevent any attempts of inter-ethnic welfare, an article clearly stipulated UTsK welfare for GG Ukrainians only. The executive was to consist of at least seven members including a chairman and deputy. Ukrainian associations or individuals were permitted to join the UTsK as associate members provided approval from the GG internal affairs department. All three committees were subject to the internal department and mandated to keep it abreast of all activity.590 Regulations for committee work (Geschäftsordnung I und II) outlined in greater detail rules and assignments. These included procedures for conducting executive meetings, compiling reports, membership, and committee assignments.591 Subsequent guidelines summarized UTsK work for a given year. The yearly budget of the Committee also relied on the approval of the authorities. 592 Ibid, 129-130. 593 Ibid, 130-132; LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 26, folder 5, Instruktsiia v spravi dilovodstva Delegatur Ukraїns’kykh Dopomohovykh Komitetiv na tereni Heneral'-Hubernatorstva, May 1, 1940; Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Heneral’nii Hubernii, 99. 594 Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Heneral’nii Hubernii, 125-126. 595 Ibid, 101-102. (Richtlinien) were prepared to supersede the temporary one Arlt prepared for aid committees. The updated version clearly defined their welfare and aid role. This included assisting refugees or evacuees by finding work for them, organizing orphanages and kindergartens for children, organizing specialized courses to prepare Ukrainians for agricultural or physical work, training Ukrainians in sanitary and hygienic practices, and aiding destitute families. This was to be done with UTsK finances and donations from local Ukrainians.592 According to Kubiiovych, the various legal guidelines, regulations and rules the GG authorities prepared were both chaotic and at times contradictory to one another. Certainly, Nazi laws were filled with vague wording open to interpretation and boundless omnibus provisions. To facilitate a clearer understanding of them, especially for aid committees, the UTsK prepared a handbook of its own (Handhabungsvorschriften); one approved by the Germans. Added to aid committee structures were delegates and trusted men. The former worked primarily in towns while the latter were in every village. These men represented aid committees and authority at the lowest levels. The executive was expanded to include oversight in cultural, organizational-personnel and food-nutritional matters.593 Complementing the GG-mandated statue and regulations for the UTsK, an internal guide was created. Kubiiovych claimed that it came out of practice, glossing over its aspects in his later memoirs.594 However, these internal guidelines gave concrete definition to the vague elasticity of the German statutes and legal regulations. As the UTsK saw it, aid and welfare for GG Ukrainians had a broader meaning: Even though the primary assignment of the UTsK was overall aid activity, at the same time the UTsK in its work was not only a charitable organization. UTsK activity sailed a far wider stream than what was envisioned in its narrow statute because the Committee provid aspired to confer its own, broader interpretations to the narrow, uncertain yet flexible resolutions of the UTsK statute. So in relation to the terms welfare or aid to the needy, the UTsK provid understood this as not only material support (financial, food or clothing) but to also help the needy gain professional knowledge or to generally raise their cultural level, to improve their material state.595 Providing the wide-ranging understanding of welfare and aid to the Ukrainian people in the GG was mandated in the guidelines in rhetoric describing it as a national cause and responsibility to provide the “suffering, scattered” people with dedicated and committed social care. Each individual was called to give their all in this struggle for socio-cultural welfare. The non-material aspect of welfare was best visible in articles relating to youth education which pledged for a school with Ukrainian teachers for Ukrainian children in every Ukrainian village. Furthermore, polonized children were to be given special attention. In addition to this, supplementary cultural indoctrination outside of formal schools aimed to “raise the level of Ukrainian consciousness of the populace so that they, in turn, can immediately work and perform their civic responsibilities.”596 596 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 26, folder 5, Vnutryshnyi Pravyl’nyk Ukraїns’koho Tsentral’noho Komitetu u Krakovi, June 30, 1940. 597 Ibid, Dilovyi Pravyl’nyk UTsK, June 20, 1941. The fusion of deputy providnyk with head of an UTsK branch in Lwów resulted in the division of the previous outlined position of deputy providnyk and secretary. 598 Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Heneral’nii Hubernii, 130-131; Torzecki, Polacy i Ukraińcy..., 52; Weirauch, “Die Volksgruppen im Generalgouvernement,” 252. Aside from aid committees and delegations in the Galicia, Lublin and Kraków districts, the Warsaw district contained 2 aid committees (Warsaw and Siedlce) and 4 delegates (Łowicz, Sochaczew, Minsk Mazowiecki and Grójec) while the Radom district had 6 aid committees (Częstochowa, Radom, Piotrków, Tomaszów Mazowiecki, Radomsk and Opatów) and 2 delegates in Busko and Starachowice. 599 Ronikier, Pamiętniki 1939-1945, 19. A revised guideline compiled on the eve of the German attack on the USSR, presumably in preparation to expand the Committee apparatus to Eastern Galicia, emphatically declared the UTsK to be structured on the basis of authoritarian Führerprinzip, with all responsibility vested in the providnyk. His deputy was designated as an envisioned aid committee head in Lwów; in this way maintaining a constant communication link between Kraków and Lwów.597 At its height in 1942 the UTsK apparatus in the GG contained 26 Ukrainian aid committees, 41 delegates, 965 trusted men, and 109 village branches. At the same time the Polish aid committee apparatus numbered only 61 branches throughout the GG. Whereas the overwhelming majority of these institutions were on what Ukrainians considered ethnographic territory, some fell outside of it on ethnically-mixed and ethnographically Polish territory.598 Torzecki postulated the question of the UTsK apparatus extending onto ethnically Polish territory. He suggested German approval of committees there may have also aimed to serve their occupational needs, i.e. as a means of maintaining ethnic antagonisms or to observe Polish activity and attitudes. However, it is also possible that in organizing some aid committees on non-Ukrainian ethnographic territory, the UTsK was continuing the tradition of the Petliurite central committee which had branches in such cities as Częstochowa for example. One aspect of fremdvölkische welfare to briefly examine are the personages of Adam Ronikier and Volodymyr Kubiiovych; heads of their respective ethnic committees. Two questions to ask are: what did each man hope to achieve in his role? And how did each hope to achieve it within the legal limitations imposed by the GG authorities? In his memoirs, Ronikier wrote that his main goal as Polish welfare committee head during the war was saving the substance of the nation.599 For him however, any efforts to cooperate with the German occupier, even if for the good of the Polish people, was met with immediate criticism and suspicion. As such, he was restrained from any far-reaching collaboration; first by his committee colleagues and later by the Polish underground. However, he sought to play a greater political or public role even if it meant collaborating with the GG authorities and the credulity that came with it. Leading the RGO was seen as the instrument to achieve this. Measured against the occupier’s ethnic policy, Ronikier’s ambitions left him little room for actual maneuver. This is not to say that he stood idly by in his role. Ronikier aimed to persuade the occupier to change course toward the GG Poles if only to create more formidable conditions for possible cooperation. At the same time, he also worked tirelessly toward providing Poles with material aid and welfare; writing notes to GG officials protesting their course of action.600 600 Friedrich, “Zusammenarbeit und Militärschaft in Polen” in Kooperation und Verbrechen..., 127-128. 601 Arlt, Die Ordnung der Fürsorge und Wohlfahrt im Generalgouvernement, 33; Łuczak, Polityka ludnościowa i ekonomiczna..., 580; Kroll, Rada Główna Opiekuńcza, 94. 602 Kulińska and Roliński (eds), Kwestia ukraińska i eksterminacja ludności polskiej..., 11-12. The report claimed that the information of wages and supplies came from a “reliable source.” Monthly food and rations supplies included: 4 kg of white flour, 2 kg of dark flour, 2 kg of honey butter, 2 kg of marmalade, 1 kg of butter, 2 kg of meat, 2 kg of kiełbasa, ½ litre of vodka, 4 bottles of beer, 30 eggs, 15 litres of whole milk, 5 bars of soap, ½ kg of candles, 3 kg of cereal, 10 kg of potatoes, and 6 loaves of bread. In examining the person of Adam Ronikier, one is tempted to see certain similarities between him and Kubiiovych. Like Ronikier, Kubiiovych also worked to maintain the substance of the nation. Both men viewed cooperation with Germans as necessary for this purpose. Both attempted to use their position to gain greater political capital for their respective group vis-à-vis the Germans. The main difference lies in the fact that Kubiiovych envisioned not only saving the substance of the Ukrainian population but capitalizing on the occupier’s divide and conquer policy and nominal Ukrainophile position to also build a nationally-conscious mass which could in the near future be the foundation for a Ukrainian state. GG administrative anti-Polish policies did not allow Ronikier any such opportunity. In legally creating apolitical social welfare committees for the GG ethnic groups, the occupiers not only intended to turn all against each other but to also create a space for realizing Ukrainian national interests. Even though all three aid committees were theoretically equal, the GG policy of ethnic divide and conquer afforded Ukrainians more privileges-concession in comparison to the other two groups. Unlike the other ones, the UTsK was financially sponsored in part by GG administration. In 1940, this was stipulated to be 7 thousand zlotys monthly for administrative expenses. Between 1940 and 1943, this amounted to a total of about 5 million złotys. Along with this, the goods and funds received via the central welfare council from 1940 through 1942 totaled some 4.5 million złotys. Additionally, the UTsK was permitted to conduct fund raisers among GG Ukrainians. Often these were organized to collect money for educational scholarship.601 High-ranking UTsK officials and employees received favorable remuneration, given wartime circumstances, for their work. Aside from 500 złotys cash paid to them per month, they also received higher food and supply rations than others. A Polish report commented on this dichotomy: “It is not surprising that in comparison to the hunger wages of administrative workers, UTsK workers, who are lavishly supplied, constitute a Ukrainian guard for führer Kubiiovych.”602 Material aid for the GG people came from various international sources. Apart from the Hoover commission or the American Red Cross, it came from American Quakers, the Jewish American Joint Distribution Committee, various international Red Crosses (Belgian, Brazilian, Dutch, and Swedish), the Ukrainian Relief Committee in Geneva, and various Jewish organizations in Switzerland. For 1940, the aid amounted to over 3.5 million kilograms of foodstuffs, over 3 thousand pieces of clothing and over 2 thousand medical supplies.603 603 Hugon Heller, “Das Deutsche Rote Kreuz...” in du Prel (ed), Das Generalgouvernement, 76-77. 604 AAN, RGO, sygn. 1505, Zestawienie liczbowe i rachunkowe przydziałów dla ludności ukraińskiej, October 1940, n.p. 605 Various reports concerning medical supplies received by the UTsK in 1942 and 1943 are found in LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 17 folder 25. 606 AAN, RGO, sygn. 58, Anlage – Zusammenstellung der Liebesgaben, August 1941, pp. 184; 187. 607 Some goods were stored at UTsK headquarters; others in warehouses at 44 Dietlring (Dietla Street) and 24 Spitalgasse (Szpitalna Street) in Kraków. LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 17, folder 25, Inventar mahazynu UTsK v Krakovi, June 30, 1943. 608 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 17, folder 25, Protokol, October 8, 1942. 609 Arlt, Die Ordnung der Fürsorge und Wohlfahrt im Generalgouvernement, 33. 610 “Do vsikh Hromadian-Ukraints’iv!” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 4 no. 23 (February 5, 1943). The UTsK received blankets and clothing coming to the GG from the American Red Cross. For example, in 1940, the value of these goods amounted to over 56 thousand złotys.604 American and Swiss medical supplies also reached the UTsK.605 Foodstuffs were also distributed to Ukrainians via the UTsK and central welfare council. For example, in February and August 1941, the UTsK received a total of 3,399 kilograms of pork meat from a Bulgarian transport. From a subsequent transport from the USSR in April 1941, they received 2,375 kilograms of meat.606 Other foodstuffs received included flour, butter, coffee, sugar and marmalade. In Kraków, goods were stored in three warehouses.607 These goods were in turn distributed to aid committees in cities and towns. They also distributed them further along to delegates in villages. Foodstuffs were also used to feed Ukrainians in public kitchens set-up by the UTsK and aid committees. In 1943 for example, some 100 thousand people were being fed in such kitchens throughout the GG. To oversee proper distribution and maintenance of goods, inventory audits were conducted at all UTsK levels. It was here that inaccuracies were recorded. UTsK warehouses also became the target of break-ins and robbery.608 Whereas the three aid committees were equal in their legal statutes, Arlt’s population and welfare handbook stipulated the UTsK a fulfilling and overseeing social life in other areas.609 Aspects of aid and welfare included evening courses to teach reading and writing to illiterate Ukrainians, especially in villages; something Kubiiovych wished to wipe out as he exclaimed: “Death to illiteracy!”610 Special posters and leaflets were printed to teach Ukrainians preventative measures to combat typhus or dysentery. After explaining the effects of each illness, one poster described methods to prevent them: receive vaccinations, washing hands (“Do not take anything into your mouth with dirty hands”), avoiding buying food from dirty merchants, washing all fruits/vegetables and drinking boiled milk/water, preventing flies from lying or sitting on food in homes, avoiding drinking well-water, and not visiting those sick. Each suggestions was accompanied by an illustration for illiterates. If symptoms of either appeared, the poster directed individuals to see doctors immediately. The final point stated: “Mind a hygienic way of life. Acquaint yourselves and others to it.”611 611 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 28, folder 2, UTsK typhus and dysentery poster, n.d. 612 “U borot'bi z al’koholem i nikotynoiu,” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 3 no. 44 (March 4, 1942), 4. 613 Rossoliński-Liebe, Stepan Bandera: The Life and Afterlife of a Ukrainian Nationalist…, 103. 614 Hermann Senkowsky, “Der Wiederaufbau der Monolopverwaltung im Generalgouvernement“ in du Prel (ed), Das Generalgouvernement, 104-109. According to Senkowsky, the prewar backwardness of Polish economic life and its subsequent destruction combined with the flourishing black market which immediately appeared after German occupation forced the GG administration to monopolize industries in order to establish a regular supply of products to GG inhabitants and, more importantly, to profit from them. Aside from tobacco and alcohol, salt production, matches, petroleum, sweetener/sugar and gambling was all monopolized by the GG administration. 615 AP-L, DGdDL, sygn. 57, Regierung des Generalgouvernements/Innere Verwaltung - Betr: Bekanntmachungen usw. in ukrainischer Sprache, January 22, 1941, p. 10. 616 Georg Niffka, “Deutscher Sport im Generalgouvernement” in du Prel (ed), Das Generalgouvernement, 195; Szcześniak and Szota, Droga do nikąd. Wojna Polska z UPA..., 74, Mitera, Zwyczajny faszyzm..., 133; Majer, “Non-Germans” under the Third Reich..., 286-287. A campaign aimed against tobacco and alcohol abuse was also launched. According to the UTsK, both demoralized society and had negative effects on the physical and spiritual well-being of children. As one article demanded: “…we need all Ukrainians to be physically and morally healthy.” The Committee supported abstinence drives by groups such as “Rebirth” (Vidrodzhennia), “Strength” (Syla), the women’s sections alongside aid committees or Sils’kyi Hospodar society.612 Besides its social and moral aspects, such drives also had an ideological, propaganda dimension. In the 1930s, the OUN used the Rebirth anti-alcohol campaign to mobilize Ukrainians from buying alcohol or tobacco as both were produced and monopolized by the Polish state.613 In the GG, the occupiers monopolized both sectors.614 As such, the UTsK urged Ukrainians from supporting the Germans to instead, for example, donate what they would spend for Committee-sponsored social initiatives. Ukrainians were permitted greater cultural and educational privilege-concessions, ones which will be discussed in greater detail below. However, some are worth mentioning here. As a show of tolerance, the Germans permitted the Ukrainian language to be used as a second-tier administrative one in ethnically mixed or Ukrainian majority regions. Often Polish was either relegated to a tertiary role or completely omitted. Official announcements and posters, leaflets and brochures appeared in German and Ukrainian.615 Ukrainians were also permitted the same ration cards as Volksdeutsche. With consent from aid committee branches or county officials, Ukrainians were permitted radio receivers; something completely taboo for Poles. A Ukrainian soccer league was even permitted by the occupiers while some 20 sports groups dotted the GG. In comparison, GG special laws reduced the existence of Poles to that of a leaderless pool of unskilled laborers ripe for exploitation by the Reich through a process of denationalization and reduction of their standard of living.616 One legal area in which Kubiiovych and the UTsK looked to capitalize was in the identification of individuals. For the occupiers these identification measures served a subsequent purpose of further segregating non-Germans. In June 1941, SS police chief Krüger issued a directive intended to modernize existing identification cards or Kennkarte; issued initially following an October 1939 ordinance. All GG inhabitants over the age of 15 were to be issued such cards. The new ones contained more detailed personal information; the previous ones being described by civil officials as primitive. Apart from name, birth information, marital status, work and religion, and alongside a black and white photo and fingerprints, they also stipulated ethnicity. Jews and Gypsies would also be identified accordingly.617 In a memorandum to Frank, Kubiiovych argued for more detailed Kennkarte if only to be “better distinguished from the Poles.” He saw this as a step toward both, securing a special status in the GG legal framework and defining the position of GG Ukrainians. Kubiiovych also viewed this as a means of thwarting what he believed to be growing Polish influence in the GG.618 617 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/17; Niederschrift über den Bericht des Stadthauptmannes Saurmann, 17 October 1941, p. 44; AIPN, PJB, GK 196/303, pp. 9-15. Excluded from these identity cards were Reichsdeutsche, Volksdeutsche and foreign nationals as they had their own identity cards. Failure of individuals to apply for and possess identity cards was met with local administrative punishment or, if this was deemed inadequate, either a prison sentence, a 10 thousand złoty fine, or both. Mitera, Zwyczajny faszyzm, 131. 618 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 26, folder 11, Die Denkschrift der ukrainischen Volksgruppe im Generalgouvernement, April 17, 1941; volume 26, folder 11, Aktennotiz zur Denkschrift des Ukrainischen Hauptausschusses an den Herrn Generalgouverneur, April 17, 1941. 619 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/17, Regierungssitzung in Lublin am 17 Oktober 1941, pp. 7, 25-26, 44; “Rozpiznavchi karty – Kenkarty,” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 2 no. 237 (October 25, 1941), p. 6. 620 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 26, folder 16, 2. Das ukrainische Volkstumsgebiet im Generalgouvernement, April 18 1941; Veryha, The Correspondence…, 355-356. In October 1941 an announcement appeared in Krakivs’ki Visti which notified of mandatory identification cards for all Ukrainians over the age of 16. That same month, GG officials discussed the Kennkarte program in the Lublin district. Although he looked to implement the revised card program as quickly as possible, Governor Zörner reported of initial problems. The lack of equipment and ink made fingerprints and photographs difficult. Authorities also indicated that an estimated 7-8 million cards would be issued, numbers which significantly surpassed their initial estimates as they prepared materials for only 150 thousand. Even though implementation was underway, they concluded that this would be, in essence, a long-term project.619 Kubiiovych and the Central Committee looked to use the administrative ordinance to legally define Ukrainians and change their prewar status; documents which before the war either identified them as Poles or foreigners. During his April 18, 1941 meeting with Frank, Kubiiovych mentioned the need to create separate rights for the GG Ukrainians; to further differentiate them from Poles. His first suggestion was to provide the Ukrainians with separate Kennkarte, ones to physically “differ considerably from those of the Poles.” In a note to the GG population and welfare bureau, he hoped the occupiers would not use the example of prewar identity documents, ones which listed all non-Polish nationals as ‘foreigners.’ This label also applied to stateless peoples (those with foreign passports, domestic or internal passports, asylum cards or residency permits).620 Indeed the identity cards, like the GG policy of dividing and differentiating the ethnic groups, also afforded means to select ethnic identification. Furthermore, they differed physically in color. Polish ones (marked with a “P”) were grey, Jewish and Gypsy ones (“J” and “Z”) yellow, Russian, Belarusian, Ukrainians, Georgian and Highlander ones (respectively “R,” “W,” “U,” “K,” and “G”) were blue. In addition to Ukrainian Kennkarte, the UTsK – through its regional branches – also issued special certificates attesting to the bearer’s Ukrainian nationality. Plans were envisioned to have the certificates additionally stamped with “Gültig im Reich” so as they would stand as a form of identification on Reich territory. This, a Government Delegate for Poland report commented, meant to underscore Ukrainians as a separate ethnic group there.621 621 “Raport bieżący Wydziału Bezpieczeństwa Departamentu Spraw Wewnętrznych Delegatury Rządu RP, dotyczący kwestii ukraińskiej (November 3, 1943)” in Archiwum Adama Bienia..., 399-400. 622 Christoph Kleßmann, “Natzionalsozialistische Kirchenpolitik und Nationalitätenfrage im Generalgouvernment (1939-1945),” Jahrbücher für Geschsichte Osteuropas vol. 18 no. 4 (December 1970), 575-576. The Kennkarte campaign was an example of how the UTsK aimed to legally define the Ukrainian ethnic group in the GG. Its actual results were less than impressive. Besides the political motive behind the campaign, the genuine intent of those registering for Ukrainian Kennkarte is called into question as some used the opportunity to simply gain the nominal benefits afforded the Ukrainians by the occupier and secure themselves from either anti-Polish or anti-Jewish laws and disenfranchisement. A common scene among ethnically-mixed inhabitants was registering for Ukrainian Kennkarte only to renounce them once Polish underground activity increased or the Soviets arrived to, first and foremost, distance themselves from being labelled and punished as Nazi collaborators. With an understanding into the legal context of the UTsK in the GG, it is necessary to examine in greater detail socio-cultural privilege-concessions the German authorities conferred upon the Ukrainians. 4.2 Religious Concessions: The Orthodox Question and Religious Vindication The Orthodox question and its future character was one which also consumed the attention of the GG authorities. For Frank and the administrators of that new administrative creation, the question placed them in a position of arbiter between the Reich and the ethnic minorities vying for influence over the church. The GG occupation policy of divide et impera and exploitation of Ukrainian sympathies appeared here as they leveraged Ukrainian desires to gain concessions in competency conflicts with the central Reich authorities in order to achieve their envisioned occupation plans. As such, the Orthodox question became an episode in which the GG administration defined its own internal policy in contrast to one imported from the Reich; something which further characterized it as a separate administrative entity and a true Nebenland.622 Early areas of intervention and focus for the Ukrainian Central Committee were the Chełm and the southern Podlasie regions. It was there that religious vindication, in other words, the reacquisition of former Orthodox churches and buildings seized or polonized by the interwar Polish governments, was advocated. For Kubiiovych and the UTsK, religious vindication was also a step toward the establishment of a Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church from the remnants of the prewar Polish one for the Ukrainian faithful of the GG. In one report, he explained this as “an element deeply rooted in the history and psychology of the Ukrainian people. Therefore the positive treatment of religious needs is an extremely urgent matter for Ukrainians.”623 623 AAN, Regierung des Generalgouvernements (RdGG), sygn. 423, “Die Innere Verwaltung im Distrikt Warschau – Bericht II: Halbjahresbericht,” p. 70. 624 Quoted in Andrzej A. Zięba, “Biskupstwo krakowsko-łemkowskie i jego arcypasterz Palladiusz (Wydybida-Rudenko). Karta z dziejów ukrainizacji Łemkowszczyzny w dobie drugiej wojny światowej” in Richnyk Ruskoi Bursy / Rocznik Ruskiej Bursy (2008), 104. 625 Shablii, Volodymyr Kubiiovych: Entsyklopediia zhyttia…, 59-60; III Ukraїns’kyi statystychnyi richnyk 1935 (Varshava-Krakiv-L’viv: 1935), 248. The almanac compiled by Kubiiovych examined Orthodox statistical and parish documents to determine Orthodox belonging there. His findings, published in a statistical journal, concluded the presence of a large Ukrainian minority within those territories, ones denationalized following the shift of the Ukrainian ethnographic boundary – from along the Wieprz to the Bug River. 626 Papierzyńska-Turek, Między tradycją z rzeczywistością..., 80-82. A Ukrainian Orthodox Church would define Ukrainian ethnic adherents, something which, according to him, went hand in hand especially in the eastern Lublin district. Dmytro Doroshenko – former minister of foreign affairs under Skoropads’kyi, the onetime head of the DWI in Berlin, and a past professor of Orthodox Church history at the University of Warsaw – condemned interwar Polish politics towards the Orthodox faithful in a 1940 brochure he published in Berlin. More than that, he presented a Ukrainian program toward the Orthodox Church after Poland’s collapse: The position of the Orthodox Church on territory which after the fall of Poland were included in the General Government under German administration deserves serious attention. About half a million Ukrainian Orthodox adherents in the Chełm region, Podlasie and Lemko region (excluding émigrés) found themselves under German authority. This population, liberated from Polish bondage and from the custody of Polish and Russophile Orthodox hierarchs, exhibits [characteristics of] a natural movement to renew its religious life.624 The religious regional character was rooted in Kubiiovych's prewar academic research in which he contended the correlation between faith and ethnicity – two elements directly coinciding with one another and best defining ethnicity.625 The search for a Ukrainian-ethnic tradition within the Orthodox Church was not something new uncovered by Kubiiovych but was rooted in nationalist rhetoric. Religion was seen as an extremely important moral strength binding the nation. Whether Greek Catholic or Orthodox, it was viewed as a foundation for state building. As Papierzyńska-Turek noted, the most important ideal for nationalists in this respect looked to unite Ukrainian territory through the churches.626 Within Chełm County lay the town of Podgórze627 whose Catholic Church became the first noted example of Ukrainian Orthodox vindication. On October 21, 1939 the head of the municipal council sent a letter to the church pastor calling on him to immediately handover church keys to an Orthodox representative – a lay townsperson. As the letter stipulated, this informal transfer would formally change the church from Roman Catholic to Orthodox.628 To win over their cause and justify theirs, Ukrainians and Poles of Podgórze looked to the German military officers stationed in the region to be arbiters of this conflict. Following some reluctance, the German decision cautiously undertaken by a Wehrmacht major called for the prewar status quo to remain in effect; namely for the church to remain in Catholic hands until a resolution between clergy and local administrators be adopted. In case of Ukrainian religious needs, he deemed the church serve that purpose as well; following an agreement between the pastor and the local mayor.629 A statistical table which outlined the number of villages under the jurisdiction of the Podgóże church along with the number of Catholic and Orthodox faithful in each was also compiled and given to the Catholic pastor “to present before the necessary authorities.” Within the 15 nearby villages under the church’s administration lived 2,053 Catholic and 908 Orthodox followers.630 627 In many documents, both Polish and German-language ones, alongside the use of the name Podgóże, the name Spas – from the interwar period – is also used in reference to that town. 628 AAN, RdGG, sygn. 429, Note to Roman Catholic pastor Andrzej Tacikowski in Podgórze, October 21, 1939, p. 4. 629 Ibid, Letter from Tacikowski to Wehrmacht lieutenant, November 7, 1939, p. 12. In his certification, Major Golli stipulated that any church disorder was to be immediately reported to the Landrat; the perpetrators of which would be “sharply punished.” 630 Ibid, Gemeinde Staw – Zaświadczenie, November 6, 1939, p. 6. 631 Ibid, sygn. 429, Letter from Tacikowski to Wehrmacht lieutenant, November 7, 1939, p. 11. 632 Ibid, Das Kirchenwesen, n.d., p. 81. This data closely resembles the numbers presented by Kubiiovych – 240 thousand Orthodox adherents and 180 thousand latinized Uniates. See Ukraїntsi v Heneral’nii Huberniї, 287. 633 Grzegorz Jacek Pelica, Kościół prawosławny w województwie lubelskim (1918-1939) (Lublin: Fundacja Dialog Narodów, 2007), 63, 394-395. The interwar Polish Autocephalous Orthodox Church consisted of 5 diocese: Grodzieńsk, Polessia, Warsaw, Vilnius, and Volhynian. Dziennik Ustaw Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej no. A final decision came in early November via a letter sent from the Chełm Landrat to the Lublin district chief. In it, he specified the Poles justification for leaving the church in Catholic hands; they presented an old parochial record ledger from 1792 as proof that the church was in rightful hands. The administrator recognized this religious dispute as important for “local coexistence” between the Catholic Poles, who he described as the “suppressors of other nationalities,” and the Ukrainians who “see in the Führer and the German army liberators from twenty years of bondage.” Withholding from making a definitive decision, he awaited for one from the highest administrative levels in Kraków. He saw this matter, although local in nature, as one which bore greater importance for the overall General Government and occupation practice in general.631 Following the establishment of the GG, only a large portion of one prewar autocephalous Orthodox diocese, the Warsaw one, fell under German occupation. Statistical data listed the Ukrainian Orthodox adherents in the GG as numbering about 240 thousand in the Chełm and southern Podlasie regions, with a smaller number in the Lemko region.632 Two bishops, Metropolitan Dionysius and his auxiliary, remained as hierarchs.633 Of a total 93 88, 1317-1325; no. 103, 1545-1583. Dionysius’ auxiliary was Bishop Timotheus Szretter. During the 1938/1939 academic year, Szretter worked in the theology department at Warsaw University where he taught homiletics. In 1938 he entered into a monastic lifestyle before being appointed auxiliary bishop. 634 Jan Sziling, Kościoły chrześcijańskie w polityce nieieckich władz okupacyjnych w Generalnym Gubernatorstwie (1939-1945) (Toruń: Uniwersytet Mikołaja Kopernika, 1988), 69. As a result of the territorial division of the prewar Polish state between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, 4 other diocese of the prewar Polish Autocephalous Orthodox Church along with 8 bishops fell either within the new USSR borders or within Soviet-occupied Lithuania. 635 Mikhail Vital’evich Shkarovskii, Natsistskaia Germaniia i Pravoslavnaia Tserkov’ (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo Krutitskogo Patriarshego Podvor'ia, 2002), 113-115. Sziling, Kościoły chrześcijańskie w polityce nieieckich władz..., 69. Metropolitan Dionysius remained under house arrest in his summer residence in Otwock, a town southeast of Warsaw, until the end of November 1939. During the Nazi occupation of Poland, Bishop Timotheus lived in the Orthodox monastery of St. Onufrii in Jabłeczna, a village within the Biała Podlaska County of eastern Poland. 636 Stefan Dudra, Metropolitan Dionizy (Waledyński) 1876-1960 (Warszawa: Warszawska Metropolia Prawosławna, 2010), 77. 637 AAN, RdGG, sygn. 427, Geschichte der autokephalen orthodoxen Kirche in Polen, n.d., p. 135; BA, Kanzelei des Generalgouverneurs R 52 II/247, Bericht über den Aufbau im GG bis 1. Juli 1940, p. 106; BA, Außenpolitisches Amt der NSDAP NS 43/32, Abschrift den 23 November 1939, p. 83. parishes of the diocese, 53 lay in the Chełm region of the Lublin District, 28 on Lemko territory found in the Kraków district and 12 within the Warsaw District.634 Immediately the Germans set to work bringing the prewar Autocephalous Polish Church under their authority. The first step was the house arrest by the Gestapo of the two mentioned hierarchs. In a report to the Reich Foreign Ministry, a German diplomat in Warsaw noted that “archbishop Metropolitan Dionysius lives in Warsaw and is healthy. By order of the Gestapo, he is under house arrest.” In a subsequent note, he suggested keeping the matter of house arrest a quiet one.635 In a postwar report, Dionysius described his arrest: “In the fall of 1939…I was arrested by the Gestapo and accused of begin a polonophile, which stemmed from, among other things, my proclamation to the faithful following the eruption of war with the Germans, reminding them of their loyalty toward the state.”636 On November 10, 1939 Seraphim, the Orthodox bishop of Berlin and all of Germany, who belonged to the semi-autonomous Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, came to Warsaw to overtake ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Out of duress, Dionysius wrote him a letter in which he stated “the fall of the independent Polish state, with whose existence was tied the existence of the independent autocephalous Orthodox Church, prevents the further autocephalous existence of this Church.” Furthermore, he wrote that a religious union with Berlin was a matter which lay in the interests of Germany and the new state order. He asked Seraphim to officially administer over the Orthodox faithful and join the Warsaw diocese under his ecclesiastical jurisdiction.637 A prewar Gestapo report provides more detailed insight into who Seraphim was. Born Karl Lade in Leipzig in 1883, the report noted first and foremost that he was an ethnic German; a Reichsdetusch. In 1904 he converted to Russian Orthodoxy from Protestantism and in 1916 completed theological studies in St. Petersburg. He remained in the Soviet Union until 1925 where, as a result of secret police invigilation and pressure, he joined the politically-controlled ‘living church’ sect of Orthodoxy. Further police pressure caused him to flee to Yugoslavia where he offered his services to the synod of the Russian Orthodox Church beyond Russia. Soon, he was sent to minister to Orthodox faithful in Vienna and later Germany. According to the report, the Reich authorities looked favorably on him in leading Orthodoxy in Germany particularly because of his ethnic German background; something which superseded his Russophile religious alignment.638 638 BA, NS 43/32, Geheime Staatspolizei Bericht Betreffend Bischof Seraphim, April 25, 1938, p. 43. 639 AAN, RdGG, sygn. 427, Geschichte der autokephalen orthodoxen Kirche in Polen, n.d., p. 136; Makar, Kholmshchyna i Pidliashshia…, 33. These decisions of the Chełm church council were one of the last matters which Metropolitan Dionysius approved on November 16, 1939. Levchuk was no stranger to acting or working in the role of a temporary or interim administrator. Following the end of World War I and the Orthodox vacuum which emerged in the Lublin region as a result of the lack of a defined Polish state border, Levchuk was nominated by then bishop Dionysius to act as his representative in Chełm as well as in the Lublin and Chełm diocese’. Grzegorz Pelica argues that the appointment of Levchuk to represent Dionysius in the former Chełm diocese stemmed from the lack of a bishop there, and because of the importance of the Chełm region for the Orthodox Church, both in matters of vindication and ecumenical regulation, meaning returning it to Orthodox administration. See Pelica, Kościół prawosławny w województwie lubelskim…, 91; 95-96. 640 Torzecki, Kwestia ukraińska w Polsce..., 189-190; Małgorzata Smogorzewska (ed), Posłowie i penatorowie Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej 1919-1939: Słownik biograficzny, vol. 1 (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Sejmowe, 1998), 82. In 1918 Baran worked within the short-lived West Ukrainian People’s Republic as a secretary in its first government. In 1918-1919 he was a member of both, the Ukrainian National Council (Rada Narodova). In October 1930 he was arrested and interned following the dissolution of parliament. As a parliamentarian he worked in various commissions including: from 1928, budgetary and land reform; from 1935, self-government administration; from December 1937 treasury; from 1938 self-government once again. He maintained two law firms, in Zaleszczyki and Tarnopol; was the director of the Ukrainian Cooperative Bank in Tarnopol, the head of the regional Ridna Shkola circle and a board member of the local Prosvita Society. 641 Entsyklopediia Ukraїnoznavstva, (ed) Volodymyr Kubiiovych, vol. 1 (L’viv: Naukove Tovarystvo im. Shevchenka, 1993), 90; Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Heneral’nii Huberniї, 277. 642 Cerkiew Prawosławna na Chełmszczyźnie. Przemówienia i interpelacje posłów i senatorów ukraińskich w Sejmie i w Senacie (Lwów: UNDO, 1938), 7. On November 5, 1939, during a pan-Ukrainian conference held in Chełm, a temporary church council, consisting of 10 (later expanded to 16) priests, deacons and lay men was called to life with the intention of administering to the religious needs of the local Ukrainians until Orthodox life was officially reorganized. For its territorial administrator, the council chose Fr. Ivan Levchuk.639 Its legal advisor was Stepan Baran, a political activist and native of Eastern Galicia who fled to the GG following the invasion of the Red Army, settling in Chełm. Born in Krukienice in 1879, he studied law and philosophy in Lwów, Berlin and Vienna; earning his law degree in 1909. As with many other Ukrainians of his generation, he was also involved in the revival and formation of Ukrainian statehood. During the interwar period he associated himself politically with UNDO, serving in the Polish Sejm from 1928 to 1939.640 Baran also wrote for the Lwów newspaper Dilo from 1908 through 1939 and later, during the war, for Krakivs’ki Visti, serving as a correspondent for the Lublin region.641 He advocated for Ukrainian interests in education and agriculture. As a parliamentarian he publically denounced the Polish government’s church vindication campaign in 1938, both from the Sejm podium and to the prime minister. Concerning Orthodox property confiscation or destruction, he explained: “They [churches] were also never under the rule of the Polish people because of the simple fact that neither the local Ukrainian Uniate populace, nor the subsequent Orthodox populace on this territory, ever belonged to, then nor now, the Polish nationality; belonging instead then, and today, in their mass to the Ukrainian nationality.”642 A similar council was also organized in Warsaw under the leadership of Ivan Ohiienko – linguist, historian, professor, church and cultural activist. He completed studies at Kyiv University in 1909. In 1918 he was professor at his alma mater and in 1919 helped establish the Ukrainian University at Kamieniec Podolski where he served as first rector. A member of the government of the Ukrainian People’s Republic (minister of education, minister of religious affairs), he moved to Warsaw and served as professor of Church Slavonic at Warsaw University from 1926 to 1932.643 According to Edward Kasinec, the combination of his strong philological and paleographic training along with his deep knowledge of the development of the Ukrainian literary language and ecclesiastical life served him well when he wrote a history of the Ukrainian book, entitled Istoriia ukraїns’koho drukarstva.644 643 Entsyklopediia Ukraїnoznavstva, (ed) Volodymyr Kubiiovych, vol. 3 (L’viv: Naukove Tovarystvo im. Shevchenka, 1994), 863; Pelica, Kościół prawosławny w województwie lubelskim..., 387-388. 644 Edward Kasinec, “Ivan Ohienko (Metropolitan Ilarion) as Bookman and Book Collector: The Years in the Western Ukraine and Poland.” Harvard Ukrainian Studies, vol. 3/4 no. 1 (1979-1980), 477-479 Marian Jurkowski, “Profesor Ivan Ohijenko,” Warszawskie Zeszyty Ukrainoznawcze no. 3 (1996), 277-281; Wołodymyr Lachocki, “Iwan Ohijenko (metropolitan Iłarion) – działacz niepodległościowy, uczony i hierarcha ukraińskiego Kościoła prawosławnego,” Biuletyn Ukrainoznawczy no. 6 (2000), 61-71.The remainder of Kasinec’s article is devoted to Ohiienko the book collector, in which the author lists and presents the selected works from the Ohiienko library, which he bequeath to the St. Andrew’s College of the University of Manitoba. 645 Zamojszczyzna-Sonderlaboratorium SS. Zbiór dokumentów polskich i niemieckich z okresu okupacji hitlerowskiej vol. 2, ed. Czesław Madajczyk (Warszawa: Ludowa Spółdzielna Wydawnicza 1979), 60. 646 “Do vsikh ukraїns’kykh tserkovnykh organizatsii,” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 1 no. 46 (3 June 1940), 4. 647 AAN, RdGG, sygn. 429, Abschrift-Lebenslauf Archimandrat Palladius, July 12, 1940, pp. 347-348; Entsyklopediia Ukraїnoznavstva, (ed) Volodymyr Kubiiovych, vol. 5 (L’viv: Naukove Tovarystvo im. Shevchenka, 1996), 1927; “Khto takyi iepyskop Palladii?” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 2 no. 30 (February 12, 1941), 3; Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Heneral’nii Huberniї, 312. Throughout the war, Ohiienko espoused pro-German sympathies. One German administrator described meeting him: “…I again got the impression that the Orthodox Church sincerely expects German military victory.”645 The Warsaw council, as stipulated by Ohiienko, sought to work toward the canonical return of Orthodox life on GG territory as well as gathering together all Ukrainians interested in this issue.646 Alongside him was Petro Vydybida-Rudenko. Born in Podolia in 1891, he completed his seminary studies there and in Russian Tomsk before undertaking studies at the mathematics faculty at Kyiv University. A member of the Central Rada, he later served as assistant to the finance minister of the Ukrainian People’s Republic. Ordained in June 1921 by Dionysius, he worked within the Volhynia voivodship for over four years. In 1935 he worked in Warsaw within the autocephalous administration, later serving as the financier for the Orthodox Church retirement fund; a position and place in which he remained following the eruption of war. Later that year he proclaimed monastic vows at the Holy Domitian Pochayiv Lavra monastery, becoming in October 1935 an archimandrite or monastic superior.647 Following its formation, the Chełm council drafted resolutions aimed at temporarily organizing Orthodox life there. This meant ukrainization as, alongside the council’s Ukrainian character, many of the stipulations aimed to add strong Ukrainian tones to church life.648 This appeal was also the first formal step toward demanding for the formation of a separate Orthodox diocese for the Chełm-southern Podlasie regions; an area described by the Germans as “the spokesman of Ukrainian separatist desires.”649 Dionysius, in his last act of ecclesiastical authority prior to internment, approved this resolution, giving it his blessing. 648 “Kholmskyi tserkovnyi zїzd ta ioho postanovy,” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 1 no. 39 (May 17, 1940), 4. Key points included: the renewal of religious life within the historical Chełm diocese, request Dionysius to move his metropolitan seat to Chełm as the seat of the Church, require all religious matters regarding the Chełm and southern Podlasie region to be consulted with the temporary church council, request a higher seminary be established alongside the Chełm cathedral and to introduce the use of the Ukrainian pronunciation or accent to be used during Church Slavonic liturgical services while the Ukrainian vernacular would be introduced as the written and administrative language of the church within this area. The resolution also called to reorganization of the Orthodox male monastery in Jabłeczna as well as female convents, entities referred to as the “fires” of Orthodox religious and Ukrainian national-cultural life. 649 AAN, RdGG, sygn. 427, Geschichte der autokephalen orthodoxen Kirche in Polen, n.d., p. 136 650 BA, NS 43/32, Besprechungen in Warschau am 8,9,10.12.1939, n.d. 651 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/1, Tagebuch des Herrn Generalgouverneur für die Besetzen Polnischen Gebiete vom 25. Oktober biz 15 Dezember 1939, pp. 94-95. According to Doroshenko, a Ukrainian delegation appointed a Greek Catholic priest to propose to Seraphim that Ukrainians assume the Orthodox cathedral in Warsaw. He wrote rather ironically: “What could the archbishop think when a Greek Catholic appeared before him as the representative of Orthodox Ukrainians in the matter of an Orthodox church!” Zięba, “Biskupstwo krakowsko-łemkowskie…,” 105. 652 Michail Shkarovskij (ed), Die Kirchenpolitik des Dritten Reiches gegenüber den orthodoxen Kirchen in Osteuropa (1939-1945) (Münster: Lit Verlag, 2004), 34. 653 Kubiiovych, Terytoriia i liudnist’..., 6. A meeting held in Warsaw among local GG officials noted that they knew nothing of the Seraphim’s appointment. They agreed that solutions to the Orthodox question would not be arbitrarily accepted from Berlin but needed the consultation of GG officials.650 During a December GG meeting, regarding the position of Seraphim, deliberations suggested: “The [prewar] metropolitan had stepped down and placed the leadership of the Orthodox Church in the hands of the Orthodox Archbishop of Berlin, Seraphim Lade. It is advisable to approve this and Seraphim… [He] enjoys the trust of all German authorities, and even the Secret Police do not have any political concerns against him.” They agreed toward a pro-Ukrainian line: to allow the new hierarch to appoint an ethnic Ukrainian vicar and clergy as the overwhelming majority of adherents were indeed Ukrainian.651 The eastern department of the Reich foreign ministry maintained the necessity of any Ukrainian Orthodox church in the GG to remain autocephalous, independent of both Russian and Polish influences, until further notice.652 The Orthodox question became, as of 1940, a matter which Kubiiovych was involved in directly. He looked to bring to life his prewar academic argument for the Chełm region – Ukrainian belonging in the eastern Lublin district equated to the Orthodox Church; a Ukrainian Orthodox Church would define the region as Ukrainian.653 One interesting paradox in Kubiiovych’s and the UTsK’s role in Orthodox matters was the fact that the majority of Committee men, including Kubiiovych and Baran, were Greek Catholics. In the eyes of Ukrainian Orthodox adherents and clergy, it was the Greek Catholic Ukrainians who served as consultants and executives. Furthermore, an Orthodox Church Council was organized besides the UTsK. In June 1940 Ohiienko became its secretary. Local Orthodox adherents in the Lublin District were certainly surprised by the fact that Greek Catholics were bothering over their problems. Of course, their intentions were motivate by the urge to nationalize the church. As Andrzej A. Zięba pointed out, the Greek Catholics pushed forth to achieve their goal without taking into account the feelings or sympathies of their fellow compatriots.654 As will be seen, this would prove to be an issue of contention later in the war. 654 Kubiiovych, Meni 85, 93-94; Zięba, “Biskupstwo krakowsko-łemkowskie…,” 107. 655 “Vistky z poludnevoї Kholmshchyny,” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 1 no. 2 (January 11, 1940), 5. 656 “Naselennia Volodavshchyny znovu u svoїi tserkvi,” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 1 no. 12 (February 18, 1940), 4. 657 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 24, folder 8, M. Senyshyn, Zvit z poїzdky na Pidliashshia vid 15 III do 13 IV 1941r, April 23, 1941. 658 Zygmunt Klukowski, Diary from the Years of Occupation 1939-44, (eds) Andrew Klukowski and Helen Klukowski May, trans. George Klukowski (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1993), 108. The The turnover of Catholic churches to the Orthodox became scenes of triumph and tragedy. Krakivs’ki Visti printed articles reporting church vindication. Early ones described the process as moving slowly as, for example, only 3 churches had been taken back in the Tomaszów Lubelski region.655 Another article described church events in a village near the eastern town of Włodawa where local villagers gathered to pray in “their church which was forcefully seized by the Poles from them 2 years ago.” In the case of this rural church, local Ukrainians took the initiative in taking back their place of worship as the Polish Catholic priest failed to relinquish the keys to them. Following the transfer, several Ukrainian men unlocked and entered the church to ring the bells; an audible symbol of their “new joy.” For on looking Poles, the ringing of the bell was undoubtedly seen as a death knell of their church. Articles also captured emotional reactions. For instance during the first Orthodox Christmas service in a recently turned over church village women were described as having “wept with joy” at the sounds of the Ukrainian language and the priest proclaiming: “Lord, this is truly a Ukrainian Christmas in Your church.” On the second day of the holiday, the Ukrainian villagers welcomed their Orthodox priest to the former Catholic rectory alongside the church. In the presence of the now former Catholic priest, a village elder announced: “Father, it is time for You to finally live in our parish home! I say, this is the end of the domination of the Polish priest in the home which we, with our own toil and work, built for a Ukrainian priest.”656 In the town of Lubartów, to the north of Lublin, an UTsK envoy reported of overjoyed Ukrainians following the news they received from the Kreishauptman – they were to receive a church for Orthodox services in a nearby village. When he asked of the number of faithful there, he was told “none… but maybe some will come from the village of Uhnin (20 kilometers away).”657 Prominent local Polish activists, contacted by Polish Catholic clergy, also struggled with Orthodox demands. For example in Szczebrzeszyn, a small town located in Zamość County, Orthodox representatives demanded the removal of metal roofing material from an adjacent parish hall and a subsequent village church in order to restore and reclaim an abandoned, historically Orthodox church.658 Polish reports which reached the exile church in question was built in the sixteenth century as a Greek Catholic church. Following the partition of eastern Poland by Tsarist Russia and the abolition of Greek Catholicism in the late 1860s, the church was handed over to and reopened as Orthodox. After World War I the church had been closed, leading to an abandoned, dilapidated building. 659 Hoover Institute Archives (HIA) Stanford, Ambasada Polski w Stanach Zjednoczonych (APSZ) 800/36, box 106 folder 1, Walka z kościołem, n.d. 660 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 17, folder 21, Denkschrift der Ukrainer aus den besetzen Gebieten des ehemaligen polnischen Staates an den Generalgouverneur für die besetzen polnischen Gebiete, November 17, 1939. 661 Kleßmann, “Natzionalsozialistische Kirchenpolitik und Nationalitätenfrage im Generalgouvernment,” 576-577. 662 Shkarovskij (ed), Die Kirchenpolitik des Dritten Reiches..., 34. 663 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/3, Tagebuch 1940: Erste Band – Januär bis März 1940, p. 32; LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 17, folder 21, Zum Schluss der Sitzung Sprach Dr. Arlt die Ukrainerfrage, 1940. government mentioned of Germans arresting Catholic priests and handing over churches to the Orthodox faithful. In some instances, as in Chełm County, before handing over the churches, they dressed in liturgical vestments and parody prayers.659 The first meeting between the Ukrainian delegation and Governor General Frank in Kraków resulted in the presentation of an official Orthodox postulate. Whereas the delegation demanded complete religious freedom for the church, Frank specified the vindication of the cathedral in Chełm along with the return of prewar churches and religious buildings as a question of “Ukrainian national honor” to be completely solved in the near future.660 Although the GG authorities were willing to promote the return of religious buildings to Ukrainians, a move to further gain their loyalty, they were not open, at least at that point, to placing ecclesiastical jurisdiction over those churches to a Ukrainian bishop. This equated toward creating a Ukrainian national church; something not in their plans. Likewise, German administrative steps toward Ukrainian religious concessions moved at a concerted, deliberate and methodical pace; intending to prevent any collision with one of Berlin’s initial regional aims – cooperation with the Soviet Union.661 Furthermore, appropriating Polish churches and turning them over to Ukrainians served to keep the two in a state of animosity. A Reich foreign ministry report stipulated Polish-Ukrainian battles being historically carried out within the framework of religious tensions and feuds, urging for a strong Ukrainian character for the Orthodox Church in the Chełm region.662 GG authorities also advised to maintain a Ukrainian character since, after all, they composed the majority of Orthodox adherents; in comparison to the small Russian and even smaller Belarusian adherents. In January 1940 Arlt met with Governor Frank and secretary of state Arthur Seyß-Inquart to discuss yielding the pre-war Catholic Cathedral of the Birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary to the Orthodox faithful. It was agreed to take special consideration in this matter as it meant to be the symbol of the return of Orthodoxy to the region. The occupier’s overall plan for the return of churches was simple and heavy-handed. First, Polish (Catholic) churches would be closed “under any pretexts.” Next, they would be transferred to local Ukrainian administrators only to be later re-opened as Orthodox ones.663 One month later, Arlt travelled to Lublin to present social-welfare plans to district authorities there. His dialogue expressed many Ukrainian concessions if only to strengthen their loyalty and trust toward the Germans along with maintaining a healthy state of Polish-Ukrainian hostility to prevent any possible mutual relations from forming between them. He informed district administrators of, among other things, the above-mentioned GG position of returning Orthodox churches seized by the Poles during the interwar period, including the Chełm cathedral, to the Ukrainians.664 664 AP-L, DGdDL, sygn. 61, Bericht über die Sitzung im Gouvernementsgebäude in Lublin, February 16, 1940, p. 19. 665 BA, NS 43/32, Geheime – Orthodoxe Kirche, n.d., p. 79. 666 Ibid, Abschrift Betreffend die Orthodoxe Kirche im Generalgouvernement, January 13, 1940, p. 78. An imminent problem faced by the Germans following their conquest of Poland and the creation of the GG was that it did not supersede established ecclesiastical organizations for prewar territory. Although a personal union between the Warsaw autocephalous diocese with Berlin could eventually lead to the creation of one German autocephalous Orthodox Church, the Germans could not simply entrust a bishop from one Orthodox Church to oversee that of another without proper religious permissions and agreements. A foreign office report described the position of Seraphim as Orthodox hierarch “the best possible solution at the moment;” in other words, the foreign office and GG viewed this as temporary. It was noted that chief accusations toward him coming from Ukrainian émigré groups in Berlin centered on his Russophile orientation and belonging to the synod of the Russian Orthodox Church Beyond Russia; his authority over the prewar autocephalous dioceses in occupied Poland had, according to them, voided the autocephalous status. However, the report indicated that he treated the Ukrainian Orthodox faithful well, promising to maintain autocephaly as well as initiating pro-Ukrainian measures: Ukrainian clerics to be sent to parishes with the Ukrainian language to be used during sermons.665 A note sent from the GG plenipotentiary in Berlin Dr. Wilhelm Heuber also assessed Seraphim’s work positively, noting subsequent pro-Ukrainian steps he intended to undertake – appointing an ethnic-Ukrainian administrator over Chełm County and removing Russophile clergy in Warsaw. Furthermore, the SD there judged his attitude toward the Ukrainians to be loyal. The note questioned, and rhetorically answered Ukrainian émigré concerns, how such pro-Ukrainian measures could come from the side of an accused Russophile.666 Further deliberations among Reich and GG officials however concluded the Orthodox situation being unsatisfactory with changes needed. A note composed following Heuber’s meeting with Reich authorities stipulated the religious link between the Reich and GG contradicted the separate administrative character of the GG and foreign policy in general. Aside from the inter-religious problems which could arise from placing one church over another, the report warned of relocating a Russophile Orthodox center within the GG as “undesirable.” In addition, a concern remained over subjecting the Ukrainian Orthodox faithful to Russophile clergy: It is true that the native Ukrainian population of the GG forms, in contrast to the Russians, the overwhelming majority of the Orthodox faithful, the interest of loyal cooperation with the German power and their affection to the German Reich are to be kept alive among them. The construction of a general, a-national, Orthodox Church cannot be done in the face of political tensions in this area. Although Archbishop Seraphim is a German national, he is considered by the Ukrainians as the head of a diocese of the Russian emigrants… In German interest lay a separation between Russian and Ukrainian Orthodox spheres. The ideal would be if an autocephalous Ukrainian church could arise in Poland.667 667 BA, NS 43/32, Abschrift Auswärtiges Amt (Pol.V 849) – Vertraulich, January 31, 1940, p. 94. 668 AAN, RdGG, sygn. 427, Geschichte der autokephalen orthodoxen Kirche in Polen, n.d., p. 137. 669 BA, NS 43/32, Riechminister für Kirchlichen Angelegenheit Haugg nach Leibrandt, February 27, 1940, p. 89. 670 Ibid, Informatsiia z Varshavy pro polozhennia Pravoslavnoi Tserkvy v Varshavs’komu Heneral'-Hubernatorstvi, February 2, 1940, p. 84; Veryha, The Correspondence…, 81-83. Kubiiovych proposed that a metropolitan reside in Chełm, his seat of authority. He also proposed three dioceses be organized in the 3 GG districts and ethnic-Ukrainians would fill the top ecclesiastical positions. For the Ukrainian ones, he proposed Ohiienko and Petro Vydybida-Rudenko. Regarding the latter, he noted that political-national accusations against him were “dictated by the chauvinist discontent of a less cultured portion of Ukrainians.” 671 AAN, RdGG, sygn. 429, Entwurf des einstweiligen inneren Status der Griechisch-orthodoxen Kirche in den Distrikten Lublin u. Krakau, March 4, 1940, pp. 111-124. For example, the statute proposed a bishop’s council, to consist of the three dioceses' bishops. This in itself would put a non-Ukrainian hierarch in a minority. 672 Baran, Po nevoli – vidrozhzhennia…, 25. In February, Dionysius wrote a letter to Seraphim in which he demanded that he return to his ecclesiastical position of metropolitan but with no immediate effect.668 In conceding to Seraphim’s temporary appointment, the GG authorities succeeded in gaining approval from the Reich ministry for church affairs of two key concessions: all internal church matters would be handled by the GG authorities and not by archbishop Athanasius (Seraphim’s synodic head from Yugoslavia); and the Orthodox church would maintain an autocephalous character.669 During a three-week fieldtrip to the Lublin and Warsaw districts, Kubiiovych gained a real perspective into the Orthodox issue; causing him to undertake a concerted position. His bold desire, filed in a report to the GG authorities on March 15, called for the reintroduction of autocephaly within the Orthodox Church and envisioned a strong Ukrainian character without any outside or foreign influence. He suggested administration be divided according to a two-thirds majority – two ethnic Ukrainian bishoprics, one Russian.670 To press the issue, the Chełm council presented the German authorities with a temporary statute for the Orthodox Church in the Kraków and Lublin districts. It contained 42 paragraphs which outlined general provisions and an administrative structure formally presenting an autocephalous scheme for the church. In a play to weaken the position of Seraphim, it called for shifting the balance of power over church matters to the dioceses; ones to be headed by ethnic-Ukrainian bishops.671 Whereas this document was sent to GG administrators for approval, the Ukrainians prepared for its possible rejection. Baran explained this position as realistic in that the statute had only been prepared by one party without either the input or voice of the administrative and church (meaning Seraphim) sides. The goal of the statue, he continued, meant to be a starting point for talks and discussions on the occupier-Ukrainian level meant to normalize the position of the GG Orthodox Church and becoming what he described as a Magna Carta libertatum – a great charter of liberties for the Church.672 This did not mean that the Ukrainians idly awaited a decision. Kubiiovych, in a report submitted to the GG authorities on March 9, expressed his impatience and concern that “very little has been realized” from the promises made by Frank to the Ukrainian people from their November 1939 meeting; reiterating the desire for religious freedom.673 The occupier’s hesitancy stemmed from a vying of various ethnic factors, all lobbying them for control of the character of the GG Orthodox Church. Aside from Kubiiovych, representatives of the Russian national council in Warsaw sent a note to Berlin calling on the need to abolish the autocephalous character of the church; instead uniting it with the Russian Orthodox diocese in Berlin and legally appointing Seraphim as suzerain. This caused a conflict over the Orthodox cathedral in Warsaw between the Ukrainian church council and the local, Russophile-sympathizing church committee.674 For their part Ukrainian nationalists in Berlin sent a note to Ribbentrop calling for a Ukrainian autocephalous Orthodox Church in the GG. The note stated of Russophile parishes in Ukrainian-majority villages and townships; what they saw as a continuation of prewar Polish government policies aimed at the Russification of the church and its ethnic-Ukrainian faithful. They called for a complete ukrainization of the church – naming Ohiienko metropolitan, appointing nationally conscious and prominent Ukrainian priests to higher ecclesiastical positions, giving Ukrainians the power to oversee all administrative matters, and replacing the Russian ritual with a Ukrainian one.675 673 Veryha, The Correspondence…, 70. 674 BA, NS 43/32, Russen in Warschau, January 14, 1940, pp. 178-179; Zięba, “Biskupstwo krakowsko-łemkowskie…,” 108. 675 Szilling, Kościoły chrześcijańskie w polityce niemieckich władz..., 79-80. 676 Kazimierz Urban, Kościół prawosławny w Polsce 1945-1970 (Kraków: Zakład Wydawniczy Nomos, 1996), 57-58; Antoni Mironowicz, “Kościół prawosławny na terenach Generalnego Gubernatorstwa, Białorusi i Ukrainy w latach 1939-1944” in Piotr Chomiak (ed), „Pokazanie Cerkwie prawdziwej...” Studia nad dziejami i kulturą Kościoła prawosławnego w Rzeczypospolitej (Białystok: Libra 2004), 173-174. 677 “Pobut arkhyiep. Serafyma v Liublyni i v Kholmi,” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 1 no. 36 (May 11, 1940), 3-4. Ukrainian clergy in Lublin viewed Russophile and Polonophile elements as centered in the Warsaw diocese. To gain a better image of the local church position, Seraphim visited the Lublin District. A chief concern raised by Ukrainians related to the problem with Polonophile and Russophile priests who remained in parishes. Overall, nationalists were skeptical of Seraphim and viewed him as a foreign Russophile. Many of his initial administrative measures heightened their concerns. Aside from the belief that he would liquidate autocephaly, he reintroduced the old calendar system, forbid clergy to shave their beards, only vindicated some 75 churches and forbid the conversion through christening of Poles or Jews.676 During meetings, Seraphim, in the Russian language, reassured his Ukrainian colleagues that he understood their concerns; religious services in the Ukrainian language being a chief desire. Furthermore, he underscored that he was not their enemy. He also travelled to the heart of Ukrainian Orthodoxy – Chełm. There he heard the council’s desire for a diocese and Ukrainian episcopate. During a regular meeting of the council, members expected to hear assurances from him regarding the needs of the Orthodox faithful. However, no such assurances were made. Instead, Seraphim abruptly walked out of a meeting. Ukrainians saw his visit as “a clearly platonic custom,” one with no significant outlook for changes in their favor.677 Such elements within their region was naturally regarded as pulling the region under the influence and de facto authority of the Warsaw diocese and Seraphim. 678 AIPN, Stan Prawosławnej Cerkwi na Chełmszczyźnie i Podlasiu, BU 1229/175, Levchuk Letter to Seraphim, April 12, 1940, p. 6. 679 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/4, Tagebuch 1940: Zweiter Band: April bis Juni, p. 81; GK 95/2, Abteilungsleiter Sitzung, April 12, 1940, p. 121. 680 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 17, folder 21, Bericht über die Delegation der Ukrainer beim Generalgouverneur anässlich des Geburstages des Führers, April 19, 1940; “Peredacha Soboru v Kholmi,” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 1 no. 31 (April 24, 1940), 1-2; AIPN, DHF, GK 95/4, Tagebuch 1940: Zweiter Band: April bis Juni, p. 92. 681 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/4, Tagebuch 1940: Zweiter Band: April bis Juni, pp. 152-153. 682 AAN, RdGG, sygn. 429, Bericht über Besprechung bei Herrn Oberst Bisanz, April 23 and 24, 1940, pp. 432; 430. In his concise yet detailed work on the topic of the Orthodox Church, Stepan Baran, unbeknownst to the At the local level, churches were being transferred albeit not as quickly as Ukrainians expected. Temporary council administrator Fr. Levchuk presented Seraphim with a status report for the Chełm region. Whereas it contained 52 parishes in 1939, an additional 59 had been reopened since then; 111 in total. 142 parishes were still awaiting official recognition while 22 appeals were filed with GG authorities over regaining churches. Furthermore, 113 priests worked in the region; an increase from 54 in 1939.678 Familiar with Ukrainian demands, GG department heads met and noted that Frank would shortly receive a Ukrainian delegation. It was agreed that during the planned reception, he, on behalf of the Führer, would officially proclaim his approval to give them back the Chełm cathedral. They agreed such an act would be a “firm commitment” for Ukrainians that they were willing to allow them to maintain some semblance of national life in the GG. It would also be a reward of sorts for the loyalty and good behavior exhibited by them toward the Germans in avoiding any conflict with the Soviet Union. Frank’s diary entry for that day noted: “The Ukrainians had kept this promise, and he will do the same.”679 During the reception of the Ukrainian delegation headed by Kubiiovych on the occasion of Hitler’s birthday, Frank did just as planned. Following Kubiiovych’s declaration of thanksgiving and best wishes for Hitler, he announced that he had authorized Lublin governor Ernst Zörner to return the Chełm cathedral – the “evident symbol of Polish dominance in the Chełm region” – to the Ukrainians. “Through this act,” Frank proclaimed, “one of the most brutal wrongdoings caused by the Polish state toward the Ukrainians will be rectified.”680 In a meeting with a Lublin district administrator, Frank was in turn informed of the disheartening attitude of Chełm Poles who hoped that the cathedral would remain in their hands. According to the Landrat, 8 thousand Poles signed a petition for the cathedral to remain Catholic.681 Several days later, Kubiiovych along with his deputy Mykhailo Khronoviat met with Bisanz to formally discuss transfer matters. Following talks with Zörner, the date of the official ceremony, proposed initially for April 19, was postponed and moved one month later to May 19. The change had to do with the GG authority’s intent to prevent an official conflict of interests as a Soviet delegation was in the Lublin area from April 15. The next day these matters were agreed upon with the GG religious bureau head Dr. Hans Wilden.682 conclusions of the Kubiiovych meeting with GG officials, listed the date of April 19, 1940 as that of the official transfer of the Chełm cathedral. Baran, Po nevoli – vidrodzhennia…, 42. 683 Huk (ed), Zakerzonnia. Spomyny voiakiv UPA, vol. 4, 47-48. 684 “Velychave Sviato Kholmshchyny i Pidliashshia,” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 1 no. 41 (May 22, 1940), 1. The report of these events was telephoned directly to the editorial offices from the newspapers on the scene reporter for immediate publication. 685 Ibid; Ukraїns’kyi Pravoslavyi Visnyk, “Vysokopreosviashchennishyi Vladyka Ilarion i vidnovlennia Kholms’koї Iepyskopiї,” vol. 1 no. 1 (January 1, 1941), 9. Atop the arch was an additional slogan which proclaimed ‘In their home – their truth, strength and will.” 686 “Peredacha Soboru,” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 1 no. 43 (May 27, 1940), 4. Ceremonies associated with the transfer of the cathedral were treated as solemn and hallowed days filled with pomp and pageantry. Ukrainian auxiliary police units, officially organized in January 1940, arrived in Chełm to secure the events and maintain order as rumors spread of possible Polish counter activity.683 On the eve of May 19, evening services were conducted in the presence of 48 priests from throughout the region. During the sermon, the state of the Chełm cathedral was compared to the resurrection of Christ. The religious injustices and prejudices that occurred during the interwar period were again recalled; for the last time, it was believed. The sermon concluded with an appeal for national harmony for the good of the Ukrainian church and nation.684 May 19 began with the arrival of Fr. Ivan Levchuk along with council religious and lay members and Ukrainian representatives from Kraków, led by Kubiiovych. Greeted by the Ukrainians onlookers at the adjacent Ridna Khata building and before an ornately decorated floral archway – proclaiming ‘Rejoice, Joyous Chełm Nation!’ – the visitors walked to the nearby cathedral hill along a street lined on both sides with over 300 local young and old Ukrainians cheering “Slava!” at the passing delegation.685 In front of the cathedral, whose balcony was festooned with blue and yellow flags and the trident symbol, Kubiiovych declared: “The Kholmshchyna is a part of our lands which suffered long and greatly under Polish rule. I greet You all, as the leader of the Kholmshchyna, at the prince’s hill in Kholm during this joyous day of transferring the Kholm cathedral, a symbol of religious and national holiness, into Ukrainian hands!”686 Following these greetings, holy services began – the first in the Ukrainian language in over 22 years – in the company of 13 priests and a 50 person choir. After the liturgy, Zörner alongside a 30-man GG delegation from Kraków arrived in Chełm. They were greeted with equal pomp. Ukrainian schoolchildren, dressed in traditional folk costumes, welcomed Zörner with the traditional symbols of bread and salt. Next, in the company of Kubiiovych and other Ukrainians, they walked to the adjacent cathedral along the same street lined with local Ukrainians who once again cheered “Slava!” In front of the cathedral, the Germans were welcomed by the priests who remained there following morning services. Fr. Levchuk expressed his joy in the transfer of the “venerable temple” into Ukrainian hands: On behalf of myself, the Ukrainians of Kholmshchyna and Pidliashshia as well as all Ukrainians who live in the General Government, I greet You, Mister Governor and graciously thank You for the great leader of the German nation Adolf Hitler, his administration and his heroic army for this great favor bestowed upon the Ukrainian nation, through transferring to us its greatest holy place – the Kholm cathedral. May God bless the Führer and his administration.687 687 AAN, RdGG, sygn. 429, Das historische Ereignis in Cholm – Die Begrüssung des Gouverneurs Dr. Zörner, May 19, 1940, pp. 167-168; “Velychave Sviato Kholmshchyny i Pidliashshia,” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 1 no. 41 (May 22, 1940), 1. 688 “Pryvitannia Gubernatora d-ra Tsernera,” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 1 no. 43 (May 27, 1940), 4. 689 Provincial Archives Alberta (PAA), Michael Chomiak fond (MCF), 85.191, box 2 file 28, Rede des Gouverneurs Zörner beim Essen, May 19, 1940. During this service, the language of prayer was Church Slavonic whereas the sermon was delivered in Ukrainian; a measure which fell in line with the German-approved interim statute. 690 AAN, RdGG, sygn. 429, Das historische Ereignis in Cholm, May 19, 1940,pp. 176-177. Zörner spoke of the historic moment being witnessed by all that day. He thanked the Ukrainians; telling them he came on behalf of the General Governor to officially carry out his promise and decree. Expressing his happiness in returning the cathedral – “taken by the Polish chauvinists” – he spoke of things to come: “In the future, the Ukrainian nation of the Chełm region, under the strong arm of the German state, will be able to practice their religious traditions… and no one will bother them in this.”688 These words were followed by the official transfer of the cathedral’s keys to Levchuk after which another service was conducted, this time in the presence of the Germans. At a mutual German-Ukrainian breakfast, the governor explained that the cathedral bells located in the adjacent belfry were gifts from the Ukrainians within the Wehrmacht and in the Reich, donated to “proclaim throughout Europe Germany’s victory” saying: “I am convinced that this gift will help to confirm the [Ukrainian] connection with the German Reich.” Speaking in relation to his administrative jurisdiction, he ensured the Ukrainians he would do all in his power to safeguard their religious needs so they could live according to their customs and traditions. He concluded by raising a toast, “I drink to the great and happy future of Ukrainians in this country.”689 Next, Kubiiovych spoke. His words followed the traditional pattern of condemning Polish social and religious injustices committed against Ukrainians throughout Chełm and southern Podlasie – describing that period as an occupation – while thanking Hitler and the Wehrmacht for conquering Poland and liberating them. Liberation allowed Ukrainian life to flourish in villages and towns through what he called a mutual relationship between the local German administrators and Ukrainians. He contextualized that relationship with a note of hope: “These blessings reflect our deepest conviction, because the fate of Ukraine is closely bound up with the fate and the victory of Germany. I raise my glass to the honor and welfare of the victorious German army. May that army create a new, German order in Europe!”690 The conclusion of official ceremonies came after Kubiiovych’s remarks delivered from the balcony of the cathedral to the crowd below. He described the day as historic for all Ukrainians in the GG; a symbol “that all bad that was here is gone and beautiful times have now come.” He also boasted how he, as Ukrainian leader in Kraków, worked and strove to have the cathedral transferred; a reminder that this was not completely thanks to the German occupation authorities or local Ukrainian initiatives. He concluded: “Let this joyous day be a strong impetus for further social work for the good of the Ukrainian nation. Slava!”691 The German-language GG press paid attention to the transfer, reporting on the event. Articles described the “magnanimity” with which the occupiers met Ukrainian Orthodox religious needs. In returning the cathedral – described as “dispossessed” – and later permitting Ukrainian hierarchs, one article specified of the occupier’s expecting these concessions to be “rewarded with loyal allegiance and cooperation” from the side of Ukrainians.692 691 “Pryvit,” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 1 no. 43 (May 27, 1940), 5. Alongside Kubiiovych, a Greek Catholic priest, the Ukrainian Aid Committee leader from Jarosław, Vasyl’ Hlibovyts’kyi, a UNO representative from Berlin, notary Mykola Bahrynivs’kyi, the representative from the Chełm and Podlasie regions and an elder from that same region also spoke. 692 Jockheck, Propaganda im Generalgouvernement..., 277. 693 AAN, RdGG, sygn. 429, Statut der einstweiligen Verwaltung der griechisch orthodoxen Pfarrern im Distrikt Lublin, May 19, 1940, pp. 132-137. Additional stipulations included: the Chełm bishop gaining GG approval in nominating or advancing priests or deacons. The organization of new parishes was also an issue meant for approval by the GG authorities; a precautionary measure to prevent Ukrainians from exploiting religious liberty as revenge against local Poles, causing a greater conflict. Even though the transfer of the Chełm cathedral became a symbol of religious tolerance, gaining for the occupiers more trust from the side of the Ukrainians, it did not completely solve the Orthodox question. Nor did it rectify the deliberations of the GG authorities over the Chełm council’s statute; one they ultimately rejected. Instead, they compiled their own 31-point statute. The German version countered Ukrainian intentions of monopolizing the state and character of the church, placing temporary ecclesiastical administration under Berlin and Seraphim, with an administrator, general vicar and church council to oversee the work of the diocese. All diocese bishops were to be of Ukrainian extraction. Whereas the content of the statue resembled that of the Ukrainian one, differences lay in details. For example, the Ukrainian language would serve as the official language of all church authorities, offices, institutions and sermons while during religious services, the Church Slavonic language with a Ukrainian pronunciation or accent was to be used.693 Between June and August 1940, German-Ukrainian talks over the Orthodox question accelerated, with a solution coming by September. Following festivities in Chełm, Kubiiovych scrutinized the German counter-proposition. To him, it greatly limited the envisioned national character of the church and alienated the Ukrainian faithful. He composed a fifteen point document which presented urgent, imminent needs. It criticized the temporary bishop’s council, which Seraphim called to life in February 1940, as being unrepresentative of the Ukrainians; instead being Russophile. Additionally, he, along with the interned Dionysius, called Seraphim’s authority uncanonical. Specifically, Dionysius wrote to Seraphim’s auxiliary bishop Basil: “…he [Seraphim] assumed the leadership of a foreign Church alongside the existence of the rightful metropolitan of this Church.” In turn, a strong voice of support for Dionysius came from the Patriarch of Constantinople who, following deliberations during a patriarchal synod, accepted a resolution which recognized him as canonical and legal head of the future GG Orthodox Church.694 694 AAN, RdGG, sygn. 429, Dringende Erfordenisse der Autokephalischen Griechisch-Orthodoxen Ukrainische Kirche, n.d., pp. 125-127; Dudra, Metropolita Dionizy…, 78. Because of the uncanonical nature of Seraphim’s activity, Kubiiovych proposed the abolition of the council and replacing it with a consistory or administrative auxiliary and advisory council, to include 3 candidates to offset the balance in the Ukrainian favor. He also called for the return of St. Mary Magdalen Orthodox Church in Warsaw, a church financially funded by Ukrainians, to the Ukrainian Orthodox faithful there, a group which according to him did not yet have their own place of worship but were forced to pray in a makeshift chapel organized in a home seized from a Jewish family. Invoking a passage from the New Testament, he warned “who ignorantly destroys and denationalizes Ukrainians and their faith will incur a penalty, as is called for in Holy Matthew 13.6.” Here, he cited the parable of the sower, in which Jesus Christ equated faith to seeds sown by a farmer; some seeds took root and germinated while others withered and perished. The verse cited by Kubiiovych described the effect of shallowly sown seeds, ones which took root but “when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root.” 695 Ohiienko wrote for and edited the series Ukraїns’ka Avtokefal’na Tserkva, a 42 volume series which appeared in 1921. These volumes numbered between 30 and 40 pages, often dedicated to specific religious or religious-national topics. The majority contained Ohiienko’s thoughts dedicated to given issues. 696 Ivan Ohiienko, “Mova ukraїns’ka bula vzhe movoiu tserkvy” in Ivan Ohiienko (ed), Ukraїns’ka Avtokefal’na Tserkva, vol. 45 (1921), 3-4. The russification of the Orthodox Church on Ukrainian territory came in the 18th century by the wishes of Tsarina Catherine the Great, an issue that he also wrote about. See “Iak tsarytsia Kateryna obmoskovliuvala tserkvu ukraїns’ku” in Ivan Ohienko (ed), Ukraїns’ka Avtokefal’na Tserkva, vol. 22 (1921). 697 PAA, MCF, 85.191, box 4 file 46, Shcho to take tserkovno-slov’ians’ka mova, n.d; Kasinec, “Ivan Ohienko as Book Man and Book Collector…,” 476-477. An important issue raised in Kubiiovych’s document dealt with language usage. He protested Seraphim’s use of the Russian language in his writings to church officials in Chełm. He proposed the authorities completely forbid Orthodox leaders from using Russian in communications with Ukrainians. Furthermore, the Ukrainian-accented version of Church Slavonic would be the only language of liturgical services with the Ukrainian vernacular used during sermons and scripture readings. Influence over the language position came from the side of Ohiienko, a man with whom Kubiiovych met often. His philology and paleography training along with directly participating in the Ukrainian national revival made him a strong proponent of the Ukrainian vernacular in church services and a religious Russophobe. During the interwar period, he wrote extensively on this topic.695 He contended the vernacular of Orthodox liturgies or sacred texts was fluid, a “living, native language” which changed and transitioned over the centuries. This phenomena occurred following linguistic transitions and changes where Orthodoxy was practiced. He openly called to “praise the Lord in your native language!” According to him, the use of the Ukrainian vernacular within the Orthodox Church was not something new yet a renewed desire to regain something which was once used yet was forcefully taken away by Moscow696 In a text he prepared on the meaning of the Church Slavonic language, he compared it to a “weapon of russification toward the Ukrainian and Belarusian populations.” He explained that no one Church Slavonic language with a common pronunciation existed; instead, various pronunciations or accents were used by differing Orthodox faiths of the same texts – Bulgarians, Serbs, Ukrainians, and Russians. Here, Ukrainians, as he noted, had always felt a certain affinity toward their pronunciation during services and warned that the use of russified Church Slavonic would be “harmful and offensive” toward the Ukrainian populace.697 Due to his strong nationalist feelings and religious qualifications, Ohiienko’s involvement in the Orthodox question grew; especially after his approval by the Chełm council as future bishop of that region. During a June 24, 1940 meeting between GG and Ukrainian representatives at the Kraków Prosvita building, he presented a well-defined Ukrainian line toward the church subject; one which Kubiiovych also followed and actively promoted.698 At the start of the meeting, Kubiiovych formally introduced Ohiienko to the mixed German-Ukrainian guests and summarized his accomplishments, raising his glass to honor all there. Next, Ohiienko emphasized the weight and importance of the Orthodox Church for the Ukrainians and their living space; geographically explaining the eastern region of the GG represented a religious and national problem. Additionally, he proposed how to not only solve the interrelated church-nationality problem but also foreshadowed the benefit of such a solution: “If one wants to solve the national problem, one has to solve the religious problem, and whoever solves it will also conquer the soul of the people.”699 In other words, Ohiienko echoed the notion of loyalty for concessions, one which the GG authorities identified and intended to exploit. 698 “Kandydat na iepyskopa u Kholmi,” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 1 no. 90 (September 13, 1940), 4. The article mentioned that the candidacy of Ohiienko for the position of bishop was not a mystery to those assembled but was unbeknownst to canonical and administrative officials; something of a subsequent grassroots initiative by the Chełm Ukrainians. 699 AAN, RdGG, sygn. 429, Protokoll der Reden, June 14, 1940, p. 182. 700 Kleßmann, ““Natzionalsozialistische Kirchenpolitik…,” 578-579, Armstrong, Ukrainian Nationalism, 47-48. 701 AAN, RdGG, sygn. 429, Kanonische Erneuerung der Heiligen Autokephalischen Griechisch-orthodoxen Ukrainischen Kirche im GG, July 3, 1940, pp. 130-131; Kazimierz Urban, “Z dziejów kościoła Prawosławnego na Łekowszczyźnie w latach 1945-1947,” Zeszyty naukowe Akademii Ekonomicznej w Krakowie nr. 460 (1995), A concern quickly identified by the Germans was that the faithful, following the collapse of the previous state organism, could form a politically-dominated national collective. In relation to the Ukrainian nationalists who, like Kubiiovych, equated religion with national consciousness and identity, this would be a delicate undertaking for the Germans; a balancing act in order to not allow nominally granted liberties to transform into a concerted representative, national movement outweighing Ukrainian loyalty toward them in favor of non-German intentions.700 Ohiienko also met with Dionysius in Otwock (near Warsaw) in a delegation which included Kubiiovych, Central Committee representatives and two GG administrators. The delegation continued to view Orthodox authority resting in Dionysius; the collapse of the Polish state not affecting his role as metropolitan and continuator of autocephaly. With this in mind the delegation proposed Dionysius return to his post and continue the church’s autocephalous character in exchange for agreeing to realize its Ukrainization by first and foremost ordaining Ukrainian bishops. They in turn would form a new bishop’s council and choose Dionysius metropolitan. This was planned to be accomplished by October 1, 1940. Dionysius succumbed to this temptation and agreed to the proposal. Historian Kazimierz Urban viewed this as the quintessential moment nationalist Ukrainians seized the autocephalous Orthodox Church in the GG.701 97. In Ohiienko’s opinion, the best solution to the Orthodox question lay in Seraphim disbanding his council, his voluntary abdication and return to Berlin with Dionysius continuing his role as metropolitan over the Orthodox Church on GG territory until a new metropolitan be chosen. The bishops appointed by Dionysius would staff 3 dioceses on GG territory. The Chełm diocese would be led by an archbishop with seat in the Lublin District, presumably Chełm. An archbishopric would be made for the Warsaw-Radom diocese which the metropolitan would lead from Warsaw. A Kraków diocese would encompass the Kraków District and would be administered by a bishop with either a seat in Kraków or on Lemko territory. He proposed that the ‘Holy Autocephalous Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the General Government of the former Poland’ serve as the official name. He also proposed returning Timotheus Szretter to his prewar role of auxiliary bishop and member of the bishop’s council. 702 BA, R 52 II/247, Bericht über den Aufbau im GG bis 1. Juli 1940, p. 106. 703 AAN, RdGG, sygn. 429, Besprechung Betr. Kirchenfrage, July 10, 1940, p. 180; Szilling, Kościoły chrześcijańskie w polityce niemieckich władz..., 68. Kubiiovych also conveyed the support from Ukrainian émigré circles in Berlin, including Hetman Skoropads’kyi, for the organization of an autocephalous Orthodox Church with 3 bishoprics on GG territory. 704 Szilling, Kościoły chrześcijańskie w polityce niemieckich władz..., 81-83. During a meeting with Seraphim, Wilden presented the bishop with the Ukrainians' unfavorable opinion of him. The bishop reiterated his inability to solve the church issue and stated that he would transfer ecclesiastical authority to Dionysius. For his part, Dionysius rescinded his earlier resignation and insisted he return to lead the GG Orthodox Church; arguing it prohibited for a seated bishop to relinquish his office without canonical permission.702 Ensuing GG-Ukrainian meetings continued to denounce Seraphim’s authority as uncanonical and called for his removal. Instead prewar autocephaly would continue and 3 bishoprics would be established, 2 of which being solely Ukrainian in character. Kubiiovych continued to accuse Seraphim of promoting Russophilism – selling portraits and books from church property and giving those profits to Russian agitators who “incite the population in the Kholmshchyna and Lemkivshchyna.” The Russophile issue remained a key problem which Ukrainians aimed to eradicate. This was viewed as a Polish hold-over as in regions with a Ukrainian-Orthodox majority, Orthodox priests and hierarchs were most often ethnic Russians with some Ukrainians.703 Normalizing the Orthodox question was important for the occupier to finish. GG authorities conferred to discuss a solution. On July 1 and 9, Wilden met with other GG officials, security officials, and Abwehr representatives (including Gerullis) in which they nominally approved to maintain an autocephalous Orthodox Church. Returning and maintaining this character meant Seraphim would surrender his leadership and return to Berlin in place of Dionysius. Furthermore, the consecration of 3 bishops was envisioned to restore the church’s ecumenical hierarchy and normalize it. In contrast to the Ukrainians' desire to name the church the “Holy Autocephalous Ukrainian Orthodox Church on GG Territory,” he censored the right to use the term ‘Ukrainian’ as it presented the misconstrued and wrong impression of the existence of an independent Ukrainian state.704 Instead, the title was to underscore the General Government position. Reich security officials had a different opinion. SD and Sipo representatives in Warsaw neither recognized Orthodox concessions as an important policy issue nor, even if it was, for changes to come at the expense of the Russian orthodox group in favor of the Ukrainian one. They supported the Russophiles who hoped to maintain their influences and status quo within the church. Additionally, they viewed the Reichsdeutsche Seraphim as the best man to control the Russian Orthodox group. One security report emphasized: “Archbishop Seraphim has shown himself, on several occasions, to be an upright German and has been active in the national socialist sense.” Even Warsaw governor Ludwig Fischer called attention to the “nationalist position of Ukrainians” as causing problems in church matters especially when considering other ethnic Orthodox groups (in particular Russians). However, GG foreign office plenipotentiary von Wühlisch called his superiors attention to the SD’s pro-Russian émigré position: “Apparently, by creating a purely Ukrainian Orthodox Church, the SD fears that the group of Russian emigrants in Warsaw, numbering some 10 thousand members and which provides useful services to the SD in other fields, will be uneasy.”705 705 Ibid, 83fn177; Krzysztof Dunin-Wąsowicz, et al (eds), Raporty Ludwika Fischera Gubernatora Dystryktu Warszawskiego 1939-1944 (Warszawa: Książka i Wiedza, 1987), 244. 706 Ibid, 84. 707 BA NS 43/32, Betrifft: Denkschrift Seraphim-Dionysius, October 30, 1940, p. 46. 708 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/5, Tagebuch 1940: Dritter Band – Juli bis September, pp. 74-75; “Ukraїntsi Hrubeshova vitaiut’ khlibom i solliu Hen. Hubernatora d-ra Franka,” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 1 no. 75 (August 9, 1940), 2. During his meeting with district governor Zörner in Lublin, the two shared an outdoor dinner in the governor’s residence garden. Frank’s journal entry noted that the garden was illuminated with lampions and red lanterns while “a Ukrainian national choir sang folk songs.” GK 95/5, p. 69. Wilden defended the GG position of upholding the church’s autocephalous character since it equated to removing foreign influences, especially Russian ones, and a possible fifth column. In addition, Orthodox Ukrainians willingly opposed submitting to the authority of a foreign Russian synod while their loyalty to the German authorities would be further solidified through guaranteed autocephaly. He reassured security officials that all candidates for bishop positions would be presented to them for their opinions and approval.706 GG officials accused Seraphim of working too closely with the Russian émigrés and his Russian Orthodox Church; in other words, he placed personal and foreign interests above the General Government. In contrast, Dionysius was seen as someone who always sided with the given political situation and authorities – whether under Tsarist Russia or Poland. Given this history, it was assumed that he would subject himself to the Germans and pose little to no threat to them and their policies.707 In the summer, Hans Frank conducted an inspection of the Lublin district. His first stop was Hrubieszów where, on July 27, his motorcade passed through a lavishly decorated triumphal arch, adorned with German and Ukrainian national flags and slogans. Portraits of Hitler were visible in the windows of homes in and around the town center. Alongside German administrative and military units, awaiting the general governor’s official inspection, stood local Ukrainian schoolchildren and elders. He was greeted by local aid committee representatives, presented with the traditional welcoming symbols of bread and salt by women and showered with flowers by children. In gratitude for this warm welcome, he reassured Ukrainians of their cultural and economic development in the GG.708 Later that day, he and his entourage left for Chełm. To greet the general governor, Ukrainians hung Nazi and Ukrainian flags from lamp posts and buildings. His arrival was again met with the enthusiasm of school children and Ukrainians who, upon Frank’s procession to the cathedral, shouted “Slava!” Prior to a liturgical service in which he participated, he assured Ukrainians: “The German administration is not seeking to enslave nations but to integrate relations between nations… the Ukrainians will exercise the rights which belong to them; these rights, the ones trampled by Poland, will be restored to you. Evidence of this is the return of the cathedral, churches, schools, and land…”709 709 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/5, Tagebuch 1940: Dritter Band – Juli bis September, pp. 79-85; “Heneral'nyi Hubernator u Kholmi,” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 1 no. 78 (August 16, 1940), 3. Photographs of services during visit of Hans Frank travels throughout Lublin District found in Iliustrovani Visti. See AUJ, Teki osobowe pracowników naukowych czynnych w latach 1850-1939 - Bohdan Łepki, sygn. S II 619 folder 15/7. 710 LAC, VKF, MG 31, D 203, volume 18, folder 7, Protokol zїzdu ukr. Komitetiv Liublins’koї Oblasty, August 17, 1940. 711 “Kandydat na iepyskopa u Kholmi,” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 1 no. 90 (September 13, 1940), 4. Ohiienko’s gave three total talks – ‘Ukraїns’ka mova i vymova,’ ‘Okremishnosti Ukraїns’koї Pravoslavnoї Tserkvy,’ ‘Rusyfikatsiia Ukraїns’koї Pravoslavnoї Tserkvy.’ 712 Shkarovskij (ed), Politika Tret’ego reikha…, 97-98. 713 BA, NS 43/32, An den Herrn Reicheminister für die kirchlichen Angelegenheiten, Berlin, February 21, 1940, pp. 81-82. Kubiiovych and UTsK members also travelled to Chełm. During meetings, Stepan Baran argued vindication be treated not simply as a religious matter but as a matter of the Ukrainian nation.710 In turn, toward the end of that month, Ohiienko made a three-day visit to Chełm. There, he met with Ukrainian administrators, both civil and religious. Just as Frank, he too was warmly welcomed, receiving flowers from local schoolchildren and shouts of “Slava!” upon his arrival from Warsaw. He received from Fr. Levchuk a document confirming him for the position of bishop. He also delivered three lectures on the topics of the use of the Ukrainian vernacular during liturgical services and the Russification of the Orthodox Church; ones which, as the press reported, met with the tremendous applause.711 As is evident, the Germans meticulously studied and deliberated over the Orthodox question at various administrative and state levels. Seraphim received a letter from Metropolitan Athanasius, the head of his synod in Yugoslavia. He was informed that since the prewar autocephalous Orthodox Church did not belong to the Russian Orthodox one, he was forbidden to participate in any way “in building the new anti-canonical autocephalous hierarchy in former Poland.”712 Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop agreed that the autocephalous character of the Orthodox Church on occupied Polish territory, what he called a “Reich instrument,” be maintained under all circumstances if only for what he called foreign policy development in the east. On the one hand, this was necessary in order to completely remove any and all Russian influences especially in the borderland zone. On the other hand, because of the Ukrainian pro-German disposition and their resistance to Seraphim’s accused Russian allegiance, Ukrainian bishops were suggested as replacements since only they could fully gain the confidence of the faithful. Such steps envisioned to bestow upon the Ukrainians limited cultural autonomy, creating a space for their development; things meant to increase their pro-German attitudes.713 A GG meeting also concurred: “Since the Ukrainians are loyal to the German Reich in general, and on the other hand the religious question cannot be separated from national ones, the need for the support of this Church arises.”714 714 BA, R 52 II/247, Bericht über den Aufbau im GG bis 1. Juli 1940, p. 107. 715 Here, Wilden described the Russian Orthodox Church Beyond the Borders of Russia (what he called the emigrant Orthodox) as a “reactionary group,” one which did not take into consideration the religious needs of the indigenous GG inhabitants (meaning Ukrainians) yet only followed its own course of interests, that being the maintenance of one whole and indivisible Russian Orthodox Church; what he described as an essential condition toward a whole and indivisible Russian state. He also presented fragments and quotations from émigré Russian Orthodox documents or press articles which described the Orthodox question on GG territory as a matter being exploited by the “chauvinistic nationalist Ukrainian intelligentsia” for their own national aims. AAN, RdGG, sygn. 429, Denkschrift über die Gestaltung der Ukrainischen Autokephalen Orthodoxen Kirche im GG, August 28, 1940, pp. 382-383. 716 Szilling, Kościoły chrześcijańskie w polityce niemieckich władz..., 85. The project called for a third diocese with a bishopric in Warsaw. Here the bishop would be of Russian ethnicity; something Ohiienko proposed (and Kubiiovych continued to underscore) through meeting with GG authorities in June and July. 717 AAN, RdGG, sygn. 429, Ukrainian-language text of Ilarion oath, p. 421. The proclamation of an oath of loyalty to a civil or state representative was not something out of the ordinary in relation to the Autocephalous Orthodox Church in Poland and was much shorter than the Polish interwar text. The November 1938 interwar statute, intending to normalize relations between the autocephalous church and the state, also included the text of an oath of loyalty to the Polish state. Before God and the state, the candidate swore to be “a loyal and obedient son of the Republic of Poland, with complete loyalty I will respect its government, recognized in the Constitution. I promise and swear to always bear in mind the good and benefit of the Polish State; to avoid any deeds against the interests of the Polish State; to not take part in any dealings or meetings which could either bring harm to the Polish state or public order, and to not allow my subordinate clergy to take part in such dealings or meetings…I promise and swear that I will do all to have my subordinate clergy respect the Authority of the Republic of Poland and, in their activity, to always bear in mind the good of the Polish State. I also swear that I will teach the faithful entrusted to my care obedience toward Polish authority, raising them to be both good Christians and law-abiding citizens of the Polish State.” No. 597: Dekret Prezydenta Rzeczypospolitej z These views echoed Wilden’s organizational plan for the church. Autocephaly would be maintained while church policy aimed to “make up for the evils which had been inflicted on the Orthodox population of today’s GG during the times of Russian and Polish rule.”715 Autocephaly required a restoration of a hierarchy, something he viewed in the form of 3 bishops to be consecrated with two of the three being ethnic Ukrainians from diocese in the Lublin and Kraków districts.716 By September, finalization of the Orthodox question took shape. First, Frank dismissed Seraphim from temporary administration over the church; thanking him for his dedication and work. On September 23 he held an official audience with GG and UTsK representatives, including Kubiiovych and Ohiienko. This meeting lay the foundation for the revival of Orthodox life on GG territory. The Germans, agreeing to return Dionysius to his prewar role as metropolitan, officially completed this act. During the reception, Dionysius officially pledged his subordination to the GG authorities: I, Dionysius, archbishop of the Warsaw diocese and metropolitan of the Holy Autocephalous Church in the General Government, promise as the superior of this Church to you Mister General Governor loyalty and obedience. The laws and ordinances issued by You will be loyally performed by us; we will always strive so that our subordinate clergy respects and performs these laws in a similar, loyal way.717 dnia 18 listopada 1938r. o stosunku Państwa do Polskiego Autokefalicznego Kościoła Prawosławnego.” Dzienink Ustaw Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej 1938 r., vol. II (Warszawa 1938), 1326. 718 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/5, Tagebuch 1940: Dritter Band – Juli bis September, September 23, 1940, pp. 273-275. These events were also reported in “Peremolova podiia v istoriї Ukrainskoї Pravoslavnoї Tserkvy,” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 1 no. 96 (September 27, 1940), 1-2. 719 Torzecki, Polacy i Ukraińcy…, 49-50; Dudra, Metropolitan Dionizy..., 79-80. Following the war, Dionysius stated that omitting such prayers or intentions during liturgies “could not be done without the fear of repressions from the side of the Gestapo looming, not only toward clergy but against the entire [Orthodox] Church.” 720 AAN, RdGG, sygn. 427, Geschichte der autokephalen orthodoxen Kirche in Polen, n.d., pp. 137-138; “Ukraїntsi diakuiut’ Hen. Hubernatorovi,” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 1 no. 97 (September 30, 1940), 2. Orthodox administrator Fr. Levchuk also sent a telegram to Frank thanking him for legally and canonically normalizing the position of the church, especially within the Lublin District. 721 PISM, folder A.XII.28/17a, “Prawoslawie na ziemiach Polski w dobie obencej,” April 17, 1945, p. 1. 722 “Postanovy Sviashchennoho Soboru Iepyskopiv,” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 1 no. 124 (November 18-19, 1940), 3; Urban, Kościół prawosławny…, 59; IPN, BU 1229/175, Stan Prawosławnej Cerkwi na Chełmszczyźnie i Podlasiu, Letter to Ohiienko, February 12, 1939, pp. 2-3. The letter noted that Orthodox jurisdiction over the Subcarpathian Rus region lay within the Serbian Orthodox Church and mentioned of strong Russophile and Magyarophile elements within the eparchy. With the rapidly developing nationalization of this region, Ukrainians there also looked to do the same with the Orthodox Church. Frank responded with a message of support, one with a pro-Ukrainian tone, “I expect that You will lead the reconstruction of the Orthodox Church according to the needs of the General Government and the wishes of the Ukrainian faithful.” Dionysius also received a mandate from the authorities to establish and ordain a church hierarchy. This he described in his response to Frank’s comments, announcing that the religious development of the Orthodox faithful, “which is composed primarily of faithful Ukrainians,” rested on the division of the GG Orthodox Church into three dioceses: Warsaw-Radom (with a Russian character), Chełm-Podlasie (Ukrainian character) and Kraków-Lemko (Ukrainian character).718 In exchange for his return, Dionysius conceded to the ukrainization of the church and to abide by the liturgical prayers introduced by Seraphim into Orthodox services, ones dedicated to the leader of the German nation, the civil government and the Wehrmacht.719 During this meeting, it was also agreed that Ohiienko would be raised to the rank of bishop for “the good of the Ukrainian nation.”720 While in Kraków Dionysius also met with Sushko, the OUN head in the GG as well as with Ukrainian press representatives; an act viewed by the exile Polish government as treasonous and occurring out of “strong pressure” to come to terms with the fact that his authority would be limited.721 Decisions concerning the appointment of bishops came following the first synod, held on September 30. Candidates were presented by Kubiiovych who wished to fill the two remaining bishoprics with Ukrainophiles. During the synod Dionysius and Bishop Timotheus Szretter formally agreed to Ohiienko’s candidacy for the Chełm bishopric. This, however, was not the first time Ohiienko was considered for such a position. In February 1939, an Orthodox synod committee in Subcarpathian Rus’ wrote to him to consider becoming the hierarch for a Ukrainian Orthodox bishopric, one which they sought to create in independent Carpatho Ukraine. Although that plan did not prove fruitful, he was appointed to lead a different bishopric with a strong Ukrainian character.722 Just prior to the official installation of Ohiienko, a joint Reich religious ministry and security apparatus memorandum looked to damage the changes being undertaken within GG church matters in a last-ditch effort to return it to a Russophile-dominated status quo. According to the note, Seraphim had been employed and used by the Reich authorities to undertake important political issues while the pressure he experienced from the side of the GG authorities was compared to his experiences with the Soviet secret police. His activity in the GG, it went on, was worthy of a Reichsdeutsche carrying out orders. His dismissal was said to have damaged the prestige of the Germans in the GG. Moreover, the report contested of the Russian Orthodox Church beyond Russia as being one of the few Russophile churches with a loyal attitude toward the Third Reich and National Socialism; an ally and not a foreign intruder. It warned of allowing the church to slip away from German control and into the hands of Ukrainian “political extremists” who would quickly create a base of political irredentism out of it, appropriating church belonging to Greater Ukraine and not the Greater German Reich. Autocephaly and Dionysius, it argued, opened the door to uncontrollable foreign influences, making uniform state supervision and direction impossible.723 723 BA, NS 43/32, Betrifft: Bemerkungen zu der Denkschrift Antisemitische Aktion vom 4. Oktober 1940, pp. 53-62. 724 Ibid. 725 BA, NS 43/32, Betrifft: Bemerkungen zu der Denkschrift Antisemitische Aktion vom 4. Oktober 1940, pp. 68-69. Finally, the report mentioned perhaps the most damaging information to any non-German in occupied Poland – the purported Jewish lineage of Ohiienko and sympathies he developed toward Jews. Based on supposed information from foreign press and foreign church circles, the memorandum presented ‘evidence’ to support the claims. First, it noted that his father Ivan was Jewish, claiming that the Slavic name was assumed at his baptism; his Jewish name ‘Ruljka’ appearing next to it in parenthesis. This name was said to be a form of the named ‘Srul,’ meaning Israel in Hebrew. Second, it mentioned of his inaugural lecture at Kyiv University, ‘Judaizers and literature,’ and argued of his belonging to the Judaizers sect – those, primarily gentiles, who adopted Jewish customs and practices. Because of this, he was said to have a predilection for all things Jewish.724 GG authorities denounced the memorandum as a piece of misconstrued propaganda consisting of baseless facts. Above all, it undermined the position and decisions of the general governor. The arguments presented in favor of Seraphim went far beyond the interests of the Reich, placing trust in a bishop loyal to a foreign synod. In contrast, the reinstatement of Dionysius was undertaken with a definitive purpose – to serve German interests in the GG. One note responded concertedly: “A German administration can only be decisive when it serves German interests. Therefore, the will of the General Governor himself has to decide on the expediency of these acts.” Furthermore, the hypothetical evidence cited to defame Ohiienko was said to have proved nothing since a Gestapo investigation of his background disproved the accusations.725 Wilden defended Ohiienko and his pro-German sympathies as beneficial to GG authorities; finding in him another pro-German Ukrainian. According to him, those sentiments stemmed from his “clear and sober understanding that the existence and development of this [Ukrainian] nation will only be guaranteed by Germany’s victory in the east.”726 726 AAN, RdGG, sygn. 430, Betr: Unterabteilung Kirchenwesen – Eröffnung eines orthodoxen Priesterseminars in Cholm, April 2, 1943, p. 213. 727 Kateryna Vasyliv-Sydorenko, “Blazhennishyi Mytropolyt Ilarion u moїkh spohadakh” in Ivanyk, Krov ukraїns’ka, krov pol’s’ka..., 171. 728 AAN, RdGG, sygn. 429, Telegram to Bisanz, October 18, 1940, p. 365. 729 Ibid, Vorweihung und Chirothonie des Cholmer Bischof Ilarion, pp. 143-145. This was also recalled by Kateryna Vasyliv-Sydorenko who was among the schoolchildren who welcomed Ohiienko. Vasyliv-Sydorenko, “Blazhennishyi Mytropolyt Ilarion u moїkh spohadakh” in Ivanyk, Krov ukraїns’ka, krov pol’s’ka..., 171-172. Since Ohiienko was not an ordained priest prior to his installation as bishop, he quickly transcended the Orthodox clerical process. He completed this religious phase at the St. Onufrii Monastery in Jabłeczna. First he became an ordinary monk, assuming the name Ilarion; next a monastic deacon; then a monastic priest; and finally monastery superior (archimandrite), his position upon arrival to Chełm for his ordination. 730 AAN, RdGG, sygn. 429, Vorweihung und Chirothonie des Cholmer Bischof Ilarion, pp. 145-149; Mironowicz, “Kościół prawosławny na terenach Generalnego Gubernatorstwa…,” 175-176. The name Ilarion, given and accepted by Ohiienko as his monastic name, contained a greater meaning. St. Ilarion was also the first patron saint of the Chełm (Ukrainian) archbishopric. A subsequent archbishop with the name Ilarion represented the continued, Ukrainian character of the archdiocese. The installation of Ohiienko was officially and canonically completed by Metropolitan Dionysius, Bishop Savatius of Prague and Bishop Szretter. Ohiienko’s installation to the Chełm bishopric came during ceremonies spanning three days in October. According to Kateryna Vasyliv-Sydorenko, by that time, the cathedral was “cleansed of Polish occupation.”727 Representatives of the Lublin aid committee sent a telegram to Bisanz in Kraków, informing him and GG authorities of the planned festivities.728 Ohiienko and Dionysius were welcomed to Chełm by schoolchildren and teachers who showered both with flowers; with greetings from Ukrainian representatives and warm welcomes from local clergy who gathered for the occasion. Banners in the Ukrainian national blue and yellow colors, proclaiming “Slava to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church,” hung near the cathedral. Posters declaring “Blessed be your entry” were plastered on the walls and homes leading toward the cathedral while from the cathedral balcony hung a banner, adorned with festive green garland, reading “And in freedom the enslaved children will pray.”729 The official installation of Ohiienko, who assumed the name Ilarion (also written ‘Hilarion’) occurred on October 19, 1940. The next day liturgies of thanksgiving were held; one conducted in the Ukrainian vernacular and another in Church Slavonic with Ukrainian pronunciation. A reception followed afterward.730 On October 29, 1940 Ilarion and a Ukrainian delegation attended a meeting with secretary of state Bühler. There he officially took his oath of loyalty and allegiance to the authorities; gaining a formal letter of approval signed by Frank. Bühler also read a prepared statement by the general governor in which he expected the archbishop to “always loyally execute my laws and regulations.” Ilarion expressed his thanks “on behalf of the Ukrainian people, for renewing the Ukrainian Orthodox Church” as well as for the personal gifts from Frank – a bishops cross and panagia or sacred icon worn by an Orthodox hierarch. Upon receiving them, Ohiienko said, “So long as this panagia is worn over my heart, I will pray for the Führer of the Great German Reich and for you, from whom I received it.”731 On November 3, 1940 he was officially enthroned as archbishop in Chełm.732 731 AAN, RdGG, sygn. 429, Text of Ilarion proclamation and oath to Frank, October 29, 1940, pp. 90-92, 421; “Zatverdzhennia Arkhiepyskopa Ilariona,” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 1 no. 111 (November 1, 1940), 1. The text of his oath of allegiance reads: ‘We Ilarion, archbishop of the Chełm and Podlasie Diocese, of the Holy Autocephalous Orthodox Church in the General Government, promise to You Mister General Governor, allegiance and loyalty. We will faithfully execute the laws and regulations and we will look to the Clergy of Our Diocese, so that they too respect and execute the laws and regulations with the same allegiance and loyalty.’ 732 “Intronizatsiia Arkh. Ilariona v Kholmi,” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 1 no. 116 (November 8, 1940), 3. 733 PUMST, OIV, file A.268, Sztab Naczelnego Wodza Oddział IV: L. dz. 685/tj.42 – Referat ppor. Flegel-Cepińskiego, March 5, 1942. 734 HIA, Ambasada Polski w Stanach Zjednoczonych (APSZ), 800/36, box 49, folder 7, Nr. R252 – Notatka z rozmów profesora Jędrzejewskiego w sprawach ukraińskich i kościelnych, March 12, 1941. 735 PAA, MCF, 85.191, box 5 file 56, Soborne zibrannia Kholms’koї Ieparkhiї, October 1941. 736 PAA, MCF, 85.191, box 5 file 55, Zvernennia do vsechesnoho dukhovenstva i boholiubyvoho ukraїns’koho hromadianstva, May 1941. 737 Vasyliv-Sydorenko, “Blazhennishyi Mytropolyt Ilarion u moїkh spohadakh” in Ivanyk, Krov ukraїns’ka, krov pol’s’ka..., 172. 738 AAN, RdGG, sygn. 429, Aktennotiz: Äußerung einer V-Person über Erzbischof Ilarion, March 5, 1941, p. 196. A Polish note described the church events as Ukrainians “selling themselves out” to the Germans; viewing the religious successes as the first steps toward an independent Ukraine.733 The new hierarch also received a congratulatory note from Pavlo Skoropads’kyi. In it, the Hetman welcomed Ilarion as a bishop of Ukraine. Furthermore, he wished him much luck in the deep ukrainization of the church.734 His program for the church in the Chełm diocese echoed strong ukrainization. In 1941 he presented a program to build and strengthen religious life there, one which called for the religious ethnic cleansing – de-polonization and de-russification – of local church structures. Local Ukrainians, including intellectuals, positively reacted to this.735 He reiterated this position several months later, calling on the renewal of “a purely Ukrainian holy Orthodox Church with strength and high level of authority.”736 The faithful in the region saw his work as the first step toward reviving Ukrainian religious and cultural life. Not only were services conducted in Ukrainian rather than Church Slavonic while prayer books were also printed in Ukrainian.737 Throughout much of the occupation, German security and police representatives monitored Ilarion’s words and work; wary of his true intentions. GG SD chief Wilhelm Krüger had his doubts toward the political position of the bishop. In a note to Wilden, he concluded that the bishop did not believe in the total victory of Germany. Rather, he noted his activity being aimed at creating an independent Ukraine.738 The process of appointing a bishop for the Kraków-Lemko diocese was one which also directly involved Kubiiovych and the occupation authorities. Due to the long tradition of Russophile Orthodoxy in the Lemko region, Doroshenko explained that the process of Ukrainizing Orthodoxy there would be more complicated. However, he remained persistent: “According to Ukrainian nationalist circles, the assignment now is to assure the Orthodox Church in the Lemko region adopts a Ukrainian character and served to crystalize national consciousness rather than obscure it.”739 Toward the end of November, Wilden informed his superiors of two candidates for the Lemko Diocese. The first was Ilarion Bryndzan, a Ukrainian priest in Paris and former Polish military chaplain during the interwar period. The second was Vydybida-Rudenko.740 739 Quoted in Zięba, “Biskupstwo krakowsko-łemkowskie…,” 110. 740 Ibid, Amt des Generalgouverneurs Innere Verwaltung-Kirchliche Angelegenheiten: Weihe eines Bischofs für den Lemkenland-Diözese, November 29, 1940, p. 360. 741 Ibid, Ukrainerreferat Betr: Archimandrit Palladius, October 23, 1940, p. 345; UTsK Betr: Weihe des Archimandriten Palladius, November 22, 1940, p. 344. Kubiiovych also added that Palladius’ position within the Warsaw-area diocese had already been known to the Orthodox faithful while in the Lemko region, an area where the majority of its inhabitants belonged to the Greek Catholic rite, Palladius was completely unknown. 742 BA, NS 43/32, Informatsiia z Varshavy pro polozhennia Pravoslavnoi tserkvy v Varshavs’komu GG, February 2, 1940, p. 84. 743 Szilling, Kościoły chrześcijańskie w polityce niemieckich władz..., 81-82. 744 AAN, RdGG, sygn. 429, Betrifft: Weihe des Archiandriten Palladius zum Bischof für das Lemkenland, December 8, 1940, p. 343; Akten-Notiz: Bischofsweihe eines Vikarbischofs für die Warschau-Radomer Diözese, March 25, 1941, p. 319. Bisanz also criticized and objected to the candidacy of Bryndzan, unwilling to approve of someone “particularly skilled in church-state issues” to possibly upset or provoke the burgeoning church-state relationship on GG territory. To gain the perspective and outlook of the Ukrainians toward the candidacy of Vydybida-Rudenko, Bisanz consulted Kubiiovych who rather nonchalantly informed his German colleague that due to the low level of national feeling or conscious among the Orthodox inhabitants of the Lemko region, it would make no difference to them who their bishop would be.741 An early foreign office note on the Orthodox situation in Warsaw also noted the Ukrainian perception toward Vydybida-Rudenko: “Against [him] are only accusations of political-national type, dictated by the unsatisfied chauvinism of the culturally-low Ukrainians.”742 This laconic approach of Kubiiovych’s may have stemmed from the fact that he and Ohiienko had a different vision for the Lemko region. They agreed with Dionysius that the bishop serving the Orthodox faithful there would be a suffragan from the Warsaw Diocese. In Szilling’s opinion, the Greek Catholics in the UTsK did not wish to raise a bishopric in the Lemko region so as not to upset Greek Catholic influences in parts of the region.743 Bisanz provided Wilden with an official position and propositions toward the bishop’s question. He reiterated Kubiiovych’s comments yet stated no objections to the appointment of Vydybida-Rudenko for the remaining bishopric; Bryndzan having been accused of anti-German sympathies if only for his Polish connections. Criticism lay in the bishop’s future seat. According to Bisanz, a seat in Kraków was “out of the question” as this would give the impression, especially to the Greek Catholic authorities, of religious favoritism and opening the door for anti-German propaganda. Chełm was proposed as a future hierarch was envisioned to serve as Ilarion’s assistant for the Lemko region.744 Ultimately, the bishop’s seat and residence for that diocese was agreed to be in Warsaw even though the German authorities also afforded him a 14th century tenement house on Spitalgasse (Szpitalna Street) in Kraków. Its largest space was converted from a synagogue used by the Jewish Literary Society which occupied it before the outbreak of war into an Orthodox church. Andrzej A. Zięba postulated Palladius’ residency in Warsaw may have stemmed from UTsK desires to keep a close eye on Dionysius.745 745 Zięba, “Biskupstwo krakowsko-łemkowskie…,” 120-121. 746 Photocopy of the original document appears in Urban, Kościół prawosławny w Polsce 1945-1970, 60-61. Mykhailo Sadovs’kyi, an Orthodox officer in the UNR army and from 1939 head of the Ukrainian Military-Historical Institute in Warsaw, also observed the meeting. 747 AAN, RdGG, sygn. 429, Note from Dionysius to Föhl, January 31, 1941, p. 339; Zięba, “Biskupstwo krakowsko-łemkowskie…,” 116. 748 AAN, RGO, sygn. 111, Sprawy ukraińskie – notatka statystyczna dr. Rymara, April 29, 1940, pp. 2-6. What undoubtedly changed Kubiiovych’s opinion to support the candidacy of Vydybida-Rudenko was the latter’s pledge during a secret meeting in Chełm in January 1941. Officially summoned there by Ilarion, Vydybida-Rudenko signed an oath of loyalty to “the very dignified professor doctor Volodymyr Kubiiovych, head of the Ukrainian Central Committee.” In exchange for a future appointment to the Lemko-Kraków bishopric, he swore to work solely for the benefit of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church and the Ukrainian people; complete obedience to Ilarion; and to vote during synods exactly like Ilarion, never against. The pledge was approved by the signatures of Kubiiovych and Ilarion.746 In January 1941, Dionysius informed GG authorities of ceremonies for the installation of Vydybida-Rudenko, who assumed the name Palladius, as bishop of the Kraków-Lemko diocese; scheduled for February 8 and 9 in Warsaw. The second day’s ceremonies were certainly filled with much Ukrainian pomp as a Warsaw choir performed while such dignitaries as Osyp Boidunyk, representing the UTsK and OUN, and Mykhailo Khomiak – chief editor of Krakivs’ki Visti – attended. Oleksandr Sevriuk, former head of the UNR delegation during the Brest peace talks, travelled especially from Berlin for the services. The culmination of the enthronement was Palladius’ pledge of loyalty and subordination before Warsaw district governor Ludwig Fischer.747 After the German invasion of the USSR and the attachment of Eastern Galicia to the GG, Palladius was given authority over that region in May 1942; becoming bishop of the Kraków-Lemko-Lwów diocese. The situation and events surrounding the Orthodox Church were also monitored by the Polish social aid organizations and the underground, with reports sent to the government-in-exile. The Polish RGO, in a report compiled illustrating Orthodox and Greek Catholic adherents in the GG, contested UTsK figures, ones which closely resembled German ones. Instead, they adhered to prewar (1931) census data, noting the Orthodox adherents in the Lemko region as ‘Rusyns’ rather than Ukrainians. Furthermore, the report contended the feasibility of forming a “Ukrainian group on GG territory” based on religious denomination in that “not all Greek Catholics and not all Orthodox are Ukrainians, Russians or Rusyns. A large percent declares themselves to be part of the Polish nation.”748 Reports compiled by the exile ministry of information correlated ukrainization of the Orthodox Church, especially in the Chełm region, as a subsequent example of the occupation authority’s policy of divide et impera which aimed to incite hostility on the religious level and resounding on the ethnic one. A note from the Polish consul in Yugoslavia described German intentions of subjugating Orthodox churches in Poland and other occupied areas as steps toward creating a religious instrument which they could control; a “conference of Orthodox bishops of the Greater German Reich.” The note also questioned how to officially react to Dionysius, described initially as a victim of German pressure to relinquish his position and who wrote accusations against the occupiers and Seraphim but who later submitted willfully to the occupiers. To prevent any further pro-German aspirations by him, a radio propaganda campaign was suggested to be undertaken in which the separatist nature of the church would be underscored and, in this way, hopefully destroy it from within.749 749 HIA, MSZ, 800/42, box 119 folder 19, Secret Report No. 253/26, December 9, 1940. 750 HIA, APSZ, 800/36, box 49 folder 7, Akcja na odcinku wyznaniowym – prawosławnym, April 28, 1941. 751 Krzysztof Filipow and Andrzej Suchcitz (eds). Arcybiskup Generał Brygady Sawa (Jerzy Sowietow) (Białystok-Warszawa: Prawosławny Ordynariat Wojska Polskiego, 1997). 752 HIA, APSZ, 800/36, box 49 folder 7, Protest of Bishop Sawa to the Polish Ambassador in the United States, April 9, 1941. 753 The German New Order in Poland, 3rd ed. (London: Hutchinson & Co, 1943), 393-394. The report mentioned that the German policy of supporting Ukrainian Orthodox elements also looked to downplay Russian influences in the Orthodox Church. 754 LAC, VKF, MG 31, D 203, volume 18, folder 20, UTsK Organisationsabteilung: Bericht für den Monat September 1941, October 2, 1941. While the Germans exploited Dionysius to continue the autocephalous character of the Orthodox Church under their occupation, so too did the Polish exile government recruit Sawa (Jerzy Sowietow), the prewar bishop of the Grodno diocese and “the only Orthodox bishop who remained true in defending [Polish] autocephaly.”750 He succeeded in avoiding Soviet and German occupation by fleeing to the United States and London by way of Lithuania, East Prussia, Berlin and Romania. It is worthwhile to note that while in Berlin, he met Seraphim who proposed Sawa administer the Orthodox Church in the GG. Sawa refused the offer. He was later nominated to the position of field bishop in the Polish Armed Forces in the west and attached to the Polish Second Corps.751 In meeting with religious or civic leaders in the US or London, he continuously questioned the legitimacy of the Autocephalous Orthodox Church in the GG. His letters of protest accused Dionysius of violating the prewar Polish autocephalous statue: breaking the solemn oath he took on behalf of the interwar autocephalous church and uncanonically nominating and consecrating new bishops.752 Whereas the Orthodox Church in General Government gained a strong Ukrainian character, it was not autonomous from the occupation authorities. Just as Catholic clergy, so too were suspected Orthodox priests arrested by the authorities.753 UTsK reports noted the slow and aggravating beaurocracy of local German authorities, for example in Chełm County, in officially transferring churches and property over to the Ukrainians even after they received the necessary documents and correspondences.754 Furthermore, aid committee reports often noted of friction between Orthodox and Greek Catholic clergy and faithful in the mixed eastern borderland regions of the Lublin district. For example in the town of Hrubieszów, the two clashed over a vindicated prewar Catholic church. To prevent unnecessary hostilities, a compromise was reached – the church fell under Orthodox ecclesiastical control but was also permitted for Greek Catholic use. Ilarion, petitioned GG authorities for an Orthodox theological seminary. In his letters, he mentioned the pressing need for a theological center in which native Ukrainians from the Chełm and Podlasie regions could be trained to overtake the positions of clergy from Volhynia or Bukovina; he envisioned that they would return to their respective homes in the near future. Furthermore, he argued that such a center would lift the cultural level of Ukrainians in the region while consequently further strengthening their gratitude toward and reliance upon the occupiers.755 755 AAN, RdGG, sygn. 430, Betr: Unterabteilung Kirchenwesen – Eröffnung eines orthodoxen Priesterseminars in Cholm, April 2, 1943, p. 213. In addition to the pro-German aspect, Ilarion described how Orthodox clergy was trained during the interwar period, at a seminary in Warsaw where they were susceptible to Polish and foreign (Russophile) influences; the effect of this being their misunderstanding of the “national (Ukrainian) spirit” of their parishioners in the Chełm and southern Podlasie regions where they were later sent to minister. To prevent such further problems, he argued that the new cadre of priests should be trained and educated “in their own environment, on their own land.” 756 Ibid, Betr: Unterabteilung Kirchenwesen – Eröffnung eines orthodoxen Priesterseminars in Cholm, April 2, 1943, pp. 210-211. 757 Ibid, Abschrift Betr: Einrichtung eines ukrainischen Priesterseminars, November 10, 1942, p. 281. 758 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/21, Tagebuch 1942: September bis Dezember, p. 247. A decision reached by GG security officials on October 8, 1942 agreed to the formation of an Orthodox theological seminary in Warsaw, not Chełm. As they reasoned, the seat of the metropolitan was in Warsaw and that area would provide enough candidates. The decision caused opposition from among the GG civil authorities – Frank, Bühler, Zörner – and from Ilarion. The latter even threatened to resign from his position in opposition. He was most bothered by the fact that he, someone who had shown pro-German sympathies and friendship on several occasions, was forbidden by the police authorities in forming a seminary in favor of Dionysius, who he accused of being “pro-German on the outside” but actually being anti-German in nature; someone who would train clerics to also be anti-German.756 In a telegram to Bühler, Zörner expressed his agreement to organize an Orthodox seminary in Chełm rather than in ethnically-Polish Warsaw: I consider the opinion of the Archbishop [Ilarion] to be justified and, for my part, I must also point out the most serious objections to the establishment of the seminary in Warsaw. The seminarians would be strongly influenced by anti-German sentiments there and would be exposed to Polish irredentism. Chełm, as the seat of the Archbishop, is the given place for the establishment of a seminary. The seminarians would in no way be exposed to anti-German influences. I therefore urge you to refrain from setting up the seminary in Polish Warsaw and to permit it only in Chełm.757 During a GG security meeting in November 1942, Bühler presented Ilarion’s proposition for a seminary in Chełm. Both he and Frank expressed their positive attitudes toward the bishop’s proposition. However, GG SS and police chief SS-Oberführer Eberhard Schöngarth regarded the bishop’s wish as unimportant and dismissed it outright.758 Further meetings between GG and Reich security officials caused a perplexing outcome. Bühler, who misinterpreted the SS and police statements, gave Ilarion, by way of Zörner, his approval for the creation of a seminary in Chełm. The SS and police officials however maintained their view that one seminary in Warsaw would suffice for the GG and forbid Ilarion from opening one in Chełm. In response to the differing decision undertaken, Wilden prepared a note for the SS in attempts to change their mind. He sharply criticized them for rendering a decision in contrast to the district authorities and for not consulting their decision with the GG department of internal affairs. He echoed the GG’s policy of divide and conquer among the ethnic groups as the policy to exploit and take advantage of. To do so, he argued, the Germans needed to take advantage of those ethnic groups prepared to collaborate with them. Permitting the opening of a theological seminary in Chełm, he concluded, would be subsequent proof of German friendship toward Ukrainians. To placate police concerns, he assured them that the seminary leadership would consist solely of Bukovinians of German descent so as to prevent the education of future “Ukrainian chauvinists.”759 Ultimately, the seminary was permitted to open in May 1943 and functioned alongside the Warsaw one; opened toward the end of 1942. From the organization of both seminaries, the number of clerics trained did not exceed over 100. One Ukrainian, who entered the seminary to avoid conscription into the Baudienst, recalled Illarion training cleric’s methodological approaches to academic writing on the basis of his experiences. Moreover, during church services, the cleric elicited Ilarion’s sermons, traditionally beginning with spiritual themes only to end on nationalist notes.760 759 AAN, RdGG, sygn. 430, Betr: Unterabteilung Kirchenwesen – Eröffnung eines orthodoxen Priesterseminars in Cholm, April 2, 1943, pp. 212-214. 760 Illia Romaniuk, “Pid tr’oma okupantamy” in Ivanyk, Krov ukraїns’ka, krov’ pol’s’ka..., 140. 761 BA NS 43/32, Bemerkungen zu der Denkschrift der Antisemitischen Aktion vom 4. Oktober 1940 betreffend die Wiedereinsetzung des Metropoliten Dionysos, 30 October 1940, p. 45. 762 AAN, RdGG, sygn. 739, Zusammenstellung des Bedarfs an Unterstützungsmitteln für die griech.-kath. Kirchen im GG für das Rechnungsjahre 1943, pp. 12-14. The Greek Catholic Church received the same amount of financial assistance from the GG budget as the Orthodox Church. 763 AAN, RdGG, sygn. 427, Geschichte der autokephalen orthodoxen Kirche in Polen, n.d., p. 16; Sziling, Kościoły chrześciańskie w polityce niemieckich władz okupacyjnych..., 90-91. The solution to the Orthodox question by the GG authorities was assessed as positive. Because the majority of non-Polish GG inhabitants were Ukrainian, it was only logical to place that church in Ukrainian-majority regions under its influence. It was seen by the Germans as a politically indifferent institution; one which, with the proper control mechanisms, would not have the conditions to transform into a highly politicized institution such as the Greek Catholic Church.761 To prevent this, the Germans made the church overwhelmingly dependent on them. Beginning in July 1940 the church received financial assistance from the GG budget; something which in 1942 for example totaled 700 thousand złotys. This came in part following a note by Bisanz from February 2, 1941 in which he wrote that priests and deacons in the villages “live very poorly.”762 In sum, the Chełm diocese numbered 175 parishes – 158 of which were completely ukrainized, while the Kraków-Lemko diocese contained 38. This number grew slightly following the expansion of the Kraków diocese over the Galicia District.763 However, any initiatives toward future internal reorganization had to be met with the approval of the GG authorities. Furthermore the nomination and appointment of hierarchs had to be approved not only by the GG authorities but also by security and police officials. 4.3 – Educational Concessions: Educational Revival and Cultural Renewal Outside the southeastern Polish town of Lesko lay the villages of Huzele and Weremień. On October 28, 1939 the Ukrainian wójts (viits) of both, Petro Kilyk and Antin Kozak respectively, signed a mutual letter detailing villager demands to the occupation authorities – the introduction of Ukrainian language education into public schools; something to be taught by ethnic Ukrainian teachers. Here, villagers hoped to organize the ability for their children to properly learn and reconnect with their mother tongue especially since, as the letter noted, 145 Ukrainian children lived within the two villages. Presumably, during the interwar period, Ukrainian language education was excluded here as in many other ethnically-mixed regions. What gave them that right? They explained that the collapse of the Polish state presented Ukrainian parents with a new opportunity.764 764 Archiwum Państwowe Przemyśl (AP-P), Zbiór materiałów dotyczących problematyki ukraińskiej, sygn. 16, Letter from Huzele and Weremień villagers to German occupation authorities, October 28, 1939, p. 1. The letter included a detailed list of Ukrainian families within the two villages and the number of children in each family. 765 Myroslav Kotys, “Ukraїns’ki shkoly v Belzi 1939-1944” in Mykola Martyniuk, et. al. (eds), Nadbuzhanshchyna. Istorychno-memuarnyi zbirnyk vol. 1 (New York-Paris-Sydney-Toronto: Ob’iednannia Nadbuzhantsiv, 1986), 354. 766 AP-L, DGdDL, sygn. 156, Memorandum: Ukrainische Komitee in Cholm to Joachim von Ribbentrop, November 1, 1939, pp. 1-3. 767 Boidunyk, Na perelomi, 53. The letter sent to the occupation authorities by the wójts from the Przemyśl area was not the only one. Throughout the eastern and southeastern GG, either the occupying Germans were approached by Ukrainians or Ukrainians penned letters to Nazi representatives in Berlin. In Hrubieszów, the former took place. Ukrainians there received permission from the Wehrmacht to organize a school inspectorate which in turn began to create makeshift elementary schools.765 On November 1, 1939 Ukrainians in Chełm addressed a letter of thanksgiving to Ribbentrop. Alongside thanking the Reich for replacing the “barbarous yoke” of interwar Poland with the “highest culture” of Germany, they petitioned the occupiers to renew the cultural life of the region, including schools; something tainted by interwar policies of assimilation and polonization.766 Ukrainian nationalists placed emphasis on gaining influence in schools and among teachers. The October 1939 meeting of Melnykites in Krosno included a simple yet deep four-point plan toward nationalizing cultural and educational fields – to organize schools staffed by Ukrainian teachers, renew gymnasiums, create a Ukrainian university or demand for a Ukrainian faculty at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, and to renew or organize Prosvita reading rooms.767 In his postwar monograph Kubiiovych noted that the spiritual renewal of Ukrainian life directly equated with his and the UTsK’s desires to either rebuild or strengthen national consciousness of Ukrainian masses in the borderland regions.768 768 Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Heneralniї Hubernii, 197. 769 Bohdan Kazanivs’kyi, Shliahom liehendy. Spomyny (London: Ukraїns’ka Vydavnycha Spilka, 1975), 105 770 Bohachevs’kyi, Na vozi i pid vozom, 120. 771 Lukas, Forgotten Holocaust..., 9-13; Musiał, “Niemiecka polityka narodowościowa...,” 17-20. 772 Okupacja i ruch oporu... vol. 1, 289. In the case of education, achieving this consciousness meant providing the youth with a national education both in formal schools and outside of them. These sentiments were echoed by Bohdan Kazanivs’kyi, whose OUN superior told him of their forthcoming mission in the GG: We must ukrainize our Kholmshchyna, Pidliashshia and Lemkivshchina… We must organize schools and Prosvitas throughout; we must issue newspapers and books to expand national consciousness among Ukrainian villagers who were always oppressed by the Polish government and deprived of Ukrainian cultural patronage. The young generation has been educated in Polish schools and knowns nothing about Ukraine. Therefore, before OUN cadres stands the tall task of expanding national consciousness which will guarantee a secure and strong OUN network on these parts of our land.769 Nationalist Danylo Bohachevs’kyi fled looming Soviet occupation and arrest, settling in the German-occupied borderland town of Tomaszów Lubelski. There, he noticed the low level of national consciousness among local Ukrainians and described the necessity and enthusiasm to begin work there: Therefore we had to quickly get to work. First we had to enlighten local villagers, create in them a confidence of their own strengths and to possibly organize them… Firstly we attempted to create in every village schools and we managed this quite well, largely thanks to the fact that every day, masses of refugees from Galicia volunteered; we named them teachers throughout villages and they worked with dedication and zeal…770 The German policy toward Polish education in the General Government aimed at depriving the intelligentsia of any possibility to work; part of their systematic plan to destroy Polish culture.771 In his memorandum to Hitler, Himmler presented his opinion concerning education of “foreign races:” For the non-German people in the east, there cannot exist primary schools higher than 4-grade ones. Such a school should only ensure: skills such as counting to 500, writing first and last name, to learn that God’s commandment is loyalty toward the Germans, honesty and obedience. Reading is seen as unnecessary. Besides these schools, no other ones can exist in the east.772 Reports from the GG provided the exile government in London with an image of Germanization. The influx of German civil administrators and their families to the GG meant the need for German schools, ones organized throughout major cities. Alongside kindergartens and elementary schools, male and female high schools were organized in Kraków, Warsaw, Tomaszów Mazowiecki, and Przemyśl. For those Germans who resettled from such eastern territories as Volhynia or Eastern Galicia, 100 schools were organized in the Łódź area, their temporary settlement. Students from the Reich were recruited and sent there as teachers.773 In order for German aims at colonizing Polish territory to succeed, all nationalist elements were targeted for elimination. Normal schools were shut down. In their place, only low-level elementary and vocational schools were allowed to function. As Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski, future commander of the AK, recalled: “Only lower vocational schools were tolerated so that boys and girls could learn some manual trade – Germany was in need of trained workers.” A memorandum by General Michał Tokarzewski, founder and commander-in-chief of the Polish resistance movement, noted that the targeted closure of schools by the occupier forced the youth to find a means of survival on the streets, to trading vodka and cocaine.774 773 HIA, MSZ, 800/42, box 69 folder 6, Various education system clippings 1940. Reich Governor for the Wartheland Arthur Greiser, during a meeting with teachers in Poznań, declared that German children be educated in a nature which ensured their Herrentum, or dominance. Teachers were advised to instill patriotism among the youth as well as hatred and Abscheu – revulsion, toward the Polish nation. Clipping dated October 29, 1940. 774 PISM, CM-APM, folder PRM 46A, Sprawozdanie polityczne z Kraju, 15 November 1940; Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski, The Secret Army (Nashville, TN: Battery Press, 1984), 38; “Meldunek organizacyjny i raport polityczno-gospodarczy (January 9, 1940)” in Armia Krajowa w Dokuentach 1939-1945 vol. 1, 47. 775 HIA, APSZ, 800/36, box 106 folder 4, Notatka dotycząca zniszczenia archiwów, bibliotek, instytutów naukowych i szkół w Polsce, October 22, 1941. 776 PISM, CM-APM, folder PRM 46A, Sprawozdanie od 16-30 XI 1941r., n.d; Joanna Hanson, The Civilian Population and the Warsaw Uprising of 1944 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 39-41. Documents, books and materials from archives, libraries – both public and ones alongside universities and scientific institutes, were either confiscated and sent back to the Reich or destroyed outright.775 The closing down of Polish schools often left prewar educators without work. Many were rounded-up and either imprisoned or summarily executed. Such was the case in Warsaw when in 1940 the Germans arrested over 150 teachers; some were imprisoned while others were sent to concentration camps. Those lucky enough to avoid that fate undertook any sort of work possible, regardless of their professional qualifications. Others joined legal welfare institutions such as the RGO while some went underground and joined the ranks of the burgeoning clandestine state.776 Prewar universities and institutions of higher education were not spared either. Frank did not hide his reservations when speaking about this issue: “The Poles do not need universities or secondary schools; the Polish lands are to be changed into an intellectual desert.” Professors and intellectuals from Kraków’s universities and institutions were an early target of intellectual extermination. Their meeting with the city’s recently appointed Gestapo chief Bruno Müller in an auditorium of the Jagiellonian University’s Collegium Novum building turned into a mass arrest on charges of beginning the academic year with the occupier’s expressed permission; seen as anti-German activity. Known as Sonderaktion Krakau, 183 arrested intellectuals were later deported to Sachsenhausen concentration camp. In early 1940, those over forty years of age were released while young scholars were transferred to Dachau. Their release came following an international outcry. None of the Jewish scholar returned to Kraków.777 One eyewitness report which reached the exile government noted that the arrest and deportation of Kraków’s intelligentsia killed the city’s intellectual movement.778 Their removal left university institutions ripe for plunder. For example, books were requisitioned and sent to the Ost-Europa institute in Wrocław. Scientific equipment was removed to Germany while the pharmacological institute was subsumed by I.G. Farben. Officials also took part in the looting. Frank and Kraków Governor Otto Wächter adorned their residences with rare plants from university botanical gardens and green houses.779 777 Henryk Batowski, “Nazi Germany and Jagiellonian University,” Polish Western Affairs vol. 19 no. 1 (1978), 113-119; Lukas, Forgotten Holocaust…, 10; Burleigh, Germany turns Eastwards…, 254. Batowski’s article is in fact a personal account as he was one of the Jagiellonian University professors arrested. He was one of those later released from Dachau. As he recalled, international outcry to the arrest and internment of the Polish professors was headed by the future Nobel Prize lauriet Ivo Andrić; Batowski’s old friend who before 1914 studied for some time at the Kraków university. 778 PISM, CM-APM, folder PRM 24, Wiktor Kalinowski: relacje z Kraju – postawa społeczeństwa i jego stosunek do okupantów, December 23, 1939; Intellectuals were eliminated from the Jagiellonian University, the University of Science and Technology (Akademia Górniczo-Hutnicza) and the Academy of Economics (Akademia Handlowa). 779 Burleigh, Germany turns Eastwards..., 254. The plants looted by Frank and Wächter ultimately perished in the wrong temperatures of their residences. 780 Hansen (ed), Schulpolitik als Volkstuspolitik…, 129. 781 “Vistky z poludnevoї Kholmshchyny,” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 1 no. 2 (January 11, 1940), 5. 782 “Uchitesia – braty moї…,” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 1 no. 2 (January 11, 1940), 4. In the wake of Polish oppression, GG administrators attempted to guarantee Ukrainians an autonomous school system with the necessary apparatus to train teachers.780 Initial successes of nationalizing schools were viewed by Ukrainian nationalists as a liberation from Polish and Jewish teachers who “poisoned the souls of our children.” Ukrainian children now had an opportunity to learn their native language from nationally conscious teachers.781 Prewar prejudices and injustices were mentioned; ones meant to be immediately reconciled. Stanisław Grabski, the architect of educational reforms, was described as an “evident Ukrainian devourer… the gravedigger of Ukrainians schools.” Early control over schools also signaled the beginnings of removing vestiges of Polish prewar marginalization. This view was expressed in a Krakivs’ki Visti article: The unprecedented political-national oppression of the Ukrainian nation in Poland and the merciless polonization of all Ukrainian schools with the goal of a quick and certain assimilation of the Ukrainian nation had just the opposite effects of what the Poles expected… Following the shameful collapse of Poland, the Ukrainian nation felt conscious in its strength; now the organization of national schools with the Ukrainian language taught has a breakthrough significance for the future and for its historical development.782 Nationalists who travelled throughout Ukrainian regions in the eastern and southeastern parts of the GG hailed the work of teachers, including unqualified ones. Through their fanaticism and immense patriotism, they succeeded in a national rebirth in Ukrainian villages and towns. 783 Throughout the schools of the Chełm region, early guidelines appeared for teachers there. They included proper school names (“Ukrainian Public School in…”) and classroom decorations – a religious icon was to be hung in one corner with the front wall decorated with Ukrainian and German flags or emblems. Teachers were instructed to teach proper Ukrainian orthography, especially avoiding colloquialisms in speech. January 22nd, the anniversary commemorating the union of the West Ukrainian People’s Republic with the Ukrainian People’s Republic, was regarded as a holiday which students were to have off.784 783 Myroslav Kharkevych, Ia vas ne zabuv. Spomyny 1935-1945 (New York-Chicago: Ukrainian American Freedom Foudnation, 1997), 82. 784 LAC, VKF, MG 31, D 203, volume 24, folder 7, Kholms’kyi Ukraїns’kyi Komitet – Shkil’na Sektsiia, January 1940. The guidelines also included the texts of prayers, to be said before and after school. The text for morning prayer was as follows: “Merciful God, graciously send down upon us Your Holy Spirit, which strengthens our spiritual fortitude so that we should accept the education given us, to grow up gloriously for You Our Creator, joyously for our parents, and to be beneficial to our Church and Ukraine.” 785 “Vidkryttia ukraїns’koї shkoly v Krakovi,” Krakivs’ki Visti no. 1 vol. 43 (May 27, 1940), 1. 786 “Khochemo ukraїns’koї shkoly,” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 1 no. 23 (March 27, 1940), 2. 787 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 17, folder 21, Konferentsia predstavnykiv riznykh oseredkiv, November 16, 1939. The Ukrainian-language press reported on the renewal of school life throughout the GG; condemning prewar conditions in favor of hopes for the future. The organization of new schools in some cities was treated as a holiday. On those occasions, ceremonies began with a high mass at the local church. During his sermon, the presiding celebrant described the good fortune that befell the children – they would no longer learn in a foreign language nor would their Ukrainian names no longer be mocked by Polish teachers.785 Articles also appeared describing the demand of Ukrainians in given villages for nationalized schools. In one such village, surrounded by Polish ones, Polish teachers, described as liakhy, dominated lessons in Polish. If this continued, the author concluded, another Ukrainian village would fall to polonization. He appealed for the removal of teachers “hostile to Ukrainian national issues” and for a “good Ukrainian priest” to be sent to work there.786 The first meeting among GG Ukrainians in Kraków discussed, among other things, educational matters. Most schools were organized in Chełm and surrounding towns. There, representatives reported of 60 schools nationalized immediately following German occupation. Consequently, more teachers and books were needed. Similar successes and needs were reported in Sanok and Przemyśl.787 German officials were also discussing Ukrainian issues among themselves; education being one of them. Meeting with his district chiefs, Frank mentioned that schools for Ukrainians “will be set in motion at once.” Perhaps because he undertook this decision caused his rather general reaction to Kubiiovych’s presentation of this issue during an audience several days later. He and Sushko reiterated educational desires – elementary schools, gymnasiums, trade schools and a college or university.788 788 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/1, Tagebuch Der Herrn Generalgouverneurs für die besetzen Polnischen Gebiete, November 8, 1939, p. 53; LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 17, folder 21, Bericht über die Delegation der Ukrainer beim Generalgouverneur, November 17, 1939. 789 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/4, Tagebuch 1940: Zweiter Band – April bis Juni, p. 187; Eugeniusz C. Król, Polityka hitlerowska wobec szkolnictwa polskiego na terenie Generalnej Gubernii 1939-1945 (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Szkolne i Pedagogiczne, 1979), 35-40; The GG Cultural Affairs Department was later renamed to the Bureau of Science, Education and Public Education (Abteilung für Wissenschaft, Erziehung und Volksbildung – ABEV). 790 PISM, MIiD, folder A.10.3/10, Sprawy ukraińskie, October 11, 1940. 791 Kerski and Kowalczyk, Wiek ukraińsko-polski. Rozmowy z Bohdanem Osadczukiem, 21; 57. Apart from Ukrainians, Osadchuk also recalled many Croatian, Hungarian, and Slovak students in Berlin. Following the creation of the GG administration, education matters fell to the Department of Cultural Affairs. There, an education or school sub-department was headed by Dr. Robert Möckel. In January 1940, Möckel presented an organizational plan for administering over GG schools. His sub-department would oversee all general issues with school departments alongside each district governor while school councils at the starosta levels conducted the bulk of work. Here either German, Polish or Ukrainian men worked with councils and communicated respective ethnic issues or problems. As of April 1940, GG educational matters were handled by the Austrian Adolf Watzke.789 Creating a Ukrainian school system out of nothing or, practically nothing, as with the Orthodox Church, took time and attention from the side of the occupation authorities. Being an academic and involved in prewar scholarly life, Kubiiovych expressed an interest in education questions. Because of personal experience and new administrative circumstances, he actively lobbied to regulate the issue on GG territory. This began with petitioning the Germans to resolve prewar wrongs. In a memorandum describing Ukrainian life in the Kraków District, he noted Ukrainian schools created under the Austro-Hungarian monarchy were liquidated during the interwar period and replaced with ones taught by Polish teachers in Polish. There, high school diplomas earned immediately preceding the war and occupation or ones earned during the 1939/1940 academic year were soon ukrainized. A special set of courses, spanning 3 months, prepared them for examinations. Both courses and examinations were conducted in Ukrainian. Out of 138 pupils, 124 received ukrainized certifications.790 Bohdan Osadchuk read of these courses and examinations in a Krakivs’ki Visti article. He recalled travelling to Kraków in the spring of 1940, where he enrolled in them at a gymnasium on Grodzka Street (Burgstrasse) while living in a dormitory on the other side of the market square on Loretańska Street (Samoastrasse). Completion of the courses and his successful passing of the subsequent examinations earned him a high school diploma. This often provided Ukrainians with the opportunity for further studies in German universities. During his wartime studies in Berlin, Osadchuk recalled Ukrainians students originating from Eastern Galicia, Volhynia, Bukovina or Subcarpathian Rus’. Permission for Ukrainian students to study in German or Austrian universities stopped in 1942.791 Kubiiovych looked for complete, swift nationalization of schools throughout ethnically-mixed regions. In his report on the state of Ukrainian matters in the Lublin district, he described an incident from Tomaszów Lubleski in which the Polish mayor asked a Ukrainian teacher to use nothing but Polish in the classroom. The large number of schools organized throughout the Lublin district were, as Kubiiovych noted, private ones. In such cases, Ukrainians were being forced by Polish administrators or school inspectors to rent buildings for school use. To resolve such unfairness, he proposed the quickly organized Ukrainian schools be nationalized while Polish schools in Ukrainian-majority territories also be nationalized and ukrainianized. New schools could be organized in areas where at least 40 Ukrainian students were be found. He also proposed for ethnic Ukrainian school inspectors throughout the Kreis level and a representative alongside the district governor.792 Former GG education administrator Ludwig Eichholz described the meaning Ukrainians placed on schools: 792 AP-L, DGdDL, sygn. 157, Bericht über die Lage der ukrainische Bevölkerung in dem Distrikt Lublin, February 5, 1940, pp. 4-5. These sentiments were summarized in his travel reports throughout the Lublin district and Warsaw to the GG authorities. See Veryha, The Correspondence…, 34; 79-80. 793 Hansen (ed), Schulpolitik als Volkstuspolitik…, 548. 794 AP-L, DGdDL, sygn. 61, Bericht über die Sitzung im Gouvernmentsgebäude in Lublin, February 16, 1940, p. 19. 795 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 22, folder 1, Zvidomlennia povitovykh kul’turno-osvitnykh referentiv, n.d. The Ukrainians also hardly ever raised any serious complaints about school policy [in Galicia], they greeted the building up of their national school system after the inclusion of their territory in the General Government as the beginning of a general national renaissance.793 Simultaneously in Lublin Fritz Arlt met with administrators to discuss their approach and policies toward the Ukrainians as well as Kubiiovych’s proposals. Whereas agreement toward nationalization of existing schools and stipulations toward organizing new ones were accepted, others were not. Ukrainian consultants would be assigned to work alongside German school inspectors as the idea of Ukrainian inspectors was rejected. To this, Seyß-Inquart added the need to organize vocational and technical schools.794 Whereas German civil authorities agreed toward a concerted policy for Ukrainian education, Bisanz urged the Ukrainians be patient: “The government positively accesses every Ukrainian matter. You Ukrainians must understand that not everything happens according to your requests.” He recommended they continue organizing schools and training young, unqualified instructors into pedagogues.795 GG police and security authorities expressed much more concern over the general education of the Untermenschen. Lublin SS police chief Globocnik expressed his apprehensions to Himmler, criticizing the GG civil authorities: It must be underscored that German education authorities and the administrative authorities see their main assignment in creating the proper education opportunities for the young, foreign-race Poles and Ukrainians. Because of this, we are actually achieving the opposite of what represents our interests – the education of the foreign-race intelligentsia.796 796 Król, Polityka hitlerowska wobec szkolnictwa polskiego..., 104. 797 Knysh, Pered pokhodom na skhid, vol. 2, 100 798 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 22, folder 1, Doshkillia – Iulia Teslia, March 16, 1940. 799 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 22, folder 1, Ukraїns’ke zahalno-osvitniie shkil’nytstvo – Ivan Teslia, March 16, 1940. The educational department of the UTsK was charged with the task of presenting the German authorities with educational issues or problems, creating curriculum plans, organizing conferences or workshops for training teachers and publishing textbooks. In this case, the occupation authorities had to approve of texts before publication. The first educational head was Nykyfor Hirniak, a former officer of the Sich Sharpshooters and OUN member. His deputy and, following Kubiiovych’s sanation of the Central Committee, later education department head was geographer and demographer Ivan Teslia; a longstanding member of the OUN executive in Lwów.797 Alongside many aid committees throughout the GG were cultural-educational associates who became the Ukrainian’s local voice with the occupation apparatus. Short and long-term educational approaches were set during a two-day conference in Kraków in March 1940; one attended by Kubiiovych along with educational and cultural activists from throughout the GG. Two leading tenants discussed as fundamental were nursery and elementary schools. The former were described as the central institution in either introducing or re-introducing the Ukrainian language among children. Reassessing the ad hoc 1939/1940 school year, Iulia Tesla noted that at the beginning 75% of Ukrainian children spoke Polish. “Now, after several months, there was no sign of Polish spoken.” This positive effect was conceptualized further. Mentioning children who attended nursery schools, if even for only several months, she added they did not “succumb to foreign influences… they learned what was Ukrainian and that this must be loved.” As of July 1941, 289 nursery schools dotted the Kraków and Lublin districts. Plans for more were temporarily postponed due to a lack of qualified caretakers.798 Elementary schools were described by Ivan Teslia during as the first step toward Ukrainian cultural rebirth and transgressing an “era of romanticism.” In ethnically-mixed regions, he mentioned of prewar Polish teachers still working. In some instances, they either left voluntarily or were forced out under pressure from Ukrainian inhabitants. In others they remained. In both cases, trained educators were needed. Of pressing concern was the need for a definitive curriculum as teachers often taught to meet local needs, primarily Ukrainian language lessons.799 The conference adopted a comprehensive resolution which addressed plans to expand Ukrainian education and schools for the upcoming school years. In the general sense, it agreed to Kubiiovych’s perspective toward education – to leave no Ukrainian child left behind and provide all students with an education in their native language, at a nationalized school and by a nationally-conscious teacher. This meant the removal of all vestiges of Polish influence, mainly school inspectors who continued the education politics of the prewar state. Schools were to be ukrainized. Where this was not possible, private schools were to be organized. Plans for 2 gymnasiums were made. Unqualified teachers would be trained through workshops and specialized courses. Furthermore, all teachers would be organized into one organization. Nursery schools or children’s homes were to be organized in every Ukrainian village or towns, especially in those places "heavily polonized." A network of vocational schools would also be organized throughout the eastern and southeastern portions of the GG. Within all of the organized schools, the conference delegates also adopted mandatory learning of a secondary language, German. All of this, the resolution concluded, was to be organized within the context of cultural autonomy promised the Ukrainians by the Germans.800 800 Ibid, Rezoliutsiia I. kulturno-osvitn’oho zїzdu, March 17, 1940. Also in TsDAVOVUU, UTsK, f. 3959, op. 3, spr. 20, pp. 1-3. In a note to the GG science, education and culture department, Kubiiovych noted of the importance of teaching the German language in Ukrainian schools. Aside from being the official language of the GG and disregarding the fact that it had to be taught, it would be of practical use to many young Ukrainian workers sent to the Reich, either as laborers or domestic servnats. Furthermore, he recollected that German had be taught in Eastern Galicia under the Austro-Hungarian monarchy but, following World War I and that regions incorporation into the Polish state, it had been abolished in favor of Polish. He claimed that this abolition “gave rise to great exasperation among the Ukrainian population and resulted in several Ukrainian private-sector schools teaching the German language in secret, despite its prohibition.” Veryha, The Correspondence…, 185. 801 “Rozbuduimo fond Ukraїhs’koho Studenta,” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 2 no. 185 (August 23, 1941), 1-2. 802 “U druhu rokovyny,” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 2 no. 238 (October 16, 1941), 2; “Stypendiї l’vivs’kym studentam” vol. 3 no. 145 (July 5, 1942), 1-2. 803 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/6, Tagebuch 1940: Vierter Band – Oktober bis Dezember, p. 191. To give Ukrainian children who often came from large, poor peasant families the opportunity to attend schools, either close by or in more distant cities and towns, Kubiiovych headed a scholarship fund supported by private donations as well as from funds received by the UTsK from the GG budget. Often these scholarships offset student costs especially for housing in dormitories nearby schools. Kubiiovych put much emphasis on the scholarship fund, seen by him as an instrument toward providing those who remained in their villages with more formal education and training new cadres of professionals who would “carry the life of our nation in all its branches to a greater level.” In 1940, 40 scholarships were awarded while 146 students received other forms of financial aid from the fund; totaling over 12 thousand złotys.801 The next year, 360 students received scholarships, totaling 73 thousand złotys while in 1942, 156 students in Lwów received scholarships totaling over 22 thousand złotys.802 Concerted organizational work began soon after the April meeting between Frank and the Kubiiovych delegation. It was at that meeting that Frank, among other things, pledged to sign a decree regulating the Ukrainian school system for elementary education, vocational training schools and high schools. One of his later policy initiatives in this matter rejected the introduction of Polish lessons in Ukrainian schools.803 Soon educational reports described the progress made in organizing schools throughout the Kraków and Lublin districts. As of July 1940, a GG report noted of 347 Ukrainian schools with over 45 thousand students in the Kraków district and 537 schools with over 50 thousand students in the Lublin one. These numbers, the report concluded, were estimated to increase in the near future.804 In 1941, following the attachment of Eastern Galicia to the GG, 15 Ukrainian schools with 150 teachers taught over 5 thousand children in Lwów alone. In comparison, and showing the historical Polish-majority character of the city, the Poles had 37 schools with 411 teachers teaching over 13 thousand children. In little over a year, the number of Ukrainian schools there increased to 33 with close to 7 thousand students. By 1941, 929 Ukrainian schools functioned in the GG along with 200 special literacy courses.805 804 BA, R 52 II/247, Bericht über den Aufbau im GG, 1 July 1940, p. 188. 805 Iaroslav Isaievych, et al (eds), Istoriia L’vova, vol. 3 (L’viv: Tsentr Ievropy, 2007), 222; Torzecki, Polacy i Ukraińcy..., 54. In comparison, Polish schools increased to 51 with over 14 thousand students. As of 1942, 5 German schools also functioned in L’viv with 1,360 students. 806 AP-P, Instytucje, stowarzyszenia i organizacje ukraińskie na terenie miasta Przemyśla, sygn. 31, Note to Ukrainian committee in Deutsch-Przemyśl, June 22, 1940, pp. 2-4. The report also mentioned that some parents were oppossed to their children being taught by priests or clerics. The report described such parents as “overcome and harmfully humiliating our national honor” in relation to the German civil administrators of the city. 807 AP-L, DGdDL, sygn. 63, Zörner District Report, July 9, 1940, pp. 42-45. Ukrainians in cities throughout the GG also petitioned their local representatives to petition the Germans for permission to organize schools where they saw it necessary. In many instances, necessity not only meant a strong Ukrainian presence but also the need to prevent Ukrainian children from attending Polish schools and, perhaps most harmful, continued polonization at the hands of Polish educators. Such a petition reached the Ukrainians in Przemyśl, via the school inspector, from parents who lamented over the fact that their children were forced to attend Polish schools because they could not afford to pay to send them to the private Ukrainian one.806 The need for qualified teachers was soon felt. A report presented during a meeting of German civil administrators in Lublin noted that as of July 1940, the majority of Ukrainian teachers there – 400 out of an estimated 660 – were unqualified. Many were nationalists who settled in the borderland zone after their flight from Soviet occupation. Their backgrounds varied; some being theologians, others merchants or even students who completed non-pedagogical faculties. For the upcoming school year, only qualified teachers would be permitted to work. This, the report suggested, meant replacing unqualified teachers with qualified ones from the western parts of the GG. Additionally, it was suggested to include Ukrainian inspectors alongside their German superiors in 5 counties of the district, ones in which Ukrainians represented a majority in relation to Poles or Jews. Apart from placating Ukrainian wishes, the Germans looked to use Ukrainian inspectors in ethnically-mixed territories to prevent Polish ones from reducing or rivaling Ukrainian schools there; a measure to avoid possible destabilization of regional security.807 Where Polish school inspectors posed problems, local Ukrainians turned to the Germans for help. This proved beneficial when for example, in the Biała Podlaska County, Ukrainians turned to the Kreishauptmann to overturn the Polish inspector’s decision of preventing their nationalization of a school in a Polish-majority village.808 In other instances, such as in Hrubieszów, the replacement of a Polish inspector with a Ukrainian gave the region more of a national character. Even though he was subject to the German school council’s disposition, he could lobby for Ukrainian needs or present their problems directly.809 However, in ethnically-mixed regions where Poles represented a minority, Ukrainian schools and their privileged status among the occupation authorities also presented them with some semblance of educational opportunity. In villages near the borderland town of Tomaszów Lubelski for example, Polish children attended classes in the Ukrainian schoolhouse, spending several years learning Ukrainian. Others participated in the budding social life, joining choirs or taking part in organized sporting events.810 808 Agnieszka Kolasa, Ukraińcy w powiecie Biała Podlaska w latach 1918-1948 (Toruń: Wydawnictwo Adam Marszałek, 2007), 104-105. 809 Ivan Fur, “Hrubeshivshchyna pid chas Nimets’koї okupatsiї, 1939-1944” in Mykola Martyniuk, et. al. (eds), Nadbuzhanshchyna. Istorychno-memuarnyi zbirnyk vol. 1, 726. 810 Kuleszka, Stefan. Interview with Paweł Markiewicz. Personal interview. Chelsea, Massachusetts. September 19, 2016. 811 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 22, folder 8, Versetzung der ukrainischen Volksschullehrer aus den Distrikten Warschau und Radom in den Lubliner Distrikt, August 22, 1940. 812 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 22, folder 8, Rahmenstoffplan der Umschulungslehrgänge für die ukrainischen Volksschullehrer, n.d; AAN, RdGG, sygn. 1452/23, Schulungskurs für ukrainische Hilfslehrer, June 18, 1940, pp. 1-3. Alongside these courses, teachers were to also be trained in health education and the adminsitration of first aid. To fill the need for qualified teachers, Kubiiovych wrote to the GG authorities and proposed, first and foremost, training unqualified ones. He argued: “It is important to note that a number of Ukrainian teachers who have been active at schools in the Lublin district without formal training have fulfilled their duties to the satisfaction of their superiors… to the extent that their current dismissal would be detrimental to their previous efforts in many respects.” Training would guarantee the nationalist presence in schools while providing a somewhat formal, pedagogical basis.811 An educational plan for unqualified teachers, described as teacher’s assistants, included practical and theoretical training. Tantamount to this instruction were lessons providing a basis in the German language. Ukrainian-themed topics included instruction in ethnology, culture, history and literature. This form of reeducation, as Kubiiovych called it, meant to erase traces of prewar educational polonization. Theoretical training was synonymous with pedagogical and didactic themes – the teacher as educator, the goal of schools, supplementary education outside of school, the psychology of children, the individuality of the student, and the development of the individual. Important in this training was also the understanding of the relationship between schools and family, the community, church and state. Practical training included lesson planning and utilizing textbooks or literature as supplementary tools. Training workshops, conducted during the summer months of 1940, were organized in such cities as Przemyśl, Kraków, Chełm and Krynica. There, a six-week program was designed for 180 students.812 Due to a lack of caretakers for organizing nursery schools as young Ukrainians preferred to work in administrative positions, special workshops in which 153 Ukrainians participated were conducted.813 To alleviate the level of unqualified teachers, Kubiiovych also suggested transferring Ukrainian teachers employed in Polish schools from the Warsaw and Radom districts east. In essence, Ukrainian teachers came from various regions inside and outside of the GG. For example, a report of the school situation in the southern Kraków District by Roman Levyts’kyi, school inspector for Nowy Sącz County, detailed the diverse origins of Ukrainian teachers there: 29 from the Lemko region, 1 from Kraków, 1 from Poltava, 1 from Slovakia, 1 from Hungary, and 46 from Eastern Galicia.814 813 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 22, folder 1, Zvidomlennia za chas vid 15. travnia do 30. chervnia 1940, June 30, 1940. 814 Ibid, Zvidomlennia Kermanycha Viddilu Shkil’nytstva, December 1, 1940; Zvidomlennia povitovykh kul’turno-osvitnykh referentiv, n.d. 815 “Vyderzhaty na Stinkakh,” Visnyk Ukraїns’koho Tsentral’noho Komitetu no. 1 (January 1, 1941), 2; “Uchytel’ – kul’turno-osvitnyi robitnyk,” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 1 no. 35 (May 9, 1940), 4. 816 BA, R 53 III/16, Blatt zum Schreiben an Staatssekretär Dr. Bühler, January 27, 1941, p. 29. 817 AAN, RdGG, sygn. 1452/38, Betrifft: Schuljahr 1940/41 Bericht, July 31, 1940, p. 19; Natalia Voloshyns’ka-Ozhybko, “Do iuvileiu druha” in Al’bom al’manakh “Charivna Krynytsia.” Ukraїns’ka uchytel’s’ka seminariia v Krynytsi (Krynica: n.p., 1991), 222. 818 AAN, RdGG, sygn. 1452/38, Betrifft: Schuljahr 1940/41 Bericht, July 31, 1940, p. 17. 819 Al’bom al’manakh “Charivna Krynytsia.” Ukraїns’ka uchytel’s’ka seminariia v Krynytsi, 3-4, 224-227. Hirniak described the role of teachers as that of a defender: “The Ukrainian teacher is the national soldier on the cultural front.” Along with awakening national consciousness, teachers were to be moral stewards and cultural activists; forming a link between village and community. They were to be role models who motivated others to volunteer and work within their communities.815 By early 1941, Bühler reported that the southern resort town of Krynica became the center for training teachers; the first such institution on GG territory.816 Here, students were trained in pedagogy but Ukrainian cultural life also flourished. By mid-1942 over 300 students were enrolled; as of 1944, 400 students studied there. The majority of students, over 80 percent, were of peasant stock; the rest were children of teachers, merchants or priests. Geographically, over 80% came from the Kraków District. The remainder were a mix from the Lublin District, refugees from Eastern Galicia or Ukrainians from Subcarpathian Rus’. The students themselves were described to be “generally destitute and supported by either local aid committees or by the Ukrainian Central Committee in Kraków.” Those who enrolled from the Lemko region were described as yearning for education with no need for forceful recruiting.817 Dormitories nearby schools housed male and female students. Formal courses taught included: German and Ukrainian, history, geography, music, physics, mathematics and religion.818 Beside this formal education, cultural life at the school matured. Ukrainian history was further discussed in youth groups. Sporting groups organized hiking expeditions throughout the mountains. A mixed male-female choir performed concerts throughout the Lemko region and Eastern Galicia or during services in Greek Catholic churches.819 Regardless of the amount of time spent training new or unqualified teachers, Watzke noted that Ukrainian teacher were still in an early stage of development. However, he did commend them for their zeal in training effective and competent teachers. Furthermore, he noted their eagerness in adapting the German educational model over the Polish one in preparing curriculum and guides.820 820 Adolf Watzke, “Wissenschaft, Erziehung und Volksbildung” in du Prel (ed), Das Generalgouvernement, 177. 821 Antonii Voroniak, “S’ohodni tse til’ky zhadka“ in Al’bom al’manakh “Charivna Krynytsia.” Ukraїns’ka uchytel’s’ka seminariia v Krynytsi, 229. 822 BA, R 52 III/16, Blatt zum Schreiben an Staatssekretär Dr. Bühler – Schulwesen, January 27, 1941, pp. 29-30. 823 AP-P, Państwowe seminarium nauczycielskie z ukraińskim językiem nauczania w Przemyślu, sygn. 22, Haushaltung für Mädchen, 1944, p. 60. 824 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 26, folder 7, Die Bewilligung zur Einrichtung der ukrainischen Berufsschulen, September 3, 1940. 825 Isaievych, et al (eds), Istoriia L’vova, vol. 3, 222. With Krynica becoming a concentrated training area, nationalists also had their influences among the youth as the town and its surroundings became the focus of intense ukrainization. At the male dormitory, Antonii Voroniak recalled a group of Banderites active there. They organized activities for the young boys, ones meant to indoctrinate them into the nationalist lifestyle. For example, at dawn they would sneak out of their rooms and meet at specified locations. From there they went with their Banderite mentors to the forest where they stood at attention and whispered the nationalist Decalogue. This type of indoctrination proved somewhat beneficial as Voroniak joined their ranks beginning in 1940. Alongside his formal education, he also completed Banderite training before becoming an active UPA combatant in 1944.821 Like their Polish counterparts, the Ukrainians also organized vocational schools. Bühler described Ukrainian ones in a context of positive, German-sponsored development in comparison to the previous, poor interwar Polish situation. One, two or three-year commercial, agricultural or handicraft schools dotted the eastern positions of the Kraków and Lublin districts, offering both practical and hands-on training.822 Specialized vocational schools taught girls such practical skills as cooking, sewing or housekeeping. Others taught technical, mechanical or merchant skills.823 In Hrubieszów, where handicraft schools were organized, a Ukrainian report noted of the need for buildings to conduct learning in; prewar school buildings having been confiscated for use by the Wehrmacht. To alleviate this problem, aid committee representatives suggested appropriating Jewish and Polish buildings for their use.824 As with elementary schools, vocational ones also appeared in ethnically-mixed areas where Ukrainians were in a majority or to simply avoid attending Polish ones. Contrary to the state of Poles, Ukrainians were permitted to organize gymnasiums or high schools. The first appeared in Chełm and Jarosław with 10 more opened later in the Galicia District.825 Accordingly, the occupation authorities put restrictions on these two institutions. A 1941 administrative note mentioned of the creation in August 1940 of a “mammoth institution” in Chełm; the gymnasium numbered over 900 students with 18 courses and exceeded the teaching corps. As of March 1941, a maximum of 500 total students would be enrolled with 12 only courses taught. Class sizes could not exceed 45 students. However, this was not always adhered to.826 Courses taught included ones focusing on the classics (Latin and Greek), humanities (history, Ukrainian, German) and sciences (mathematics, physics, chemistry). As noted by Watzke, the first foreign language taught was German. As of 1942, 384 students attended the Jarosław gymnasium and 794 the Chełm one.827 826 AAN, RdGG, sygn. 1452/33, Betrifft: Ukrainisches Gymnasium in Cholm, March 5, 1941, p. 2. Later, the number of courses offered, as the note mentioned, would be downgraded from 12 to 10. 827 Watzke, “Wissenschaft, Erziehung und Volksbildung” in du Prel (ed), Das Generalgouvernement, 181. 828 Petro Babych, “Spomyny pro kholms’ku himnaziiu” in Teodor Sai, et al (eds), Doli rozkydanykh po svitu. Spohady uchniv ukraїns’koї himnaziї v Kholmi (L’viv: Vydavnytstvo Spolom, 1999), 28; Volodymyr Boichuk, “Stezhyny i dorohy prozhytykh rokiv” in Sai, et al (eds), Doli rozkydanykh po svitu…, 35. 829 Orest Korchak-Horodys’kyi, “Ukraїns’ka himnaziia v Iaroslavi: Lystopad 1940 – cherven’ 1941 (Spohady pershoho sekretaria)” in Semchyshyn and Borodach (eds), Iaroslavshchyna i Zasiannia 1031-1947, 332-335. He claimed many teachers viewed such a greeting as “rather forced.” 830 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 27, folder 1, Die Denkschrift der ukrainischen Volksgruppe im Generalgouvernement, April 17, 1941; Veryha, The Correspondence..., 125-126; 155-156. 831 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/10, Tagebuch 1941: Band 1 – 1. Januar bis 15. April, p. 278; Hansen (ed), Schulpolitik als Volkstumspolitik..., 384. 832 PISM, MIiD, folder A.10.3/10, Wiadomości z Krakivskich Visti na temat szkolnictwa ukraińskiego w GG, March 5, 1942; AAN, RdGG, sygn. 1452/33, Betr: Ukrainische Gymnasium in Czortkow, January 22, 1943, pp. 4-5. Nearby dormitories housed students who lived further away from the schools. The Chełm gymnasium contained many teachers from Volhynia, Eastern Galicia, and Bukovina. Their work was tantamount to building national consciousness among students. As Petro Babych summarized: “Over several years, our Kholmshchaks became conscious Ukrainians.” Volodymyr Boichuk echoed these sentiments: “Here they enlightened us as to who we were, our society and where we came from. Here they raised Ukrainian patriots.”828 The gymnasium in Jarosław contained teachers who either worked before the war in Przemyśl or Lwów schools. Nationalist influences also penetrated this gymnasium. Orest Korchak-Horodys’kyi, secretary to the principal there, recalled of the accepted form of greeting among students – the slogan Slava Ukraїni with the fascist right-hand salute. Many teachers were later conscripted to serve as translators for the Wehrmacht during their advance east; some eventually returning to Jarosław.829 Of course, gymnasiums were to be limited and not in any way widespread. In his April 1941 memorandum to Frank, Kubiiovych advocated for more Ukrainian gymnasiums; one in Hrubieszów and one in Sanok. Thoughts over a private gymnasium in Kraków were also mentioned, something he proposed for the 1940/1941 school year. His argument for one was simple – Ukrainian children in the western portion of the district had no way of travelling to Jarosław, situated on the Nazi-Soviet border. Additionally, he mentioned that parents were prepared to take on the costs of organizing and funding such a gymnasium.830 Whereas the occupiers permitted public gymnasiums to function, they immediately closed down any private ones. This was the case with ones in Kraków and Belz.831 Similarly, the SD closed what they saw as an illegal gymnasium in Czortków, one initially opened in 1942.832 Perhaps most importantly, the Germans did everything to prevent these gymnasiums from appearing as autonomous or Ukrainian nationalized institutions. During a visit by the German school inspector to the Jarosław Ukrainian Public Gymnasium for example, he ordered the school authorities change the name for, as he stated, the school was not a Ukrainian one but only one whose education was conducted in the Ukrainian vernacular.833 833 Korchak-Horodys’kyi, “Ukraїns’ka himnaziia v Iaroslavi: Lystopad 1940 – cherven’ 1941 (Spohady pershoho sekretaria)” in Semchyshyn and Borodach (eds), Iaroslavshchyna i Zasiannia 1031-1947, 331. 834 Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Heneral’nii Huberniї, 267. 835 Bukvar. Persha knyzhechka dlia I. kliasy vseliudnykh shkil (Krakiv: Ukraїns’ke Vydavnytstvo, 1940). The last page of the bukvar contained a picture of Adolf Hitler, smiling to a small child, with the caption ‘leader of Great Germany.’ 836 Ukraїns’ka Chytanka dlia druhoї kliasy (Krakiv-L’viv: Ukraїns’ke Vydavnytstvo, 1942), 14. 837 Ukraїns’ka Chytanka dlia III kliasy narodnykh shkil (Krakiv-L’viv: Ukraїns’ke Vydavnytstvo, 1942); Ievhen Iulii Pelens’kyi, Ukraїns’ka chytanka dlia VI. kliasy narodnykh shkil (Krakiv-L’viv: Ukraїns’ke Vydavnytstvo, 1944). 838 Illia Romaniuk, “Pid tr’oma okupantamy” in Ivanyk (ed), Krov Ukraїns’ka, krov Pol’s’ka..., 136. The publishing house in Kraków played an important role in education. Textbooks or readers, used by young children in elementary schools, were printed there. Kubiiovych mentioned the publishing house focused on this area of publication the most “because without school books the existence of a Ukrainian school system was impossible.”834 First grade students began their education using a bukvar, a small reader focusing on letter recognition in the Cyrillic alphabet, small word comprehension (mother, father, etc.) and short sentence knowledge.835 A series of chytankas or readers for elementary school use (grades two through seven) contained a mixture of short stories dealing with various themes such as the seasons or agricultural work. Many stories contained comprehension questions and definitions of new words. Stories promoted the importance of education, conveying such lessons as “education will benefit everyone. It will not go to waste.” Others taught of national belonging. For example, the story of little Vasyl’ the Hutsul defined that group as “a part of our [Ukrainian] nation which lives in the Carpathian Mountains.”836 Books for older classes contained stories which dealt with the history of Kyivian Rus' or Chełm, introducing such events as the baptism of Princess Olha or historical figures – Volodymyr the Great, Iaroslav the Wise and Prince Roman of Halych. A chapter which described the city contained images of Lwów landmarks – the town hall, churches and the opera house. A sixth grade reader even contained a chapter of excerpts from German history and concluded with quotations from Hitler as guiding words for their national movement: “Faithfulness, self-sacrifice, and reticence – these are the virtues necessary for a great nation.”837 One problem which the publishing house later ran into were quotas on paper; the German authority’s administrative machinery needs superseding all others. As such, books were not always available. Where books were scarce, such as in villages around Hrubieszów for example, teachers – locals village elders – taught from memory; colloquially described as “teaching what they knew.”838 The pinnacle of Kubiiovych’s educational efforts was to have a Ukrainian university or similar level institution on GG territory. In April 1940 he submitted a detailed outline for one to Frank. Its overall goal was to “serve the purpose of developing scientific reorientation for Ukrainian cultural needs.” He proposed 10 faculties to form the core of Ukrainian education. His proposed faculty read like a who’s-who of interwar Ukrainian intelligentsia: Ivan Zilyns’kyi, Bohdan Lepkyi, Myron Korduba, Oleksandr Hryniokh, Oleksandr Hermanivs’kyi, Vadym Shcherbakivs’kyi, Dmytro Dontsov, Iulian Vassyian, Oleksandr Myciuk and, of course, Kubiiovych. They were to teach courses in Ukrainian history, literary history, legal history, church history, Ukrainian language, archeology and ethnography of Ukraine, sociology, philosophy and pedagogy, geography of Ukraine and economics. His subsequent memorandum included a detailed statute.839 839 Veryha, The Correspondence…, 88-90; 164-171. 840 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/3, Tagebuch 1940 – Erster Band: Januar bis März, p. 218; GK 95/4, Tagebuch 1940 – Zweiter Band: April bis Juni, p. 101. 841 Anetta Rybicka, Instytut Niemieckiej Pracy Wschodniej – Institut für Deutsche Ostarbeit Kraków 1940-1945 (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo DiG, 2002), 28-118; Burleigh, Germany turns Eastward..., 257-258; Aly and Heim, Architects of Annihilation..., 119-125. In the first year, the institute received a subsidy of 1 million złotys. This increased over the subsequent years: 1941 – 2,664,150 zł; 1942 – 3,525,000 zł; 1943 – 3,002,800 zł; 1944 – 3,540,200 zł. 842 Ibid. For their part, the Germans created a pseudo-scientific research think-tank for the GG; housed in commandeered Jagiellonian University buildings and appropriating its library. Hans Frank’s vision for the Institut für Deutsch Ostarbeit or Institute for German Development Work in the East (March 16, 1940) looked to combine intellectual, artistic and cultural life into a modern, practical research center rather than a drab university. He sought to avoid at all costs creating a factory producing doctors engaged in theoretical fantasizing. Instead, the institute was to construct an intellectual bulwark of Germandom, to create intellectual weapons for Hitler’s fight against all enemies. This weapon was envisioned to add to the chaos of reality in the GG and further east. As Frank believed, the more the inevitability of German dominance was stressed, the quicker Poles would reconcile themselves to the German overlords. The institute was officially christened by Frank on April 20, 1940; on Hitler’s fifty-first birthday.840 Officially subordinate to the general governor, it equated to a government department with its personnel wearing the grey and blue uniforms of civil servants. Funding came from the GG budget. It was located in the prewar library of the Jagiellonian University. In doing so, propaganda claimed the institute took over the tradition of an academic institute founded in 1364 in German Krakau.841 In practice, the institute combined anthropological and ethnographical studies with historical, racial and ideological doctrines to train German administrators, police and SS men while also developing practical findings to provide empirical arguments for Germanizing and “civilizing” the General Government and east. The staff included German, Volksdeutsche and Polish academics; individuals who began their academic careers as before the war they were either unknown or simply not present in academia. While working in the GG administration, Fritz Arlt also headed the racial section of the institute.842 In May 1941, Watzke reported of administrative steps toward the creation of a Ukrainian institute. The GG administration agreed to give it a similar status as the Institut für Deutsch Ostarbeit; giving the Ukrainian version its own, legally independent status while the GG financial department even approved the sum of 350 thousand złoty for its creation.843 Later decisions handicapped further progress. Whereas Frank agreed to Watzke’s suggestion of transporting confiscated collections and materials from the prewar Ukrainian institute in Warsaw to Kraków, Bühler called on the authorities to act carefully not carelessly. Rather, he urged to wait for an improvement in Ukrainians' behavior; in particular whether they met and exceeded upcoming harvest quotas.844 After the war, Frank described his supposed, good-natured welfare of the Poles and Ukrainians under his authority as he claimed to have introduced university-level courses for the two ethnic groups: “The fact that there was an urgent need for native university-trained men, particularly doctors, technicians, layers, teachers, etc., was the best guarantee that [they] would be allowed to continue university teaching…”845 Such courses only came later in the war in Lwów. 843 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/11, Tagebuch 1941 - Band II: 16. April bis 30. Juni, p. 167. 844 Ibid, p. 250. 845 Trail of the Major War Criminals… vol. 12, 15. 846 Torzecki, Polacy i Ukraińcy…, 131; Andrzej Meissner, “Szkolnictwo ukraińskie w Polsce południowo-wschodniej w latach 1944-1945” in Włodzimierz Bonasiuk (ed), Polska i Ukraina po II wojnie światowej (Rzeszów: Wydawnictwo Wyższej Szkoły Pedagogicznej, 1998), 82. 847 Entsyklopediia ukraїnoznavstva vol. 6, ed. Volodymyr Kubiiovych (L’viv: Naukove tovarystvo im. Shevchenka, 1996), 2307-2308. 848 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 1, folder 7, Letter from Rector Oleksandr Mytsiuk to Volodymyr Kubiiovych, December 30, 1940. 849 “Vyderzhaty na Stinkakh,” Visnyk Ukraїns’koho Tsentral’noho Komitetu no. 1 (January 1, 1941), 1. Even though no Ukrainian university was opened in the GG, this is not to say that they did not have opportunities for higher education. The example of Bohdan Osadchuk and his studies in Berlin, as mentioned above, were not singular incidents. In 1942, some 111 Ukrainians studied in universities there. At the polytechnic in Gdańsk, between 300 and 400 Ukrainians studied during the war.846 Others also studied at the Ukrainian Free University in Prague. For the 1940-1941 academic year, 107 students from the GG enrolled for studies there. Kubiiovych even succeeded in securing monthly grants and financing for the university’s press.847 Alongside helping gain funds for publications, Kubiiovych was also professor of geography there.848 One of the outstanding problems which Kubiiovych and the UTsK struggled with throughout this time was to maintain teachers in schools. Education department head Hirniak lamented this problem. He shared the story of a teacher who, being paid her monthly salary up-front, never showed up to teach again. Such teachers looked for a quick financial fix, putting personal interests above work.849 Kubiiovych did all he could to placate this issue. The mixture of nationalists within occupied Poland – older activists and younger radicals, Melnykites and Banderites respectively, at times handicapped work as nationalist recruiting or internal quarreling superseded actual work. Within local aid committees throughout townships and villages, this divide and subsequent vying for influence caused unnecessary disagreements. Kubiiovych lamented that the nationalists exchanged intense, calm, systematic and persistent work for anarchy.850 Where Ukrainian teachers overtook work from Polish ones, Ukrainian aid committee representatives went further. In the Lublin district for example, Volodymyr Boiko harassed and forced former Polish educators to flee their places of residence; cleansing that region one Pole at a time.851 850 Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Heneral’nii Huberniї, 346. 851 Motyka, Tak było w Bieszczadach..., 91. 852 Hansen (ed), Schulpolitik als Volkstuspolitik…, 374. Here, the report particularly discussed the villages of Otrocz and Batorz in the Janów Lubelski County of the Lublin District. 853 TsDAVOVUU, UTsK, f. 3959, op. 2, spr. 45a, Informative Report from Lublin District, July 29, 1941, pp. 13-14. 854 “Tvorymo kupets’ki i remisnychi prof. shkoly,” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 2 no. 187 (August 26, 1941), 3; Zajączkowski, Ukraińskie podziemie..., 130. 855 AP-L, DGdDL, sygn. 250, Ukrainische Komitee in Janów Lubelski – Betrifft: Monatsbericht des Hilfkomitees (various), pp. 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13. In some instance, as in a few eastern villages in the Lublin district, a German inspectorate report noted that Ukrainians teachers who worked there used both the Russian and Polish languages during instruction as Ukrainian was not widely known, either among children or their parents, while they were described as proficient in Russian.852 This stemmed from the national uncertainty of many in the immediate borderland region where Belarusian, Polish, Russian, and Ukrainian ethnicities converged. Many nationalists, particularly those who after fleeing Soviet occupation in 1939 and 1940 settled temporarily in the borderland zone, later returned east to work on Eastern Galician territory. This migration caused a subsequent depletion of educators throughout the Lublin district. In turn, those who remained, described in one aid committee report as the local intelligentsia, were now afraid to remain in the GG as they believed that Polish pressure would be much stronger especially since their guardians – nationalists from Eastern Galicia – were for the most part gone.853 Concerns were raised during central committee meetings in 1942. Kubiiovych echoed sentiments of Galicians leaving the Chełm and Podlasie regions, describing these areas as being culturally neglected. These difficulties and deficiencies were also noticed by the Chełm branch of the OUN-B in their 1943 report. Even though schools were still in the hands of and taught by Ukrainian teachers, a lack of more teachers was felt. They were needed, a report stated, to “properly raise the children of the Chełm region.” Moreover, students who completed trade school training were immediately receiving travel cards for work to the Reich. This, the report concluded, caused students to abandon vocational training.854 German recruitment was not the only factor which harmed Ukrainian education. In areas where active Polish partisan units formed, particularly throughout the eastern Lublin district, many less conscious Ukrainians changed their allegiances in fear of reprisals motivated by assertions of treason to the prewar state. Apart from partisans, local Poles resented seeing their schoolhouses handed over to Ukrainians, the expulsion of Polish teachers in favor of Ukrainian ones as well as the fact that the latter were allowed to teacher their forms of history and literature.855 Where formal education may not have sufficed due to either a lack of proper facilities, competent teachers or local prejudices, extracurricular activities were organized. This fell under the authority of the UTsK cultural affairs department whose mission was to strengthen and organize cultural life. Aside from the administrative department in Kraków, Ukrainian educational societies (Ukraїns’ke Osvitnie Tovarystvo – UOT) were created beside aid committees and delegate branches; described as the practical overseer of cultural matters. As of August 1941, the month Eastern Galicia was officially annexed into the GG, 808 UOT’s with over 42 thousand members were strewn throughout the GG; primarily in but not limited to the Kraków and Lublin districts.856 Prosvita and Ridna Khata societies reinvigorated their activities although not openly but within the confines of UOT. Their prewar doors were again opened, becoming centers of reading rooms, lectures or social events. As Kubiiovych recalled, this was the only way these prewar institutions could continue their activity during the war.857 856 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 21, folder 8, Pershi napriamni dlia viddilu kulturnoї pratsi UTsK, July 11, 1940; Krakivs’ki Visti, “U druhu rokovyny” vol. 2 no. 238 (October 16, 1941), 2. 857 Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Heneralnii Huberniї, 87. Here, Kubiiovych recalled a walk which he took with Vasyl’ Mudryi in Kraków, with the latter attempting to convince him of refusing German demands to cease the use of the Prosvita and Ridna Khata names (in favor of the more general Ukrainian educational society – UOT). Kubiiovych concluded, “I think that a negative position toward German projects would be harmful for us.” 858 TsDAVOVUU, UTsK, f. 3959, op. 1, spr. 16, Various UTsK cultural reports, 1941, pp. 2, 5, 7, 10, 12. 859 PUMST, OIV, file A268, Sztab Naczelnego Wodza Oddział IV: L. dz. 685/tj.42 – referat ppor. Flegel-Cepińskiego, March 5, 1942. 860 “Shevchenkivs’ka akademiia v Krakovi,” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 1 no. 22 (March 24, 1940), 1; Veryha, The Correspondence…, 56-60. The combined work of the cultural department and UOT’s caused a boom in cultural life since supplementary cultural emphasis was needed to combat prewar polonization and nationally awaken the consciousness of inhabitants. The effects of events or their propagation appeared throughout the pages of Krakivs’ki Visti as tangible effects of burgeoning national life. In itself, cultural work took on various forms. Theatrical performances, pageants, and choir recitals were meant to also introduce the German occupiers to Ukrainian culture. Popular in the southeast regions of the Kraków District were cultural evenings. In such cities as Sanok and Jarosław, they entailed singing and dancing by locals dressed in traditional, regional folk costumes as well as expositions of traditional articles or handicrafts. Such evenings were also attended by German representatives, most notably Bisanz. They were reported to be such a success that the UTsK suggested organizing them in the eastern parts of the Lublin district where a national awakening was still needed.858 However, whereas Germans attended Ukrainian theatrical performances or pageants, many laughed or scoffed at what they saw as a low level of cultural awareness among the Ukrainians.859 Added emphasis was placed on reading and literacy. One slogan advocated: “a book and newspaper in every Ukrainian hut / that is the current order!” Special academies or pageants were organized in honor of Taras Shevchenko who Kubiiovych, in a memorandum to the GG authorities, referred to as not simply a poet but a national prophet and martyr.860 The month of October was dedicated to literacy awareness. The written word was seen as something which carried enlightenment and knowledge. Ukrainian works, especially those of Shevchenko, were propagated.861 Ukrainian choirs often enriched cultural events or travelled to neighboring towns or cities to showcase not only their talents but traditional Ukrainian songs. In many villages, evening classes were organized to either combat illiteracy among inhabitants or to teach modern hygienic practices to villagers.862 Cultural emersion was also tantamount to national emersion. Thus, when OUN members in Hrubieszów County organized a special pageant for St. Nicholas day, the children, before receiving small gifts, were praised for their serious desire to learn about their nation, for their respect to their church and for their love of God. Kazanivs’kyi described his delight in such work: “It warmed our spirits to see the positive effects of our work in villages which for over twenty years were deprived of seeing images of Ukrainian cultural life.”863 861 “… Z namy idut’ tsi knyhy try!” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 1 no. 106 (October 21, 1940), 8. 862 AP-L, DGdDL, sygn. 246, Ukrainische Komitee in Biała Podlaska – Betrifft: Monatsbericht des Hilfkomitees, April 24, 1941, p. 3. 863 Kazanivs’kyi, Shliakhom lehendy…, 108-109. 864 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 17, folder 22, Protokol konferentsiї v spravi naladnannia propahandy, July 24, 1940. 865 TsDAVOVUU, UTsK, f. 3959, op. 1, spr. 10, Halaichuk note to UTsK, August 16, 1940, pp. 13-17. For the UTsK, cultural work was also synonymous with propaganda. Guidelines were created for representatives alongside aid committees and delegates. A mid-1940 meeting in Kraków set a propaganda agenda for the UTsK. Here, two forms were presented. Positive aspects looked to propagate a general Ukrainian understanding and positive relations with the Germans while correcting anti-Ukrainian slander. Negative aspects presented Polish aversion toward the Germans, the effect of the Poles prewar treatment of Ukrainians – their martyrology under Polish administration – and the true image of the Catholic clergy. Among Poles, UTsK propaganda meant to “not belittle their existence,” something which Ivan Kedryn warned about, but to correct their misconceptions and any anti-Ukrainian sentiments.864 Bohdan Halaichuk, UTsK propaganda representative for the Lublin District, presented a more detailed schematic for propaganda work, one he envisioned for his district but which could also be employed in others. Internal propaganda meant to defend Ukrainian elements from all external, demoralizing threats while in turn raising a “national mass, first and foremost on the Kholmshchyna.” This meant combating Russophilism, Marxism, passivity and religious intolerance against Galicians by increasing national consciousness through spreading a nationalist ideology and teaching such principles as love and respect for one’s nation and culture. He believed that raising the level of national consciousness would mean the eventual inclusion and work of new cadres in organized life. All this had one far-reaching goal: “To prepare the Ukrainian inhabitants of the GG for their future grand assignment;” in other words, to form a nationally conscious people in order to claim the Chełm region for a future Ukrainian ethnographic state.865 Halaichuk’s report from January 1941 noted of positive cultural work. The youth of the Lublin district formed a close relationship with Ukrainian teachers from Eastern Galicia, voluntarily partnering with them in cultural and educational activity. For example, those from Chełm “generally clung to teachers unions or scouting groups but did not want to join their ranks so as not to expose themselves to persecution in the event of serious changes.” 866 866 TsDAVOVUU, UTsK, f. 3959, op. 2, spr. 48, Halaichuk propaganda Report to UTsK for January 1941, February 2, 1941, pp. 9-9a. 867 PISM, MIiD, folder A.10.3/9, List na temat sprawy ukraińskiej, November 20, 1940. 868 PUMST, OIV, file A268, Sztab Naczelnego Wodza Oddział IV: L. dz. 685/tj.42 – referat ppor. Flegel-Cepińskiego, March 5, 1942. 869 BA, R 52 II/244, Sitzung der Regierung des GG, April 20, 1943, p. 14; „4 Jahre Generalgouvernements,“ October 1943, p.113. 870 “Ukraїntsi v Heneral-Hubernatorstvi – Prof. Volodymyr Kubiiovych,” Ukraїns’ki Shchodenni Visti vol. 1 no. 21 (July 30, 1941), 2. Reports from occupied Poland which reached the exile government’s ministry of information and documentation in London described Ukrainian schools organized throughout the GG as a breeding ground for nationalist propaganda and a key tool toward nationally awakening the youth of the eastern and southeastern districts. One report described German permission of educational development as a political weapon, one they could eventually use against both Poles and Soviets alike when they saw fit.867 Another report described in detail the effects of nationalist propaganda on Ukrainian education. As an example, it cited a student’s essay entitled “What did Poland give us and what has Germany given us?” The conclusions reached advised on how Ukrainians should avenge and harass Poles.868 The later attachment of the Galician district to the General Government continued the expansion of Ukrainian education east. During a meeting of GG administrators in 1943, the Ukrainian school situation was described as “generally well developed.” A report on the four-year state of the GG put that development into concrete numbers. It was described as a new strength for the Ukrainian people; something they had never previously experienced on such a wide-ranging scale. By then, the report tallied some 600 thousand Ukrainians attending various schools. 4,500 elementary schools dotted the GG with 1,500 teachers working and instructing in their native language.869 With such educational and cultural concessions, it is no wonder that Kubiiovych referred to the GG as the “foretaste of the homeland” and the source of national life; something which under Polish and Soviet rule they did not have the right to experience. As he wrote, only thanks to the “goodwill of German officials responsible for education and administrative material help” did Ukrainian education and schools flourish throughout the GG.870 4.4 – Media Concessions: The Ukrainian Publishing House and Press To satiate the cultural and educational revival taking place throughout Ukrainian-inhabited territory in the GG, a printing and publishing center was needed. During the November 1939 meeting between Ukrainians and Hans Frank, the delegation included in their memorandum the desire for such a center as well as the need for a Ukrainian-language newspaper. Present at the meeting was Dr. Heinrich Kurtz of the Reich propaganda department. A native of Silesia, he was trained in archeology and history. Prior to the outbreak of war he worked in the German consulate in Lwów. After its outbreak, he worked in the cultural bureau of the Abwehr before being delegated to the GG civil administration.871 Several days after that meeting, the Ukrainians met and decided to organize a publishing house as a limited company. Kubiiovych was named its head, Ivan Zilyns’kyi his deputy and Ievhen Pelens’kyi its director.872 Pelens’kyi – teacher, publisher, writer, and social activist – was a native of Stryj and a member of the Shevchenko society. In the 1930s he served as secretary and deputy of the society’s ethnological commission. He was also co-founder and head of the Ukrainian Bibliophile Society.873 Toward the end of November, the three men compiled a call to action directed at GG Ukrainians to “morally and materially” support the functioning of the Ukrainian Book publishing company (Verlag Ukrainisches Buch). A collection was taken up to off-set costs. Only two publications appeared from this publisher: a calendar for 1940 as well as a re-print of a 1938 handbook for older illiterates.874 871 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 17, folder 21, Denkschrift von Ukrainer aus den Besetzen Gebieten, November 17, 1939; Kubiiovych, Meni 85, 170. 872 John-Paul Himka, “Krakivs’ki Visti: An Overview.” Harvard Ukrainian Studies vol. 22 (1998), 251. 873 Entsyklopediia ukraїnoznavstva vol. 5 (ed) Volodymyr Kubiiovych (L’viv: Naukove Tovarystvo im. Shevchenka, 1996) 1977. 874 Larysa Holovata, Ukraїns’kyi legal’nyi vydavnychyi rukh tsentral’no-skhidnoї Ievropy 1939-1945 (Kyiv-L’viv: Vydavnytstvo Noulidzh, 2013), 164-165. 875 Himka, “Krakivs’ki Visti: An Overview,” 251-252. 876 Quoted in Schenk, Krakauer Burg…, 120. The official birth of the GG Ukrainian publishing house came at the expense of Nazi German aryanization policies targeting Polish Jews. Following two meetings between Pelens’kyi and GG press chief Emil Gassner, the latter gave the Ukrainian a document allowing him to take over the trusteeship of the seized Jewish printing press Nowy Dziennik at 7 Orzeszkowa Street in the Kazimierz district of the city. In assuming trust over the press, Pelens’kyi also assumed the necessity to modernize and update it. He raised some 25-30 thousand złotys to fix or buy linotype matrices and type.875 Gassner, an Austrian Nazi, was described by the Italian journalist Malaparte in his recollections as a man with a “princely face, fake, ironic smile…”876 On December 27, 1939 the Ukrainian publishing house, a limited liability company (Ukrainischer Verlag, Ukraїns’ke Vydavnytstvo), was formally established. It was officially registered with the GG authorities on January 16, 1940. The December company charter was signed by eight prominent Ukrainians living in the city, nationalists and non-nationalists alike: Kubiiovych, Zilyns’kyi, Pelens’kyi, Dr. Stepan Shukhevych (lawyer, military figure and uncle of Roman Shukhevych; during the interwar period he represented many OUN members during their state trials), Mykhailo Khronov’iat, Ivan Kotsur, Osyp Boidunyk and Iulian Genyk-Berezovs’kyi. Initial venture capital for the company was 10 thousand złotys. Investment was possible through the purchase of shares; 20 shares being the maximum with each share costing 500 złotys. Kubiiovych was the majority shareholder with 13; the remainder had one apiece. Whether the money Kubiiovych invested – 6,500 złotys – came from UTsK funds or his own private ones is unclear. Pelens’kyi was named director of the publishing house while a three-man supervisory council, headed by Kubiiovych, was also created. The goal of the publishing house, in conjunction with agreement from the GG propaganda department, centered on publishing books, periodicals, brochures, photos, notes and maps in the Ukrainian language.877 877 Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Heneralnii Hubernii, 521-523. The charter was notarized by a Ukrainian lawyer. 878 “Pered dvoma rokamy,” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 3 no. 3 (January 2, 1942), 3. 879 Holovata, Ukraїns’kyi legal’nyi vydavnychyi rukh…, 167. 880 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 17, folder 23, Zasidannia nadzyrchoї rady Ukraїns’koho vydavnytstva, December 10, 1940. 881 PAA, MCF, 85.191, box 6 file 62, Ukraїns’ke Vydavnytstvo Krakiv-L’viv-Viden’: Narys diialnosty, n.d. 882 Himka, “Krakivs’ki Visti: An Overview,” 254. 883 PAA, MCF, 85.191, box 2 file 27, Zvit nadzornoї rady Ukraїns’koho vydavnytstva, November 18 and December 29, 1943; Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Heneralnii Hubernii, 272. The Ukrainians soon began expanding their publishing interests wherever possible. A wholesale bookshop was acquired, school and office supplies were purchased and contacts were made with Ukrainian bookshops and distributors throughout the GG. The first publications to appear from the publishing house were a Christmas carol album and Ukrainian school readers for grades two through six.878 An additional printing location was soon acquired as the prewar Drukarnia pośpieszna at 34 Reichstrasse (Karmelicka Street; outside of the historical Jewish quarter), owned by Abram Lerhaft and seized by the Germans on September 19, 1939, fell under the Ukrainian publishing company.879 By late 1940, the publishing company owned two presses in Kraków, employing 54 workers who earned a total of 160 thousand złotys.880 The addition of the Galicia district to the GG in August 1941 opened a new market for the publishing company and readership in general. A publishing center was immediately organized in Lwów in July 1941 and on January 17, 1942 it was united with the Kraków company. As a result, 2 publishing branches emerged, one in eastern and one in western Galicia.881 As stated in the company’s charter, its main goals was the publication of various printed materials and periodicals. With regard to the latter, the first and uninterrupted wartime newspaper printed by the publishing company was Krakivs’ki Visti; appearing on January 7, 1940 as a bi-weekly paper before appearing three times weekly in May 1940 and becoming a daily by November of that year. After becoming a daily, a weekly under the same name was also published and distributed primarily among the rural population as publisher’s believed that they would not be interested in a daily paper. In the first issue’s editorial, the newspaper editors described their envisioned audience to consist of all members of GG Ukrainian life – workers, peasants, and refugees. However, as John-Paul Himka observed, the division of the paper into a daily and weekly marked a de facto differentiation between the intelligentsia and the rural population and workers.882 The overall press run for both papers was small as the occupiers were unwilling to supply Ukrainians with large amounts of paper; the war effort and German propaganda superseding Ukrainian press interests.883 Readership was primarily limited to Ukrainians in the GG, in the Reich – where the paper was sent to Ukrainian laborers – and to allied countries (Italy, Slovakia). Small numbers of issues also travelled to neutral countries in Europe and North and South America.884 Later in the war, attempts were made by the publishing company toward distributing the paper to the Reichskommissariat Ukraine. On March 9, 1943 Kubiiovych along with publishing representatives met with Gassner in an effort to gain permission to circulate Krakivs’ki Visti there. Gassner explained that such a decision lay beyond his competencies but rather was a matter for Rosenberg’s Ministry for the Eastern Territories and the Reichskommissariat’s authorities to decide directly.885 Although some issues did trickle east into occupied Ukraine-proper as a mutual exchange between newspapers, the results were less than interesting. 884 Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Heneralnii Hubernii, 278. Kubiiovych noted of some issues of Krakivs’ki Visti even travelling as far east as Manchukuo and China. 885 PAA, MCF, 85.191, box 2 file 29, Zvit z narady u shefa presy, March 9, 1943. 886 “Pered dvoma rokamy,” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 3 no. 3 (January 2, 1942), 3. 887 PAA, MCF, 85.191, box 2 file 20, Military Government of Germany Fragebogen, October 2, 1946. 888 Chomiak, Chrystia. Interview with Paweł Markiewicz. Personal Interview. Edmonton, Alberta (Canada). August 1, 2015. 889 Kerski and Kowalczyk, Wiek ukraińsko-polski. Rozmowy z Bohdanem Osadczukiem, 23. As director of the publishing company, Pelens’kyi’s duties included finding an editor-in-chief for Krakivs’ki Visti. Even though Kraków became the center for Ukrainian intellectuals where capable men to serve as editor-in-chief could be easily found, many declined to undertake the responsibility in fear of Soviet reprisals against their families in Eastern Galicia.886 After two short-lived chief editors – Hryhorii Stetsiuk, who did not formally take up his position, and Borys Levyts’kyi, who was forced out of the position at the behest of the Germans – Mykhailo Khomiak assumed the position even though he initially protested the appointment. He would work in this capacity until the end of the newspapers run in 1945. Born in the Austrian Galician village of Stroniatyn in 1905, he completed his formal education in Lwów: gymnasium in 1926, the law faculty at the Polish Jan Kazimierz University in 1930, and the Polish Foreign Trade College in 1931 where he received his master’s degree in jurisprudence. From the conclusion of his studies up until the outbreak of war in 1939, much of his professional career was spent working in law firms in Lwów or Sanok as well as in the Ukrainian-language newspaper Dilo where he served as a courtroom correspondent.887 A man of short stature, he was a devout Greek Catholic who had a deep admiration for Metropolitan Sheptyts’kyi. A supporter of the Greek Catholic hierarch and his form of Ukrainian nationalism, he belonged to neither OUN faction. This non-party status made him a moderate-independent, as he did not come from a hardline nationalist background. His non-political status was also appreciated by the occupiers who would have denied any OUN member such a position.888 Bohdan Osadchuk, who briefly worked as a correspondent for Krakivs’ki Visti, initially met Khomiak in search of a job in the newspaper and recalled him as a “charming, cultural man.”889 Kubiiovych recalled Khomiak’s ability to recruit regular and free-lance reporters from inside and outside the GG to write for the daily and weekly. Additionally and of equal importance, he had a knack of sensing what could be written and how, especially to avoid German censorship, and was able to form loose relationships with German officials which greatly benefited press work and publication.890 890 Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Heneralnii Hubernii, 277. 891 PAA, MCF, 85.191, box 2 file 23, Redaktsiia Krakivs’ki Visti, n.d. 892 John-Paul Himka, “Krakivski Visti and the Jews, 1943: A Contribution to the History of Ukrainian-Jewish relations during World War II.” Journal of Ukrainian Studies vol. 21 no 1-2 (1996), 84. 893 Mariusz Sawa, Ukraiński emigrant. Działalność i myśl Iwana Kedryna-Rudnyckiego (1896-1995) (Lublin: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, 2016), 23; 25-28. As Sawa noted, he travelled to work in Lwów on the suggestion of Dmytro Paliїv, on the recommendation of Ievhen Konovalets’ and on the acceptance of Dmytro Levyts’kyi. 894 Torzecki, Polacy i Ukraińcy..., 40. The other intellectuals who gained permission to leave Lwów were Professor Roman Smal'-Stots’kyi, Dr. Roman Dashkevych, Dr. Pavlo Lysiak and Vasyl' Mudryi. 895 BA, NS 43/32, Kurze angaben über die Ukrainische Fragen, December 1939, p. 195; Sawa, Ukraiński emigrant..., 104. A native of Lwów, Ida Spigel came from a family of Jewish merchants. She married Kedryn’s father Ivan, the son of a Greek Catholic priest, after almost 10 years of engagement at the age of 27; against the will of both families. During her Roman Catholic baptism, she adopted the name Ol'ha. As Ola Hnatiuk explained, Ukrainian-Jewish marriages were a rarity during this time and almost always meant breaking with Khomiak’s deputy editor throughout the existence of the daily was Lev Lepkyi, brother of the scholar Bohdan. Other editors primarily consisted of émigrés who fled Soviet occupation and included Mar’ian Kozak and Petro Sahaidachnyi. The editorial board of the daily contained a strong Eastern Galician character; one editor, Fedir Kovshyk, coming from Soviet Ukraine while one came from Podlasie.891 Writers for the paper were some of Ukraine’s most prominent intellectuals representing various scholarly backgrounds – poets, linguists, theologians, politicians, historians, physicians. John-Paul Himka called the list of contributing writers a “who’s who” of political and intellectual life: Dmytro Doroshenko, Myron Korduba, Iurii Kosach, Hryhorii Kostiuk, Ivan Kryp’iakevych, Zenon Kuzelia, Iurii Lypa, Bohdan Lepkyi, Vasyl’ Mudryi, Iuliian Revai to name a few.892 Among this group was also Ivan Kedryn, a native of Eastern Galicia who during the interwar period worked in the offices of the Lwów Ukrainian-language newspaper Dilo; becoming editor of its political section in the mid-1930s. He also served as the paper’s Warsaw correspondent, as UNDO press secretary, and, because of his good knowledge of the German language, as correspondent to the Ost-Europeische Rundschau magazine in Königsberg. He also collaborated with Polish scholars and writers, contributing to, among others, the Biuletyn Polsko-Ukraiński, if only to use such platforms to inform Polish readers of Ukrainian problems, aspirations, and needs.893 In the wake of Soviet occupation in 1939, he was among a countless number of Ukrainian intellectuals who received special passes to flee Lwów from the city’s Polish defense commander General Władysław Langner.894 A German report on the Ukrainian question figured him as a prominent Ukrainian in Kraków with mixed Jewish-Ukrainian blood; his mother Ol’ha was Jewish (Ida Spigel). However, the report clarified that he and his three brothers were raised Ukrainian. Furthermore, aside from his journalistic merits, the report continued that he was severely attacked by the Polish press prior to the outbreak of war for his Germanophile position in Dilo. Indeed, he commented on interwar Germany as a state which found itself in an ideological vacuum, one which democracy could not fill and National Socialism did. In his opinion, Hitler became one of the great individuals of the twentieth century.895 In his postwar ones family. Indeed, Ivan Rudnyts’kyi the elder married Ida only after the death of his mother who was vehemently opposed to the couple. At home, the two almost certainly spoke Polish; the most comfortable language for both. As Hnatiuk explained, by the end of the 19th century and especially during the period of Galician autonomy, Eastern Galician Jews succumbed to quick polonization in comparison to Greek Catholics. Polish was even used in many families who “chose” a Ukrainian identity. Ola Hnatiuk, Odwaga i strach, 390-391. 896 Bogumiła Berdychowska (ed), Jerzy Giedroyc. Emigracja ukraińska. Listy 1950-1982 (Warszawa: Czytelnik, 2004), 791-793. According to Kedryn, Kubiiovych informed him that his termination was ordered by the Gestapo. 897 PAA, MCF, 85.191, box 2, file 28, Letter from Kubiiovych to the editorial borad of Krakivs’ki Visti, April 28, 1941. 898 PAA, MCF, 85.191, box 2, file 30, Normy spivpratsi presovykh orhaniv Ukraїns’koho Vydavnytstva z Ukraїns’kym Tsentral’nym Komitetom, July 1, 1943. correspondence with Kultura editor Jerzy Giedroyc, Kedryn shed more light on the Jewish issue. He claimed Banderite “compatriots” snitched to the Germans immediately in the fall of 1939 of his Jewish mother. The consequences were immediate: he was detained and interrogated by the Sonderdienst, banned from any political activity; forbidden from both signing his book (either with his name or pseudonym) and translating it into Polish, and was terminated from his position in the Ukrainian publishing house where he worked for one month.896 In an April 1941 note to the editorial board of Krakivs’ki Visti, Kubiiovych expressed his view that he, as head of organized Ukrainian life in the GG and as the majority share-holder of the publishing company, was the authority in all issues concerning the paper. This position echoed the Führerprinzip style of leadership under which the UTsK was designed to operate and one which he assumed as Ukrainian providnyk in the GG. The first point of his note stated: “Krakivs’ki Visti is the official organ of the UTsK, therefore its editorial policy must be in line with the policy of the Committee.” This was followed by his direct arrogation over the paper: “the editorial board is responsible to me as the leader of the Ukrainian Central Committee… As leader of the UTsK, I decide on all disputed issues with regard to the editing of the paper.” The link between the Committee and the paper was Myron Konovalets’, who Kubiiovych named liaison between the two.897 The position of the Kraków-published press being the organ of the UTsK was confirmed in a later memorandum which detailed the norms of operation between the two bodies. The first article noted that the daily and weekly Krakivs’ki Visti as well as the weekly Kholms’ka Zemlia enjoyed the support and representation of the UTsK, especially in matters before the occupiers. For their part, those organs were to “champion the direction of activity and political line of the UTsK” while endeavoring to contribute to the actions undertaken by the Committee.898 A self-assessment of the paper described its character: The Ukrainian daily Krakivs’ki Visti is an independent newspaper (except the censorship limits and regulations of the authorities, which it must adhere to in relation to general circumstances); it coordinates its ideological-political direction only with the responsible Ukrainian leadership in the GG, at the present moment with the UTsK. [It] is an all-national organ, beyond and above parties and religious confessions; it stands on the platform of Ukrainian nationalism; it champions the view of the need for a united national front; it steers clear of any internal Ukrainian polemics, propagating constructiveness, political realism, unity of leadership and obedience to authority.899 899 PAA, MCF, 85.191, box 2, file 28, Pravyl’nyk dlia redaktsiї shchodennyka Krakivs’ki Visti, n.d. 900 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 24, folder 21, Protokol zasidaniia upravy Ukraїns’koho Vydavnytstva, February 27, 1942. 901 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 24, folder 20, Protokol IV zvychainykh zahal’nykh zboriv spilky Ukraїns’ke Vydavnytstvo, August 21, 1943. 902 Ibid, Protokol V zvychainykh zahal’nykh zboriv spilky Ukraїns’ke Vydavnytstvo, July 17, 1944. 903 Ibid, Protokol III zvychainykh zahal’nykh zboriv spilky Ukraїns’ke Vydavnytstvo, June 20, 1942. 904 Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Heneralnii Hubernii, 281-285. 905 Ibid, 278-279; In addition to supplementing cultural and educational needs, the paper also provided the émigré community with a source of income for contributing writers. For example, publishing company meeting minutes indicated of a pay increase of 30 percent beginning in January 1942. One sheet or page of original text would earn an author between 300 and 600 złotys. In some instances, even up to 800 złotys could be paid for original texts. Translating articles to Ukrainian payed 100-200 złotys; from Ukrainian 150-300 złotys.900 Much of this was possible thanks to the income the company gained. In February 1940, its income from Krakivs’ki Visti was 30 thousand złotys; a year later it was over 42 thousand. For 1942, income reached 34, 195 złotys.901 Record income of over 82 thousand złotys was reached in 1943. That same year, the publishing company reported a total turnover profit of 5 million złotys: books and monographs bringing in over 4 million; various newspapers and gazettes 1.5 million.902 Alongside paying workers and writers, income was also used to purchase supplies – paper, ink, etc. A portion, just about half, of total company income for all publications was also placed in a special auxiliary fund to supplement UTsK cultural work; something which was stipulated in the December 1940 charter.903 Of course, this did not mean that financial troubles did not touch the company. As Kubiiovych recalled, material and publication expenses often cost the company half of its income. In 1941, the company even took a loan from the Ukraїnbank in the sum of 100 thousand złotys to maintain publication.904 Together with Krakivs’ki Visti, other newspapers and journals were printed by the company. A monthly journal geared toward Ukrainian children (Maly druzi) was published under the editorial of Bohdan Hoshovs’kyi. Kubiiovych later recalled that the children’s monthly served as both, a subsequent instrument toward raising the level of national consciousness among Ukrainian children and as a reading supplement in schools. An illustrated literary monthly journal (Iliustrovani Visti), initially under the editorial of Bohdan Lepkyi, was also published. For Ukrainian youth, the monthly Doroha contained pieces focusing on nature, sightseeing and sports. For Greek Catholic Ukrainians, a weekly which bore the same title as the daily newspaper appeared as early as November 1940.905 For the occupier, press privileges equated to a subsequent example of German tolerance toward the GG Ukrainians. Gassner wrote that for the first time and under their leadership, Ukrainians could finally express themselves in their own press.906 906 Emil Gassner, “Die Pressearbeit” in du Prel, Das Generalgouvernement, 150. 907 PAA, MCF, 85.191, box 6, file 62, Ukraїns’ke Vydavnytstvo Krakiv-L’viv-Viden’: Narys diialnosty, n.d; Ostap Tarnavs’kyi, Literaturnyi L’viv 1939-1944 (L’viv: Prosvita, 1995), 87. 908 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/18, Tagebuch 1942: Januar bis April, p. 315. 909 Pan’kivs’kyi, Roky nimets’koї okupatsiї, 344-346; Tarnavs’kyi, Literaturnyi L’viv, 88. The occupiers also published a German-langage (Lemberger Zeitung) and Polish-langauge (Gazeta Lwowska) daily newspaper. Regarding the regional newspapers appearing under the banner of Ridna Zemlia, an article in Krakivs’ki Visti introduced several titles and which regions they would conver: Stanyslavivs’ke Slovo for the Stanisławów and Kołomyja regions; Ternopil’s’kyi Holos for the Tarnopol and Złoczów regions; Chortkivs’ka Dumka for the Czortków and Bereżany regions. 910 TsDAVOVUU, UTsK, f. 3959, op. 2, spr. 46, Halaichuk report to UTsK, February 8, 1941, p. 72. With the attachment of Eastern Galicia to the GG, the publishing company’s operation expanded east and took over the position of the brief Ukrainian publishing center in Lwów; one uncontrolled since a civil administration for the district had yet to be organized. Beginning in 1942, the bulk of publication was carried out in the company’s Lwów offices where, according to one report, technical and printing resources were better than in Kraków. Ostap Tarnavs’kyi noted of the company office there receiving the printing press and building property of the prewar Polish Gazeta Poranna, seized and shut-down by the occupiers.907 The children and youth journal’s publication was moved there while Iliustrovani Visti began appearing as Nashi Dni. The Germans also established a publishing center in the district. To replace the Ukrainian-language newspaper Ukraїns’ki Shchodenni Visti which appeared from June to July 1941, the GG district publishing center under Georg Leman began publishing in August 1941 a new Ukrainian-language daily, L’vivs’ki Visti. According to Gassner, maintaining a publishing center in Lwów lay in the interests of the Germans, no matter the financial costs, as it would be a definitive example of the Ukrainians' better position in relation to Poles.908 Regional newspapers were also published throughout other cities in the district under the banner of the German-controlled weekly Ridna Zemlia. In comparison to L’vivs’ki Visti, susceptible to closer, direct censorship, Krakivs’ki Visti had more autonomy in its publication.909 Of interest to the GG Ukrainian cultural and press movement was the appearance of Kholms’ka zemlia, a weekly dedicated to the unique interests of Ukrainians in the Chełm region. A letter to the UTsK offices sent by Bohdan Halaichuk called for the need to stop what he called anti-Orthodox prejudices appearing among the editors of Krakivs’ki Visti and their desires to use the paper as a Greek Catholic propaganda organ. He noted of Chełm Ukrainians' religious sensitivity and as an example described the reaction to an article about St. Volodymyr which “caused a ferment for several months and suspicion, [with people] saying: a Uniate action is beginning under the patronage of the UTsK…”910 To prevent Ukrainians there from feeling as second class, the publishing of Kholms’ka zemlia began in January 1943. It was a mutation of the Krakivs’ki Visti weekly. An editorial office was located in Chełm under the direction of Stepan Baran. The Chełm weekly appeared until July 1944 with the advent of the Red Army’s capture of the city on July 22, 1944.911 911 Andrzej Rybak, “Czasopisma chełmskie okresu II wojny światowej (1 września 1939 – 9 maja 1945).” Rocznik Chełmski vol. 5 (1999), 207. 912 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 24, folder 4, Zvit z poїzdky do Liublyna, March 4, 1943. During his meeting with Chełm Ukrainians, Pan’kivs’kyi noted of Stepan Baran’s proposal to step down from the editorship of Kholms’ka zemlia if deemed necessary by UTsK authorities. 913 PAA, MCF, 85.191, box 2, file 29, Zvit z narady u shefa presy, March 9, 1943. 914 PAA, MCF, 85.191, box 2, file 30, Letter from Ilarion to Ukrainian publishing company, August 23, 1943. 915 Larysa Holovata, Ukraїns’ke Vydavnytstvo u Krakovi-L’vovi 1939-1945. Bibliohrafichnyi dovidnyk vol. 1 (Kyiv: Krytyka, 2010). 916 Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Heneralnii Hubernii, 257; Holovata, Ukraїns’kyi legal’nyi vydavnychyi rukh…, 170fn1. Book shops were located in Kraków (the Ateneum shop at 1 Weichselstrasse [Wiślna Street]), Włodawa, Hrubieszów, Zamość, Krynica, Lublin, Leżajsk, Przemyśl, Sanok, Chełm, and Jarosław. Following travels to the district by an UTsK delegation headed by Pan’kivs’kyi, he reported of some older-generation Ukrainians' displeasure that the Chełm newspaper was headed by a Galician Ukrainian. Furthermore, Ilarion complained of the newspaper being unfriendly to Orthodoxy, demanding a portion of it be appropriated to those issues.912 During their meeting with Gassner in March 1943, Kubiiovych, Khomiak and Iulian Tarnavs’kyi listened to the German read Illarion’s most pressing grievance – his belief that the daily was promoting Greek Catholicism among the Orthodox Ukrainians of the Chełm and southern Podlasie regions. To prevent this, he demanded more Orthodox Ukrainian representation in the UTsK and ownership of half of the company’s stock; what would make him and not Kubiiovych majority shareholder.913 The appearance of Kholms’ka zemlia did not disparage Ilarion from further criticism of the publishing company. He wrote that when Krakivs’ki Vist was founded, its chief purpose was to spread Ukrainian national consciousness in regions which suffered severe polonization during the interwar period, i.e. Chełm and southern Podlasie. Already in 1940, he complained, the paper abandoned that line as the editors turned it over to the service of Eastern Galicians and Greek Catholic issues.914 Complementing the publication of Krakivs’ki Visti and other papers was the printing of monographs. A mass amount of literature appeared during the wartime period. Larysa Holovata compiled an extensive and detailed listing of all publications from the wartime period, falling under various genre: literature-folklore, history-ethnography, popular-educational or scholarly, Ukrainian and German language, pedagogy, geography, culture, economics, music, religion.915 An initial problem which the company ran into was the need to expand publication beyond Kraków. Kubiiovych petitioned the German authorities for permission to transfer the printing of some materials to Warsaw, Jarosław or Sanok but to no avail. The bulk of the responsibility to circulate publications was taken up by Ukrainian bookshops, aid committees, school inspectors and social societies throughout the GG.916 Works published or re-published centered on Ukrainian literary classics, pieces by well-known Galician writers or folk tales. For example, in 1940 portions of Taras Shevchenko’s Kobzar were re-printed. A total of 29 thousand copies were printed: 6 thousand of which appeared in Latin text for the less conscious Ukrainians of the Chełm, Podlasie and San River regions; 2 thousand in a miniature size resembling the 1840 version.917 Ivan Franko’s works also appeared in selected or shortened forms alongside those of modernist Vasyl’ Stefanyk. The literary works of writer, poet, scholar and prewar lecturer on Ukrainian language and literature at the Jagiellonian University Bohdan Lepkyi appeared as the culminating works of his intellectual life. Whereas historical publications were often scrutinized or censored by the occupiers, regional historical works avoided that fate. As such, Myron Korduba published several monographs concerning the history of the Chełm and Podlasie regions while Iulian Tarnovs’kyi’s work focused on Sanok’s Ukrainian past. Such works appeared as parts of a popular-historical series of publications from the Mynule i suchasne run.918 917 PAA, MCF, 85.191, box 6, file 62, Ukraїns’ke Vydavnytstvo Krakiv-L’viv-Viden’: Narys diialnosty, n.d. 918 Myron Korduba, Istoriia Kholmshchyny i Pidliashshia (Krakiv: Ukraїns’ke Vydavnytstvo, 1941); Iulian Tarnovs’kyi, Kniazhe misto Sianik (Krakiv: Ukraїns’ke Vydavnytstvo, 1941). 919 Kedryn, Zhyttia-podiї-liudy..., 349. 920 Homo Politicus, Prychyny upadku Pol’shchi, 8-12. Where literary works meant to awaken and foster the idea of Ukrainian consciousness among those exposed to polonization, especially during the interwar period, historical ones served as both propaganda and an outlet to vent prewar disenfranchisement; illustrating aspects of forced assimilation. Kedryn’s Causes of the Fall of Poland (Prychyny upadku Pol’shchi; published under the alias ‘Homo Politicus’) served such purposes. During the first period of occupation, from 1939 – mid-1941, anti-Soviet publications were forbidden from appearing on allied territory. On the other hand, anti-Polish topics were welcome and encouraged as this fit into the German vision of Poland as the main destabilizer of peace in 1939, Poland as a state which oppressed its interwar minorities (German above all, but also others) and Poland which provoked war on the continent. Whereas the Germans were keen to foment recently experienced injustices on GG territory, the Ukrainians were equally keen to recall them and both complimented each other to maintain a constant state of hostility between Poles and Ukrainians. Kedryn later described the intention of undertaking anti-Polish topics as stemming from both necessity as this was the only topic initially permitted and out of his actual desire to provide a fresh, recently experienced perspective.919 As he wrote in his introductory remarks, his book was not meant to be a historical study but rather a commentary of events undertaken by the Polish government during the interwar period which led to its collapse; the proverbial ‘how’ and ‘why.’ Kedryn called Polish explanations of their delayed full mobilization and inability to fend-off its unnamed attackers a complete fallacy. As he argued, Poland’s collapse came as a result of interwar policies which in no way prevented but rather accelerated its fall; political decisions having prepared the way for collapse. The Poles themselves were to blame, not the Germans or Ukrainians.920 Kedryn hoped to have his book translated and published into Polish, however the Germans forbid it as they believed this political work was unnecessary for Poles to digest. It is more plausible that the occupier forbid its publication in Polish so as not to introduce a piece of political dynamite; to prevent any unnecessary violence against Ukrainians perceived by Poles as collaborators and traitors. In talks with Polish journalists who accused him, and Ukrainians in general, of collaboration with the occupiers, Kedryn later explained: … I always attempted to present the Ukrainian position which, being hostile in relation to Russia, found itself after the defeat of Poland in a situation with no other choice or possibility than searching for a modus vivendi for the Ukrainian inhabitants of the GG and that we are far from praising the Germans' politics toward Poland.921 921 Kedryn, Zhyttia-podiї-liudy..., 349; 406. 922 B. Zhukiv, Nyshchennia tserkov na Kholmshchyni v 1938r. (Krakiv: Ukraїns’ke Vydavnytstvo, 1940). 923 Petro Oliinyk, Iak polshchyly Posiannia (Krakiv: Ukraїns’ke Vydavnytstvo, 1940); Iulian Tarnovs’kyi, 20 rokiv nevoli: Lemkivshchyna pid pol’s’kym iarmom (Krakiv: Ukraїns’ke Vydavnytstvo, 1940); Stepan Baran, Po nevoli – vidrozhzhennia. Ukraїns’ka pravoslavna tserkva na Kholmshchyny i Pidliashshia na novii dorozhi (Krakiv: Ukraїns’ke Vydavnytstvo, 1940). 924 PISM, Paprocki collection (PC), folder KOL.30.I.27.2, “Działalność ukraińców w czasie obecnej wojny,” August 1944. 925 PISM, MIiD, folder A.10.3/10, “Niemiecka propaganda ukrainizmu – w okupowanej Polsce,” n.d. Regional publications also contained anti-Polish undertones, describing specific episodes of Ukrainian life in interwar Poland. Ivan Korovyts’kyi (under the alias ‘B. Zhukiv’) published a 30-page booklet on the destruction of Orthodox churches in 1938 in the Chełm region. Included were 25 black-and-white illustrations of destroyed buildings or ruined sacred icons. The destructive campaign and the faithful's survival, he argued, attested to the true Ukrainian character of the region; something the Poles wished to extinguish forcefully.922 Petro Oliinyk commented the polonization of territory east of the San River while Iulian Tarnovs’kyi’s series of articles on the Lemko region turned into his later book entitled 20 Years of Slavery: The Lemkivshchyna under the Polish Yoke. Both described the interwar state’s policies toward preventing Lemkos in realizing what he believed to be their true, Ukrainian national identity. Stepan Baran’s booklet detailed the plight of the Ukrainian Orthodox faithful in the Chełm region; from Russification to Polonization. Only through German victory and the destruction of Poland, he concluded, did conditions for a national revival for the Orthodox Ukrainians in that region become a legitimate possibility.923 The exile Poles in London as well as the underground were aware of Ukrainian activity in the publishing and press spheres. The ministry of information and documentation provided the exile government with press reports of Ukrainian politically-motivated activity from articles in Krakivs’ki Visti and L‘vivs’ki Visti. Because of his prewar connections with German intellectual circles, an exile report noted that in this way was Kubiiovych able to organize the GG publishing company.924 One report compiled in London described the newspaper as “dull, monotonous and comical at times.” An article appearing in Krakivs’ki Visti on the topic of Tadeusz Kościuszko was picked-up on by the Poles. The image of him as a Cossack descendent meant to show, according to them, how far back in history Polish influences were absorbed by burgeoning Ukrainian ones.925 On the two-year anniversary of the establishment of the General Government, Frank spoke with Gassner and his team, thanking them for their work in strengthening the GG foundations. Furthermore, he reiterated the GG’s ethnic composition was not simply Polish but also included a large Ukrainian minority. He called on Gassner and his group to present to the Germans this multi-ethnic image through GG and Reich press channels. In describing a Ukrainian manifestation in Stanisławów during his travels there, he added that apart from a group of “Ukrainian fanatics” who saw their longing in the creation of a state as the solution to their struggle, the overall majority were satisfied with their situation.926 Several months later, Gassner explained to Frank of Ukrainians receiving the same materials as Poles with the chief difference being Ukrainian editors working for papers. Although the Ukrainians had more autonomy in their press undertakings, Gassner noted of a recent order sent to press offices, calling on them to prevent – i.e. censor – the appearance of articles focused on Ukrainian history.927 926 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/13, Tagebuch 1941: Band IV – 1. Oktober bis 31. Dezember, p. 71. 927 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/18, Tagebuch 1942: Januar bis April, p. 315. 928 Albert Weh, Prawo Generalnego Gubernatorstwa, 3rd ed. (Krakau: Burgverlag, 1941), B700. 929 Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Heneralnii Hubernii, 255. Skoropys-Ioltukhovs’kyi quoted in Holovata, Ukraїns’kyi legal’nyi vydavnychyi rukh…, 174. Briefly on Skoropys-Ioltukhovs’kyi, see Motyl, “Viacheslav Lypyns’kyi...” 930 Quoted in Holovata, Ukraїns’kyi legal’nyi vydavnychyi rukh…, 173. The brochure mentioned was Ivan Shovheniv, Energetychni resursy na ukraїns’kykh zemliakh v Ievropi (Varshava 1940). Certainly German censorship played an enormous role in the liberty of the Ukrainian-language press, in what they could and could not publish. Heinrich Kurtz oversaw the censorship of publications and newspapers via the propaganda department; school readers and textbooks being censored by the GG education department.928 Since the latter contained no Ukrainian-language censors, Kubiiovych recalled of the publishing house translating those books into German and sending them off for approval. Kurtz, who understood and read some Ukrainian, also had Ukrainian readers working for him; some even being nationals. One such reader was intellectual Oleksandr Skoropys-Ioltukhovs’kyi, a co-founder of the World War I Union for the Liberation of Ukraine and Hetman Pavlo Skoropads’kyi’s starosta in the Chełm and Podlasie provinces. In a letter written to a colleague, he described his position succinctly: “… even though I am a reader and belong to the censorship bureau in the Kraków propaganda [department], I do not have any decisive influence here…”929 Iurii Lypa bemoaned the difficulty in publishing social-political booklets on behalf of his Black Sea Institute in Warsaw: … it is the fault of our Kubiiovych and the censors in general that nothing can be printed. Three days ago I received a categorical rejection from Kraków to print a 24-page historical brochure… What is there to say about geopolitical matters? After all, this is not merely happening to me but to many other Ukrainian publicists, writers, and scholars. It was a sheer miracle that [Ivan] Shovheniv’s brochure was printed behind the back of Kraków and neither Kubiiovych nor Kurtz destroyed the circulation, as they often threatened. Tell me, are they acting appropriately?930 Early in the war, during the honeymoon of the German-Soviet non-aggression, any critical content of the Soviets which appeared in Krakivs’ki Visti was met with immediate German intervention such as pressure to remove writers and editors. In comparison to the Polish press in the GG, whose editors were all German, the Ukrainian press, with Ukrainian editors, had relatively more autonomy.931 Kedryn recalled that during this period, the standard of “certain and total silence” dominated. For example, for using a picture of Metropolitan Sheptyts’kyi in Krakivs’ki Visti without the expressed permission of the GG propaganda department, the editors received a sharp reprimand from whom he described as “illiterate people from that department.”932 Intertwined among cultural articles, many topics could only be written from a pro-German perspective; reprinting material which editors often knew to be false.933 As such, the cultural aspect of the newspaper was at times overshadowed by the frequent printing of propagandistic and offensive materials. Kubiiovych recalled of concrete examples of German interventions: 931 Lucjan Dobroszycki, Reptile Journalism: The Official Polish-Lanague Press under the Nazis, 1939-1945, trans. Barbara Harshav (New Haven: Yale Univeristy Press, 1994), 100. German editorship over the Polish-language press spanned virtually the entire war, from the fall 1939 to the spring of 1944. 932 Kedryn, Zhyttia-podiї-liudy..., 359. 933 Bilyns’kyi, D-r Toma Lapychak..., 20. 934 Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Heneralnii Hubernii, 274. 935 PAA, MCF, 85.191, box 4, file 49, Edited issue of Krakivs’ki Visti, April 1941. 936 Ibid, Draft of Senyk and Stsibors’kyi article, 1941. 937 PAA, MCF, 85.191, box 4, file 50, Material Censored – draft of article which described the unraveling of the later World War I German-Ukrainian alliance, n.d. The publication in January 1940 of information on the Soviet-Finnish War, information based on German sources and published without editorial commentary, resulted in a warning by the press chief to the editor-in-chief Borys Levyts’kyi, and later to his removal from the position of editor. For reprinting an obituary of Mykhailo Konovalets’, Ievhen’s father, from the daily Krakivs’ki Visti in the weekly, the latter’s editor, Vasyl Kochmar, had to leave; for a lead article that made reference to the inimical attitude towards the Ukrainian people of Ukraine’s western neighbors, editor Vasyl’ Mudryi lost his job in Krakivs’ki Visti. Editor-in-chief Khomiak was being threatened that he would be sent, along with the other editors, for ‘re-education’ and that his place would be taken by a German.934 Examples of censorship abound. The title of an article in preparation following the April 1941 meeting between Kubiiovych and Frank was altered to better suit the German perspective. Initially entitled ‘Conference of Ukrainian Representatives with the General Governor,’ the term ‘conference’ was replaced with ‘audience.’935 Conference echoed the idea of mutual consultation or discussion, placing the Ukrainians on a theoretical even level with the occupier. Audience conveyed them as a group of spectators and listeners, subservient to Frank and the GG authorities. Even the term ‘national life’ was removed from a quotation of Kubiiovych’s remarks to Frank. The issue of internal fragmentation within the OUN as well as the harsh in-fighting between the two factions was prohibited from publication. An article prepared following the murders of Melnykites Omelian Senyk and Mykola Stsibors’kyi by Banderites in Żytomierz never saw the light of day.936 An article prepared on the topic of the unravelling of the German-Ukrainian alliance from World War I was forbidden to be published as its conclusion questioned a relationship with Germany, “…the sad German-Ukrainian misunderstanding of 1918 could not be replicated in today’s time.”937 An article on the historic meaning of the trident symbol prepared by Vasyl’ Kosarenko-Kosarevych, Krakivs’ki Visti’s Berlin correspondent, was rejected for publication as he placed Ukrainians on the same level with the German architects of the new European order, calling for a new Ukraine with the same rights as other European nations to emerge from this alliance.938 Neither could an article criticizing the German bombings of the British Isles and London appear as it noted that the air campaign had little to no effects; nor could articles discussing Ukrainian diaspora communities beyond the GG (in Subcarpathian Rus’, the United States or Canada) be printed.939 938 Ibid, Draft of article entitled “The Ukrainian Trident – the Eternal Symbol of Rebirth (Ukraїns’kyj Tryzub – symbol vichnoho novonarodzhennia) by V. Kosarenko – Kosarevych, March 23, 1942. 939 Ibid, Article for Krakivs’ki Visti entitled “The Last Chance for Germany” (“Ostannia Mozhlyvist’ Himechchyny”), n.d. For example, two articles sent to editor-in-chief Khomiak from Ievhen Bachyns’kyi in Geneva – an official representative of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church in Western Europe – on the topics of the state of the Ukrainian-American Orthodox Church in the Unted States in 1941 and Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church in Canada in 1941 were rejected for publication. In PAA, MCF, 85.191, box 4, file 50, Articles from Ievhen Bachyns’kyi to Mykhailo Khomiak, February 1942. Incidentally, this was not the case in the opposite direction. Polish diplomatic posts in the United States, for example, observing nationalist Ukrainian newspapers there noted of articles describing the installation of Ilarion and Palladius into their autocephalous bishoprics in the GG as well as of their approaches in ukrainizing Orthodox life in each one; calling Ilarion’s diocese “a center for Ukrainian propaganda.” See AAN, Konsulat Generalny RP w Nowyn Jorku, sygn. 114, Sprawy religijno-prawosławno-ukraińskie w Polsce, March 19, 1941, p. 100. 940 “Pered maiestatom nepovynnoї krovy,” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 2 no. 147 (July 8, 1941), 1-2. 941 “Horod L’viv Vil’nyi!” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 2 no. 141 (July 1, 1941), 1. During the first phase of the war, from 1940-mid-1941, many of the articles and publications captained a strong anti-Polish tone. Following the invasion of the Soviet Union and the German war with Stalin, articles were vehemently anti-Bolshevik. These latter articles recalled the barbarous treatment of Ukrainians under the short-lived, two year Soviet occupation. Some also described NKVD brutality on the eve of the German occupation of Lwów; particularly the mass murders committed in several prisons. In response to the massacres, Kubiiovych wrote an editorial in which he denounced the innocent blood shed by thousands of Ukrainian men and women at the hands of “the eternal enemies of the Ukrainian people.” He called for open retribution: Resolute ruthlessness towards our enemies, who more than once through our softheartedness stole into our confidence and became, indeed with our help, masters on our hospitable land. Of course, it is not a matter here of some sort of pagan cruelty, a base desire for vengeance, but only of firm justice dictated by the sacred right to defend the vital interests of our Native Nation. The innocent blood of our Victims imposes on us the irrevocable obligation to cleanse our Native Land of all enemy rabble and build a strong cordon against the enemy’s onslaught.940 Strong accents of Judeo-Bolshevism often directly accompanied anti-Bolshevik ones. An article recollecting the German liberation of Lwów boasted: “The Jewish horde, which associated itself with state, Moscow-Bolshevik authority, no longer mocks Lwów… And so with the use of false slogans of ‘liberation from the Polish yoke,’ the Moscow Bolshevik armies entered Lwów with their Jewish commissars and from then hell began, which all together lasted 21 months!”941 A subsequent article called attention to the role of Jewish capitalists in financing the Bolshevik revolution; its leaders purportedly exploited to “to create a Judeo-Bolshevik stardom… The Jews and Moscow knew that without destroying the Ukrainians they would not be able to rule over Ukraine. That is why they decided to destroy the Ukrainian nation by drowning it in a sea of blood.”942 942 “Zhydivs’ko – bol’shevyts’ki zlochyny,” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 2 no. 141 (July 1, 1941), 2. 943 John-Paul Himka, “Ethnicity and the Reporting of Mass Murder: Krakivs’ki Visti, the NKVD Murders of 1941, and the Vinnytsia Exhumation” in Omer Bartov and Eric D. Weitz (eds), Shatterzone of Empires: Coexistence and Violence in the German, Habsburg, Russian, and Ottoman Borderlands (Bloomington-Indiannapolis: Indiana University Press, 2013), 380-390. 944 Quoted in Himka, “Krakivs'ki Visti and the Jews, 1943…,” 86. Of interest were a series of articles which appeared in the paper chronicling the discovery of mass graves by the Germans in 1943 of Ukrainians massacred by the NKVD in Vinnytsia during Stalin’s Great Purge of 1937-1938. Upon exhumations, it was concluded that Ukrainians were murdered with a shot to the back of the head before being thrown into mass graves; a scene much akin to the later mass execution of Polish army officers and POW’s in the Katyń Forest in 1940. Many articles were translated and reprinted from German-language newspapers in the Reich. As the reporting of both incidents developed, descriptions of the atrocities grew more and more elaborate. Out of the misfortune of these events, some Ukrainian correspondents saw a silver lining – Judeo-Bolshevik pogroms against Ukrainians now came to the attention of the world. Krakivs’ki Visti's correspondents wrote of reactions to the Vinnytsia discovery in the foreign press. The majority denounced the Jewish-Bolshevik actions and called on the need to stop the menace before such atrocities befell their respective peoples. Krakivs’ki Visti’s Frankfurt correspondent Anatol’ Kurdydyk expressed his approval of the German press’s reporting of the massacres. He was content that the papers linked Lwów with Ukraine and not Poland or Russia; the Ukrainian name ‘L’viv’ even appearing in press publications or newsreels. Additionally, the press nationalized all victims of the Vinnytsia massacre and the massacres to be Ukrainians while the perpetrators were unquestionably categorized as Muscovites, Bolsheviks, Muscovite-Bolsheviks, Stalinists, etc. in collaboration with the Jews (Muscovite-Jews, Jewish-Muscovites, Stalinist-Jews, Jewish Bolsheviks, etc.). In response to the perpetrators, articles called for retribution via violent rhetoric: “Only revenge, cruel, ruthless revenge can pay for the death of the martyrs of our nation.”943 Anti-Semitic articles also reappeared in the newspaper in 1943; ones specially commissioned by the German authorities and ones which overlapped in time with the Vinnytsia reports. Incorporation of such articles and themes in the Ukrainian-language press are a subsequent example of both parties mutually exploiting an institution and theme. The Germans used the ethnic press for their anti-Semitic propaganda while Ukrainians seized the opportunity to portray subsequent aspects of their historic plight and exploitation. The latter sentiment resonated in a letter from editor Marian Kozak to Lypa, dated May 15, 1943, in which he wrote: “We received an order to publish a series of anti-Jewish articles. Now it is a matter of making use of this opportunity from our standpoint.”944 Writing to Lypa just over a week later, Kozak reiterated: “When there is an opportunity to remind people of the harmfulness of Jewish influences, we have to do it so that the understanding will not be lost that the Jews continue to be an important factor in international life. They might still have more than one chance to do us harm.”945 945 Ibid. 946 Ibid, 86-88; 90; Carynnyk, “Foes of Our Rebirth…,” 320-321. Oleksandr Mytsiuk began his public life as a socialist revolutionary. Although never a member of UVO or OUN, by the late 1920s, his views became similar enough. His anti-Semitic thesis claimed “parasitic activities” of Jews had not changed over the centuries and resulted from their purported materialistic spirit. 947 Himka, “Krakivs'ki Visti and the Jews, 1943…,” 89. 948 Quoted in Ibid. 949 Ibid, 91-94. Signed with pseudonyms or initials of prominent cultural and political figures, articles by Oleksandr Mokh focused on anti-Semitic doctrine. Kost’ Kuzyk, Luka Lutsiv, and Oleksandr Mytsiuk wrote of Ukrainian exploitation (often economic) by Jewish agents (usually Soviet) and demoralizers. He claimed the ideal world for Jews was one without state borders as this would allow them to pursue business interests without restriction. Olena Kysilevska, the well-known women’s activist from Kołomyja and prewar Polish senator from UNDO, focused on Jewish economic exploitation and economic activities in the Carpathian Mountain region as she attempted to answer the question her article title posed: “Who Ruined the Hutsul Region?” The war and occupation, she concluded, brought about the beginnings of a Hutsul economic revival in part because “Today there are no more Jews in the mountains.” Newspaper editors viewed the series of articles which appeared over a two-month period as unbiased and neutral. As editor-in-chief Khomiak wrote in a letter to his colleagues: “It seems to us that we approach every issue in the most objective manner and try to shed light on the problems that life itself suggests or forces upon us. We try to do this sine ira et studio.”946 Interestingly enough, not all Ukrainians chose to accept the invitation to write and publish anti-Semitic articles. Baran, Lypa, economist Levko Lukasevych, and nationalist poet Ievhen Malaniuk all refused. Editor Kozak made note of this problem, writing: “We have an order to conduct an anti-Jewish campaign but there’s not enough material.”947 The appearance of these articles provoked a state of indignation among some intellectuals. In a letter to Volodymyr Levyns’kyi following the publication of the article series in July 1943, Khomiak wrote: “I have to confess that we have written enough on the Jewish question, and we have heard our fill of accusations from many people that we are conducting, or, rather justifying the action against the Jews, [and] also that we are acting in bad conscience and thinking only of our own backyard and that we are running away from reality and responsibility.”948 Overall, the articles demonstrated a state of Ukrainian indifference to the plight and fate of Jews during the war. This indifference, as Himka argued, stemmed from a series of past experiences: the long-standing socio-economic conflict between Jews and Ukrainians often exacerbated by ideological factors; as well as the abnormal, brutal position in which Ukrainians historically found themselves – whether in interwar Poland or in Soviet Ukraine – laced with an inability to comprehend the exceptional character of Hitler’s racial extermination campaign.949 Of course, it cannot be overlooked that failure to comply with German orders equated to more severe consequences – revoking Krakivs’ki Visti’s semi-autonomous position by, for example, replacing the Ukrainian editorial board with Germans or worse, the arrest and liquidation of editors and writers. In presenting anti-Polish, anti-Bolshevik, and anti-Jewish articles, primarily on the pages of Krakivs’ki Visti, the writers and editors of the paper and publishing company wanted to capitalize on the tragedy of the Ukrainian people throughout their long and short-term history to, as Himka noted “then present the list of Ukrainian national aspirations written in the blood of martyrs.” His rationalization into their approach is very telling of a myriad of concepts – opportunism, collaboration, ethnic surgery and social engineering – running through the minds of many Ukrainians, especially nationalists, under German occupation: This was the discursive strategy adopted by some representatives of a borderlands people caught up in the immense violence of two large, expanding states. They denounced the violence of one of the states, accepted the violence of the other, and sought to use the violence and the rhetoric of violence to advance their own position and to injure those whom they perceived as their rivals or opponents.950 950 Himka, “Ethnicity and the Reporting of Mass Murder…,” 390. 951 Torzecki, Polacy i Ukraińcy.., 46; Golczewski, “Shades of Grey…,” 134; Mirosław Sycz, Spółdzielczość ukraińska w Galicji w okresie II wojny światowej (Warszawa: Pracownia Wydawnicza, 1997), 62; 245. 952 Golczewski, “Die Kollaboration in der Ukraine,” 160-161. 4.5 – Economic Concession – Ukrainian Cooperatives and Treuhandmänner Much of the social advancement experienced by GG Ukrainians stemmed directly from the occupier’s anti-Jewish, anti-Polish racial-legal politics. A subsequent area of social life in which the Germans made the Ukrainians feel vindicated was in the local trade and cooperative sectors. Advancement here stemmed largely from the social void created by German anti-Jewish racial policies and the need for a merchant class. A key success was the ability of the Ukrainians to separate their cooperatives from the held-over prewar Polish system. However, county cooperatives were subject to German county administration (Kreisgenossenschaften) who were subject to control at the district level who were, in turn, administered by the German agricultural center (Landwirtschaftliche Zentralstelle). Ukrainian administration was thus de iure. The Germans threw their weight behind the cooperative movement to both, further exploit rural Polish-Ukrainian antagonisms while simultaneously exploiting these agencies to forcibly collect agricultural goods to feed Germany.951 In turn, Golczewski called attention to the goal of the cooperatives and Ukrainian politicians promoting them: to gain credits for farmers and better sales opportunities for their products in order to gain more autonomy from profiteering landlords as well as to cut-out the Jewish middleman.952 The arrival to the GG of prominent cooperative leaders from Eastern Galicia made organization of the cooperative network all the more possible. The first dairy cooperatives – Maslosoiuz – reappeared in Przemyśl and spread to Jarosław, the Lemko region and Chełm.953 28 dairy cooperatives in the Chełm County were swiftly ukrainized. In early 1940, the inaugural pan-cooperative meeting in Kraków gathered representatives from various cooperatives together under the slogan “To gather the most space, to expand our action and to organize cooperatives in all Ukrainian villages.” Here it was agreed upon to train and encourage local Ukrainian elements to work within the cooperatives.954 Several months later, during the second pan-cooperative meeting, Iulian Pavlikovs’kyi, the prewar senator who served as liaison between the UTsK and Ukrainian cooperatives and later headed the Ukrainian cooperative union in the Galicia District, spelled out long-term goals for that movement: 953 Andrii Kachor, Muzhi ideї i pratsi. Andrii Palii i Andrii Mudryk tvortsi “Maslosoiuzu” i modernoї ukrains’koї molochars’koї kooperatsiї v Zakhidnii Ukraїni (Winnipeg-Toronto-Cleveland: Bratstvo Maslosoiuznykiv, 1974), 245. 954 Sycz, Spółdzielczość ukraińska w Galicji..., 76. 955 “Druhyi z’їzd ukraїns’kykh kooperatoriv,” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 1 no. 56 (July 26, 1940), 3. 956 “Ukraїntsi v Heneral Hubernatorstvi – prof. Volodymyr Kubiiovych,” Ukraїnski Shchodenni Visti vol. 1 no. 21 (July 30, 1941), 2. 957 “Druhyi z’їzd ukraїns’kykh kooperatoriv,” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 1 no. 56 (July 26, 1940), 3; Sycz, Spółdzielczość ukraińska w Galicji..., 245. 958 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 19, folder 28, Natsional’ni vkladky i datky na tsili UTsK, May 20, 1943. 959 Quoted in Grelka, Die ukrainische Nationalbewegung..., 203; Golczewski, “Die Kollaboration in der Ukraine,” 160. … our work on Ukrainian territories in the GG is a test for us. Here we must show that we can realistically approach life actively and exploit all possibilities to organize and achieve our assigned goals. Today before the Ukrainian cooperatives – in relation to German administrative policy – stands the following assignment: to show whether or not we can lead, without any mistakes or misunderstandings, the trade sector of the economy; whether we can impartially assume, organize and lead the economic matters of all inhabitants.955 German permission for the expansion of cooperatives showed immediate results. Whereas in 1939 only 161 cooperatives functioned, by the second year of occupation, a total of 955 cooperatives dotted the eastern and southeastern portions of the GG. Total assets of the cooperatives were estimated to be 10 million złotys or some 5 million Reichmarks.956 Cooperatives expanded into all Ukrainian or ethnically-mixed GG regions. Socially, the development and appropriation of cooperatives meant to be a subsequent tool toward territorial nationalization. Ukrainian merchants and craftsmen were called upon to urbanize cities and towns because “We are, after all, the hosts of this piece of land and our assignment is to prove this.” Due to the occupier’s pro-Ukrainian policy, cooperatives did not suffer from economic or logistical problems but advanced to the role of sole partner for German economic institutions in the GG.957 Instead, they became an additional source for financing UTsK projects. For example, depending on a cooperatives annual income, it was obliged to donate from 100 to 1000 złotys to the UTsK budget.958 Importance in the cooperative movement also lay in its historic role in Eastern Europe – as an essential agent in nation-building processes. Although they appeared apolitical in nature, the Germans were aware of the cooperatives potential; like other Ukrainian organizations, “[they] know of only one ultimate goal: to prepare the ground for a Ukrainian state.”959 The credit center for the cooperatives was the Ukraїnbank, located in Jarosław with branches in Kraków and Lublin. In 1942, with the addition of Eastern Galicia to the GG, 68 Ukraїnbanks functioned with an overall balance sheet of over 41 million złotys in assets.960 An advertisement for the Kraków bank branch at 12 Gertrudenstrasse (Św. Getrudy Street), noting of its ability to handle all bank transactions and in close proximity to UTsK headquarters on Grüne Strasse (Sarego Street), appeared in the German-language guidebook for the GG capital.961 Loans were also granted by the GG administration. For example, Frank approved Kubiiovych’s petition in 1941 for a 250 thousand złoty long-term loan for Ukrainian industry and a 3 million zloty construction loan for the Ukraїnbank; presumably for new branches in Eastern Galicia.962 With the occupier aimed to withdraw as much hard currency from circulation as possible, gaining loans proved most beneficial for further investments. Furthermore, the UTsK profited from cooperative earnings; using that added revenue to finance cultural or educational projects and agendas. As Kubiiovych recalled after the war, the German occupiers made exceptions for Ukrainian economic institutions while others had not even admitted them. Furthermore, Ukrainians in Eastern Galicia viewed the increasing cooperative movement and their self-perceived growing importance in filling the void left by either isolated or murdered Jews and disenfranchised Poles as a positive step.963 960 Sycz, Spółdzielczość ukraińska w Galicji..., 198. The Stryj, Czortków and Lwów branches each amassed over 2 million złotys in assets. The conversion rate between the GG złoty and the Reichsmark was: 1 GG złoty = 50 Reich pfennings. 961 “U druhi rokovyhy,” Kraivs’ki Visti vol. 2 no. 238 (October 16, 1941), 2; Heinrich Kurtz, Führer durch die Stadt Krakau (Krakau: Buchverlag Deutscher Osten, 1942). 962 Veryha, The Correspondence…, 316. 963 Volodymyr Kubiiovych (ed), Ukraine. A Concise Encyclopedia vol. 1 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1963), 875; Sycz, Spółdzielczość ukraińska w Galicji..., 245. 964 Snyder, Black Earth…, 108. 965 “Khto ie Zhydy,” Kholmski Visti vol. 1 no. 3 (December 1, 1939), 2. During the period of military administration and wartime chaos, strong anti-Semitic tones appeared among various Ukrainian circles. Losing their citizenship upon the destruction of the Polish state, non-Jewish ethnic groups often adapted immediately to German racial expectations. With this principle abolished and the principle of race established in its place, Snyder argued that no one wanted to be treated worse than the Jews. Racism and materialism became intertwined elements from the onset of occupation.964 Tones of anti-Semitism appeared early in the press. An article in Kholmski Visti described Jews as, “unworthy, despicable, neglected and cruel, cowardly and without honor;” a social element which exploited the German people during the interwar period. The article stated that these characteristics were unknown to the west but were recognized by the Germans and ‘us,’ meaning Ukrainians.965 During the occupation, Ukrainians inherited or occupied and subsequently nationalized former Jewish properties as their own; the Germans often exacerbating local social or economic tensions through the fostering of intolerance or political confrontation.966 Roman Il’nyts’kyi described such Aryanization during his time in the small city of Belz, whose Jewish population during the interwar period numbered some 80 percent. The outbreak of war in 1939 caused some Jews to flee east to the Soviet Union while those who remained were systematically eliminated by the occupier. The deserted city – described by Il’nyts’kyi as a cemetery – was soon repopulated and nationalized without reservation: “And soon on these ruins Ukrainian refugees began to build a new life.”967 966 Taras Hunczak, “Ukrainian-Jewish Relations during the Soviet and Nazi Occupations” in Yury Boshyk (ed), Ukraine during World War II: History and its Aftermath. A Symposium (Edmonton: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, 1986), 39. 967 Roman Il’nyts’kyi, Dumky pro ukraїns’ku vyzvol’nu polityku (Hadiach: Vydavnytstvo Hadiach, 2007), 63. 968 Martin Dean, Robbing the Jews: The Confiscation of Jewish Property in the Holocaust, 1933-1945 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 173; Majer, “Non-Germans” under the Third Reich…, 294-296. 969 Karolina Lanckorońska, Those Who Trespass against Us: One Woman’s War against the Nazis, trans. Noel Clark (London: Pimlico, 2005), 64. 970 Dean, Robbing the Jews…, 182-184. As Dean explained, Franks creation of the Treuhandstelle aimed to prevent Hermann Göring and his Haupttreuhandstelle Ost (Main Trust Office East), which functioned on those prewar Polish territories directly annexed into the Reich, from both, exploiting and extracting Polish and Jewish property in his territory – things he aimed to do – and to prevent a separate organization from operating in his administrative zone, especially one which answered to Göring. The German invasion and occupation of Poland included a widespread seizure of property, either meant for Aryanization or for the needs of the German war economy. Here, Jewish bank accounts were blocked, restrictions on Jewish trade imposed while the Germans also demanded contributions from them. The earning from confiscated enterprises and goods enriched German pockets while confiscated property was used to meet administrative demands for office space or accommodation.968 To implement and oversee civil anti-Jewish laws, bureaucratic structures were applied to manage and exploit former Jewish businesses and property – Trustee Offices (Treuhandstellen). Among its main tasks were the registration and administration of abandoned properties – factories, businesses. However, it also became a legal means of plundering and looting. Countess Karolina Lanckorońska recalled the work of the trustees in Kraków, “I do not know of any case in which the Treuhänder did not make off with a significant quantity of articles from a manor or palace, particularly in the case of antique furniture, porcelain and, above all, clocks.”969 From its inception, the office had explicit instructions to take over and liquidate all Jewish businesses. By October 1940, the Kraków Trustee Office administered 849 trade and craft businesses; over 2,500 houses and apartments along with hundreds of hotels, bars, and restaurants. Although created as a bureaucratic tool to regulate the administration of confiscated property, it was rife with inefficiency and corruption; suffering from the “wild East” mentality of exploitation and personal opportunism. As Martin Dean noted, the image of legality, portrayed through the office, “served here mainly as an additional tool for rampant exploitation.”970 The idea of restructuring the GG, advocated by Arlt for sociological, demographic and racial reasons, directly correlated with the economic sector. To redevelop the economy, Frank’s director of economic affairs Walter Emmerich proposed fundamentally rationalizing Jewish involvement in that sector. Compressing it would open the door for a Polish sector to be formed in its place; for Poles, and Ukrainians, to catch up through artificially created medium-sized businesses. Such a business environment would be easier for GG authorities to also monitor and control. The trust administration served as a subsequent, legal tool toward ‘evacuating’ the Jews from GG life. 971 971 Aly and Heim, Architects of Annihilation…, 140-142; 150- 972 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 20, folder 21, Zvit z zasidannia Komitetu dopomohovoho ukraїns’kym bizhentsiam i polonenym v Krakovi, October 21, 1939. 973 PUMST, file A269, Sprawy ukraińskie /partie, organizacje/, September 1941, p. 87; file A268, Sztab Naczelnego Wodza Oddział IV: L. dz. 685/tj.42 – referat ppor. Flegel-Cepińskiego, March 5, 1942. 974 Myroslav Semchyshyn, Z knyhy leva. Ukraїns’kyi L’viv dvadtsiatykh-sorokovykh rokiv (L’viv: Narodove Tovarystvo im. Shevchenka, 1998), 93; 103. The incorporation of the Trustee Office in the GG in October 1939 created an employment opportunity for Ukrainians who found themselves in interment centers in Kraków. That same month, the employment director of the aid committee for prisoners in the city reported of Ukrainians receiving positions as commissioners overseeing abandoned Jewish businesses; becoming trustees or Treuhandmänner.972 A Polish report described Ukrainian life in the GG being eased thanks to the Germans “generous” employment of Ukrainians as trustees. Concerning the Chełm region, a subsequent note described more intelligent Ukrainian nationalists – those who also spoke German – being trustees over former Jewish homes, properties or businesses there.973 Following the incorporation of Eastern Galicia into the GG, this scenario repeated itself in Lwów. Ukrainians with some familiarity with the German language applied for work as trustees to administer over former Polish and Jewish properties seized by the occupier. To some, this work equated to opportunistic desires by those who wished to “warm their hands” over such control. Abandoned Jewish property in that city, following pogroms and targeted extermination, was taken hold of by the arriving intrinsic Ukrainian elements, often coming from the provincial countryside.974 For many, trusteeship over businesses meant a means of making concrete money. Whether Poles, Germans or Ukrainians, trustees were interested only in personal gain who showed no desire to preserve the Jewish enterprises entrusted to them but saw them as “a fat living to line their own pockets.” The Polish prewar bookstore Powszechna in Kraków was placed in the trust of Ukrainians; costing them a bottle of vodka and pork bacon in the GG propaganda department. Here, children’s books were published en masse, surpassing the limit of 1 thousand copies imposed by the authorities. The 9 thousand additional copies were sent to Warsaw where they were purchased on the black market and resold. In this way, business flourished. After the war, Ivan Kedryn described the state and mindset of two types of Ukrainian trustees which developed: Among our ‘Treuhandmänner’ were those who followed their fellow countrymen, came to Kraków barefoot and hungry, and sold products which they got for their ration cards or on the black market for pennies, ones we did not have. But there were also those who saw themselves as being above their countrymen who came to their shops who they viewed as a lower breed – swine. These Treuhandmänner were doing them a favor in selling pieces of material, undergarments or any type of clothing. That is why this Treuhandmänner phenomenon was demoralizing. Under Poland, many of these people were poor while in Kraków and many other German occupied cities they became trustees of large Jewish shops or enterprises, quickly becoming real well-off men. Toward the end of the war, some of them came to Germany or Austria with their hard-earned wealth, what became the basis of the existence of some and later for their travels to the American continent.975 975 Majer, “Non-Germans” under the Third Reich…, 295; Kedryn, Zhyttia-podiї-liudy..., 347-349. 976 Kharkevych, Ia vas ne zabuv..., 69. 977 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/4, Tagebuch 1940: Zweiter Band – April bis Juni, pp. 344-345; GK 95/8, Wirtschaftstagung, June 6-7, 1940, p. 44. 978 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 26, folder 2, Denkschrift von Ukrainer aus den Besetzen Gebieten, November 17, 1939. 979 BA, R 52 II/247, Bericht über den Aufbau im GG, July 1, 1940, p. 189. 980 “Sprawy organizacyjne, informacje wywiadowcze, raport o sytuacji w kraju, sprawa łączności i pieniędzy (February 8, 1940)” in Armia Krajowa w dokumentach 1939-1945 vol. 1, 108-109; “Sprawy ukraińsko-polskie od września 1939 do listopada 1941 – przewidywania na przyszłość (November 15, 1941)” in Armia Krajowa w dokumentach 1939-1945 vol. 2, 140; Andrzej Chwalba, Okupacyjny Kraków w latach 1939-1945 (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 2011), 86. Kharkevych also reminisced of the “delightful Treuhandmänner who dreamed that something from the lavishly-set table of the Third Reich would fall to them too. At first shy, they later boldly and openly raised their right hands, awkwardly forcing out the disgraceful slogan Heil.”976 The GG administration also complained of “scandalous conditions” and the “uncontrolled plundering” by trustees. By 1940, confiscated enterprises ceased being competitive as a lack of capital combined with trustee incompetence placed many on the verge of bankruptcy. Administrators debated eliminating the trustees who “earned vast sums, and they administered up to 25 businesses, often employing their wives on high salaries.”977 As early as November 1939, during his first meeting with Frank, Kubiiovych argued for the improvement and nationalization of trade at the local level by putting those businesses in the hands of Ukrainians; until that point, these matters were in the hands of the Jewish inhabitants: “He [the Jew] stood at a low level and was mainly set on the exploitation of the Ukrainian peasants.”978 As a result, Ukrainians received proprietorship over former Jewish businesses; advertisements for which appeared on the pages of Krakivs’ki Visti. Many were located in the Kazimierz district of Kraków; the historic Jewish quarter of the city. By mid-1940, a GG organizational report listed 310 Ukrainian workers as Treuhänder and 80 home or property managers (Hausverwalter).979 Indeed, Ukrainians received residency registrations without major problems, something which cannot be said for Poles. After the eviction of Jews from their properties, they often received trust over them, especially throughout streets bordering along and immediately in the Jewish quarter. In his clandestine report of Polish-Ukrainian relations to the prime minister-in-exile, General Grot-Rowecki did not hesitate to mention of Ukrainians taking-over former Jewish properties and businesses as trustees.980 Furthermore, a report by the Ukrainian welfare committee in the city from December emphasized the need to acquire private apartments for Ukrainians.981 Zynovii Knysh described having ‘their man’ in the housing office who oversaw the accommodation of Ukrainians in abandoned or seized apartments; ones the Germans designated for their use. For example, Knysh and his wife occupied two rooms of a Jewish woman’s apartment. Seized apartments were also prone to exchange. Kedryn received one such apartment after an “intellectual Jewish family” in the city from his German colleague who initially overtook the property.982 Journalist and lawyer Mykhailo Khomiak, who came to Kraków from Lwów, received an apartment at Kommandanturstraße (Stradomska Street). However, because of the tenement house’s close proximity to the city center and because it was later designated for German inhabitants, he was given an apartment on Stanislaugasse (Św. Stanisława Street); located close to the Jewish district of the city. Both apartments were seized by the city’s trust office. In a letter he wrote to the German district office, he reported of receiving oral permission to take along during the move the furniture of the previous occupant, the Jewish doctor Finkelstein: a bed, sofa, bookcase, desk, mirror, table, food cupboard, two wardrobes, and six chairs. This letter was to confirm the permission he received. In a subsequent note to the trustee office, he described the deplorable condition of his new apartment. The former Jewish property “was so venomous and filthy, I was forced to refurbish and disinfect the whole apartment at my own expense.” He asked that the money he spent on this – 190 zlotys – be either reimbursed to him by the trustee office or be put to off-set his rent. He concluded that he was forced to undertake a subsequent disinfection.983 981 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 20, folder 21, Zvit z 7-ho zasidannia Komitetu, December 9, 1939. 982 Knysh, Pered pokhodom na skhid, vol. 2, 94-95; Kedryn, Zhyttia-podiї-liudy... 346. Kedryn postulated that the Jewish family was either forced out of their apartment by the occupiers or fled to avoid German anti-Semitic policies. 983 PAA, MCF, 85.191, box 2, file 20, two letters from Khomiak to the Kraków Trustee Office, September 1940. 984 AP-L, DGdDL, sygn. 155, Note to the Kreishauptmann in Zamość, December 20, 1940, p. 59. 985 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 26, folder 16, Die Denkschrift der ukrainischen Volksgruppe im Generalgouvernement, April 18, 1941. Kubiiovych and UTsK’s collaboration with the occupation regime in demanding and accepting former Jewish property on the one hand established and furthered their social monopoly of Ukrainian life throughout the GG while, on the other hand, made them, part and parcel, contributors to the radical, anti-Semitic, Aryanization policies of the Germans. He showed a willful blindness toward the Jews, their plundered homes or expropriated businesses, instead viewing them through the abstract threat of ‘Judeo-Bolshevism’ or as a historic exploiter of the Ukrainian people. As early as 1940, notes were sent to German administrators in which Ukrainian villagers called for Jewish business to be handed over to them.984 Just as Arlt was adamant about removing the Jews from the social state, Kubiiovych also openly advocated the removal of Jewish elements and influence as a means of emancipating what was once Ukrainian and what could once again be Ukrainian. In his April 1941 memorandum to Frank, in which he looked to legally legitimize Ukrainian presence and ownership on GG territory, he called for the removal of Jews from what he viewed as Ukrainian ethnographic territory.985 As he argued, it lay in the interest of the Reich to “break the influence of the Polish and Jewish peoples” in ethnically-mixed territories and to replace them with loyal, good Ukrainian elements. To break that longstanding influence, he called for the Germans to euphemistically “cleanse this region… through resettlement.”986 While territorial ownership was important, Kubiiovych petitioned to emancipate the one social sphere where he claimed Jews had the largest monopoly during the interwar period, trade and commerce.987 The removal of Poles and liquidation of Jews from fields of local commerce – buyers, merchants, craftsmen – created a new Ukrainian bourgeoisie or, as the Poles saw it, a “false class.”988 986 Ibid, 2. Das ukrainische Volkstumsgebiet im Generalgouvernement, April 18, 1941. 987 Ibid, Sachlage des ukrainischen Handels im Generalgouvernement, April 18, 1941. 988 PISM, MIiD, folder A.10.3/12, Wyciąg z komunikatu nr. 8 Sztabu Naczelnego Wodza Oddział II, February 15, 1941. 989 Veryha, The Correspondence…, 317. 990 Ibid, 342; Rossoliński-Liebe, Stepan Bandera: The Life and Afterlife…, 254fn87. 991 TsDAVOVUU, UTsK, op. 3959, f. 2, spr. 39, UTsK-L’viv Ukrainian business report, June 1942, p. 128. 992 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/36, Tagebuch 1944: Juni bis Juli – Band IV, p. 5. Immediately after the German invasion of the USSR and their swift successes, Kubiiovych sent a note to Frank petitioning to create a Ukrainian national military force to fight alongside the Wehrmacht against not only the Bolsheviks but also the “Jewified English-American plutocracy.”989 In an August 1941 memorandum to Frank, immediately following Eastern Galicia’s inclusion into the GG, Kubiiovych once again reiterated transferring confiscated Jewish belongings over to the Ukrainians. He argued that the whole Jewish wealth belonged in fact to the Ukrainians who lost it through the Jews “ruthless breach of law… and their exploitation of members of the Ukrainian people.” To make up for this injustice, he proposed Jewish property be returned to the Ukrainians once again while Jewish land holdings be given to Ukrainian peasant farmers.990 For example in the Eastern Galician town of Drohobycz, Ukrainians forced Jews out of their apartments because they “did not want to live together with them.” The aid committee there aryanized the property of the Jewish craftsmen. By mid-1942, the share of Ukrainian businesses in Lwów increased from 7.4 percent during the interwar period to nearly 44 percent.991 Even with the war hanging in the balance, Hans Frank was making plans to hold an anti-Jewish congress in Kraków and specified to invite Kubiiovych to participate.992 4.6 – The Exploitation of Ukrainians – In Service to the Reich and GG Even though the German occupation authorities looked more favorably toward Ukrainians than their Polish counterparts, this did not spare them from similar obligations as placed upon GG Poles; what stands as the darker and more brutal side of willful collaboration with the Nazi occupation regime and something which Kubiiovych struggled to alleviate throughout the entire war. Ukrainians, just as their Polish counterparts, were susceptible to forced labor both as migrants to the Reich and in the GG, as well as to supplying the Germans with large harvest consignment quotas. As Kate Brown explained, this aspect of German rule, in the Reichskommissariat Ukraine but also in the GG, was set up in such a way that collaboration was simply inescapable.993 Of course, even in this regard, the occupier’s goal was to exploit all non-Germans for their wartime needs. The economic portion of Frank’s ethnic policy aimed to keep alive the so-called “cash cow” – those fit for labor – to benefit his regime and the Reich war effort in general. Using them as colonial serfs was something poignantly summarized by Richard Walther Darré, Reich minister of food and agriculture: “territories inhabited by foreign races must become regions of slaves, either farmers or laborers.”994 993 Kate Brown, A Biography of No Place: From Ethnic Borderland to Soviet Heartland (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003), 217. 994 Grelka, “Polityka narodowościowa niemieckich władz okupacyjnych we wschodniej Polsce...,” 75-76; Szcześniak and Szota, Droga do nikąd. Wojna polska z UPA..., 72. 995 Edward L. Homze, Foreign Labor in Nazi Germany (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967), 26. 996 BA, NS 19/1737, Denkschrift Himmlers über die Behandlung der Fremdvölkischen im Osten, May 28, 1940. Labor was an essential necessity for the German war effort. With strong, predominantly young, German men serving in the Wehrmacht or security and police units fighting to conquer more Lebensraum for the Greater German Reich, workers were needed to supplement deficiencies in industry and agriculture. The conquest of Poland opened a new market for forced, slave labor. The Nazis’ colonial Drang nach Osten in search of coveted living space was accompanied by tones of Social Darwinism and cultural arrogance. According to them, the superior Germanic race had every right to exploit the inferior eastern races to secure whatever they needed to flourish. Hitler called for Poles to be used as a labor source; occupied territory to be an Arbeitsreich for the Herrenvolk.995 Consequently, the prospect of recruiting foreign labor from the GG aimed to serve as a population control mechanism geared toward selective reduction since, in the eyes of Nazi theoreticians, occupied Poland was overpopulated. This mixture of racial supremacy over inferior easterners combined with the practical need for labor to drive the German war machine resonated in Himmler’s thoughts on handling eastern foreign people. He believed all “unworthy” Poles, Ukrainians, and others from the GG would join other undesirables in the Reich to become “a leaderless working people.” They were to be migrant workers coming annually to Germany to work on special grandiose building projects. They would have, at least in theory, better living conditions than under the Poles while working under the “strict, consistent and just management of the German people.”996 The first major reserve of manpower which turned into Reich labor stemmed from the September 1939 conquest of Poland. By its end, some 210 thousand Polish army prisoners-of-war were transferred to Germany and deployed as workers. This number increased to 300 thousand by January 1940 and some 420 thousand by war's end with the majority employed in the Reich agricultural sector. The POW labor source also included Ukrainian soldiers of the Polish army; the first substantial Ukrainian group to be exploited for work in Germany. Of the total POW number at war's end, ethnic Ukrainians constituted 85 thousand or some 20 percent. After their arrival to the Reich, their status changed to that of civilian workers.997 In a report on Ukrainian agricultural workers in the Reich, Kubiiovych claimed that some 48 thousand were recruited and shipped to Germany in 1940 alone. Afanasii Figol’, UTsK liaison in Berlin, claimed of as many as 400-500 thousand Ukrainian laborers from the GG in the Reich. However, those figures seem inflated. Following the attachment of Eastern Galicia to the GG, the German Labor Front estimated that Ukrainian laborers from the GG in the Reich numbered between 250 and 300 thousand.998 997 Ulrich Herbert, A History of Foreign Labor in Germany 1880-1980, trans. William Templer (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1990), 131; Myroslav Yurkevich, “Galician Ukrainians in German Military Formations and in the German Administration” in Ukraine during World War II: History and its Aftermath.., 74. 998 Veryha, The Correspondence…, 191; 394; 547. 999 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 20, folder 21, Zvit z 10-ho zasidannia Komitetu, January 17, 1940; Zvit z 12-ho zasidannia Komitetu, February 3, 1940. 1000 Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Heneralnii Huberniї, 190-191. 1001 Izhyk, Smikh kriz' sl’ozy..., 37. Ukrainians who fled Eastern Galicia in fear of Soviet occupation and temporarily inhabited transit camps in Kraków were also a source of labor recruitment. Those not designated for work in the GG were shipped-off to the Reich. A report for January 1940 compiled by the Ukrainian aid committee for refugees and prisoners described a “substantial” transport of 700 Ukrainian workers begin prepared to head west by the GG Labor Office (Arbeitsamt). Other transports were less substantial but also fruitful. For example, one organized at the end of that month recruited 75 workers, 27 of which were women.999 Alongside fleeing Galician Ukrainians, Lemkos constituted a group which, according to Kubiiovych, happily volunteered for labor service so as to leave rural conditions of poverty. However, their migration for bread was regarded as a common characteristic engrained in their historic past. Overall, Kubiiovych positively assessed the possibilities of trained, experienced workers, especially for future nationalization plans: … our villagers saw the world in which they could learn something, particularly from the side of agriculture. Many Ukrainians even received vocational training and became qualified workers. In the event of the favorable development of events for us, they could, after their return home, settle in cities and contribute to their ukrainization.1000 However, Ukrainians and Lemkos in the region recalled a different, more depressing sight: “Nearly every week the police came and carted out to Germany young boys and girls before later taking older men. Women and children were left at home on the farms.”1001 To satiate the pressing need for laborers in the Reich, the Germans looked toward their recently conquered, new colonial prize as an untapped reservoir. In the GG, the mobilization of labor, either internally or “for export,” succeeded largely due to the fact that Reich officials treated it as a foreign territory. This allowed them to bypass obligations toward the principles of Reich labor laws by treating non-Germans along the conceived norms for all foreign laborers in the Reich.1002 1002 Majer, “Non-Germans” under the Third Reich…, 302. Conversely, local Germans were treated as if the GG was an immediate part of the Reich as they were paid German-Reich rates. 1003 Mark Spoerer, Zwangsarbeit unter dem Hakenkreuz. Ausländische Zivilarbeiter, Kriegsgefangene und Häftlinge im Deutschen Reich und im besetzen Europa 1939-1945 (Stuttgart-München: Deutsche Verlags, 2001), 47; Czesław Łuczak (ed), Położenie polskich robotników przymusowych w Rzeszy, 1939-1945 (Poznań: Instytut Zachodni, 1975), 10-13. 1004 Aly and Hiem, Architects of Annihilation…, 154-155. Aside from migrant labor to the Reich, Meinhold, in his propositions to regulate GG overpopulation suggested: to increase the number of jobs in the GG itself as far as possible, to reduce the density of the population in the GG, and to adapt the scale and pace of labor deployment in the GG to meet the needs of the other three measures; so that they take proper effect. 1005 Herbert, A History of Foreign Labor in Germany, 135-136. Shortly after the organization of the General Government, Hans Frank set into action his first official act – mandatory work duty for all non-Germans. By the end of October 1939, the first set of temporary recruitment guidelines appeared; ones which emphasized voluntary consignment. For 1940, Frank pledged to send 1 million workers to the Reich in agreement with the economic needs of Göring’s four-year plan.1003 GG economists also viewed migrant labor to the Reich as one of several mechanisms to reduce the population pressure there. Helmut Meinhold, who proposed the measure of population control through migrant work, had reservations to this idea. He feared many political, ethnopolitical, biological and economic dangers that could arise from the mixing of foreign nationalities with Germans. In addition, he believed that employment would also have to be found for family members of migrant workers back home. In part, he wished to utilize all labor possibilities in the GG to a maximum but prevent them from becoming “a socially destabilized and therefore politically volatile element as a consequence of their idleness.” In other words, employment in his view equated to preventative measures of keeping internal order and security. Economist Rudolf Gater concluded that the forced labor option was a good solution but not a complete solution as it in itself would not completely absorb the GG population surplus, especially the Jews. By 1940, some 340 thousand persons had been deported to the Reich for labor from the GG. Realistically, Gater believed that up to 2 million persons of working age could be sent there. Although a large number indeed, other means would be enacted to better control the overpopulated GG.1004 In March 1940, a set of comprehensive measures regulated in detail a strictly controlled existence for racial inferior workers from occupied Poland in the Reich. They were obliged to wear a clearly visible “P” on their clothing and levied an additional 15 percent “social compensation tax” for rebuilding the GG. This made them in essence a very cheap labor source. They were prohibited from using public transportation or swimming pools; from leaving their districts of residence, using bicycles or of any sexual contact with Germans. The latter often meant public execution for males and public humiliation for females.1005 German propaganda printed in Krakivs’ki Visti described the initial organized character of Ukrainian labor transports to the Reich. Volunteers stayed in transit camps where they received food and were disinfected and subject to medical examinations. Once deemed healthy for work, they were transported to a subsequent camp before travelling to Germany. The article concluded: “On the basis of their letters, more new workers are planning to travel to Germany because they receive good foodstuffs for their work and fair wages which they can save and send to their families [in the GG].”1006 German propaganda posters, reprinted in Ukrainian, called on them to volunteer for agricultural work. On one, a young Ukrainian dressed in traditional folk costume and waving to the reader to join him, exclaimed: “You can still volunteer for agricultural work!” It then listed 12 positive benefits for workers: they would be treated as contract employees, families would be kept together, they would receive ample food and clean quarters from their German farmers, religious freedom would be respected, and they had the opportunity to write letters to relatives back home and to send money to them. The last point read: “This will be your life in Germany… Peaceful and pleasing work awaits you!”1007 1006 “Organizatsiia vyїzdu ril’nykh robitkykiv do Nimechchyny” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 1 no. 20 (March 17, 1940), 6. 1007 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 27, folder 16, Labor poster, n.d. 1008 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 17, folder 24, Ukraїns’ke robitnytstvo v Nimechchyni, n.d. 1009 Spoerer, Zwangsarbeit unter dem Hakenkreuz..., 91-92; Pan’kivs’kyi, Roky nimetskoї okupatsiї, 200. Reality often differed from the propagandized ideality described in the press. Work transports were escorted to the Reich under tight security. Workers were forbidden from leaving their wagons where they often travelled in hunger. Upon arrival to the Reich, they were placed in transit camps where subsequent disinfection took place. Because of the language barrier between camp guards and workers – the former not knowing Ukrainian while the latter knew little to no German – misunderstanding often led to harsh punishment or even executions. When workers did receive their details, families were often split-up and sent to various work sites throughout the Reich.1008 Whereas Hitler and the Nazi German regime destroyed the concept of citizenship after their occupation of Poland, recognizing previously, legally non-existent ethnic groups, they maintained it in relation to their labor hierarchy. This, in effect, divided Ukrainian laborers, the de facto prewar stateless peoples, on the basis of Polish and Soviet citizens. Workers from allied or neutral countries and from the occupied countries of the north, west and southeast of Europe assumed the top two levels in the Nazi labor hierarchy. Below these groups were workers from the Baltic countries and the GG, including non-ethnic Polish-Ukrainians. Ethnic Poles, Soviet workers, including Soviet Ukrainians – the so-called Ostarbeiter or eastern workers, and Jews, Roma or Sinti constituted the bottom levels. Pan’kiv’skyi viewed this hierarchy in more simplified terms – a division between ‘friendly’ and ‘unfriendly’ elements.1009 This structuring caused many GG Ukrainians to be classified or, in the eyes of the UTsK – misidentified, as Polish laborers and susceptible to the harsh anti-Polish legal measures. Such was the case of an 18 year old laborer from Eastern Galicia who was forced to wear the “P” patch, categorizing him as a Pole: “I had to wear a tag, either a ‘P’ for Polish or ‘OST’ for Russian. I didn’t want either…. Pollack or Russian… Gestapo says I have to wear one…”1010 Even though Ukrainians were exempt from wearing the “P” patch by mid-1940, bureaucratic confusion, fluctuating political approaches toward ethnic GG groups, and a lack of familiarity with the stateless self-perception of ethnic Ukrainians forced many to choose an eastern labor designation.1011 1010 Quoted in Stephen C. Telka, “Ukrainian Laborers in Nazi Germany, 1939-45.” MA thesis, Carleton University, Ottawa, 2008, 55. 1011 “Shcho treba znaty ukraїns’kym robitnykam u Nimechchyni?” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 1 no. 77 (August 14, 1940), 7. 1012 Wasyl Veryha (ed), Ukraїntsi v Berlini 1918-1945 (Toronto: Naukove Tovarystvo im. Shevchenka v Kanadi, 1996), 180. Only those Ukrainians who arrived in Germany before September 1, 1939 or those who came to Germany before that date from any country except Poland were eligible for UNO membership. 1013 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 26, folder 10, Tätigkeitsbericht der Vertretung in Berlin, July 5, 1941. 1014 “Shcho treba znaty ukraїns’kym robitnykam u Nimechchyni?” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 1 no. 77 (August 14, 1940), 7. To aid Ukrainian laborers throughout the Reich, émigré organizations and networks were prepared to not only assist but also recruit them into their ranks. The Ukrainian National Union, which fell under the influence of the OUN by mid-1939, and the Hetmanite Ukrainian Hromada hoped to boost their ranks and influence among the newly-arrived labor migrants. However, as of mid-1941, these organizations, specifically the UNO, received instructions forbidding them to accept new members from among civil laborers from the GG.1012 To look after Ukrainians from the GG in the Reich, a trustee council (Ukrainischen Vertrauensstelle) was organized in Berlin; a body which de facto served as the UTsK’s representative in the Reich. It was closely relegated under the GG plenipotentiary in Germany. Leadership of this representation was delegated to Figol’. Financial funds for the council was provided in-full by the UTsK. Its main responsibility centered on welfare for GG Ukrainians: intervening in work matters (conditions, wages and pay), issuing documents certifying Ukrainian ethnicity to differentiate workers from Poles and to ensure social, legal equality with ethnic German workers.1013 Of importance for Kubiiovych and the UTsK branch in Berlin was to maintain the German racial, ethnic policies of divide and conquer by convincing the authorities of the ethnic distinctiveness of Ukrainian laborers so as to prevent them from being categorized and treated as Poles simply because they came from former-Polish lands or were citizens of the prewar republic. Here, Kubiiovych and the UTsK often intervened with the authorities on behalf of workers. Since they could not fundamentally change German labor policies, they did everything to make their situation better. To identify themselves as ‘Ukrainian,’ at least temporarily, a Krakivs’ki Visti article suggested specifying religious denomination in German labor documents, either Greek Catholic or Orthodox.1014 To avoid ethnic categorization problems, Kubiiovych suggested aid committees provide workers with certificates attesting to their Ukrainian ethnicity. Additionally, he recommended closely working with the GG labor office in order to register Ukrainians on transport manifests and lists accordingly.1015 1015 Veryha, The Correspondence…, 191-192. 1016 Pan’kivs’kyi, Roky nimetskoї okupatsiї, 201. 1017 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 26, folder 11, Die Denkschrift der ukrainischen Volksgruppe im Generalgouvernement, April 17, 1941. 1018 Telka, “Ukrainian Laborers in Nazi Germany, 1939-45,” 56. 1019 See the various issues of Krakivs’ki Visti published in December 1941. 1020 Herbert, A History of Foreign Labor in Germany, 134; “Raport o sytuacji wewnętrznej w kraju (April 10, 1940)” in Armia Krajowa w dokumentach 1939-1945 vol. 1, 193. The UTsK was permitted to provide certificates – Ausweise – attesting the Ukrainian ethnicity of its bearer. This document differentiated GG Ukrainians from severe Polish treatment and, most importantly, excluded them from labor taxes.1016 Additionally, it was another means of identifying and increasing Ukrainian statistical records. In his April 1941 memorandum to Frank, Kubiiovych again called attention to this pressing issue. He claimed that even though Ukrainians comprised 7 percent of the total GG population, they formed a larger percentage of laborers in the Reich; between 12 and 14 percent. Because of this, he called on the Germans to organize concrete instructions aiming to differentiate and better treat Ukrainian workers from the GG as compared to Poles.1017 The previously mentioned laborer from Eastern Galicia gained his Ausweise from UTsK representatives in Berlin. “I wrote a letter with a picture and birth certificate for Ukrainian ID” he recalled. “I talked back to the Gestapo and told them I’m Ukrainian.” His re-categorization prevented him from having to wear an identification patch and earned him a better curfew.1018 Notices calling on potential workers to obtain UTsK Ausweise were placed in various numbers of Krakivs’ki Visti. Without these documents, they warned, workers would not receive the work or pay intended for Ukrainian workers.1019 An underlying problem which Kubiiovych also mentioned lay in the occupiers divide and rule approach of Polish-Ukrainian antagonisms. The Germans initiated in two methods toward worker recruitment. Immediately following the occupation of Poland, they utilized recruitment lists which conscripted unemployed Poles for labor. Immediate reactions caused Poles to avoid registration by any means necessary – fleeing to the forests or avoiding conscription notices altogether. The authorities then enacted forced conscription quotas for individual districts and municipalities. Here, numbers were often placed upon a given district and subsequently divided among cities, towns, and villages. Where this proved ineffective, German authorities forcibly rounded-up future laborers. Cinemas and schools were cordoned off, neighborhoods were raided, and reprisals were meted out on villages from which possible conscripts had fled.1020 A main source of antipathy between Poles and Ukrainians came from meeting quotas at the local civic levels. Where Poles or Ukrainians remained wójts or sołtyses in ethnically-mixed areas, quota conscriptions were more one-sided. Kubiiovych described Polish civil administrators as employing “coercive measures” allowing them to “remove Ukrainians hated by them while protecting the Polish population.1021 Incidents arose in which Poles working in the GG labor offices provided Ukrainian volunteers with certificate which placed them in transports for Russian laborers and in Russian worker camps. Unable to speak German, a note concluded, they lay vulnerable to the whim of eastern workers.1022 Kubiiovych urged to replace Polish labor officials in ethnically-mixed or Ukrainian-majority villages with Ukrainians. Such a solution, he claimed, would only increase recruitment – as it would not be seen as ethnic revenge or spite.1023 1021 Veryha, The Correspondence…, 191. 1022 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 27, folder 1, Memorandum to Governor General Frank – Attachment 3, February 25, 1943. 1023 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 26, folder 11, Die Denkschrift der ukrainischen Volksgruppe im Generalgouvernement, April 17, 1941. 1024 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/25, Tagebuch 1943, January 16, 1943, pp. 15-16. 1025 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 26, folder 11, Die Denkschrift der ukrainischen Volksgruppe im Generalgouvernement, April 17, 1941. 1026 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 17, folder 24, Gedächtnisprotokoll über die Aussprache des Generalgouverneurs mit der ukrainischen Abordnung, January 16, 1942. 1027 Veryha, The Correspondence…, 392. 1028 Pan’kivs’kyi, Roky nimetskoї okupatsiї, 198-199. Kubiiovych also viewed the contribution of Ukrainian labor in the Reich in positive terms. To him, the 400 thousand strong Ukrainian labor army was subsequent proof of loyalty toward the Germans; an argument to in turn treat them better than Poles.1024 Whereas the bad Poles fled, obedient Ukrainians submitted to work for the Reich war effort. He described this as “the expression of the will of better cooperation than the Poles in the war-related work of the Great German Reich. I expect that the Ukrainian population will continue to be characterized by a willingness to work for the Reich, as compared to the Poles…”1025 Faithfully completing ones duty was also the perception among GG administrators. At the annual New Year’s meeting with Frank, Walther Föhl of the internal affairs department mentioned of 60 thousand Ukrainians from Eastern Galicia having volunteered for labor in the Reich; as compared to only 9 thousand Poles. Frank recognized this as a subsequent example of Ukrainians supporting the struggle of the Reich and concluded: “This fact alone has more value than any words.”1026 Up until the Soviet invasion, treatment of Ukrainian laborers in the Reich remained rather normal in comparison to other ethnic groups. Kubiiovych wrote: “Until the end of 1941, Ukrainians in Germany were always equal with Germans as well as foreign workers from German-friendly countries, in terms of social-, work-, or tax laws.”1027 Galician Ukrainians, recalling the brutal two-year Soviet occupation, continued to look toward Germans through an idealized lens, correlating working in the Reich with past experiences in which they were on an equal level with Germans and received fair pay.1028 Propaganda in Krakivs’ki Visti presented optimistic images of laborers. Agricultural workers who volunteered for service were subject to contracts committing them to at least nine months of work before either renewing their detail or returning home. Perhaps most importantly, the article confirmed the pay scale for Ukrainian farmers as being the same as for Germans and not Poles. Additionally, Ukrainian volunteers received 50 złotys for their travels and to help get them on their feet. Kubiiovych later recalled of work not being over excessive with wages and pay being good.1029 1029 “Sprava vyїzdu sil’s’kykh robitnykiv do Nimechchyny,” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 2 no. 59 (March 19, 1941), 4; Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Heneralnii Huberniї, 191. 1030 Spoerer, Zwangsarbeit unter dem Hakenkreuz..., 156-157; Telka, “Ukrainian Laborers in Nazi Germany, 1939-45,” 65. 1031 Pan’kivs’kyi, Roky nimetskoї okupatsiї, 207. 1032 Veryha, The Correspondence…, 414-417. 1033 Quoted in Telka, “Ukrainian Laborers in Nazi Germany, 1939-45,” 94. The initial, swift defeat of Soviet forces in the east and the subsequent labor market which emerged there caused a change in Nazi labor policy. In February 1942, GG Ukrainians were degraded from their higher status among northern and western Europeans to the level of ethnic Poles. Like the Poles, they were levied with a specialized GG tax. The degradation was politically and racially motivated. On the one hand, German policy placed non-Polish GG workers against Polish ones, dividing them “to be positioned… opposite ethnic Poles and placed more liberally than them in the German Reich.” Conversely, racial policy was not forgotten: “living standards, character and political instructions of these workers cannot be brought in unison with the German living standard.”1030 By mid-1943, the tax was lifted from the Ukrainians. The UTsK received letters from Ukrainian laborers describing everyday life. Conditions of agricultural workers in rural German towns or villages were better than their municipal counterparts as they received better living conditions and were less exposed to police scrutiny or monitoring.1031 Those from Eastern Galicia working in an iron foundry, categorized as “OST” workers, wrote of their unfair treatment in comparison to other ethnic workers. In such cases, ethnic groups rivalled or dominated one another even in these labor conditions. To them, easterners were alien. Being an ethnic minority in camps with other eastern laborers also proved difficult for Ukrainians. The non-Ukrainian camp translators refused to help them. As a result, they were unable to send translated letters to their family in Galicia or to lodge complaints with the labor office or were at the mercy of the non-Ukrainian kitchen staff who at times allotted them with meager food rations as compared to others. They, as eastern workers, were subject to strict monitoring to and from work details “as slaves or criminals” while “we have to look with bitter feelings as the other ethnic workers enjoy liberties, go unaccompanied to work and to the city and we cannot even leave the camp…” Ukrainian in such situations proposed transfer to be among Galician Ukrainian Reich workers who retained more liberties than eastern workers.1032 Other workers recalled feeling as second-class, humiliated laborers. One GG Ukrainian recalled his humiliation in being deployed to his work detail, “[a] farmer picked me up from the labor office bureau. The Nazi had a bike and I walked behind him – only eight kilometers, like a calf after his mother cow.”1033 Such incidents also illustrated the degree of racial superiority which existed among average German farmers or industrial directors. UTsK delegations travelled to Ukrainian worker camps in Austria to see firsthand the conditions they lived in and to speak to them directly. Rubber factory workers in Traiskirchen shared their barracks with Poles. Barrack life was the same for both Poles and Ukrainians. Both received 370 grams of bread daily but in contrast to the Poles, Ukrainians did not receive additional weekly, 120 gram rations of marmalade. The same curfew applied to both groups. This particularly bothered the Ukrainians as they could not, for example, leave in the evenings to travel to the UNO branch in nearby Vienna to take part in cultural events. In camps where eastern and western Ukrainians were kept, a difference was seen in their standards; the latter receiving slightly more foodstuffs then their eastern counterparts. To improve conditions, UTsK representatives suggested providing workers with Ukrainian-language literature for after work respites, to provide them with books for learning the German language, a necessity to communicate with camp overseers. Finally, they suggested conducting regular trips to instill in laborers the image of the UTsK caring for their well-being as well as serving an outlet for their everyday problems, something which German labor services failed to do.1034 As is evident from the report, the UTsK delegation did not solely focus their attention on GG Ukrainians but also met and spoke with Soviet Ukrainians. However, they were forbidden to speak with Soviet Russians. 1034 PAA, MCF, 85.191, box 6, file 59, Untitled report of travels to Ukrainian labor camps in Austria, n.d. 1035 Veryha, The Correspondence…, 174-175; 184. 1036 Ibid, 379-380. Since the majority of GG Ukrainians were farmers, retraining in the Reich was geared toward industrial factory work. They were recruited and sent to training camps in Vienna or Berlin. In the Reich capital, some were slated for training in the Siemens plant. In a 1941 note, Kubiiovych detailed the lopsided divide between intellectuals and craftsmen in the GG; 7-8 thousand as compared to only 1500. He attributed the low level of untrained workers to the interwar Polish state's desire to avoid creating any sort of Ukrainian working class. He saw the advent of Reich labor as the possibility for changing this as retrained Ukrainians were forming a level of skilled workers, something to which he was happy to provide. In exchange, he hoped to capitalize on their training, calling for their return to the GG as an additional tool for nationalization: “The trained workers could be employed in the armaments industry, where they would form a reliable element and replace the working Poles there. They could be under our leadership and we could, with your help, elevate [the status of] our cities.”1035 However, this was not the case as retrained workers primarily remained in the Reich. Conversely, workers deemed unfit were sent back to the dust-bin of the east. As such, laborers became a disposable stock for the Germans. One labor report, for example, indicated of 200 ill Ukrainian workers leaving Berlin in locked freight cars, with barbed-wire windows, in the summer of 1942. They were described as being sick and emaciated.1036 UTsK notes prepared by Kubiiovych bemoaned the situation of Ukrainian laborers who were placed on an equal level with Poles and Jews; expected to pay the social compensation tax, having food rations diminished, and demoted to levels of Russian POW’s or eastern workers. This ethnic degradation, he argued, caused anger and protest among laborers, frightened-away volunteers and diminished the historical bond between Germans and Ukrainians.1037 1037 Ibid, 393-394. 1038 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 17, folder 24, Presova konferentsiia, November 19, 1942. 1039 PAA, MCF, 85.191, box 6, file 59, Oleksa Stepovyi – “V Nimetskii nevoli,” 1945, p. 5. 1040 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 27, folder 1, Memorandum to Governor General Frank – Attachment 2, February 25, 1943. 1041 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 17, folder 24, Zvit Konferentsiï, December 17, 1942. During a meeting with Ukrainian press representatives, Kubiiovych described the worsening labor situation as a welfare priority for the UTsK. In the GG, Ukrainians were targeted for forced conscriptions, being “fished out” of Lwów, Lublin or other smaller towns during round-ups. Theoretically, he concluded, their situation was not yet the worst however incidents emerged in which Eastern Galician Ukrainians were placed in Soviet POW camps or were categorized as “OST” workers; automatically subjecting them to worse treatment and living conditions.1038 A young Ukrainian described the sight of conscripted workers in his diary: May 16, 1943. This morning I awoke to the loud sound of feminine voices. Realizing it was coming from the street, I ran to the window. Through the early-morning fog I saw a pitiful sight. A large group of one hundred young girls and boys wearing backpacks were marching through the street. They were surrounded from all sides by German gendarmes. Girls wiped the tears from their eyes with handkerchiefs and the boys went quietly, their heads lowered, seldom looking to their sides or nodding to their friends and relatives as if saying ‘farewell.’ In the rear, following the gendarmes were their mothers, hurrying to keep up, escorting their children on their long journey.1039 Such incidents propelled many to join auxiliary militia units, the German civil administration or to simply flee to the forests in order to avoid conscription. Meeting with Bühler, Kubiiovych called attention to the situation of Ukrainian laborers; what he viewed as an issue damaging German-Ukrainian relations. Ukrainians began falling vulnerable to street round-ups. Young students were forcibly taken from schools; caused 3 to close down. These wild round-ups also led to unnecessary executions of those who fled or resisted. Such was the case in Sokal where German gendarmes conducted a round-up and simultaneously stormed a school building. Students caught were dragged outside and publicly beaten. One was even stabbed in the thigh with a bayonet.1040 Kubiiovych called the treatment of workers in camps as resembling that of “African slaves” and suggested conscription be based on lists prepared by the UTsK and aid committees. Additionally, he suggested students under the age of 16 be exempt from conscriptions while guaranteeing proper conditions for them in the Reich.1041 In cases where conscripts fled from work transports to, for example, the forests, the Germans held families or villages collectively responsible: homes were burned down, livestock pillaged, family members imprisoned in concentration camps or executed.1042 While meeting with GG labor representatives, Kubiiovych was questioned as to why recruitment of workers from Eastern Galicia had dropped; by the spring of 1942 some 100 thousand conscripts volunteered for work west while one year later that number fell to 60 thousand. He attributed it to the forced, brutal street round-ups which made a bad impression on Ukrainians; scaring them from volunteering. Additionally, he mentioned of isolated instances in which volunteers were sent to work in Norway, Finland or the east rather than to the Reich.1043 Letters received by family members presented a more adequate image of the everyday life of laborers. Details and stories which spread from their texts also caused Ukrainians to think twice before volunteering. 1042 Ibid, Ukraїns’ke robitnytstvo v Nimechchyni, n.d. 1043 Veryha, The Correspondence…, 546-547. 1044 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 26, folder 10, Figol' note to Kubiiovych, January 15, 1944; Pan’kivs’kyi, Roky nimetskoї okupatsiї, 210. 1045 “Dukhova opika nad ukraїns’kymy robitnykamy u Velykonimechynni,” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 3 no. 34 (Febraury 20, 1942), 4. 1046 Holovata, Ukraїns’kyi legal’nyi vydavnychyi rukh..., 63-64. 1047 PAA, MCF, 85.191, box 2, file 27, Zvit nadzornoї rady Ukraїns’koho vydavnytstva, January 1, 1944. To further aid workers in the Reich, Kubiiovych and the UTsK provided material aid whenever possible. Care packages were prepared for the Christmas and Easter holidays. Besides helping workers celebrate their holidays in a dignified fashion, UTsK packages meant to not only show how Ukrainians back home remembered their loved ones but also as a propaganda tool to bring workers closer to the UTsK; the organization being their link with their native homes. For 1943, Figol’ described the care package drive costing the UTsK 100 thousand Reich Marks.1044 Krakivs’ki Visti provided addresses of Greek Catholic and Orthodox parishes for workers to exercise their faith when possible while also showing the churches role in the spiritual stewardship of workers abroad. However, Ukrainians who petitioned the authorities to be dismissed from work duties in order to enroll in the Warsaw Orthodox seminary were nonexempt. Following the intervention of Metropolitan Dionysius with the GG population and welfare bureau, the authorities agreed to review all applications on a case-by-case basis with no results ultimately emerging.1045 For both GG and eastern Ukrainian workers, periodicals were provided; Visti and Ukraїnets’ respectively. These were primarily weeklies printed by permission of the German labor front and in association with the Ukrainian trustee council. A smattering of official propaganda, anti-Semitic pieces, and cultural-educational articles appeared on the pages of each weekly.1046 Even in January 1944, publishing company representatives made it a point to send special Christmas editions of Krakivs’ki Visti to laborers in the Reich.1047 The General Government, like the Reich, also needed workers for various administrative projects. Initially instituted in May 1940, the Baudienst construction service consisted of 18 to 23 year old draftees. It intended to be a form work fulfillment for non-Jews while also strengthening Nazi education and discipline through hard labor. The Baudienst served as political, economic propaganda tool. The service was constructed along GG ethnic lines with Polish, Ukrainian and Górale Baudiensts. The highest number of servicemen came in January 1944 – 45 thousand.1048 1048 Hinkel, “Der Baudienst” in du Prel (ed), Das Generalgouvernement, 69-71. In May 1944 the total number dropped to 33 thousand before the service was liquidated as nearly all Baudienst men fled service. Mitera, Zwyczajny faszyzm..., 110-111; Łuczak, Polityka okupacyjna..., 491-493. 1049 Hinkel, “Der Baudienst” in du Prel (ed), Das Generalgouvernement, 72-73; Madajczyk, Polityka III Rzeszy… vol. 1, 345; 651. 1050 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/18, Bericht über Baudienst im GG, March 19, 1942, p. 218; Mścisław Wróblewski, Służba budowlana (Baudienst) w Generalnym Gubernatorstwie, 1940-1945 (Warszawa: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1984), 9-10; 40-44; 60. Housed in barracks and under the watchful eye of German guards, construction workers were paid meager wages – 1 złoty per day – and worked on public works projects. For example, in Kraków over 1 thousand young Polish men restored damaged or destroyed homes and streets from the September 1939 campaign.1049 As with foreign labor in the Reich, the Baudienst provided the GG with a cheap labor source. For 1942, a GG labor report indicated 11,500 men working in Baudiensts throughout the Galicia, Kraków, Lublin and Radom districts. By mid-1944, that number rose to 45 thousand; becoming the biggest youth organization in the GG. Such a high increase stemmed from German forced conscriptions, particularly following strategic military losses on the eastern front and the need to build defensive positions ahead of the advancing Red Army. Overall, service in the Baudeinst lasted 7 months and served as a prerequisite for further education in technical colleges. Those who eluded service could face, especially after 1942, death sentences. Those who fled from camps risked bringing collective responsibility and reprisals upon their families.1050 The Ukrainian youth, like their Polish counterparts, were not exempt from the construction service. Toward the end of 1940, Baudienst conscription was extended to the Ukrainians of the Kraków District; later to the Lublin and Galicia ones. The idea of creating a distinct Ukrainian Baudienst branch came from the side of district governor Otto Wächter. To place a patriotic face on the compulsory construction service and to differentiate it from the Polish one, the Ukrainian version was named Ukrainian Service for the Fatherland (Ukraїnska Sluzhba Batkivshchyni - USB). Whereas German policy pit Poles against Ukrainians, after its inception, the USB closely resembled that of the Polish one in the GG administrative structure, differing in name only. By mid-June 1940, a USB camp was organized in the southern mountain town of Nowy Targ, in the former barracks of Polish youth workers. Interestingly enough, the Germans forced Jews to clean and prepare them for the incoming occupants. Here, Ukrainians were trained as USB foremen; something which Wächter endorsed and something the UTsK enthusiastically welcomed so as to further set them apart from the Poles. Administratively, USB matters fell under the competencies of the UTsK youth and family welfare department. The UTsK succeeded in recruiting 252 candidates for training. However, out of this group, only 138 reported for service. The complexion of this initial group was very telling of who the Ukrainians were in the GG at the time: over half, 78, were émigrés from Eastern Galicia.1051 1051 Wróblewski, Służba budowlana (Baudienst)..., 202-204. 1052 Ibid. 1053 Ibid, 205. 1054 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 21, folder 30, Ukraїns’ka Sluzhba Bat’kivshchyni – Zvit, June 19, 1941, p. 9. 1055 Okupacja i ruch oporu… vol. 1, 48-49. 1056 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 21, folder 30, Ukraїns’ka Sluzhba Bat’kivshchyni – Zvit, June 19, 1941, p. 1. Aside from demanding labor, recruits were also exposed to formal education and upbringing. Overall, training was envisioned to last three months. Upon completion, these foremen were to be sent to the Lublin district to oversee USB groups from among Ukrainians there. They were taught German, especially commands. Physical fitness was widely promoted; each day included calisthenics while friendly sporting skirmishes were organized. They were also taught basic building concepts. In their spare time, Ukrainian-language newspapers were available for them while folk dances and singalongs were also organized. Additionally, they were permitted religious liberty; the day beginning and ending with prayers in Ukrainian. However, the success rate of Ukrainians completing training was overall abysmal. Out of the 138 who reported for service, only 87 fully completed their training in October 1940. Moreover, only 48 actually worked as USB foremen.1052 The first major project assigned the USB was road construction between the towns of Krynica and Nowy Sącz in the Kraków District. Initially, 150 men volunteered for work from the surrounding villages and towns. After three days, the number of workers fell to 35. Although some more workers reappeared – 60 by the end of August, they expressed their disdain at the tough, physical working conditions; breaking boulders, they stated, was work fit for Gypsies and not them. Observing construction work, the starosta of Nowy Sącz determined that Polish Baudienst men worked much harder than their Ukrainian counterparts.1053 An UTsK internal report described volunteer’s perception of training: “there they would receive something along the lines of military training, national-social education…” The reality was a disappointment and caused desertion or less willingness to volunteer.1054 The Germans also viewed this as a disappointing fiasco. In November, GG labor and security officials discussed plans to move the remaining trainees to GG security services such as the Sonderdienst.1055 UTsK documents described early German disappointment with the USB; German camp commandants sending their superiors negative opinions. This, along with the threat of completely liquidating USB camps, caused the UTsK to undertake the initiative in recruiting volunteers for service.1056 Propaganda appearing in Krakivs’ki Visti heralded the construction service. A general governor decree for 1941 slated all males born between 1919 and 1920 for compulsory service; volunteer service was imposed on all males age 18-30. Baudienst service exempt workers from any other labor, especially in the Reich. The Ukrainian press viewed involvement as demanding for several reasons. Ukrainian volunteers would be housed in work camps on ethnographic territory. However, if conscription quotas specified by the authorities were not met, they would be sent to Polish ones. These camps were described as located “on foreign territory, for foreign benefits and among foreigners;” evoking memories of the prewar mistreatment of Ukrainians by Poles but also severely halting a subsequent attempt at nationalization – in this case, forced GG labor. Because of this, the press called on volunteering as a duty of all Ukrainian youth, if only for the purpose of maintaining separate camps. The young intelligentsia, one article noted, was not exempt from volunteering but obliged to. They were to be the force to influence and educate their less conscious urban or rural counterparts.1057 1057 “Ukraїns’ka Sluzhba Batkivshchyni: obov'iazkova fizychna pratsia dlia ukraїns’koї molodi,” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 2 no. 40 (February 25, 1941), 3. 1058 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/10, Tagebuch 1941: Band 1 – 1. Januar bis 15. April, March 31, 1941, p. 187. 1059 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 21, folder 30, Obizhnyk ch. 90, March 26, 1941. 1060 TsDAVOVUU, UTsK, f. 3959, op. 1, spr. 11, UDK-Jarosław: Do Muzhiv Doviria UDK..., March 2, 1941, pp. 3-3b. 1061 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 26, folder 11, Die Denkschrift der ukrainischen Volksgruppe im Generalgouvernement, April 17, 1941. Recruitment took on a more aggressive tone following a GG administrative meeting in March 1941. Then, labor representative Hinkel noted of Ukrainian recruitment as progressing slowly. Because of this, he threatened the UTsK to undertake a massive campaign to entice conscription. Failure to do so not only meant forced conscriptions but would also mean degrading Ukrainians and treating them like Poles. To this, the UTsK prepared and dispersed recruitment posters while also demanding each Ukrainian service brigade receive an ethnically-Ukrainian trustee; to which he agreed.1058 To expedite voluntary conscription, the Committee called on all levels of organized Ukrainian life to undertake an informative propaganda recruitment campaign if only to avoid mixed camp interactions with Poles. 1059 One such note called on all Ukrainians age 18 to 30 in Jarosław County to report for a seven-month commitment to construction service. This also applied to the intelligentsia. The note stated workers would be organized into Ukrainian labor camps on ethnographic territory only if enough young men volunteered. If not, they would be placed in “foreign,” i.e. Polish construction service camps. Furthermore, instructions called on local trusted men along with parish priests to prepare lists of all able-bodied young men to in turn be sent to delegates and later to the local aid committee branch. From there, the lists went to the county Arbeitsamt as a basis for forced conscription if need be.1060 To bolster numbers, Kubiiovych also proposed those Ukrainians who volunteered for or were allocated to industrial or agricultural labor in the Reich be instead drafted into the Baudiest as GG and Reich “higher political necessities” demanded it.1061 Through such recruitment and propaganda, Kubiiovych and the UTsK hoped to gain a key concession from recruiting Ukrainian youth for compulsory German labor in the GG – to avoid being degraded to the same position as the Poles and being lost in the ethnic social engineering project of the Nazis. In this case, he promoted German divide and conquer ethnic policies, no matter the reasoning for it. Hinkel’s Baudienst report for 1941 to Frank reported zeal displayed by Polish and Ukrainian construction workers following the outbreak of war with the USSR in and around Przemyśl and Sanok. In the latter, Baudiensts helped the Wehrmacht in rebuilding a destroyed bridge.1062 During a GG state ceremony in October 1942, Frank commended the work of Polish and Ukrainian Baudiensts in the public works of the GG; an example of the positive gains from the racially inferior foreign population.1063 1062 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/18, Bericht über Baudienst im GG, March 19, 1942, p. 219. 1063 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/21, Tagebuch 1942: September bis Dezember, October 10, 1942, p. 161. 1064 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 21, folder 30, Ukraїns’ka Sluzhba Bat’kivshchyni – Zvit, June 19, 1941, pp. 5-9. Five USB camps were organized for Baudienst men throughout the eastern cities and towns of the Kraków District. As of mid-1941, a total of 337 laborers inhabited camps in Przemyśl, Radymno, Pruchnik, Dynów (later moved to outside of Sanok), and Gorlice. These camps or ‘barracks’ were not always in the traditional sense of the word. In Przemyśl, for example, workers were housed in the monastery of the Benedictine sisters there while in Pruchnik, ‘barracks’ consisted of several homes seized from local Jews. As hard as the UTsK and their local organs tried to keep Poles and Ukrainians separate, the Germans were not always accommodating. For example, in the Przemyśl camp, alongside the Ukrainians was a small group of 30 Polish laborers. In Dynów, where Ukrainians substantially outnumbered Poles – 142 to 38, the latter were in positions of overseers (Vorarbeiter). Living conditions also varied among the camps. In Radymno, for example, they were described as overall good. To the west, in the town of Dynów however, foodstuffs were described as poor while a lack of shoes persisted. Living conditions there were average. Local UTsK branches were very active in monitoring and lobbying to improve this. Travels and fieldtrips to document conditions and speak with workers were conducted by local aid committee representatives. What a Committee report called spiritual aid centered on activities aside from physical work. In some camps, small libraries were created in which publications and newspapers from the Kraków publishing house appeared. Whether in a separate room or simply in a corner on a couple of shelves, these libraries meant to serve as a place where workers could, and in the eyes of the UTsK should, nurture themselves intellectually; reminding them of their national consciousness. From its funds, the Kraków aid committee purchased 55 books to be dispersed throughout various camps. In addition, each camp received 6 Ukrainian portraits, a trident emblem and 2 wall maps depicting Ukrainian ethnographic territory – one of the Lemko region and one of the San River region. Material aid consisted of additional foodstuffs, clothing or financial assistance. To supplement low food rations for example, 30 thousand kilograms of marmalade was distributed among the camps by the Kraków aid committee. 110 pairs of shoes were also dispersed among the camps.1064 Recruitment numbers in the old GG progressed slowly. Because of this, in April 1942, Frank officially relegated both Polish and Ukrainian services to use the same, common title ‘Construction Service in the General Government’ (Baudienst im Generalgouvernement).1065 However, the attachment of Eastern Galicia opened up a new labor reservoir and the possibility to revive the Ukrainian Fatherland Service. Administrative policies over exploiting district resources also included forced labor for German projects. Here too, German approaches were rooted in the divide and conquer strategy. During an administrative meeting in the Galicia district, SS Obersturmbannführer Alfred Kolf discussed in greater depth the issue of handling Poles and Ukrainians in the construction services. First, he suggested abandoning any sympathy or antipathy toward the two ethnic groups; neither treating them as enemies or friends but rather to impassively force them to work for the Germans. To achieve short-term and long-term occupation goals – regional security, raise the level of labor output and to save German strength for future Germanization – he suggested employing two methods: duress and acquisition. In turn, he correlated these methods to fit each ethnic group. Poles were to be exposed to the former, brutally forced into working for the Reich. Ukrainians, on the other hand, were to be acquired or rather reacquired since the Germans allowed for their aspirations to move too far with the creation of the brief Stets’ko government. Even though Ukrainian reactions to the ultimate fate of that government created an environment of apprehension and opposition to the occupiers among some, he noted that feelings of collaboration among them were not completely extinguished. To further acquire them, he suggested exploiting their antagonisms with the Poles; boldly suggesting that Ukrainian nationalism would disappear if they were deprived of that animosity. The hatred which formed between the two groups, he concluded, was something which could not be extenuated.1066 Of course, the Germans did not envision any such compromise. 1065 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/18, Diensttagebuch 1942, April 22, 1942, pp. 405-406. 1066 Wróblewski, Służba budowlana (Baudienst)..., 207-209. 1067 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 21, folder 30, Zvitova zapyska zi sluzhbovoї poїzdky, September 8, 1942. 1068 Wróblewski, Służba budowlana (Baudienst)..., 210. In Eastern Galicia, compulsory recruitment to the revived USB soon took shape. Reactivation began as early as 1942. An inspection of five Ukrainian Baudienst camps listed 2,122 workers. In Tarnopol, where the largest camp was located, living condition were described as adequate. Laborers worked on either local construction projects or were sent to other parts of the GG. Hard work combined with the misleading hope of better treatment caused many workers to flee; the report mentioning of 232 escapees. Some misused camp passes for agricultural work at home to simply not return. In some cases, German camp administrators looked crossly at local aid committees who, in their opinion, did nothing to convince workers to return to service. They forced committees to circulate Ukrainian-language posters specifying consequences if caught: harsher work in penal colonies or imprisonment. Some, the report specified, were even vulnerable to execution on charges of sabotage.1067 In early 1943, the authority’s agreed to organize a specialized training school for young Ukrainians; to prepare them for technical work as well as to oversee Ukrainian work companies.1068 In June of that year, during a trip through the Galicia district, Frank visited the school. Besides inspecting living conditions and classrooms in the company of GG labor representative Hinkel and Baudienst head Topp, he was informed of 14 thousand young Galicians in the construction service; 10 thousand of which were Ukrainians. Kost’ Pan’kivs’kyi recalled of Frank’s visit underscoring the importance of the Ukrainian school. On month later, the first group of Ukrainians completed their training; 84 candidates – 7 from each of the 12 counties of the district.1069 1069 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/27, Tagebuch 1943, June 21, 1943, pp. 183-184; Pan’kivs’kyi, Roky nimetskoї okupatsiї, 213. 1070 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 21, folder 30, Behandlung der ukrainischen Arbeiter des Baudiensts in der Abteilung 5/500 in Lemberg, October 30, 1942. 1071 Ibid, Zvit z poїzdky do Krakova, November 28, 1942. 1072 AAN, RdGG, sygn. 491/4, GG Baudienst Report, 1943 p.64. 1073 Ibid, pp. 62, 64. Throughout the entire period of recruitment and aid for the USB workers, the UTsK worked and intervened adamantly to improve conditions by calling for ethnically separating workers and nationalizing all levels of the USB. In particular, Kubiiovych expressed his dissatisfaction over mistreatment and attempts at polonization by small groups of Polish Baudienst foremen housed in Ukrainian camps. He cited workers testimonies of mistreatments. Poles referred to Ukrainians as ‘haidamaks’ or ‘cursed Russians.’ Those who accidentally strayed into Polish barracks were beaten. When rounded up for work details, overseers also beat them. In the evening, they were even forced to pray in Polish. Foodstuffs were not always equally distributed, forcing Ukrainians to at times only drink coffee. Aside from the detrimental position of Ukrainian workers in such circumstances, he was equally disappointed with German indifference; something he argued could appear among less educated persons as approval of the Poles position at the expense of Ukrainians.1070 USB referee Myroslav Rusnak, on Kubiiovych’s order, met with GG labor representatives and suggested how best to alleviate such Polish-Ukrainian issues: separate camps for Ukrainians with Ukrainian personnel.1071 Even though letters and notes were sent to various GG administrators, actual decisions were made by the Germans on the basis of the best possible solution for them at given moments. Overall USB recruitment numbers were not overwhelming. As of summer 1943, the Galicia District contained 50 USB camps with some 10, 847 workers. In comparison, 18 Polish Baudienst camps contained a total of 4,499 men.1072 At its height, the Kraków District contained 6 USB camps with a total of 1,636 men. This was still much smaller than the Polish Baudiensts – 53 camps with 13,333 men.1073 An UTsK report described the disappointment faced by volunteers in camps – hard work instead of military-style training they hoped to gain. Those who completed their service and returned home did not hide their opinions toward volunteering. Such personal storytelling, the report noted, along with the overall unpopularity their recollections created, were leading factors which dissuaded more from joining. Additionally, Ukrainians did not see any positive gains in USB service; labor in the Reich at least rewarded them with some sort of nominal pay.1074 1074 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 21, folder 30, Ukraїns’ka Sluzhba Bat’kivshchyni – Zvit, June 19, 1941, p. 9; Pan’kivs’kyi, Roky nimetskoї okupatsiї, 126. 1075 “USlB iak zasib vykhovannia iunatstva,” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 4 no. 200 (August 10, 1943), 3; “Z nalezhnoї perspektyvy” vol. 4 no. 212 (August 24, 1943), 1. 1076 Wróblewski, Służba budowlana (Baudienst)..., 211. 1077 Ibid, 209; Pan’kivs’kyi, Roky nimetskoї okupatsiї, 126. 1078 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/21, Tagebuch 1942: September bis Dezember, October 10, 1942, p. 160. For Ukrainians, the USB – at least in theory – was envisioned to be more than just a compulsory labor service. It was not “a criminal sentence for our poor boys but rather a real school of life.” In other words, service was to physically and intellectually mature young Ukrainians; to discipline them and supplement evolving views and outlooks.1075 This, of course, was not the case. Kubiiovych looked to put a positive face on USB service, as he equated it to being another example of Ukrainian willingness to contribute to the German struggle in the east. Certainly, such a position was observed by the Polish underground in Stainsławów. There, a USB congress was organized in 1944; one attended by local Greek Catholic clergy – including the archbishop of Stanisławów, aid committee representatives and Ukrainians from Lwów. The common theme in all the speeches was Ukrainian preparedness to mobilize their strengths to combat the continent’s greatest threat – Bolshevism.1076 In addition to Ukrainian disappointment, the German practice of divide and conquer meant to keep both groups in line at the expense of one another. However, not everything stemmed from racial superiority. It was evident for the Germans that Ukrainians were overall ill prepared to serve as foremen. Low recruitment numbers did not provide enough men for such training. For this reason, Poles were preferred. Although some German overseers were positively disposed to Ukrainian needs or issues, this was rare. Reality was based largely on Nazi racial superiority over easterners. This, Pan’kivs’kyi recalled, created conditions analogous to slavery rather than an atmosphere of mutual collaboration: “Already in the first days of service the coarse attitude of the German inspectors showed and even more so that of the foremen or Polish Volksdeutsche overseers as well as hostile Poles.”1077 In both cases, as laborers in the Reich or GG, the Germans viewed them as a resource. Frank’s words during a GG state ceremony echoed such a sentiment and foreshadowed that no matter how much output foreign laborers provided for the Reich, it would never be enough to recognize them as equals but rather as simply toiling masses, “in the interest of this foreign populace, I also expect an intensive further increase in [production] performance. Of course, the German Reich will make its attitude towards the foreign populace largely dependent on its fulfillment of its obligations to the Reich.”1078 If anything, Kubiiovych and the UTsK succeeded in providing USB and Reich workers with welfare and cultural aid which the Committee was designed for. German racial policy and exploitation of conquered peoples was something that did not change. As a Reich colony, the GG was seen as ripe for economic exploitation and robbery. Immediately after Hitler created the GG, Herman Göring, head of the Four Year Plan Authority, ordered all industrial materials – scrap, machinery, raw materials – and enterprises seen as unnecessary for the existence of GG inhabitants be removed to the Reich.1079 To this regard, Frank described the GG in early 1940 as “economically speaking, an empty body. What there was in raw materials has, as far as possible, been taken out by the Four Year Plan.”1080 1079 The Four Year Plan Authority was set up in October 1936 to prepare the economically and militarily prepare Germany for war. In doing so, it also engaged in political debate concerening resolving the question of national spheres of influence. In 1938, this command center of economic and social policy sought to create ideal conditions for “an expansion of the German sphere of influence… in order to supplement the country’s own economic resources from outside as necessary.” Thus, the authority was designed to not only prepare Germany for war but to streamline and rationalize it to that end, to ensure an adequate supply of foreign exchange and manpower, and to regulate relationships between wages and prices. For a discussion into the authority’s anti-Semitic practices, see Aly and Heim, Architects of Annihilation…, 27-38. 1080 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/9, Sitzung des Reichsverteidigungsausschusses, March 2, 1940, p. 54. 1081 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/2, Abteilungsleitersitzung, January 19, 1940, pp. 43-45; Sonja Schwaneberg, “Eksploatacja gospodarcza Generalnego Gubernatorstwa przez Rzeszę Niemiecką w latach 1939-1945,” Pamięć i Sprawiedliwość vol. 8 no. 1 (2009), 135-136. Frank described his role as representative of the Four Year Plan as representing Göring in all capacities including increasing economic capacity and output. This, he stated during a GG administrative sitting, was one of three roles he played as general governor. The other two were: supreme legislator and representative of the Reich and Reich defense commissioner. IPN, GK 95/9, Sitzung des Reichsverteidigungsausschusses, March 2, 1940, pp. 36-40. 1082 Davies, God’s Playground… vol. 2, 163-177; Aly and Heim, Architects of Annihilation…, 41-51. Göring’s pillage of conquered Poland caused an immediate conflict with Frank who perceived this as a challenge to his authority and share of the spoils. In reaching a consensus, Frank was appointed Göring’s representative of the Four Year Plan Authority in the GG. A change of course was also undertaken as both men realized the GG could not be a region of unlimited plunder. Frank explained to his officials that the “absolute destruction principle” was shelved in order to create an economy advantageous to the Reich. A new course was set in his January 25, 1940 decree – short-term utilization of the GG to benefit the Reich war economy. Agricultural production was to intensify, industry was to be exploited and expanded if deemed necessary while raw material transports to the Reich were limited to those not necessary for production in the GG.1081 Everyone in the GG worked. If not as laborers in Germany or in the Baudienst service, everyday people worked to provide for the Reich war effort. This meant harvesting crops or livestock. However, to completely exploit the agricultural sector, it was first necessary to modernize it since overpopulation in the countryside, lack of sufficient industrial infrastructure and inefficient management of production means inhibited hampered progress.1082 Rural overpopulation was the topic of German scholarship and discussion during the interwar years. At Oberländer’s Institute of East European Economic Studies in Königsberg, this aspect was examined by him and the institute’s Polish department head Peter-Heinz Seraphim. A joint study entitled Polen und seine Wirtschaft (“Poland and its Economy”) pointed to rural overpopulation as a pressing issue for Poland. It argued of a non-existent Polish middle class with purchasing power to create a market for goods. Farmers were devoid from the economic mainstream while smallholders were described as living in a closed household economy. Oberländer’s 1935 publication warned that overpopulation pressure and lack of Polish capital would lead to internal tensions, making the country ripe for agrarian revolution on the Russian model. As Nazi racial ideology took-on a stronger anti-Semitic tone, the men linked their scientific studies of overpopulation with the Jewish question.1083 1083 Aly and Heim, Architects of Annihilation…, 52-57. Oberländer’s 1935 publication was entitled Die agrarische Überbevölkerung Polens. In 1943, he broadened this work to encompass the agrarian issues in East-Central Europe in a compendium study on German Ostforschung published in Leipzig in 1943. Peter-Heinz Seraphim was a German Balt (born in Riga). He studied in Sweden, at the Albertus-Universität in Königsburg, in Graz and Breslau where he earned his doctorate in economics in 1924. In the 1930s, he began work at the Institute of Easy European Economic Studies. He claimed to have become an expert on the “Jewish question.” He worked at the Institute for the Study of the Jewish Question in Frankfurt where he editied its anti-Semitic journal. In 1938 he published Das Judentum im osteuropäischen Raum. Like Oberländer, he too was recriuted by the Abwehr and in 1940 was psoted to the GG. In Kraków, he continued his anti-Semitic studies as an expert on the Jewish question in the Institute for German Development Work in the East. For a detailed biography and discussion of his work, see Hans-Christian Peterson, Bevölkerungsökonomie-Ostforschung-Politik. Eine biographische Studie zu Peter-Heinz Seraphim (1902-1979) (Osnabrück: Fibre Verlag, 2007). 1084 Schwaneberg, “Eksploatacja gospodarcza Generalnego Gubernatorstwa...,” 134-136; Łuczak, Polityka ludnościowa i ekonomiczna hitlerowskich Niemiec..., 259. Between 1940 and 1943, a total of 1,400 tractors and over 139,000 other machines and agricultural tools were supplied to the GG. To increase agricultural output, the Germans also increased the use of chemical pesticides and fertilizers, new seeds and planting technology. 1085 IPN, GK 95/2, Abteilungsleitersitzung, December 1, 1939, p. 9; Abteilungslietersitzung, February 15, 1940, pp. 75-81. 1086 Schwaneberg, “Eksploatacja gospodarcza Generalnego Gubernatorstwa...,” 136. Immediately plundering prewar agricultural machinery by shipping it off to the Reich further reduced potential GG agricultural output. In incorporating the annexed territories, the Reich gained a region which provided the most prewar income while the GG was left with a bare, skeletal infrastructure. A further problem GG officials immediately faced was the influx of Poles and Jews into the GG. In increasing population numbers, the economy would have to meet new demands. To get the GG up to speed so to speak, the Reich agreed to the importation of 130 thousand tons of grain from the annexed territories during the winter of 1939/1940. Beginning in 1940, the agricultural sector was also boosted with supplies of farming machinery and tools.1084 To make the GG self-reliant, food and agriculture head Hellmut Körner demanded everything be done to modernize and intensify agricultural production. Frank ensured the GG would achieve complete agricultural self-reliance by the fall of 1940.1085 Early results were short-term. The administration supplied the Wehrmacht stationed in the GG with agricultural products collected in 1940/1941 while in 1942/1943, yields were also exported to the Reich.1086 However, with more soldiers moved to the GG in the wake of the attack on the Soviet Union – 2 million – unregulated seizure and purchase of food by soldiers caused shortages for everyday inhabitants. Greater demands were placed on GG civilians after the German eastern invasion; the target quota for grain collection from 1942 onward being between 550 and 650 thousand tons annually. While in 1941/1942 grain delivers for the Reich war effort equated to 1.88 percent of the GG harvest, this increased exponentially for 1942/1943 to 18.44 percent.1087 Increasing yields, as many German administrators demanded, would, in Frank’s eyes, have severe economic and social consequences on workers and their productivity. However, he sought to continue confiscating harvests and food from the fremdvölkische peoples of the GG; pulling it out of them with “nerves of cold and no pity.” As he saw it, Poles and Jews would be surrendered to starvation before Germans faced hunger or famine.1088 1087 Winstone, The Dark Heart of Hitler’s Europe…, 113. 1088 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/24/I, Regierungssitzung, August 24, 1942, pp. 148-149; 159-160. 1089 Schwaneberg, “Eksploatacja gospodarcza Generalnego Gubernatorstwa...,” 138-139. 1090 Dieter Pohl, “Niemiecka polityka ekonomiczna na okupowanych terenach wschodniej Polski w latach 1941-1944,” Pamięć i Sprawiedliwość vol. 8 no. 1 (2009), 98. 1091 Madajczyk, Polityka III Rzeszy... vol. 2, 226. Germans were allotted the highest caloric intake of any national group in the GG – 2,310. Next were undefined ‘foreigners’ who could consume 1,790 calories daily. 1092 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 17, folder 24, Presova konferentsiia, November 19, 1942. How much foodstuffs did the Germans reap from the GG? For the first full year of mandatory harvest collection in 1940/1941, 45% of the quota was met. During the 1941/1942 harvest year, when quotas were exponentially increased and requisitioning methods were more brutal, 90% of the quota was met. In further increasing quotas for the subsequent harvest years – 1942/1943 and 1943/1944 – GG officials met 88% and 94% of quotas respectively. However, in no harvest year did the GG achieve a full requisition quota.1089 The Lublin and Galicia districts provided the most grain yields. Concerning the latter, the first full harvest year, 1942, provided 340 thousand tons of grain. A year later, this number increased to 460 thousand tons and comprised one-third of all grain yields in the GG.1090 Even though the occupiers practiced a policy of public favoritism toward ethnic Ukrainians, this is not to say that they were exempt from providing harvest obligations just as their Polish counterparts. Certainly the Ukrainians were allotted higher caloric food intake per day than Poles or Jews throughout the war; 930 calories as compared to 654 or 184.1091 However, as the brunt of agricultural production was placed on fremdvölkische inhabitants, Ukrainians too experienced food shortages, hunger, malnutrition and, in some cases, death from starvation at some point through the war. According to Kubiiovych, the UTsK was positively predisposed to GG harvest quotas placed on Ukrainian farmers. The Committee’s role in the matter meant to represent what he deemed a certain “political attitude” as in obediently meeting German quotas he hoped Ukrainians would be spared from over-exploitation, executions or sentences to concentration camps.1092 However, as German brutality in confiscating crops increased, this was not the case. To encourage meeting quotas, the UTsK organized annual propaganda campaigns. Besides articles in the press, field trips were conducted to publicly speak to villagers of the importance of relinquishing a portion of their crops while brochures, leaflets and posters were also disseminated. As Kubiiovych wrote, the UTsK’s role was “a show of goodwill in assisting the authorities in carrying out their duties” while farmers “demonstrated [their] loyalty by carrying out harvesting work at a fast pace and delivering imposed quotas on time.”1093 1093 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 27, folder 5, Aktenvermerk – Erhöhung der Getreidekontingente, November 12, 1942. 1094 “Kontyngenty,” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 3 no. 190 (August 28, 1942), 1-2. The article included a religious moral to make the importance of meeting harvest quotas all the more understandable: “He who has enough bread in his mouth must give it to he who is in danger of starvation.” 1095 UVAN, Kost’ Pan’kivs’kyi collection (KPC), fond 6 series 6/2, folder III/5, Pan’kivs’kyi diary entry for August 1942. 1096 “No. 3.27: Iz spravki zamestitelia nachal’nika Otdela po bor’be z banditizmom NKVD USSR V.G. Burylina v NKVD USSR o deiatel’nosti Ukrainskogo tsentral’nogo komiteta (UTsK) v oblastiakh USSR, vkliuchennykh v distrikt Galitsia (April 2, 1944)” in Ukrainskie natsionalisticheskie organizatsii… vol. 2, 120. 1097 Vitalii Sivak, “Krov ukraїns’ka, krov pol’s’ka...” in Ivanyk (ed), Krov ukraїns’ka, krov pol’s’ka..., 75-76. In Ukrainian the song went: “Kazhe liandvirt: Krutit’ zhorna vpravo, vlivo, aby їsty ne kortilo.” 1098 Antonina Mytiuk, “Shcho z namy zrobyly?” in Ivanyk (ed), Krov ukraїns’ka, krov pol’s’ka..., 44-45. Press propaganda put a good face on handing-over valuable crops; spinning the compulsory administrative policy into a patriotic duty of thanksgiving. One article described foodstuffs – grain, milk, butter and eggs – as serving a different purpose for Germans as these were war needs. Bread was described as an important “weapon of war” as without it, German soldiers would not have strength to fight. Bread was also important to work production as without it, factory workers would not have the strength needed to produce munitions and armaments. This was equated to disaster as it “would be the first step towards catastrophe on the front and towards a complete collapse.” The moral of such articles was simple: only by peasants achieving mandated harvest quotas could their defense against all enemies be guaranteed.1094 The importance in meeting harvest quotas was echoed by Metropolitan Sheptyts’kyi who told Greek Catholic clergy the matter equated to a national cause while UTsK branches reminded “Ukrainian khliboroby” – farmers or grain growers – of the necessity to provide harvested crops to their German protectors.1095 A 1943 Ukrainian brochure answered the pressing question ‘why do we meet harvest quota?’ by explaining: We hand over harvests so that the anti-Bolshevik army at the front suffers neither misfortune nor cold nor hunger but will be strong and enduring; also because in that army there are thousands and thousands of Ukrainian warriors who fight next to the German warriors for our happiness and fate. That is why we give harvests with a great feeling of joy, more cordial than a tear of gratitude.1096 Ukrainians recalled the confiscation and plunder of agricultural implements and livestock as the Germans occupied the GG: “…every cow and pig had a tag in its ear with a number which was catalogued in the gmina. In this way, the farmer had no right to either sell or kill it.” Some villagers expressed their difficult position by singing: “The Landwirt ordered: mill the grain right, left to not be tempted to eat it.”1097 Antonina Mytiuk recalled the harsh side of the German occupation regime: “They tore the last skin off of villagers. They wiped-out pantries. Each soul was appointed 120 kilogram of grain per year. That’s what could be eaten. And the rest had to be given to the state. My husband and I had 25 hectares of land. We had to give the Germans 80 quintals of hard grain – rye and wheat. Barley and oats counted as soft grains. We had to supply 20 quintals of potatoes.”1098 It is no wonder that like Poles, Ukrainians also resorted to various tricks such as hiding food from collection as a means of survival. In confiscating food, the Germans were not alone. They often forced auxiliary policemen or civil servants to perform these tasks. In using Ukrainian civil authorities or auxiliary policemen to collect foodstuffs, many villagers began questioning their activity while, in ethnically-mixed regions, this became a subsequent point of contention between Ukrainians and Poles.1099 1099 Chodakiewicz, Between Nazis and Soviets... 141. 1100 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 17, folder 27, Protokol zasidannia UTsK v uriadi H.H., October 17, 1942. 1101 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 27, folder 5, Aktenvermerk – Zusätzliche Ernährung der ukrainischen Stadt- und Landbevölkerung, December 9, 1942. 1102 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 17, folder 27, Protokol zasidannia UTsK v uriady H.H., October 17, 1942. 1103 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 26, folder 32, Pro Memoria, February 29, 1940. The memorandum noted that about 80-100 people lived on agricultural soil per every 100 hectares of land. In villages and regions where Ukrainians lived, although they never fully reached their harvest quotas, a 70-90% success-rate was maintained throughout the war. Achieving their quotas in a timely fashion gained Ukrainians, Kubiiovych and cooperatives praise from Frank or district governors.1100 In the same breath as he and the UTsK urged farmers to achieve mandated harvest quotas, Kubiiovych used his position as Committee chairman to lobby the GG authorities to lower quotas as food shortages became common throughout the war. A subsequent problem was the fact that cooperatives also relinquished part of their inventories to meet German food quotas. This posed a subsequent problem as Kubiiovych reported UTsK kitchens in the GG suffered from a lack of food.1101 Even though he lobbied the occupiers to decrease quota goals, the Germans were content to exploit as much as possible from fremdvölkische GG villagers to feed their war machine. In response to concerns, Kubiiovych was met with such comments from German administrators as “Neither do the Germans have their minimum foodstuffs.” Föhl even went so far as to claim the agricultural work was the best form of countering any signs of individualism among Ukrainians; something he stated was beneficial for the future.1102 To gain a concrete perspective into the effects of mandatory harvest collecting and relinquishing on a social level, the Lemko region in the southern portion of the Kraków District serves as an example of this and the role the UTsK played in providing aid and welfare to villagers. Because of their nature as an agrarian, farming people, Lemkos were agriculturally exploited. A memorandum prepared by Kubiiovych in February 1940 outlined the agricultural benefits of the region – green pastures and meadows for grazing livestock – while mentioning the key disadvantage – difficult terrain and harsh weather conditions which often hindered bountiful crop harvests.1103 Soon, commissions began mass collections of cultivated and harvested products. Some villages, for example, were stipulated to give over 5 thousand liters of milk or 29 thousand eggs for the summer months. A report to the Nowy Sącz Kreishauptmann described harvesting quotas for the western Lemko region for 1940 as being almost completely reached without any greater problems among locals. 1 hectare of arable land yielded 150 kilograms of grain and oats. As a result, areas yielded over 200 thousand quintals of produce; what, in many areas, was the overwhelming majority of grain harvests. In giving-up agricultural produce, problems were immediately felt. Relinquishing large crops quotas left little foodstuffs for Lemko farmers and their families to live off of. The above mentioned harvest report claimed the excessive size of grain contingencies did not correspond to actual, on the ground, conditions and, as a result, caused food scarcity.1104 Semen Izhyk later recalled the situation in parts of the region: 1104 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 26, folder 20, An den Herr Kreishauptmann in Neu-Sandez, June 12, 1941; Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Heneral’nii Huberniї...: 363; Tarnovych, Na zharyshchakh Zakerzonnia: 60. 1105 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 27, folder 5, 1941 Vormerk: Kontingentierung Angelegenheiten, n.d. 1106 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 18, folder 9, Bericht für die Monat März 1941, April 1, 1941; volume 19 folder 29, Zvit z informatsiinoї poїzdky v spravi holodu v seli Labova – Lemkivshchyna, April 9, 1941. The Germans placed large grain and livestock quotas on villagers. One had to give-up more to the administration than keep for oneself to survive. Hunger began appearing in village huts... The only food for children were berries they picked while graving cows… With each passing day, hatred in our villager’s hearts grew toward the Germans. Sadness reigned over the once jubilant Lemko villages. Due to the heavy quotas, aid committees requested they be lowered; at times from as high as 98% to 75%. Boidunyk explained that harvest output would indeed be lower in 1941 because of the long winter and short spring season which turned out to be dismal for potato crops. For example, throughout the Krynica area, the delayed climate change caused much lower grain yields than from the previous year.1105 The seasonal delay and inability to harvest early in combination with high harvest quotas caused food scarcity to turn into an impending famine. This issue also concerned UTsK officials who, in March 1941, analyzed the harvest situation to determine whether the Lemko region could meet the quotas assigned it. A Central Committee group travelled throughout the region to document the situation, one which proved to be overall disparaging. For example, in Maciejowa and Łabowa, two villages that lay between Nowy Sącz and Krynica, inspectors noticed hunger and the spread of typhus. Bread became a luxury as villagers did not have grain to bake it; instead eating oatmeal or oat porridge. Villagers who worked physically – as in forests felling timber – received such small wages that food became difficult to purchase. In other villages where Poles were in the majority or where civil servants, Ukrainians complained of unfair collection; they gave more and kept less than their Polish counterparts. The conclusion reached was unanimous – food supply for villages in the region would last three to four weeks at most.1106 Subsequently, local aid committee representatives showered German civil representatives with notes arguing Lemko workers, particularly lumberjacks, be exempt from their duties in order to tend to their farms and crops as well as to give their livestock much needed recuperation and rest.1107 1107 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 26, folder 20, An den Herrn Kreishauptmann, Abteilung Wirtschaft in Neu-Sandez, January 27, 1942. 1108 Veryha, The Correspondence…, 254-255; LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 18, folder 29, Aktennotiz, February 20, 1942. 1109 AP-P, Apostolska Administracja Łemkowszczyzny (AAL), sygn. 41, AAL note concerning signs of famine, April 30, 1941, p. 9. 1110 Veryha, The Correspondence…, 740-751. 1111 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 18, folder 20, Bericht für den Monat Dezember 1941, January 5, 1942. 1112 Kupchyns’kyi (ed), Dmytro Paliїv..., 62. 1113 Veryha, The Correspondence…, 373. In his memorandum to Frank, Kubiiovych echoed his concerns for the Lemko region. He argued grain and potato collection in regions with poor arable land completely stripped inhabitants of food while hindering future harvests. He reiterated the severity of the situation – as of January 1942, only 20 % of the population had food of any sort while only 40 % had bread. He appealed for emergency action – to permit the Central Committee to intervene and distribute food to villages in the region.1108 Priests prophetically viewed the situation as a test of God: “We must remember that during this time our hope lays in and only in God, his Son and the Virgin Mary.”1109 Other propositions were made to alleviate Lemkos from such heavy harvests in the future. A May 1941 report proposed a plan for regional management, one which looked to change the nature of the Lemko villagers – from agricultural farmers to livestock herders. The 10-year plan intended to introduce cattle and sheep herding to retrained and reeducated villagers, especially those returning from industrial work in the Reich, with milk, cheese and meat being products for relinquishing.1110 Boidunyk reassessed the situation in his December report to the GG authorities where he noted that even with impending starvation, many villages were still subject to fully meeting their quotas. This, he concluded, caused famine to erupt much faster and urged for help.1111 However, the proposed long-term exploitation of the region did not overshadow pressing needs. To fight or at least tame hunger, Kubiiovych, with the approval of the occupiers, allocated food to aid committees and soup kitchens in the area. The UTsK received foodstuffs – eggs, vegetables, soup paste – from the authorities to distribute to area soup kitchens in an effort to feed villagers. Kubiiovych turned to Paliїv to lead aid work there. Focusing on aiding children, Paliїv temporarily moved some 25 thousand from the Lemko, Boiko, and Hutsul regions to so-called “bread regions,” areas where food was in no short supply.1112 However, as Kubiiovych wrote, this was not enough to supply over 50 soup kitchens. He continued to petition for larger quantities of flour, grain, oil and marmalade.1113 In this case, as in the case of confiscating food from the Lemko people, the interests of the German war machine superseded starving villagers. The aspects of convincing or rounding-up labor and working for the Reich or GG cast a dark shadow over the image of Ukrainian-German collaboration. A dark shadow was also cast over the UTsK as collaboration forced it into contributing and providing for the German war machine. This often left Ukrainian peasants with a bitter aftertaste and resentment toward the occupier. Postwar recollections viewed this as a difficult, moral wrong which given they could not contest as that would only bring far worse punishment from the side of the occupiers.1114 Such recollections are a prime example of the difficulties Ukrainians experienced through collaborating with the GG occupiers as the UTsK totted a thin line between protecting their ethnic inhabitants and exploiting them. This was indeed a true moral dilemma. However, it can in no way cast aside the fact that the UTsK contributed to the occupier’s dirty-work. At all possible occasions, Kubiiovych underscored the importance of Ukrainians contributing to mandatory GG programs. In his opinion, this placed them on a different level than, for example, Poles who were rebellious and unwilling to conform. Through their participation, Ukrainians remained loyal to the occupier and the war effort. His hope was to be able to use this argument as leverage in the future; perhaps for more concrete political concessions. 1114 Pan’kivs’kyi, Roky nimetskoї okupatsiї…, 190. Chapter 5 German-Ukrainian Collaboration in the GG: the Progressive Years (1940 – June 1942) The basis of life for every nation is territory, that on which it lives and on which it forms a majority in relation to other nationalities. - Volodymyr Kubiiovych1115 1115 Volodymyr Kubiiovych, Terytoriia i liudnist’ ukraїns’kykh zemel’ (L’viv: “Uchitesia braty moї,” 1935) 1116 PUMST, OIV, file A.269, “Stosunki polsko-ukraińskie/Ukraińska Akcja na Chełmszczyźnie i Podlasiu,” November 21, 1942, p. 67. The organization and activity of the Ukrainian Central Committee sought to revitalize and reinvigorate feelings of national consciousness on prewar polonized territories, particularly through social and cultural activity. UTsK work formed a unique microcosm for Ukrainian life. In turn, this goal was synonymous with reclaiming what many nationalists, including Volodymyr Kubiiovych, saw as the western ethnographic periphery of historic, Ukrainian territory. His vision of ethnographic Ukraine included all territory in which Ukrainians or Ruthenians, whether in large numbers or as small minorities, at some point in history inhabited. In this way, a Polish report noted: Ukrainian ethnographic territory stretched beyond Białystok, Warsaw and Kraków in the west.1116 Whereas German policy pit Ukrainians against Poles, Kubiiovych’s work and hopes were unique to the situation of Ukrainians on given territories. Here, their situation in four GG districts will be examined during the period 1940 – mid-1942; the chronological period traditionally described as full of aspirations, hopes and successes. In all cases, Ukrainian short-term and long-term goals intersected with occupation policies and caused reactions from neighboring ethnic groups. 5.1 – The Lublin District: Nationalization, Resettlement and Ethnic Cleansing toward a National Piedmont The territory of the General Government became a transitional region throughout the entire war; becoming a crossroads for German racial, colonial and exterminationist practices. Following the creation and administrative division of the GG, the Lublin district, a unit created out of the prewar Lublin voivodship, totaled 26,600 km2 of territory; its eastern most regions bordering with prewar Polish territory recently occupied by the Soviet Union. German estimates listed Ukrainian inhabitants in the district as numbering over 500 thousand. Divided into 10 counties, Ukrainians primarily inhabited parts of or the majority of 8 eastern and southeastern ones: Chełm, Biłgoraj, Hrubieszów, Radzyń, Krasnystaw, Janów-Lubelski, Zamość, and Biała Podlaska. As German descriptions indicated, these were ethnically-mixed counties with Poles and Jews living alongside Ukrainians. Numerically speaking, in no one county in the district did Ukrainians constitute an ethnic majority. Rather, they were a large minority in the eastern counties. The largest minority inhabited the ethnic borderland region in Hrubieszów County. There, 94 thousand Ukrainians lived side-by-side with 106 thousand Poles and 11 thousand Jews in 1943. In Chełm County, Ukrainians numbered 64 thousand as compared to 150 Poles. Only about 5 thousand lived in the city itself alongside 18 Poles and 12 thousand Jews. In Zamość County Ukrainians numbered 40 thousand versus 200 Poles. In the remaining counties, Ukrainians constituted several thousand inhabitants.1117 1117 “Angaben über den Distrikt Lublin“ in du Prel (ed), Das Generalgouvernement, 297; 313; 319-323. In Biłgoraj County, the Ukrainian to Polish to Jewish ratio was 40 thousand-138 thousand-12 thousand; in Radzyń County: 45 thousand-88,650-44 thousand; in Puławy County – lying outside of the sphere of Ukrainian ethnographic territory - no Ukrainians resided (255 thousand Poles and 26 thousand Jews); in Krasnystaw County: 5 thousand-128 thousand-12 thousand; Janów Lubelski County: 2 thousand-187 thousand-16 thousand. 1118 Myron Korduba, Istoria Kholmshchyny i Pidliashshia (Krakiv: Ukraїns’ke Vydavnytstvo, 1941). 1119 Tomasz Stryjek, “Historiografia a konflikt o Kresy Wschodnie w latach 1939-1953. Radzieckie, rosyjskie, ukraińskie i polskie prezentacje dziejów ziem wschodnich dawnej Rzeczypospolitej jako część ‘wojny ideologicznej’ w okresie lat trzydziestych-pięćdziesiątych XX wieku” in Krzysztof Jasiewicz (ed), Tygiel narodów. Stosunki społeczne i etniczne na dawnych ziemiach wschodnich Rzeczypospolitej 1939-1953 (Warszawa: Rytm, 2002), 510. 1120 Kubiiovych, Terytoriia i liudnist’..., 17. Regardless of the numbers, the eastern counties which Ukrainians inhabited became a focal-point for nationalists as they constituted not only their vision of Ukrainian ethnographic territory but were a historic borderland region which in both, the vast and recent pasts, belonged to some sort of entity which the nationalists could trace modern statehood to. Myron Korduba, a professor of Ukrainian history at Warsaw University before the war, published a detailed history of the Chełm and Podlasie regions; one spanning from the Stone Age and traced Ukrainian influences in the region to the tenth century. He discerned what he viewed to be Ukrainian colonization on the basis of ukrainiazed town and village names. Korduba described the territory’s political belonging to the tradition of the Kingdom of Halych-Volhynia under Prince Danylo Romanovych who made Chełm his seat of power. The conflict which emerged with the Polish crown, subsequently leading to the fall of Danylo’s kingdom in 1349, led to what Korduba saw as the fall of the “legitimate, 5 century-long tradition of the Ukrainian Chełm-Podlasie state.”1118 Korduba’s historical synthesis argued the right of Ukrainians to territory to the west of the Bug River; lands seen as uncompromisingly western ethnographic territories.1119 In his prewar works, Kubiiovych argued the natural Ukrainian character of Chełm and its surrounding regions had changed following the 1875 Tsarist edict banning Greek Catholicism; resulting in Uniates joining the Catholic Church and, as he saw it, becoming vulnerable to polonization. Polish incursions into the region – through what he called colonization – unfavorably pushed the ethnographic Ukrainian border east, resulting in ethnically-mixed pockets or areas in which Ukrainian became a “strong minority.”1120 The wartime publication of Volodymyr Sichyns’kyi, intellectual and art historian, described Chełm as an ethnic crossroads in which various, foreign voices often dominated over the autochthonic Ukrainian inhabitants. Describing the accomplishments and lasting legacy of prince Danylo, he added that the city had a historically low Polish population but a very large Jewish one. The city, he concluded, had to be dear to every Ukrainian not only for its rich history but also because it was the birthplace of many Ukrainians who “perhaps more than others, felt the enslavement of their nation.”1121 Other wartime publications focused on the most recent, prewar events which engulfed the region – the destruction of Orthodox churches and the forced polonization of Ukrainians.1122 1121 Volodymyr Sichyns’kyi, Misto Kholm (Krakiv: Ukraїns’ke Vydavnytstvo, 1941), 22-23. 1122 For example B. Zhukiv, Nyshchennia tserkov na Kholmshchyni v 1938r. (Krakiv: Ukraїns’ke Vydavnytstvo, 1940). 1123 For a detailed examination of the Chełm issue and its ramifications between Ukrainians, Germans and Poles during and after the Brest-Litovsk Treaty, see Horak, The First Treaty of World War I: Ukraine’s Treaty with the Central Powers of February 9, 1918 and Jerzy Hawryluk, “Brzeski traktat pokojowy w 1918 roku pomiędzy Ukrainą a Państwami Centralnymi i problem Podlasia.” Krakowskie Zeszyty Ukrainoznawcze, vol. 1-2 (1992-1993). 1124 “600 Jahre Lublin unter Deutscher Verwaltung,” Das Generalgouvernement Heft 1 (1942), 4. 1125 “Lublin und die Juden,” Das Generalgouvernement Heft 1 (1942), 20. However, for Ukrainian nationalists, it was more than medieval history that drove their understanding of the Chełm region’s Ukrainian past. The events of World War I and, more specifically, the terms of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty between Hrushevskyi’s Central Council and the Central Powers briefly ceded the Kholmshchyna to the young Ukrainian state. In part, this was also of sentimental importance as Hrushevs’kyi was born in Chełm. However, even then, it became a region of Polish-Ukrainian contention which the Germans, in their last days of occupation, were forced to mediate. The end of the Great War and Poland’s drive to define its borders, in conjunction with the fall of the Skoropads’kyi Hetmanate, meant the Chełm region fell within the Second Republic. Through the Treaty of Rapallo, Germany officially renounced its claims from Brest-Litovsk.1123 Regardless, the legacy of the region belonging to the UNR, if only briefly and on paper, remained prevalent among Ukrainians as a precedent in which the great powers legitimized their claims to the region and their vision of Greater Ukraine. How did the Germans view the district and its ethnically-mixed regions? Above all, historic German influences were propagandized. According to GG sources, some 25 thousand Germans and Volksdeutsche inhabited a triangular area between Lublin, Chełm and Lubartów. Germans who settled in Lublin during the Middle Ages were seen as introducing German civilization – administration and trade. Since coming under GG administration, Governor Zörner claimed untiring work in the city and district prepared it for its role of providing Lebensraum for modern German settlers.1124 It was also a region saturated with Jews. One article in the GG monthly Das Generalgouvernment dedicated to this topic wrote: “The history of the Lublin Jewish community broadly reflects the fate of Polish Jewry in general, its development, its power and organizational strength, but also the consequent continual struggle of the citizens against the Jews over-exploitation in all spheres of economic life.”1125 In occupying Poland and liberating the Ukrainian minority, the GG administration guaranteed them “generous cultural and administrative autonomy” in the Lublin District. From Ukrainians, the occupiers expected two things: a loyal attitude toward their administration and positive reactions to German interests. In other words, they expected obedience to be the Ukrainian symbol of thanksgiving. Since the broad masses of Ukrainians in the district were deemed to be politically disinterested, a clear warning was sent to those who envisioned resorting to what was termed “political extravagances incompatible with the political line of the Reich.” Such attempts would be answered with “draconian measures.”1126 1126 Du Prel (ed), Das Deutsche Generalgouvernement Polen, 143. 1127 Volodymyr Serhiichuk, Trahediia ukraїntsiv Pol’shchi (Ternopil: Knyzhkovo-zhurnalʹne vyd-vo Ternopil, 1997), 39-48; “Sprava pereselennia,” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 1 no. 1 (January 7 1940), 4. 1128 Hans Koch, “Tagebuchaufziechnungen über die Usiedlung der Deutschen aus Ostgalizien” in Aufbuch und Neubeginn: Heimatbuch der Galiziendeutschen, vol. 2, ed. Julius Krämer (Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Hilfskomitee der Galiziendeutschen, 1977), 181-196. 1129 Czesław Madajczyk estimated 40-60 thousand Ukrainians coming to the GG. Madajczyk, Polityka III Rzeszy w okupowanej Polsce, vol. 1, 250. Grzegorz Motyka noted of some 20 thousand “active Ukrainians” fleeing Soviet occupation to the German occupation zone. Grzegorz Motyka, Ukraińska partyzantka 1942-1960 (Warszawa: Rytm, 2006), 77. 1130 Mats’kiv, Z-nad Dnistra na Kanads’ki prerii, 125; Zajączkowski, Ukraińskie podziemie na Lubelszczyźnie..., 174. On November 16, 1939 a German-Soviet treaty was signed in Moscow allowing for the voluntary exchange of German and Soviet nationals between the two occupation zones. Ukrainians, Belarusians, Ruthenians and Lemkos also had the right to move to the Soviet side while Germans from the east (the Baltic States, Volhynia, and Eastern Galicia) would be repatriated to Reich lands. Frank officially announced the resettlement agreement on December 5, 1939 and described its intended goal: “It is my hope that the undertaken action… will lead to the complete liquidation of fires of hatred, created by Polish oppression.”1127 In other words, resettlement aimed to create ethnic homogeneity in both occupation zones. Soviet and German repatriation committees sprang-up in cities and towns throughout the borderlands. Abwehr officer Hans Koch was charged with resettling Galician Germans and Volksdeutsche back to the Reich. In that capacity, he also helped many Ukrainians gain legal resettlement to the GG by putting them on Volksdeutsche lists.1128 In sum, between 1939 and 1940, estimates vary that between some 40-60 thousand Ukrainian émigrés, primarily from Eastern Galicia but also from Volhynia, settled in the GG.1129 In the process of the move from one occupation to another, Ukrainians, especially younger ones, used the Polish language to mask their identity while still in the Soviet zone. After crossing the border, they returned to using Ukrainian. As Tymotei Mats’kiv observed: “The Soviets were unsuspecting that they are opening the border not for western refugees but for Ukrainians who they came to ‘liberate’ and who are escaping before them to the west.” Their arrival in the GG in essence began the activation of the OUN in the eastern Lublin district.1130 The Polish underground reported of nationalists in eastern GG regions actively involved in preventing Ukrainians from moving east as many harbored negative feelings toward the Soviets and their socialist propaganda. From some parts of the Chełm region, for example, only several dozen Ukrainian families volunteered for repatriation. In Hrubieszów County, where Soviets urged Ukrainians to move east, some 3 thousand volunteered. In sum, from the Chełm and southern Podlasie regions an estimated 6 thousand moved to Soviet Volhynia. However, after experiencing the realities of life there, some returned “naked and barefoot” primarily by way of the ‘green’ border.1131 Others returned after the German attack on the USSR in 1941. The Germans also organized a transition point on the Nazi-Soviet border for those Ukrainians who wished to legally move west. Even though the Soviets hampered work, they willingly accepted Ukrainian repatriates. Following medical examinations, those deemed physically fit were sent to work in the Reich; the remainder were placed in transit camps and awaited living allocation.1132 1131 “Meldunek organizacyjny i raport polityczno-gospodarczy – January 9, 1940” in Armia Krajowa w Dokumentach vol. 1, 70; Ivan Fur, “Hrubeshivshchyna pid chas nimets’koї okupatsiї, 1939-1944” in Nadbuzhanshchyna. Istoryko – memuarnyi zbirnyk vol. 1, (eds) Mykola Martyniuk, et al (New York-Paris-Sydney-Toronto: Shevchenko Scientific Society, 1989), 725; Jan Pisuliński, Przesiedlenie ludności ukraińskiej z Polski do USRR w latach 1944-1947 (Rzeszów: Wydawnictwo Uniwerstytetu Rzeszowskiego, 2009), 44-45. 1132 Vitalii Sivak, “Krov ukraїns’ka, krov pol’s’ka…” in Ivanyk (ed), Krov ukraїns’ka, krov pol’s’ka…, 75. 1133 Bohachevs’kyi, Na vozi i pid vozom, 119-120. 1134 AP-L, DGdDL, sygn. 157, Pro Memoria, n.d., p. 39. 1135 “Sprawy organizacyjne, informacje wywiadowcze, raport o sytuacji w Kraju, sprawa łączniści i pieniędzy – February 8, 1940” in Armia Krajowa w dokumentach vol. 1, 100-101; PUMST, OIV, file A.268, Report by 2nd Lt. Flegel-Cepiński, March 5, 1942. 1136 Il’nyts’kyi, Dumky pro ukraїns’ku vyzvol’nu polityku, 62; Bohachevs’kyi, Na vozi i pid vozom, 120. Nationalist Danylo Bohachevs’kyi, who settled in the borderland area and later helped Ukrainians return to the Chełm region, questioned why some volunteered for resettlement east. They responded that they sought to flee from the Poles, believing that life in Soviet Ukraine and among their own would be better. After arriving there – where the “victims of capitalism” met the “inhabitants of paradise” – and realizing the realities were much different than promised, they returned.1133 An UTsK report described a small number of Ukrainians volunteering for resettlement to the USSR “under the terror of the Poles and their propaganda.” Farms and properties abandoned by them were, as the note stipulated, to be handed over to Ukrainians only; either ones from neighboring villages, eventually to those incoming from the east or to prisoners of war. Under no circumstances were Poles to be settled there, the note concluded.1134 The arrival of nationalists fleeing Soviet occupation and settling in areas along the newly delineated Nazi-Soviet border strengthened the ethnic character of what they perceived to be Ukrainian western ethnographic territories. The Polish underground claimed these Ukrainians received the status of “full-fledged citizens of the Reich.” Another report described their appearance after crossing into the GG: “Primarily these were young men, their belongings consisted of handbags while some had nothing.”1135 Roman Il’nyts’kyi, who crossed the border in October 1939, found himself on those territories in the eastern Lublin District. What he realized was missing there was a native intelligentsia. As he reasoned: “We wanted to solve the reckless riddle of Polish domination on the Kholmshchyna, and to see what impact it had.”1136 Luka Pavlyshyn, a young OUN member, was sent to work as a teacher in a village near Tomaszów Lubelski on the instructions of Boidunyk: “Do not forget that the main work for every true Ukrainian now is to serve the nation through deed!” This meant raising the level of national consciousness among local inhabitants, instilling in them a strong belief in their own strength.1137 Banderite Bohdan Kazanivs’kyi, a member of the Chełm OUN branch, received similar instructions: 1137 Shchehliuk, “Iak rosa na sontsi”..., 41. 1138 Kazanivs’kyi, Shliakhom lehendy…, 110. 1139 Knysh, Bie dvanadsiatta..., 53-54. 1140 Huk (ed), Zakerzonnia. Spomyny voiakiv UPA, vol. 4, 50-51; Knysh, Bie dvanadsiatta..., 60. 1141 Kerski and Kowalczyk, Wiek ukraińsko-polski. Rozmowy z Bohdanem Osadczukiem, 29-30. 1142 Antonina Mytiuk, “Shcho z name zrobyly?” in Ivanyk (ed), Krov ukraїns’ka, krov pol’s’ka..., 44. 1143 Kazanivs’kyi, Shliakhom lehendy…, 107. … to: strengthen the conspiratorial network in the Kholmshchyna and Pidliashshia, develop Ukrainian consciousness among the locals, maintain influence within village administrations, care for Ukrainian refugees, detect any undercover Soviet agents among them (who were assigned to penetrate the social and political life of Ukrainians and to inform the NKVD about everything), care for incoming OUN emissaries from Ukraine and contact them with the provid in Kraków and vice versa – enable them to cross the border to the other side [Soviet occupation].1138 The OUN expanded its network, creating a regional branch subordinate to the executive for the country.1139 Along with supplying and sending nationalists to work in the structures of aid committees in the district, the OUN also undertook clandestine training and indoctrination, teaching a variety of “subjects:” military drill, reconnaissance, and political propaganda. Between 1940 and 1941, Knysh claimed hundreds of OUN members were participating in such training courses throughout the eastern and southeastern regions of the GG, including in Hrubieszów, Bełz, and Włodawa.1140 However, among nationalists existed a difference in mindset. In speaking of nationalists from Volhynia, Bohdan Osadchuk saw them as bearing a wider outlook in comparison to their Eastern Galician counterparts who were “petty, small-minded, in principle provincial.”1141 Nationalists served as the intelligentsia cadres in schools, cooperatives and in organizing social life. Because of its close borderland position to Eastern Galicia, Hrubieszów County became a hot bed of Ukrainian nationalist revival. Overall, their top priority throughout the district was raising the level of national consciousness among Ukrainian inhabitants; something very low as inhabitants there identified themselves as either Catholic or Orthodox. Indeed, in some counties it was. For example, Antonina Mytiuk recalled of no nationally-conscious Ukrainians interested in politics in Sahryń, a village in Hrubieszów County. The only politically-active Ukrainians there, she recalled, were communists.1142 In such villages, nationalists organized evening courses focusing on language lessons while infusing them with historical and cultural topics. Kazanivs’kyi, who taught such courses, piteously recalled older and younger Ukrainians ability to speak the language but not read or write in it. He concluded their understanding of Ukraine to be nil.1143 The effect of progressive work was soon seen by Il’nyts’kyi in a young boy, whose grandfather had him recite a patriotic poem he learned from a Galician Ukrainian teacher. The contrast between the old Chełm region, represented by the grandfather, and the future of the new one, seen in the young grandson, was a tangible sign of hope for Il’nyts’kyi and nationalists for nurturing a native, nationally conscious intelligentsia.1144 1144 Il’nyts’kyi, Dumky pro ukraїns’ku byzvol’nu polityku, 78. 1145 Illia Romaniuk, “Pid tr’oma okupantamy” in Ivanyk (ed), Krov ukraїns’ka, krov pol’s’ka…, 135. 1146 PUMST, OIV, file A.269, “Stosunki polsko-ukraińskie/Ukraińska Akcja na Chełmszczyźnie i Podlasiu,” November 21, 1942, p. 68. 1147 Sivak, “Krov ukraїns’ka, krov pol’s’ka…” in Ivanyk (ed), Krov ukraїns’ka, krov pol’s’ka…, 78. 1148 Kerski and Kowalczyk, Wiek ukraińsko-polski. Rozmowy z Bohdanem Osadczukiem, 25-26. 1149 Nadiia Korobchuk-Horlyts’ka, “Kriz’ voienni lykholittia” in Ivanyk (ed), Krov ukraїns’ka, krov pol’s’ka…, 204-205. Some natives referred to themselves as ‘Ukrainian’ out of practical necessity. Illia Romaniuk recalled German consternation when he identified himself as a Rusyn; they understood this as Russian and were disgusted by it.1145 Propaganda was also disseminated among the Chełm Orthodox and Catholic Ukrainians, often in Polish, threatening repressions against Poles while promising privileges for Ukrainians.1146 Some nationalists lived with native Ukrainian families. Vitalii Sivak recalled of one such nationalist who for a time lived in his home and often discussed political and historical topics with his father. Young Vitalii even discovered his nationalist propaganda – brochures and leaflets – hidden in the family barn.1147 The role of Ukrainian aid committees and their branches throughout the district was best described by Osadchuk who, after volunteering to work in the Chełm aid committee, quickly realized their goals: “After some time I realized that this is a social institution meant to help Ukrainians defend peasants from German harvest quotas. At the same time, it meant to reaffirm Ukrainian consciousness in areas wherever it was lost due to nationality policies, through building schools, creating cultural-education centers and rebuilding the Orthodox Church.” He also described the immediate effects of the change in Chełm’s composition to Ukrainians: “[it] appeared to me as a Russian one. I found myself in the direct center of tensions associated with the passing of the Chełm lands from Ukrainian to Polish jurisdiction and vice versa… as early as 1940, sporadic murders began there.”1148 German occupation was seen as overall positive in that it gave Ukrainians what the prewar Poles banned or took away. Nadiia Korobchuk, who lived in Chełm, reiterated this opinion: “When the Germans came, we no longer had the need to further hide the fact that we were Ukrainians – we were able to maintain our national organization.”1149 Among the young nationalists were also members of other political orientations – socialists and Petliurites; the latter having moved from Warsaw to the Chełm area in exchange for Russians moving to the Warsaw District. Some prominent Carpatho Ukrainians also made Chełm their temporary home. Such was the case of Ostap Maliuk, the former adjutant of President Avhustyn Voloshyn who walked the streets in his military uniform, with trident proudly visible, and participated in the life of the Ukrainian theater in the city speaking about the struggle with the Hungarians in 1939.1150 1150 PISM, MSW, folder A.9.V/8c, “Sprawy ukraińskie,” November 20, 1940; Romaniuk, “Pid tr’oma okupantamy” in Ivanyk (ed), Krov ukraїns’ka, krov pol’s’ka…, 137. 1151 Ievhen Pasternak, Narys istoriї Kholmshchyny i Pidliashshia (Pratsi: Ukrainian Research Institute of Volyn, 1968), 255; 410. 1152 Kerski and Kowalczyk, Wiek ukraińsko-polski. Rozmowy z Bohdanem Osadczukiem, 29. 1153 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 18, folder 2, Protokol zїzdu Ukr. Dop. Komitetiv Liublyns’koї Oblasty, January 7-8, 1940. 1154 Baran, Po nevoli – vidrozhzhennia…, 4; Armstrong, Ukrainian Nationalism, 48-49; Frank Grelka, “Polityka III Rzeszy...,” 73. 1155 PISM, MSW, folder A.9.III.2d/9, “Sprawa ukraińska,” n.d. In the formative months of late 1939, a group of Chełm Ukrainians travelled to Kraków to present their regional issues to the recently arrived nationalists there. As Tymish Olesiiuk recalled, Galician Ukrainians looked unkindly and with disaffection on them, particularly because of their UNR or Petliurite connections; what nationalists deemed to be pro-Polish. For example, Borys Rzhepets’kyi, who accompanied the Chełm group, was a member of the UNR delegation during negotiations over the Piłsudski-Petliura pact of April 1920. Olesiiuk himself served as secretary from the UNR side during those negotiations.1151 Osadchuk also recalled this dichotomy. Most non-OUN Ukrainians were marginalized; unable to achieve anything on their own. According to him, in the eyes of the nationalists, the Petliurites maintained a shameful historic stigma – the infamy of the agreements with Piłsudski renouncing Eastern Galicia.1152 The overall influx of Ukrainians into the region proved an opportune moment for strengthening claims of territorial ownership through resettlement; to turn Chełm County into a Piedmont for a future Ukraine. Like other nationalists, Kubiiovych expressed such visions in a speech to an aid committee congress in Chełm: “our assignment on these lands is to utilize time and become equals on the lands we inhabit, which appear to us as a growing Piedmont, where the builders of our future are to be raised.”1153 This idea also germinated within the minds of many Ukrainian nationalists who envisioned the western ethnographic territories within the borders of the GG as a “national oblast;” the successor to the failed Carpatho Ukrainian state.1154 The Polish underground believed that the nationalization of this area lay in Ukrainian interest and formed an integral portion of their desires to form a future state out of that and the Lemko regions.1155 Whilst the GG civil administration asserted itself over such spheres as labor, assets or legal regulations, it lost the battle for mastering and deciding wider settlement policy. Even before the establishment of the GG, Hitler formally appointed Himmler to oversee resettlement and deportation programs in the east. As such, he assumed the title of Reich Commissioner for the Consolidation of German Nationhood (Reichskommissar für die Festigung deutschen Volkstums - RKFDV). The body was to coordinate Volksdeutsche immigration and resettlement onto recently incorporated Reich territory.1156 What Philip Rutherford coined “destructive Germanization” of lands directly annexed into the Reich meant the deportation of non-Germans, particularly Poles but also Jews, and replacing them with incoming ethnic Germans and Volksdeutsche from Soviet occupied territory or the GG. In Kraków, Krüger informed Frank of a grandiose vision of 1 million Poles and Jews deported to the GG.1157 1156 Phillip T. Rutherford, Prelude to the Final Solution: The Nazi Program for Deporting Ethnic Poles, 1939-1941 (Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press, 2007), 9. 1157 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/1, Tagebuch des Herrn Generalgouverneurs für die besetzen Polnischen Gebieten vom Oktober bis Dezember 1939, p. 49. 1158 AAN, RdGG, sygn. 434/1, Einsiedlungen ins Gen. Gouvernement und innere Umsiedlungen seit Dezember 1939, pp. 14-15. Seven settlement plans were envisioned to take place from December 1939 through March 1941. A February 1940 resettlement report indicated that a total of 1.6 million Poles, Jews, Gypsies, Volksdeutsche and laborers were resettled either to the General Government, out of it to territories directly annexed into the Reich or to and from the USSR. AP-L, DGdDL, sygn. 133, p. 1. 1159 Winstone, The Dark Heart of Hitler’s Europe…, 87; 1160 Christopher R. Browning, The Origins of the Final Solution: the Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939 – March 1942 (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2004), 64-72; Josef Goebbels, The Goebbels Diaries, ed. Kouis L. Lochner (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1948), 164-165. During a meeting with Kreis- and Stadthauptmänner in Lublin, Frank informed the administrators that even though he thwarted Himmler’s plan of accepting 7.5 million Poles, he could not stop most of the Reich’s Jews, 100-120 thousand Poles and 30 thousand Gypsies from being deported to the GG. AIPN, DHF, GK 95/9, Dienstversammlung der Kreis- und Stadthauptmänner des Distriktes Lublin, March 4, 1940, p. 180. This social engineering project envisioned turning the land between the Vistula and Bug rivers, in essence the territory of the Lublin district, into what Himmler envisioned as a “dumping ground” for Jewry and unreliable elements. Internally, Jews were to be the first moved – expelled from Kraków to territory in the north.1158 Reality however often differed from racial visions, forcing the Germans to alternate moving millions with short-term or interim plans; ones which, although not as grandiose, were still shocking. Although nowhere near Himmler’s figure of millions, between 1939 and 1941, between 400 and 500 thousand people were expelled to the GG.1159 Frank’s administration raised objections to SS visions of turning the GG into a reservation of undesirables. Thanks to Göring, who was concerned over the effects deportations would have on the GG and incorporated territories' economies, ordered further deportations banned unless they had his consent and Frank’s approval. However, this success was only nominal since he still had to accept Poles while the GG was still earmarked as the final destination for European Jews. As Hitler believed, the GG was to be a Polish reservation and work camp where living standards were to be low and the intelligentsia eradicated. This vision differed from Frank’s who saw the GG in different terms. Nazi propaganda czar Josef Goebbels best captured these visions: All of them want to unload their rubbish into the GG. Jews, the sick, slackers, etc. And Frank is resisting. Not entirely wrong. He wants to create a model country out of Poland. That is going too far. He cannot and should not.1160 In 1940, Frank was speaking of a “modern journey of peoples,” what Haar equated to a euphemism describing the process of destroying the socio-economic structure of Poles and Jews. Such steps confirm that GG administrators no longer saw the region as a Polish homeland but rather as a territory subject to complete Germanization. This began with repressive anti-Jewish laws, forced labor and creating reservations, i.e. ghettos.1161 1161 Haar, “Polityka ludnościowa w Generalnym Gubernatorstwie...,” 163-164. 1162 Ibid, 162-163; Janusz Sobczak, Hitlerowskie przesiedlenia ludności niemieckiej w dobie II wojny światowej (Poznań: Instytut Zachodni, 1966), 220. Only 4.1% of the Lublin Germans were categorized as ‘G class,’ meaning they were excluded from the ethnic German group. The Ethnic German Agency (also translated as the Coordination Center for Ethnic Germans) or VoMi was set up in 1936. Its main objective was the integration of ethnic Germans living abroad onto Reich territory and into German political life; known as the Heim ins Reich or ‘return to the Reich’ program. As soon as the return of these Germans began, the VoMi was expanded. By mid-1941 it was promoted to the status of an SS central office. For a concerted study of this institution and its programs, see Vladis O. Lumans, Himmler’s Auxiliaries: the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle and the German National Minorities of Europe, 1933-1945 (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1993). 1163 Kurt Lück, “Die Umsiedlung der Cholmer und Lubliner Deutschen,” Das Generalgouvernement 1.Jahrgang Folge 3 (Dezember 1940), 4-8. 1164 Burleigh, Germany turns Eastwards..., 103; 108-114; 179-181; 199-204. In 1928, he served time in a Polish prison as a German candidate for the Sejm. In 1940, with a publication subsidy of 2,200 Reich Marks, Lück wrote Deutsche Gestalter und Ordner im Osten; a work of biographical protraits of German “pioneers” in Poland. Highlighting 35 German “pioneers,” his main thesis argued: “The Poles [who] have always had a tendency to be ruled by disorder and erraticism and who rejoice in doing nothing and indulgence… [with] The Germans [who] were organizers, creators and bearers of progress. When will a great museum of German cultural achievement in the East be built in the frontier areas?” That same year he also published Der Of equal importance to Frank and GG administrators was the territorial segregation of fremdvölkische ethnic groups. The resettlement project which directly affected Ukrainians in the Lublin District correlated with plans to move ethnic Germans inhabiting areas around Chełm and Lublin (Cholmer- und Lubliner-Deutsche) west to the Reich. According to Ethnic German Agency (Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle - VoMi) data for 1940/1941, over 49 thousand registered Germans lived in the region. Out of this number, 35.6% were categorized as ‘A class;’ meaning their work would be conducted on Reich territory from 1937. The majority – 60.3 % - were classified as ‘O class’ and would work on the incorporated territories.1162 German propaganda presented these Germans as forgotten pilgrim-émigrés who left their homeland beginning in the 14th century. Until recently, an article claimed, the “volk islands” of these Germans who fought for their “völkische self-identification” became common-knowledge to the public and, moreover, the responsibility for the Nazi Reich to care for them and bring them back to their ancestral homeland.1163 This image and approach was grounded in the scholarly work of Kurt Lück, an Ostforschung academic who specialized in Slavic languages and, in 1926, moved to Volhynia where, supported by German business interests from Poznań, he founded a credit institution providing low-interest loans for local German farmers. His work searched for German influence throughout Polish history; so much so that he developed a thesis that historically, Poland was not really Polish at all. As an SS-Hauptsturmführer during the war, aside from the Chełm Germans, he was directly involved in the “repatriation” of Volhynian and Baltic Germans to the Reich to achieve “clear ethnographic relations by a separation of nationalities through resettlement.”1164 This position was summarized in a special pamphlet provided to Wehrmacht soldiers. Lebenskampf im deutsch-polnischen Grenzraum for the central press of the NSDAP. The purpose of this work was to provide an official version of German-Polish history and a series of guidelines on how those who would settle and ultimately rule the east should conduct themselves toward the subject populations. 1165 BA, NS 43/32, Ukraїns’ki seliany teritoriї Heneral'hubernatorstva terpliat’ na pereselennia, n.d., pp. 246-247; Knysh, Rozbrat..., 160. 1166 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/9, Dienstversammlung der Kreis- und Stadthauptmänner des Distrikts Lublin, March 4, 1940, p. 170. 1167 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 20, folder 24, Zvidomlennia z konferentsiї vidbutoї u Dr. Kukhenbekera, July 10, 1940; Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Heneral'nii Huberniї, 187-188. 1168 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 20, folder 24, Zvidomlennia v spravi pereselennia na Kholmshchynu, August 6, 1940. Here the German liaison to the Ukrainian resettlement commission Dr. Kuchenbäker raised questions to settling Ukrainians in regions where they numbered 2-20% of the population. 1169 Rutherford, Prelude to the Final Solution…, 165; Sobczak, Hitlerowskie przesiedlenia ludności..., 221. On the backdrop of German resettlement plans, Kubiiovych wished to see ethnic Ukrainians settled in place of the Germans; replacing them with what he claimed to be an equally loyal element for the occupiers. Their settlement also meant strengthening ethnic belonging by reclaiming territory in the GG viewed as ethnographically Ukrainian. A report compiled by the Chełm aid committee described a hodge-podge of Ukrainians awaiting or wanting resettlement. A total of 3600 families, primarily consisting of Ukrainians who fled Soviet occupation, volunteered. The report also suggested transferring to Chełm over 300 families temporarily displaced in Reich transit camps as well as over 70 thousand POWs who served in the Polish army in 1939 and even several thousand Ukrainian farmers in France and Belgium. Furthermore, Poles slated for settlement from incorporated territories were suggested to be placed in the region’s western regions to prevent Polish influences from appearing on perceived Ukrainian territory.1165 In his capacity as UTsK head and catering to the welfare of Ukrainians, Kubiiovych lobbied the Germans to resettle Ukrainians onto recently vacated Volksdeutsche land in Chełm.1166 He justified settlement there as something demanded and beneficial to both German and Ukrainian interests. Arguing the region’s historic, purely ethnographic Ukrainian character, he wrote: “We sympathized with the fate of Polish settlers but we had no moral responsibilities to care for them and we defended ourselves against their settlement on our lands.”1167 In response to German concerns to the validity of resettling Ukrainians onto ethnically-mixed territory, especially in such areas where they would be in a minority, he remained adamant – Ukrainians were to be settled throughout the Chełm region.1168 To colonize Ukrainian regions, Kubiiovych aimed to neutralize the most national factor present there. On the backdrop of large-scale German resettlement plans, he looked to those Ukrainians who, after emigrating from the Soviet occupied zone in German resettlement transports, were settled in temporary transit camps, primarily in Łódź. During this time, Poles and Jews expelled from the incorporated territories were being resettled in counties throughout the Lublin District; a process which began as early as December 1939. In May 1940, Himmler ordered for the repatriation and resettlement of Cholmerdeutschen or Volksdeutschen from Chełm. According to him, they would be moved after the August corn harvests as he did not want to disrupt important agricultural work.1169 GG officials saw in the deportation project an important issue – territorially isolating Ukrainians from Poles. During a joint district civil-security meeting, the Ukrainian question was discussed. It was concluded then that Poles and Jews would not be settled in closed Ukrainian settlement areas.1170 In his order of April 9 1940, Frank even excluded Lublin and Chełm counties from areas designated for Polish resettlement. However, Lublin District SS Police Chief Odilo Globocnik, responsible for resettlements and subservient only to Himmler, failed to heed the order as he transferred Poles to counties throughout the entire district, including the ones excluded.1171 1170 AP-L, DGdDL, sygn. 61, Bericht über die Sitzung in Lublin, February 16, 1940, pp. 17-18. 1171 Janina Kiełboń, Migracja ludności w Dystrykcie Lubelskim w latach 1939-1944 (Lublin: Państwowe Muzeum na Majdanku, 1995), 32-35. 1172 Götz Aly, ‘Final Solution:’ Nazi Population Policy and the Murder of the European Jews, trans. Belinda Cooper and Allison Brown (London: Arnold, 1999), 91; Winstone, The Dark Heart of Hitler’s Europe..., 46, 99-100. 1173 Aly, ‘Final Solution:’ Nazi Population Policy…, 98; 104fn81. 1174 Rutherford, Prelude to the Final Solution…, 167. 1175 Kurt Lück, Die Cholmer und Lubliner Deutschen kehren heim ins Vaterland (Leipzig: Hirzel, 1940), 7; 142. 1176 Rutherford, Prelude to the Final Solution…, 167. 1177 AAN, RGO, sygn. 1039, Report: Rada Opiekuńcza Biłgoraj Powiat to RGO Kraków, February 9, 1941, pp. 27-29. In late June, Frank wrote to the Reich chancellery in Berlin voicing his protest in turning his territory into a racial duping ground; noting of “overpopulation” and the “wretched food supply situation” as making further resettlement catastrophic.1172 Several months later, in August, Himmler agreed to settle Ukrainian and German-Ukrainian families evacuated from Soviet-annexed eastern Poland onto evacuated German farms in the district. In meeting with Wehrmacht representatives, GG SS and police chief Krüger agreed to consider placing 60 to 70 GG Poles evacuated from territories designated for military training centers on those farms as well. Himmler envisioned later seeing those farms consolidated into large estates, ones to be run by the SS.1173 Ultimately, in his August 1940 order, he entrusted GG officials to assist in his plans, placing the incoming Poles at their disposal. Whether or not they would receive farmland was left to the discretion of GG authorities.1174 As much as Frank may have opposed accepting more settlers on his territory, he expressed his support for the resettlement program. On GG territory, Krüger and Globocnik would be responsible for the resettlements.1175 The haste of resettling Poles and Jews to the GG was soon felt. Beginning in September 1940, the first transport delivered some 600 Poles from the Wartheland to Lublin. Within ten days, a total of over 5 thousand Poles had been deported east.1176 Civil authorities in the GG were ill-prepared to cope with such numbers at such a short notice. Deportees often travelling in pure misery – crammed into locked in cattle cars with no windows, water, lavatories or heat. Trains were often diverted from town to town before they found one willing to receive them. A lack of accommodations forced aid and religious charities to care for the new arrivals; housed in schoolhouses or dispersed throughout villages.1177 Those who did eventually received farms found them to be substandard at best. Some fled back to the incorporated territories while others were placed in camps or selected for labor to the Reich.1178 A local German administrator in Radzyń County reported he received no notice regarding the displacement of Volksdeutsche and the settlement of Poles in their place. He noted 20 thousand Poles and Jews arrived in his county, living in tight, intolerable conditions. A subsequent November 1940 report mentioned of over 3 thousand Poles being dispersed throughout that region in order to settle and work on vacated farms.1179 At the close of the Cholmer Aktion, over 28 thousand Poles were sent to the Lublin District to make room for over 30 thousand Chełm Volksdeutsche. 1178 Rutherford, Prelude to the Final Solution…, 169-170; 282fn130; Klukowski, Diary from the Years of Occupation…, 88; Winstone, The Dark Heart of Hitler’s Europe..., 84-86 1179 BA, R 52 III/17, Betrifft: Lagebericht für den Monat November 1940, p. 49-50; Okupacja i ruch oporu…, vol. 1, 307. The report noted that Poles were settled in and around such cities or towns as Chełm, Biała Podlaska, Radzyń, Łuków, Puławy, Krasnystaw and Zamość. 1180 AP-L, DGdDL, sygn. 157, Bericht über die Lage der ukrainische Bevölkerung in dem Distrikt Lublin, February 5, 1940, p. 6; BA, NS 43/32, Bericht über die Umsiedlungaktion im Cholmerland, n.d., pp. 244-245. 1181 AP-L, DGdDL, sygn. 157, Bericht über die Lage der ukrainische Bevölkerung in dem Distrikt Lublin, February 5, 1940, p. 6-7. 1182 Ibid, p. 4. The arrival of Poles troubled Kubiiovych who voiced his alarm to the civil authorities. In a February 1940 report on the state of Ukrainian inhabitants in the district, he protested against rumors spread by Polish administrators claiming Ukrainians were to be deported to the Soviet Union while Poles would move from the incorporated territories to take their places. “They [the Poles] are doing everything in order to drive out the native Ukrainian population from their soil,” he claimed. Such anti-Ukrainian propaganda also appeared in German reports which noted of “Polish provocateurs” threatening newly-arrived settlers by telling them: “here was a Polish state and will be again in the future.”1180 Kubiiovych, who viewed the Poles loyalty to the occupiers questionable at best, proposed an ethnically homogenous Ukrainian region to the occupiers: But we are firmly convinced that it is in the interests of the Greater German Reich that at the boundaries of the German sphere of interest lives a reliable, friendly Ukrainian element and Poles be kept away from Ukrainian soil. This Ukrainian element, which has fought against greater Polishness and fell victim to it, would form a kind of eastern wall in the new power structure.1181 The same German report indicated of ethnically Ukrainian regions under the authority of Polish police units continuing to see unfair punishment. Additionally, it mentioned of misinformation being received by police. In such cases, Polish accusations against Ukrainians were taken at face value. The report noted that the resettlement of Poles to the Chełm region only benefitted them with Ukrainians feeling forgotten and passed over by the Germans. Kubiiovych lamented over the Polish police abusing their power – what he saw as a continuation of their prewar terrorization – and explained that this was driving many to register with the Soviet commission for resettlement east “for fear of the new wave of Polish chauvinism.”1182 A report from the Chełm aid committee echoed this sentiment: “The Ukrainian people cannot understand why the German authorities immediately colonized Ukrainian ethnographic territory [with Poles] and why this is occurring on borderland territories… the German authorities should depend on Ukrainian inhabitants, friendly toward the German administration.”1183 1183 BA, NS/43/32, Ukraїns’ki seliany teritoriї Heneral'hubernatorstva terpliat’ na pereselennia, n.d., p. 247. 1184 Veryha, The Correspondence…, 143-147. Two subsequent notes to Frank detailed the need to transfer all Ukrainians to the Chełm region while keeping Poles and Ukrainians separate from one another. See Veryha, The Correspondance…, 132-135. 1185 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 20, folder 24, Zvidomlennia z interventsiї Dr. Kukhenbekera v spravi pereselennia na Kholmshchyni, August 5, 1940; Veryha, The Correspondence…, 129-130. 1186 Veryha, The Correspondance…, 162-163; Haar, “Polityka ludnościowa w Generalnym Gubernatorstwie...,” 163. Kubiiovych also voiced his alarm over the influx of Poles on what he claimed as Ukrainian territory to Frank and SS officials in Berlin. In a September 1940 report to the general governor, he reiterated that land in the Chełm region was already promised by civil administrators for Ukrainian settlers; claiming of 4,840 farmers already selected for relocation there. He described them as a “reliable element” meant to strengthen German interests “in an indirect but obvious way.”1184 Writing to SS Hauptsturmführer Adolf Eichmann, he reiterated the importance of reliable elements over “hostile” Polish ones in those borderland regions. In his eyes, all displaced Ukrainians were to only be transferred to the Chełm region. Likewise, he made it clear that no Poles should be settled or mixed between what he called German and Ukrainian islands and conclaves.1185 Organizationally, plans to settle Ukrainians onto the Chełm region looked to also include so-called “volunteers” from throughout Ukrainian-inhabited territories of the GG. German civil administrators in Warsaw called on Ukrainians in the city to settle the Chełm region. Local aid committees and their village apparatuses were to search for resettlement candidates; primarily but not limited to those in displaced persons or transit camps. Kubiiovych also looked to ethnic Ukrainians from outside of the General Government to be settled onto Ukrainian-majority areas. In late November 1940 he wrote the German authorities to permit Ukrainian prison guards in Budapest to travel to the Reich and later east.1186 Nationalists lamented over the lack of enthusiasm among young Galicians to volunteer for resettlement; an element which continued to be in demand as the number of volunteers did not meet the realistic expectations of farmland available. Within displaced persons camps in Kraków, many young Galician farmers remained. For them, Knysh wrote, the opportunity arose to easily gain farmland. Some volunteered yet returned back to the city. Upon Kubiiovych’s asking why they abandoned their land and created unnecessary harm for their fellow Ukrainians, one young Galician removed his fountain pen from his pocket, held it up to him and said: “Do you see this instrument? I belong to it and not the plow.” Others remained in the city where they “tailed various characters throughout the streets of Kraków, something the diversionaries [Banderites] ordered them to do because they had no other activities for them.” A German report noted of many Ukrainians returning to Kraków, at their own expense, since the farms did not meet their expectations.1187 1187 AP-L, DGdDL, sygn. 134, Erfahrungsbericht das Umsiedlungslager in Cholm vom 28. VIII bis 27. XI 1940, p. 173; Knysh, Rozbrat…, 160-161. 1188 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 20, folder 23, Aktennotiz: Ansiedlung der ukrainischen Umsiedler aus dem Buchenland im GG, December 6, 1941. 1189 Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Heneral’nii Huberniї, 185-186. 1190 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 20, folder 24, Pidruchni informatsiї dlia pereselentsiv, n.d. Kubiiovych also envisioned settling Bessarabian and Bukovinian Ukrainians throughout the Chełm region. The Soviet annexation of those regions in 1940 caused many Ukrainians there to flee Soviet rule and persecution. Like their Eastern Galician and Volhynian counterparts, they too toward German resettlement commissions to move them out. Many were placed in transit camps and awaited settlement. In a note to the authorities, Kubiiovych wrote of the UTsK undertaking preparations to resettle, first and foremost, members of the intelligentsia from those regions to the GG. This, he argued, was very favorable for Ukrainians in the Lublin District as he claimed those Ukrainians spoke fluent German and were Orthodox adherents.1188 UTsK representatives visited camps on Reich territory where a sizable amount of the intelligentsia were selected and recruited to bolster local aid committees, schools, and churches.1189 An informative guide for local aid committee workers detailed the kind of settlers to be recruited: Only farmers from purely Ukrainian regions should be considered for resettlement. Ukrainians from mixed regions or from ones in which they are a considerable minority are not recommended for resettlement because this would reduce the Ukrainian state of possession. Special attention should be paid to the borderland regions, particularly to those farmers whose land fell to the Soviet side. They should be immediately recruited for resettlement. And: Because these Ukrainian resettlement colonies are to be model ones, only the most conscious, valuable elements should be taken. Special attention should be paid to workmanship. Under no circumstances should scalawags be considered even if they are poor or landless.1190 Those who volunteered or wished to resettle were noted and moved to temporary transit camps where they awaited the finalization of technical, bureaucratic matters between the UTsK and German authorities. Several Ukrainians from the Chełm aid committee were chosen to assist in welcoming and settling the newcomers. Furthermore, they were instructed to create colonial environments – to designate a place for the local church, delegate a larger homestead for a priest and allocate buildings for a schoolhouse, reading room and local cooperative; the symbols of social autonomy.1191 New arrivals inherited farms averaging 10 hectares in size in what was termed “as is” condition. This meant some farms contained livestock, often leftover, while others had none; land on some was more bountiful than on others. Farming tools were bought by some of the new tenants. If farmers needed money, loans could be given. It was suggested that when possible, settlers bring livestock, especially horses, with them as tilling and harvesting the land was a mandatory obligation. According to resettled Ukrainian Ivan Liakhovyn, a Galician later transferred to the Chełm region, the Central Committee paid for initial land rental and provided settlers with a stipend. This however was to be repaid.1192 1191 Ibid, Orhanizatsiihyi plian pratsi dlia pereselennia ukraїns’kykh selian na Kholmshchynu na mistse opushchenykh kol’onii Nimtsiamy, July 15, 1940. 1192 AP-L, DGdDL, sygn. 134, Umsiedlung der Ukrainer aus Litzmannstadt, November 23, 1940, p. 166. 1193 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 20, folder 24, Zvidomlennia z interventsiї inzh. Tvorydla u Dr. Kukhenbekera v spravi pereselennia, August 25, 1940. 1194 BA, R 52 III/17, Betrifft: Lagebericht für den Monat November 1940, p. 50; LAC, MG 31 D 203, volume 20, folder 24, Pidruchni informatsiї dlia pereselentsiv, n.d. 1195 AP-L, DGdDL, sygn. 133, Aktennotiz, December 5, 1940, p. 5; BA, R 52 III/17, Lagebericht fur den Monat Februar 1941, p. 49-50. Reports detailing population transfers stipulated it being handled and carried out by the German authorities, specifically the SS, with the Ukrainian Central Committee and its local aid branches serving a supporting role. Moreover, no property rights were extended to the Ukrainian settlers. Authorities in Berlin specified that land remained a possession of the Reich and thus could not be bought or sold. Ukrainians would have the privilege of renting and working on it for the Reich war effort but never owning it per se.1193 German reports indicated UTsK representatives aimed to expedite the transfer of Galician Ukrainians first and foremost. A September 1940 note from Lublin mayor Richard Türk to the GG population and welfare department stated all Ukrainians in transit camps (no official number specified) were to be transferred to the Chełm region. However this was tentatively postponed. Further investigation by the authorities found that some of the intended settlers were not farmers, the primary social class meant for resettlement. Nor were they displaced Ukrainians but rather “volunteers” with residency in the Kraków District. To prevent excesses, the occupiers created nominal demands Ukrainian settlers had to meet. They were to be either farmers who escaped Soviet occupation, those with no previous property, newlyweds who lived with their parents under one roof, farmers with small farms, or married émigré farmers. Other valuable tradesmen, such as blacksmiths, cobblers or tailors could also apply for resettlement and farmland.1194 By December 1940, following clarifications, Lublin SS chief Globocnik reported 700 Ukrainian families prepared for resettlement into the Chełm region. Their eventual move came during the winter of 1941, with settlement in Zamość and Hrubieszów counties.1195 The life of the newly resettled Ukrainians was reported to the UTsK by Roman Il’nyts’kyi who served as Committee representative beside district civil authorities. In a set of reports from early 1941, he described the situation throughout various settlement colonies in the Chełm region. Those colonies, containing between 10 and 35 families, resembled a hodgepodge of Ukrainians from various geographic regions – Eastern Galicia, Volhynia, Lemkivshchyna, the Hutsul region and Dnieper Ukraine. Because of this diverse composition, various problems abound. For example, the colony of Hotivka (present Gotówka) contained 27 resettled families. The regional diversity of these Ukrainians proved to be a problem. As Il’nyts’kyi noted, the psychological differences – contesting views and levels of national awareness between Galician, Lemko and Dnieper Ukrainians – made coexistence among them difficult. As a result, internal social divisions emerged. Most settlers were in need of new farming equipment, livestock feed or even bread. Fields remained fallow as they lacked seed. Meeting with settler-farmers, Il’nyts’kyi described them as poor and exhausted: “Their clothes were tattered; they spent the winter in one shirt and sweater… traces of malnutrition are seen in their faces.1196 A report from his travels around Zamość detailed the experiences of Ukrainians resettled from Reich lands there. This group, which numbered 350, was hastily dispersed throughout the county immediately after their arrival to the main railway station. Local aid committees had no time to properly identify and record them. Furthermore, Il’nyts’kyi described them as “an element of little moral or social value,” one which consisted of Czech, German or Polish Ukrainians.1197 1196 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 20, folder 24, Zvit z poїzdky na koloniї ukraїns’kykh pereselentsiv, April 8, 1941. 1197 Ibid, Zvit z poїzdky do Zamostiia, February 7, 1941. 1198 TsDAVOVUU, UTsK, f. 3959, op. 1, spr. 62, Propozytsiї referenta UTsK shchodo vidznachennia ukraїns’kykh sviat, December 16, 1940, pp. 18-18a. 1199 PUMST, OIV, file A.268, Report of 2nd Lt. Flegel-Cepiński, March 5, 1942, p. 52. To attract and entice newcomers as well as locals to support their program and work within the apparatus of the UTsK, officials looked to use social or religious events as propaganda tools. Propositions were presented to attract the youth of the Chełm region by, for example, organizing amateur theaters, choirs or holiday events (such as on the feast of St. Nicholas or, for the Chełm region, the Russian Father Winter). These cultural events were meant to serve two purposes. First, it was hoped that by participating in them, young Ukrainians could be recruited to work within UTsK structures. Second, the events meant to keep young Ukrainians away from nationalist influences and recruitment. In the case of choirs, it was noted to begin by introducing the young singers to religious or church hymns while patriotic ones would be taught later. All this, one UTsK report indicated, meant to also attract parents to organizational work.1198 The Germans, in an effort to further gain the trust of Ukrainians, slowly gave them what a Polish report called “miniature autonomy.” This was evident, for example, in the town of Włodawa. There, the mayor and town administration were in Ukrainian hands while the administrative languages were Ukrainian and of course, German.1199 Local German administrators from other counties also reported on ethnic questions. The Kreishauptmann for Biłgoraj employed Ukrainian civil administrators as wójts or school inspectors. In one Ukrainian village where he employed a Volksdeutsche – because he was more suitable – he compensated by appointing a Ukrainian wójt in a non-majority village. The Radzyń Kreishauptmann noted that villages in his county were headed by two Volksdeutsche and four Ukrainian wójts. He assessed the overall relationship and productivity of Ukrainian administrators as good and promising: “I believe that they are now and in the future a pleasing support for the German administration against the Poles, whose fanatical hatred of the Ukrainians cannot be underestimated.” Furthermore, he noted that if the occupier’s political line sought to strengthen Ukrainian interests in favor of weakening Polish ones, he would comply.1200 Zygmunt Klukowski who, on the one year anniversary of the outbreak of war, wrote of what he believed to be the danger of ukrainization in his diary: 1200 AP-L, DGdDL, sygn. 157, Ukrainische Frage, June 13, 1940, p. 14; Der Kreishauptmann in Radzyn – Betrifft: Ukrainer, May 25, 1940, pp. 16; 18. 1201 Klukowski, Diary from the Years of Occupation 1939-44, 114 1202 Młynarczyk, “Pomiędzy współpracą a zdradą...,” 111-112; fn30p112. In a 1941 issue, the Polish AK’s official publication Biuletyn Informacyjny defined an informant denouncing others to the occupier as “charges raised by a Pole to the German occupier on their countrymen.” Examples included: the farmer who informed the Germans that his neighbors did not register their livestock, slaughtered a pig or secretly ground wheat; the factory worker who complains of his co-workers or Polish manager to the Germans; all social “scum” who for either revenge or profit or for other reasons inform the Germans of conspiratorial and clandestine anti-German activity. We must protect ourselves against the invasion of influence of not only the Germans but also the Ukrainians. The Ukrainians are beginning to invade our area with the blessing of the German administration. Here in Szczebrzeszyn we now have a Ukrainian judge, Stocki, and two lawyers, Hrecyna and Zaborski. An organization of Ukrainians unknown to us is beginning a campaign against [Polish] Mayor Borucki.1201 German employment of eager Ukrainians, or Polish Volksdeutsche for that matter, in low-level civil servant positions throughout counties and districts they inhabited also served an additional purpose for the Germans. Often they were an additional set of eyes and ears for the occupation and security apparatus. In Hrubieszów County, for example, where Ukrainians were a major minority, aid committee men and civil servants who aimed to neutralize Polish influence in every way possible spied on Polish villagers and informed the Gestapo of the activity of the underground there. Similar informant activity in Chełm County led to the destruction of local Home Army forces. In May 1940, the German starosta in Hrubieszów County noted increasing denunciations of Poles by Ukrainians. Upon further investigation, however, the information provided proved unreasonable. The starosta complained of this lack of reliable information to his superiors in a report in which he wrote: “Certainly Ukrainian denunciations are to be treated with extreme caution as their information was confirmed in only several instances. Most information is characterized by a lack of necessary objectivity while upon further investigation [they] turn out to be wrong or almost completely wrong. The flood of information from the Ukrainians gives the authorities a considerable amount of additional work.”1202 The settlement of Ukrainians throughout portions of the district did not deter antagonisms with Poles. Conversely, it increased ethnic hostility as both groups looked to gain some sort of position of influence with the occupation authorities at the expense of the other. Shortly after the creation of the exile government in Paris, the Committee for Country Matters (Komitet Ministrów dla Spraw Kraju) issued a directive concerning behavior under German occupation. It called on all pre-war Polish citizens to boycott the German occupation in all aspects of everyday life. Additionally, it formulated conditions for limited cooperation with the Germans with the intention of maintaining pre-war state institutions: Polish citizens were permitted to work in community or self-government administrations; in trade, industry or agriculture so long as it did not entail any political obligations toward the occupier. Furthermore, welfare work was permitted only if absolutely necessary and when it was in the interest of the suffering Polish people.1203 1203 “Pierwsze dyrektywy Komitetu Ministrów dla Spraw Kraju, November 15, 1939” in Armia Krajowa w dokumentach vol. 1, 6. 1204 Gross, Polish Society under German Occupation…, 133-134; Młynarczyk, “Pomiędzy współpracą a zdradą...,” 122. According to Czesław Madajczyk, in 1944 the GG employed a total of 1,512 mayors and sołtyses. Out of this, 717 were Polish, 463 Ukrainians, 180 “of unknown ethnic extraction,” 144 Germans, 5 Górale, and 3 Belarusians. Madajczyk, Polityka III Rzeszy w okupowanej Polsce vol. 1, 222. 1205 AAN, RGO, sygn. 367, Note: RGO Lublin to RGO Kraków, August 7, 1942, p. 3. 1206 AP-L, DGdDL, sygn. 157, Bericht über die Lage der ukrainische Bevölkerung in dem Distrikt Lublin, February 5, 1940, pp. 2-4; Throughout ethnically-mixed regions in the GG, local administration became a field of contention between Poles and Ukrainians. During the wartime period, between 260 and 280 thousand Poles and Ukrainians worked for the occupation administration in various capacities (including the post and railway). However, such work was in no way easy. Often, administrators were directly subservient to Germans who ordered them to achieve their policies such as meeting worker quotas to the Reich or harvest consignments. Failure to comply often met brutal repercussions: physical violence, sentencing to concentration camps or even execution. On the other hand, those who did not meet the expectations of the occupied populace – to alleviate in some way occupational brutality – and fell into a “moral downfall” were seen as collaborators and traitors who would be dealt with accordingly.1204 It was precisely in this light that Poles and Ukrainians viewed each other in administrative positions. Just as the Ukrainians, Polish aid groups worked to include their people in local administrative life. Even if areas with Ukrainian mayors, the Polish RGO looked to have some voice in civic matters.1205 Kubiiovych’s situational memorandums and summaries presented a difficult outlook for Ukrainians. Wherever Polish prewar civil administrators were employed or simply held-over in their previous roles, he claimed continual unfair treatment toward Ukrainians. Polish rhetoric, he explained, called for the resettlement of Ukrainian inhabitants to Soviet Ukraine as that was their perceived home. The domination of Polish life in some ethnically-mixed villages was also seen in the auxiliary police forces which often remained in Polish hands. Kubiiovych called on the authorities to employ Ukrainians in villages or towns, especially ethnically-mixed ones, with a Ukrainian-majority.1206 Nationalists made attempts at calming Ukrainian fears stemming from Polish propaganda. However, locals and new settlers remained unconvinced: “You [nationalists] came and will go and we, once again, will be victimized by the Poles.”1207 1207 Bohachevs’kyi, Na vozi i pid vozom, 120. 1208 Veryha, The Correspondence..., 78-79. 1209 BA, NS 43/32, Anstaltung der Ukrainer in der Selbstverwaltung des Kreises Zamosc, February 13, 1941, pp. 236-237. 1210 AP-L, DGdDL, sygn. 157, Besprechung über die ukrainische Frage in Bilgoraj, Septeber 15, 1940, p. 25. 1211 Iliuszyn, AK i UPA…, 76. Following a district inspection, Kubiiovych reported of difficulties faced in areas with Polish bureaucrats. Aside from spreading rumors of Ukrainian resettlement, he noted of Poles harassing villagers by imposing large crop and livestock quotas on Ukrainians or by sending primarily Ukrainians to work in the Reich from ethnically-mixed areas. To avoid further injustices, he proposed employing Ukrainians as civil servants, school inspectors, community leaders; creating an auxiliary police force, making Ukrainian a secondary administrative language in areas with Ukrainian-majority speakers.1208 In Ukrainian-majority areas to which Poles were settled, where he claimed Polish “island” diminished the Ukrainian character, the specter of Polish colonization alarmed aid committee representatives. In such cases, committee men called on Kreishauptmänner to place civil authority in Ukrainian hands. This was seen as a means of preventing perceived Polish dominance. They demanded Ukrainians be placed in the top administrative position of sołtys. In areas in which Ukrainian settlements comprised islands among Polish-majority territories, they demanded civic representation reflect population numbers in order to break-up any Polish administrative monopoly; conceding to accept either the positions of sołtys or secretary, the top two village administrative positions.1209 German reports also described ethnic animosity. For example, in Biłgoraj, Ukrainians claimed all translators were Poles who did not understand Ukrainian. A German note clarified this misunderstanding, indicating that the Kreishauptmann’s interpreter was in fact a German teacher who spoke Ukrainian. Polish wójts there were to be replaced in the near future by Ukrainian men proposed by the UTsK. However, in forestry, overseen by a Pole, the report stipulated of excesses against Ukrainians and noted that the Kreishauptmann would attempt to change things again. Some aspects of social life in Ukrainian hands were not always seen positively by villagers either. The same report noted of Ukrainian tax collectors being beaten or chased out of some villages by Ukrainian farmers with flails or crude farming tools in their hands.1210 The ethnic administrative tug-of-war for influence also contained a murky side as Ukrainian and Polish civil servants also included those who zealously rendered German orders, being what Iliushyn deemed “ardent sell-outs and servants,” collaborating in the worst sense of the word with the Germans.1211 Beside the police training camp in Zakopane, a second one was organized in Chełm to train Ukrainians for auxiliary service. Basic instruction was conducted according to the prewar Polish police regimen. Some 200 men underwent training before subsequently being dispersed throughout various counties: 60 in Włodawa, 40 in Chełm, 60 in Hrubieszów and 40 in Biłgoraj. The majority of those who joined the auxiliary police force were OUN members. In freely moving about, these police men gained intelligence about local Poles, their attitudes or Polish conspiratorial activity; information they then shared with the German police.1212 They used prewar Polish uniforms but replaced eagle emblems with tridents. More importantly, a Polish note to London mentioned of these men being simultaneously given basic military training and, in the event of German mobilization, were to be the junior officers in a Ukrainian army alongside the Germans. In very few cases, the note summarized, did Ukrainian auxiliaries supersede the competencies of their Polish counterparts.1213 1212 Huk (ed), Zakerzonnia. Spomyny voiakiv UPA, vol. 4, 50-56. 1213 PUMST, OIV, file A.268, Report of 2nd Lt. Flegel-Cepiński, March 5, 1942, p. 51. 1214 Chodakiewicz, Between Nazis and Soviets..., 140. 1215 Iaroslav Hrynevych, “Svastyka nad Kholmshchynoiu” in Ivanyk (ed), Krov ukraїns’ka, krov pol’s’ka…, 152. 1216 AP-L, DGdDL, sygn. 155, Abschrift: Das Ukrainische Bezirkskomitee in Hrubieszow, August 12, 1940, pp. 20-21; Romaniuk, “Pid tr’oma okupantamy” in Ivanyk (ed), Krov ukraїns’ka, krov pol’s’ka…, 140-141. 1217 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 25, folder 6, Statement by Pavlo Mycyk - Tomaszów Lubelski, June 4, 1941. Where Ukrainian youth joined auxiliary security or police forces to replace Poles, this became a mixed blessing for the community. While they used their positions to help their countrymen and moderate Nazi demands placed on them, they also took an active part in the German economic exploitation of the country; aiding in confiscating harvests or conscripting workers for labor in the Reich.1214 Where Ukrainian police patrolled villages next to ones in which Polish police worked, rivalries also appeared. Thus, when the Ukrainians would sing “Shche ne vmerla Ukraïna,” the Poles would counter by singing “Jeszcze Polska nie zginęła.”1215 Throughout eastern and southeastern ethnically-mixed towns and villages, incidents between Poles and Ukrainians were reported; leaving a mutual bitterness among both. Some incidents were described as harmless, petty and simply disorderly. For example, Poles attacked Ukrainian wójts. In some cases, where arrests were made, an UTsK report claimed justice would not be swift if Polish auxiliaries investigated matters. In other villages, Poles were arrested for stealing pictures and icons from Ukrainian homes. A German report suggested that such incidents should be scarcely considered and in no way give rise to arrests or punishment; things which could upset the quiet work of inhabitants. In Chełm, local Poles intimidated clerics who attended their daily lessons at the Orthodox seminary there. Illia Romaniuk recalled how they often had to enter the building by way of a back entrance. Acts of vandalism included throwing stones and breaking windows.1216 Polish auxiliary police officers verbally accosted Ukrainian farmers, telling some: “you old lout, I'll arrest you and you’ll perish just like those who perished for Ukraine.”1217 Waldemar Lotnik recalled the conflict which emerged between his grandfather and the village Orthodox Ukrainian priest: The Ukrainian priest in Modryń angered my grandparents by inviting the Germans to graze their cart-horses in our fields, claiming they were his own. When my grandfather stopped him in the street, he announced that all Polish land in Modryń now belonged to his people.1218 1218 Lotnik, Nine Lives…, 16. 1219 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/8, Arbeitssitzung des Vierjahresplanes, January 24, 1940, pp. 13-20. 1220 Hrynevych, “Svastyka nad Kholmshchynoiu” in Ivanyk (ed), Krov ukraїns’ka, krov pol’s’ka…, 156. 1221 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 18, folder 20, Organisationsabteilung: Bericht für den Monat August 1941, September 3, 1941. 1222 PUMST, OIV, file A.268, Report of 2nd Lt. Flegel-Cepiński, March 5, 1942, p. 52. 1223 Sivak, “Krov ukraїns’ka, krov pol’s’ka…” in Ivanyk (ed), Krov ukraїns’ka, krov pol’s’ka…, 77. 1224 Robert Ziętek, “Konflikt polsko-ukraiński na Chełmszczyźnie i południowym Podlasiu w okresie okupacji niemieckiej,” Rocznik Chełmski vol. 7 (2001), 260. Food consignments and harvest quotas were also a source of ethnic contention. Ukrainians and Kubiiovych wrote of Polish wójts unfairly requisitioning more from Ukrainians then Poles in order to meet German demands. This came after Frank and GG officials agreed to shy away from the initial, “absolute destruction principle” of occupation; instead, favoring short-term utilization and exploitation of GG resources to suit the needs of the Reich economy. As such, agricultural and industrial production were to intensify and be exploited outright.1219 In some instances, where Ukrainians or Poles did not meet their quotas, the Germans enacted public terror methods to warm inhabitants to comply or face severe punishment. In one village in Hrubieszów County for example, they rounded up villagers and paraded them through streets with signs on their chests reading: “We did not hand over our consignments and for this we will be punished.”1220 The UTsK protested against German quota increases. A note from September 1941 claimed that increasing harvest quotas by twenty to twenty-five percent would be detrimental to the population who already gave so much the previous year. Those who did not give enough, the note went on, either faced heavy land fines, arrests or were sent to camps. Increases, the note concluded, would only lead to starvation and punishment.1221 A Polish report described general Ukrainian disappointment in being placed on the same quota level as Poles: “They could not reconcile with the fact that they – German allies and friends – are treated the same way as Polish peasants.” In cases where Ukrainians protested and did not give up their crops for consignment, they were met with harsh beatings. Such incidents led many to hate the Germans and their occupation policies.1222 So long as Ukrainians relinquished crops for consignment, the Germans remained pleased. In cases where quotas were not met, German authorities travelled to villages, holding the sołtys at fault, and often beat him for his insubordination. Villagers were also exploited as forced workers on larger farms where they collected sugar beet or potato crops while under the watchful eye of German administrators. This, Vitalii Sivak recalled, reminded many of the days when Ukrainian peasants toiled for Polish nobles.1223 According to Robert Ziętek, Poles directly witnessed and felt the favoritism Ukrainians experienced by the occupier. This caused the average Pole to view Ukrainians – especially wójts, civic administrators, auxiliary policemen, priests, and aid committee workers – as traitorous collaborators who were harming the Polishness of the district in various ways.1224 This caused increased ethnic tension which in turn brought harsher justice. Where Poles accused Ukrainians of harboring weapons or vice versa, German gendarmes were called upon to investigate. Such accusations, an aid committee report concluded, were equivalent to terrorizing the peasantry.1225 Apart from organized tension, unorganized tension also spread throughout the ethnically-mixed regions. Groups of armed Poles, partisans and roving gangs described as bandits, terrorized Ukrainians. Testimonies to the UTsK reported of such gangs, dressed in German military uniforms, conducting raids at night; forcing occupants out of their homes and either terrorizing them or committing senseless murders.1226 1225 AP-L, DGdDL, sygn. 155, Abschrift: Das Ukrainische Bezirkskomitee in Hrubieszow, August 12, 1940, p. 21 1226 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 25, folder 6, Ziznannia, November 8, 1941. 1227 Volodymyr Makar, Boiovi druzi. Zbirka spohadiv z dii OUN (1929-1945) vol. 1 (Toronto: Ukrainian Echo Publishing Company and Studium Research Institute, 1980), 297-298. 1228 Sowa, Stosunki polsko-ukraińskie 1939-1947, 113. 1229 Kerski and Kowalczyk, Wiek ukraińsko-polski. Rozmowy z Bohdanem Osadczukiem, 25-26. 1230 Kazanivs’kyi, Shliakhom lehendy…, 336-337. 1231 Sowa, Stosunki polsko-ukraińskie 1939-1947, 115. Ukrainian auxiliary police were ordered to combat gang activity. In Biłgoraj County for example, Poles murdered a Ukrainian auxiliary policeman; a man from Volhynia. Following the funeral, many Ukrainians who paid their respects conducted a pogrom against Poles; bloodily beating them and destroying property.1227 As Sowa correctly deduced, to a large degree, the tensions and conflict between Poles and Ukrainians in the eastern and southeastern portions of the Lublin District “simply never extinguished” but rather were a continuation of prewar hostilities; this time exploited by the occupier.1228 Bohdan Osadchuk recalled the violence which erupted between the two groups over the national belonging of portions of Chełm County as well as larger consequences: First, the Poles shot an innocent Ukrainian teacher because he organized a Ukrainian school. For me this was another, enormous shock. He was given a grandiose funeral, at which anti-Polish slogans were heard, “we will avenge.” I was scared… [the] Polish-Ukrainian tragedy, which began in the Chełm region, absolutely convinced me, that it was necessary to stop it; otherwise the perspective of unending, mutual murders threatened us, and our neighbors will only win out. That’s how it was as both the Germans and the Bolsheviks spread hatred. They tried as best as possible to weaken our two nations and to dig a precipice between them.1229 In some cases, Ukrainian revenge was claimed to be in the name of the OUN. Kazanivs’kyi recalled of such a Ukrainian in Chełm County who looked to cleanse villages of what he considered chauvinist Poles by pressuring them to flee immediately. He, along with two other OUN members, confronted this Ukrainian and forbid his pseudo-nationalist activity “because it did not lay in our interests at that time to begin a war with Polish settlers on Ukrainian territory.”1230 However, Polish-Ukrainian life and relations in ethnically-mixed villages or towns was not always hostile or violent. In some cases, Poles and Ukrainians lived together and tolerated each other; being neither overtly friendly nor openly hostile. Inter-confessional marriages continued while, in some instances, Ukrainian wójts informed local Polish inhabitants of upcoming German activity or plans.1231 Odd cases of revenge also occurred. Lotnik recalled of a beautiful, crippled land lady he lodged with while studying at the higher technical college in Hrubieszów. He described her entertaining a Ukrainian lover who happened to be the commander of the town’s local militia and concluded: “It was as if by associating with him that she got her revenge for the disappointments and the slights she must have suffered from Polish men on account of her disability. Now she found herself on the winning side.”1232 1232 Lotnik, Nine Lives..., 18. 1233 Mytiuk, “Shcho z name zrobyly?” in Ivanyk (ed), Krov ukraїns’ka, krov pol’s’ka..., 45-46. 1234 Igor Hałagida, “Ukraińskie straty osobowe w dystrykcie lubelskim (październik 1939-lipiec 1944) – wstępna analizu materiału statystycznego.” Pamięć i Sprawiedliwość vol. 1 no. 29 (2017), 367. Even though examples indicated growing aversion and hostility between Ukrainians and Poles, this did not mean that, as some historians have claimed, a full-scale open Polish-Ukrainian conflict existed in the Lublin District. For example, some Ukrainians, such as Antonina Mytiuk, recalled Poles and Ukrainians living amicably next to each other until 1943 when grandiose German social engineering projects upset their divide and conquer policy in the district. Recalling her ethnically-mixed family, she noted of no visible differences between Polish and Ukrainian members; celebrating holidays together. Furthermore, she recalled Polish colonists, i.e. those deported from the incorporated territories, living affably next to Ukrainians: “We lived well with the Poles.”1233 According to conclusions reached by Igor Hałagida, who recently undertook the difficult task of verifying the accuracy of death tolls among Poles and Ukrainians in the ethnically-mixed parts of the district based on UTsK data, only 5 instances of Ukrainian murders were recorded in 1940. Furthermore, only 18 were reported in 1941. Out of the latter total, 9 murders were committed by German gendarmes.1234 Given these figures, it can be said that Ukrainians were terrorized with the intent of forcing them to flee by rogue Poles. The fact that terrorization may have caused German police pacifications cannot be excluded. However, the greater context in which Ukrainians and Poles found themselves in must always be emphasized. As such, these early ethnic incidents directly resulted from the success of German divide and conquer policies overturning the prewar Polish state’s ethnic hierarchy; pitting Ukrainians against Poles by providing the former with social privileges at the expense of the latter. Most importantly, this state of hostility and instability was one which the occupiers were able to relatively control thanks to their regime of terror, violence and brutality. Poles were not the only group Kubiiovych was alarmed about. Soviet and communist influences remained strong in the borderlands of the district. This came in various forms. Whereas a report mentioned of some Russophile clergy appreciating the energetic personage of Ilarion, painting blue-yellow emblems and preaching patriotic, pro-Ukrainian sermons; priests in provincial towns and villages were still seen as dangerous and aggressive. They spread propaganda claiming of Ukrainian pronunciation in Orthodox services being the first step toward unification and religious conversion to Greek Catholicism. During sermons, some priests pointed-out local Ukrainian administrators or civil servants, accusing: “They’re Unitates who want to take away our church! Chase them with beech rods!” In other regions, Orthodox Russophile priests were said to be “sabotaging ukrainization actions of the Chełm archbishop” by describing Ukrainian services as the first steps toward conversion to Greek Catholicism.1235 Kubiiovych and UTsK reports noted of Russophile, communist, and leftist propaganda and leaflets describing ostensible ideal living conditions in the USSR disseminated throughout towns and villages, particularly in Hrubieszów and Włodawa.1236 German starostas also reported of Polish-language Soviet propaganda leaflets proclaiming: “Away with Hitlerism! Away with Ukrainian Hitlerism! Long live England! Long live red Poland!” appearing in the region.1237 1235 TsDAVOVUU, UTsK, f. 3959, op. 2, spr. 48, Zvit predstavnyka viddilu propahandy UTsK na Liublins’kyi dystrykt pro podiї kul’turno-osvitn’oho zhyttia, February 2, 1941, p. 10; f. 3959, op. 2, spr. 46, Lyst providnoho diacha UTsK na Liublinshchyni predstavnykovi viddilu propahandy UTsK, February 2, 1941, p. 17. 1236 TsDAVOVUU, UTsK, f. 3959, op. 2, spr. 48, Zvit predstavnyka viddilu propahandy UTsK na Liublins’kyi dystrykt za sichen, February 2, 1941, pp. 9-9a; Veryha, The Correspondence…, 123-125; 876-881. 1237 Dziennik i ruch oporu… vol. 1, 306. 1238 Serhiichuk, Ukraїns’kyi zdvyh: Zakerzonnia 1939-1947, vol. 3, 70-74. 1239 PUMST, OIV, file A.268, Report of 2nd Lt. Flegel-Cepiński, March 5, 1942, p. 53. For example, Ukrainians were exempt from removing their hats before German soldiers or they ceased to beat Orthodox priests. 1240 Romaniuk, “Pid tr’oma okupantamy” in Ivanyk (ed), Krov ukraїns’ka, krov pol’s’ka…, 135. The Soviets were abreast of the social and political atmosphere in the region. Ivan Serov, NKVD commissar of Soviet Ukraine (1939-1941), received reports from an NKVD agent, ironically codenamed ‘Ukrainian,’ from Chełm County. According to his reports, the Gestapo facilitated his travels to and from Ukrainian areas as they were interested in the attitudes of Ukrainians toward the Soviets as well as to OUN nationalist work. In Hrubieszów County, he reported of active Banderite circles and noted of their amicable relations with the Gestapo there. He also reported of the internal split in the ranks of the OUN and suggested exploiting it as much as possible, particularly as a weapon toward combating the underground Banderites in the western USSR.1238 In the wake of the Nazi-Soviet alliance, the Germans, although favoring the Ukrainians against Poles, also maintained a collegial image with their eastern ally. For example, when mutual relations were good between the two, the Germans oppressed Ukrainians throughout the region to show Soviet intelligence their pro-ally position. However, when relations began to breakdown, the Germans returned to coquetting the Ukrainians to their side.1239 They also exploited Ukrainian religious traditions to show their tolerant side, in comparison to the atheist Soviets. As Romaniuk recalled, during the Orthodox feast of the Epiphany, German border guards in Hrubieszów County allowed Ukrainians to bless the water in the Bug River on the Nazi-Soviet border in order for the Soviet guards to see their tolerant position.1240 The Polish exile government and underground monitored the situation in the ethnically-mixed regions of the district. Nationalist propaganda was reported to have direct effects among young Ukrainians who attended schools there: “… the Ukrainian language was heard everywhere and the cocky appearance of the youth toward Poles was visible.” Ukrainians underscored their belonging to “Greater Ukraine” even though a recent map published by the Germans erased Ukraine and its territory from Chełm to the Black Sea from their concept of Europe. In reports, the overall attitudes of Ukrainians was described as mixed. Local Ukrainians did not believe in the emergence of a future Ukrainian state. Even if it did, they did not think it would last long as they claimed Ukrainians had no historical precedent in governing themselves. Even though they showed no sympathy toward the Poles or the Polish state, they did enjoy privileges gained under the Germans: “They wished for this state of affairs to continue, for the GG to remain forever.” Nationalists from Lwów, primarily in positions of local administration, were said to be “ruthless enemies of Poland and the Poles, spreading hatred toward the Poles wherever they could and compromising them before the Germans.” Anti-Polish sentiments were very strong among these Ukrainians. According to Polish observers, a delegation headed by Stepan Baran purportedly even went so far as to ask the Chełm Kreishauptmann Gerhard Hager to allow Ukrainians to “carouse” Poles there for two hours; a euphemism meaning to plunder homes and outright beat Poles. They also asked to conduct arbitrary searches among Poles as a further means toward “destroying organized Polish life.”1241 1241 PUMST, OIV, file A.268, Report of 2nd Lt. Flegel-Cepiński, March 5, 1942, p. 53. Hager also played a prominent role in the Holocaust of Jews in Chełm County. In the summer of 1941 he was transferred to the Galicia district where he also participated in the Holocaust. Musiał, Deutsche Zivilvervaltung und Judenverfolgung im Generalgouvernement..., 54; 131; Dieter Pohl, Nationalsozialistische Judenverfolgung in Ostgalizien 1941-1944: Organisation und Durchführung eines staatlichen Massenverbrechens (München: Oldenbourg, 1996), 155-156; 242; 285. 1242 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/5, Tagebuch 1940: Dritter Band – Juli bis September, pp. 64-66. 1243 Sivak, “Krov ukraїns’ka, krov pol’s’ka…” in Ivanyk (ed), Krov ukraїns’ka, krov pol’s’ka…, 77. 1244 Klukowski, Diary from the Years of Occupation 1939-44, 117. During his 1940 tour of the district, Frank underscored the need to make it and the entire GG judenfrei; this being one of the absurd messianic roles of the Nazis in the east. The hasty removal of Jewish “filth” allowed them to create a German city out of Lublin, to be increasingly populated by Germans over the coming years. Only then, Frank boasted, would the Nazi German flag truly fly from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pyrenees Mountains to the Bug River.1242 Whereas the Germans settled accounts with the Poles, they destroyed the Jews. Those who lived in villages around Hrubieszów, for example, were rounded-up and forced into a ghetto into the town there. Valuables were confiscated while they were chased to forced menial, physical labor and starved.1243 Similar scenes appeared throughout the district. In Lublin, as in Kraków or Warsaw, street names were Germanized to reflect the new image of the city. Towns on “ethnographic Ukrainian territory” were also no exception. Such was the case in Biłgoraj for example. In September 1940 Zygmunt Klukowski visited it, recording what he saw: In Biłgoraj there is more and more Germanization. Everywhere there are new signs in German. Buildings have been taken over for German offices, stores, and clubs. New buildings have been built for German use. The streets are crowded with Germans and you hear only the German language. Their behavior is typically German: they are sure of themselves and are trying to show that they are in power over our land. This was so disgusting that I came home with a severe headache.1244 The other Nazi role aimed to subsequently “civilize” and Germanize the east. Frank was pleased by the work of county administrators and called on them to maintain security on the Reich’s eastern flank. He placed added emphasis on the importance of Hrubieszów County; an area representing “the eastern program of the German people and our national-socialist movement.” In Chełm, he turned to that county’s Kreishauptmann and called on him to encourage Volksdeutsche from throughout the GG to be pioneers, just as their forefathers, in culturally taming and tracing their historical belonging to that region.1245 He also expounded on the topic of ethnic groups in those counties. While travelling through Hrubieszów, he was greeted by Ukrainians with the traditional bread and salt while his motorcade was flanked and escorted to Kreishauptmann headquarters by Ukrainians on horseback. There, representatives of that aid committee thanked him, on behalf of Hitler, for freeing them from Polish bondage. Now, thanks to the general governor, they claimed to be able to live a “free life.” He received similar thanks from Ukrainians in Biłgoraj which he visited several days later. In both instances, he underscored maintaining the cultural demands of Ukrainians as one of the main responsibilities for his administration. Speaking with the Chełm Kreishauptmann, he reiterated that only after German occupation did the Ukrainian ethnic group begin to culturally flourish. This development, he mentioned, lay in his will, albeit by way of Hitler’s orders. In exchange for freedom and the promulgation of further Ukrainian development, Frank demanded their recognition of German authority and obedience.1246 1245 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/5, Tagebuch 1940: Dritter Band – Juli bis September, pp. 77-78; 81. 1246 Ibid, pp. 75; 81-82; 86. 1247 Baran, Po nevoli – vidrodzhennia..., 5. 1248 “Volodymyr Kubiiovcyh – Pryhornimost’ do Ridnoї Zemli!,” Krakiv’ski Visti vol. 2 no. 4 (January 7 1941), 2-3. On the backdrop of large-scale occupation plans, Ukrainians sought to gain long-term concessions on perceived ethnographic territory at the expense of Poles. Concerning demographic changes, Stepan Baran wrote: “The current war created enormous changes in the legal-state system of the lands to the west of the prewar Reich border. As a result, substantial changes in the demographic shape of these lands arose and will continue to arise. After all, the European map no longer contains the Versailles creation – the former Republic of Poland which fell apart in a matter of days after from the blow of invincible German might.”1247 Kubiiovych presented more concerted demands to Frank and the GG authorities to solidify and differentiate the position of Ukrainians, presenting countless examples of Polish oppression, denouncing them as disloyal elements in the hope of righting previous injustices. He reiterated his prewar position, arguing how 600 years of Polish influence and administration skewed the true Ukrainian-Polish ethnographic border, pushing it east in favor of the Poles. He defined goals on those territories by first posing the rhetorical question: “What does our Motherland in the GG want from its oldest and youngest sons?” To this he answered: “For them to cleanse it from alien debris, to return its former national character to it, to heal its hurt soul, to inspire its ambitions – to be a truly cultural and wealthy land… [The motherland] wants its cities to be Ukrainian again, for the Ukrainian language to be used where it was forgotten…”1248 Kubiiovych’s authoritarian stance intensified in April 1941, on the backdrop of the Jewish expulsion from Kraków to a walled-in ghetto created for them on the other side of the Vistula River in the Podgórze district.1249 This was the moment he undertook an offensive position in relation to the GG Ukrainian question. He looked to not only keep out unwanted elements from ethnically Ukrainian areas but to permanently, completely and openly claim those areas as Ukrainian or for a future Ukraine. To do so, he proposed ethnically cleansing them of Polish and Jewish elements, in the context of removing an ethnically defined population from a given territory. Scholarly definition of the term ‘ethnic cleansing’ agrees that it is the removal of an ethnic population from a given territory. Timothy Snyder included in this understanding violent mechanisms which meant to hasten this process but not to kill every man, woman or child. Norman Naimark also described ethnic cleansing as to “remove a people and often all traces of them from a concrete territory.”1250 In relation to an ethnically-defined homogenous Ukrainian region, Kubiiovych wrote: “In order to secure the territory settled by Ukrainians in the GG, the Ukrainians ask that Ukrainian territory be designated by a border, on which Polish and Jewish evacuees would not be settled.” More importantly, his memorandum stated: “… we ask to purge these territories of Polish and Jewish elements, settling instead Ukrainians who constitute national enclaves among the Poles.”1251 1249 Golczewski, “Shades of Grey…,” 127. 1250 Timothy Snyder, “The Causes of Ukrainian-Polish Ethnic Cleansing 1943,” Past & Present vol. 179 no. 1 (May 2003), 197; Norman Naimark, Fires of Hatred: Ethnic Cleansing in Twentieth -Century Europe (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001), 3; Terry Martin, “The Origins of Soviet Ethnic Cleansing,” The Journal of Modern History vol. 70 no. 40 (December 1998), 817. 1251 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 26, folder 16, Die Denkschrift der ukrainischen Volksgruppe im Generalgouvernement, April 18, 1941. He also added that Ukrainian prisoners of war, workers from the Reich, remaining Ukrainians found in German transit camps as well as refugees from Soviet-occupied territories should all be settled in such a distinctly defined Ukrainian zone. Such definition would be done following the war; something which he and Ukrainian nationalists would come soon after the anticipated collapse of the Soviet Union. 1252 Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Heneral’nii Huberniї, 359. 1253 Grelka, “Ukrainizacja w dobie podporządkowania ras...,” 121. This position, just as the overall goal of the Ukrainian nationalist movement, was never meant to be temporary as ethnic cleansing was a tool of nation-states to ethnically homogenize given territories. Kubiiovych pursued to remove minorities inhabiting what he saw as Ukrainian territories so as to rapidly hasten the process of nation building – defining the titular nation or national zone before nationalizing cities, towns and townships.1252 To accomplish his vision, a stimulating agent was necessary. For this he looked to the Germans to serve as the mechanism for deportation and ethnic cleansing; hoping to take advantage of both, their growing position of in the region and recent past experiences of forced deportations to clear territory of a mutual enemy. Even though he did not directly state a specific method by which the Germans could remove Poles or Jews from Ukrainian territory, he undoubtedly knew and understood German policies and was aware of the fact that everyday legalism of the UTsK and Ukrainian life in general only functioned at the expense of Poles and Jews of the GG.1253 The use of such terms as Verdrängung (displacement), Vernichtung (destruction) or Aussiedlung (resettlement) were often euphemisms with plans for mass murder, reprisals or pacifications from the side of the Germans.1254 After the war, he described the April memorandum and its propositions as something aimed at designating the legal aspect of Ukrainians in the GG and differentiating their position from that of the Poles.1255 1254 Himka, “Krakivs’ki Visti…,” 252; Golczewski, “Shades of Grey…,” 127; Jerzy Borejsza, “Śmieszne sto milionów słowian...” Wokół światopoglądu Adolfa Hitlera (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Neriton, 2006), 22. 1255 Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Heneral’nii Huberniї, 420. 1256 Ibid, 427. 1257 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 26, folder 16, 2. Das ukrainische Volkstumsgebiet im Generalgouvernement, April 18, 1941; Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Heneral’nii Huberniї, 423. 1258 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 24, folder 7, Zvit chyslo 6: Nastroï v tereni, June12, 1941; volume 18 folder 20, Organisationsabteilung: Bericht für den Monat Juli 1941, July 29, 1941. While meeting Frank in April, Kubiiovych presented his desire to create ethnically cleansed Ukrainian territory to serve the development of what he called “free national life.” As he stated, the propositions presented to the Governor General aimed to approve creating “autonomy for the Ukrainian ethnic group, segregating Ukrainian territory and removing Polish influences from it.”1256 He petitioned for full-scale resettlement throughout ethnic Ukrainian territory. Poles would be sent west to their ethnic territory and Ukrainians east to theirs with a clear border delineated between the two. He hoped to convince the General Governor to remove all Poles initially settled there in 1940 and to replace them with Ukrainians working in the Reich; a group which numbered over 100 thousand. As before, he justified these motivations as beneficial for the Germans – replacing uncertain, disloyal elements with loyal, Ukrainian ones. Furthermore, any remaining Polish or Jewish elements within local economic sectors were also to be removed and replaced by Ukrainians.1257 Frank accepted the memorandum and promised that it would be examined by the respective GG departments before reaching any concrete decisions. The months and days leading up to the German invasion of the USSR progressively changed the mood of Ukrainians in the district. Osadchuk reported of villagers being mesmerized by the mirage of war which in turn halted further aid committee work. During inspections and travels, committee men were met with opinions of further work being unnecessary as an upcoming conflict would simply destroy everything. The movement of Wehrmacht troops east created an “elevated nervousness” among the population.1258 In cities, the looming expectations of upcoming hostilities also affected UTsK work. The German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 was regarded by the nationalists as the beginning of their dream – an independent Ukrainian state. Many, especially young Banderites, yearned to cross the Nazi-Soviet border in efforts to return to their homes and native regions. Nationalists occupied borderland villages in preparation for their march east; so much so that Mykhailo Kukharchuk elicited: “… my wife and mother barely managed to bake bread for the newcomers, housed by me in our barn.” In the village of Sahryń in Hrubieszów County, the Ukrainian auxiliary policemen abandoned their posts, heading east to Galicia.1259 The reaction of district Ukrainians to the news of a radio announcement of Ukrainian independence in Lwów was less than enthusiastic. As Bohachevs’kyi recalled: “They listened and then returned to their work. Only my host – a Pole – congratulated me.”1260 1259 Huk (ed), Zakerzonnia. Spomyny voiakiv UPA, vol. 4, 52; Sivak, “Krov ukraїns’ka, krov pol’s’ka…” in Ivanyk (ed), Krov ukraїns’ka, krov pol’s’ka…, 80. 1260 Bohachevs’kyi, Na vozi i pid vozom, 125. 1261 Elektronnyi Arkhiv Ukraїns’koho Vyzvol’noho Rukhu (E-AUVR), 9, 17: Zvit “Revolutsiino-povstans’ka borot'ba ukraїns’koho narodu za svoie vyzvolennia na Kholmshchyni i Pidliashshi v rr. 1943-1948” podanyi ‘Prirvoiu,’ September 1948, p. 3. Accessed July 2, 2017 1262 Zajączkowski, Ukraińskie podziemie..., 175; Torzecki, Polacy i Ukraińcy..., 128. 1263 TsDAVOVUU, UTsK, f. 3959, op. 2, spr. 45a, UTsK Informative Report from Lublin District, July 29, 1941, pp. 13-14; Bohachevs’kyi, Na vozi i pid vozom, 125-126. 1264 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 24, folder 4, Zvit Informatsiї – Instruktsiia ch. 3, July, 30, 1941. The return of young nationalists to Eastern Galicia proved detrimental to the work of the Ukrainian Central Committee throughout the eastern and southeastern regions of the GG. Ievhen Shtendera recalled how émigré nationalists monopolizing social activity in the region hurt further work: The one downside in this process was that the elite, who directed the process, were… émigrés who after the outbreak of the German-Bolshevik war returned home [Eastern Galicia]… and on the Kholmshchyna and Pidliashshia only weak forces remained who directed social-political work which was, in many cases, decidedly too poor to give the necessary impulse into that life.1261 Those Banderites that remained in the district returned to strictly conspiratorial work. From 1941 to 1943, their activity was limited. This stemmed from not only the decline in the number of nationalists in the district following the German eastern campaign but also from German repressions against the Banderites throughout the GG in general. As such, over a year passed before their ranks were refilled by either local or émigré members.1262 Following the invasion, UTsK branches observed local Ukrainian sentiments. The return of a considerable portion of the intelligentsia to Eastern Galicia caused disorganization. UTsK reports indicated of the intelligentsia’s desire to leave the borderland region as they had “enough of defending their position… and wanted to live in peace among their own.” In some instances, workers heading east even took finances and bicycles with them, leaving their committees with little or nothing. Those of the local intelligentsia in Chełm were described as being scared of remaining in the GG as they believed Polish pressure to leave would be very strong again. Villagers were said to show “neither joy nor interest” toward the liberation of Eastern Galicia. Many Chełm Ukrainians were angry at the sight of young nationalists simply abandoning their work while they “continued to work with immense sacrifice and dedication.”1263 To replace the nationalist intelligentsia, one UTsK report noted that reliance would be placed on the local clergy to fill the impending void.1264 Subsequent reginal reports indicated of German anti-emigration propaganda spreading throughout the Ukrainian borderland communities, claiming Ukrainians would be resettled beyond the Zbrucz River, i.e. to Dnieper or Soviet Ukraine and not Eastern Galicia.1265 1265 Ibid, Zvit Informatsiї – Instruktsiia ch. 1, October 3, 1941. 1266 Lotnik, Nine Lives..., 26. 1267 Pohl, “Znaczenie dystryktu lubelskiego…,” 47; Sachslehner, Zarządca do spraw śmierci..., 165-170. In his postwar testimony, an unidentified telephone operator of the 2nd order police company conducting the mass executions of prisoners described relaying the daily reports of executed men to the batallion headquarters in Lublin. After establishing telephone connection and hearing the phrase “Hühnerfarm,” he responded with “provided such and such a number of eggs.” Here, the “such and such” was the daily number of POWs executed. Early Wehrmacht successes were measured in the large number of Red Army soldiers taken prisoner. Parts of the Lublin District were chosen to create make-shift internment camps for POWs. Often there were crude creations – a large swath of land fenced-off with no barracks. Waldermar Lotnik recalled his amazement at the sight of a POW column passing through Hrubieszów: I remember one typical column, which, walking in twos and threes, took an hour and a half to walk past me, meaning there must have been upwards of 15,000 men. When they fell from exhaustion or because the pain from their bloody feet had become unbearable, guards shot them in the head or ran a bayonet through their stomachs. Human remains littered the countryside.1266 By September 1941, some 40 to 50 thousand Red Army POWs were corralled in a mass, open-earth crater outside of Biała Podlaska; Stalag 359B. That same month, the Germans began their deliberate mass killing of undesirable war prisoners. Cynically code-named Aktion Hühnerfarm or Operation Chicken Farm, special orders demanded selecting communist party functionaries as well as those with physical Asiatic or Jewish traits for liquidation. In the Husinka forest along the Biała Podlaska-Tarnopol road, order police units conducted mass executions of prisoners; forcing them to dig long, wide mass graves before shooting them. By the end of the month, order police battalion 306 executed at least 5-6 thousand POWs in the forest. Near Zamość, 780 Soviet war prisoners from Stalag 325 were executed in another cynically code-named operation – Aktion Hasenschießen or Operation Hare Hunting.1267 From the very beginning of the German-Soviet war, German political, military and nutrition experts were adamant in their determination to allow POWs only “the bare minimum food ration” to prevent putting any added pressure on German food supplies. The bare minimum meant 700-1,000 calories per day and would lead to death by starvation within weeks. Of course, these proportions were not always maintained by camp guards as rations were often much smaller. In some instances, food was used as an incentive, given to those prisoners who pointed out political commissars or Judeo-Bolsheviks for selection and liquidation. By April 1942, over 292 thousand POWs died from malnutrition, disease or from the inclement, cold winter. Some 17 thousand were simply executed outright. In total, over 85 percent of Soviet POWs perished in the GG.1268 1268 Aly and Heim, Architects of Annihilation…, 249; Christian Streit. Keine Kameraden. Die Wehrmacht und die sowjetischen Kriegsgefangenen 1941-1945 (Bonn: J.H.W. Dietz, 1997), 134; Omer Bartov, The Eastern Front 1941-45: German Troops and the Barbarisation of Warfare (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1985), 107-119. Officers responsible for feeding the POWs were constantly reminded to apply strict standards in dispersing rations “as every portion of food too many which is given to the POWs must be taken from the mouths of our families back home or from the German troops.” 1269 “Z diial’nosty Sektsiї Dopomohy Ranenym Nimets’kym Voiakam u Kholmi,” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 2 no. 246 (November 5, 1941), 5. 1270 Peter Black, “Foot Soldiers of the Final Solution: The Trawniki Training Camp and Operation Reinhard,” Holocaust and Genocide Studies vol. 25 no. 1 (Spring 2011), 5-6. 1271 Makar, et al. Vid deportatsiї do deprtatsiї… vol. 1, 399-400. 1272 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 25 folder 22, A. Shtyk vidpys, December 16, 1941. In Chełm, the aid committee undertook an initiative to aid wounded German and Ukrainian Red Army soldiers in hospitals or camps near the city. 60 Ukrainians volunteered and completed specialized courses. Nurses were sent to hospitals where, aside from assisting in medical work, they gave wounded soldiers flowers, cigarettes, or paper and pencils for letters.1269 Some prisoners and indigenous non-Germans were drafted into the newly-created SS training camp in Trawniki; later to form auxiliary SS-Wachmannschaften units at the disposition of district SS authorities. Often, they were used to assist in the occupier’s dirty work – guard duty in prisons or labor and concentration camps, guarding saw mills and confiscating harvests from farmers; liquidating Jewish ghettos and in forced resettlement operations.1270 The flight of Galician Ukrainians back east caused vacancies in many civic positions. As such, the Germans used local Poles to replace them; something which raised the ire of the UTsK as they equated this to losing influence and control in ethnographic or key ethnically-mixed regions. The specter of communism – whether one was associated with it, sympathized with it or loathed it – was also used by both ethnic groups to incriminate the other in the eyes of the Germans. For example, in October 1941, 28 Ukrainians were arrested for purported communist sympathies. The basis for the charge was providing aid to captured Red Army POWs. Polish auxiliary policemen charged Ukrainians with communist sympathies.1271 In the village of Hanna, the SS arrested Poles, Jews and Ukrainians; all on charges of communist sympathies. An aid committee note reporting the incident claimed some Ukrainians executed were not communist sympathizers but prominent civic representatives – aid committee or cooperative workers. Those who were sympathizers, the report indicated, saw in communism a past salvation from Poles or polonization. The note concluded the anti-communist operation was a means of neutralizing Ukrainian activity or “uncomfortable elements” by Poles.1272 Later, as will be seen, Ukrainians associated Poles as pro-communist sympathizers as a means of neutralizing them. The common factor with both cases was the German occupier who arrested, imprisoned in concentration camps or collectively pacified villages or regions in response. For this reason, both groups claimed each used “German hands” to eliminate the other yet each group blamed each other for instigating reprisals. The void caused by the flight of nationally-conscious workers from aid committees and delegations, particularly in the Chełm region, forced Kubiiovych to reorganize and refocus UTsK work. However, not all fled. Some, like Kukharchuk, by order of the OUN, moved to the southern Chełm region to not only propagate and recruit members for the underground but also to continue raising national consciousness among the locals and protecting them from Poles.1273 The return of OUN members east allowed non-nationalists, especially Petliurites, the opportunity to takeover work. They staffed committees and remained in positions until the arrival of the Soviets in 1944.1274 1273 Huk (ed), Zakerzonnia. Spomyny voiakiv UPA vol. 4, 56 1274 Pasternak, Narys istoriї Kholmshchyny i Pidliashshia, 255. 1275 Du Prel (ed), Das Deutsche Generalgouvernement Polen, 70. 1276 BA, NS 43/32, Kurze Angaben uber die Ukrainische Frage in den fruheren poln. Gebieten, November 1939, p. 195. 5.2 – The Kraków District: Attempted Ethnic Cleansing toward Ukrainization in the Lemko and Zasiannia Regions The Kraków District was a subsequent region in the General Government where occupation policies aimed to divide ethnic groups in a means to exploit and control them. Additionally, it was also a region where Ukrainians hoped to gain control over ethnically-mixed areas and ones seen as ethnographically Ukrainian. Situated in the southern portion of the GG between two natural borders, the San River in the east and the Carpathian Mountains to the south, as of 1940 it contained 3.7 million inhabitants. Its physical description in a GG guidebook was synonymous with the territorial compartmentalization of ethnic groups. Germans and Volksdeutsche were scattered throughout the district, particularly in settlements in Nowy Sącz and Dębica counties. Poles were described as inhabiting the central hilly counties, the lowlands and at the foothills of the Beskid Mountains. The western Carpathians were the home of the Górale or Highlanders; a groups identified by the Germans as ethnically different from Poles. Central and southeastern portions of the Carpathians were in turn inhabited primarily by the Lemko and Boiko highlanders, two groups said to be of Ukrainian ethnicity. The eastern-most counties – Jarosław and Sanok – consisted of a Mischbevölkerung of Poles and Ukrainians.1275 A German report from late 1939 estimated that some 20 thousand refugees fled Eastern Galicia and settled either in Kraków or throughout the Ukrainian regions of the district, including the Lemko region.1276 Whereas Kraków served as the GG administrative center and Frank’s seat of authority, other cities were swiftly placed under German administration. Przemyśl, a city of immense strategic importance lying on the Nazi-Soviet border, was one example. Whereas Poles and Ukrainians fought bloody battles over the city after the collapse of Austria-Hungary in 1918, the victorious totalitarian powers of 1939 split it along the San River; the left-bank portion of the city falling to the GG, the right-bank side to the Soviets. On July 13, 1940 Frank visited this strategically important “easternmost borderland city of German sovereignty” to not only inspect it but also re-Christen it as Deutsch-Przemyśl. By doing so, the mortal Frank performed the Godly act of returning the city to its perceived Germanic roots. Neither did rain damper that day’s festivities. Rather, Frank viewed it in a symbolic light: “Let this rain be a sign that the sky itself is taking part in the baptism of this city!”1277 Kubiiovych recalled of Nazi administrators travelling to the city from Berlin where they were aroused by its German appearance: “…they imagined Przemyśl was an old German home where it was necessary to return its primordial German character.”1278 An article in Das Generalgouvernment called Deutsch-Przemyśl the youngest city of the GG and summarized its “birth:” 1277 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/5, Tagebuch 1940 - Dritter Band: Juli bis September, pp. 24-25 1278 Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Heneral’nii Huberniї..., 380. 1279 Emmerich F. Ehrler, “Deutsch-Przemysl. Die jüngste Stadt des Generalgouvernement,” Das Generalgouvernment, 1. Jahrgang Folge 6 (March 1941), 25-26. 1280 Magocsi, A History of Ukraine, 114-124; Subtelny, Ukraine: A History, 238-239. Stepan Dziubyna recalled the strong pro-Ukrainian atmosphere felt in the Przemyśl Greek Catholic seminary during the interwar years: “… We future priests wished to be beside the people not only in the church. The view that the priest should also be with the people everyday, in the Prosvita reading rooms and cooperatives, was convincing. He should lead the hromada at all times.” Stepan Dziubyna, I stverdy dilo rukh nashykh (Warszawa: Ukraїns’kyi Arkhiv, 1995), 45. Deutsch-Przemysl… the first city founded by the Germans in the GG, is washed at a rapid pace as it has not much in common with the old German city Przemysl, which dates back to the mid-14th century when it was granted Magdeburg rights. It had to be created by the German administration from nothing, so to speak, because all buildings and public facilities are located on the other side of the San. Above all, the Jews, who under Polish rule had been the real masters here, had to be removed from the new city structures.1279 Being an ethnic borderland city, Przemyśl was considered by Ukrainians to be ethnically Ukrainian. In their eyes, historical precedent dictated so as in the 10th century it briefly belonged to Kyivan’ Rus before being taken back by Poles. Between the 11th and 12th centuries, it was the capital of a Kyivan principality and later become part of the Kingdom of Galicia-Volhynia before Polish King Casimir the Great ultimately took the city back under Polish rule in 1340. Under the Habsburgs, it became an important early center of the Ukrainian national awakening; influenced by clergy from the Greek Catholic eparchy there and, through them, maintaining a strong link with Eastern Galicia and Ukrainian trends in Lwów.1280 After the fall of Poland, Przemyśl and Jarosław, cities and regions constituting what is commonly referred to as the Zasiannia, Posiannia or Nadsiannia region, again became centers of organized Ukrainian life as those fleeing Soviet occupation in Eastern Galicia settled throughout the borderlands. As such, these areas were once again influenced by Galician Ukrainians. Because the Germans carved-out Deutsch-Przemyśl and several surrounding gminas from Jarosław County and created a separate, special municipal administration headed by Stadthauptmann Ludwig Hahn,1281 Ukrainian life and UTsK activity centered in Jarosław with an aid committee and delegation in Deutsch-Przemyśl.1282 1281 A lawyer by trade, Ludwig Hahn joined the Nazi party in 1930. He entered police service and in 1933 joined the SS. During the September 1939 campaign, he led sub-unit in Einsatzgruppen I which committed atrocities against the non-Germans of Silesia and the Sanok region. In the latter, the unit played a role in the expulsion of Jews from Dynów and their deportation to the USSR. From 1939 to 1941 he served as Stadthauptmann of Deutsch-Przemyśl. From January to August 1940, he assumed command of the SD and security police for the Kraków District. During that time, he oversaw Sonderaktion Krakau and was instrumental in implementing the AB-Aktion. Toward the end of 1941, he was transferred to Warsaw to head that district’s SD and security police. In that capacity, Hahn directed and oversaw combating the Polish underground as well as the extermination of the Jews and Poles. His functionaries directly participated in the major ghetto Aktions in 1942 as well as in the liquidation of the ghetto a year later. From November 1944 until the end of the war, he was assigned to position on the western front before taken prisoner by the British on April 12, 1945. Tomasz Szarota, Okupowanej Warszawy dzień powszedni. Studium historyczne (Warszawa: Czytelnik, 2010), 355-356; Władysław Bartoszewski, Warszawski pierścień śmierci 1939-1944. Terror hitlerowski w okupowanej stolicy, 3rd ed. (Warszawa: Świat Książki - Bertelsmann Media, 2008), 439-440; Wincenty Hein and Czesława Jakubiec, Montelupich (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1985), 30; 49. 1282 BA, R 52 III/32, Der Stadthauptmann Deutsch-Przemysl Lagebericht 13 Juli – 31 August 1940, pp. 2-6. From September 1939 until the appointment of Hahn Stadthauptmann of Deutsch-Przemysl, Dr. Grzegorz Łuczakowski – claimed by some historians to be a Ukrainian – served as mayor. Zdzisław Konieczny, Polacy i Ukraińcy na ziemiach obecnej Polski w latach 1918-1947 (zarys problematyki) (Przemyśl: Archiwum Państwowe w Przemyślu, 2010), 136. 1283 Iurii Kopustsians’kyi, “Z moho zhyttia i pratsi v Iaroslavshchyni v rr. 1934-44” in Semchyshyn and Borodach (eds), Iaroslavshchyna i Zasiannia 1031-1947, 166. Kubiiovych claimed that up until the outbreak of war, only in 7 out of 43 villages in Jarosław County was Ukrainian spoken. Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Heneral’nii Huberniї..., 381-382. 1284 AP-P, Instytucje, stowarzyszenia i organizacje ukraińskie na terenie miasta Przemyśla, sygn. 32, Zvit Orhanizatsiinoho Referatu UDK Iaroslav, March 27, 1941, pp. 18-20; 24-25. 1285 M. Terletsk’yi, “Iaroslav pid chas nimets’koї okupatsiї” in Iaroslavshchyna i Zasiannia 1031-1947…, 306-311 According to Kubiiovych, German occupation and the settlement of Galician Ukrainians changed the ethnic character of Jarosław County and the Zasiannia. Previously dominated by Poles and Jews, the only thing that he believed identified Polonized or less conscious Ukrainians with the Ukrainian ethnicity was their adherence to Greek Catholicism. German discrimination and anti-Semitic laws quickly erased the Jewish tradition of the region, creating an ethnically-mixed, predominantly Polish-Ukrainian county. Iurii Kopustsians’kyi recalled: “After the end of the war (meaning the September 1939 campaign), the Germans rounded the Jews to the square, filed them into line and herded them to the San [River] where they forced them to wade across [to the Soviet side].”1283 Alongside Chełm, Jarosław quickly became a strong Ukrainian center in the GG. At its height in 1941, the aid committee there boasted of over 8 thousand registered members and 24 employees.1284 As of 1940, primary schools and a Ukrainian gymnasium were organized, UOT branches dotted towns and villages throughout the county while Galician cooperatives revived their work and the Ukraїnbank made the city its headquarters.1285 Ukrainians throughout the region did not hesitate in changing the ethnic appearance there. For example, in Sanok store signs appeared in German and Ukrainian with no Polish version. In Leżajsk, a Ukrainian civil administrator removed the Polish eagle emblem from the municipal courthouse. There and in Jarosław, Polish street names were changed and nationalized to reflect the new Ukrainian character; named after Shevchenko, Franko, Khmel'nyts’kyi or Mazepa. In Przemyśl, plaques and monuments honoring Polish defenders of the city from the 1918-1919 war with the Ukrainians were destroyed by nationalists.1286 1286 Konieczny, Polacy i Ukraińcy na ziemiach obecnej Polski..., 163-164. 1287 Kubiiovych, Terytoria i liudnist’…, 15; Potocki, Polityka państwa polskiego wobec zagadnienia ukraińskiego..., 45. 1288 Physically, the region encompasses much of the Ukrainian Carpathian Mountains, most of the low and parts of the middle and western Beskid Mountains. It includes high-elevations of the Polish Carpathians stretching to the Poprad River in the west and much of thee Sanok region in the east where it neighbors with the Boiko region; a subsequent mountain people. 1289 The Ukrainian intelligentsia of the Habsburg Empire (and later Austria-Hungary) was divided into three factions. Old Ruthenians and Russophiles both agreed Russia was composed of three major Slavic elements: Russians, Little Russians and White Russians. Although these groups formed what they saw as a common Russian nationality, they recognized the existence of cultural and linguistic differences between these elements. Russophiles went a step further, arguing that members of all three Slavic elements should identify themselves as Russian, use Russian as their literary language and for intellectual discourse. Put simply, they considered themselves Russians from Eastern Galicia. Ukrainophiles, on the other hand, viewed the idea of a single common-Russian nationality as fantasy. They viewed the Slavs in the Habsburg Empire as a distinct Ukrainian nationality living on compact ethnographic territory stretching from from the Carpathian Mountains in the west to the Caucasus Mountains in the southeast. Historically, they argued Kyivan Rus’ was a distinct civilization which centered on Ukrainian territory. Its successors were the Kingdom of Galicia-Volhynia and later the Cossack state. In the modern 19th and 20th centuries, the territories of Eastern Galicia, northern Bukovina and Subcarpathian Rus’ constituted part of the Ukrainian whole. Magocsi, A History of Ukraine, 438-439. Oleksandr Zaitsev leans toward the term “Muscophile” as part of the greater Russophile movement. See Oleksandr Zaitsev, “The Lemko Problem as seen in the Activities of Ukrainian Political Parties in the 1920s and 1930s” in Paul Best and Jarosław Moklak (eds), The Lemkos of Poland: Articles and Essays (Cracow and New Haven: Carpatho-Slavic Studies Group, 2000), 190. 1290 The growth of Russian Orthodoxy – clear indicator of “Russianness” – in large part came by way of the Tsarist government’s financial sponsorship of newspapers, ideological agitators and Orthodox seminarians which produced Lemko priests who in turn began forming a local intelligentsia among the masses. Successes also came through the education of peasant masses. By the eve of the outbreak of World War I, the Kachkovs’kyi Society, a network of cultural and educational organizations, worked at raising national awareness especially among the peasants, through wide-ranging publication programs. Calendars, farmer’s almanacs, newspapers and monthly publications included both, topics dedicated to moral or civic concerns as The inclusion of the Lemko region within the borders of the General Government proved an advantageous opportunity for Ukrainian nationalists to isolate it from what they viewed as foreign influences and to predispose it to processes of socialized ethnic cleansing and definitive ukrainization. Kubiiovych described this area as a nationally pure Ukrainian oblast, one tainted by outside influences which incurred into the region – Russophile and Polish. This view remained consistent with Ukrainian thought during the interwar period which viewed the mountainous Lemko, Hutsul and Boiko groups as people of Ukrainian background or extraction with strong regional consciousness. Kubiiovych referred to them as “Ukrainian mountainous tribes” in his prewar scholarship.1287 The Lemko region (Lemkivshchyna) spans a peninsula of land from present-day western Ukraine to Poland and Slovakia.1288 In Habsburg Austria, those in the region identified themselves with either the Russophile or Ukrainophile orientations; the historical ‘two-track’ tradition of national definition.1289 The former primarily adhered to Russian Orthodoxy while the latter to Greek Catholicism. During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, both Russophiles and Ukrainophiles influenced the Lemko inhabitants in efforts to lay claim to them for their orientations.1290 Concerning the Ukrainian national movement, well as the works of popular Russian or Galician authors, something meant to expose the masses to cultural works. By 1913, some 109 branches appeared throughout the Lemko region. Paul J. Best, “Moskalofilstwo wśród ludności Łemkowskiej w XX wieku,” Zeszyty Naukowe Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego vol. MLXXXVIII no. 103 (Kraków 1993), 144-145; Paul Robert Magocsi, “The Kachkovs’kyi Society and the National Revival in Nineteenth Century East Galicia,” Harvard Ukrainian Studies vol. 15 no. 1/2 (June 1991), 57-64. During World War I, with the Lemko region under Austro-Hungarian occupation, Russophiles, seen as Russian agents or spies, were arrested en masse. Over two thousand were sent to Thalerhof concentration camp. Paul J. Best, “Moscophilism amongst the Lemko Population,” Carpatho-Slavic Studies vol. 1 (1990). Following the collapse of Austria-Hungary, the Lemkos made attempts to gain statehood, both Russophile and Ukrainophile respectively. See especially Bogdan Horbal, Działalność polityczna Łemków na Łemkowszczyźnie 1918-1921 (Wrocław 1997). 1291 Potocki, Polityka państwa polskiego…, 45; Zaitsev, “The Lemko Problem...,” 191. For Ukrainian scholarly works describing the Lemkos, see Stefan Rudnyćkyj, Ukraina und die Ukrainer (Wien 1914), 4-11; Stepan Rudnyts’kyi, Ukraїna nash ridnyi krai (L’viv 1917), 5-6; Iulian Tarnovych, Iliustrovana istoriia Lemkivshchyny, vol. 1 (L’viv 1936), 5; 246-247. Rudnyts’kyi described the Lemko social situation as destitute: “Therefore our unfortunate Lemkos are the poorest of the Ukrainian tribes. They live within small villages, in poor wooden cottages… They live poorly off of their agriculture, from their livestock or sheep… There are no cities in the Lemkivshchyna except perhaps the Galician Sanok…” Stepan Rudnyts’kyi, Pochatkova geografia dliia narodnikh shkil (Kyїv-L’viv-Viden’ 1919), 143-144. 1292 Kubiiovych, Terytoriia i liudnist’…, 48. 1293 Jarosław Moklak, The Lemko Region in the Second Polish Republic: Political and Interdenominational Issues 1918-1939 (Kraków 2013), 41; 83-104; 122-139; Mykola Kucherepa, “The Nationality Policy of Poland towards Ukrainians before WWII” in Paul J. Best and Jarosław Moklak (eds), The Lemko Region, 1939-1947: War, Occupation and Deportation (Cracow and New Haven 2002), 44-47; Zaitsev, “The Lemko Problem...,” 193-196. 1294 Chojnowski, Koncepcje polityki narodowościowej..., 198-200. For some of the leading Polish scholarly works on the Lemko region during the interwar period, see Roman Reinfuss, Łemkowie. Opis etnograficzny (Kraków 1936); Roman Reinfuss, Problem wschodniego zasięgu etnograficznego Łemkowszczyzny (Warszawa modern intellectuals and nationalists, such as geographer Stepan Rudnyts’kyi, included the region and people into the understanding of greater Ukrainian ethnographic territory; suggesting Lemkos were regional Ukrainians, neither Poles nor Russians. To them, ukrainization of the Lemkos equated to raising and improving their social standing. Deep down, nationalists believed them to be Ukrainians.1291 In his prewar scholarship, Kubiiovych described the region as belonged to the “purest” of nationally-oriented Ukrainian territories.1292 The Polish-Ukrainian war of 1918-1919 “tipped the scales” in favor of the Ukrainian national movement in the Lemko region. The number of cultural and educational societies increased primarily in the region; primarily in the eastern part but later moving slowly into the western, traditionally-Russophile part. A clerical and secular intelligentsia spear-headed the national movement. However, the historic ‘two-track’ tradition of national identification in the region proved troubling to Polish governments who viewed both orientations as breeding Trojan horses for internal anti-Polish subversion. Throughout the prewar period Polish governments tended to support the Russophile movement as a means of contesting Ukrainian nationalists. This came on the heels of government measures to “strengthen Polishness” among its Ukrainian minority through forced assimilation.1293 The uniqueness of the Lemkos people was also emphasized in ethnographic and historic scholarship which defined them as a distinct group imbued with characteristics which separated them from the other mountainous groups of the region (Boikos and Hutsuls). This was due in large part to government financing of academic research of the region.1294 One 1938); Jerzy Smoleński, “Łemkowie i Łemkowszczyzna” in Walery Goetl (ed), O Łemkowszczyźnie (Kraków 1935). 1295 Aleksander Bartoszuk, Łemkowie. Zapomniani Polacy (Warszawa 1939). 1296 Paul Best, “The Apostolic Administration of the Lemko Region 1934-1944” in Best and Moklak (eds), The Lemkos of Poland…, 222-223-; Paweł Przybylski, Rola duchowieństwa greckokatolickiego w kształtowaniu się opcji narodowych wśród Łemków w latach 1918-1947 (Toruń: Wydawnictwo Mado, 2006), 75-122. Administratively the administrator’s seat of authority was in Rymanów Zdrój and later Sanok. The 9 deaneries were as follows: Bukowsko, Dukla, Dynów, Gorlice, Grybów, Krosno, Muszyna, Rymanów, and Sanok. For an understanding of the Greek Catholic view, see Anna Krochmal, Konflikt czy współpraca? Relacje między duchowieństwem łacińskim i greckokatolickim w diecezji przemyskiej w latach 1918-1939 (Lublin: Instytut Europy Środkowo-Wschodniej, 2001). 1297 BA, R 52 II/174, November 8, 1939, p. 40; AIPN, DHF, GK 95/1, Tagebuch des Herrn Generalgouverneur für die Besetzen Polnischen Gebiete vom 25. Oktober biz 15 Dezember 1939, p. 95. 1298 BA, NS 43/32, Die Bevölkerung des Generalgouvernements – Allgemeines, March 26, 1940, p. 161. The report also categorized the Boikos and Hutsuls as two “Ukrainian mountainous tribes with certain linguistic and ethnological features.” scholar described them as “forgotten Poles” in undertaking to reevaluate the region in order to “…reach for the souls of our brothers, because they are ours, and we will not allow for them to be made into, for example “Carpatho Ukrainian” or other citizens.”1295 In combating Ukrainianism in the region, the Polish state targeted the Greek Catholic Church whose clergy was seen as acting “unkindly.” Here, the authorities unofficially used Orthodoxy to advance their anti-Ukrainian policy or suggested outright removal of pro-Ukrainian priests and replacing them with pro-Polish ones. Under pressure from the Polish government, and at the request of some who looked to stem the Orthodox tide in the region, the Holy See approved the creation in 1934 of the Lemko Apostolic Administration; in effect detaching the nine western most deaneries (203 churches and chapels) from the Przemyśl Greek Catholic eparchy and placing them directly under the Vatican. The Apostolic administration was headed by an administrator. Iakov Medvets’kyi, the administrator before the outbreak of war, was accused of strong Russophile sympathies and supporting the Lemko orientation. He forbade clergy from subscribing to pro-Ukrainian publications. To bring the administration closer to the Roman Catholic Church in Poland as well as to stem the tide of Ukrainian nationalist sympathies through polonization, the Polish government ordered administrative clerics to be trained in a seminary in Kraków alongside Catholic clerics.1296 With the influx of Galician Ukrainians, German occupation proved an opportune moment for ukrainization. However, Kubiiovych, the UTsK and Ukrainian nationalists also had to contend with German plans for the treatment of racial undesirables. District governor Otto Wächter suggested as early as November 1939 that a certain distance always be kept toward Ukrainians, Highlanders, and Lemkos.1297 A Reich foreign ministry population report describing occupied Polish inhabitants categorized Lemkos as Ukrainian Greek Catholic adherents who formed a population majority in areas between the San and Poprad Rivers in the northern Carpathians. However, their national consciousness was described as weak due in large part to prewar Polish and Russophile influences.1298 A similar position appeared in Arlt’s population brochure. The Lemko region was included under the understanding of Ukrainian territory. Du Prel’s handbook put the Lemko question to rest: “There is no doubt that the Ukrainian Goralen [Lemkos, Boikos, Hutsuls] are just as much a part of the Ukrainian people as the Tyrolians belong to the German people.”1299 Including the Lemkos in the greater understanding of ‘Ukrainian peoples’ inhabiting the GG should be viewed in terms of a subsequent concession made by the occupier to secure the favor and cooperation of Ukrainian nationalists. 1299 Arlt, Übersicht über die Bevölkerungsverhältnisse im Generalgouvernement, 43; Föhl, “Die Bevölkerung des Generalgouvernements“ in du Prel (ed), Das Generalgouvernement, 41. 1300 Bohdan Strumins’kyi (ed), Lemkivshchina. Zemlia – liudy – istoriia – kul’tura, vol. 1 (New York: Shevchenko Scientific Society, 1988), 201; Grzegorz Hryciuk, “Przesiedlenie ludności ukraińskiej, białoruskiej, rosyjskiej, rusińskiej z Generalnego Gubernatorstwa do radzieckiej strefy interesów w 1940 roku” in Stanisław Ciesielski, et al (eds), Wokól historii i polityki. Studia z dziejów XIX i XX wieku dedykowane Profesorowi Wojciechowi Wrzesińskiemu w siedemdziesiątą rocznicę urodzin (Toruń: Wydawnictwo Adam Marszałek - Instytut Historyczny Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego, 2004), 275. 1301 Iulian Tarnovych, Na zharyshchakh Zakerzonnia (Toronto: Vydavnytstvo Lemkivshchyna, 1954), 54-56; Bohdan Horbal’, “Ideme do svoikh, ideme do lipshoho. Pereselinia 1940 roku” in Lemkivskii richnyk (2010), 126-127. During the German-Soviet population resettlement campaign, the Lemko region was also an area where Soviet commissions worked to recruit Russophiles to move east. In Nowy Sącz for example, Soviet committees strongly recruited villagers for resettlement. Party commissars and NKVD officers disseminated propaganda, promising a better life for those who left. From Sanok, over 1 thousand Ukrainians did.1300 In some instances, committees guaranteed agricultural and material prosperity or simply meat pirohy as enticements. Soviet propaganda glorified the benefits to move: Comrades! We greet you on behalf of our glorious leader, the father of nations, Stalin. Because our father laments over you, he wants to take you all to him. Enough of Polish – noble ruin over you! Enough of capitalist oppression! Enough of eternal enslavement! Stalin gives you freedom, Stalin gives you land. You will no longer be exploited! You will be hosts of your land because our glorious leader, father of all nations Stalin will give all workers land, all machines workers, all factories wealth! You children of Stalin, listen to the great teachings of Marx and Engels, and your lives will be happy. In the Soviet Union there is no oppression, there are no daily injustices! There are no magnates, priests or exploiting pany (nobles)! In the Soviet Union everyone is equal! Freedom for everyone! Freedom for the tallest and the shortest! Freedom for the pig farmer and the same liberty for the intellectual! Our glorious leader father Stalin will also give you religious freedom. There is no God so there is no need for religion!1301 Resettlement agitation was not always fierce. Commissioners allowed people to remove their names from resettlement lists, permitted those not on lists to resettle and even allowed them to get off trains at the last minute. For these repatriates, the central committee of the Soviet communist party made arrangements to settle them throughout the western regions of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. They were to be settle on the possessions – small agricultural farms – of former German colonists who would emigrate west. By February 1940, plans were prepared to settle 15 thousand Ukrainians in the Volhynia, Równe, Tarnopol and Stanisławów oblasts.1302 1302 Ukraїns’kyi zdvyh: Zakerzonnia. 1939-1947 vol. 1, ed. Volodymyr Serhiichuk (Kyiv: Ukraїns’ka vydavnycha spilka, 2004), 40-43. The Central Committee’s letter to the Council of Commissars of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic also stipulated providing security, medical support, hot meals, and foodstuffs during the resettlement period. 1303 Knysh, Pered pokhodom na skhid, vol. 2, 146. 1304 “Sprava pereselennia,” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 1 no. 1 (January 7, 1940), 4. 1305 Ilnytzkyj, Deutschland und die Ukraine 1934-1945 vol. 1, 252. 1306 Tarnovych, Na zharyshchakh Zakerzonnia, 57. For Ukrainian nationalists in the GG, the necessity to stop a mass exodus of Lemkos became an early priority. According to nationalist Petro Ivanovych, sent to the Lemko region to work alongside the mixed German-Soviet resettlement commissions, OUN couriers often intentionally misinformed local Lemkos of Soviet departure dates. This dampened later desires to repack and again travel to railroad stations tens of kilometers away from ones village; often leading to volunteers resigning from resettlement. According to Knysh, the nationalists' main concern was to prevent Russophile propaganda from misleading and convincing Lemkos to leave the land of their forefathers who, in his opinion, defended it for thousands of years for the Ukrainian nation. He believed such an exodus would only benefit Poles who would overrun the Lemko region.1303 Even though an article in Krakivs’ki Visti underscored the voluntary aspect of the resettlements, it condemned what it called Polish and Jewish rumors speaking of complete Ukrainian deportations from the Lemko region: These rumors are simply myths by our hostile forces. Who like who but our nation knows very well how Poles in association with Jews not so long ago confiscated land from our villagers or urged them to leave their forefathers land to unknown countries for poverty and illegal work, causing even death. These injustices and crimes ended once and for all with the collapse of Poland. Therefore do not believe Polish-Jewish troublemakers.1304 As some Russophile Lemkos moved east, Ukrainians moved west to avoid Soviet arrest or repressions. German commissioners sent to the Soviet occupied zone oversaw resettlement and provided many Ukrainians, especially members of the intelligentsia, with documents fostering their move to the GG.1305 Iulian Tarnovych fled Lwów from the Soviets, migrating to west: “On December 26, 1939 I crossed the Solokiia River near Belz; after 12 days of roundabout travels to Lublin, Warsaw and Kraków, I arrived in Sanok.” Almost immediately, he noticed Soviet commissioners throughout the Lemko region organizing meetings and encouraging villagers to return to “father Stalin.” As a nationally conscious Ukrainian, he engaged in counter-propaganda to dispel ideas to voluntarily abandon the land of their forefathers. Following a meeting with Kubiiovych, he received 150 Polish złotys to conduct propaganda work; what he described as “a comically small amount.”1306 With this, he travelled throughout the region for 3 months to villages in and around Dukla and Sanok, convincing those there to remain. In total, some 30 thousand Ukrainians moved from the GG to Soviet Ukraine.1307 Between about 18 and 25 thousand Lemkos declared an initial willingness to move east. Out of those totals, only about 3 to 5 thousand actually moved to the Soviet zone. The lower figure was claimed in a Krakivs’ki Visti article, presumably to portray a low level of interest in moving to the USSR. The discrepancy lay largely in unverified Soviet reports. In many cases, last minute settlers’ board trains heading east. These people were not noted in official reports or on resettlement lists.1308 1307 Madajczyk, Polityka III Rzeszy... vol. 1, 250; 1308 Pisuliński, Przesiedlenie ludności ukraińskiej z Polski do USRR..., 44-45; Hryciuk, “Przesiedlenie ludności ukraińskiej, białoruskiej, rosyjskiej, rusińskiej z Generalnego Gubernatorstwa ...,” 274; “Zakinchennia pereselennia do SSSR,” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 1 no. 14 (February 25, 1940), 8. The article praised the successful cooperation between the German and Soviet commissions and authorities during the resettlement process. 1309 Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Heneral’nii Huberniї..., 180-181; Przybylski, Rola duchowieństwa greckokatolickiego..., 142; Serhijczuk, “Stanowisko i los Ukraińców w Generalnym Gubernatorstwie (bez Galicji)...” in Polska-Ukraina: trudne pytania vol. 4, 177. 1310 Arlt, Die ukrainische Volksgruppe im Generalgouvernement, 33, 52-53; Bohachevs’kyi, Na vozi i pid vozom, 120. 1311 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/2, Abteilungsleitersitzung, January 19, 1940, pp. 53-54. 1312 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/3, Tagebuch 1940: Erster Band – Januar bis März 1940, pp. 103-104; Grzegorz Hryciuk, “Przesiedlenie ludności ukraińskiej, białoruskiej, rosyjskiej, rusińskiej z Generalnego Gubernatorstwa ...,” 279. Furthermore, registering and not resettling presented the danger of being labelled pro-communist; something which in the future posed problems. Given the traditional Russophile sympathies of Lemkos, the majority of those who moved were, as Kubiiovych described, “being simply sympathizers of the communist regime, usually villagers with a low [Ukrainian] national conscious outlook…” Among poor villagers who moved east were also more affluent farmers who left their land and livestock to move. Whether poor or not, Paweł Przybylski believed the decision to resettle stemmed from Lemko apprehension for their own lives rather than improving their lot. Interestingly enough, in some cases Ukrainian nationalists viewed resettlements in positive terms. For example, in Krosno they commended resettlement effects as over 300 Russophile villagers emigrated and former assets transferred to Ukrainian hands.1309 Experiences of the new arrivals in the Soviet Union did not meet the expectations promised them by Soviet commissioners. Having realized the realities there, some fled back to the GG by way of the unpatrolled ‘green’ border.1310 Moreover, General Government officials were skeptical of the Soviets reaching their goal of convincing 1 million Ukrainians, Lemkos and Belarusians to move east. They noticed that those groups soon “lost the taste” to move to the Soviet Union.1311 During a February meeting, the foreign ministry envoy to the GG von Wühlisch informed Frank that the Soviet ambassador suggested extending the resettlement timeframe; presumably because of the low number of volunteers. The Governor General reiterated his position against any extension. In his opinion, the resettlement of ethnic Germans from the Soviet occupation zone outweighed those of Ukrainians east.1312 Almost immediately after the collapse and occupation of Poland, Ukrainian nationalists who settled in the Lemko region began a process of nationalization. In many instances, such as around Sanok, nationalists incurred into there through Slovakia and spurred nationalization. Ukrainian councils were organized according to what Iaroslav Haivas called the ‘doctrine of building a state from the first village.’ The first village in which a groups of nationalists led by Haivas began some semblance of organized life was Komańcza, located to the southwest of Sanok near the Slovak border. The success of organizing Ukrainian life there prompted him to call it the “second Komańcza Republic,” pairing it to the tradition of the short-lived Komańcza Republic of 1918-1919 – an association of eastern Lemko villages which sought to unify with the West Ukrainian People’s Republic.1313 1313 Iaroslav Haivas, Volia tsiny ne maie (Toronto: Sribna Surma, 1971), 174-184. Regarding the first Komańcza Republic, see Bogdan Horbal, Działalność polityczna Łemków na Łemkowszczyźnie 1918-1921 (Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Arboretum, 1997). 1314 Knysh, B’ie dvanadtsiata, 51. 1315 Dziubyna, I stverdy dilo rukh nashykh, 62-63; Semen Izhyk, Smikh kriz’ sl’ozy. Spomyny z rokiv 1939-1947 (Winnipeg: Vydavnytstvo Spilky “Postup,” 1961), 14-15. 1316 TsDAVOVUU, UTsK, f. 3959, op. 1, spr. 16: UTsK field report from Sanok, February 16-17, 1941, p. 2; “Muzei Lemkivshchyna,” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 1 no. 123 (November 17, 1940), 7.The article noted that the exterior of the building which housed the museum was hastily renovated, with plaster which was previously Soon, more nationalists arrived to reinforce organized life and to begin building the foundation for a future state; nationalizing, educating and indoctrinating future Ukrainian administrators according to OUN plans. Initial successes were immediate. Sanok became a subsequent center for Ukrainian life in the district. As with Jarosław, it too was seen as lying on ethnographic Ukrainian territory; containing both, a strong Ukrainian, historical past along with what some called “a strong resistance” among the masses.1314 Here, the OUN created a regional oblast, subordinate to the executive in Kraków. Young nationalists, fleeing Soviet occupation temporarily settled in this borderland city. They staffed newly organized schools; imparting patriotic feelings and even politically recruiting supporters. In Sanok, where a group of Greek Catholic deacons from Eastern Galicia travelled in search of lay work, the local school inspector, Father Stepan Venhrynovych, instructed some 200 teacher-candidates: “Go and teach. Carry the light of education to the dark corners of our Lemkivshchyna!” The ‘teachers – priests, lawyers, prewar gymnasium teachers and university students – were given chalk, a classroom journal, 200 złotys and 10 złotys pay before heading to assigned villages.1315 Cultural development was tantamount to increasing Ukrainian national consciousness. The opening of a Lemko museum in Sanok housed “the works of a highly national culture, the healthiest part of the Ukrainian nation… the Lemkos.” Included in the museum’s collection were expositions which highlighted Lemko history: folk costumes, hand tools, handicrafts, religious icons, traditional cottage layouts or designs and old church books. In addition, it also served as a center for various expositions and evenings. For example, one UTsK report noted of an evening presenting folk costumes from the region accompanied by traditional song and dance. Often, as during this evening, German officials attended.1316Administratively ad hoc police militias were organized to maintain order. applied to it being removed. This revealed the ornate finish and architecture of the building which, as the article mentioned, was covered-up by its prewar neighbors. In a poetic fashion, the author noted that just as the buildings architecture, the regions culture and history could not be covered-up either. 1317 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 17, folder 21, Konferentsia predstavnykiv riznykh oseredkiv, November 16, 1939; Haivas, Volia tsiny ne maie, 194-196. 1318 Quoted in Przybylski, Rola duchowieństwa greckokatolickiego..., 159. 1319 “Na storozhi zakhidnoї mezhi,” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 1 no. 13 (February 21, 1940), 2. 1320 Knysh, Pered pokhodom na skhid... vol. 2, 188-189. Ukrainian cooperatives also began activity again. In the town of Dynów, to the north of Sanok, buildings of the Russophile Kachkovs'kyi Society were appropriated by Ukrainians.1317 Nationalist activity encompassed the entire Lemkivshchyna. Nowy Sącz County also felt ukrainization. Following the exodus of over 3 thousand Russophile inhabitants, Ukrainians began a social take over. Here too Ukrainians appropriated émigré assets while local Poles gained nothing. Schools alongside Prosvita reading rooms were organized. As local villagers recalled: “Now education in schools was conducted in Ukrainian… The wind blew into schools from a different political direction. Those in older classes, who until the summer of 1939 were taught by Polish teachers… now began learning Ukrainian history…”1318 Even though Lemkos remained wary of Ukrainian intentions, educational development was relatively accepted as it was an opportunity toward education; something which until that point was rather unavailable to them. Propaganda reports of travels throughout the region describing nationalist successes and the population’s want for Ukrainian nationalization appeared in the press to illustrate the purported successes of ukrainization in the region. One such piece highlighted a conversation between a young village boy who questioned a nationalist: “What will be of us – Lemkos – when a Ukrainian state emerges? Are we not Ukrainians?” Rhetorically, the boy suggested “the blue-yellow flag must fly” throughout the region.1319 Melnykite Toma Lapychak also recalled questioning Lemkos who they were; receiving answers of “Rusnak” or “locals.” He optimistically assessed their work and boldly predicted that in a year’s time, Lemko children in villages would greet each other with the nationalist slogan Slava Ukraїni!1320 The resort town of Krynica also became a central township for Ukrainian life. The swift organization of schools, cooperative societies and reading rooms turned it into a national center. Surrounding villages provided a national buffer from nearby Polish villages or townships; insomuch that fantasies of creating an ethnically-Ukrainian county out of the Krynica region emerged among nationalists. The town also became the center of OUN life for the western Lemko region, complementing Sanok in the east, and spurred swift nationalization. However, Ukrainians there were forced to share its serenity and beauty with the German occupiers. By April 1940, following renovations, a resort hotel and spa – the Kurhaus – was opened. Authority lay in the hands of municipal commissioner Georg Nave; a prewar specialist in managing Bavarian spas. In general, German plans envisioned turning the town into a convalescence center for Wehrmacht soldiers. The first steps in this direction were removing Jews and Poles. The former were brutally rounded-up and transported to the ghetto in Nowy Sącz.1321 An article written by Nave claimed the expulsion of the Jews contributed to the Germanization and beautification of the town: 1321 Tadeusz Duda, “Z dziejów Krynicy – miasta i uzdrowiska,” Almanach Sądecki nr. 2 (1993), 25. At the beginning of German occupation in 1939, they initialy left the prewar Polish municipal council, under Mayor Józef Krówczyński, in charge until April 1940. 1322 Georg Nave, “Heilbad Krynica,” Das Generalgouvernement 1. Jahrgang Folge 6 (March 1941), 22-23. According to him, guests came from the Reich and neutral foreign countries. Daily rooming fees ranged from 10 to 16 złotys. This was possible largely due to the infrastructure projects undertaken by Baudienst companies – repairing tunnels and roads. As a result, Krynica became accessible by road and direct rail connections with Kraków, the Reich, Slovakia and Hungary. 1323 Ibid, 23; Kubiiovych, Meni 85, 119-120. 1324 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 17, folder 21, Protokol zasidannia Provodu UTsK, 28 July 1940; Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Heneral’nii Huberniї..., 180-181. 1325 Veryha, The Correspondence…, 5. The establishment of a German school and an NSDAP party home – in addition to the presence of many German authorities such as police, post, railway, customs, etc. – prove that now, under the swastika banner, Bad Krynica will become what its location, climate and medicinal sources claim it to be; namely the leading spa [town] of the GG.1322 In addition to providing Germans with a resort destination in the GG, Frank also permitted Ukrainians a sanatorium of their own. Their spa was associated with the GG Population and Welfare bureau. Nave wrote it accommodated loyal Ukrainian guests. According to Kubiiovych, Hans Koch appointed Paliїv to manage the resort. Its property increased as building were placed in trust following the expulsion of the town’s Jews and the confiscation of some Polish homes. Paliїv’s presence there drew many of his FNIe supporters to move in and around Krynica, turning it into a political center. Besides managing the Ukrainian resort, he also briefly headed the aid committee there. His contacts with the Abwehr and GG officials as well as the proximity of the Ukrainian spa to the German one proved beneficial as he used these channels and opportunities to discuss Ukrainian issues with convalescing high-ranking Reich and Wehrmacht officials. Conversely, in Krynica he and his follower were under the watchful eye of the Nazi security and police; on the one hand preventing any unwanted nationalist in-fighting while, on the other, maintaining contact if the need were to arise to exploit such loyal Ukrainians in the future.1323 Kubiiovych denounced prewar Polish regional policies which openly promoted ethnic distinction of the Lemko group and Russophile sympathies; two things he believed tainted the true Ukrainian character of the region. Whereas resettlement succeeded in removing a large portion Russophile Lemkos from the region, it did not remove them all. He claimed those who agitated for Lemko resettlement were members of the lingering Russophile intelligentsia.1324 Paliїv compiled a memorandum which traced Russophile influences into the Lemko region. Whereas this political trend had been removed from Eastern Galicia, he claimed it remained engrained throughout portions of the Lemko region. He too blamed Poles for halting what he saw as the regions natural Ukrainian development.1325 Books pamphlets and newspaper articles concerning Lemko topics appeared. Due in large part to his experience as a prewar journalist and editor, Tarnovych contributed works on the Lemko subject, finding an expressive outlet for both, the positive and negative aspects of Lemko life. His series of articles entitled “20 years of slavery,” which appeared in Krakivs’ki Visti, described interwar injustices against the Lemko peoples.1326 Ukrainians also found an outlet in German propaganda to express the Ukrainian influence on the Lemkos as Iryna Babians’ka discussed the customs of the Ukrainian Lemko group in Das Generalgouvernement.1327 1326 Entsyklopediia Ukraїnoznavstva vol. 8, ed. Volodymyr Kubiiovych (L’viv: Tovarystvo im. Shevchenka, 2000), 3134. For Tarnovych’s series, see Krakivs’ki Visti, issues for September 1940. This series was also compiled and published in 20 rokiv nevoli. Lemkivshchyna pid pol’skim iarmom (Krakiv: Ukraїns’ke Vydavnytstvo, 1940). 1327 Irene Babjanska, “Trachten der Lemken,” Das Generalgouvernement 1. Jahgang Folge 3 (Dezember 1940), 20-22. 1328 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 22, folder 1, Zvidomlennia povitovykh kulturno-osvitnikh referentiv, n.d; Duda, “Z dziejów Krynicy – miasta i uzdrowiska,” 25. 1329 Ibid, Zvidomlennia Kermanycha Viddilu Shkilnytstva za misiats’ lystopad 1940, December 1, 1940. 1330 Magocsi, With Their Backs to the Mountains…, 282; Duda, “Z dziejów Krynicy – miasta i uzdrowiska,” 25. For the occupiers, Ukrainian nationalist anti-Polish rhetoric fit into their divide and conquer policy as it served to prevent the possibility of Polish-Lemko rapprochement; the basis from which a common, anti-German front could emerge. As such, they and the Ukrainian nationalists were in no way sympathetic to the Russophiles who dominated Lemko cultural and religious life. For example, leading Russophile and attorney Orest Hnatyszak was arrested and later sent to Auschwitz. Native Lemko teachers, who completed Polish prewar education, were described by Ukrainians as good natured yet not fulfilling their roles. Their problem, they argued, was an inability to base education on Ukrainian culture and traditions.1328 Such teachers would be re-trained in specialized workshops. Where Russophile or Polish teachers still remained, the UTsK education department petitioned German authorities to remove and replace them with Ukrainian teachers who before the war worked in Polish schools on ethnic Polish territory.1329 As one report mentioned, this transfer was commissioned by way of the occupation authorities so as to prevent any bitterness toward Ukrainians. Additionally, the interwar Lemko Soiuz ceased to exist; in favor of the Eastern Galician Prosvita societies. Lemkos were also forced into accepting Ukrainian Kennkarte. Even though possession of it meant nominally better privileges, it also equated to being identified as Ukrainian whether the bearer liked it or not.1330 Polish underground reports sent to the General Staff in London described the successes of what they called the Ukrainian nationalist “Drang nach Westen.” Ukrainian schools, social clubs, and agricultural organizations dominated some village landscapes. In particular, Krynica was reported to be surrounded by such nationally-saturated villages. To maintain them, the report explained of funds collected through specially-organized UTsK drives as well as from the coffers of the GG. During a cultural-educational congress in Sanok, it was underscored that the “Ukrainian western borderland” have a special and enormous meaning for Ukrainians.1331 1331 PUMST, OIV, file A.269, Polityka ukraińska wobec Polaków, March 1942, pp. 75-76. 1332 Przybylski, Rola duchowieństwa greckokatolickiego..., 164-165; Motyka, Tak było w Bieszczadach..., 87. 1333 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 18, folder 5, Orhanizatsiina skhema UDK, n.d. Delegate branches were organized in Nowy Sącz, Florynka, Tylicz, Muszyna, Krosno, Gładyszów, Desznica, Małastów, Polany, Wysowa, Dukla, Dynów, Baligród, Rymanów. 1334 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 18, folder 7, Bericht für den Monat Juli 1940, June 30 1940; volume 18 folder 7, Protokol dilovoho zasidannia Provodu UTsK v Krakovi, June 30, 1940. For the appointment of local functionaries, Boidunyk noted that he avoided the practice of calling village meetings and openly electing representatives. Although he does not specify why, it is most probable that he sought to avoid any dialogue or debates while forcing his trusted candidates. 1335 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 18, folder 7, Prodovzhennia zasidannia, October 26, 1940. However, Ukrainian nationalist anti-Polish rhetoric was not always received positively among local inhabitants of the Lemko and Zasiannia regions. In western portion of the Lemko region for example, where German propaganda discredited Russophile Lemkos as Soviet agents and traitors working for Poles, locals maintained their own sympathies toward their Polish neighbors. Although it was not overtly pro-Polish, it was conciliatory. As a sign of opposition toward ukrainization, some Lemkos even applied for Polish Kennkarte. Further east, where Ukrainian activity was stronger and more concerted, a more overt anti-Polish atmosphere prevailed. There, young Ukrainians sang Christmas carols calling on the Liakhy to flee to Hungary in the face of their certain death by Hitler.1332 Such actions only added to the local Polish perception of Ukrainian-German collaboration. The strong Ukrainian base which appeared in the region allowed Osyp Boidunyk to organize UTsK aid committees in the Lemko region. As he reported: “During such meetings I controlled all committee activity… and propagated for favorable results.” He choose and appointed who he viewed as able-bodied men to lead each branch. Often these were members of the local intelligentsia – doctors, lawyers or teachers, with what he saw as progressive Ukrainian outlooks or feelings. Ultimately, three aid committees for the Lemko region were organized: in Jasło, Krynica and Sanok.1333 Some men, with the agreement of local German administrators, were even appointed to high-ranking civil service positions. In Sanok, for example, the head of the aid committee was also appointed to the position of deputy mayor.1334 Re-organization, however, was not always permanent. In some cases, Boidunyk returned to again reorganize committees. On the one hand this resulted from German apprehension toward Ukrainian civil administrators who they saw as unreliable or unwilling to comply with their policies.1335 On the other, he had to quell any signs of factionalism, something which appeared as contending nationalist outlooks vied for influence and control of aid committees while, as in the Lublin District, often disregarding the needs of the inhabitants. In such cases, Boidunyk noted committee heads began asserting an authoritarian style of leadership. Opportunism among committee members whose personal goals of leading superseded assigned tasks from above was also something he fought. One villager openly complained about the work of the UTsK: “… in Jasło, one of the meeting attendees compared the UTsK with the Polish Sejm [parliament], and its members, who traveled to various regions, with Ukrainian parliamentarians… who came to a given area, took notes, returned to Warsaw and every trace of them was lost while things in the region remained the same as before.” According to him, more meetings with aid committee heads in Kraków or fieldtrips to inspect local work were tantamount to preventing opportunism. A lack of finances also hampered work as voluntary work only went so far. Unable to pay workers led to them quitting or leaving their positions abruptly.1336 1336 Ibid, Zvidomlennia za misiats’ zhovten’, October 1940. 1337 Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Heneral’nii Huberniї, 312-313; Zięba, “Biskupstwo krakowsko-łemkowskie…,” 126-127. 1338 Przybylski, Rola duchowieństwa greckokatolickiego..., 141. 1339 Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Heneral’nii Huberniї, 24; 1340 Dziubyna, I stverdy dilo rukh nashykh, 60; Krzysztof Z. Nowakowski, “Administracja Apostolska Łemkowszczyzny w latach 1939-1947” in Stanisław Stępień (ed), Polska-Ukraina 1000 lat sąsiedztwa. Studia z dziejów greckokatolickiej diecezji przemyskiej, vol. 3 (Przemyśl: Południowo-Wschodni Instytut Naukowy, 1996), 231. In his memoirs Dziubyna described a meeting of Greek Catholic priests with the head of his The dual religious character of the region – predominantly Greek Catholic with some Russian Orthodoxy – presented a subsequent opportunity to remove Polish or Russophile elements; a further step toward nationalizing the region. Concerning the latter, the appointment of Vydybida-Rudenko as bishop of the Orthodox Kraków-Lemko diocese led toward changes in orthodoxy there as he transferred perceived Russophile priests from the region to Warsaw and replaced them with a younger, Ukrainian clerics. The Ukrainian accent or language were used during church services; what constituted a ‘legal basis’ for nationalization.1337 However, the process was very slow. The border between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union divided Greek Catholic church territory. The Lwów and Stanisławów eparchies as well as the majority of the Przemyśl one fell under Soviet occupation; only a small part of the latter fell under the Germans. In turn, Iosafat Kotsylovs’kyi, bishop of the Przemyśl, ecclesiastically divided the eparchy to meet the new reality and appointed auxiliary bishop Hryhorii Lakota to oversee the so-called General Vicariate from Jarosław.1338 Kubiiovych and nationalists looked to cleanse what they viewed as a “Russophile mainstay” promoted by the Polish prewar state – the Apostolic Administration for the Lemko region.1339 Prior to the outbreak of war, many priests within this administrative region fell into two camps: Russophile and Ukrainophile; older priests being adherents of the former while younger ones favored the latter. As early as September 25, 1939, administrator Iakiv Medvets’kyi mentioned of some 50 Greek Catholic priests having fled to the Lemko region from Soviet occupation. Furthermore, he noted of “lay patriots” desires to attach the several deaneries of the Przemyśl eparchy of the Greek Catholic Church to the Lemko region.1340 A deanery. There, he posed the question, “Father, what is the difference between us? Even though we call ourselves Lemkos, or Ruthenians or Ukrainians, we are after all children of the same mother.” To this the elder Russophile priest responded, “I will tell you the difference: you say there are 60 million of you while we say that there are 190 million of us.” 1341 AP-P, AAL, sygn. 7, German Lemko report, October 1939, pp. 1-5; List of Greek Catholic priests and their home dicese, April 22, 1940, pp. 18-21; LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 18 folder 2, Protokol Zїzdu, April 14, 1940. Other priests fled from Siedlce, Stanisławów, Pińsk and Podlasie. 1342 Paul Best, “Apostolska Administracja Łemkowszczyzny 1934-1944” in Stanisław Stępień (ed), Polska-Ukraina. 1000 lat sąsiedztwa, vol. 4 (Przemyśl: Południowo-Wschodni Instytut Naukowy, 1998), 249; Nowakowski, “Administracja Apostolska Łemkowszczyzny w latach 1939-1947,” 231-232. 1343 AAN, RdGG, sygn. 429,Cholm und Sianik, n.d., pp. 310-311; Sziling, Kościoły chrześcijańskie w polityce niemieckich władz..., 58; Entsyklopediia Ukraїnoznavstva vol. 4, 1449. 1344 Prior to the occupation of the Lemko region by the Soviets, he emigrated west before settling in England where he died in 1957. Best, “Apostolska Administracja Łemkowszczyzny 1934-1944,” 249. German report specified that the majority of priests who fled Soviet occupation came from either the Przemyśl or Lwów eparchies; one-time Polish nationals now listed as ‘Ukrainians.’ During the April 1940 meeting of regional Ukrainians in Kraków, the Sanok group signaled their concern with the state of the apostolic administration, grumbling that their Ukrainian clergy had no leader.1341 Medvets’kyi attempted to maintain the religious status quo of the Lemko region, expressing his dissent to Lakota toward plans to attach the Apostolic Administration to the General Vicariate. According to him, the matter was to be handled no by the occupiers but by the Holy See. However, the favorable position of the UTsK among the occupiers along with the ukrainization of social life in the Lemko region proved difficult for Medvets’kyi to avoid. In 1939-1940, the Administration developed largely thanks to the organization of monasteries by Galician Greek Catholic priests and sisters. Their network and work in turn further strengthened the strong Ukrainian position in the Lemko region.1342 Neither was Medvets’kyi spared. He was accused by nationalists of harboring Russophile and Lemko separatist sympathies based on his prewar cooperation with the Russophile Kachkovs'kyi society. In a report to the occupation authorities, Oleksandr Malynovs’kyi, the prewar rector of the Greek Catholic seminary in Lwów and director of the social welfare department of the UTsK, wrote that under German occupation, the Lemko province was freer than it had been before the war. Kubiiovych described him as a man who did much for the national differentiation of the region. Indeed, in comparison to Medvets’kyi, Malynovs’kyi was a nationally-conscious Ukrainian. The occupier’s also saw this difference in the two men. Medvets’kyi, characterized as a “Polish-friendly mindful Russophile,” was seen as a prime example of a destructive element severely harming the development of Ukrainian life. Malynovs’kyi on the other hand was viewed as an “iron man of will and energy,” someone devoted to matters of the church and its faithful.1343 On June 10, 1940 Medvets’kyi succumbed to Ukrainian pressure when he nominated Malynovs’kyi general vicar; a position he would hold until the arrival of the Red Army in 1944.1344 Shortly after assuming the position, the new vicar made his feelings toward the Lemko people known: And you dear Lemkos, during the last decade were innumerably persecuted, oppressed and suffered. From you, dear Lemkos, the Poles tried to make a separate people, they tried to polonize you, to eternally detach You from the Ukrainian Nation. When they saw your resistance to this, they devised another plan: they began to make you believe that you were neither Ukrainian nor Ruthenian but Russian; they began to introduce another faith to you in order to tear you away from the tough Galician trunk, to tear you away from faith and Ukraine; all to better polonize you… Even though the enemy threw all its force at you, you remained loyal to the Church of your Nation… Now that times have changed, when you have the possibility to freely profess and develop your nationality, fully embrace your Christian-Catholic and Ukrainian life. Understand that in the unity of faith lies the spiritual strength of the nation! Continue to be faithful to your Church and Nation!1345 1345AP-P, AAL, sygn. 53, Visti AAL no. 15 (January 1941), pp. 10-14; “Heneral’nyi Vikarii Lemkivshchyny,” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 1 no. 82 (August 26, 1940), 1. 1346 Ibid, Visti AAL no. 15 (January 1941), pp. 14-15. Ukrainian langauge use was permitted by the GG authorities. 1347 BA, R 52 II/247, Kanzelei des Generalgouverneurs: Bericht über den Aufbau im GG, July 1, 1940, p. 109. 1348 AP-P, AAL, sygn. 11, Malynovs’kyi report of state of AAL, 1940, p. 315; “Uprava Apostol’s’koї Administratsiї Lemkivshchyny,” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 2 no. 26 (February 7, 1941), 1; Sziling, Kościoły chrześcijańskie w polityce niemieckich władz..., 58. The press notice which appeared in Krakivs’ki Visti noted that Malinovs’kyi was informed of his nomination by telegram on February 3, 1941. Krzysztof Nowakowski contends that this nomination came on February 5, 1941. See Nowakowski, “Administracja Apostolska Łemkowszczyzny…,” 233. From the moment of Malinovs’kyi’s appointment, the face of the apostolic administration changed from Russophile to Ukrainian. The reappearance of Visti Apostol’s’koї Administratsiї Lemkivshchyny, which Malynovs’kyi edited, contained strong Ukrainian tones alongside religious topics. For example, one section described formal matters: the language for worship and administration was Ukrainian; priests and deaneries were to use the Ukrainian vernacular, either Latinized or phonetic, in all correspondences or internal documents; all seals and accompanying texts were to be in Ukrainian.1346 A GG report noted the appointment of Malynovs’kyi to the post of apostolic administrator would fully guarantee the restoration of religious peace in the Lemko region.1347 In December 1940, UTsK representatives in Berlin, at the behest of Kubiiovych, met with the apostolic nuncio and suggested Malynovs’kyi assume the position of administrator in place of the ailing Medvets’kyi. Malynovs’kyi succeeded him in 1941 after being officially approved by the Berlin nuncio. German authorities in Berlin noted of Greek Catholic clergy and faithful supporting Malynovs’kyi’s candidacy; a welcome sight for them. Shortly thereafter, he began his appointment by reorganizing his curia to reflect the new Ukrainian character of the Apostolic Administration.1348 The appointment of Malynovs’kyi general vicar began the revival of the Ukrainian position in the Greek Catholic Church of the Lemko region. As Kubiiovych saw it, his work began a new ethnic era in the region: “From then, it [the Apostolic Administration] stopped being the expository of Russian and Polish influences and before long it began healing the wounds the church in the Lemko region suffered during Polish times.” In his eyes, UTsK work “under the Ukrainian banner for the good of the Lemko region” included above all weakening Russophile sympathies at all levels.1349 Soon, Ukrainian school inspectors turned to the Apostolic Administration, petitioning to appoint priests for religious education in schools. 1350 This was a subsequent step toward ukrainization and eradicating Russophile sympathies. 1349 Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Heneral’nii Huberniї, 290; 365. 1350 AP-P, AAL, sygn. 10, Malynovs’kyi report on state of AAL to Germans, April 22, 1940, pp. 298-300; sygn. 126, Nowy Sącz County Ukrainian school administrator to AAL, May 15, 1940, p. 105. One such request came from the Ukrainian school inspector for Nowy Sącz who wrote that those priests received a canonical mission from the apostolic administrator to teach religious education in schools. In the case of Nowy Sącz County, this measure looked to ensure a stronger Ukrainian tone in a region with traditional Russophile sympathies. 1351 “Preosviashchennyi Iep. Hryhorii Lakota u Krakovi,” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 2 no. 64 (March 25, 1941). 1352 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 26, folder 16, Die Denkschrift der ukrainischen Volksgruppe im Generalgouvernement, April 18, 1941. These sentiments were also voiced in Kubiiovych’s expanded report, presented to Frank on June 21, 1941; on the eve of German’s invasion of the Soviet Union. See Veryha, The Correspondence…, 304-317. 1353 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 26, folder 16, Anlage 4: Angaben über die griechisch-katholische Kirche im Generalgouvernement, April 18, 1941. The modern-day city of Jarosław, laying on the left bank of the San River, dates back to 1031 when Prince Iaroslav the Wise established a fortress there. Up until the Mongol invasion of Eastern Europe in the 13th century, it served as a fortified borderland outpost and important trade center for Kyivian Rus. Some refer to it as “Ukraine’s steppingstone to the west.” Semchyshyn and Borodacz (eds), Iaroslavshchyna i Zasiannia 1031-1947…, 31-32; 305 1354 AP-P, AAL, sygn. 14, Malynovs’kyi letter to Bishop Kotsylovs’kyi, December 27, 1941, p. 133. In late March 1941, Auxiliary Bishop Lakota conducted a pastoral visit to Kraków. There, he prayed with the faithful and met with representatives of the UTsK. He also saw Bisanz and informed him of Rome’s plans, which came through the papal nuncio in Berlin, to modify Greek Catholic territorial and administrative structure in the GG. Reorganization would begin with an auxiliary bishopric in Sanok “in order to counteract Russophile ambitions” throughout the southeastern GG.1351 Kubiiovych correlated the conclusions from his talks with Lakota in his 1941 memorandum to Frank. He proposed the creation of a separate Greek Catholic metropolitanate for GG territory with eparchies in Sanok, Jarosław and Belz. The Ukrainized Lemko Apostolic Administration would fall under this jurisdiction. He also suggested organizing a seminary in Sanok to train future clergy.1352 He justified such a division and organization by claiming religious and historic precedent. For example, he stated that a ‘bishop of Sanok’ was historically reasonable, pointing to the fact that the Greek Catholic bishop of Przemyśl was in fact hierarch of a conglomerate eparchy – Przemyśl, Sanok and Sambor. Separating it would pose little problem. Concerning Jarosław, a bishopric would re-elevate the city to what he described as “a historic Ukrainian prince’s seat.”1353 Whereas the occupation authority’s put-off such propositions for until after the war, the German invasion of the USSR and later attachment of Eastern Galician territory to the GG reunited the Przemyśl diocese and Apostolic Administration with the prewar Greek Catholic metropolitanate; adding a Ukrainian character to the religious life of the southeastern GG. This caused an influx of clergy from Eastern Galicia to the Kraków District as priests were transferred, with the consent of church hierarchs, where they were most needed.1354 The Greek Catholic hierarchy and local priests maintained contacts with the UTsK apparatus; in some cases even being members of aid committees. Being a source trusted by Ukrainian inhabitants, they were also used by them and the occupiers as an instrument to promote meeting harvest quotas or to volunteer for labor in the Reich. In acting favorably toward the Germans and actively supporting the OUN, many priests turned their hostility toward local Poles.1355 1355 Konieczny, Polacy i Ukraińcy na ziemiach obecnej Polski..., 172-173. 1356 “Do Ukraїns’koho Hromadianstva,” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 1 no. 47 (June 6, 1940), 7. Zygmunt Klukowski recalled of inhabitants of the Zamość region receiving orders from their German civil authorities to give-up all items made from copper, nickel or lead (i.e. candle holders, flatware, candleabras, kitchen pots, iron gates and fences) for the German war effort. Klukowski, Diary from the Years of Occupation…, 85. 1357 “Zbirka metaliv,” Iliustrovani Visti no. 5 (1940), n.p. 1358 AP-P, AAL, sygn. 174, German istructions concerening bell conscription, 1941, pp. 14-15. 1359 Ibid, various letters by Malynovs’kyi to save church bells, 190-1941; pp. 6, 9-10, 41, 71, 75. 1360 AP-P, AAL, sygn. 40, Malynovs’kyi report of bell confiscation, 1941, p. 118. Another side of collaboration between the Ukrainians and the German occupation authorities also affected the Lemko region. In June 1940, an announcement in Krakivs’ki Visti called for collecting metals for the German war effort. Kubiiovych assured Ukrainians would not be left out as this would be an expression of thanksgiving to the Wehrmacht and an example of their contribution to the war effort. The first metal donation was the church bell from the cathedral in Chełm.1356 A piece appearing in the Illiustrovani Visti assessed the progress in collecting metals. In Warsaw, 1,200 kilograms were collected by the aid committee there while in Jasło, the collection of church bells was deemed a “holiday.” Villagers were described as “joyously transporting” church bells on horse-drawn wagons to the town square where they were presented to German officials. The ceremony ended with several words by the German official, a Ukrainian choir singing several songs and a folk dance troupe performance.1357 The Lemko region was not spared either. In a letter Malynovs’kyi received, the occupation authorities called on all churches in the GG to contribute bells, often made from bronze or copper, for the war effort against the Soviet Union as a means to combat religious persecution and end Bolsheviks domination in the east. Parishes had the opportunity to gain monetary compensation for their bells or, with proper proof, the right to exempt bells considered of historical importance.1358 Some bells ranged in age, from the seventeenth to the eighteenth centuries. Malynovs’kyi attempted to save as many bells as possible. For example, he wrote letters to officials, explaining some bells were attached to or mounted into alters and their removal could damage religious icons.1359 However, such explanations did not save bells as they were removed from belfries and confiscated by German officials; hauled off on horse-drawn wagons to be melted down and smelted into arms or mechanical parts.1360 Ukrainian nationalists believed that by 1941, ukrainization succeeded in the Lemko region. During travels that year, Knysh described what he believed was the region’s new character: … everywhere Ukrainian was spoken, Ukrainian signs and no sign of Jews or Poles… wheverer you wouldn’t look – only Ukrainians: a Ukrainian teachers' seminary for women, Ukrainian cooperative societies, a Ukrainian municipal council, a Ukrainian rest home… Lemkos, who once bashfully lurched through their forefathers’ towns, now walked the streets. It’s strange how little tie is needed for 20 years of intense polonization to disappear.1361 1361 “Na storozhi zakhidnoї mezhi,” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 1 no. 13 (February 21, 1940), 2; Knysh, B’ie dvanadsiata…, 244-245. 1362 “Lemkivshchyni na proshchannia,” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 3 no. 173 (August 7, 1942), p. 4. Here, a ‘native intelligentsia’ meant Ukrainophile teachers, merchants and handicraftsmen. Until a native intelligentsia formed, the article stated “we must help the Lemko region with all our strength because it is worth it!” Propaganda hailed purported success. For example, Olena Kysilevs’ka described Lemko progressivism in Krakivs’ki Visti poignantly: “I saw with my own eyes miracles.” Her article mentioned new, liberal and nationally conscious thought dominating the heretofore conservative and underdeveloped region. Together with formal education, women and their organized societies served as cultural leaders. In many instances, they replaced their male counterparts in schools or in conducting cultural evenings. Some taught workshops dedicated to healthy cooking during the winter months. She concluded with a bold assessment – within two or three years, a native intelligentsia would emerge and take further nationalization into their hands.1362 The German attack and advance into the Soviet Union beginning in June 1941 was seen by many Ukrainian nationalists in the district as the beginning of what they yearned for – a future state. In the village of Olszyce, some 30 kilometers from Jarosław, a Polish Catholic priest recalled Ukrainian jubilation at the sight of retreating Soviets and oncoming Germans. As he noted in his parish register: Even while fierce battles raged on nearby fields, new dregs appeared in villages and towns – “Christian” dregs of western European culture, well organized and prepared over the past several years to shed the blue blood of noble Poles; these dregs are called Ukrainians… At the same time, a local militia emerged. Various Ukrainian farmhands volunteered and – donning blue-yellow armbands, with arms or without – feigned authority and security, instead entering everywhere and pillaging whatever they could… Without any uniforms, each man served [dressed] as if he were [working] with manure. However, their service was yet to have any concrete form. He wrote of the changing ethnic character of the village and surrounding ethnically-mixed areas as areas Ukrainian nationalists saw the German drive east as the beginning of their national revolution. Banderites appeared in the region with a hostile program toward ethnic foreigners, i.e. non-Ukrainians. Local Ukrainian administrators began responding to villagers speaking Polish by saying: “ia toho iazyka v zahali ne znaiu (I don’t know that language at all).” Ukrainian trusted men forced children from ethnically-mixed marriages into newly-organized Ukrainian schools. Even the village name was ukrainianized to Oleshychi. This, Mroczkowski noted, “is how Ukrainian wretchedness crawling by the feet of the Germans looks.”1363 1363 Józef Mroczkowski, Obserwator. Pogranicze polsko-ukraińskie w krwawych latach 1939-1947. Pożogi, ucieczki, przesiedlenia, echa Wołynia (Warszawa: Ośrodek Karta, 2013), 31-32; 36-37. 1364 AP-P, Ukraiński Komitet Pomocy, sygn. 32, Orhanizatsiї spil’noho Komitetu dla mista Peremyshlia i tsiloho novoho peremys’koho povitu, November 4, 1941, p. 43. 1365 Konieczny, Polacy i Ukraińcy na ziemiach obecnej Polski..., 171-172. The swift advance of the Wehrmacht east brought immediate changes to UTsK structures in the Zasiannia region. Following the German occupation of right-bank Przemyśl and its unification with the left-bank portion, the aid committee branch in Deutch-Przemysl was combined with the Jarosław aid committee overseeing those gminas not included into the German city; creating in this way an UTsK aid committee in Przemyśl.1364 Apart from formally and socially developing the aid committee throughout its designated region, an important area of focus was providing welfare for Ukrainian POW’s from the German-Soviet conflict and poor villagers. After the Germans occupied the former Soviet portion of Przemyśl, a rally thanking the Wehrmacht for liberating them from Soviet occupation was organized by Ukrainians on July 10. Standing shoulder to shoulder with aid committee representatives and nationalists on the speakers' tribune was also Greek Catholic Bishop Kotsylovs’kyi. One of the newly-organized Przemyśl aid committee’s first tasks was penning a declaration of thanksgiving to Hitler. In part, it read: The Ukrainian inhabitants of princely Przemyśl send expressions of deep recognition [for the] army and thanks for liberating [us] from the Polish and Judeo-Bolshevik yoke… We swear eternal friendship sealed by the blood of German soldiers and Ukrainian insurgents. We devote all our strength to remain loyal to this oath and we will fulfill all requirements so that through the rebuilding of our Fatherland we will worthily contribute to building Greater Germany and to creating a new order in Eastern Europe according to the ideas and plans of the Führer of the German nation.1365 The German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 helped bolster the Ukrainian orientation in the region. In association with the anti-Russian hysteria which accompanied the drive east, Nazi authorities and Ukrainians collaborating with them arrested prominent Russophile Lemkos. They were lumped together and labelled with what Magocsi deemed “the opprobrious Ukrainian term – Muscophiles.” Aside from prominent social or civic activists, Orthodox priests and nearly all leading clerics from the chancellery office and deaneries of the Apostolic Administration were arrested on accusations of being pro-Russian. Sent to Kielce, they were placed under house arrest and Gestapo surveillance until the end of the war. Ukrainian conscious priests replaced them, causing the Apostolic Administration to become no different in its national identity then the Greek Catholic Church. Furthermore, steady contact was now possible between Malynovs’kyi and Greek Catholic hierarchs in Przemyśl and Lwów. As one Orthodox priest wrote, Russophile clergy, both Orthodox and Greek Catholic, were being systematically removed “in order to break the resistance [to ukrainization] of the Lemkos.”1366 1366 Magocsi, With Their Backs to the Mountains…, 282-283; Nowakowski, “Administracja Apostolska Łemkowszczyzny…,” 234-235; Hansen (ed), Schulpolitik als Volkstumspolitik…, 374. 1367 TsDAVOVUU, UTsK, f. 3959, op. 2, spr. 45a, UTsK Informative Report for Kraków District, July 30, 1941, p. 15. 1368 Dziubyna, I stverdy dilo rukh nashykh, 70. 1369 Zięba, “Biskupstwo krakowsko-łemkowskie…,” 127-128. Whereas a strong Ukrainian character appeared in the Zasiannia region, nationalist assessments were not entirely accurate concerning the Lemko one as they were unable to fully cleanse Russophile influences there. Several factors contributed to this. First, a native intelligentsia was necessary to continue what Galician Ukrainians started as they saw their stay in the region as temporary. Whereas schools were being organized, there were next to no qualified teachers. Where priests, either Orthodox or Greek Catholic, remained, they were not Ukrainian enough. Whereas up until the German-Soviet war cadres could not be trained to meet social needs, the move of young nationalists to Eastern Galicia in mid-1941 left a substantial void within organized life. Schools and cooperatives lost either most or all of their staff. The UTsK hoped workers returning from the Reich would fill those positions. In the countryside, a visible, generational difference also appeared. One UTsK note observed younger Lemko willingness to take part in the war east – what should be seen as an effect of ukrainization – while older Lemkos were indifferent and awaited instructions toward what position to take.1367 Neither was the speed and ferocity of the OUN nationalization campaign received positively among some Lemkos. Dziubyna recalled Greek Catholic priests having to carefully select their words so as not to seem too overbearing but subconsciously win-over Lemkos. For example, such terms as “our” and “ours” often replaced “Ukrainian” or “Ukrainians.”1368 Concerning Orthodoxy, Bishop Palladius was not the ardent missionary of nationalization as his counterpart Ilarion was. Recognizing the good state of Orthodoxy in the Lemko region, he avoided forcibly verbalizing his religious program. Furthermore, he lacked the number of properly trained clergy to accelerate nationalization. This, in combination with the short period of time in which he served as bishop, was not enough to crack, let alone break, the stubborn Lemko convictions. A Polish exile report emphasized this point, stating: “…Archbishop Palladius has even fewer Ukrainians in his diocese while the national-political aspirations of the Lemkos have little in common with the Ukrainian nationalist movement.”1369 Some Lemkos saw Russophilism as the natural opponent to ukrainization. Kubiiovych believed an aversion to nationalization stemmed from a lack of a concerted tactic by young nationalists toward the specificity of the region’s inhabitants. To him, their tactics were more suitable in Eastern Galicia or Volhynia. He cited one example of what he viewed as their tactless and misunderstood approach – attempting to force a change in the traditional greeting, from “Praised be Jesus Christ” to the nationalist “Glory to Ukraine.” In his eyes, this equated to overpowering Russophile Lemkos by any means necessary.1370 This sentiment was echoed in German reports. One report provided by a German school inspector alongside the Kreishauptmann in the Tarnów noted of nationally-conscious Ukrainians forcing Lemkos into their ethnic circle through various means – the Greek Catholic church, nationally-conscious local administrators and policemen. Because of this, the inspector believed they were being pushed toward the Russophiles.1371 In turn, nationalist tactics were viewed by some Lemkos as a terror campaign, prompting them to seek safety among Russophiles. Following the German drive east, Russophile sympathies reemerged among some Lemkos who believed the Soviets would halt the Germans, push them back and liberate them.1372 1370 Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Heneral’nii Huberniї, 322. 1371 Hansen (ed), Schulpolitik als Volkstumspolitik..., 373-374. In speaking to one of his Russophile contact (an Orthodox priest), the cleric expressed his concern that he, along with other Russophile priests, would not be able to work in their homeland as Ukrainian ecclesiastical authorities “in order to break the resistance of the Lemko people” remove local, Russophile priests (both Orthodox and Greek Catholic). 1372 TsDAVOVUU, UTsK, f. 3959, op. 2, spr. 45a, UTsK Informative Report for Kraków District, July 30, 1941, p. 16. 1373 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 18, folder 2, Protokol Zїzdu, April 14, 1940. The report of the situation in Dynów provided such an example. There a German woman who married a Pole informed on local Ukrainians to the German Landrat. This, the repot mentioned, was the reason why the Landrat in turn undertook an anti-Ukrainian disposition. 1374 Konieczny, Polacy i Ukraińcy na ziemiach obecnej Polski..., 157; Mroczkowski, Obserwator. Pogranicze polsko-ukraińskie w krwawych latach 1939-1947..., 40. 1375 Quoted in Przybylski, Rola duchowieństwa greckokatolickiego..., 160. A major hurdle to overcome was neutralizing or removing Poles from positions of local authority; what Ukrainians equated to a lingering vestige of prewar Polish oppression which needed immediate attention. As Tarnovych noted, the Polish police, supported by the Gestapo, looked for suspects exclusively among Ukrainians.1373 Kubiiovych often sent notes petitioning local administrators to remove Poles who harbored anti-Ukrainian sentiments from such positions, citing specific incidents of excesses. In some cases, the Germans interceded. For example, they terminated Polish sołtyses and replaced them with Ukrainians in villages or townships in contested, ethnically-mixed regions throughout Przemyśl, Jarosław and Sanok counties. However, even as Ukrainians replaced Poles, the lack of trained specialists among them often forced the occupiers to revert back to employing Poles. According to Mroczowski’s recollections, the Germans purportedly called inept Ukrainians in Oleszyce “cabbage heads.”1374 As in other districts, here too Ukrainian local administrators were viewed as overt symbols of Ukrainian-German collaboration, becoming the target of Polish underground acts of terror. Russophile Lemkos also looked upon some administrators with disdain. For example, Ukrainian auxiliary policemen, predominantly staffed by Banderites who replaced Poles in parts of the region, were seen negatively by them: “This police, functionaries in black uniforms called sichovyki, gave Lemkos a hard time.”1375 Furthermore, German occupational policy saw no difference between Lemkos, Ukrainians or Poles; exploiting each for their purposes. This exploitation was felt in the Lemko and Zasiannia regions from mid-1941 as well. As mentioned, Lemkos contributed crop harvests for the German war effort. They were conscripted for hard labor in the GG, especially in hauling logs from forests, while also being targeted for forced labor in the Reich. Neither were Lemkos spared from German invigilation and arrest.1376 Feelings among some Ukrainian villagers were captured in Mroczkowski’s parish register: 1376 Przybylski, Rola duchowieństwa greckokatolickiego…, 150. 1377 Mroczowski, Obserwator. Pogranicze polsko-ukraińskie w krwawych latach 1939-1947..., 41. 1378 PISM, MIiD, folder A.10.3/9, Ukraińcy w Niemczech i Gubernatorstwie, November 20, 1940; AAN, DRRPK, sygn. 200/3/200, Ukraińcy chcą wynarodowić Polaków, n.d., pp. 68; 77-90. 1379 Przybylski, Rola duchowieństwa greckokatolickiego…, 161-163. PPR cells in the Lemko region soon grew to 24: 13 in Gorlice County, 7 in Jasło County, 3 in Krosno County and 1 in Sanok County. And yet German ruthlessness was even felt by the Ukrainians. Here are the sober thoughts contained in a Ukrainian peasant aphorism: Khorosho [the Russians] came and there was nothing, Zehr gut [the Germans] came and the peasant was beat in the face, And then it will be good when dzień dobry [the Poles] returns. They are recalling, the faithless dogs, the times of freedom and prosperity in prewar Poland!1377 Observing the situation throughout the district, the Polish underground and exile government described Lemkos as a weak element for future Ukrainian-German political actions; assessing their complete nationalization as impossible. One report concluded that just as during the interwar period, so to during the war did the Lemkos look to maintain their distinct ethnic character by preventing the penetration of Ukrainian influences into their region. To propagate this perception and instruct its members, the underground used a detailed brochure reiterating the distinct ethnic character of the region and its people.1378 However, some Lemkos were pushed in a different directions. In August 1940, a Lemko anti-Hitlerite opposition movement was called to life. It subsequently turned into a partisan unit – “Freedom Fighters” (Bortsi za svobodu) which engaged in anti-German subversion and sabotage. Leftist groups also gained popularity among Russophile Lemkos. The first cells of the revived yet clandestine Polish Workers Party (PPR) were organized in the Lemko region as early as April 1942; beginning close cooperation with Polish communists.1379 The ability for the UTsK to maintain a decisive Ukrainian character throughout the Lemko and Zasiannia regions throughout the rest of the war became complicated. A combination of harsher German occupational policies, the inability to fully uproot Russophile sympathies and the later growth of various underground, partisan movements in the region caused an escalation in Ukrainian-Polish ethnic tensions and handicapped UTsK work. 5.3 – The Warsaw District: the “Colony” of the UTsK The prewar Polish capital of Warsaw served as a central location for both political and intellectual Ukrainian exile life during the interwar period. After the signing of the Riga Treaty in March 1921, Poland became a center for exiled Ukrainians; followers of Petliura more commonly referred to as Petliurites.1380 Initially, these military and political émigrés believed that their return to sovereign Ukrainian territory east of the Zbrucz River would come rather quickly. However, when this hope turned into an illusion, they began to prepare a foundation for a future state. Composed primarily of émigrés from Russian Ukraine, Warsaw soon became the seat of the exile Ukrainian People’s Republic (UNR) headed by Symon Petliura and later Andrii Livyts’kyi1381 1380 Roman Szagała and Emilian Wiska, Ukraińcy w Warszawie (Toruń-Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Adam Marszałek 2010), 127. 1381 Bruski, Petlurowcy....; Wiszka, Emigracja ukraińska w Polsce 1920-1939, 1382 Szagała and Wiszka, Ukraińcy w Warszawie, 111-114; Wiszka, Emigracja ukraińska w Polsce 1920-1939, 256-264. For a more detailed analysis of the Institute’s publications and printed works, see Stefan Kozak, “Ukraiński Instytut Naukowy w Warszawie (1930-1939).” Warszawskie Zeszyty Ukrainoznawcze, no. 25-26 (2008), 15-22. Other important commissions within the Institute included a legal one and one focused on translating the Holy Bible and other liturgical books into the Ukrainian language. In 1938, a Ukrainian philology seminar was organized under Professor Roman Smal’-Stots’kyi. 1383 Taras Bul’ba-Borovets’, Armiia bez derzhavy. Slava i trahediia ukraїns’koho povstans’koho rukhu (Winnipeg: Tovarystvo Volyn’, 1981), 56-62. 1384 BA, NS 43/32, Besprechung in Warschau am 8,9,10, 12. 1939, p. 5; BA R-52/X F/1, Wissenschaftliche Bibliotheken im Distrikt Warschau, May 23, 1941. The Staatsbibliotek was in fact the library of the Jagiellonian University. As of 1939, the Ukrainian Scientific Institute’s library numbered around 10 thousand positions and stood as the largest depository of Ukrainian monographs, journals and preiodicals in Warsaw. Wiszka, Intellectual life centered on the Ukrainian Scientific Institute, a research center which organized various themed seminars and commissions but could not officially teach or conduct university-style lectures. The organization of the institute was a means of placating Ukrainian desires for a higher-education university by the Polish interwar government. Regardless, its scholarly value was immense while it served as a think tank for the Petliurite émigrés. Here for example, commissions focused on researching the history of the Ukrainian movement, Polish-Ukrainian problems or literary history. Many of the institute’s researchers – such as Oleksandr Lotots’kyi (UNR exile deputy prime minister), Ivan Ohiienko and Roman Smal’-Stots’kyi – worked and taught at Warsaw University or at other universities. Some Polish scholars, most notably historian Oskar Halecki, also contributed to research at the institute. Alongside publishing scholarly journals, the first edition of Shevchenko’s collected works were published by the institute as well as a Ukrainian-language version of Mickiewicz’s cannon Pan Tadeusz.1382 One of the many Ukrainians in Warsaw during the first months of the war was Petliurite Taras Bul’ba-Borovets’ who witnessed multiple air-raids and bombings by the Luftwaffe, the Polish defense and the final days before occupation in which the city, as he recalled, burned and burned. Alongside him, other Petliurites – political or social activists, educators, artists and clergy – remained in the district after occupation. Others fled to the city from Soviet occupation.1383 Shortly following the German occupation of Poland and the establishment of an administration for the Warsaw district, the Gestapo raided the holdings of the Ukrainian Scientific Institute, confiscating the library and sending its books and journals to Berlin. These holdings returned to occupied Poland toward the end of 1941 and were deposited in the GG Staatsbibliotek in Kraków.1384 Emigracja ukraińska w Polsce 1920-1939, 263. German documents and correspondences regarding the confiscation of libraries and their collections throughout the war can be found in Andrzej Mężyński (ed), Biblioteki naukowe w Generalnym Gubernatorstwie w latach 1939-1945. Wybór dokumentów źródłowych (Warszawa: LTW, 2003). 1385 Shandruk, Arms of Valor, 171-180. 1386 Andrzej Grzywacz and Adam Jończyk, “Wojenne losy gen. Pawło Szandruka.” Zeszyty Historyczne no. 134 (2000), 124-125. 1387 BA, NS 43/32, Kriegsgefangene ukrainische Offiziere der polnischen Armee, December 4, 1939, pp. 267-268; Betrifft: Ukrainer in Polen, February 21, 1930, p. 250. The latter note contains a typographical error as the date should read 1940. 1388 Alongside Warsaw, a UNR émigré dispositional center organized and by 1925 subsequently influenced Ukrainian émigrés scattered throughout Europe. The weekly Tryzub published by Petliurites there was discreetly financed by the Polish interwar government. Jan Jacek Bruski, “Centrum Państwowe Ukraińskiej Republiki Ludowej na wychodźstwie (1920-1940)” in Radosław Paweł Żurawski vel Gajewski (ed), Rządy bez ziemi. Struktury władzy na uchodżstwie (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo DiG, 2014), 181-205. The Germans were well aware of Warsaw’s importance in Ukrainian exile life. As such, they made attempts to assess the feasibility of anti-Polish collaboration with exiles there. Many Ukrainian contract officers from the Polish army were noted by the Germans to be in the district. Among them was Pavlo Shandruk, the key person of UNR military structures in interwar Poland and the right-hand man of General Volodymyr Sal’skyi, responsible for maintaining contacts with émigré UNR soldiers throughout Europe. In January 1940, Shandruk was detained and imprisoned by the Gestapo in Warsaw. Following intense interrogations, he was exonerated from charges of organizing anti-German diversion on order of the Poles. According to his memoirs, his release came following Livyts’kyi’s defiance to meet with a Gestapo officer, contesting that he would not speak until Shandruk was freed.1385 Whereas this version appears harrowing, it appears other reasons contributed to his release. In a postwar letter to General Tadeusz Pełczyński, he wrote his Gestapo overseers freed him after the Germans agreed to a pro-Ukrainian course in the GG.1386 German documents support Shandruk’s postwar letter yet contest his memoirs. A Reich foreign ministry note claimed efforts by the Ukrainian Central Committee, the UNR social-welfare organization, in liberating Shandruk were unsuccessful thus far. Instructions were sent urging to release him so as to prevent his imprisonment from being exploited as an example of German anti-Ukrainian action by Polish circles abroad. Furthermore, it was suggested all Ukrainian contract officers in German captivity were to be freed and organized, presumably into the Abwehr or some other military body, if only to exploit their professional military training and experience in a future conflict in the east.1387 Livyts’kyi and his Petliurite colleagues reacted to German invasion almost immediately. A fatal mistake committed by the Polish government was neglecting to evacuate leading Petliurite allies. As German occupation and the creation of the GG formally dissolved all prewar political parties or associations, Livyts’kyi was de facto unable to continue émigré state functions. Petliurite activity could only continue in Paris where a center was organized in 1925. As such, the center of UNR political life was reorganized there under a new exile government headed by Viacheslav Prokopowych.1388 Ukrainian intervention along with Livyts’kyi’s later oath of loyalty to the occupier to, in essence, live as a private citizen, allowed him to remain in Warsaw and later Łódź during much of the war albeit under constant German observation. According to a report by Dr. Tymish Olesiiuk to Kubiiovych detailing his travels, conversations and activities in Warsaw and Kraków as representative of Ukrainians in Chełm, he noted that Roman Sushko, through his personal intervention with the German authorities, assisted in legalizing Livyts’kyi’s occupational position.1389 1389 Torzecki, Polacy i Ukraińcy..., 44-45; Pasternak, Narys istoriї Kholmshchyny i Pidliashshia, 413, 416. 1390 Partacz and Łada, Polska wobec ukraińskich dążeń niepodległościowych..., 38-39. 1391 Bul’ba-Borovets’, Armiia bez derzhavy…, 62-63. 1392 Osyp Nazaruk, Ucieczka ze Lwowa do Warszawy. Wspomnienia ukraińskiego konserwatysty z pierwszej połowy pażdziernika 1939 roku, trans. Włodzimierz Pilipowicz (Przemyśl: Południowo-wschodni Instytut Naukowy, 1999), 113-116; Bul’ba-Borovets’, Armiia bez derzhavy..., 63. Although the Petliurite center was reorganized in Paris and Livyts’kyi nominally pledged to live an apolitical life, the German occupiers sought to exploit him and the UNR base in the district to discredit the pro-Polish UNR center in Paris. Under pressure from the occupiers, Livyts'kyi and his followers issued a statement distancing themselves from the Paris group. In March 1940, he informed Prokopovych of plans to travel from Warsaw to Rome and invited the UNR president to meet him. There, he sought to seize UNR control once again. Historians agreed that the travels of such a prominent, monitored personage as Livyts’kyi was undoubtedly facilitated by the Germans. Prokopovych agreed to cede authority to Livyts’kyi on condition the latter moved to Paris. Ultimately, the talks ended where they began. However, Livyts’kyi echoed pro-German sympathies, attempting to convince the Paris group of imminent German victory. This, he argued, would make them the arbiters of the fate of East-Central Europe and the Ukrainian question. According to Partacz, Livyts’kyi spoke a conciliatory Nazi line primarily to prevent any harm to his family under German surveillance.1390 Alongside exile Petliurites, a Ukrainian committee was organized by publicist and physician Iurii Lypa who returned to Warsaw after military mobilization and organized an aid committee to aid incoming émigrés. Bul’ba-Borovets’ was recruited by the young doctor to assist in the relief work. He noted of the difficult atmosphere within the committee, internal struggles for influence and the disorganization of Lypa himself: “he was reckless and very nervous.”1391 Of the many Ukrainians fleeing west, prewar publicist and monarchist Osyp Nazaruk arrived to Warsaw in October 1939. Following his long escape from Soviet occupation, traversing from Lwów through Lublin, he found in the sight of German-occupied Warsaw “sun, freedom and daily bread.” He also engaged in a short period of social activity in the city, working alongside Borovets’ as editor of the Lypa committee newspaper Volyn’.1392 During a meeting on October 20, 1939 with a group of Chełm Ukrainians, led by Olesiiuk, Lypa believed the fate of whether his committee would remain a centralized, local or pan-Ukrainian one encompassing all of occupied Poland hinged on where the occupiers designated their seat of authority. As Kraków soon became the center of German administration and Ukrainian nationalist life, Olesiiuk, in a later meeting with Lypa, conveyed the nationalist platform and perspective to the Warsaw Ukrainians: “now is not the time or place for any sort of activity either by the UNR government or by those loyal to it. We must give those who declared themselves allies of Germany and who have faith in the Führer their place in this historic arena.”1393 1393 Pasternak, Narys istoriї Kholmshchyny i Pidliashshia, 407, 416. 1394 Torzecki, Polacy i Ukraińcy..., 52; Lev Bykovs’kyi, Apostol novitn’oho ukraїnstva (Iurii Lypa), 2nd ed (Geneva: Ukraїns’kyi Mors’kyi Instytut, 1946), 3-5. Lypa wrote three books which outlined, in three parts, his vision for future Ukrainian statehood: Pryznachennia Ukraїny (L’viv: Khortytsia, 1938), Chornomors’ka Doktryna (Varshava: Odessa, 1940) (with a second edition in 1942) and Rozpodil Rosiї (Varshava: Derzhavnoho Vydavnytstva Ukraїny, 1941). However, wartime events prevented the mass circulation of these works. For example, Chornomors’ka Doktryna could only be printed and circulated illegally and in small numbers while Rozpodil Rosiї, although printed in 1941, only began circulation in 1944 just prior to the Soviet advance into Poland. The majority of its copies were destroyed during the Warsaw Uprising. Bykovs’kyi described Lypa’s works as a “Pan-Ukrainian Trilogy… showing the way which the Ukrainian nation should follow in its historic progress over the next hundred years” and as a “new pan-Ukrainian cultural-political gospel.” 1395 Volodymyr Moroz, “Uchast’ Iuriia Lypy u zbroinii borot’bi OUN i UPA” in S’omi Lypivs’kyi chytannia: Zbirnyk materialiv (Kyiv: Ukraїns’ka vydavnycha spilka im. Iuriia Lypy, 2015), 191-192. 1396 BA, NS 43/32, Besprechung mit SS-Obersturmbannführer Erlinger, S.D. Warschau, December 7, 1939, p. 4. 1397 BA, NS 43/32, Kurze Angaben uber die Ukrainischen Frage in den fruheren poln. Gebieten, December 27, 1939, pp. 195-197. Lypa remained in Warsaw where he practiced medicine. In May 1943, he received an ultimatum from the AK to leave occupied Poland at once. According to Szagała and Wiszka, the ultimatum Overall, the Germans assessed the Lypa group as not fulfilling its task of assisting Ukrainian refugees but rather of voicing political undertones; ones speaking of a forthcoming liberation of Ukraine. Indeed Lypa was not simply an apolitical Ukrainian social activist. According to Torzecki, he collaborated with the Warsaw SD and Gestapo. Politically orientated toward the nationalist movement, he defined Ukraine and “Ukrainianess” as a subsequent inheritor of antiquity and Hellenic culture. He viewed the Piedmont of a future state in and around the Black Sea basin; an outlook known as the Black Sea Doctrine. In his view, such a state could only begin with the fall and partition of the Soviet Union into what he called ‘state-blocks’ – Muscovy, a Ukraine including the Caucasus region, near and far Asia. The dismemberment of the USSR lay in the historical program of “Ukrainian destiny.” This was echoed in his wartime writings.1394 Lypa made contact with the UVO nationalist movement as early as the 1920s. Concurrently, his writings were popular among nationalists, earning him an authoritative position in their eyes.1395 A German report called attention to Lypa’s irredentist sentiments; concerned they “may draw the attention of the Soviet government in an undesirable form” and recommended the reorganization of Ukrainians in Warsaw. Such a politically active Ukrainian element could also have angered the small yet active Russian émigré group which organized into its own committee. Moreover, a Gestapo report indicated that the Lypa committee was not confirmed by them to operate on GG territory and to look for more suitable Ukrainians to collaborate with. Their newspaper was also banned from publication.1396 A final intelligence assessment of Ukrainians in Warsaw indicated that no one there was fit for collaboration with Germans. It was proposed Livyts’kyi be relegated to the role of hotel or resort manager while Lypa was to be removed and his committee reorganized.1397 stemmed from his patriotic, pro-Ukrainian activity, presumably in writing for Krakivs’ki Visti. Szagała and Wiszka, Ukraińcy w Warszawie, 130-131. Lypa later associated himself with the Banderites. A 1945 edition of the newspaper Ideia i Chyn mentioned him serving as a doctor in a Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) unit and of his “heroic death in a fight with the Bolsheviks.” Bykovs’kyi, Apostol novitn’oho ukraїnstva…, 2. For more on Lypa’s activity as UPA doctor, see Moroz, “Uchast’ Iuriia Lypy u zbroinii borot’bi OUN i UPA” in S’omi Lypivs’kyi chytannia: Zbirnyk materialiv. 1398 Lukasevych, Rozdumy na skhylku zhyttia, 223; Knysh, B’ie dvanadtsiata, 46; Torzecki, Polacy i Ukraińcy..., 52; Samchuk, Na bilomu koni, 45. 1399 Kedryn, Zhytiia – podiї – liudy…, 343; Jerzy Nakaszydze, “Profesor Dr. Roman Smal-Stocki (1893-1996). In Memoriam,” Zeszyty Historyczne no. 17 (Paris 1970), 195-196. During the interwar period, Smal’-Stots’kyi headed the Warsaw Promethean Club. Considered a “grey eminence” among the Warsaw Petliurites, he served as cultural minister, deputy foreign minister and foreign minister in UNR émigré governments. During his time in Prague, Smal’-Stots’kyi concentrated his efforts on aiding and helping his colleagues in occupied Poland. For example, through contacts he made with Czech, Swiss and Swedish aid societies, he sent many food parcels to Poland and to concentration camps. Such help allowed for many to survive German occupation and the war. Andrzej A. Zięba, “Smal-Stocki, Roman” in Polski słownik biograficzny vol. 39, ed. Henryk Markiewicz (Warszawa-Kraków 1999), 180-184. 1400 Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Heneral’nii Huberniї..., 411-412; Arlt, Die ukrainische Volksgruppe im Generalgouvernement, 48; Torzecki, Kwestia ukraińska w polityce III Rzeszy, 307. According to Levko Lukasevych, Lypa voluntarily resigned since he could not come to terms with working under the absolute dictum of the Germans. However, it is more plausible that his uncertainty and changing outlooks slated him for removal. Regardless, Lypa later received praise from the poet Ulas Samchuk who, in his memoirs, described him broadly as a defender of Ukrainian culture and, concerning this episode in Warsaw, as an ardent opponent of the aid committee “putsch.”1398 Conversely, Ukrainian nationalists saw Livyts’kyi as a polonophile whose adherents “long-ago lost their strength and importance.” To them, the Petliurites were unfit for collaboration with the Germans. Smal’-Stots’kyi, who prior to the outbreak of war travelled from Warsaw to Lwów in order to convince other Ukrainians to flee west, was interned in Prague where he was subjected to weekly check-ins with the Gestapo. Although allowed to teach at the Ukrainian Free University there, he could not engage in any political activity.1399 Kubiiovych claimed the internal conflict caused by the political diversity of the Warsaw Ukrainians prompted the need to subordinate representation to the UTsK. However, as German foreign ministry notes indicated, the occupier wished to control the Ukrainians under one organized and dedicated body. In outlawing all political parties and associations and replacing them with ethnic welfare committees, placing all Ukrainian groups throughout the GG under the UTsK was only a matter of time. Furthermore, placing groups under a Ukrainian representation loyal to the GG authorities meant controlling any possible anti-Soviet expression from boiling over and from Poles and Ukrainians reaching any sort of rapprochement.1400 Kubiiovych and Boidunyk began the re-organization of Ukrainians in the district with travels to Warsaw. As he reported, internal disagreements among the politically varying Ukrainian groups were “a disgrace.” After several meetings, the former Lypa committee was re-staffed with new members meant to be “the exclusive representative of the Ukrainian colony” in the city. In other words, they were to be loyal first and foremost to the GG. Its new leader was Mykhailo Pohotovko, a Petliurite and lieutenant-colonel in the UNR army.1401 His deputy and committee board also consisted of UNR army officers and Petliurites. The OUN did not wish to be left out and also sought to gain influence in the city. Melnykites and Banderites jockeyed for national and ideological supremacy. Knysh noted that because Warsaw was the center of Polish underground and anti-German activity, the nationalists wished to have a presence there if only to be aware of Polish activity. For security reasons, Bandera made Warsaw his temporary home from late 1940 to mid-1941. Whether he exerted any influence on Ukrainians there is questionable.1402 1401 Mykhailo Pohotovko was born in 1891 in Baranov, Kharkov gubernia. He gained his theoretical military training at the military academy in Kyiv and as an officer in the Tsarist Russian army during World War I. From 1917 he served in the UNR army; later serving as an officer in that government’s ministry of military affaits. In 1920 he was among many UNR soldiers interned in Poland. After spending time in Częstochowa and Kalisz, he moved to Warsaw in either 1926 or 1927. He belonged to the Petliurite Ukrainian Central Committee branch in the capital. He is considered the father of the publication Weteran Ukraiński. He belonged to a group of Petliurites rather critical of and opposed to the Central Committee executive board and UNR exile government. Szagała and Wiszka, Ukraińcy w Warszawie, 475. 1402 Veryha, The Correspondence..., 86-87; “Deshcho pro ukraїns’ku hromadu u Varshavi,” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 1 no. 50 (June 13, 1940), 8; Knysh, B’ie dvanadtsiata, 55-56; Szałaga and Wiszka, Ukraińcy w Warszawie, 131; Rossoliński-Liebe, Stepan Bandera: The Life and Afterlife of a Ukrainian Nationalist…, 170. Iaroslav Stets’ko claimed he and Bandera moved temporarily to Warsaw to avoid being assassinated on orders of Mel’nyk. Stets’ko, 30 chervnia 1941 r., 129-130. According to Lukasevych, Hemanite Colonel Didchenko briefly headed the aid committee before Pohotovko. Lukasevych, Rozdumy na skhylku zhyttia, 223. Torzecki claimed Hetmanite General Andrii Vovk briefly succeeded Lypa. Torzecki, Polacy i Ukraińcy..., 52. In his 1948 letter, Shandruk wrote his Gestapo captors informed him that Pohotovko was among three men who denounced him to the Germans. Grzywacz and Jończyk, “Wojenne losy gen. Pawło Szandruka,” 125. 1403 BA, NS 43/32, Betrifft: Ukrainer in Polen, February 21, 1940, p. 249; Knysh, B’ie dvanadtsiata, 156-157. Knysh believed the provincial character of Warsaw – away from the major centers Ukrainians were concentrated in – made Ukrainians there feel and see themselves as forming a distinct national center. In his opinion, Pohotovko unwillingly subordinated himself to the UTsK. Following talks between Pohotovko and Mel’nyk, the former promised to refrain from undermining the nationalist providnyk’s authority by avoiding to enter into any unauthorized political talks with the occupiers. If such approaches were made, the Warsaw head was to send the Germans to the sole Ukrainian leader, Mel’nyk. Whereas Kubiiovych also petitioned for the Petliurite central committee to continue its functioning, “to exist as an organizational and moral center for its former members,” the German authorities looked to avoid a holding-over a prewar Ukrainian welfare group competing with their group. A German report formally called for its final liquidation.1403 Here, one aid committee was enough. Frank and his aides also travelled to Warsaw beginning in 1940 to conduct regular meetings with Governor Ludwig Fischer and his officials. Frank described Hitler’s early Warsaw plan – to allow Poles to maintain their national distinctiveness so as to avoid, at least initially, creating the image of the city's Germanization. This, the general governor explained, lay in line with the Führer’s idea of creating some form of rump state (Reststaat) out of prewar Poland with Warsaw slated to serve as a communal city or Gemeinwesen. Plans for such a state appeared immediately following the collapse and occupation of Poland. In his journal, Erwin Lahousen noted that a Reststaat would be divided into two administrative zones – north Poland and south Poland – while a separate zone would be carved out of the southeastern Beskid Mountain region (Beskiden Staat); an area to be later settled by south Tyrolean Germans. Later, Hitler adamantly opposed any idea of reconstructing Warsaw into a Polish capital but to rather diminish it to the rank of a provincial city.1404 1404 BA-MA, RW 5/499, Erwin Lahousen Tagebuch, p. 23; IPN, GK 95/2, Abteilungsleitersitzung, July 12, 1940, p. 191. 1405 Szarota, Okupowanej Warszawy.., 60-61; Szagała and Wiszka, Ukraińcy w Warszawie, 125. Kubiiovych listed Ukrainian inhabitants in Warsaw as between 2 and 3 thousand. Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Heneral’nii Huberniї, 410. A Warsaw District report for 1940 specified that a Ukrainian majority also inhabited the Siedlce County. AAN, RdGG, sygn. 423, “Die Innere Verwaltung im Distrikt Warschau (1940),” pp. 57-58. 1406 BA, NS 43/32, Russische Emigration im besetzen ehemals polnischen Gebiet, January 19, 1940, pp. 176-180. 1407 AAN, RdGG, sygn. 423, “Die Innere Verwaltung im Distrikt Warschau (1940),” p. 59. 1408 Ibid, p. 58; Dunin-Wąsowicz, et al (eds), Raporty Ludwika Fischera..., 135. The Ukrainian aid committee branch in Warsaw was located in a prewar tenement house at ul. Kopernika 13 Apart from such grandiose plans, Frank also mentioned of creating unconditional grounds for the proper treatment of other ethnic groups inhabiting Warsaw. He suggested creating policies aimed at completely quelling any external influences on them by strengthening their internal reliance on the occupier. An internal department report compiled by the Warsaw district authorities listed the cities ethnic inhabitants: Poles and Jews numbered 1.3 million with some 10 thousand Russians, 4-5 thousand Ukrainians and 4 thousand ‘others’ (Belarusians or Cossacks). Here, the Russians were much more developed and engrained in the city than any of the other groups. Politically they were described as being either pro-democratic or pro-Tsarist.1405 A national committee represented the Russians before the German occupiers. On October 1, 1939 a delegation met with the German military commander of Warsaw and declared their loyalty to the new occupiers. Taking into account the group’s anti-communist position, a German memorandum noted that through their act of loyalty, the Russians “decided to take account of the current direction of German policy in the East and [are] ready to assist the authorities in the restoration of peace and order in former Poland.” Their work was to be solely apolitical – assisting émigrés, regulating Orthodox issues in occupied Poland and restoring Russian schools and education.1406 Opposed to the domestic political situation in the USSR, the Belarusian ethnic group – “…their own ethnic group, with their own national consciousness, their own culture and pursuing national independence” – was also organized into a committee. A Cossack group, described as rather insignificant, also had its own committee.1407 What emerged through the German fusion of non-German, non-Polish ethnic groups were aid committees, either re-organized with pressure from the occupiers – as in the case of the Ukrainians – or newly-organized ones – Russian and Belorussian – located in those parts of the city each inhabited. For the Germans, these committees served as both, nationalist ventilators and control mechanisms. As Fisher noted, the authorities recognized them and their delegates as “competent representatives” of each ethnic group. Police authorities shared the same sentiment.1408 Of overarching importance for Frank and the Germans was the proper treatment of ethnic Germans – numbering 20 thousand by 1941 (4 thousand of which were government or administrative functionaries) – who settled or worked in Warsaw.1409 To partially satiate this need, a nur für Deutsche administrative and civil precinct was created at the expense of non-Germans; from requisitioned buildings and properties of Poles and Jews in the most representative and exclusive parts of the city.1410 To maximize production for the German war effort, Herman Göring’s four-year plan looked to extract and deplete Polish assets while only leaving those elements necessary for war production untouched. A prewar military intelligence report listed the district’s industrial assets, vital for immediate economic exploitation and development – power plants, oil and metal refineries, munitions plants, the aircraft factory, shipyards and chemical plants. As early as November 1, 1939, Frank looked to export military raw materials and munitions, leftover in warehouses in and around Warsaw (ones which encompassed some 24 square kilometers) back to the Reich for the further war effort. Once industry was partially rebuilt did the city become a work camp for the occupation war needs. Ukrainians who remained in the city, like Poles, undertook any work possible as a means of survival.1411 1409 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/3, Tagebuch: Erster Band – Januar bis März 1940, pp. 134-135; Dunin-Wąsowicz, et al (eds), Raporty Ludwika Fischera..., 133-134. Frank called for the creation of a central organization to care for and oversee German life in the prewar Polish capital. Important for the Germans would be “proper and clean apartments for administration and government functionaries, beaufitul sporting fields, good resteraunts, schools and hospitals.” 1410 Szarota, Okupowanej Warszawy dzień powszedni..., 370-378. 1411 Szagała and Wiszka, Ukraińcy w Warszawie, 128-130. For a discussion of physical laborers in Warsaw, see Szarota, Okupowanej Warszawy dzień powszedni..., 114-136. 1412 Szarota, Okupowanej Warszawy dzień powszedni..., 348-349. 1413 BA-MA, RW 5/147, Anlage zu Nr. 501/39 vom 5 VIII 1939: Warschau, pp. 25-27; IPN, DHF, GK 95/1, Tagebuch des Herrn Generalgouverneur für die Besetzen Polnischen Gebiete vom 25. Oktober biz 15 Dezember 1939, p. 35; Madajczyk, Polityka III Rzeszy... vol. 1, 560-561; Musiał, “Niemiecka polityka narodowościowa...,” 13-17; Dunin-Wąsowicz, et al (eds), Raporty Ludwika Fischera..., 25. The lengthy Abwehr report concerning Warsaw’s industrial assets also included airports, gas stations, bridges, railroad stations, chemical research institutes, machine and engineering plants, telephone works, postal and telegraph centers, the barracks of the 3rd Polish tank brigade, arsenals and radio broadcasting centers. Fischer’s future plans for Warsaw echoed the Führer’s and Frank’s general views for occupied Poland – to make it into a German colony, one to be exploited and to serve as a racial “dumping ground” with undesirables to be either ethnically cleansed or exterminated on the road toward Germanization. A lawyer by trade, he too was an old colleague of Frank’s from their days in Munich. 1412 The only governor to maintain his position throughout the entire war, his vision of a German Warsaw entailed completely liquidating its prewar Polish national character and expelling Poles to agricultural suburbs where they would toil and labor. He believed: This action ties into German history because Warsaw – in contrast to such cities as Litzmannstadt, Radom or Lublin – contains a decided German past with great cultural monuments, preserved to this day and which, centuries ago, were erected by Germans and which today speak to us as testimony of late German dominance along the Wisła.1413 Led by visions of Germanization, the small enclave of German administrators in Warsaw attempted to give the city a German character by erasing all Polish traces through, as Fischer’s words echoed, digging-up any and all historical traces of German cultural influences. Creating a German Warsaw also meant removing or eliminating all non-Germans. Anti-Semitic Nazi policies in the GG did not spare the Jews of the district or city. Beginning in November 1940, ghettos were created for Jews in many of the cities and towns of the district. Several months later, the smaller provincial ghettos were liquidated; its inhabitants forced, often on foot, to the already overcrowded one in Warsaw. By 1941, the city’s ghetto contained about one-third of the GG’s Jews. Such a large number of individuals densely crammed into the ghetto proved a ripe atmosphere for disease, illness and death. In these brutal, racist ways, as Tomasz Szarota concluded, the Germans temporarily altered the character of Warsaw.1414 1414 Szarota, Okupowanej Warszawy dzień powszedni..., 345; Winstone, The Dark Heart of Hitler’s Europe…, 89-92. Fisher’s anti-semiticism was captured by Italian journalist Curzio Malparte while spending several days in Warsaw in 1942. He described a reception hosted by Fisher, one which captured an image of the tyrant-administrators of the GG: “Governor Fischer, spooning sauce and pouring it, as if a golden shower, on his portion of meat, described the method of buring Jews in the ghetto. A layer of corpses, a layer of lime – he explained this in such a tone as if he were saying ‘a piece of meat, a layer of sauce.’ “That’s the most hygienic method” Wächter complemented.” “Concerning hygiene,” added Gassner, “the Jews are more contagious alive than dead.” “Ich glaube so! [I think so!]” exclaimed Fischer.” Malaparte, Kaputt, 129-130. 1415 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 18, folder 2, Protokol zїzdu, April 14, 1940. 1416 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 24, folder 6, Varshava, December 7, 1940. 1417 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 18, folder 9, Bericht für die Monat Februar 1941, March 3, 1941. Even though Warsaw Ukrainians were reorganized, little social work was done. During an UTsK conference in Kraków, representatives from there reported of slow and difficult work. Problems included young, nationally minded activists being outnumbered by older, prewar émigrés ; difficulty in finding jobs which led many to leave for work in the Reich while new émigrés were primarily from Volhynia, meaning they were often less nationally conscious than Galician Ukrainians. A positive effect of work there was organizing a small Ukrainian school meant to educate children from mixed Polish-Ukrainian marriages. Sporadic cultural lectures and evenings were also conducted.1415 While Ukrainians in Warsaw were as important as others, organization or aid committees on ethnographic territory in the Lublin and Kraków districts superseded subsequent reorganization of the Warsaw branch. In October 1940 Boidunyk again travelled to Warsaw and met with German authorities. There he learned the Warsaw committee was to be subsequently reorganized into an aid committee branch of the Kraków UTsK. Alongside this committee would be a bureau for émigré affairs to oversee their needs before eventually helping them resettle onto ethnographic territory in the Lublin District.1416 However, later reports noted of continued tensions and misunderstandings between Dnieper and Dniester Ukrainians rooted in national or religious differences. Boidunyk returned to Warsaw in 1941. There he submitted to the authorities a request to approve the aid committee, optimistically noting: “There is now firm hope that in the future the committee will work normally in Warsaw, will follow all our orders, and report on its activities in time.”1417 Kubiiovych described the Warsaw aid committee as difficult to work with on account of its infiltration by the Germans. This, he claimed, “forced [me] to leave the Warsaw colony to its own liability… we had only formal, strictly official, cool relations.”1418 Kubiiovych’s accusations were certainly not baseless. Contacts existed between Warsaw Ukrainians and German intelligence and security apparatuses. For example, Pohotovko’s colleague Dmytriienko, who worked at the Ukrainian Scientific Institute in Berlin during the interwar period, was an Abwehr confidant who assisted the Germans in their pillage of the collections housed in the Warsaw Scientific Institute. However, under Pohotovko, the Warsaw aid committee also aspired to continue being the center of Ukrainian life in occupied Poland. Kubiiovych could not come to terms with this and feigned little affection toward him and Ukrainians there.1419 1418 Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Heneral’nii Huberniї, 413. 1419 Torzecki, Polacy i Ukraińcy..., 52; Szagała and Wiszka, Ukraińcy w Warszawie, 131. 1420 Samchuk, Na bilomu koni, 45. 1421 Dunin-Wąsowicz, et al (eds), Raporty Ludwika Fischera..., 8-32. These topics were also the focus of discussions between the GG authorities and Frank with Fischer and his district representatives. Examples abound throughout Frank’s wartime diary. 1422 Warsaw Ukrainian Aid Committee delegate branches were found in: Łowicz, Sokołów Podlaski, Sochaczew, Żyrardów, Garwolin, Grójec, Rembertów, Ostrów Mazowiecki, and Warsaw itself. LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 19, folder 6, Zvidomlennia z orhanizatsiinoї poїzdki do Varshavy, June 10, 1941. A central concern for Pohotovko and aid committee men in the city was the fact that they were truly an ethnic minority in Warsaw. As already mentioned, placing Ukrainian aid committees in such Polish-majority areas may have served as a means for the Gestapo or SD to monitor Polish underground activity; Warsaw being the center of Polish clandestine work. This certainly is reasonable given the examples above. Given these facts, the aid committee office on Kopernika Street stringently monitored visitors, screening them before admitting them. Before his meeting with Pohotovko, Ulas Samchuk recalled: “A state of austere order and rules dominated all committee aspects. At the door I had to show my identification documents; my name nor the presence of [Ievhen] Malaniuk, who they knew, did not help me…”1420 Arguably, the activities of the Warsaw Ukrainians, following their subordination to Kraków peaked little further interest among district civil and police authorities. As district meeting minutes indicate, the main German focus in Warsaw centered on other, more pressing matters throughout the war. These included the economic exploitation of the city and district, the ghettoization and liquidation of the city’s large prewar Jewish population along with those Jews resettled there, the suppression of Polish acts of terrorism or violence against the occupation regime as well as other, everyday problems such as food shortages.1421 The main purpose of the Warsaw aid committee was to assist émigrés in the city, from the most recent to the veterans and émigrés of the 1920 Polish-Soviet war who settled and remained there. The committee itself included 9 delegate branches throughout the district.1422 Their work primarily centered on supplying food to Ukrainians and assisting them in finding work. A children’s home, located in the Praga district of Warsaw, also served as a nursing home for invalids, warehouse, soup kitchen and nursery school. 15 children were looked after there; the majority of which spoke Polish. As a result, Ukrainian was taught. 19 invalids, veterans from previous conflicts, were cared for. An elementary school, named for poet Lesia Ukrainka, and a commerce school (beginning in mid-October 1942) also functioned; the former with over 200 students, 7 teachers and 2 religious catechists, both Orthodox and Greek Catholic.1423 Whereas commerce school expenses were covered by the municipal administration which assigned a monthly stipend of 200 złotys, funding for the elementary one came from the aid committee and parents. The UTsK provided 500 złotys per month for school needs while also paying teachers 100 złotys monthly.1424 Socially, a Ukrainian club functioned in the prewar residence of the economic advisor to the American ambassador.1425 1423 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 19, folder 6, Zvidomlennia z orhanizatsiinoї poїzdki do Varshavy, June 10, 1941; volume 24 file 6, Varshava, December 7, 1940; Szagała and Wiszka, Ukraińcy w Warszawie, 132-134. The elementary school was not officially recognized by the occupation authorities and, as a result, had to be financially maintained by the Warsaw Aid Committee and by Ukrainian parents. Also, because it was not recognized, students could not receive dilpomas certifying educational completion and achievement. 1424 Szagała and Wiszka, Ukraińcy w Warszawie, 132-134; Serhijczuk, “Stanowisko i los Ukraińców w Generalnym Gubernatorstwie (bez Galicji)...,” in Polska-Ukraina: trudne pytania vol. 4, 185. 1425 Samchuk, Na bilomu koni, 45. 1426 Igor Hałagida, “The Significance of the Bazylian Monastery in Warsaw during the Interwar Period and World War II: Some Reflections” in Jaroslav Coranič (ed), História Rádu baziliánov sv. Josafáta (Prešov: Gréckokatolícka teologická fakulta Prešovská univerzita v Prešove, 2017), 190. Their monastery on Miodowa Street was not built until 1784. 1427 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 19, folder 6, Zvidomlennia z orhanizatsiinoї poїzdki do Varshavy, June, 10 1941; volume 14 folder 24, Protokol z konferentsiї u Pana Providnyka, September 9, 1943. Volodymyr Serhiichuk claimed of as many as 5 thousand Ukrainians living in Warsaw throughout the war. Serhijczuk, “Stanowisko i los Ukraińców…,” 185. As already mentioned, Warsaw was the seat of the Orthodox metropolitan and the bishop Palladius of the Kraków-Lemko diocese. For Ukrainians, the latter provided catechism and religious education for Orthodox adherents. Care over Greek Catholic Ukrainians was provided by the Bazylian monks, active in Warsaw since 1721. They provided religious services and education for the faithful of that rite while also sending priests to parishes in the eastern portions of the Lublin District.1426 Whereas Ukrainians in Warsaw itself numbered between 2 and 3 thousand, in all 8 suburban delegate branches, only some 450 Ukrainians were registered. To assist the committee, a cooperative was also set-up there; one which later fell under the auspices of the aid committee. It became an institution which sold goods to Ukrainians who received ration cards from the aid committee who, in turn, purchased additional cards from the Germans. A June 1941 report on the state of the cooperative noted that it lacked any professional workers; some, including several heads, were part-time employees. Because of this lack of professionalism, the report noted that goods were being traded or sold to private Polish shops while the cooperative relied on the purchase of supplementary goods from the local authorities for the Ukrainians. Alongside its social and aid role, the aid committee also represented Ukrainian interests before the Autocephalous Orthodox Church hierarchs.1427 Following the German invasion of the USSR in 1941, a Polish underground report noted of Pohotovko and several other aid committee members travelling to Poznań. There they were to gather 1,500 former Ukrainian prisoners of war and form the embryo of a future Ukrainian army, one to be commanded by Mel’nyk.1428 However, this did not come to fruition. UTsK attention would not return to the Warsaw group until 1943, when Kubiiovych played a pivotal role in the recruitment of Ukrainians for service in the 14th Volunteer Waffen-SS Division Galizien. 1428 PUMST, OIV, file A.269, Sprawy ukraińskie /partie, organizacje/, September 1941, p. 92. 1429 Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Heneralnii Huberniї, 404. 1430 “Angaben über den Distrikt Lublin“ in du Prel (ed), Das Generalgouvernement, 324. 1431 PUMST, OIV, file A.269, Sprawy ukraińskie /partie, organizacje/, September 1941, p. 86. 1432 Andrzej Bożyk, “Ukraiński Komitet Centralny a sprawa rewindykacji narodowej ‘kałakutów’ na Lubelszczyźnie podczas II wojny światowej.” Rocznik Chełmski vol. 17 (2013), 168; Winstone, The Dark Heart of Hitler’s Europe..., 98. 5.4 - The Lublin District: Nationalization of “Lost” Ukrainians in the Southern Podlasie Region A special region of focus for UTsK work in the Lublin District was the southern portion of the Podlasie region. Through concerted work there, Kubiiovych looked to reverse the effects of prewar polonization by rechristening and transforming less conscious inhabitants into nationally-conscious Ukrainians. In the broader spectrum, such an undertaking resembled Nazi racial policies which in 1940 also looked to recover Polish children for Germany with the intent of removing them to the Reich for complete Germanization. In the case of Ukrainians, Kubiiovych focused on those Ukrainians who adhered to Roman Catholicism – referred to as kalakuty – in the eastern Lublin District: “We decided to resolve the kalakut problem because, as a nationality, they were a majority there.”1429 Official German records never included the kalakuty as a separate category when listing population numbers for the county as many considered themselves to be Polish because they practiced Catholicism. Thus, in 1943, Biała Podlaska County numbered 115 thousand Poles, some 10 thousand Ukrainians, 10 thousand Belarusians, and 15 thousand Jews.1430 A Polish underground report noted of returning the kalakuty to the “greater Ukrainian ethnic family” as one of Kubiiovych’s primary goals.1431 The term kalakut (kalakuty – plural) appeared in the Chełm and Podlasie counties following the cassation of the Union of Brest by Tsarist Russia in 1875. This term was used by the Russian Orthodox faithful to describe resistant Uniates who opposed conversion to Orthodoxy. As such, among the Orthodox of the Podlasie region, the term signified a renegade. Interestingly enough, the etymological background of the term refers to a regional species of chicken called gałagut.1432 A group with a traditional low-level of national consciousness, kalakuty historically identified themselves ethnically with the religion they adhered to. Ukrainian nationalists sought to build a national consciousness among them from the ground up. Kalakut religious identification was seen as a defense mechanism to polonization; something which in their eyes made them Ukrainian. Roman Il’nyts’kyi, who in mid-1940 travelled to the region, claimed inhabitants “felt” Ukrainian: “Only thanks to their immense cultural and spiritual resistance, they succeeded in saving their souls from complete polonization and now… they began to show their real, true feelings toward Ukraine and Ukrainians.” Aside from the fact that many no longer spoke Ukrainian, he argued they still felt part of greater Ukraine.1433 However, nationalizing them would not be easy as, in the words of Knysh, this territory was nationally backwards and polonized: 1433 Iln’yts’kyi, Dumky pro ukraїns’ku vyzvol’nu polityku, 97. 1434 Knysh, Pered pokhodom na skhid vol. 2, 166. 1435 Zajączkowski, Ukraińskie podziemie..., 47. 1436 Papierzyńska-Turek, Między tradycją a rzeczywistością..., 248. 1437 Pasternak, Narys istoriї Kholmshchyny i Pidliashshia, 260; “Ukraїntsi rym.-kat. na Pidliashshi tverdo zaiavliaiut’ svoie ukraїnstvo,” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 1 no. 11 (February 14 1940), 3. The article praised the steps taken by local Ukrainians in this matter, declaring that no Polish authority or administration would punish them for their choices or decisions. Far to the north in Pidliashshia, national consciousness must be, at least for now, awakened; Ukrainian life there was exposed to unprecedented oppression – it was enough to call yourself Ukrainian to fall into prison there, and whoever spoke Ukrainian there was immediately qualified as an anti-state, revolutionary element.1434 As Grzegorz Kuprianowicz contested, kalakuts indeed could be identified as ethnic Ukrainians since many maintained the Ukrainian language and traditions while often not knowing or understanding Polish. Furthermore, Polish national identity failed to fully crystalize while among some a Ukrainian consciousness evolved.1435 Whereas the designation ‘kalakuty’ was a derogatory term used by Ukrainians to define what they saw as converts and polonized Ukrainians, Polish nationals viewed them as russified Poles who were either forcefully converted to Orthodoxy or who succumbed to ukrainization during and immediately after World War I.1436 In other words, both Ukrainians and Poles saw potential in building their respective national consciousness among them. In 1940, Kubiiovych and company surveyed the possibility of nationalizing the kalakuty. From reports received by the UTsK, it was clear nationalization hinged on the strength and attractiveness of the Ukrainian national movement. However, because of the fragile, ethnic sensitivity of the inhabitants there, it was suggested to avoid any deeper religious experimentations among the kalakuty. An article soon appeared in Krakivs’ki Visti and reported that delegates in southern Podlasie received requests from Ukrainian Roman Catholics to identify them as Ukrainian.1437 Through the UTsK – a sub-department for kalakut affairs having been created within the cultural-educational department – and its network of local aid committees, Kubiiovych envisioned a two-step approach to begin the process of nationalization. First, contrary to what locals suggested, he attempted religious reforms. As much as the mass conversion of the kalakuty to Orthodoxy or their transition to Greek Catholicism would be ideal, it seemed highly unlikely that those who for generations adhered to Roman Catholicism would simply give it up. In many instances, reports from kalakut regions described Orthodox Ukrainians as faithless or simply fair-weather. Avoiding mass conversion, Kubiiovych approached the matter from a different side by hoping to put a Ukrainian face on the Catholic Church there. In a memorandum to the Germans, Kubiiovych noted formidable conditions existed in the GG to nationalize Roman Catholic Ukrainians. He described them as brothers of the greater Ukrainian nationality and introduced a conception of ethnic separation on the basis of the Catholic Church by proposing the creation of a Latin-rite diocese for those Ukrainians, with a Ukrainian bishop, Ukrainian clergy and a seminary to train future priests.1438 Through the intercession of the apostolic nuncio in Berlin Ceasare Orsenigo, the UTsK sent a letter to Pope Pius XII with their propositions concerning the kalakuty. However, the note was rejected by the nuncio on the grounds of the issue being what he believed to be a political matter. The realization of the proposition, he reasoned, would mean modifying existing legal and organizational church structures; something the Catholic Church looked to avoid in a time of war. Interestingly enough, Orsenigo also received a similar memorandum from Belarusian Catholics who also expressed their desire to de-polonize the Catholic Church on their territory and to create a separate apostolic administration for Belarusian Roman Catholics.1439 1438 AAN, RdGG, sygn. 429, Röm-katholische Ukrainer, 1940, pp. 74-76. 1439 Sziling, Kościoły chrześciańskie w polityce niemieckich władz okupacyjnych…, 56; Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Heneral'nii Huberniї, 405-406. 1440 TsDAVOVUU, UTsK, f. 3959, op. 2, spr. 48, Zvit predstavnyka viddilu propahandy UTsK na Liublins’kyi dystrykt za sichen’ 1941, February 2, 1941, pp. 9-9a. 1441 AAN, RdGG, sygn. 429, Römisch-katholische Ukrainer im Generalgouvernment, April 16, 1941; p. 473; Akten-notiz – Betrifft: Römisch-kathlische Ukrainer im Generalgouvernment, March 19, 1941, p. 474. However, mixed feelings appeared on the ground. A February 1941 report by Lublin propagandist Bohdan Halaichuk to the UTsK described Russophile activity and Belarusian subversion as prevalent. According to him, the best approach to combat Russophile subversion would be through the creation of “a separate hierarchy of our conscious priests.”1440 The Germans viewed the recovery of polonized Roman Catholics for the Ukrainians as containing an important meaning for the GG. Alfred Bisanz suggested the matter would be handled beginning in 1942, one to continue until the end of the war. This, in turn, would lead to the creation of a Ukrainian Roman Catholic diocese and spiritual seminary with the intent of acquiring the kalakut populace through religious liberties.1441 Wilden prepared to begin realizing the UTsK kalakut proposition. Doubting whether this goal could be achieved over the given timeframe – particularly due to the deep polonization of kalakuty – he suggested the authorities call local starostas attention to treating this group favorably and to avoid any measures threatening peace or security among them. Perhaps most importantly, he suggested any attempts of forced ethnic conversion be avoided as ukrainization was to be a “natural process.” Föhl also composed a memorandum on this issue. He agreed with his colleagues that any long-term Ukrainian project in this region should begin in 1942 but mentioned of preparations to begin immediately, ones centered on informing all German administrative departments of the ethnic nature of the Roman Catholic Ukrainians while also reiterating to avoid treating them as Poles. However, he was against any practical work to return these peoples to the Ukrainian ethnic community just yet. He viewed projects aiming to win over sections of the Ukrainian population as impractical since more conscious elements of the population had yet to, in his words, “find clear ethnic attitudes.”1442 1442 AP-L, DGdDL, sygn. 158, Kirchenfragen der Ukrainer 1939–1942, Betreffen: Römisch-katholische Ukrainer im Generalgouvernement, April 4, 1941, pp. 60-61. 1443 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 24, folder 8, M. Senyshyn, Zvit z poїzdky na Pidliashshia vid 15 III do 13 IV 1941r, April 23, 1941, p. 6; AAN, RdGG, sygn. 429, Abschrift – Bericht des Ordenspriesters Hermogen (Kywatschuk), March 3, 1941, p. 300-301. Hermogen described the case of Orthodox archmandrite Philophii who was accused of propagating Greek Catholic sympathies in order to “snatch a part of the diocese away from the archbishop of Chełm and Podlasie” Ilarion. A Ukrainian aid committee from Biała Podlaska identified Hermogen as one of several local clergy who voiced opposition to Ilarion and who joined the Belarusian Committee. LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 24, folder 8, Zvidomlennia z poїzdky do Biloї Pidlias’koї, January 22, 1941. 1444 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 24, folder 8, M. Senyshyn, Zvit z poїzdky na Pidliashshia vid 15 III do 13 IV 1941r, April 23, 1941. 1445 Veryha, The Correspondence…, 247-249. A constant problem arising was the clash of religious rites of eastern Orthodoxy and Catholicism (whether Latin or Greek). In his report to Metropolitan Dionysius, Orthodox priest Hermogen from the village of Połoski in Biała Podlaska County mentioned aid committee members harassing the Orthodox Church and its faithful. He described Greek Catholic clergy, so-called “religious fanatics,” propagandizing that orthodoxy was indeed russified and rooted in Russia. To quickly make Ukrainians out of kalakut villagers, he claimed they sought to convert them to the Greek Catholicism. During a congress of Orthodox clergy in Biała Podlaska, that aid committee’s religious referent proclaimed that the national faith of the Ukrainians there was Greek Catholic, not Orthodox. Additionally, he mentioned of some Orthodox clergy being reprimanded for charges of alleged service to the “Uniate specter.”1443 An early report on the state of the kalakut question noted positive and negative short-term achievements. For example, in some townships, such as Radzyń Podlaski (located between Lublin and Biała Podlaska), local administrative positions were either in Ukrainian hands or led by persons indifferent to them. However, some kalakuty declared themselves to be Poles and their attitude toward Ukrainians was “filled with more hatred… than true Poles.”1444 To prevent such ethnic identification, Kubiiovych proposed cautioning German civil servants and local administrators from identifying kalakuty as Poles. He also called for the organization of a Ukrainian Roman Catholic diocese and seminary with Ukrainian clergy staffing kalakut churches, to create schools in which children would be taught in Polish and Ukrainian; ones to be supervised by Ukrainian school inspectors and to take-control of local administrations by placing Ukrainians in such positions as wójts or sołtyses.1445 Even though he looked to remove or isolate the kalakuty from interacting with Poles, Polish was still necessary considering their polonized nature; if only to use it as the initial tool toward Ukrainian nationalization as in the case of schools. On April 19, 1941, a Ukrainian delegation from Biała Podlaska met with Frank at the Wawel Castle in Kraków. Interestingly enough, in organizing this delegation, Kubiiovych wrote to the aid committee in Biała Podlaska asking to come up with six regional folk costumes (3 adult size and 3 youth size) for the group. Also, he suggested who should represent the region: “Villagers, who should also be part of the intelligentsia, are to be tall and of Ukrainian type.” His sample of Podlasie villagers juxtaposed the real image of the inhabitants there.1446 That day, the head of the delegation presented Frank with a characteristic declaration of thanksgiving and hope. On the occasion of Hitler’s birthday, he reaffirmed Ukrainian confidence and loyalty in the Germans: “We have the firm will to persist with the German people until the final victory, faithful to our conviction that the well-being of the German people is at the same time our well-being.” Gifts of a hand carved, inlaid wooden box and an artistically decorated book with embroidered cover were presented for the Führer. On behalf of Hitler, Frank accepted the gifts and stated: 1446 TsDAVOVUU, UTsK, f. 3959, op. 1, spr. 16, Instructions “Delegation from Podlasie,” April 4, 1941, p. 12. 1447 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/11, Tagebuch 1941: Band II – 16 April bis 30 Juni, pp. 22-24. The Ukrainian delegation’s well-wishes for Hitler also reiterated their loyalty to the Germans, “Adolf Hitler is not only leader in the great European decision-making process, he is leader of all those who believe in and hope for a better future in Europe. May God bless his work! May his battle be crowned with glorious victory!” 1448 AP-L, DGdDL, sygn. 158, Kirchenfragen der Ukrainer 1939–1942, Betreffen: Römisch-katholische Ukrainer im Generalgouvernement, April 29, 1941, pp. 70-71. These gifts will delight the Führer but he is well aware of the serious cultural, economic, social, and religious needs of the Ukrainian people in their struggle. We have already had the opportunity yesterday to discuss the needs of the Ukrainian people in the GG. I would like to offer you again the assurance that the welfare of the Ukrainian people will be a serious concern in cultural, social and national areas here in the GG. What is due to me will be done to meet the needs of the Ukrainian people and to defend their interests as this people has made itself available in an extraordinary loyal and dignified form for the construction and reorganization of Europe.1447 Ten days later, the Germans responded to Kubiiovych’s memorandum. Even though nationalization of kalakuty could proceed, Wilden warned it be closely observed by local German administrators in order to prevent any Ukrainian excesses; ones which could cause new and unwanted hostilities with neighboring Poles or Belarusians. Additionally, he suggested neutralizing the direct and individual role of the UTsK in the matter while advising to keep all dispositions secret to prevent Ukrainian nationalists from later evoking these district-level orders against the authorities.1448 Frank, in agreement with Wilden and Bisanz, viewed Ukrainian nationalists claiming the kalakuty as something which lay in line with GG ethnic policy. However, this was the only definitive statement the Ukrainians received from him. Other events – the German invasion of the Soviet Union – superseded deeper commitments from the side of the occupiers. Furthermore, concerning the religious issue, the GG authorities noted it lay in the hands of the Vatican and would have to await the end of the war for an actual decision. Concerning the local administrative and educational matters presented by Kubiiovych, Frank noted that he would take those issues into consideration.1449 1449 Veryha, The Correpondance…, 309-310. 1450 AAN, RdGG, sygn. 429, Abschrift – Bericht des Ordenspriesters Hermogen (Kywatschuk), March 3, 1941, p. 299; Iaroslav Paliukh, “Na kholms’ko-pidlias’komu pohranychchi (Spohad pro selo Hrabivku)” in Ivanyk (ed), Krov ukraїns’ka, krov pol’s’ka…, 257. 1451 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 24, folder 8, M. Senyshyn, Zvit z poїzdky na Pidliashshia vid 15 III do 13 IV 1941r, April 23, 1941. For their part, the Germans proposed the UTsK start from a different angle – nationalization through education since they saw this as a positive step toward the proper upbringing of the Ukrainians. Indeed, the German pro-Ukrainian policy made this approach more suitable. Orthodox priest Hermogen noted of a weak or underdeveloped national consciousness among villagers throughout southern Podlasie. Whereas the designation ‘ukrainskyi’ was used very rarely, he noted they identified themselves as ‘ruskyi,’ Ruthenian or as Ruthenian Orthodox. Many villages were either ethnically mixed or polonized Ukrainians. In some instances, Ukrainian villages neighbored polonized ones where Polish was often spoken.1450 A field report compiled by Myroslav Senyshyn, UTsK kalakut referent, gaged the possibility of nationalizing them. As he communicated, some 5 thousand inhabitants in that region adhered to Orthodoxy and considered themselves Ukrainian; the kalakuts outnumbered Ukrainians four or five fold while the overwhelming majority recognized themselves as Poles because of their Catholic faith. Whereas local administration in the kalakut areas was not completely monopolized by Poles with Ukrainians in some positions of authority, the report mentioned of big hopes for vindication. During his month-long trip throughout villages and townships, Senyshyn spoke with many kalakuts with the hope of registering volunteers on his ethnic Ukrainian list. Many older villagers were in no rush to ‘become’ Ukrainian. One stated, “… we want to see Ukraine here. We feel that it is already here for now.” In another village, Wohyń, he lectured to those there on what exactly a Ukrainian was: … a Ukrainian is not only an Orthodox [adherent] but everyone who lives in Wohyń, the native fathers who spoke or speak Ukrainian, everyone who carries Ukrainian blood in their veins, all the Zakharuks and Ivaniuks, etc; Uniate or Catholic, all those who feel any sort of nearness with everything that is Ruthenian, today Ukrainian.1451 In the villages and towns he visited, Senyshyn noted older inhabitants spoke Ukrainian in comparison to the younger generation which spoke Polish. In some instances, inhabitants spoke Ukrainian amongst themselves – unofficially as he described – but Polish to children and outsiders. Those kalakuty who showed interest in Ukrainian matters, such as 19 year old Józef Marchuk who attended evening cultural and language courses, were suggested to be observed and eventually included in social life. Overall however, few villagers registered on his Ukrainian list. In Wohyń for example, he was only able to place 3 families, a total of 15 persons, on it. Not all registrations were completely voluntary either. An underground report supplied by the Lublin region’s Polish country delegate informed of local Ukrainian auxiliary policemen instructed to pressure kalakuty into registering on their list.1452 1452 Ibid; AAN, DRRPK, sygn. 202/III/199, Ukrainian report, December 1941, pp. 32-33. 1453 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 24, folder 8, M. Senyshyn, Zvit z poїzdky na Pidliashshia vid 15 III do 13 IV 1941r, April 23, 1941. 1454 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 24, folder 6, Do Ukraїns’kikh Dopomohovykh Komitetiv ta Delehatur na tereni Pidliashshia, May 1941. 1455 Ibid, Zvidomlennia iz sluzhbovoї poїzdky v liublins’kyi obliasti, June 1941. 1456 Ibid. Senyshyn summarized his report with suggestions for nationalizing the kalakuty. He evaluated they were not a concerted Polish ethnic group but “a shapeless mass” to be molded. To shape them, he advised beginning with removing any and all leading Polish elements from among them. To prevent additional pro-Polish influences by Catholic priests, he proposed staffing churches with Ukrainian Catholic clergy. The introduction of the Ukrainian language in schools and in local administrations was imperative to strengthen regional nationalization. Besides supplying books and newspapers, ones printed in Latinized Ukrainian script, he also recommended incorporating Ukrainians, ideally local kalakuty, as trusted men; to bring them into the UTsK system. Of immense importance to complementing native administrators was the deeper development and ideological, nationalist indoctrination of kalakuty who showed even a glimmer of Ukrainian national consciousness. They, he described, were to be the “pioneers of the new movement.”1453 Following his findings and conclusions, the UTsK cultural affairs department provided a special outline to the aid committee and delegates of the Podlasie region. Aside from avoiding religious matters in discussions with kalakuty, delegates were instructed to begin recruiting locals for cultural and cooperative work.1454 To begin a more concerted process of nationalization, a UTsK field report from travels throughout the Lublin District informed of the selection of several kalakuty elementary schools for this. Ukrainization, the report stated, would be achieved through introducing the proper, nationally conscious, teaching cadres.1455 The state of Ukrainian schools and education in the Podlasie region was mixed. An earlier UTsK education report noted a total of 65 Ukrainian public or private schools functioning throughout the region alongside a commerce school. The majority of schools were either one or two classroom ones. Out of 66 teachers, the report specified only half were qualified. Whereas the majority of students were Orthodox, a good amount were also kalakuty. A key question raised was what kind of religious education should Ukrainian Catholic children receive. A grave danger was seen in Polish priests teaching children because, as the report stated: “they will again attempt to remove them from Ukrainian schools.” The solution was simple: to “find” Ukrainian Catholic clergy, even if this meant Greek Catholic clergy changing their rite and becoming Catholic priests. “For the good of the Ukrainian issue,” the report described, “they should bear such a sacrifice.”1456 During UTsK travels throughout the region, Il’nyts’kyi assisted in organizing school life. Among the young teachers – ones who primarily completed their secondary education –he saw in them not Galician Ukrainians but rather ones which appeared to have been raised in the Podlasie region. He urged them to recruit students for further education in the Chełm gymnasium or vocational schools; emphasizing the cultural and national importance of further education. Observing some teachers, Il’nyts’kyi was emotionally touched with their work. After a young student told him that she was a Ukrainian, he spoke with her teacher; a young Ukrainian girl from Śniatyn. With what he called the “humility of a missionary,” she poignantly told him she sacrificed her life as a young Ukrainian in order to raise nationally-conscious children. Visiting a dormitory, he recalled being “morally pleased” when students greeted him with the slogan Slava Ukraїni!1457 Iryna Hoshovs’ka was another example of an émigré teacher working in the region. In 1939, she avoided Soviet occupation in western Volhynia by fleeing to Kraków. Working in the UTsK ranks, she was sent to Biała Podlaska to teach in the commerce school. Alongside teaching formal courses, including German, she conducted what she later called illegal education – teaching Ukrainian literature and history. 1458 1457 Iln’yts’kyi, Dumky pro ukraїns’ku vyzvol’nu polityku, 98-99. 1458 Iryna Hoshovs’ka, “Uchytel’koiu na voiennomu Pidliashshiu” in Ivanyk (ed), Krov ukraїns’ka, krov pol’s’ka…, 177-181. 1459 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 24, folder 6, 2. Bila Pidliashs’ka, December 7, 1940; volume 24, folder 8, M. Senyshyn, Zvit z poїzdky na Pidliashshia vid 15 III do 13 IV 1941r, April 23, 1941. In comparison the 1940 report noted that there were 153 Polish schools in the region. 1460 AAN, RdGG, sygn. 429, Abschrift – Bericht des Ordenspriesters Hermogen (Kywatschuk), March 3, 1941, p. 299. He noted that the Podlasie region distinguished itself from other regions inhabited by Ukrainians – Volhynia, Chełm, Eastern Galicia – by its customs and language. Difficulties in work came not only from the side of the occupiers but also from Poles in administrative and police positions. Little help, Hoshovs’ka recalled, also came from the weak aid committee. Not all teachers in the region were regarded by nationalists as qualified either. Senyshyn reported of one such unqualified teacher. In the village of Konstantynów, near Janów Podlaski, he described a teacher in the Ukrainian school as “an old maid who belongs in a museum, not as a Ukrainian teacher and especially not in this area.”1459 He claimed she was out of touch with the current generation and with the needs of Ukrainians. As effective as education may have been, there was still opposition to it and to the work of Galician Ukrainians. Orthodox priest Hermogem described such resistance: In the first days of my stay in Polosky [Połoski], I witnessed how a clever and self-confident farmer in the village clarified to a teacher from Galicia, that their local language was not only more beautiful than the Galician-Ukrainian language but also more cultural and intelligent. Several elderly women, about 50 years old, assured me that when a Galician teacher arrived in their village, they could not understand him for a long time. Now there is a great dissatisfaction among the population because the children are taught “Galician.”1460 Meeting with aid committee representatives in Biała Podlaska in the spring of 1941, Il’nyts’kyi assessed the overall progress of Ukrainian work there as positive if only on the basis of their purely spoken Ukrainian; what he considered an anomaly in that “for centuries, they had no Ukrainian schools and were susceptible to Polish and Russian de-nationalization.” This progress convinced him of “the enormous purpose of the Ukrainian nation.”1461 However, the success of the UTsK kalakut program hinged on several factors. Alongside the strength of the Ukrainian national movement itself, Polish and Soviet partisan incursions severely disrupted further work. 1461 Iln’yts’kyi, Dumky pro ukraїns’ku vyzvol’nu polityku, 99-100. 1462 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 24, folder 8, Zvit, March 24, 1941; Iryna Hoshovs’ka, “Uchytel’koiu na voiennomu Pidliashshiu…,” 181-182. 1463 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 24, folder 8, Zvit z orhanizatsiinoї poїzdky do Biloї Pidlias’kii, March 9, 1942. 1464 Hoshovs’ka, “Uchytel’koiu na voiennomu Pidliashshiu...,” in Ivanyk (ed), Krov ukraїns’ka, krov pol’s’ka…, 181. 1465 AP-L, DGdDL, sygn. 132, Note to Walter Föhl, December 17, 1940, p. 4. One of the main problems which had an immediate cause on cultural developmental there, as in other borderland regions, was the return of Ukrainians to Eastern Galicia following its incorporation into the GG. Even prior to the German advance east the situation was not ideal. The head of the Biała Podlaska aid committee Bohdan Hlibovyts’kyi did not hold back frustrations in reports to Kraków. Problems reported included continued prejudice from the side of Polish local administrators, auxiliary policemen and school inspectors. This was mixed with no concrete relationship with the occupation authorities which meant equal treatment of Poles and Ukrainians. He called promises of assistance from the UTsK fairytales, initiatives which lacked insight into the real problems. His assessment of local Ukrainians proved telling of the inability to fully win them over: “… the percent of Ukrainians here is too small to choose a rightful place.”1462 Furthermore, a lack of qualified and nationally conscious Ukrainians was felt afterward as well. An UTsK report on the state of the Biała Podlaska aid committee noted of the need to reorganize it since there was a “lack of people with strong individualism – as a result, frames of mind and plans often pass each other.”1463 Hoshovs’ka laconically summarized the move of Ukrainians back east: “Therefore, some left Pidliashshia because rather than sit in the small backcountry, they wanted to do something bigger for Ukraine.”1464 One of the mechanisms by which Kubiiovych sought to use to legally identify the kalakuty as Ukrainians was through the issuing of Ukrainian Kennkarte. A report from late December 1941 from Lublin officials to GG superiors in Kraków noted that many Ukrainians in the Biała Podlaska region did not comply with obtaining new cards identifying their Ukrainian ethnicity but applied for Polish ones instead.1465 This information certainly irritated UTsK officials. Beginning in 1942, the UTsK began a more concerted campaign aimed at mass Kennkarte registration. Posters issued by the Lublin aid committee appeared over a three-month period throughout the region. 500 posters were also slated to be plastered throughout the Biała Podlaska area. Specifically concerning appeals to the kalakuty, Longin Holeiko suggested the posters be written in both Polish and Ukrainian if possible. If not, he noted that texts in Cyryllic and Latinized Ukrainian would suffice. In both Cyrillic and Latinized Ukrainian, the UTsK called on all Ukrainians to identify themselves as such while content spoke directly to those polonized Ukrainians: To You, the blood brothers of our fathers and grandfathers, we direct this call. Sons of the Kholm lands. Once You were Orthodox or Uniates. You only changed Your religion but Your hearts, thoughts, languages, surnames and love for the native Kholmshchyna will forever remain Ukrainian. You Roman Catholics are Ukrainians… Roman Catholic Ukrainians! Register on your Kennkarte as Ukrainian nationals! Ukrainians! In the General Government, only we have certain rights toward cultural development… The poster also attempted to topple the notion of religious adherence defining nationality by indicating that Orthodox, Greek Catholics, Roman Catholics and Evangelicals can all register as Ukrainians without question. This “phenomenon,” the text mentioned, was prevalent in other nations.1466 1466 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 24, folder 6, Ukrainci Wsich Wiroispowidań, March 1942; AP-L, DGdDL, sygn. 132, Ukrainian Aid Committee Chełm note to Chełm Kreishauptmann, May 6, 1944; p. 23. 1467 AP-L, DGdDL, sygn. 132, Aufruf Ukrainischer Hilfskomitees anläßlich der Kennkartenaktion, July 3, 1942, p. 14; Texts of aid committee Kennkarte appeal, n.d., pp. 33-34. This initial text was also written in Cyryllic and Latinized Ukrainian with a German version also drafted. 1468 For a detailed and wholistic analysis of Poland and the Soviet Union’s role in the interwar Belorussian national movement, see for example Per Anders Rudling, The Rise and Fall of Belarusian Nationalism, 1906-1931 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2014). 1469 Belarusian social privileges were more apparent following the creationg of Bezirk Białystok in October 1941 after the Soviets retreat from that region in the wake of the German attack on the USSR. There, a Belarusian National Committee was permitted by the Germans to organize if only to serve as a counterweight to the Polish-majority in the western and central portions of the Bezirk. The committee initially began work by organizing cultural events and meetings before training members for low-level administrative work as a means to eliminate Poles from those positions. Overall, Belarusian committee work aimed to prevent anti-Belarusian excesses or The above appeal appeared as the finalized, conservative text for the Kennkarte campaign. German officials in the district censored previous versions which echoed stronger, nationalist tones in order to prevent any unwanted hostilities to erupt between Poles and Ukrainians. For example, the draft text called on inhabitants to register as Ukrainian nationals on account of both national consciousness and “belonging to the Great Ukrainian Nation.” Anti-Polish and anti-Russian sentiments also appeared. The text meant to remind Ukrainians that those two nations completely forbid them from expressing what nationalists viewed as their true ethnic identities. Speaking to polonized Ukrainians, the text mentioned that adhering to Roman Catholicism did not equate automatically to Polish ethnicity.1467 The effects of the Kennkarte campaign were questionable at best with few kalakuty ultimately deciding for Ukrainian cards. Rather, some preferred applying for Polish ones to avoid any unnecessary ostracism, harm or danger from the Polish majority in the region. An added problematic and thorny concern for Ukrainian nationalists in this region was the incursion of a contending ethnic, nationalist movement – the Belarusian one. During the interwar period, the Belarusian national movement was overwhelmingly influenced by two large powers – Poland and the Soviet Union.1468 As in the case of the UTsK, with its branches throughout the GG and Ukrainian organized social life in Germany, the Germans, through their policy of dividing and recognizing ethnic GG groups also allowed the Belarusians similar privileges.1469 prejudices, especially from among Poles employed either in the German-sponsored auxiliary police or administration; to provide welfare and aid for Belarusians touched by war and raise Belarusian national consciousness through cultural-educational programs. Piotr Chomik, et al, Historia Białorusinów Podlasia (Białystok: Białoruskie Towarzystwo Historyczne, 2016), 307-308. 1470 Jerzy Turonek, Białoruś pod okupacją niemiecką (Warszawa: Książka i Wiedza, 1993), 40-41; Eugeniusz Mironowicz, Wojna wszystkich ze wszystkimi. Białoruś 1941-1944 (Kraków: Avalon, 2015), 127-128; Leonid Rein, The Kings and the Pawns: Collaboration in Byelorussia during World War II (New York-Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2011), 94-95. 1471 Chomik, et al, Historia Białorusinów Podlasia, 305. 1472 Rein, The Kings and the Pawns…, 96-98. As Turonek noted, in order to find Belarusian recruits for Abwehr training, Shchor looked to transfer agents from Soviet Belarusian territory to the Abwehr training facilities in Suwałki. In this process, the Belarusian aid committee branch in Biała Podlaska, located close to the German-Soviet border, would play an important role. By the spring of 1941, a 50-man group was formed, trained near Oppeln (today Opole) and transferred on June 18, 1941 near Suwałki. Their role was to act as a diversionary group. The groups initiator was a priest, Father Wincenty Godlewski, who viewed them as the first Belarusian assault company and the embryo for a future national army. Turonek, Białoruś pod okupacją niemiecką, 43-44. 1473 Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Heneral'nii Huberniї, 398-400; Pasternak, Narys istoriї Kholmshchyny i Pidliashshia, 263. In his synopsis on the national face of the Podlasie region, Iurii Havryliuk contests Pasternak’s claim by introducing and describing the work of Arkadz’ Smolich Heohrafiia Belarusi (first published in Vilnius in 1922) which included Biała Podlaska and parts of the southern Podlasie region in his understanding of Belarus’ western border. Iurii Havryliuk, “Natsional’ne oblychchia Pidliashshia” in Mykola Martyniuk (ed), Nadbuzhanshchyna, vol. 3 (New York-Paris-Sydney-Toronto: Ob’iednannia Nadbuzhantsiv, 1994), 535. Regarding Smolich and his geographic works, see Rudling, The Rise and Fall of Belarusian Nationalism, 136-137. In Germany, a Belarusian self-help organization was created, with subsequent branches in several cities in the GG and Prague. This body remained under the close influence of the Gestapo; its leader being on their payroll. Independent from this organization was the GG Belarusian Aid Committee created in January 1940. Headquartered in Warsaw, two branches were also organized in Kraków and Biała Podlaska. Like the UTsK, the Belarusians were also officially relegated to a social aid and cultural-educational role.1470 As with the Ukrainians and other Polish- and Soviet-dominated ethnic groups, so too did Belarusian nationalists hope to create a lobby for their self-determination alongside the Germans. They welcomed the outbreak of war in 1939 with “happiness and hope. [It] destroyed the prison build for us over the centuries by our eastern and western occupiers.”1471 Like Kubiiovych, Germanophile Belarusians petitioned Hitler and other prominent Nazis to take into account Belarusian interests in future developments. The Abwehr exploited these aspirations. Whereas Belarusians in Berlin organized a body to be a future provisional government, military intelligence recruited Belarusians, like Ukrainians, for sabotage or translation work during Germany's drive east. Some men were assigned to work alongside the infamous Einsatzgruppen which in the first days of the Soviet invasion butchered thousands of Jewish men, women and children. As with the Ukrainians, so too did the Germans hope to gain maximum cooperation with the Belarusians, albeit at a minimum price.1472 Contention between the two nationalist movements centered on ethnically-mixed borderland territory in Biała Podlaska County. Ukrainian nationalists viewed the region as a historic Ukrainian one. Ievhen Pasternak, son of prewar senator and wartime activist Ivan, called attention to the fact that neither Biała Podlaska nor its surrounds ever appeared in modern Belarusian maps or in their nationalist rhetoric.1473A note from the German Kreishauptmann in Biała Podlaska to the Lublin District authorities indicated 21,714 inhabitants as of August 1940. Of this total, the overwhelming majority were Poles and Jews with both Belarusians and Ukrainians in the minority.1474 However, in 1940, a branch of the Belarusian aid committee began work in the region. Belarusian nationalist goals mirrored those of the Ukrainians – to nationalize the territory in collaboration with the occupation authorities in order to begin the envisioned process of future state formation; to organize a piedmont from the ground up. 1474 AP-L, DGdDL, sygn. 71, Biała Podlaska Kreishauptmann to Lublin Governor office chief, August 13, 1940, p. 17. The population statistics for Biała Podlaska as of August 1940 were reported as follows: Poles – 13,630, Jews – 7, 157, Ukrainians – 110, Ruthenians – 38, Belarusians – 23. 1475 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 24, folder 8, Zvidomlennia z poïzdky do Biloï Pidlias’koï, January 22, 1941. 1476 Ibid. 1477 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 24, folder 8, Bilorus’koї aktsiї v bil’s’ko-pidlias’komu poviti, March 2, 1942; AAN, RdGG, sygn. 429, Weissrusische Aktion Pidlasche, February 21, 1941, pp. 329-332. The Belarusian Autocephalous Orthodox Church was approved by the Germans in Minsk on August 30, 1942. As such, like its Ukrainian counterpart in the GG, it naturally assumed an anti-Russophile, anti-Soviet position. See Rein, The Kings and the Pawns…, 191-198. Concerned reports provided by the Ukrainian aid committee described Belarusian work. As in their case, the German authorities also allowed Belarusians some favorable privileges in comparison to the Polish majority. They, like the Ukrainians, were placed in positions of local administration. The report noted that the presence of Belarusians “on our [Ukrainian] territories” should be regarded as a natural penetration of foreigners from neighboring ethnographic territory, describing their activists as “fake.” These Belarusians were said to be under heavy Polish influence – using the Polish language, marrying Poles, sending their children to Polish schools or raising them in the Polish national spirit. Furthermore, some recruited for work in the local Belarusian committee were reported to have changed their national identity in circumstances beneficial to them. For example, Poles were said to have declared themselves Belarusians if only to secure their safety from German oppression or “to cover-up their activity.”1475 Ukrainian nationalists believed Belarusian nationalist activity to be an unnaturally motivated ethnic movement, claiming activists were “imported from Warsaw” with no local core. One such activist was described in a report as a Polish confidant who before the war was arrested and imprisoned as a Belarusian activist and who, upon his release, became a confidant. Their work was believed to center upon enticing the least ethnically conscious Ukrainians to register as Belarusians. In exchange, local Belarusian administrators promised to dismiss them from compulsory work, to lower harvest quotas or to serve as intermediary in other issues with the German authorities.1476 Furthermore, Belarusian representatives in Warsaw also approached Metropolitan Dionysius and petitioned him to create a Belarusian Orthodox diocese with a Belarusian hierarch in the Podlasie region; one to be eventually attached to the future Belarusian Autocephalous Orthodox Church.1477 Simply put, in parts of the Podlasie region, Ukrainians felt pressure from the occupier’s divide and conquer policy. Kubiiovych looked to check Belarusian nationalist desires and ensure they did not overlap with UTsK ones. During a 1940 trip to Warsaw, he met with the leader of the GG Belarusian aid committee and nationalist movement, Mikalai Shchors. It is possible German intelligence prompted such a meeting if only to judge the possibility for Ukrainian-Belarusian cooperation. Kubiiovych later recalled that although he and Ukrainians in general were sympathetic to the Belarusian cause, seeing in them a subsequent and natural anti-Soviet partner, he could not support their base of operations being formed at the expense of their movement. According to an aid committee report, talks with Shchors convinced Kubiiovych of the absurdity of Belarusian activity in the region.1478 In June 1940 Shchors also spoke with Ukrainian aid committee representatives in Biała Podlaska. There, he presented the Belarusians' national desires and proposed collaboration. The Ukrainians believed they could work together with the Belarusians but only through seeing them as an émigré, non-native group – a junior partner; one which would avoid initiating in any nationalization activities on what they saw as ethnically-Ukrainian areas.1479 1478 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 24, folder 8, Zvidomlennia z poïzdky do Biloï Pidlias’koï, January 22, 1941; Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Heneral'nii Huberniї, 403; Pasternak, Narys istoriї Kholmshchyny i Pidliashshia, 264. 1479 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 24, folder 8, Zvidomlennia z poïzdky do Biloï Pidlias’koï, January 22, 1941. 1480 AAN, RdGG, sygn. 429, Abschrift – Bericht des Ordenspriesters Hermogen (Kywatschuk), March 3, 1941, pp. 301-302. Hermogen noted that parish priests, when implementing the Ukrainian direction in Orthodox ecclesiastical life, explained this to their parishioners as being necessary or that “it must be.” 1481 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 18, folder 20, Organisationsabteilung: Bericht für den Monat August 1941, September 3, 1941. Even though Kubiiovych described Belarusian activity simply as “an incident,” aid committee notes from the region voiced genuine concern. Alongside petitioning Dionysius for a Belarusian Orthodox diocese, Ukrainian reports also noted of Belarusian nationals work toward undermining Ilarion’s reforms in the Chełm-Podlasie diocese. In his report to Dionysius, Hermogen claimed demands for a separate diocese increased following the ukrainization of the Orthodox Church in Chełm. In Podlasie, he noted, even though the Ukrainian language was introduced for worship, it was against the will of the population there; forced upon the faithful. He even wrote of instances in which Ukrainian auxiliary police officers attended church services in order to be sure the celebrant used the Ukrainian language during worship. Often, he stated, when they left, the priest changed languages. He strongly believed the desires of the locals was not a reaction to Belarusian diversion but rather “a biological reaction of the population who wishes to preserve their religious sanctuaries, the traditions of old, and wants to take care of their wishes in the construction of ecclesiastical life.”1480 In some borderland villages, the Belarusian movement was reported to not only be tolerated but also supported by villagers. Lacking native Belarusians, a report mentioned of them simply being “imported” into areas which lacked Ukrainian schools or administrators.1481 The Biała Podlaska aid committee report also mentioned of Belarusians wójts travelling to Ukrainian villages and spreading propaganda; threatening for example, that Ilarion planned to introduce the Greek Catholic rite among Orthodox Ukrainians or that Ukrainians lost the favor of the German occupiers. Additionally, they also threatened inhabitants with exile to the Carpathian Mountain regions for whoever admitted to Ukrainian ethnicity. As a result, many locals registered in German labor offices as Belarusians. Furthermore, Ukrainians felt weary toward the German occupation authorities who also promoted, exploited and collaborated with another ethnic group. To avoid competing for the favor of the occupiers, it was suggested to cleanse ethnically-mixed territory; ceding Ukrainian-inhabited territory in Siedlce County for Belarusians in favor of their relinquishing Ukrainian-inhabited territory in Podlasie. As argued, this would separate the two national groups and prevent mutual competition over the occupier’s favor.1482 1482 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 24, folder 8, Zvidomlennia z poïzdky do Biloï Pidlias’koï, January 22, 1941. 1483 AP-L, DGdDL, sygn. 132, Bericht des der Berater des UHA beim Gouverneur des Distrikt Lublin, June 4, 1942, pp. 17-18; LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 24, folder 7, Zvit z poїzdky na naradu Komitetiv v Kholmi, September 25, 1942; “Nerozviazana problema,” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 3 no 240 (October 28, 1942), pp. 1-2. 1484 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 24, folder 8, Zvit z poїzdky do Biloї Pidlias’koї iaka vidbulasia v dniakh vid 19.8 do 14.9.1942, October 10, 1942; Veryha, The Correspondence… vol. 2, 1485 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 17, folder 26, Protokol narady, December 14, 1942. Assessing the overall situation in Biała Podlaska County, Stepan Baran proposed further measures to win over kalakuty, ones meant to directly include them in Ukrainian life. According to him, it was inherently necessary to pull them into local educational or cooperative structures. To assist in this, he proposed organizing a kalakut bureau alongside the aid committee branch in either Lublin or Chełm. He echoed these thoughts in an article which appeared in Krakivs’ki Visti, in which he described the matter as an “unresolved issue.”1483 Most telling for the kalakut question was an UTsK report from a field trip to Biała Podlaska in late 1942. It predicted that sooner or later the Ukrainian campaign would ultimately fail. This conclusion was based on increased fear among locals of Polish acts of revenge “of which they [Ukrainians] hear at every step from the lips of their eternal enemy, the Poles.” In many instances, the report claimed those who declared themselves to be Ukrainian, in fear of threats and future reprisals by the ever present Poles, again declared themselves Polish. The constant incursion of Polish or Soviet partisans into the region undoubtedly contributed to their fears. A detailed report to the Lublin district authorities described those incursions as anti-Ukrainian in character. In particular, teachers were targeted and robbed. They also forbid, under the threat of further harassment, parents from continuing to send their children to Ukrainian schools.1484 However, a report by Holeiko to Kubiiovych was not as grim. It noted that numbers of kalakuty interested in Ukrainian Kennkarte remained numerically high. According to him, they were still interested, at least theoretically, in returning to the Ukrainian motherland.1485 However, later wartime events did not make nationalization and UTsK protection of Ukrainians in the region any easier. 5.5 – The Galicia District: Expansion of the Occupation and Welfare Apparatus East The months and weeks leading up to the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 – code-named Operation Barbarossa – were closely monitored by the Ukrainian nationalists. Throughout the eastern GG, the OUN observed the increasing concentration of Wehrmacht forces along the Soviet border. To them, this was a clear sign of imminent war between Germany and the USSR. Kubiiovych recalled this state creating a nervous atmosphere among the GG Ukrainians, optimistically recalling: “events approached which could solve the fate of the Ukrainians.”1486 1486 Kubiiovych, Meni 85, 96. 1487 Rossoliński-Liebe, Stepan Bandera. The Life and Afterlife of a Ukrainian Nationalist…, 180-181; Motyka, Ukraińska partyzantka, 89; Kosyk, Ukraїna i Nimechchyna…, 113. Motyka also noted that the anti-Soviet uprising by the nationalist Lithuanian Activist Front and its subsequent declaration of Lithaunian statehood on June 23, 1941 in Kaunas may have also caused the Banderites to act hastily in their plans. As he described, the self-proclaimed Lithaunian government, never officially recognized by the Germans, lasted about 6 weeks before disbanding in August 1941. In his postwar memoirs, Kost’ Pan’kivs’kyi addressed these two examples, ones he viewed as closest to that of the Ukrainians. As he commented, neither states had the ability to gain ‘independence’ on their own while “we thought at that time that they were in a much better position, because both Hitler and Mussolini not only ‘recognized,’ but – to tell the truth – granted them ‘independence.’” Pan’kivs’kyi, Roky nimets’koї okupatsiї, 178. The atmosphere propelled nationalists to begin preparations for an advance east onto what they considered undisputed Ukrainian ethnographic territory. Both fractions viewed a conflict between the two continental superpowers as posing the perfect opportunity for the rise of a Ukrainian state; envisioning the two powers destroying each other in a repeat of the World War I scenario and creating a vacuum for nation-states to emerge. So the thought went. The Banderites, who, following their official split with the Melnykites at the second great congress of the Ukrainian nationalists in Kraków, assumed an overt fascist style of leadership, political platform on the basis of the Nazis, and, from 1940 to mid-1941, a positive attitude toward the Germans. They viewed themselves as the next East Central European far-right movement in line for autonomy; their predecessors the Slovaks having received their ‘state’ in March 1939 while the Croatian Revolutionary Organization (or Ustasha) received one in April 1941. These events, especially the latter, fostered their belief that the new European order under Nazi Germany would need independent, ultra-nationalist states, especially a Ukrainian one. However, a note circulated in the German foreign ministry expressly stated that the Slovak and Croat examples were not to serve as models for a Greater Ukraine.1487 Moreover, the Banderites viewed their mission of statehood as a “Ukrainian national revolution.” They sought to mobilize the entire nation in order to create totalitarian power on all Ukrainian territories as they needed strong political and military organization. The envisioned political vacuum that would be left by the retreating Soviets was seen as the crucial moment in which they would establish the organs of a state and, through this fait accompli, welcome the German army and express their desires to collaborate with them. This was to be done in Lwów, the former capital of the West Ukrainian People’s Republic. Soon thereafter, new civil administrators and officials would be nominated; all of who would swear allegiance to Bandera.1488 1488 Klymyshyn, V pokhid do voli vol. 1, 303-304; Rossoliński-Liebe, Stepan Bandera. The Life and Afterlife of a Ukrainian Nationalist…, 181-183. 1489 The memorandum was co-signed by the head of the UNO on Reich territory Colonel Tymish Omel'chenko, a veteran of the UNR army. He, like Kubiiovych, also empathized with the Melnykites who exerted influence on the UNO. 1490 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 26, folder 17, Denkschrift betreffend die Bedeutung der Ukraine für die Neoordnung Europas, June 10, 1941. Kubiiovych’s preparations for the looming conflict included echoes of nationalist rhetoric mixed with hopes and pledges of a German-Ukrainian alliance; thoughts he sent in a memorandum prepared by “apolitical” Ukrainians to Hitler.1489 Additionally, the document served to remind the Germans of who the one, true Ukrainian nationalists were – the Melnykites. Arguments were made to place Ukraine in the Führer’s new European order as the old Versailles one was seen to be destroyed. Of importance, it read, was placing German circles in contact with the Melnykite political center. Alongside the will of the Ukrainian people to join the Germans “to whom they always felt a sincere affection, a great power which always fully understood their political ambitions,” Ukrainian territory would supply the continent with food. Mineral deposits, raw materials, transportation routes, by both, land and sea, to petroleum deposits in the Kuban and Caucasus regions would increase further continental needs and production. The Ukrainian people, the memo went on, were prepared to take on all necessary obligations in the new Germanic order – being both, a partner and the bulwark of that order in the east in exchange for being “the true designers and masters of their state.”1490 How would this future Ukrainian state look and what territory would be included? How far would it span and how would it be governed? This was also clearly outlined. Territorial basis for a state was based on ethnographic context and historical tradition – spanning to the northern coast of the Black Sea in the south; to the Kuban region extending south of Sochi to the Georgian border in the southeast; to the Caucasus and the western parts of Kazakhstan southeast of the Caspian Sea. In the west, it would stretch as far as the mouth of the Danube River (something, the memo noted would inevitably be altered by a future government) and in the north along the Narew-Iaselda-Pripet-Dnieper Rivers line. As such, Ukrainian ethnographic territory – including Subcarpathian Rus’, Bessarabia and Bukovina – and the prewar territory of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic would be included in this envisioned state Interestingly enough, regions outside of ethnographic Ukraine, for example territory in the Caucasus and western Kazakhstan, were designated as the future Ukrainian state’s Lebensraum and sphere of colonization where all those deemed “Mongolian tribes” would be assimilated “to preserve the purity of the Ukrainian race” in order to prevent the weakening of the future state by culturally alien races. To administer such a vast state, the Führerprinzip style of leadership, with all authority vested in the hands of one leader, was proposed. A nationalist party – the OUN – would be the only form of political organization and order while concurrently serving as the factor in education and social organization; its main goal being the reconstruction of an independent Ukrainian state within the framework of the new European order. Emphatically, it concluded that nationalist authority lay in the hands of Andrii Mel’nyk “who today undoubtedly enjoys the greatest respect among the Ukrainians.”1491 1491 Ibid. 1492 Rudnyts’kyi, “Chomu my khochemo samostiinoї Ukraїny?” in Harbarchuk (ed), Stepan Rudnyts’kyi. Chomu my khochemo…, 36-37. 1493 Wladimir Kubijowytsch, “Die Verteilung der Bevölkerung in der Ukraine,” Beiträge zur Ukrainekunde Heft II (1934), 5; Kubiiovych, Terytoriia i liudnist’..., 8. 1494 “Ukraїntsi v Aziї v svitli nainovishoї statystyky,” Dilo no. 66 (March 26, 1929), 1. He signed the article “Dr. Volodymyr Kubiiovych – docent, Jagiellonian University.” Once the Soviet Union was dismantled, he suggested making immediate claims to those regions by beginning the colonization process. For a general discussion of the imperialist, geopolitical, ideological concepts on the OUN during the interwar period, see Oleksandr Zaitsev, “Voienna doktryna Mykhaila Kolodzins’koho,” Ukraina Moderna no. 20 (2013) and Wojnar, “The Struggle for Dominance in Eurasia…” The Ukrainian state concept proposed in the memorandum co-signed by Kubiiovych exemplified an imperialist paradox: a stateless and landless people laying claims to territory in no way administered or belonging to them. Imperialist visions were not something Kubiiovych voiced if only to “speak Nazi” or to conform to the nationalists. They fell in line with his geographical background and, more importantly, influences stemming from Stepan Rudnyts’kyi’s definitions of “natural territory” or Lebensraum of the Ukrainian nation and race. According to him, Ukraine was the land inhabited by Ukrainians, either historically or currently. This translated into what he termed an “enormous, rich, and once glorious country.” This in turn meant territory stretching from the Caspian steppes, Kuban and northern Black Sea basin in the east to the ethnographic lands in the west as comprising the living space of the Ukrainian nation.1492 Kubiiovych built on these concepts in his prewar scholarship, presenting statistical data and defining his vision of Ukrainian ethnographic territory. In one article, he explained: “By Ukraine we mean the areas in which the Ukrainians constitute the majority of the population, regardless of the political boundaries, that is, only ethnographic Ukraine…” His understanding of ‘ethnographic Ukraine’ stretched as far east as the western Caucasus’ including the Kuban region. As such, in his view, Ukrainian territory lay in Europe and Inner Asia with historical circumstances keeping them divided.1493 In an article published in Dilo in 1929, he presented Ukrainian claims toward central Asian territory. According to him, territories there with nominal Ukrainian populations constituted a colonial base where Ukrainians, for example from Soviet Ukraine, could be sent since “this Central Asian space is very seldom populated and can receive millions of people.” In this way, those territories would be reunited with “European Ukraine” – ethnographic Ukraine including the territory around the Caspian Sea and western Caucasus region. He even argued central Asian territory spanning to the Altai Mountains, the Mongolian border, and the sands of the Turan region as part of Ukrainian national territory. They in turn were necessary for future Ukrainian Lebensraum; to serve as a colonial, economic and communication laboratory. This could begin, he concluded, after the disintegration of the Soviet Union.1494 With the German attack and advance on the USSR, he dusted-off his vision to serve as a basis for negotiating future Ukrainian state borders as he and many others believed complete Soviet disintegration was imminent. In their preparations for invasion, and partly from their dissatisfaction with Melnykite efforts toward a more independent course, the Germans looked to exploit the young, more radical Banderites. This was done in several ways. Ukrainian students and teachers were recruited by the Germans to serve as translators. Whereas voluntary recruitment occurred in Berlin and Vienna, instances of mandatory recruitment occurred in the GG. There, teachers were given a simple choice – serve as translators or be sent to Auschwitz. In Jarosław, one week prior to the German attack, the public gymnasium there was closed as 10 teachers were recruited for the Wehrmacht.1495 1495 Knysh, B’ie dvanadsiata, 226-230; Mats’kiv, Z-nad Dnistra na Kanads’ki prerii, 134; Hansen (ed), Schulpolitik als Volkstumspolitik..., 383. 1496 Phillip-Christian Wachs, Der Fall Theodor Oberländer (1905-1998). Ein Lehrstück deutscher Geschichte (Frankfurt am Mein: Campus, 2000), 58-60; Ilnytzkij, Deutschland und die Ukraine 1934-1945, vol. 2, 139-142. 1497 Bruder, „Der ukrainischen Staat erkämpfen oder streben!“..., 130-132. The Roland battalion marched through Romania into Eastern Galicia. They were tasked primarily with sabotage yet were also used to “clean-up” and secure areas in the wake of the advancing Wehrmacht and to organize Ukrainian “self-protection” in areas cleared by the army. In August 1941, the battalion was dissolved for political reasons. The men were To move east alongside the Wehrmacht, two armed battalions consisting primarily of some 350 Banderites were trained by the Abwehr in camps located in Silesia, Austria and the southeastern GG. Following the split within the OUN, Theodor Oberländer served as Abwehr contact with the Banderites in Kraków. Shortly after the collapse of Poland, he was transferred there in order to directly observe future events in Ukraine and, if necessary, influence them. The divorce within the OUN allowed him to collaborate with the radical, younger Banderites; recruiting them for planned subversive and on-the-ground work against the Soviets – spreading propaganda, infiltration, and influencing Ukrainian inhabitants as well as serving as translators. Iln’yts’kyi believed those battalions were envisioned by the German military command as the trusted link or bridge between the German army and Ukrainian insurgents.1496 Conversely, the Banderites looked to gain legitimacy and administrative power through German collaboration. These battalions were intended to form the nucleus for the future nationalist state’s army. One battalion, Sondergruppe Nachtigall, was led by Abwehr agent Hans Albrecht Herzner; his deputy being Oberländer. Herzner’s Ukrainian subordinate was Captain Roman Shukhevych. Hans Koch was also employed in the organization of some 330 Ukrainians, primarily Banderites but also former Carpathian Sich soldiers, in the unit. The second battalion, Organisation Roland, consisted of some 350 Ukrainians students and workers from Austria; primarily Banderites. Here, Riko Iarii represented the Banderites, supervising the soldiers. They wore old Czechoslovak military uniforms. This caused some Ukrainians to correlate the Roland men with the tradition of the 1918 Ukrainian Galician Army. As Franziska Bruder noted, they attempted to place a Ukrainian tone on their German-sponsored battalion.1497 Banderite Mykola Klymyshyn assessed the German training they received as disarmed and in October 1941 were transported to Frankfurt on the Oder where they were integrated into Schutzmannschaftsbataillon 201. 1498 Bolianovs’kyi, Ukraїns’ki viis’kovi formuvannia..., 51-62; Klymyshyn, V pokhid do voli vol. 1, 297-301. According to Abwehr documents, in the event of prolonged or unforseen military complications with the Red Army, the Roland battalion was to be used for diversionary and sabotage purposes – cutting telephone and communication lines, arresting and removing commissars or army officers, attacks on supply columns, destroying aircrafts and air fields. Müller, et al (eds), Das Amt Ausland/Abwehr…, 217-218. 1499 Quoted in Rossoliński-Liebe, Stepan Bandera. The Life and Afterlife of a Ukrainian Nationalist…, 242. He cited a reprint of the Mel’nyk article appearing in Rohatyns’ke slovo (July 26, 1941). 1500 Mats’kiv, Z-nad Dnistra na Kanads’ki prerii, 134. 1501 Kerski and Kowalczyk, Wiek ukraińsko-polski..., 50. Osadchuk recalled his refusal to march with this initial Melnykite group east as a decision which saved his life since he later learned that those same Melnykites were ambushed and killed by Banderites on the banks of the Bug River. 1502 Bruder, “Den ukrainischen Staat erkämpfen oder sterben!“..., 127-130; Kazanivs’kyi, Shliakhom legendy..., 117-118; Klymyshyn, V pokhid do voli vol. 1, 54. Several Ukrainians from Warsaw also joing the task groups. overall positive as they gained far more practical experience in comparison to private, theoretical courses previously organized by the nationalists. This, he mentioned, later benefited the Ukrainian Insurgent Army which gained many Nachtigall and Roland members.1498 Mel’nyk also proved eager to collaborate with the Germans. In an article entitled “Ukraine and the new European Order,” he wrote of the natural alliance between Ukraine and Germany: “Because we believe that Adolf Hitler’s new order in Europe is the real order, and that Ukraine is one of the avant-gardes in Eastern Europe, and perhaps the most important factor in strengthening this new order.”1499 The Melnykites also went to work retraining former Ukrainian officers; veterans of the Polish-Ukrainian conflict as well as those from the former Galician army. Colonel Sushko oversaw training. Many of the men, like Tymotei Malts’kiv, were older than their Banderite counterparts and simply attended to avoid being labeled anti-Ukrainian. As he recalled: “So as not to expose myself to accusations of a lack of patriotism, I too attended the training, even though I was nearing 50 with arthritis and a weak heart; by then I was inept for military service.”1500 Osadchuk recalled his dismay over the blind belief of Melnykites he encountered in Chełm who attempted to convince him to cross the Bug River into Volhynia with them, in an effort to precede the Germans and prepare to greet them as hosts. Questioning whether the nationalists came to an agreement with Hitler, he was threatened with physical violence and told: “Listen, don’t be an idiot, come with us, the rest is none of your business.” Osadchuk chose to forgo joining.1501 Some nationalists who did not join the two German-backed battalions were recruited into pokhidne hrupy or task groups. Three such groups were formed along regional lines; north, central and south. Numbering some 800 men, they were created with the intent of organizing an administrative apparatus on liberated territory while also exposing and familiarizing locals to nationalist propaganda. Prior to his leaving in one such task force, Banderite Bohdan Kazanivs’kyi recalled how the words of Stepan Bandera during a meeting in Kraków provided him with the strength to survive as well as prepare for everything: “the Providnyk’s order was sacred to us and we were prepared to even walk through fire for the great idea of liberating Ukraine.”1502 Among them were: poet Olena Teliha and her husband Mykhailo, a former officer of the UNR army. Szagała and Wiszka, Ukraińcy w Warszawie, 134. 1503 Motyka, Ukraińska partyzantka, 81-82; 92-93; Rossoliński-Liebe, Stepan Bandera. The Life and Afterlife of a Ukrainian Nationalist…, 195; Kosyk, The Third Reich and Ukraine…, 94. 1504 BA-MA, RW 5/498, Das Tagebuch von Erwin Lahousen, p. 22. 1505 BA-MA, RW 5/52, UdSSR no. 79, July 17, 1941, p. 141; Shimon Redlich, Together and Apart in Brzezany: Poles, Jews and Ukrainians, 1919-1945 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002), 105-106. 1506 Stepan Kalamunets’kyi, “Iavoriv u 1939-1944rr” in Wasyl Lev and Volodymyr Barahura (eds), Iavorivshchyna i Krakovechchyna. Regional’nyi istorychno-memuarnyi zbirnyk (New York-Paris-Sydney-Toronto: Shevchenko Scientific Society, 1984), 365. Traversing throughout Eastern Galicia, task groups were to organize and spread the Banderite agenda as far as Kyiv, Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk. This was to be done in concert with underground Banderites in Eastern Galicia. Estimates reported some 20 thousand underground – 5 thousand in Volhynia, 13 thousand in Eastern Galicia with some 1,200 in Lwów itself. Those in Eastern Galicia along with the Banderite task forces began seizing power; what was the start of their “national revolution.” While building their envisioned state administration, Banderites also organized units of a national militia. They were to protect newly-appointed administrators by killing all opponents – Poles, Soviets and Jews – on blacklists prepared prior to the outbreak of the “revolution.”1503 The German attack on June 22, 1941 sent the Soviets into a defensive. Riko Iarii, the longstanding trusted man of the Abwehr placed alongside the Roland battalion, sent a telegram to Hitler requesting the Führer permit the nationalists to join the Wehrmacht’s ranks and fight for Ukrainian liberation.1504 German press reporters travelling behind the advancing army front lines described the sights they saw: As we crossed the demarcation line, triumphal arches were erected in the villages by the population with love. In addition to the already dried foliage flags in the blue and yellow Ukrainian colors and the Ukrainian coat of arms, the trident, were portraits of the Ukrainian national poet Shevchenko, apparently cut out of magazines. In Ukrainian, posters hung on the arches declaring “Long live Hitler, the liberator of Ukraine” or “Long live free Ukraine” or “Honor be the German leader - our liberator.” Similar scenes appeared in cities, towns and villages throughout Eastern Galicia.1505 In some, German military commanders forbid Ukrainians from displaying blue and yellow flags or forced them to dismantle triumphal arches bearing Bandera’s name.1506 As the front rapidly advanced east, life in Lwów soon turned into disarray. Long lines appeared in front of shops in efforts to purchase basic necessities: bread, sugar, flour, soap. Over the following days, as supplies dwindled, lines became longer. Soon, buying one loaf of bread meant standing in line for up to eleven hours. After the first week of war, water was becoming scarce. Like Ukrainians, many Poles also enthusiastically welcomed the new conflict. Cheerful and happy people appeared on Lwów streets. One Pole described his feelings: “Two partitioners, yesterday friends and today at war [with each other]. And still the conviction that the Germans will come and go while it appeared that the Russians were to stay here for eternity.” Such views stemmed from the recent anti-Polish experiences under the Soviet occupier: repressions, deportations, murder. Their expulsion at the hands of the Germans also calmed the most recent rumors being spread – Soviet plans for mid-June 1941 to deport some 70 thousand more Poles east.1507 1507 Barbara Mękarska-Kozłowska, Mozaika wspomnień (London: Polska Fundacja Kulturalna, 1994), 295-297; Grzegorz Hryciuk, Polacy we Lwowie 1939-1944. Życie codzienne (Warszawa: Książki i Wiedza, 2000), 206. 1508 Grzegorz Hryciuk, “Mordy w więzieniach lwowskich w czerwcu 1941 r.,” Wrocławskie Studia z Historii Najnowszej no. 7 (1999), 57-65. 1509 Yitzak Arad, et al (eds.), The Einsatzgruppen Reports: Selections from the Dispatches of the Nazi Death Squads’ Campaign against the Jews, July 1941 – January 1943 (New York: Holocaust Library, 1989), 2-3; Hryciuk, Polacy we Lwowie, 183. In her article, Wanda Wasilewska, a Polish communist and vehment Soviet sympathizer, warned the Poles of the enemy of Urkainian nationalism: “Let us not forget that the enemy is not only opposite us but that they also creep among us, exploiting every occasion to raise panic, spread false rumors and cause chaos. Yesterdays shootout from windows and roofs is the surest proof that all forms of nationalism, living on the sponsorship of fascism, will not back down from anything but instead desire to internally raise disorganization and laxity.” In the wake of the disorder caused by the German offensive, NVKD and Soviet police units carried out all pending prison death sentences in and around Lwów. In the city itself, some 108 persons were summarily executed. On June 25, the NKVD undertook the decision to forego their planned evacuation of prisoners. Instead, two days later, they commenced mass, summary executions of political and criminal prisoners. Bodies were quickly buried in prison basements or simply left where they fell in the wake of the hasty Soviet retreat. The majority of victims were Ukrainians with Poles and some Jews also executed. In total, the NKVD butchered over 3 thousand prisoners before their retreat.1508 Two days after the attack, Ukrainian nationalists in Lwów engaged in armed subversion against Soviet troops moving throughout the city. One NKVD report mentioned of a hailstorm of shots raining down upon them from windows, attics, lofts, and churches. Through a campaign of chaos and panic sewn behind Soviet lines, these guerilla tactics aimed to lead to the nationalist takeover of the city. Prior to their departure the NKVD and Red Army suppressed the diversion. Many Ukrainians were arrested while armed Soviet patrols cruised the streets, arresting or executing suspects. An Einsatzgruppe operational report sent to security police and SD offices in Berlin noted of the suppression of the Ukrainian insurrection and of its consequences – about 3 thousand shot by the NKVD, the prison in which they were housed was burned while only an estimated 20 percent of the Ukrainian intelligentsia remained.1509 On the evening of June 29, the Soviets pulled out of Lwów, leaving their bloody mess behind. The next morning, the first German units reached the city. Eyewitnesses described Ukrainians greeting them enthusiastically: “the Ukrainians welcomed the Germans with flowers, laughter, joy, full of hope and illusions, as rescuers and liberators.” Ukrainian flags flew beside swastika ones while Banderite posters calling for a “Ukraine for the Ukrainians” were plastered everywhere. That same day units of the Nachtigall battalion and other nationalist task forces entered the city; the former guarding public buildings while the latter disseminated flags and posters. Ukrainian onlookers joyously welcomed their countrymen in German uniforms; showering them with flowers while some even genuflected and prayed as they passed by. In their ecstasy, some even called the Nachtigall men the “Stepan Bandera battalion.” Myroslav Semchyshyn recalled how the sight of the troops restored a feeling of Ukrainianess among some Lwów inhabitants: “Suddenly, as if by waving a magical wand, our national ‘I’ was reborn, albeit by the boots of an aggressor.”1510 Nationalist Kost’ Pan’kivs’kyi, a native Lvovian politician active in Ukrainian welfare under the Soviet occupation, described how he saw Banderites during their “national revolution:” 1510 Semchyshyn, Z knyhy leva…, 90; Rossoliński-Liebe, Stepan Bandera: The Life and Afterlife of a Ukrainian Nationalist…, 198. 1511 Pan’kivs’kyi, Roky nimets’koї okupatsii, 13. John Armstrong claimed Pan’kivs’kyi was a minor UNDO politician during the interwar period. Armstrong, Ukrainian Nationalism, 90-91. David Rich asserted that while not an OUN member, he was part of the Socialist Radical Party. David A. Rich, “Armed Ukrainians in L’viv: Ukrainian Militia, Ukrainian Police, 1941 to 1942.” Canadian-American Slavic Studies vol. 48 (2014), 275fn14. 1512 Mick, Lemberg, Lwów, L’viv…, 289; Eliyahu Jones, Żydzi Lwowa w okresie okupacji 1939-1945 (Łódź: Oficyna Bibliofilów, 1999), 46-47; Adam Dotzauer, Lwowskie wczesne dojrzewanie (Wrocław: Sudety, 2000), 28-29. 1513 BA-MA, RW 5/52, UdSSR no. 78, July 12, 1941, p. 139. [they appeared as] people who for years had contacts with the Germans, who were ideologically linked with fascism and Nazism, who in word and print and deed had for years been preaching totalitarianism and an orientation toward Berlin and Rome… Those who our community regarded as German partners and potential leaders of national life.1511 Adam Dotzauer, a Pole, saw all a different scenario. A Ukrainian girl who ran up to a German column to welcome them with flowers in hand was instead greeted by gunshots at her feet. A German medic quickly rushed to her aid. Witnessing this, he recalled understanding German attitudes toward the inhabitants as “don’t push towards us. You have nothing to find here.”1512 German reports following the occupation of the city also described social reactions to their arrival. A group of journalists, who travelled into the city several weeks after its capture, described the delight of the local Ukrainians. One report mentioned of “small, shabby” triumphal arches greeting German liberators. Some were converted for the oncoming Wehrmacht. In the haste of the German advance, Soviet flags or hammer and sickle emblems hung alongside new swastika emblems as some did not have enough time to remove what by then were the remnants of the previous occupation.1513 Ukrainian nationalists believed the German invasion to be the beginning of their desired Ukrainian state. According to a Banderite report intercepted by the Soviets, Kubiiovych arrived in Lwów as early as June 22 or 23. There he presumably met with Lev Rebet, a member of one of the Banderite task forces which followed the Wehrmacht into Eastern Galicia, proposing to share roles between the UTsK and OUN in administering Eastern Galician lands. The Soviet note claimed Kubiiovych wished to perform a similar role there as in the GG – to be the sole representative of Ukrainian interests and matters before the German occupation authorities. Whereas Rebet refused to give any concrete assurances, Kubiiovych was said to have remained in the city several days to settle the matter.1514 Several conclusions can be inferred from this incident. Kubiiovych was secretly transported to Lwów, presumably facilitated by his colleagues in the Abwehr, with the intent of either testing the ground for a consensus or fully coming to terms with leading nationalists. With the dust still clearing a consensus would certainly have been seen as a natural fusion of nationalists under German supervision. Conversely, any use of force against the Banderites would undoubtedly have turned them against the Germans during this critical moment. Likewise this may have served as a tactic to corral determined nationalists from becoming incontrollable in the days when a vacuum for administrative control emerged. Interestingly enough, this episode does not appear in Kubiiovych’s postwar memoirs. 1514 “No. 2.31: Otchet neustanovlennogo litsa Ia. Stets’ko o rabote po organizatsii gosudarstvennoi administratsii na territorii zapadnykh oblastei Ukrainy (July 22, 1941)” in Ukrainskie natsionalisticheskie organizatsii… vol. 1, 384. 1515 Armstrong, Ukrainian Nationalism, 79. The Banderites wished to see this “liberation ceremony” conducted in the majestic opera house. However, it had already been occupied by the Germans. 1516 Rossoliński-Liebe, Stepan Bandera: The Life and Afterlife of a Ukrainian Nationalist…, 199-200; 1517 John-Paul Himka, “The Lviv Pogrom of 1941: The Germans, Ukrainian Nationalists, and the Carnival Crowd,” Canadian Slavonic Papers vol. 53 no. 2/4 (June-Sept-Dec 2011), 227-229. 1518 Kai Struve, “Einsatzkommando Lemberg, ukraińska milicja i ‘dni Petlury’ 25 i 26 lipca 1941 roku” in Andrzej A. Zięba (ed), OUN, UPA i zagłada Żydów (Kraków: Księgarnia Akademicka, 2016), 266-268. At eight o’clock in the evening on June 30, following their entry into Lwów, a group of Banderites declared the creation of a Ukrainian state; what they saw as the apogee of their “national revolution.” In the city’s Prosvita building, Iaroslav Stets’ko, representing Bandera who remained in the GG, proclaimed independence on behalf of the OUN-B.1515 Aside from guaranteeing order and pledging subordination in the near future to authority in Kyiv, Stets’ko pledged to closely collaborate with Nazi Germany in building the new European order and defeating Bolshevism. Hans Koch and Wilhelm Ernst zu Eikern attended the meeting; albeit arriving late. Koch welcomed the meeting only for celebrating the liberation from Bolshevism, not recognizing the proclamation. The two then reminded those assembled only Hitler could decide whether a Ukrainian state could come into existence. This, they claimed, was no time for a Ukrainian fait accompli. The gathering closed with salutes in honor Bandera, Hitler, Greek Catholic Metropolitan Andrii Sheptyts’kyi and the singing of Shche ne vmerla Ukraїna.1516 Earlier that day, Shukhevych, the highest-ranking Ukrainian in the Nachtigall battalion, along with several other Banderites began forming the nationalist militia. Along with Stets’ko and others recent arrivals, new members were being recruited and registered at the courtyard on St. George’s Hill when the Nachtigall battalion was encamped.1517 They were then sent to strategic points throughout the city. That same day, Lwów’s Wehrmacht administrator colonel Karl Wintergerst subjected the militia to his authority, instructing them to confiscate arms and radio receivers. Several weeks later, he divided the militia into a municipal one, placed under the temporary disposition of Lwów mayor Iurii Polians’kyi, and one “for special assignments” attached to Einsatzkommando Lemberg.1518 In addition, Banderites also distributed leaflets and placards with order issued by Ivan Klymiv, OUN homeland executive for western Ukraine. In them, he called on Ukrainians to destroy their enemies – Moscow, Poles, Hungarians and Jews – with arms in hand. As commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian National Revolutionary army, he called on all OUN forces to report to him. He issued a second placard in which he introduced “military revolutionary tribunals” to issue verdicts against all offenses “against the Ukrainian Nation and State.” Collective responsibility of anti-Ukrainian acts by “families and nationals” would be met with punishment. These included: death penalties, imprisonment, concentration camp incarceration and property confiscation. According to Carynnyk, these calls directly incited anti-Jewish pogroms.1519 1519 Carynnyk, “Foes of Our Rebirth…,” 332. 1520 “Horod L’viv Vil’nyi!” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 2 no 141 (July 1, 1941), 1. 1521 Veryha, The Correspondence..., 323. 1522 “Bol’shevyts’kyi pohrom u L’vovi,” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 2 no. 146 (July 6, 1941), 6. 1523 Golczewski, “Shades of Grey…,” 131-133. The pages of Krakivs’ki Visti were filled with reports from Lwów. One day following the city’s liberation, an article wrote of the Wehrmacht removing once and for all the specter of Judeo-Bolshevism: “No more militia officers of bare-footed Red Army soldiers, no more commissars or sadistic NKVD officers! The Jewish horde, associated with Muscovite-Bolshevik state authority, no longer mocks L’viv.”1520 The Ukrainian character of occupied Eastern Galicia prompted Kubiiovych to correct the editors of the Polish GG newspaper Goniec Krakowski from using the term ‘Eastern Lesser Poland’ in their articles and descriptions. In his letter to the editor, dated July 15, he bemoaned how the use of that designation signaled the purported return of the Polish character to the region. To avoid any attempts at “Polish imperialist tendencies,” he suggested censoring its use, instead only using the term ‘Galicia’ in describing the region.1521 After seeing the effects of the last days of Soviet occupation in the opened city prisons, Poles and Ukrainians arbitrarily accused Jews of denouncing their countrymen to the NKVD. A Krakivs’ki Visti reporter later described the grizzly scenes in an anti-Soviet, anti-Semitic and anti-Polish tone: “Throughout the city streets lay the massacred remains with traces of the beastly, sadistic NKVD as well as the animal-like Jewish-Polish horde.”1522 In many Galician towns where NKVD massacres occurred, anti-Jewish pogroms followed. Conversely, pogroms erupted in areas where no massacres took place; breaking out in the wake of the Soviet retreat. The number of pogrom victims throughout Eastern Galicia is estimated to be some 12 thousand.1523 Days after the German and Banderite arrival in Lwów, pogroms erupted targeting the city’s Jews. Some were organized and incited by the Germans. Others were spontaneous, occurring either in places before the Germans arrived or in areas not under their occupation. One on July 1 took place while Nachtigall soldiers sang German and Ukrainian military and revolutionary songs on the radio. Germans and the recently organized Banderite militia began arresting or beating Jews and inciting onlookers to do the same. They were exploited for forced work, such as removing the decaying corpses from the city’s prisons. Over a two-day period – July 1-2 – about 2,500 to 3 thousand people, mostly Jews were rounded-up to an athletic field in the city. The next day, Einsatzkommando units shot most of them in a forest near the city while Ukrainian militia men provided security and buried the dead.1524 1524 Rich, “Armed Ukrainians in L’viv…,” 285; Struve, “Einsatzkommando Lemberg, ukraińska milicja i ‘dni Petlury’ 25 i 26 lipca 1941 roku,” 265. 1525 BA-MA, RW 5/52, UdSSR no. 78, July 12, 1941, p. 136. 1526 Pohl, Nationalsozialistische Judenverfolgung…, 54-67; Himka, “The Lviv Pogrom of 1941...,“ 211-219. For an account of the Jewish “street cleaning brigades” in Vienna, see Snyder, Black Earth…, 82-84. Zygmunt Klukowski described several such street cleaning episodes following the German occupation of Poland, particularly in the southeastern Lublin district town of Szczebrzeszyn in October 1939. Klukowski, Diary from the Years of Occupation, 38-40. 1527 Tarnavs’kyi, Literaturnyi L’viv 1939-1944, 67. 1528 Quoted in Hryciuk, “Mordy w więzieniach lwowskich w czerwcu 1941r...,” 68; Philip Friedman, Roads to Extinction: Essays on the Holocaust (New York and Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1980), 183-184. For an eye-witness account of time in Brygidki prison under Soviet occupation and the later events immediately following German advance into the city, see Wanda Ossowska, Przeżyłam… Lwów-Warszawa 1939-1946 (Kraków: Wydawnictwo WAM, 2009), 98-159. This militiaman cordon-style of punishment was also corroborated by General Stefan Grot-Rowecki in his report to his supperiors in London. “Zagłada żydów w Wilnie, Białymstoku, Lwowie i Warszawie (September 21, 1941)” in Armia Krajowa w Dokumentach 1939-1945, vol. 6 (London: Studium Polski Podziemnej, 1989), 200. 1529 “Zagłada żydów w Wilnie, Białymstoku, Lwowie i Warszawie (September 21, 1941)” in Armia Krajowa w Dokuentach 1939-1945 vol. 6, 200 At times, the pogroms took on ritualized forms – Jewish men and women were made to clean the streets; an activity which the Nazis first made Vienna Jews perform and later Polish Jews in the GG. German reporters who visited the city were told by Ukrainians to disappear from the streets when signs of Jewish pogroms increased as the Jews were said to have been the ones who denounced Ukrainians to the Bolsheviks.1525 To visibly corroborate this idea, Jews were made to perform rituals that visually associated them with communism. Women were publicly humiliated and cruelly beaten by pogromists including, what John-Paul Himka termed as the “carnival crowd;” groups either watching and enjoying or actively participating in the pogroms.1526 Artist and literary poet Ostap Tarnavs’kyi recalled nearly becoming victim to a mob searching for Jews to beat: “…because I did not have a blue and yellow armband on my sleeve; this was a sign of immunity.”1527 Jan Rogowski recalled seeing Ukrainian militiamen hunting and capturing Jews throughout the city; hurrying and beating them. At the prisons, where they were rounded up to remove the decomposing corpses of the NKVD victims, they were rushed through a cordon of militiamen, armed with truncheons, with their hands in the air. “And here truncheon blows and punches of Hitler’s faithful allies under the banner of the OUN rained down upon them… German officers looked upon this massacre with great interest.” Similar scenes occurred in other Eastern Galician cities.1528 General Grot-Rowecki, head of the Polish underground, in his report to London, noted of Polish and Ukrainian “scum” agitated by the Germans participating in the pogroms.1529 Scarcely had news of the German attack reached Kraków when Banderites there founded a Ukrainian National Council on June 22. From April 1941, they engaged in talks with non-nationalist, moderate Ukrainian political figures – especially the Petliurites in Warsaw – in efforts to gain broader support for their future government and to have a base of qualified Ukrainians from which to choose from for possible inclusion in their state administration. During such meetings in Chełm, Banderite Iaroslav Rak attempted to convince Petliurites and Hetmanites toward consolidation and choosing a delegation for the council in Kraków. By not inviting Melnykites to the meetings, Petliurites called them an escapade organized by “young punks.” Further deliberations ended in fiasco.1530 1530 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 24, folder 7, Zvit chyslo 6, June 12, 1941. 1531 Bruder, “Den ukrainischen Staat erkämpfen oder sterben!“..., 133; Ilnytzkyj, Deutschland und die Ukraine vol. 2, 145; 406-407. The German text of the address is found in Litopys Ukraїns’koї Povstans’koї Armiї vol. 21, ed. Petro J. Potichnyj (Toronto: Litopys UPA, 1991), 46-48. During the interwar period, Dr. Stepan Shukhevych, as a lawyer, defended many Banderites during their Polish state trials, including his relative Roman Shukhevych. Rossoliński-Liebe, Stepan Bandera: The Life and Afterlife of a Ukrainian Nationalist…, 151; 154. 1532 Litopys Ukraїns’koї Povstans’koї Armiї vol. 21, 20; Kulińska and Roliński (eds), Kwestia ukraińska i eksterminacja ludności polskiej..., 181. 1533 Knysh, B’ie dvanadtsiata…, 198-202. According to recollections cited by Knysh, Roman Ilnyts’kyi conducted the talks with Kubiiovych and other elading UTsK members. Kubiiovych briefly mentions the Ukrainian National Committee. He makes no mention of his talks with Ilnyts’kyi over joining it. Kubiiovych, Meni 85, 97. This is not to say that supporters were not found. During the councils’ founding meeting, a list containing the names of 113 Ukrainians who joined was presented. Banderite Volodymyr Horbovyi was selected chairman. Members included: Vasyl’ Mudryi, Stepan Baran, Roman Ilnyts’kyi, Iaroslav Rak and Stepan Shukhevych. They were to legitimize the Stets’ko proclamation into a broad political-social agreement among Ukrainians. Their address reiterated Stets’ko’s state proclamation, vowing: “[the] Ukrainian nation would... fight shoulder to shoulder with the German people and Wehrmacht for a new order in the world.”1531 To prevent council members from travelling east, German security instructions ordered detaining them in the GG. Frank refused receiving a council delegation on the pretext that it included non-GG “citizens.”1532 Melnykites were neither consulted nor allowed to join the Banderite-sponsored council. According to Knysh, the Banderites aimed to dominate Ukrainian social and political life while, through the council, they sought to weaken and ultimately eliminate the Melnykites from the entire national revolutionary process. The Banderites also approached Kubiiovych with the intention of convincing him to join their council. He declined, purportedly claiming he could not work with such “opportunists and pacifists” as Mudryi and others who prior to the war served as Polish parliamentarians.1533 It is move convincing that Kubiiovych refused to join the council for two, equally important reasons: to prevent damaging his position with the occupiers and to maintain good relations with the non-Banderite majority in the UTsK. A German security report concerning nationalist attempts toward organizing a pan-Ukrainian representation to “effect foreign policy” suggested the latter. Kubiiovych’s efforts in organizing Ukrainians, excluding the Banderites, were labelled the Kubijowitsch Aktion. Accoridng to UTsK circles, he was prepared to conciliate Ukrainians and unite them into a representative organ “in preparation for an independent Ukraine.” The body was to have a strong OUN character – administered according to the Führerprinzip and in close alliance with Germany. These sentiments appeared in a leaflet prepared for the deliberations.1534 In talks with Ukrainians, preliminary understandings were reached. However, when Kubiiovych attempted to force the Führerprinzip style and Mel’nyk as the supreme leader of the organ, talks soured as this went contrary to the democratic-elective style of leadership proposed by the other side. He argued accepting the Führerprinzip would entail a political trade-off in the future but to no avail. The note ultimately stated his negotiations had failed to achieve any results.1535 This was what he later called in his memoirs his participation in the Melnykite consolidation of power.1536 1534 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 17, folder 21, Pliatforma ziednannia vsikh tvorchykh natsional’nykh syl v oblychchi hriadiuchykh podii, May 25, 1941. 1535 Litopys Ukraїns’koї Povstans’koї Armiї vol. 21, 17-18. 1536 Kubiiovych, Meni 85, 97. 1537 Others included: Mykola Kapustians’kyi, Petro Diachenko and Colonel Hnat Stefaniv. Knysh, B’ie dvanadtsiata… 159-161. 1538 Litopys Ukraїns’koї Povstans’koї Armiї vol. 21, 54-55. 1539 Bruder, “Den ukrainischen Staat erkämpfen oder sterben!“..., 122; Knysh, B’ie dvanadtsiata…, 171-172. 1540 Litopys Ukraїns’koї Povstans’koї Armiї vol. 21, 60-61. Whereas the Banderites and Germans were operating intensely in Eastern Galicia, the Melnykites remained more restrained, making preparations for their envisioned move east. Mel’nyk came to Kraków for that reason. To broaden their support base, the Melnykites also turned toward coquetting émigré Petliurites. On June 29, a meeting was held among military émigrés from Berlin, Prague, Warsaw and Kraków. They organized the Ukrainian General Combatants Council to coordinate organizing a future Ukrainian army. Prominent Petliurite officer General Mykhailo Omelianovych-Pavlenko who came from Prague was chosen to head the council. Other members included General Vsevolod Petriv and Sushko, representing the Melnykites.1537 A plea to collaborate in the building of the new European order was sent to Hitler: For centuries, the Ukrainian people, like no others, struggling for freedom, are deeply committed to the ideals of a new Europe. Helping to realize these ideals corresponds to the yearning of the entire Ukrainian people. We, the old freedom fighters of 1918-1921, ask for us and at the same time for our Ukrainian youth the honor of participating in the crusade against Bolshevik barbarism. We have made bloody sacrifices in twenty-one years of defensive actions and especially through the cruel murders of so many of our countrymen. We also ask the legions of Europe to march shoulder to shoulder with our liberators, the German Wehrmacht, and allow us to create a Ukrainian battle formation for this purpose.1538 Aside from seeking military collaboration, Mykola Stsibors’kyi prepared a draft constitution for a future state, one envisioning a national council to govern in Kyiv with the nationalist structure as the basis for building a future state.1539 Even Bishop Ilarion was reportedly preparing some 200 Ukrainians for “missionary work” on liberated Ukrainian territory – to bring Orthodox autocephaly to Kyiv.1540 As early events transpired in Eastern Galicia, the Melnykites never lost contact with the Germans, maintaining them with the hope of profiting from them once the Banderites lost their favor.1541 1541 Armstrong, Ukrainian Nationalism, 86-87. 1542 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 25, folder 10, Kubiiovych note to Hitler, June 22, 1941. 1543 Ibid, Kubiiovych note to von Ribbentrop, n.d. 1544 Andrzej A. Zięba, “Szeptycki w Europie Hitlera” in Bogusław Paź (ed), Prawda historyczna a prawda polityczna w badaniach naukowych: ludobójstwo na kresach południowo-wschodniej Polski w latach 1939-1946 (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Aureus, 2013), 413-414; Pan’kivs’kyi, Vid derzhavy do komitetu, 41-42; 131. According to Grzegorz Motyka, Sheptyts’kyi supported the Stets’ko government with the belief that it consisted of members from both OUN factions, not just the Banderites. Motyka, Od rzezi wołyńskiej…, 314. 1545 Mats’kiv, Z-nad Dnistra na kanads’ki prerii, 135. To show his appreciation to the Germans, Kubiiovych sent letters of thanksgiving to prominent Reich leaders. On behalf of GG Ukrainians he sent a brief note to the Führer, thanking him on the occasion of the campaign against the “Bolshevist slave state.” He hoped Wehrmacht victories would translate into Ukrainian national liberation. He concluded: “May the Almighty bless the brave Wehrmacht as well as your far-reaching plans for the new European order!”1542 He also conveyed congratulations to Ribbentrop who he called Hitler’s “best and most ingenious associate.” Whereas the attack on the USSR lay in line with Ukrainian national wishes and hopes, Kubiiovych asked the foreign minister to personally participate in the realization of them.1543 Kubiiovych was not the only one sending letters to Nazis. Presumably out of euphoria over the fact that the trauma of Soviet occupation was over, Metropolitan Sheptyts’kyi publically welcomed the incoming Germans as well as the recently self-proclaimed Stets’ko government. His public proclamation was in turn the first act of public collaboration with Nazi Germany. According to Andrzej Zięba, this was a concerted political move intending to be the basis for a strategic alliance with the Germans; something, if successful, would place Ukrainians in a similar position as the Slovaks in 1938. Concerning Bandera and the Stets’ko government, Sheptyts’kyi’s proclamation intended to convince Hitler that this act of insubordination was not an act of defiance but rather a grandiose act of desire from the side of the Ukrainians to participate in building the new Europe. Conversely, he also lobbied other Ukrainian nationalists – Mel’nyk, Kubiiovych, Skoropads’kyi – to throw their support behind Bandera and work toward creating a Ukrainian army alongside the Wehrmacht.1544 News of the Stets’ko government reached Kraków, filling Ukrainians there with the hope of the rebirth of Ukrainian statehood. Leading lawyers met to draft a future state constitution.1545 The Melnykites hoped Kubiiovych would prepare a proclamation to the Ukrainians following the German drive east. He did compose one but instead of being the rallying call they hoped for, it was a mixture of hope for the future and thanksgiving to the Germans. In his words, Hitler’s order to attack the “empire of darkness and Judeo-Bolshevist degradation” created a new opportunity toward an immediate evolution of the national ideal for everyone – a form of Ukrainian statehood. Knysh described the statement as simple “white words” leaving nothing more to be desired.1546 1546 “U velyku khvylyny,” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 2 no. 135 (June 25, 1941), 1; Knysh, B’ie dvanadsiata, 249. 1547 Veryha, The Correspondence…, 317-318. 1548 Documents on German Foreign Policy 1918-1945 vol. XIII (Washington DC: Department of State, 1964), 265-266. For a look into Hitler’s private conversations on strategic military or political issues, see Hitler’s Table Talk, 1941-1944: His Private Conversations 3rd ed., trans. Norman Cameron and R.H. Stevens (New York: Enigma Books, 2000). 1549 “Pered maiestatom nepovynnoї krovy,” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 2 no. 147 (July 8, 1941), 1-2. 1550 Kubiiovych, Meni 85, 97; Ilnytzkyj, Deutschland und die Ukraine 1939-1945 vol. 2, 183-184. However, Kubiiovych also sent a similar-sounding letter as Iarii’s earlier telegram to Frank, imploring for the creation of a Ukrainian national army on liberated territories. He described Hitler’s attack on Stalin as positively shaking-up Ukrainians and all other members of what he deemed cultural humanity – those people not living “under the tepid influences of the misguided Jewified English-American plutocracies.” He reiterated GG Ukrainians unending will, from the first moment of attack, to enter into the anti-Bolshevik struggle. His vision of a national army was to be formed from GG Ukrainians. If this were not possible, he proposed harnessing them into a military formation to be “immediately attached to the ranks of the brave Wehrmacht.” Arms and blood-brotherhood, he concluded, would bind the Ukrainian people to the Reich.1547 With German successes on the eastern front continuing to surge and the situation in liberated Eastern Galicia settling, Hitler ultimately rejected proposals for a Ukrainian army.1548 Kubiiovych’s appeal after the German capture of Lwów related directly to its rebuilding – what he envisioned being the city’s resurrection. In a philosophic tone, he urged all to participate: …work, work and once again work will foster the great national idea, achieved through the understanding that we are doing this for our Native Land on our native, free land... Under the influence of these thoughts, we should be reborn in such a way so as to return to our Native Land so that during the great International Day of Resurrection we can stand as new people – the joyful builders of our Fatherland.1549 In his memoirs, Kubiiovych claimed to have called all UTsK associates to welcome the newly-created Stets’ko government and encouraged them to be loyal to it.1550 However, this may have been an attempt to place himself in the good graces of postwar nationalists by separating himself from the image of a German collaborator. It is more plausible to think that he, on behalf of the UTsK, would accept and endorse the Stets’ko government only after its approval and consent by the Germans. Initial German plans for administration over recently liberated Eastern Galicia territories were ordered by military authorities. Ernst-Anton von Krosigk, chief of staff for army group rear 103 instructed the military administration that “Ukrainian territory” be considered Lebensraum, albeit of a friendly people. Those Ukrainians who wished to engage in political activities were ordered to be guided toward “channels of social, charitable activities.” Furthermore, public demonstrations, especially declarations of independence, were banned.1551 Other reports summarized the work of Abwehr-trained Ukrainian units as transgressing beyond their intended role as they began appointing mayors and other civil administrators, described as “to some degree harmless but basically had to be considered as obedient elements of the OUN,” in areas behind the front lines. The Abwehr described the Stets’ko proclamation as “a surprise coup of the Bandera people.”1552 1551 BA-MA, RH 22/170, Unterweisung durch den Generalstabschef von Korsigk über die Behandlung der ukrainischen Frage an den Kommandanten Rückwärtiges Heeresgebiet 103, July 11, 1941. 1552 BA, R 6/150, Bericht über die Konservation zwischen Unterstaatssekretär Kundt mit Hauptoffizier Weiner, July 9, 1941, pp. 8-10; Müller, et al. (eds), Das Amt Ausland-Abwehr im Oberkommando der Wehracht..., 229. 1553 PUMST, OIV, File A.007, General Sikorski Instructions to the Government and Country, June 23, 1941. Sikorski also forbid Poles from joining German propaganda and targeted actions against Jews in the region. 1554 AAN, Armia Krajowa (AK), sygn. 203/XV/3, AK orders to the field, July 1941, pp. 4-5. 1555 Dieter Schenk, Noc morderców. Kaźń polskich profesorów we Lwowie i holokaust w Galicji Wschodniej, trans. Paweł Zarychta (Kraków: Wysoki Zamek, 2012), 145-199; Sławomir Kalbarczyk, Kazimierz Bartel (1882-1941): Uczony w świecie polityki (Warszawa: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, 2015), 823-850; Isaievych, et al (eds), Istoriia L’vova, vol. 3, 209-210. Among the executed were also 3 spouses, 9 sons, one grandson as well as a priest, doctor, lawyer and a housekeeper’s spouse. Concerning the murder of the Polish professors in Lwów, Ola Hnatiuk discussed four varying opinions as to who perpetrated the killings which appeared either during or after the war: nationalists, Soviets, Germans, and criminals. For example, the Soviets attempted, through various channels – the writings of Vladimir Belaev, KGB propaganda in East Germany and mass-media propaganda in People’s Poland – at completely incriminating the OUN for the murders so as to further discredit their influence in Eastern Galicia. Hnatiuk, Odwaga i starch, 66-75. One day following the German invasion of the USSR, General Sikorski sent instructions to underground representatives in Eastern Galicia and Lwów. He expected the Germans to give Ukrainians a temporary free hand in attacks and the suppression of Polish elements there. Instructions called on the underground to prevent Poles from any armed, open conflict with the occupiers.1553 The Polish underground sent further instructions to their representatives in the field. Reiterating the inviolability of Eastern Galicia as an integral part of the Polish state, the note called on all to persevere and avoid unnecessary conflicts as such actions would be regarded as assisting in German plans to discredit Poles and their government. Only when all Eastern Galician inhabitants felt the weight of the occupation, the report concluded, would the proper environment arise for possible rapprochement with the Ukrainians. Until then, the Germans would do everything to eliminate the Polish character of that region.1554 This began several days later. On July 1, 1941, in the wake of Jewish pogroms, Heidrich issued an order in which he listed groups in the east most harmful to the Germans: Jews, communists and Poles. Based on previously prepared lists by the GG security apparatus, the Lwów anti-intelligentsia Aktion began with the arrest of former prime minister and mathematics Professor Kazimierz Bartel. On July 4, 21 arrested Polish professors from the city’s prewar university and polytechnic were summarily executed. Bartel was murdered on July 26 per Himmler’s order.1555 According to Roman Volchuk, a young Ukrainian student who along with many other young Banderites was caught up in the early events in the city, Banderite Mykola Lebed’ – close associate of Stepan Bandera – ordered young nationalists to reveal the addresses of Polish professors and intellectuals to him. Prior to being sent out, he recalled Lebed’ asking each student whether they “liked Poles.” Although claiming to provide no addresses, he was ordered to travel with a German patrol to point-out a particular tenement house, out of which they removed a Polish intellectual. As he noted: “In this way I involuntarily contributed to this crime.”1556 1556 Roman Volchuk, Spomyny z peredvoiennoho L’vova ta voiennoho Vidnia, 3rd ed (Kyiv: Krytyka, 2011), 82-83; Torzecki, Polacy i Ukraińcy…, 119. 1557 Kubiiovych, Meni 85, 98. The official name of the resettlement commission was the “work bureau for Ukrainians in the General Government and Reich.” 1558 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 20, folder 22, Aktennotiz: Betreuung der Kriegsgefangenen ukrainischer Volkszugehörigkeit aus dem Sowjetheer, November 17, 1941. 1559 “Dalekosiahla aktsiia pered namy,” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 2 no. 143 (July 3, 1941), 3. 1560 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 20, folder 22, Aktennotiz: Freilassung sowjetrussischer Kriegsgefangener, die aus der Westukraine stammen, July 22, 1941. 1561 Amar, The Paradox of Ukrainian Lviv…, 129. It was also during these early July days that Kubiiovych travelled from Kraków to occupied or, as many saw it, liberated Lwów. He met with Metropolitan Sheptyts’kyi, informing him of UTsK work up until then and with Koch. There a resettlement commission, an external body under the auspices of the UTsK, was permitted to facilitate in the legal return of Ukrainian émigrés back to Eastern Galicia.1557 However, envisioned resettlement was not only limited to émigrés. A July article in Krakivs’ki Visti called on aid committees and delegates toward a general aid campaign for Ukrainian prisoners of war, recruited into the ranks of the Red Army after gaining their post-1939 Soviet citizenship, who were interned in camps on GG territory; some 150 thousand according to Kubiiovych’s note.1558 As one article described, “Such charitable activity among the prisoners will be the beginning of large-scale awareness work among the Ukrainian prisoners… this awareness work will come in the form of national and religious liberation.”1559 Whereas the UTsK wished to provide Ukrainian Red Army POWs with welfare and aid, other plans loomed behind this good will. A Committee note to the Germans explained that many Soviet POWs captured during the conflict were nationally unconscious, indoctrinated to be overtly anti-German. To facilitate Ukrainian nationalist indoctrination, the UTsK requested to visit POW camps in order to segregate Ukrainian men for “ideological and national retraining.”1560 Through what Tarik Cyril Amar termed a self-othering, they sought to separate Ukrainians along the west-east geographical line as Galician Ukrainians were believed to be more culturally conscious than easterners intended for more vigorous nationalist indoctrination.1561 In camps which UTsK representatives visited, they petitioned that only nationally conscious Galician Ukrainians be released immediately. Kubiiovych also proposed plans for later awakening Soviet Ukrainians; Soviet propaganda, in his opinion, having “blurred the national differences” among individual peoples there. Only through a “national and philosophical revival” could “a useful and morally valuable element be obtained from the people who were misled by Bolshevik propaganda.” In this case, he looked toward national consolidation through welfare and aid. He proposed disseminating Ukrainian-language newspapers and brochures throughout the war prisoners, organizing specialized courses geared toward national awakening, religious care and by introducing artistic or cultured life – choirs, plays or libraries – for the prisoners.1562 Nationalists also took advantage of POW camps for their recruitment. Melnykites for example recruited volunteers for police forces around Zhytomyr.1563 1562 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 20, folder 22, Aktennotiz: Bertreuung der sowjetrussischen Kriegsgefangenen ukrainischer Volkszugehörigkeit, July 22, 1941. 1563 Armstrong, Ukrainian Nationalism, 93. 1564 Litopys Ukraїns’koї Povstans’koї Armiї vol. 21, 60-61. 1565 TsDAVOVUU, UTsK, f. 3959, op. 1, spr. 75: Lwów Ukrainian Aid Committee report on resettlement of Ukrainian east, November 1941, pp. 2-3. 1566 BA, R 58/214, UdSSR no. 23, July 15, 1941, p. 173; Kosyk, The Third Reich and Ukraine…, 510-511. 1567 Golczewski, “Shades of Grey…,” 133. Resettlement meant not only moving Ukrainians back to Eastern Galicia.1564 Plans were also designed to voluntarily move non-Galicia Ukrainians further east; clearing out unwanted elements to make room for returning Galicians. By October 1941, 450 Ukrainians initially headed east. After the German civil administration instituted special documents as a prerequisite for resettlement, the number of volunteers dropped sharply to 56. Two transports, one in late October and another in early November, each moved over 400 Ukrainians to the major GG-Reichskommissariat Ukrainian borderland city of Vinnytsia.1565 In response to the Banderite state proclamation, the Germans demanded they rescind it. In a meeting with Bandera and his loyalists in Kraków on July 3, 1941, GG undersecretary of state Ernst Kundt dashed thoughts of a German-Ukrainian alliance against the USSR: “the Führer is the only person leading the struggle and Ukrainian allies do not exist. Perhaps the Ukrainians are full of enthusiasm and feel that they are our allies; however, according to constitutional terminology, we are not allies, but rather conquerors of the Soviet Russian regions…” In response to Bandera’s reiteration of receiving a mandate to represent the Ukrainian people and form a national government, he definitively stated: “Only Adolf Hitler can determine what will happen there.” Report from Lwów noted of various Ukrainian parties, including the Melnykites but excluding the Banderites, meeting with Koch, assuring him of their loyalty to the Germans along with their willingness to participate in the reconstruction of the region alongside them.1566 Regardless of pressure from the side of the Germans, Stets’ko remained steadfast, pledging to neither yield his position nor rescind the state proclamation. However, wishing to not harm the Ukrainian-German relations or the Reich’s war effort, he agreed to be taken into honorary detention (Ehrenhaft); something the Germans threatened him with. Several days later, Bander and several of his closest followers were also arrested and taken to Berlin for further talks. The Germans ultimately banned the Stets’ko state administration from functioning, arresting more Banderites in the process. This setback did not stop the Banderites from, as late as August 14, continuing to urging for collaboration with the Germans “for the good of Ukraine.”1567 However, talks were conducted by Koch with other Ukrainians, including Melnykites who, contrary to the Banderites, assured their loyalty and willingness to collaborate with the Germans. A German-sponsored celebration was even organized in the Lwów opera house on July 10 during which Polians’kyi, representing the city’s Ukrainians, thanked the German officials assembled for liberating the city and region. Here, not mention was made of a Ukrainian state.1568 According to Struve, this celebration was the German response to the meeting organized by Stets’ko on June 30. 1568 Struve, Deutsche Herrschaft, ukrainischer Nationalismus, antijüdische Gewalt..., 403-406. 1569 Ibid, 418-428; Grzegorz Hryciuk, Przemiany narodowościowe i ludnościowe w Galicji Wschodniej i na Wołyniu w latach 1931-1948 (Toruń: Wydawnictwo Adam Marszałek, 2005), 200-201. According to an SD report for July 21-31, Einsatzkommand Lemberg executed 1, 726 people. Struve believes the majority were killed during the “Petliura days.” 1570 Gabriel N. Finder and Alexander V. Prusin, “Collaboration in Eastern Galicia: The Ukrainian Police and the Holocaust.” East European Jewish Affairs vol. 43 no. 2 (2004), 104; Rich, “Armed Ukrainians in L’viv…,” 276-278. 1571 Lev Rebet, Svitla i tini OUN (Munich: Ukraїns’kyi samostiinyk, 1964), 107; Ilnytzkyj, Deutschland und die Ukraine vol. 2, 209. Stets’ko’s plan was to ultimately unite the Kraków Ukrainian National Council with the Council of Seniors in Lwów. Stets’ko, 30 chervnia 1941r..., 201-202. 1572 Struve, Deutsche Herrschaft, ukrainischer Nationalismus, antijüdische Gewalt..., 406. Struve argued that Koch’s concept of a representative, “trusted” council for Ukrainian in Lwów resembled one organized in July in German-occupied Lithuania. The absence of Bandera and Stets’ko did not stop their national revolution. To improve Ukrainian-German relations after the recent political tensions, the Germans permitted a second huge pogrom in Lwów. On July 25, under the control of the German security police in Lwów, Wehrmacht soldiers, policemen and the Banderite militia organized so-called “Petliura days” – supposed revenge for the assassination of the ataman by a Jew in 1926. As Struve concluded, correlating the memory of the killing to describe anti-Jewish events gave them a Ukrainian national profile. Jews were rounded-up and marched-off to city prisons or militia stations where they were beaten and tortured. During two days of pogroms, between 1 and 2 thousand Jews were brutally persecuted and exterminated.1569 The exact number of victims is difficult to specify. Following the pogroms, plans were made to organize an indigenous police force under German command in Eastern Galicia. By August 1941, German security services dissolved the Ukrainian militia, creating from it a district auxiliary police force (Ukrainische Hilfspolizei) under the command of the German order police.1570 Prior to its cessation, the Stets’ko administration established a Council of Elders under the control of the Banderites. It was envisioned to provide the Stets’ko administration with the appearance of broad popular support. Unable to make Dmytro Dontsov council head, the position went to Sheptyts’kyi and Kost’ Levyts’kyi. Koch engaged in talks with the council. According to Il’nyts’kyi, he told its members that Alfred Rosenberg, future head of the Reich Eastern Ministry, supported the idea of a postwar Ukrainian state but only after Kyiv was occupied.1571 Until then, a non-partisan, representative council would be permitted to function.1572 In a letter to the council, Kubiiovych proposed it be organized along the authoritarian Führerprinzip style of leadership. They rejected this proposal, presumably because the neither Sheptyts’kyi nor Levyts’kyi espoused the character for that style of leadership.1573 Council members swore to be faithful to the “great idea,” i.e. the creation of a Ukrainian state, until the end. Fragments of minutes of council sessions indicated that discussions included solving the “Jewish problem” in Ukraine and ethnic cleansing of Ukrainian ethnographic territory.1574 Observing one council meeting, Kubiiovych recalled his unpleasantness in “learning of casualties caused by the sharp conflict of both OUNs.”1575 1573 BA, R 58/ 215, UdSSR no. 32, July 24, 1941, pp. 17-20; Ilnytzkyj, Deutschland und die Ukraine 1939-1945 vol. 2, 232. 1574 Rossoliński-Liebe, Stepan Bandera: The Life and Afterlife of a Ukrainian Nationalist…, 218. 1575 Kubiiovych, Meni 85, 98. 1576 Rossoliński-Liebe, Stepan Bandera: The Life and Afterlife of a Ukrainian Nationalist…, 242; Armstrong, Ukrainian Nationalism, 91-94. Zhytomyr was also the first city east of the pre-1939 Polish-Soviet border opened to OUN activity. Another important destination for Melnykite task groups was Vinnytsia. In Bukovina, Melnykite members staged pogroms in and around Chernivtsi 1577 Pravda pro Uniu. Dokumenty i materialy, 2nd ed., eds. V. Malanchuk, et al (L’viv: Vydavnytstvo Kameniar, 1968), 300-304; “Vyїmky z 2-ho Poslannia Mytropolyta Andreia,” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 2 no. 172 (August 7, 1941), 2; Hansjakob Stehle, “Sheptyts’kyi and the German Regime” in Paul Robert Magocsi (ed), Morality and Reality: The Life and Time of Andrei Sheptyts’kyi (Edmonton: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, 1989), 127. 1578 Andrii Mel’nyk. Spohady, dokumenty, lystuvannia, eds. Oleksandr Kucheruk and Iurii Cherchenko (Kyiv: Vydavnytstvo im. Oleny Telihy, 2011), 423-425. 1579 Alfred Rosenberg. Dzienniki 1934-1944, eds. Jürgen Matthäus and Frank Bajohr, trans. Michał Antkowiak (Warszawa: Wielka Litera, 2016), 363. Melnykite task groups also reached Eastern Galicia to create a Ukrainian state. Less numerous and less effective than the Banderite ones, they organized a stronghold in Zhytomyr. From there, prominent Melnykites were to head to Kyiv where they intended to begin their form of state organization.1576 With some Melnykites arriving in Lwów, Sheptyts’kyi attempted to rectify the internal strife between the two vying nationalist groups for the good of Ukraine. In a letter penned to Mel’nyk, he urged to reconcile what he deemed malicious internal differences. In a pastoral letter, he touched upon what he described as the most pressing danger – factionalism among the Ukrainians – warning: “He who brings us internal conflict is one who harms national matters...”1577 This, however proved futile as each faction accused the other of factionalism and opportunism. For example, Meln’yk accused Bandera of diversionary activity against the OUN.1578 Additionally, the anarchy, chaos, and hatred which erupted immediately following the German occupation of Lwów at the hands of the Banderites further allayed Sheptyts’kyi’s sympathies toward them. At the highest level, Hitler was making plans for his newly conquered eastern territories. On July 16, 1941, during a meeting in Berlin with the Führer, Rosenberg presented plans for administering the territories liberated from the Soviets. Concerning Eastern Galicia, Hitler agreed to place it under the control of the GG for practical, geopolitical reasons – to serve as a common border with allied Romania. Rosenberg noted in his diary that Hitler also viewed Ukrainians in the GG as a countermeasure to Poles, exploiting their historic antagonisms and ostensibly viewing them as “masters in relation to the Poles.”1579 On July 18, Frank announced that Hans Lammers, Hitler’s chancellery chief, had informed him of the Führer’s decision to entrust civil administration over Eastern Galicia to him. In response to requests of proposing a boundary line, Frank suggested the inclusion of the marshy territory along the Pripet River, a natural border between northern Ukraine and southern Belarus, to be included in the GG’s expanding borders as he saw this area viable for future cultivation by the labor source he was about to inherit.1580 Here, he had in mind continuing the Nazi policy of annihilation through laborious work in the marshy wetlands of that region. The next day, Hitler issued his decree to incorporate Eastern Galicia into the General Government. Almost immediately, the term “West Ukraine” was banned from use in describing the occupied southeastern prewar Polish territories in all GG press correspondences, newspapers or reports. Instead, the region was to be described by its Habsburg nomenclature of “Galizien.”1581 During a meeting between Frank, Bühler and Radom District governor Karl Lasch, and Koch, freshly returned from Lwów, the latter described the position of Ukrainians there. He noted the forthcoming decisions to attach Eastern Galicia to the GG could pose problems for the Germans. However, he remained confident they would solve it with skill and persistence. Kubiiovych claimed Koch also informed him of the plans to attach Eastern Galicia to the GG.1582 1580 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/12, Tagebuch 1941 – Band III: 1. Juli bis 30 September, p. 44. Frank also suggestd attaching the Białystok region recently conquered from the Soviets to the Warsaw District. Instead it was created as its own administrative region – Bezirk Bialystok – due to its perceived military importance as a bridgehead to the Memel River. As Rosenberg reported in his diary, the Białystok region ultimately fell under the administration of the Eastern Prussian bezirk after Göring’s appeal as he “especially loved that gauleiter [Erich Koch].” Alfred Rosenberg. Dzienniki 1934-1944, 363. 1581 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/12, Tagebuch 1941 – Band III: 1. Juli bis 30 September, p. 72. 1582 Ibid, p. 78; Kubiiovych, Meni 85, 173. 1583 Grelka, “Polityka narodowościowa niemiechkich władz okupacyjnych we wschodniej Polsce...,” 82. The decision to attach Eastern Galicia to the GG was not one reached simply based on administrative-technical terms. It was also meant to strike a blow to Ukrainian nationalist aspirations of self-government. GG administrators saw an administration consisting solely of Ukrainians as economically disadvantageous to them. On the basis of recent experiences in local GG administrations partially consisting of Ukrainian civil servants, they pointed-out how ethnic antagonisms with Poles significantly inhibited economic development.1583 If this was occurring on ethnically-mixed Polish-majority territory, one could imagine the outcome on ethnically-mixed Ukrainian-majority territory in Eastern Galicia. The official attachment of Eastern Galician to the GG took place on August 1, 1941 in Lwów; becoming the Galicia District. Karl Lasch was given the task of governing the new district. A lawyer by trade, he directed the Academy of German Law where Frank also worked. The general government nicknamed him his “blond rascal.” With a long Nazi party career, the 36 year old actively promoted anti-Semitic policies in his previous Radom district; the first ghettos in the GG being created there by late 1939. The districts new SS police chief Fritz Katzmann – only 35 years old – was no stranger to Lasch; the two having worked together in Radom where Katzmann headed the district police. In Galicia, that two continued their close collaboration to promote their radical, racist agenda immediately aimed at the district’s Jewish inhabitants. Their presence there, as Winstone noted, was a further indication that the worst features of the GG were magnified in Galicia.1584 1584 Niklas Frank, In the Shadow of the Reich, trans. Arthur S. Wensinger and Carole Clew-Hoey (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1991), 11; Schenk, Noc morderców…, 137-141; Winstone, The Dark Heart of Hitler’s Europe…, 43; 106. For an examination into German occupational policy in the Radom District, see Robert Seidel, Besatzungspolitik in Polen: Der Distrikt Radom 1939 1945 (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh 2006). 1585 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/12, Tagebuch 1941: Band II – 1. Juli bis 30. September, p. 106. 1586 Ibid, pp. 109-111; Rossoliński-Liebe, Stepan Bandera: The Life and Afterlife.., 216 1587 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/12, Tagebuch 1941: Band II – 1. Juli bis 30. September, pp. 111-114. 1588 Mick, Lemberg, Lwów, L’viv…, 299. Frank’s proclamation appeared in the German, Ukrainian and Polish language press. That day he made several proclamations. In his first, following officially taking over administrative control from the Wehrmacht, he promised an end to senseless Polish authority and Judeo-Bolshevik cruelty. To district inhabitants, he promised to reverse previous injustices: return previously Sovietized property, permit cultural development, and guarantee religious freedom.1585 He then met with Polians’kyi. The Lwów mayor spoke of the age-old, deep friendship between Germans and Ukrainians, saying: “We have shed our blood for our admiration of German culture.” Ukrainian gratitude for German liberation was to come through “loyal, joyful collaboration in the German organization [of the region], which will also shape the Ukrainian future.” In response, Frank expressed that he came to Eastern Galicia as a friend of the Ukrainian people and encouraged them to directly take part in the administration of the region. However, he noted that the will of the Führer would ultimately dictate future developments there.1586 Very telling were his comments during a meeting with German and Ukrainian press representatives later that day. He emphatically stated Eastern Galicia became a direct part of the Reich’s sphere of power and influence. Whereas he reiterated of coming to the district as a friend of the Ukrainians, he made similar comments in relation to the Poles: “For the Poles too, we do not come here as enemies, but as the bearers of orderly construction.” For the Ukrainians, he spoke of a greater happiness awaiting them in the future – the restoration of their national liberty and a home in Kyiv.1587 Hitler viewed Eastern Galicia in terms of German “cultured soil;” its affiliation to Germanic culture coming through 146 years of Austrian rule. Propaganda declared that only in that way did Lwów achieve its historical legacy and beauty. Even the bells at the Greek Catholic cathedral of St. George were claimed to be the “work of German artisans.” As Hitler he and his racial colleagues planned, the region was to be included in the grandiose Lebensraum program for the east. Frank echoed these plans, calling for the permanent Germanization of the region.1588 The German roots of Eastern Galicia were described by Karl Lasch in his article published in Das Generalgouvernment. He claimed the annexation of the region returned to the Reich territory which was under German (not Austrian) leadership for 140 years “before its forcible incorporation into the Polish Versailles state.” Not only did he see this return in historical terms but also in exploitative ones, as the region offered much to satisfy GG and Reich needs: oil and raw mineral deposits (coal and lignite); phosphorous sources for fertilizer needs and timber. Perhaps most importantly, just as under the Habsburgs, so too was Eastern Galicia expected to be a granary of the Reich. He concluded: The image of a fertile prosperous country with a population that is content to live under the Germans [and] the benefits which the Reich will gain from cultivating this area, are the rewards which motivate the German administrators to apply all their skill and enthusiasm toward achieving this ultimate goal.1589 1589 Karl Lasch, “Galizien – Ein Deutschen Land,” Das Generalgouvernement 1. Jahrgang Folge 12 (September 1941), 5-7. 1590 Schenk, Noc morderców…, 142. The propagandized Kolonistenbriefe also described the Polish administration of Eastern Galicia during the interwar period as “the work of Nordic [Germanic] power, whose ancestry was even recognized by the Polish side.” 1591 “Istorychni khvylyny Halychyny,” L’vivs’ki Visti (August 1, 1941), 1-2. 1592 BA, R 58/ 216, UdSSR no. 60, 22 August 1941, pp. 131-134; Alfred Rosenberg. Dzienniki 1934-1944, 368. Rosenberg also called for the removal of nationalist Lithuanians who proclaimed their government in Kaunas. 1593 Precisely: 3,247,353 Ukrainians; 955,821 Poles; 278,132 Jews; 43,442 Germans. Hryciuk, Przemiany narodowościowe i ludnościowe…, 208. The propaganda department of the GG set to work immediately presenting Eastern Galicia as primordial German land, in turn describing Germanic racial superiority: “A good German plow pulled in one day with one horse can accomplish more than three or four local peasants.”1590 Bühler dismissed any ideas of Eastern Galicia being attached to the “Polish” GG. Rather, he underscoring the territory’s new belonging as an integral portion of the German GG. Moreover, he ensured that Austrian Galicia returned to its former union with Germandom “and through this to the circles of western culture.”1591 After the festivities in Lwów, Rosenberg described the following day, August 2, in his diary as one filled with work and meetings. On top of this he complained of receiving Ukrainian memorandums and protests concerning Eastern Galicia’s attachment to the GG; described as a dreadful blow, a new partition, and the burial of all Germanophile feelings. He agreed with the supreme command of the armed forces to remove and take away “hyperactive elements” from the city; those around the Stets’ko government. He contemptuously characterized them as an “intelligentsia relentlessly suffering from megalomaniac illusions;” elements who “with all their strength are forcefully attempting to transform the selfless sacrifice of German blood into their new ‘autonomy.’” Furthermore, subsequent reports from Lwów described the Bandera group as “the agent of all hostile currents among the Ukrainians.”1592 Attachment changed the demographic composition of the General Government. German census materials for September 1942 noted of over 4.5 million total inhabitants in the Galicia District; over 3.2 million Ukrainians, 955 thousand Poles, 278 thousand Jews, and 43 thousand Germans.1593 The remainder of prewar Ukrainian territory – Volhynia, Podolia and a portion of the eastern Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic – fell into the borders of the new Reichskommissariat Ukraine, the largest German-occupied territory under the administration of Göring’s close colleague and Gauleiter of Eastern Prussia Erich Koch.1594 1594 For a definitive analysis and understanding of the Reichskommissariat Ukraine, see Berkhoff, Harvest of Despair: Life and Death in Ukraine under Nazi Rule. 1595 Pravda pro Uniu. Dokumenty i materialy, 2nd ed., 312. 1596 Pan’kivs’kyi, Vid derzhavy do Komitetu, 62; Semchyshyn, Z knyhy leva…, 106. 1597 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 24, folder 4, Zvit Informatsiї – Instruktsiia ch. 1, October 3, 1941. 1598 Barbara Mękarska-Kozłowska, Mozaika wspomnień (London: Polska Fundacja Kulturalna, 1994), 107. 1599 Hryciuk, Polacy we Lwowie, 210. The attachment of Eastern Galicia to the GG again dashed the hopes of Ukrainian nationalists for the creation of an independent state. Sheptyts’kyi and the Council penned two statements protesting the attachment of Eastern Galicia to the GG. “The entire Ukrainian nation would consider such a course of action as the perhaps unimpaired restoration of the former Polish Versailles [system] at the expense of Ukraine, losing confidence in the justice of the new European order.” They would rather accept a reunited Ukraine than what they saw as the rebuilding of Poland at the expense of Ukrainian interests.1595 As Pan’kivs’kyi described, for the Ukrainians, this act was seen as a reattachment of their ethnographic territory to the “Polish” GG: “The days of ‘liberation’ and the ‘creation of a state’ ended with a return to Poland although in a different form.” Polish newspapers cast a destressing impression on Ukrainians, hailing the attachment of Eastern Galician to the GG as a “new national unification…Poles on both sides of the San [River] will no longer be divided.”1596 UTsK reports also mentioned of Polish elation in borderland territories to the west of the district. In Przemyśl, for example, aid committee representatives noticed a reconnection between those Poles and their Galician counterparts to the east of the San River. They were said to have illegally crossed into the city where they began spreading anti-Ukrainian and anti-German rumors.1597 Some Poles viewed the change in occupiers as a new fait accompli – the Soviet “act of historical justice” toppled in favor of a German one.1598 The newly appointed Lwów Stadthauptmann Hans Kujath also saw varying reactions toward the new authorities. Among the Poles, he discerned a visible atmosphere of pleasure since perceived Ukrainian control of the city had ended. Differences between Ukrainians and Poles were also noticed. According to him, Poles were renewed with hopes for a better change in their plight in contrast to doubtful Ukrainians who worried of losing influence and supremacy among German officials.1599 The attachment of Eastern Galicia to the GG did not stop Ukrainians in Deutsch-Przemyśl from lobbying Frank to attach that city and county to the Galicia District. They argued the region was historically Ukrainian. Its purported colonization by Masurian Poles and Jews “who expressed themselves as Poles” created what they deemed an artificial majority masking the true Ukrainian character of the city and county. The Greek Catholic church, cooperatives or scientific societies naturally connected the city to Lwów. Without instructions from centers there, they feared these institutions would collapse. Furthermore, and most simply, the distance from Przemyśl to Lwów was much closer then to Kraków. The note concluded with a hope that Frank would “realize the considerations of the Ukrainian people faithfully devoted to the Germans.”1600 Ultimately, the city remained within the borders of the Kraków District. 1600 AP-P, Zbiór materiałów dotyczących problematyki ukraińskiej, sygn. 18, Letter from Przemyśl Ukrainians to Hans Frank, August 13, 1941, pp. 1-3. 1601 Pan’kivs’kyi, Vid derzhavy do Komitetu, 21-24; 86-87. 1602 As of November 1941, Pan’kiv’skyi reported of 15 Kreis committees, 21 county committees, 8 regional delegates along with 1 committee fort Lwów. LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 19, folder 1, UKK Instruktsiia ch. II, November 7, 1941 1603 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 18, folder 14, Ukraїns’kyi Tsentral’nyi Komitet v Halychyni 1941-1944 rr., n.d; Pan’kivs’kyi, Vid derzhavy do Komitetu, 89-92. Pan’kivs’kyi noted that the Ukrainian memorandum clearly defined Eastern Galician as belonging to the Ukrainian People’s Republic of 1918-1920. 1604 TsDAVOVUU, UTsK, f. 3959, op. 1, spr. 70, “Ukrainian aid action in L’viv” progress report, July 15-October 31, 1941, p. 1. 1605 Veryha, The Correspondence..., 328. Toward the end of July, the Council of Seniors was expanded by the Germans with the addition of seventeen new members and renamed the National Council. Additionally, Banderites were replaced with Melnykites. Sheptyts’kyi remained spiritual leader while Levyts’kyi became president. Pan’kivs’kyi was named director of the secretariat which acted as executive organ. Sheptyts’kyi described the council as the “Ukrainian nation’s temporary political substitute in Galicia.”1601 A Ukrainian Regional Committee (Ukraїns’kyi Kraiovyi Komitet - UKK), modelled on the UTsK yet independent of it, was subsequently created as the welfare arm of the council.1602 It was headed by Pan’kivs’kyi. The National Council envisioned combining all Ukrainian regions of the GG into one administrative unit centered in Lwów. It also aimed to secure limited autonomy under German supervision, particularly in organizing Ukrainian life as well as participating in administrative decisions concerning the future fate of the region. These wishes were sent to Frank in a lengthy memorandum. Two echoed strong political tones: permitting Eastern Galicia to temporarily belong to the GG and the division of the GG territory into Polish and Ukrainian ethnic parts with the latter receiving far-reaching governing and decision-making privileges in their defined zone.1603 In the meantime, Pan’kivs’kyi and the National Council undertook a mass aid campaign for the city, organizing soup kitchens. As of October 1941, 11 such kitchens were handing out 300 meals daily.1604 To further handicap and ultimately eliminate Banderite influence in Eastern Galician social, public life, GG authorities commissioned Kubiiovych in early August 1941 to extend UTsK activity into the district. As head of the only legal Ukrainian representative institution in the GG, he viewed the attachment of Eastern Galicia in positive terms – as the union with other ethnographic territory. He also saw in this attachment the extension of the UTsK sphere of influence.1605 Neither did he hesitate to remind Frank of the Ukrainian character of the new district nor desires for Ukrainian self-government under German administration for it: GG Ukrainian territory, with three-quarter of a million inhabitants, is no longer splintered away from greater Ukrainian territory but is a part of it with 4 million inhabitants requiring a special position for the Ukrainian ethnic group and the Ukrainian territory in the General Government...1606 1606 Ibid, 337. 1607 Mękarski, et al., “Die Südostgebiete Polens zur Zeit der deutschen Besatzung,” 415. 1608 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 18, folder 14, Ukraїns’kyi Tsentral’nyi Komitet v Halychyni 1941-1944 rr., n.d; Pan’kivs’kyi, Vid derzhavy do Komitetu, 84-85; Semchyshyn, Z knyhy leva, 108-109. 1609 Ilnytzkyj, Deutschland und die Ukraine 1939-1945 vol. 2, 233fn1. Observing the way the Germans handled Banderite political aspirations in Eastern Galicia also cleared any doubts lingering among the Melnykites or UTsK of their deutschfreundlich orientations. Even if the Ukrainian national revolution and independence movement were completely suppressed, they understood that victories over two historic enemies – Poles and Bolsheviks – could only be achieved by the Germans. Furthermore, if Ukrainian political goals appeared as part of a German postwar agenda, they firmly believed conditions would be favorable for Ukrainians.1607 Not surprisingly, German occupation decisions surpassed Ukrainian interests. Pan’kivs’kyi was called to meet with the Gestapo to discuss recent propositions for regional autonomy. Three definitive, cold hard facts were presented him: the Germans came east as occupiers while the attachment of Eastern Galicia to the GG made it a district equal among others. They saw no special exceptions for the district or Ukrainians there. Furthermore, they informed him that the national council would be transformed in the near future into an UTsK aid committee. Pan’kivs’kyi later recalled the difficulty this news placed him in: “… the expectations of the National Council taught of integral collaboration with the Germans while the assignment of working between the German hammer and Ukrainian anvil were simply difficult.”1608 Pan’kivs’kyi was forced to explain the meeting to council members. He informed them of the council’s non-existent status in the eyes of the occupier: “[it] is not recognized by the Germans although they know that it exists yet the governor cannot receive a delegation…” Furthermore, he explained the council would eventually be subordinated to the UTsK since that was the only legal Ukrainian representation in the GG. In this way, he argued they could fight for Ukrainian rights in Eastern Galicia through the framework created by the Germans themselves. He added that Kubiiovych could act as Galician representative in the GG capital. He concluded, “As secretary, I wish to work with the Germans, even if it were to contradict the plans of the national council.”1609 Whereas the council was aware of Pan’kivs’kyi’s inclinations toward compromise with the UTsK, they could not decide whether to replace him as secretary as they feared this would compromise contacts with the Germans. Meanwhile, in Kraków, Kubiiovych met with Eberhard Westerkamp, head of the GG internal department. GG officials wished to measure his opinion to extending UTsK activity east. He was nominally opposed to expansion as the district lacked what he viewed as a proper basis from which to begin as well as what he described as “formidable measures” – a clearly defined pro-Ukrainian policy – to gain closer Ukrainian cooperation. He proposed Ukrainians gain preferential administrative treatment, something along the basis of the Volksdeutsche in the GG. Civil administrative and self-governing positions were to be placed in Ukrainian hands while they were to have full cultural and economic development: schools, newspapers, a publishing house, the revitalization of the Shevchenko Scientific Society and a cooperative system.1610 1610 Kubiiovych, Meni 85, 99; Veryha, The Correspondence…, 328-329. 1611 Ilnytzkyj, Deutschland und die Ukraine 1939-1945 vol. 2, 231-232. 1612 Ibid, 233; Pan’kivs’kyi, Vid derzhavy do Komitetu, 86-87. 1613 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 18, folder 7, Protokol narady predstavnykiv H. Sekretariatu u Lvovi i predstavnykiv UTsK v Krakovi, August 28, 1941. To push for a merger, GG officials organized a meeting with the Pan’kivs’kyi delegation in Kraków. Speaking with Westerkamp, among others, they were told their political requests would not be accepted. Furthermore, the civil authorities would neither recognize the National Council nor give Eastern Galicia a special position within the GG. To the Germans, Kubiiovych and the UTsK were the only representative Ukrainians they were willing to work with.1611 In the meantime, Pan’kivs’kyi met with Kubiiovych and UTsK representatives; making decisions on his own accord without consulting his Lwów colleagues. Having realized the German vision for Ukrainian life in Lwów and Eastern Galicia, he explained this decision in his memoirs as stemming from necessity – to gain the most for Ukrainians from the occupation authorities by completely abandoning the political line of the National Council. According to him, Sheptyts’kyi and Levyts’kyi lived in the idyllic mindset of Austro-Hungarian Galicia where Ukrainian demands and concerns were not only heard by Vienna but also in some way acted upon. This was an illusion.1612 The two Ukrainian groups came to an understanding for the good of Ukrainian life in the GG under one representative body. A five-point agreement called for the creation of a ‘Ukrainian National Community’ (Ukrainische Volksgemeinschaft) to include men from the Lwów National Council and the UTsK. This body was envisioned to become the sole Ukrainian representative before GG authorities. While these conclusions were sent to the authorities for approval, the two men agreed that Kubiiovych be the Lwów group’s temporary representative before the occupiers.1613 Immediately, Kubiiovych sent a memorandum to Frank describing in greater detail political and cultural needs of Ukrainians in the Galicia District. Evoking Ukrainian work in the GG, he reiterated their loyalty toward the Germans and directly included the Ukrainian people in the fight against Bolshevism; Ukrainians having struggled against them for 25 year. Even though they were yet to be granted their “greatest honor,” their own state, he emphatically pledged they remained “ready to take an active part in the great cause and to employ all forces to contribute to the victory of German arms.” He wished to continue his approach to ethnically cleanse ethnographic Ukrainian territory from Poles and Jews; steps toward preparing for the creation of a future homogenous Ukrainian state. In turn, he advocated that the eastern Ukrainian-majority portions of the Kraków and Lublin districts be attached to Galicia, creating what he termed a “closed Ukrainian settlement” (geschlossenen ukrainischen Siedlungsgebiete). Ukrainians were to be trained for administrative work in order to replace any Polish hold-overs. In those areas, he suggested Poles could apply for administrative work but would have to pass a Ukrainian-language test as a prerequisite for employment. However, no Poles would ascend to managerial positions. Territorial administration was to be in the hands of Ukrainians where they were a majority and in Polish hands where they outnumbered Ukrainians. This would, in essence, create a clear divide between the two ethnic groups and define Ukrainian and Polish territory.1614 1614 Veryha, The Correspondence..., pp. 336-339. Roman Il’nyts’kyi wrote of Kubiiovych having written this note to the Governor General on August 14, 1941. 1615 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, folder 20, volume 26, Obizhnyk u spravi kolyshnikh pereselentsiv z Lemkivshchyny i Kholmshchyny na skhid, November 12, 1941. Besides lobbying for the nationalization of the district, Kubiiovych also proposed cultural and economic ukrainization. Schools of all styles were to be taught in Ukrainian by Ukrainians and under the supervision of Ukrainians. The prewar Jan Kazimierz University, whose Polish professors had been exterminated, was to be opened as the Ukrainian Ivan Franko University with a Ukrainian faculty for the philological, history, mathematics-physics, natural science and law faculties. A publishing house would supplement the need for the printed word while a revitalization of daily newspapers or weekly magazines was deemed urgent. He repeated the importance of revitalizing cultural, scientific, and agricultural societies. Kubiiovych proposed re-nationalization by returning to the Ukrainians all property – commercial, religious, or private – purportedly expropriated by Soviets or Jews. Where property reimbursement was not possible, he suggested complete financial compensation. However, problems also emerged as a result of German successes further east where Ukrainians and Poles, displaced from Eastern Galicia by the Soviets, were liberated. Often, they returned to their Eastern Galician properties. Kubiiovych called attention to the Poles pressuring Ukrainians to leave their properties, inherited under the Soviets. This caused them to flee west to the GG.1615 He urged aid committee officials in Lwów to intervene in all cases to prevent perceived re-polonization. Pan’kivs’kyi’s decisions in Kraków spurred a pronounced debate upon his return to Lwów. Council members denounced his initiative and decisions as exceeding the powers invested in him. To some, like Levyts’kyi, decisions made out of duress or necessity did not explain his actions. Apart from conceding Ukrainian representation to Kraków, he argued Pan’kivs’kyi gave too much power to Kubiiovych; a strong proponent of the Führerprinzip style of leadership. Others, such as socialist Volodymyr Lysyi, called the Kubiiovych-Pan’kivs’kyi agreements unacceptable as they failed to demand any political rights for Galician Ukrainians. Banderite representatives denounced both men as opportunists who failed to take into consideration the interests of the Ukrainians. Greek Catholic priest Havryl Kost’elnyk rationally believed that everything had to be done to take what one could from the Germans. In his opinion, outright rejecting Pan’kivs’kyi’s progress equated to a declaration of war against the occupiers. Others also defended Pan’kivs’kyi. Voting over the delegations agreements, the council approved them overwhelmingly with only two Banderite opposing.1616 1616 Ilnytzkyj, Deutschland und die Ukraine 1939-1945 vol. 2, 234-236; Pan’kivs’kyi, Vid derzhavy do Komitetu, 97. The outcome of the vote was 8:2. 1617 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/16, Regierungssitzung, September 5, 1941, pp. 156-157; Semchyshyn, Z knyhy leva..., 103; Hryciuk, Polacy we Lwowie, 201-202. 1618 Włodzimierz Bonusiak, Małopolska Wschodnia pod rządami Trzeciej Rzeszy (Rzeszów: Wyższa Szkoła Pedagogiczna, 1990), 31. 1619 Hryciuk, Polacy we Lwowie, 226; Sowa, Stosunki polsko-ukraińskie 1939-1947, 132-133. German officials extended the GG administrative apparatus east. During the first general meeting which included representatives from the Galicia District, Lasch described Ukrainians as an “in-between” intelligentsia class, owing historical ancestry to Kyiv in the east and lifestyle to the west. Whereas they were given some low-level civil service positions, he reported the majority went to more experienced or seasoned Poles. Those Ukrainians who worked in Lwów’s municipal administration, particularly ones recruited simply to replace workers from the Soviet occupation period, were unqualified. This caused municipal work to falter. In other nationalized areas, such as industry, Ukrainian craftsmen became factory directors. To quickly and feasibly organize their civil occupation regime in the district, the Germans realized the need to primarily rely on employing Poles.1617 Relying on Poles, especially in some areas where Ukrainians were a majority, would prove tricky. Lasch also accented the ethnic divide and conquer approach hoping to gain the Ukrainians to collaborate with them in their anti-Polish, anti-Jewish plans: The Ukrainian nation is friendly with the German one. Had the Germans not liberated Ukraine, not a single living intelligent… would remain. The attachment of Galicia to the GG was dictated by administrative-political reasons, in order to extend the two-year achievements [of the GG] to this area… The Ukrainian case needed a solution when in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv the German and Ukrainian flags flew. The Ukrainian nation is friendly toward us… I appeal to Ukrainian reason and heart and call for honest and good cooperation…1618 As in the other GG districts, so to in Galicia did Frank intend to continue exploiting the divide and conquer mechanism toward Poles and Ukrainians. The goal, as Grzegorz Hryciuk noted, was to unemotionally force both groups to work for him. To achieve it, the Ukrainians were to be “acquired” while Poles were to be forced into it. This was the internal line. Externally, a different thesis was propagated. Lasch declared any and all manifestations of Polish-Ukrainian antagonisms as unacceptable. “Both of these nations should assume the necessary positions toward the new role which they now play, the characteristic of which agrees toward mutually building the new order,” he said. Fundamental for the Nazi occupiers was to avoid, at all costs, either the eruption of any open or large-scale conflicts between the two groups or internal conflicts within each group as both would threaten or completely disrupt their planned agricultural, industrial and demographic exploitation of the region.1619 A week later, Frank received a security report from SD deputy commander Franz Heim who informed him of the execution of 15 Ukrainians associated with the Bandera group; 7 in the Galicia District itself. Although outside of the official GG sphere of influence, Zhytomyr also became an early field of Ukrainian nationalist struggle; where Banderites and Melnykites clashed for ideological influence among Ukrainians there. The former, following the debacle of the Stets’ko government, intensified their propaganda activity toward creating a Ukrainian state in central Ukraine. Their leaflets and platform took on a considerable anti-German tone. Kubiiovych recalled of Banderite propaganda disseminated in central Ukraine blaming him as the one who persuaded Frank to attach Eastern Galicia to the GG; claiming he received a cottage in Krynica from the general governor in return.1620 1620 Kosyk, The Third Reich and Ukraine…, 119; Kubiiovych, Meni 85, 99. 1621 Struve, Deutsche Herrschaft, ukrainischer Nationalismus, antijüdische Gewalt..., 410-411. The Germans tried to contain the Banderites in Eastern Galicia. After the Wehrmacht crossed the prewar Polish-Soviet border, they noted of Banderite task forces moving east. Deemed “politically undesirable” there, they were illegally using Wehrmacht certificates to pursue their goals. A special Abwehr mission was sent east to identify and monitor them. In Zhytomyr, talks were held with members of a task force in which the Germans ordered themto return to Eastern Galicia. 1622 Sandkühler, „Endlösung” in Galizien..., 70; Grelka, Die ukrainische Nationalbewegung..., 386-387; Motyka, Ukraińska partyzantka…, 94; Rossoliński-Liebe, Stepan Bandera: The Life and Afterlife of a Ukrainian Nationalist…, 242-243. Volodymyr Kosyk placed the blame for the killings of Senyk and Sts’iborskyi on a Soviet NKVD agent. Kosyk, The Third Reich and Ukraine…, 122. 1623 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/12, Tagebuch 1941 – Band III: 1. Juli bis 30 September, pp. 280-281; Litopys Ukraїns’koї Povstans’koї Armiї, vol. 21, 94-95; Peter Klein (ed), Die Einsatzgruppen in der besetzen Sowjetunion 1941/42. Die Tätigkeits- und Lageberichte des Chefs der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD (Berlin: Edition Hentrich, 1997), 262; 271-272; 285-287; 313. 1624 Berkhoff, Harvest of Despair..., 51-52. For Melnykites, Zhytomyr served as a base for their planned advance to Kyiv where they hoped to create an administration. Omelian Senyk and Mykola Stsibors’kyi, two top-ranking members of the Provid, were sent to the region in late August to prepare for the Melnykite move further east once Kyiv fell to the Germans. Banderites also incurred into the region.1621 On August 30, the two were assassinated by a Banderite, causing permanent tensions between the two nationalist factions in which both either denounced each other to the German authorities or circulated propaganda denouncing one other. Wild rumors circulated, ones which claimed that Sushko, Haivas and Kubiiovych were the next targets of Banderite killings. In their rage, the Melnykites demanded the Germans prosecute the Banderites.1622 In his security report, Heim mentioned the swift arrests of Banderite elements in Zhytomyr by the SS. Subsequent arrests of nationalists continued throughout October and November 1941 throughout occupied Ukraine.1623 These actions by the Germans propelled the Banderites to take their work underground and to adapt an anti-German platform into their fields of activity toward a future Ukrainian state. Neither were Melnykites spared. In Kyiv, where Melnykites focused their strengths, they called to life a Ukrainian National Council. In declaring their aim of a Ukrainian state, the council – never legally registered – was dissolved by the Germans in November 1941. This, Berkhoff argues, began the “unannounced assault” on nationalist activists as Melnykites were arrested and executed in eastern Ukraine. SS Einsatzgruppen were ordered to secretly kill them on the grounds of being looters.1624 As micro Ukrainian issues continued to be debated, macro occupation policies began to take shape. Lasch reported the effect of the Soviet occupation on Ukrainians: “With the establishment of power and hundreds of officials in the smallest places, the city [Lwów] and the country were under constant pressure and tyrannized by barbaric means.” For some, Soviet power seemed backward and ‘Asian’ while the Jewish element monopolized administrative life.1625 Alongside expediently constructing an administrative apparatus in the district, the Germans looked to include Ukrainians in it. Even though, as Lasch reiterated, Ukrainian consciousness was nearly three times stronger among inhabitants than ‘Polishness,’ many Poles were employed since trained, experienced Ukrainian civil servants were lacking prewar; Polish rule having kept them out of such positions. Then, “they were the workers of the Poles in the cities and the servants and maids of Polish landlords in the country.” He also noted of Poles and Jews dominant in industry, commerce and trade. To play down any signs of Polish favoritism and prevent Ukrainians feeling inferior to Poles, Lasch proposed specialized courses to train Ukrainians, peasant and urban alike, for future administrative work and to eventually replace their Polish counterparts.1626 1625 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/17, Regierungssitzung in Lemberg, October 21, 1941, pp. 181-183; Amar, The Paradox of Ukrainian Lviv…, 73-87. Many Jews viewed the Soviet policy toward them as more tolerant than the prewar Polish one (especially in the sphere of education), often described as anti-Semitic and discriminatory. Conversely, Jews also suffered similar fates as their Polish and Ukrainian counterparts under Soviet occupation. As Amar noted, “The [Soviet] party-state, rather than systematically marginalizing or murdering the Jews, surpressed the richness of Jewish identity. Forced to pretend that they were citizens for the first time, in reality Jews found their autonomy and self-expression violently reduced.” In this respect, Soviet policy imposed a Soviet Jewish “emancipated”identity on Jews; one which the Nazis propagandized. 1626 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/16, Regierungssitzung, September 5, 1941, p. 156; GK 95/17, Regierungssitzung in Lemberg, October 21, 1941, pp. 183-184. 1627 Hryciuk, Polacy we Lwowie, 226. 1628 Wróblewski, Służba Budowlana (Baudienst)…, 208-209. 1629 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/13, Tagebuch 1941 – Band IV: 1. Oktober bis 31. Dezember, pp. 8-9. In a situational report for October/November 1941, Lwów starosta Egon Höller proposed affording Ukrainians the status of a “friendly minority” whose rights would include cultural freedom. Of course, this would be subject to German order and law. He called for a distinct differentiation in policy toward Poles and Ukrainians, something he naïvely believed might prevent ethnic antagonisms.1627 Conversely, SS Oberstrumbannführer Alfred Kolf argued civic officials wasted too much time in their political approaches of gaining sympathy and creating antipathy among the two ethnic groups. He proposed treating them neither as enemies nor as friends but to dispassionately force them to toil for the Germans.1628 During his October trip to Berlin, Frank met with Rosenberg to further discuss Ukrainian issues. Rosenberg informed him of the abandonment of plans to create a Ukrainian state as a counterweight against the Soviet Union, mentioning: “The population found in the occupied territories is by no means capable of fulfilling the political tasks which it is intended to fulfill.”1629 At a meeting with GG administrators in the last days of 1941, Frank reiterated Hitler’s racist, exploitative vision of the newly acquired territories in the east while simultaneously definitively defining a Ukrainian policy there: As before, the Ukrainians remain a problem… The Ukrainians of our Galicia District must not get the impression that we, inside the Great German Reich, are going to recognize a kind of Ukrainian state. Moreover, the Ukrainians are very likely to be a counterweight to the Poles… I see the solution to the Ukrainian question to be the same as to the Polish one, mainly they must be at our disposal as manpower… Nevertheless, it must be indicated that as far as the Galicia District is concerned, this is a constituent part of the Great German Reich and not of some Greater Ukraine, even in the intellectual sense… For the Germans, district Ukrainians would not only serve as a counterbalance to the Poles but, as had been seen during the pogroms in Lwów, to the Jews as well.1630 1630 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/17, Regierungssitzung in Krakau, December 16, 1941, pp. 308-309. 1631 Aly and Heim, Architects of Annihilation..., 156-159; Pohl, Nationalsozialistische Judenverfolgung..., 182; 280; Rich, “Armed Ukrainians in L’viv…,” 286. 1632 Leszek Podhorodecki, Dzieje Lwowa (Warszawa: Oficyna Wydawnicza Volumen, 1993), 227. 1633 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 20, folder 26, Zvit z khodu pidhotovnoї aktsiї v spravi vyselennia naselennia raionu pryznachenoho na viis’kovi polihony, May 22, 1942. 1634 Kul’turne zhyttia v Ukraїni. Zakhidni zemli. Dokumenty i materialy, vol. 1 (Kyiv: Naukova Dumka 1995), 117; Tarnavs’kyi, Literaturnyi L’viv 1939-1944, 73; Mick, Lemberg, Lwów, L’viv…, 299. 1635 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/17, Referat des Chef des Amtes des Distrikts Galizien Dr. Losacker anläßlich der Regierungssitzung in Lemberg, October 21, 1941, pp. 201-202. 1636 Bonusiak, Małopolska Wschodnia pod rządami Trzeciej Rzeszy, 34. Germanization meant eliminating district Jews. Nazi racial demographers were keen to notice the burden which beset the region (just as other GG region) – overpopulation. Here too the Jewish population was seen as a real economic problem; one earmarked for deportation. Bisanz, freshly appointed to head the district’s population and welfare department, assisted in organizing the 1942 März-Aktion deportation of some 30 thousand Jews. The German-sponsored Ukrainian auxiliary police played a central role in that years August Grosse Aktion which reduced Lwów’s Jewish population by 40 thousand.1631 Almost immediately, the occupation authorities began Germanizing Lwów. As in Kraków, an Aryan district was also created. Poles, Jews and Ukrainians were all forced out of their homes to make room for German residents.1632 Ukrainian and Polish aid committees were forced to aid resettled residents from three Lwów suburbs; all to make way for German military training grounds.1633 All this, Tarnovs’kyi solemnly recalled, was “the first extrinsic image of our occupation.”1634 An important component of occupational divide and conquer policies in the district was extending racial categorization there. Below the superior Germans and Volksdeutsche, the Poles were to be serfs working for the Germans. As mentioned, Jews were slated for complete extermination. Ukrainians, who stood above the Jews and Poles, were designated to be German helpers. Ludwig Losacker, the Galicia District administrative chief, informed Frank of plans to encourage greater Ukrainian collaboration, particularly through limited administrative self-management. This entailed reviving the cooperative system and permitting some sort of Ukrainian cultural autonomy.1635 Upon orders from Kraków, Lasch issued a decree temporarily regulating Ukrainian charitable and social welfare life in the district. However, the temporary privileges the Ukrainians gained did not exempt them from absolutely realizing German plans and politics.1636 Envisioning Ukrainian collaboration in the district, the occupiers looked toward the UTsK and their heretofore amicable cooperation to be the body overseeing it. An SD report suggested organizing national life in the district on the model of the GG aid committees.1637 To gain the moral support of Ukrainians in this matter, Lasch visited Sheptyts’kyi; informing him of plans to organize aid committees throughout the district. The metropolitan approved the idea and “spiritually supported it.”1638 In October 1941, the UTsK provisionally entered into the UKK, replacing the Stets’ko government in Eastern Galicia. The occupiers set the tone for Ukrainian activity by preventing the UKK from superseding the UTsK, becoming a rival representation in Eastern Galicia. Instead, they forced the fusion of the Pan’kivs’kyi group with Kubiiovych’s.1639 1637 Grelka, Die ukrainische Nationalbewegung..., 363fn36. 1638 “Hubernator d-r Liasch u Mytr. A. Sheptyts’koho,” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 2 no. 208 (September 20, 1941), 2. 1639 PISM, PC, folder KOL.30.I.27.2, Działalność ukraińców w obecnej wojny, August 1944; Pan’kivs’kyi, Vid derzhavy do Komitetu, 97. 1640 Liubomyr Ortyns’kyi, “Persha Ukraїns’ka Dyvizia na tli politychnykh podii druhoї svitovoї viiny” in Oleha Lysiakha (ed), Brody. Zbirnyk stattei i narysiv (Munich: Vydannia Bratstva kol. voiakiv Pershoї UD UNA, 1951), 22. 1641 PISM, MSW, folder A.9.III.2d/9, Ukraina pod niemiecką okupacją, December 4, 1941. In late November 1941, Kubiiovych and Pan’kivs’kyi travelled to Zhytomyr and Kyiv to assess possibilities of cooperation and work with Ukrainians there. It is possible their trip was facilitated by GG officials and the Eastern Ministry. Along the way, Kubiiovych met with Erich Koch’s administrative chief Paul Dargel in Równe to assess possibilities for cooperation with Reichskommissariat officials to extend UTsK influence. Not mixing words, Dargel dismissed any such collaboration ideas: “We don’t have any police or military units for you primates. The broom and hoe are your future in Europe.”1640 Further east, the group realized the difference between the Galician and Soviet Ukrainians – the former being filled with an opaque political romanticism whereas from the latter, while under Soviet occupation, despite of all the persecutions and terror, a generation of prepared national activists emerged. A Polish report summarized the disappointment the Galician group faced: “They left poor Eastern Galicia, full of romantic concepts; the Galician Ukrainians imagined that they were travelling to rule Soviet Ukraine. It turned out, however, that the most they could do there was find work if they showed professional qualifications.”1641 Following his return, Kubiiovych summarized his travels before the UTsK: There are hardly any illiterates in Ukraine while their social formation is significant. All those, who wish to go there with foggy slogans will be very disappointed with the attitudes of not only the intellectuals or workers but of common peasants. National consciousness is currently stronger there than ever before… There [in Volhynia], locals, often with no qualifications, already organized a school district custody and claim that they do not need any outsiders [i.e. Eastern Galician Ukrainians]. Time will tell if this is true, especially since this custody contains only 3 Ukrainians as compared to 11 Polish pedagogues.1642 1642 Stempowski, W dolinie Dniestru…, 264-266. 1643 PISM, MSW, folder A.9.III.2d/9, Ukraina pod niemiecką okupacją, December 4, 1941; LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 18 file 10, Zasidannia Provodu UTsK, 23-24-25 December 1941; Stempowski, W dolinie Dniestru..., 267-268. 1644 “Sprawy Ukraińsko-Polskie od września 1939 do listopada 1941 – przewidywania na przyszłość: załącznik nr. 1,” Armia Krajowa w dokumentach vol. 2, 143-144; Iliuszyn, AK i UPA..., 73-74; Partacz, “Próby porozumienia polsko-ukraińskiego...” in Polsko-Ukraina: trudne pytania vol. 6, 21-22. As such, nationalist views of spreading consciousness to what were perceived as backward Ukrainians was met with disillusionment. Krakivs’ki Visti press reports described the difference between Dnieper and Galician Ukrainians: “Under Soviet occupation, a generation prepared for administrative work grew while in Galicia a type of metaphorical political romanticism prevails.” This was not the prairie that Galician Ukrainians envisioned governing but a rather industrialized area with competent and trained professionals (doctors, dentists, pharmacists); something which Eastern Galicia and Western Volhynia lacked under prewar Polish rule.1643 After this episode, Kubiiovych focused on joining the UKK to the UTsK; the weight of Committee work, as he declared, having now shifted to Galicia The Polish underground kept the exile government abreast of the changes in the Galicia District. After a subsequent round of arrests by the Germans in September 1941, the Banderites went underground to reorganize their strengths while assuming an anti-German position. The position in which both nationalist groups found themselves prompted them to engage in talks with the Polish underground, presumably to “test the waters” over the possibility of Ukrainian-Polish rapprochement. For the Poles, this was a chance to determine whether agreements could be reached with Ukrainian political elites, something necessary if only to normalize relations with them for future negotiations. For Ukrainians, this was a search for a “safety-net” or “open door” in case relations with the Germans soured. Most talks were either Ukrainian monologues with no realistic conclusions or conducted with representatives with little credibility or backing at that time. For example, Banderite Volodymyr Horbovyi concluded that the Poles were psychologically unprepared to peacefully recognize a future Ukraine’s western border along the San and Bug Rivers, i.e. including the western ethnographic territories. He believed a Polish-Ukrainian showdown similar to the one in 1918-1919 was unavoidable. However, with many of his colleagues arrested by the Germans, he remained steadfast in his opinion of collaborating with them: “Even if in a month or two I were to find myself in Dachau, there too I would continue to defend the need for a Ukrainian alliance with Germany.”1644 Other talks presented signs of a barter from the side of Ukrainians in the event of a German collapse. Favorably disposed to Poles acquiring as much territory as possible at the expense of a defeated Germany, Ukrainians looked to hold deciding plebiscites in areas where they claimed a majority in eastern and southeastern portions of the GG. In exchange for Polish-majority areas in Eastern Galicia (Lwów, Tarnopol, Stanisławów), they were willing to give-up the Chełm, Podlasie and Lemko regions to Poland. The underground was weary of such a deal for two reasons. First, they noted that any attempts to regain “Eastern Lesser Poland” would be met with resistance from reinforced Ukrainian elements with their own police and a prepared administrative apparatus; elements which in 1918 they did not possess. The Polish element in the region, severely diminished by Soviet policies in 1939-1941, was weak and could not be seen as a source of support. Second, the underground also saw problems in the regions the Ukrainians were willing to give-up as German occupation policy vis-à-vis Ukrainians strengthened those elements who “indulged in politicking succumbed to profound demoralization.”1645 1645 “Sprawy Ukraińsko-Polskie od września 1939 do listopada 1941 – przewidywania na przyszłość,” Armia Krajowa w Dokumentach vol. 2, 140-141. 1646 AAN, DRRPK, sygn. 202/III/198, List ze Lwowa, November 19, 1942, p. 78; PUMST, OIV, file A269/68, Projekt granicy polsko-ukraińskiej, January 18, 1943, p. 64. A Lwów AK report mentioned Kubiiovych (code-named “Kuban”) searching for Polish contacts. This was not the first time the underground spoke with him. In 1940 he unofficially met with a representative in Kraków. His pro-German, nationalist position made any sort of collaboration impossible. Furthermore, he unwaveringly maintained the position that the Bug and San Rivers line be the boundary ethnically separating Poles and Ukrainians with ethnic cantons created after ethnically cleansing each side.1646 Meeting officially with Mirosław Żuławski (of the AK information and propaganda bureau) in Lwów, he proposed mutual collaboration toward resolving territorial disputes. According to Żuławski’s report, Kubiiovych believed that as of September 1941, the Germans had not reached their goal of swiftly destroying the USSR and with a looming winter campaign possible, he expressed the possibility of a German defeat. With the Soviets in a weak state as well, he envisioned a repeat of the 1918 scenario. He hoped to avoid a conflict over Lwów while proposing an agreement along the lines of the Piłsudski-Petliura one. Kubiiovych suggested Polish and Ukrainians territory be divided along the Bug-Gniła Lipa-Łomnica rivers line. Territory to the east and west would be ethnically cleansed “by population resettlements on the basis of German experiments.” with Poles moved west and Ukrainians sent east. In this way, he concluded future Polish and Ukrainian states would lay back-to-back; with Poland looking west and Ukraine east. He proposed the two jointly present this delineation project to the Germans. Had this project come to fruition, Ukrainians would have been moved from Eastern Galician territory to, for example, Dnieper Ukraine in the Reichskommissariat. In terms of Poland, Kubiiovych recognized, in principle, the inviolability of its prewar borders but suggested future Ukrainian territory receive autonomous status along the lines of prewar Silesia after the war. Whereas this meeting was non-binding from the Polish side, Żuławski concluded that either the Germans, in seeking to solve the Polish-Ukrainian problem, were behind the propositions or it was stimulated by Ukrainians in response to recent rumors of German intentions to resettle all Ukrainians east of the Zbruch River.1647 1647 AAN, AK, sygn. 203/XV/3, Eastern Report, December 22, 1941, p. 31; sygn. 203/XV/45, Raport na temat rozwiązania kwestii ukraińskiej, April 1943, p. 152. The meeting was in fact held in September 1941. One Polish report described Kubiiovych’s propositions, especially the idea of the Germans being the agent to conduct demographic change, as harmful to the Polish reason of state. It was suggested to avoid any further talks with him. PUMST, OIV, file A.269/68, Projekt granicy polsko-ukraińskiej, January 18, 1943, p. 64. 1648 Mick, Lemberg, Lwów, L’viv…, pp. 297; 299; Schenk, Noc morderców..., 251; Schenk, Hans Frank..., 192-193. 1649 Quoted in Bonasiuk, Małopolska Wschodnia pod rządami Trzeciej Rzeszy, 31. Such a proposition was uncharacteristic for someone like Kubiiovych who espoused a Ukrainian state model tantamount to ethnographic territory. Why then did he present it? The reasons for his proposition may lie in Żuławski’s conclusions. This was a continuation of the “whispering campaign” caused after Hitler’s decree to attach Eastern Galicia to the GG and the uncertainty and dejection caused by it among nationalist circles. Kubiiovych and other Ukrainians understood German intentions toward them could change at an instant; recent mass arrests among the nationalists whom they used in their Drang nach Osten being a prime example. As such, whereas GG officials recognized a Ukrainian historical tradition in Eastern Galicia, this would not stop them from Germanizing it by making room in what they saw as the Lebensraum of the east. With this in mind, it is evident that Ukrainians were concerned with Nazi ideas of compartmentalizing them in the Reichskommissariat Ukraine in the future if only because that administration bore a ‘Ukrainian’ name and was seen as truly Ukrainian by the Germans. Nazi visions of Germanizing the district reverberated such plans. Frank believed Ukrainians would eventually be expelled to the Reichskommissariat; attempting to be on good terms with that administration if only to eventually dump Ukrainians there. Once this was done, he believed: This area will be the next component of Europe which will be subject to absolute German penetration... We will build a great Reich autobahn which will crisscross our country. Along these autobahns large settlements of Germans will arise. At strategically well-chosen points, enormous military headquarters will be set up around which a broad belt of German life will gradually develop.1648 Lasch also echoed that idea when, during his first expose as governor on September 18, 1941, he stated: However, the Germans do not think of how to maintain a national division [between Germans and Ukrainians] into two parts. No one but the German knows that blood belongs to blood and that no border will change this. The Ukrainian question will come to a solution when in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv German and Ukrainian flags will fly.1649 Even though nationalist aspirations of creating a Ukrainian administration were dashed in Kyiv, the Germans viewed resettling Ukrainians there as a labor means to work for the Reichskommissariat and Reich in general. With this in mind, it appears Kubiiovych attempted, at the very minimum, to determine Polish opinion toward such a German territorial solution. In the same breath, he acknowledged the possibility of Eastern Galicia returning to postwar Poland and proposed a deserving position for it. The question whether these decisions were his own, ones stemming from consultations with the Melnykites or with the Germans, or both, is uncertain. Frank began 1942 with a district situational report. The greater part of older Ukrainians around the Pan’kivs’kyi committee, he was told, were more loyal to the occupiers than their younger, radical counterparts.1650 The generational split in Ukrainian society also caused tensions in towns and villages throughout the district. During ceremonies commemorating the independence declaration, those who attempted to denounce Bandera and praise Mel’nyk were often verbally condemned by young nationalists, leading to incidents of bullying or even murder.1651 During his annual new year’s meeting with Frank, Kubiiovych reiterated desires to be part of the new European order alongside the Nazis, becoming what he described as the bridge between Germany and the east: 1650 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/18, Tagebuch 1942: Januar bis April, pp. 32-33. 1651 Bilyns’kyi, D-r Toma Lapychak..., 28-29. 1652 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/18, Tagebuch 1942: Januar bis April, pp. 59-62. 1653 “Z nadiieiu na zustrich maibutn’oho,” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 3 no. 3 (January 7, 1942), 1-2. With joyous satisfaction, we find that you, Mr. Governor-General, have done much good for the Ukrainians of the GG during the past years. Let us express our hope that now… you will continue to give us the possibility of national development; that we can employ all our creative forces for the great objective headed by the leader of the Great German Reich.1652 In a Krakivs’ki Visti editorial, he admitted that even though 1941 did not bring the fulfillment of Ukrainian aspirations, it did bring the defeat of Ukraine’s “gravediggers” who looked to build on the “corpse” of Ukraine.1653 Frank continued presenting the attachment of Eastern Galicia to the GG as a positive outcome since, as he explained, Ukrainians were in closer contact with the dominant Germanic culture of Western Europe if only by living in the urdeutsche city of Lemberg. He again thanked Ukrainians for their close collaboration with his administration – even going as far as to call them his personal “God sent” – and hoped it continue. Furthermore, he assured Kubiiovych that officials would employ more Ukrainians throughout the district administration to better represent the national character of the region – Ukrainian, not Polish. This along with concessions in other national spheres of Ukrainian life was what Frank called a reward for their unfulfilled dream, a Ukrainian state.1654 However, small social concessions had yet to completely win-over Ukrainians toward total collaboration. They indifferently reacted to the Germanization of street names. Nor was there any reaction toward German press articles which described Lwów as an “ancient German city.”1655 The creation of the Reichskommissariat Ukraine also disheartened them. 1654 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/18, Tagebuch 1942: Januar bis April, pp. 59-62; LAC, MG 31 D 203, volume 17 folder 21, Gedächnisprotokoll über die Aussprache des Generalgouverneurs mit der ukrainische Abordnung, January 1, 1942. 1655 PISM, PC, folder KOL.30.I.27.2, Działalność ukraińców w czasie obecnej wojny, August 1944. 1656 The note is quoted in Ilnytzkyj, Deutschland und die Ukraine 1939-1945 vol. 2, 245. 1657 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 19, folder 1, UKK Instruktsiia ch. IV, February 10, 1942. 1658 Ilnytzkyj, Deutschland und die Ukraine 1939-1945 vol. 2, 246-249; Grünberg and Sprengel, Trudne Sąsiedztwo...., 577. 1659 Ilnytzkyj, Deutschland und die Ukraine 1939-1945 vol. 2, 246-249. The GG population and welfare bureau drafted, on January 15, 1942, a note legally extending the scope of UTsK work to the Galicia District. The Lwów UKK was to remain in a “personal union” with the UTsK.1656 On February 9 Frank officially passed a decree making the Lwów UKK committee an official branch of the UTsK. In turn, the National Council was slated to be dissolved by the end of the month.1657 Kubiiovych and Pan’kivs’kyi met with national council members in Lwów where they presented the occupier’s final decisions. Some, like Dr. Iaroslav Bilenkyi, secretary of the National Council, believed Pan’kivs’kyi’s UKK still fell under the jurisdiction of the council. Kubiiovych proposed the National Council, now relegated to a secondary, apolitical role, serve as an unofficial advisory body for the UTsK. Pan’kivs’kyi was more curt, telling those gathered: “I am responsible for all Ukrainian life in the district of Galicia. The Germans recognize only the UKK and not the National Council.” Prewar UNDO member and council director Stepan Kuzyk viewed the dissolution of the National Council as a destruction of Lwów Ukrainians' achievements. He equated relegating the council to the role of an auxiliary as resembling German treatment of Jews. Bilenkyi argued that the National Council allowed Ukrainians in the city to express the wishes and issues of the people. Its dissolution, he believed, “would trigger an unwillingness throughout the country and could have catastrophic consequences… This would mean that the Germans had taken away the right of the Ukrainian people to express their thoughts.” 1658 For Lwów Ukrainians, it was evident that their task lay in defending the substance of the nation as this was all they believed the Germans would allow them; political concessions being out of the question. Kubiiovych reassured them: “We will make every effort to make life easier for the Ukrainian community and help it withstand the difficult times of the war.” During later deliberations, ones which Losacker attended, Kubiiovych even proposed to begin ethnically cleansing the district by expelling Poles from it.1659 In their memoirs, both Kubiiovych and Pan’kivs’kyi described Galician Ukrainian hesitancy toward accepting Kubiiovych, who they viewed as an “intruder” and German lackey whose aim was to rapidly envelop the region into his sphere of influence. They viewed the UTsK as an “émigré institution.” Conversely, the German authorities thought Kubiiovych put too little effort in bringing the UKK under the UTsK.1660 Iln’yts’kyi believed that from the beginning of Pan’kiv’sky’s negotiations in Kraków, he was an exponent of the UTsK rather than a representative of the National Council; having done everything to hasten the Committee’s expansion east.1661 1660 Pan’kivs’kyi, Vid derzhavy do Komitetu, 88; Pan’kivs’kyi, Roky nimets’koї okupatsiї, 152; Kubiiovych, Meni 85, 99-100. 1661 Ilnytzkyj, Deutschland und die Ukraine 1939-1945 vol. 2, 233. 1662 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 17, folder 24, Protokol konferentsiї v spravakh orhanizatsiinykh, September 7, 1942. 1663 “Na prozi novoї doby,” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 2 no. 44 (March 3, 1942), 1-2. 1664 “Pershyi Z’їzd predstavnykiv UOK i Delehatur kraiu u L’vovi,” L’vivs’ki Visti vol. 2 no 71 (April 1, 1942), 2; Shkandrij, Ukrainian Nationalism..., 271. UTsK expansion officially began on March 1. Pan’kivs’kyi was named Kubiiovych’s deputy as well as head of the Lwów-city auxiliary committee branch. Authority remained centralized and vested in the hands of Kubiiovych. Kraków and Lwów became what Kubiiovych termed one moral whole yet most Committee department offices moved to the latter. Whereas Lwów served as the de facto seat of the UTsK, Kraków remained its de iure center as it remained the Ukrainian link to the GG authorities; what was described as their “embassy.”1662 Kubiiovych split his time, spending several weeks per month in both cities. An editorial appearing in Krakivs’ki Visti propagandized the union of aid committees as admirable and beneficial. The author claimed this distinguished the UTsK from other Ukrainian groups, i.e. the nationalists, in that they were able to put aside factionalism and opportunism in favor of social work for all Ukrainians: “Political ideas, programs, doctrines, and organizations are only valuable when they serve the development of national life.”1663 Read another way, the editorial showed that the divisive, ideologically-driven OUN was replaced by the more representative and indivisible Central Committee. Following official reorganization of top structures, a two-day conference for auxiliary committee representatives and delegates was held in Lwów. Mykhailo Demkovych-Dobrians’kyi, the journalist and civic leader who worked in the Pan’kivs’kyi committee and subsequently in the UTsK, reiterated the Ukrainians future lying in the victory of Germany and the new European order. An adherent of the democratic nationalists, he previously argued of the OUN’s sectarianism and cult-like perception: “The nationalists have made a sect out of a political organization and a dogma out of a few principles of their ‘world-view.’ Whoever does not recognize these dogmas is a heathen, a heretic, condemned to destruction, lacking the right to live among people of the chosen faith.”1664 Over a two-month period, between June and July 1942, Kubiiovych, Pan’kivs’kyi and Bisanz, conducted an inspection tour of newly-inherited auxiliary committees and delegates throughout the Galicia District. The agenda of each meeting generally followed a similar script. Kubiiovych spoke of UTsK goals – to raise the level of national consciousness through education and cultural work in efforts to be part of the new Germany order.1665 Bisanz reinforced Kubiiovych’s deutsch freundlich, Germanophile sentiments, reiterating positive German-Ukrainian relations. In meetings with local German administrators, the Ukrainians reinforced the image of the Central Committee being a loyal, united Ukrainian front.1666 On the eve of the one year anniversary of the attachment of Eastern Galicia to the General Government, 12 UTsK aid committees dotted the district landscape.1667 1665 “Providnyk UtsK prof. d-r Volodymyr Kubiiovych u Rohatyni,” L’vivs’ki Visti vol. 2 no. 123 (June 6, 1942), 2; “Provid UTsK na dilovykh naradakh v Sokali i u Kamintsi Stumylovii” L’vivs’ki Visti vol. 2 no. 133 (June 18, 1942), 2; “Providnyk UTsK na naradakh Komitetu v Sambori,” L’vivs’ki Visti vol. 2 no. 152 (July 10, 1942), 2. 1666 “Natsional’ne samovykhovannia,” L’vivs’ki Visti vol. 2 no. 42 (February 27, 1942), 1-2; “Orhanizovane zhyttia Stanislavivshchyny zrazkom ukraїns’ko-nimets’koї spivpratsi,” L’vivs’ki Visti vol. 2 no. 128 (June 12, 1942), 2. 1667 TsDAVOVUU, UTsK, f. 3959, op. 2, spr. 22: pp. 5-10; 23-24. Aid committee branches were found: Lwów-city, Lwów County, Brzeżany, Drohobycz, Złoczów, Kamionka Strumiłowa, Stanisławów, Stryj, Rawa Ruska, Kołomyja, Czortków, and Tarnopol. 1668 PISM, MSW, folder A.9.V/22, Przegląd prasy ukraińskiej, April 28, 1942. 1669 Semchyshyn, Z knyhy leva…, 128-129. 1670 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 17, folder 22, Material do dyskusii, 1942/1943. By mid-1942, Kubiiovych and the UTsK had extended their sphere of activity east, albeit by orders of the GG administration and Nazi security apparatus. Thus, the mission of the UTsK began to transition from simply guarding Ukrainian interests throughout “western ethnographic territories” to doing the same over all ethnographic territory under German occupation within GG borders. This sentiment appeared in Kubiiovych’s declaration: “... the Ukrainian Central Committee has stretched its agenda to the Galicia region and became the representative of all Ukrainians in the GG. This unification and coordination of our organized life in the GG came in accordance with the will of the German authorities and from the demands of our national-social issues.” Similar sentiments were echoed in an UTsK declaration. Galician Ukrainians were recognized as being the intermediaries between the German and Ukrainian worlds. 1668 However, those who joined the ranks of the aid committees in the district often did so to better their social position. Semchyshyn recalled being promised more food ration cards if he became education head for the Lwów County aid committee. He viewed this as a great improvement from his previous work for the German Kreishauptmann not only for the added cards but also because he would be able to conduct fieldtrips which allowed him to barter for or purchase food not readily available in the city.1669 Of importance to UTsK work was expanding religious and cultural ideals; a mutual basis factors necessary for Ukrainian national life to prosper. Here, Committee officials called on the intelligentsia to create necessary circumstances for social work.1670 Aside from Greek Catholic priests working in or alongside aid committees, Orthodox bishops in eastern Ukraine looked toward Ilarion to fill the vacant Archeparchy of Kyiv and Pereiaslav and “renew and direct our religious and cultural lives on free, independent Ukrainian land… to finally unite and spiritually lead our national Church.” This was seen as the first step toward a long-term church plan – to elevate Ilarion to the position of Metropolitan of Kyiv and All Ukraine through a specially organized and permitted synod.1671 However, in orders to SS and police heads, Heydrich expressly stipulated avoiding any Orthodox unification attempts there.1672 1671 PAA, MCF, 85.191, box 5 file 55, Sprava obrannia Apkhyiepyskopa Ilariona na Kyїvs’ku Vladychnu Katedru, January 21 1942; Karel Berkhoff, “Was there a religious revival in Soviet Ukraine under the Nazi Regime?” The Slavonic and East European Review vol. 78 no. 3 (July 2000), 541-542. 1672 Berkhoff, Harvest of Despair..., 236-237. 1673 Ronikier, Pamiętniki 1939-1945, 124-125. 1674 Grzegorz Hryciuk, „Kumityt” Polski Komitet Opiekuńczy Lwów Miasto w latach 1941-1944 (Toruń: Wydawnictwo Adam Marszałek, 2000), 21-32; Mękarska-Kozłowska, Mozaika wspomnień, 108. 1675 Lanckorońska, Those Who Trespass against Us…, 99. 1676 Hryciuk, Przemiany narodowościowe i ludnościowe…, 204-206. 1677 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 17, folder 21, Gedächnisprotokoll über die Aussprache des Generalgouverneurs mit der ukrainische Abordnung, January 1, 1942; Amar, The Paradox of Ukrainian Lviv…, 133. The ethnically and nationally mixed character of Lwów and its surrounding counties led also to the expansion of the Polish RGO into the district. According to Ronikier, one of the factors which prompted him to lobby the occupier’s to expand the RGO apparatus east was Poles' mistreatment by the Germans who made them second-class citizens in favor of the Ukrainians. This required energetic intervention with GG officials from an institution representing organized Polish society there; something lacking thus far.1673 In his population and welfare capacity, Bisanz played a role in expanding RGO influence east. Through this, he re-created his GG institutional environment for dividing and conquering Poles and Ukrainian on racial, welfare lines. The Lwów RGO branch enveloped spontaneously organized Polish soup kitchens and aid committees, ones which sprang-up following the June 1941 invasion. They would continue the welfare and aid role of branches in other GG districts – opening and supporting orphanages; giving legal advice and aid; assisting the unemployed in finding work; making contacts with the families of arrested Poles, etc.1674 Karolina Lanckorońska recalled that the even though the Germans gave them permission for the RGO to operate throughout the district, they, with the help and intrigue of the Ukrainians, did everything possible to impede progress.1675 The ghettoization and extermination of the district’s Jewish inhabitants transformed cities into killing fields as well as new places to live. This living space soon became a resource, fought over among the remaining dominant ethnic groups – Poles and Ukrainians. By the end of 1941, Ukrainians (3,369,370) outnumbered Poles (962,941) threefold in the district.1676 Both vied for influence in mid and low-level administrative positions. German plans for the fragmentation and conquest of the Poles and Ukrainians in Eastern Galicia stemmed from practical administrative needs. Promising Kubiiovych to not pit Poles against Ukrainians while in the same breath encouraging Ukrainians to be duly represented throughout district administrative structures, Frank promoted a toxic, manipulative “ethno-political tilting game” between the two national groups; keeping them in a state of hostile antagonism and hoping to prevent any synergy.1677 This was all the more evident since following the immediate wave of murders which targeted the Polish intelligentsia in July 1941, over the next one-and-a-half years, the occupiers refrained from any major murder or extermination campaigns against Poles and Ukrainians.1678 1678 Hryciuk, Polacy we Lwowie, 226-227; 326-367. 1679 Schenk, Noc morderców…, 213-216; Schenk, Hans Frank…, 252-258; Winstone, The Dark Heart of Hitler’s Europe…, 53-54. Not only was Lasch a long-time and close colleague of Frank’s but he also was Brigette Frank’s lover. 1680 Pohl, Nationalsozialistische Judenverfolgung..., 76-79. 1681 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/21, Tagebuch 1942: September bis Dezember, p. 304; Andrew James Melnyk, The History of the Galician Division of the Waffen-SS vol. 1 (Stroud, UK: Fonthill Media, 2016), 20-24. In January 1942, Lasch was accused by the SS of corruption, removed from his post and executed in June on orders of Himmler.1679 Following his degradation, SS Gruppenführer Otto Wächter, considered to be less corrupt than his predecessor, was appointed governor. An Austrian-born Nazi, he joined the SA in Vienna in 1923 before climbing the ranks of the party there, organizing the 1934 putsch against Dollfuss. After this, he entered the SS. From 1939 he served as the governor of the Kraków District.1680 Kubiiovych first met Wächter during the November 1939 meeting with Frank. He recalled informing him of Ukrainian readiness to cooperate with the German authorities. Then, Wächter told him that Ukrainians can help build the GG “with the plow and hoe;” as laborers. This, of course, came before Frank’s divide and conquer policy. As governor and Nazi party chief of Galicia, Wächter approached administering his district according to the Habsburg tradition. Ludwig Losacker, who served as Wächter’s office chief, saw in him a “balanced politician” interested in social issues. This position, Losacker claimed, stemmed from his Austrian background. Wächter envisioned Lwów becoming his “little Vienna of the east.” He viewed the district as a special territorial entity within the GG and pursued his own model of regional occupation. He proposed Eastern Galicia receive a special administrative status (Sonderstellung) after uniting the Kraków and Galicia districts into one Grossdistrikt Galizien or Greater Galician District; something echoing the Habsburg tradition of administration. His respected position and expertise within the civil administration made his the de facto authority in the district. Although Frank visited him and vice versa, he was allowed a political free-hand in governing.1681 Wächter was vehemently anti-communist. He was also a proponent of collaborating with the Ukrainians to, on the one hand, tote Frank’s GG ethnic line while, on the other, securing an equally anti-Soviet body he could possibly exploit in some way in the future. As a sign of respect and gesture of willingness to collaborate, his first meeting as governor was with Sheptyts’kyi. This was not unusual in that as the metropolitan was the only Catholic hierarch in Nazi-occupied Poland who supported the Germans. Conversely, German authorities paid him courtesies if only to politically strengthen their occupation regime by, through Sheptyts’kyi and his position of authority among Galician Ukrainian society, gaining Ukrainian support for it. Initially fearing arrest, the metropolitan was supposedly moved to tears when Wächter asked him to assist in his politics toward the Ukrainians.1682 During a trip to Kałusz, he presented collaboration as beneficial to both, Germans and Ukrainians: 1682 Magdalena Ogórek, Lista Wächtera. Generał SS, który ograbił Kraków (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Zona Zero, 2018), 272-273; 281; Zięba, “Szeptycki w Europie Hitlera” in Paź (ed), Prawda historyczna a prawda polityczna w badaniach naukowych..., 419. Wächter’s son Horst described the meeting between his father and Sheptyts’kyi from his mother’s recollections. 1683 “Hubernator Dr. Vekhter u Kalushi,” L’vivs’ki Visti vol. 2 no. 48 (March 5, 1942), 2. 1684 Kubiiovych, Meni 85, 161-164; Roman Kolisnyk, Viis’kova uprava ta ukraїns’ka dyviziia Halychyna (Toronto: Naukove Tovarystvo im. Shevchenka), 21. 1685 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/24/I, Regierungssitzung, March 11, 1942, pp. 59-60. 1686 Ogórek, Lista Wächtera…, 329-330; Melnyk, The History of the Galician Division of the Waffen-SS, vol. 1, 24. 1687 Pan’kivs’kyi, Roky nimets'koї okupatsiї, 174; Mick, Lemberg, Lwów, L’viv…, 301. 1688 Kubiiovych, Meni 85, 103-104. I need solid and honest coworkers who will perform well… Everything created here under German leadership not only has a significance for the Germans but, first and foremost, for the people of this region. If roads are built and the region’s fortune is improved, it is done for the good of the local inhabitants; when we struggle to build clean villages, in them should live clean and solid people. I call on you [Ukrainians] to contribute to this. 1683 This approach gained him the favor of the district’s Ukrainians. Kubiiovych saw him as a subsequent Ukrainophile, one of “our German friends who understood Ukrainian problems and attempted to help in various matters.”1684 After taking over as governor, Wächter felt confident he could cooperate with the UTsK if only to maintain its efficient functioning.1685 However, his politics, including his amicable policy toward the non-German ethnic groups, made him a target for the SS who often accused him of being a phony Nazi. Problems with the SS occurred often during his time in Lwów. His main adversary Krüger bluntly explained the ideological difference between him, an Obergruppenführer, and Wächter the Brigadeführer, “I am firstly an SS man whilst you are a politician.”1686 According to Pan’kivs’kyi, collaboration with the Germans stemmed from their desire to prevent the reappearance of anything Polish: “Our refusal to cooperate with the administration would mean a return to Polish times, our positions would be occupied by Polish Volksdeutsche and Poles… this would be even worse. And the thirst to be the host of the country brought with it responsibility, enslavement, and the necessity to cooperate.” Working under German supervision, UTsK authorities were anxious to remove Poles from administrative positions and cultural life as this would in turn ukrainize institutes previously controlled by them.1687 In his memoirs, Kubiiovych presented a toned-down explanation for administrative collaboration, one absent of anti-Polish sympathies. He explained that attempts at Ukrainian administrative monopolization and collaboration with the Germans stemmed from the practical fact that a large portion of the region’s Polish element was forcibly deported east during the Soviet occupiers de-polonization campaign.1688 Based on his comments and actions during the war, one of his main goals for the UTsK was indeed to strengthen the Ukrainian state of possession. Whether this came at the expense of Poles or Jews was a moot point, as long as it came as a result of opportunities presented through collaboration with the Germans. What then did the Galician situation demand? An answer to this question comes from discussion materials concerning the UTsK’s platform for the second phase of the war. Incidentally, Kubiiovych added the handwritten comment “This is UTsK ideology” in the margin of this document. Staking future Ukrainian interests solely on the German card, Galicia was meant to be the link between the Germans and Ukrainians, making them part of the anti-Bolshevik coalition. According to the document, the latter was to be achieved not only through physical combat but also through “all consignment obligations by Ukrainian farmers, work of Ukrainian laborers in Germany, participation of Ukrainian youth in the Fatherland Service, the work of Ukrainian servicemen in government administration.”1689 Willful collaboration with the Germans and proving to be a valuable resource, whether in their struggle against the Poles and Soviets, equated to what the UTsK saw as a better position for Ukrainians alongside the Germans in the future. 1689 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 17, folder 22, Material do dyskusiipro platform UTsK, 1942. 1690 Veryha, The Correspondence…, 1079-1080; 1160; Amar, The Paradox of Ukrainian Lviv…, 106. 1691 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, Konferentsiia Kermanychiv Viddiliv UTsK L’viv, May 23, 1942. 1692 Redlich, Together and Apart in Brzezany…, 107-109. Both Kubiiovych and Pan’kivs’kyi lobbied the occupier toward exploiting Ukrainians over Poles in all aspects of district administration. Kubiiovych even proposed Ukrainian candidates from beyond the Galicia District fill administrative positions. In a note to the German Staathauptmann in Lwów, Pan’kivs’kyi, specifying that over 80 percent of the cities janitors were Ukrainian, complained over the introduction of 200 Polish overseers, “former teachers, lawyers and the like.”1690 The Germans exploited Ukrainian willingness to collaborate. Otto Bauer, Wächter’s deputy, assured Pan’kivs’kyi: “…we came to Galicia to the Ukrainians. We know them, we know they are favorable to us and this obligates us [to them].” He assured they would be placed in low-level administrative positions.1691 Under German management and supervision, Poles and Ukrainians worked within the civil administration of the district. Overall, the Poles gained more than in the pre-1941 GG yet Ukrainians were openly favored. Effects were evident. In Brzeżany, near Tarnopol, for example, the Germans controlled top administrative positions while Ukrainians worked in the low-level ones. Below them operated Polish and Ukrainian aid committees while Ukrainian schools, cultural and social societies were given preferential treatment in comparison to the Poles.1692 By the end of 1941, 759 people worked in the Lwów municipal administration – 20 Germans, 432 Ukrainians and 307 Poles. 26 Ukrainians held senior positions in the administration as compared to only 8 Poles. Municipal services, nominally ukrainized, saw a higher number of Poles working than Ukrainians (74 Germans, 1,040 Ukrainians and 2,909 Poles). In senior or managerial positions, the Poles dominated with 250 as opposed to just 84 Ukrainians. By 1943, a total of 4,802 Ukrainians and 6,989 Poles worked in municipal administration services. In service positions, such as the railroad, post office or telegraph offices, the majority of employees were Poles but Germans or Ukrainians held senior and managerial positions.1693 1693 Hryciuk, Polacy we Lwowie, 216-217. 1694 AAN, AK, sygn. 203/XV/27, Situational Report, December 1942, p. 52. 1695 Bonusiak, Małopolska Wschodnia pod rządami Trzeciej Rzeszy, 22. 1696 AAN, AK, sygn. 203/XV/27, Situational Report, December 1942, p. 38. 1697 Veryha, The Correspondence…, 1111; 1121-1123; Amar, The Paradox of Ukrainian Lviv…, 133-134. 1698 Sowa, Stosunki polsko-ukraińskie 1939-1947, 133. 1699 AAN, AK, sygn. 203/XV/27, Situational Report, December 1942, p. 30. Even in areas where Poles outnumbered Ukrainians, the latter continued to be favored by the Germans. Such was the case in the postal sector where Ukrainians and Germans constituted 10 percent each of the workers in comparison to 80 percent Poles. The Ukrainians remained loyal to the Germans and vice versa; the Germans differentiated them from the Poles by giving them precedence. An underground report added that the Ukrainian postal workers did much to damage the position of their Polish counterparts.1694 Where Ukrainians seemed unqualified or ill trained for administrative work, Kubiiovych and the UTsK quickly organized training courses to prepare worker cadres. By early 1942, courses for mayors, wójts and administrative secretaries were ceremoniously organized in Stanisławów.1695 However, the inexperience of the Ukrainian administrators showed as beaurocratic work productivity was reported to be low.1696 Even though the Ukrainian language was raised to the level of an administrative one, below the official German and alongside Polish, language rights were also a point of contention. In Brzeżany, a Ukrainian wrote to the German authorities there, complaining the Polish administrative cashier regarded Ukrainian-language documents as oriental or Asian; indiscernible to Europeans. Ukrainian auxiliary policemen also complained about Polish “chauvinists” infiltrating district administration. Polish employers were still accused of harassing their Ukrainian employees by forcing them to speak Polish.1697 With the advent of more Polish employment in low-level administrative positions, a Polish underground press bulletin boasted: “Today the phenomenon of Polish elements replacing Ukrainians can be noted, beating their professional training and acumen.” To eliminate Polish workers, the Banderites enacted in sabotage-propaganda campaigns meant to levy heavy German repressions collectively against the Poles.1698 Throughout the Galician district, relations between Polish and Ukrainian appellation judges were also very cold. Local government was exclusively in the hands of Ukrainians who predominantly harbored anti-Polish sympathies. Often, they imposed large harvest quotas on Polish villagers.1699 UTsK organizational, educational and cultural work was given a social monopoly over Ukrainian life in the district. Cultural reorganization in Lwów began as soon as the Germans arrived in the city. Then, as composer and pianist Vasyl’ Vytvyts’kyi recalled, the state of uncertainty caused artists to immediately organize writers, painters, actors, musicians unions. Prosvita societies were reopened along with theaters, music and literary societies. The revived literary club was quartered by the occupiers in the former Jewish newspaper Chwila building.1700 Roman Volchuk recalled how the prewar scouting organization Plast was once again revived, with the first youth camp held in August 1941.1701 1700 Oleksandr Luts’kyi and Kim Naumenko, “U roky druhoї svitovoї viiny” in Iaroslav Isaievych, et al (eds), L’viv. Istorychni narysy (L’viv: Instytut ukraїnoznavstva im. I. Kryp’iakevycha Natsional’noї akademiї nauk Ukraїny, 1996), 486; Tarnavs’kyi, Literaturnyi L’viv 1939-1944, 72. For a chronicle of the artist unions organized in L’viv immediately after German liberation and occupation, see Kul’turne zhyttia v Ukraїni. Zakhidni zemli. Dokumenty i materialy vol. 1, 133-136. 1701 Volchuk, Spomyny z peredvoiennoho L’’vova..., 85-86. 1702 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 18, folder 10, Protokol zasidannia Provodu UTsK, 21 April 1942; Pan’kivs’kyi, Roky nimets’koї okupatsiї, 110-116. 1703 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/17, Regierungssitzung in Krakau, December 16, 1941, p. 308. 1704 Kul’turne zhyttia v Ukraїni. Zakhidni zemli. Dokumenty i materialy, vol. 1, 151. 1705 Hnatiuk, Odwaga i Strach, 273-300; Lanckorońska, Those who Tresspass against Us…, 7-10; 24. Lanckorońska described the odd intellectual background of the Soviet professors who came to Lwów. For example, she mentioned that her department head, a professor of Germany history, know only Russian. A subsequent dean of the history department could not read the Latin alphabet. As she mentioned, he had no need for it since he specialized in Leninism and Stalinism. 1706 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/12, Tagebuch 1941: Band III – 1. Juli bis 30. September, pp. 92-93; 184-185. The inclusion of Eastern Galicia into the GG in turn outlawed the existence of any independent cultural or intellectual organizations or unions. Initially, they were placed under the auspices of the UKK. As of 1942, with Pan’kivs’kyi’s committee enveloped into the UTsK, cultural societies became branches of the Committee’s cultural department.1702 Frank, in speaking to his subordinates, noted of limited cultural or intellectual self-sufficiency as the only tangible things the Ukrainians could claim for a Greater Ukraine. He reiterated Eastern Galician territory was part and parcel of the Greater German Reich. Nonetheless, cultural revival did not completely come without German administrative control. Cultural workers had to officially register with the Lwów civil officials, receiving an annual document which permitted them to work in their respective fields. However, future renewal of such documents was were not guaranteed.1703 Additionally, a June 1942 ordinance ordered the complete shutdown of all Ukrainian museums throughout the district as well as banned any new expositions from being organized.1704 Ukrainian education in the district took on a similar form as in the others, with elementary, middle, vocational and high schools organized. One thing which the Germans completely prohibited that Ukrainians yearned for was a university, something promised by the Poles during the interwar period and never delivered. While under Soviet occupation a university did exist, it was heavily sovietized as Polish professors were replaced by newly-arrived Soviet ones from Kyiv while lectures were conducted in Russian or Ukrainian. As Karolina Lanckorońska, an eminent art historian described, students did not necessarily come to learn but rather were sent by the Soviet occupiers as informers, to report on their professor’s lectures and remarks.1705 German administrators often conveyed to Frank the lack of qualified specialists – doctors, dentists, veterinarians – throughout the district; what they described as catastrophic. Ukrainian specialists were particularly lacking in these fields.1706 Frank approached the Lwów university matter much the same way as the Nazis did universities in Poland in 1939 – complete shutdown. He was prepared, however, to make the universities facilities available to the Reichskommissariat authorities, in the event of their decision to open a university in Kyiv. In talking with Rosenberg in Berlin, Frank sought the minister’s opinion over the fate of the university. Rosenberg conveyed to the general governor his desire to cease its functioning. If questioned or petitioned by the Ukrainians, Frank was to oblige to its reopening only after a corresponding one were opened in Kyiv; something which Hitler as well as Koch and Rosenberg were vehemently opposed to.1707 1707 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/16, Regierungssitzung, September 5, 1941, p. 158; DHF, GK 95/13, Tagebuch 1941 – Band IV: 1. Oktober bis 31 Dezember, pp. 8-9; Berkhoff, Harvest of Despair, 35; 195-196. Rosenberg ordered on December 12, 1941 to abolish all elementary school grades above the fourth. Reichkommissar Koch was also ordered to prevent the Ukrainian population from learning German as they were meant to be work, not think for themselves. 1708 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/18, Tagebuch 1942: Januar bis April, pp. 205-207; Christoph Kleßmann and Wacław Długoborski, “Nationalsozialistische Bildungspolitik und polnische Hochschulen 1939-1945,” Geschichte und Geselleschaft: Zeitschrift für historische Sozialwissenschaft vol. 23 (1997), 549-550. 1709 Kleßmann and Długoborski, “Nationalsozialistische Bildungspolitik...,” 551; Pol’sko-ukraїns’ki stosunky v 1942-1947 rokakh u dokumentakh OUN ta UPA: u dvokh tomakh, vol. 1 (ed) Volodymyr V’iatrovych. (L’viv: Tsentr doslidzen’ vyzvol’noho rukhu, 2011), 286. 1710 Kul’turne zhyttia v Ukraїni. Zakhidni zemli. Dokumenty i materialy, vol. 1, 152. In March 1942, in a need for qualified workers to exploit as well as replace ghettoized or exterminated Jewish specialists, primarily medical practitioners, Frank and GG officials returned to the question of higher education in the city. Wächter underscored possible political gains – greater Ukrainian loyalty – in training the non-German “offspring.” Whereas Frank agreed to development institutes, he warned of eminent danger in training those elements: The existence of a greater sense of intelligence among the non-Germans in this area is always the most dangerous element for German domination. On the other hand, however, it is absolutely essential that the most urgent needs of the GG and the interests of the German Reich be taken care of for subsequent generations. On the basis of this, the German administration must accept the fact that such training could strengthen the resistance of the people. However, everything must be avoided, which somehow arouses the appearance of a university.1708 The authorities agreed to the creation of German-controlled professional courses (Fachkurse) focusing initially on agricultural and medical fields (physician, veterinarian and pharmacist). A fifth field – technical – was later added. Nominally, the complexion of the courses were meant to be Ukrainian in character and composition. However, this was not necessarily the case. More Poles (868) taught courses than Ukrainians (326) while more Ukrainian students (2,101) were enrolled than Poles (723). Banderites suspected Polish students of being a hostile, anti-Ukrainian force in the courses.1709 A press article describing the launching of these courses noted that only Aryans were accepted for medical ones while only Ukrainians were chosen for the agricultural one. Tuition for one year of study amounted to 270 złotys.1710 In the fall of 1942, Roman Volchuk enrolled in a 4-semester construction course. He recalled that Polish and Ukrainian instructors, although formally obligated to instruct in German, more often than not taught in their respective languages. Alongside formal education, course-specific student organizations were also organized. By mid-1943 these unions contained 1,396 student-members.1711 1711 Volchuk, Spomyny z peredvoiennoho L’vova…, 92-94. Detailed membership in student organizations – the Union of Ukrainian Student Workers (Ob’iednannia Pratsi Ukraїns’kykh Studentiv OPUS), is as follows: 471 – medical branch; 212 – agronomists; 119 – veterinary; 104 – pharmaceutical. 1712 Amar, The Paradox of Ukrainian Lviv…, 135; Volchuk, Spomyny z peredvoiennoho L’vova…, 96-97. 1713 Pan’kivs’kyi, Roky nimets’koї okupatsiї, 364-366; Volchuk, Spomyny z peredvoiennoho L’vova…, 95; 102-103. 1714 Semchyshyn, Z knyhy leva…, 117; Tarnavs’kyi, Literaturnyi L’viv 1939-1944, 89. 1715 Tarnavs’kyi, Literaturnyi L’viv 1939-1944, 88-89. 1716 Semchyshyn, Z knyhy leva…, 124. See also Hnatiuk, Odwaga i strach, 411-497. 1717 Kul’turne zhyttia v Ukraїni. Zakhidni zemli. Dokumenty i materialy, vol. 1, 152-163. Despite German efforts, Ukrainians perceived the courses as higher education. A Ukrainian auxiliary police report noted of appreciation in the “opening of a university for them” and called on Poles to be completely excluded. German reports conveyed similar sentiments, noting of Ukrainian faculty and students openly presenting the courses as institutions of higher education. Kubiiovych emphasized professional training and education as necessary steps in giving Ukrainians the opportunity to “take control of the city and accord it a Ukrainian character.”1712 Even after the war, Pan’kivs’kyi insisted that the administration of the courses was in Ukrainian hands because its overall character was Ukrainian. To him, the introduction of the professional courses marked what he believed to be a “breakthrough in Ukrainian national culture and education.” Volchuk recalled a rather different opinion of the Fachkurse. Many Ukrainian students enrolled out of practical reasons – to either make a living or avoid labor, whether as Baudiensts or in the Reich – while showing little interest in any form of greater national mobilization.1713 Cultural life in Lwów experienced what Ukrainians saw as a rebirth; Semchyshyn describing the city as once again becoming the “epicenter and mouthpiece of Ukrainianess.” Tarnavs’kyi noted that the German occupiers did not “muzzle” Ukrainian cultural life in Eastern Galicia as the Soviets had before them.1714 A Ukrainian theater emerged in the city. Although observed by the occupiers, Ukrainian actors were given some semblance of latitude in choosing their repertoire. However, the Germans did not scrimp on material needs for the theater. Ballet, opera or operetta performances were organized for the Germans of the city as well. In just under three years, the theater performed 24 dramas and comedies, 18 operas, and 5 ballets.1715 Semchyshyn described theatrical life as a respite from the realities of occupied life; something which, even if only briefly, transported its viewers to “another realm of reality.”1716 The cultural revival was not, however, limited only to Lwów and immediate suburbs. Whereas it stood as the central of cultural life, a Ukrainian symphonic orchestra was also organized in Stanisławów. The Ivan Franko Theater in Tarnopol, along with presenting various shows and performances, also conducted concerts for the German army. Special services were conducted in Tarnopol, Stryj and Dobromil on the anniversary of the massacre of Ukrainian prisoners by the NKVD.1717 Participating in the revived Ukrainian intellectual and cultural life of Lwów, Kubiiovych presented a lecture at the city’s literary club concerning demographic changes in Eastern Galicia from 1860 to the present In his conclusions, he suggested the necessity of increasing the number of Ukrainian inhabitants as he saw this to be the “most effective weapon in the fight against the influx and importance of the Poles.” Furthermore, he argued for the need to protect at all costs Eastern Galician territory as a reservoir of Ukrainian strength; one to be tapped into for the future re-population of eastern Ukraine. By this time, some 50 thousand provincial Ukrainians – ones a Polish underground report described as “farmhands” – had already moved to the city.1718 1718 PUMST, OIV, file A.269, Stosunki polsko-ukraińskie, September 1941, p. 73. 1719 Ibid. 1720 “Stosunek niemców do ukraińców, litwinów i białorusinów – stosunek tych narodów do niemców i polaków (February 1, 1942),” Armia Krajowa w dokumentach vol. 2, 196. 1721 AAN, AK, sygn. 203/XV/40, Situational Report, August 1942, pp. 24-25. 1722 Partacz, “Próby porozumienia polsko-ukraińskiego…” in Polska-Ukraina: trudne pytania vol. 6, 23. According to Horbovyi, Ukrainian life was represented by the Banderites. During this meeting, he proposed moving Poland’s postwar border to the Oder River as compensation for ceeding Eastern Galicia to Ukraine. Furthermore, he suggested Poland, Czechoslovakia, Ukraine and Romania form a western Slavic wall to prevent any future German incursions. 1723 AAN, AK, sygn. 203/XV/27, Situational report for December 1942, p. 51. Certainly, the influx of rural Ukrainians into Lwów and its suburbs concerned the Polish-majority there. Poles feared travelling beyond the city limits as incidents occurred in which Ukrainians attacked and even murdered those who went outside the city’s borders.1719 In one report, Grot-Rowecki believed that nationalist Ukrainians in the district were preparing for an armed insurgency against the Poles. He also mentioned, on the one hand, of attempts from the side of the Ukrainian nationalists to reach an “eventual agreement” with “reliable Polish agents” while on the other, at the lower nationalist level, open anti-Polish sentiments remaining rampant.1720 The Polish underground observed an aura of superiority which emerged among Galician Ukrainians. The nationalization of Lwów continued through the arrival of Ukrainians from the suburbs or countryside; being placed in administrative positions. Ukrainian administrators even demanded the occupiers create a Polish ghetto in the city and forced them to wear distinctive armbands. Throughout the countryside, rumors of the Chełm region and Eastern Galicia being attached to future Ukrainian state or that a Ukrainian would soon be named district governor were rampant.1721 They also continued talks with Ukrainians. Meeting again with Horbovyi, he first suggested the Poles no longer speak with Kubiiovych as he claimed the UTsK “lacked content.” Horbovyi claimed Kubiiovych only headed the Committee to keep up his appearance as he lacked any real influence on Ukrainian society.1722 In conquering and administering Eastern Galicia, the Polish underground saw the Germans replace terror with an ethnic conflict between Poles and Ukrainians; one they controlled, fueled and exploited.1723 For their part, Ukrainian social demands placed before the occupiers aimed to use German power to expropriate Jews and Poles in favor of Ukrainian ownership and possession, all aimed to avoid the return of the prewar Polish status quo to the region at all costs.1724 1724 Amar, The Paradox of Ukrainian Lviv…, 136. Chapter 6 German-Ukrainian Collaboration in the General Government: Chaos and Collapse (1942 – April 1945) Remember that in all of our moves they watch us; tens of millions of our brothers on native soil watch what we do. Remember what we are for them – a great hope; they rejoice in our successes in the work for Ukraine… - Volodymyr Kubiiovych1725 1725 Shablii, Volodymyr Kubijovch. Memuary, rozdumy, vybrani lysty vol. II, 710. 1726 Mick, Lemberg, Lwów, L’viv..., 299; Mękarska-Kozłowska, Burza nad Lwowem..., 311. 1727 Amar, The Paradox of Ukrainian Lviv…, 90, fn 8. Reaseach to prove the Germanness of Lwów was conducted in that cities branch of the Institut für Deutsche Ostarbeit. The second period of UTsK activity which I have chosen to chronologically discuss represents a timeframe of chaos and collapse, particularly in but not limited to the Galicia and Lublin districts. It was also then that German strength on the European continent, especially in the east, reached its peak before its downfall. In relation to the occupier’s divide and conquer policy, it became evident that the Germans exploited ethnic minorities to counter majorities in the Galicia district where they initiated a practice of exploiting Poles against the rising Ukrainian nationalist movement while in the Lublin one they exploited ethnic minorities to counter majorities – Ukrainians against Poles. Macro and micro factors contributed to the policy in Lublin ultimately rebounding, causing an unwanted deterioration in security and rise in ethnic violence. 6.1 – The Galicia District: An Episode on ‘Native Soil’ and the Polish-Ukrainian Conflict Following the construction of an occupation apparatus, the Galicia district and Lwów were to be Germanized or rather re-Germanized. As Nazi ideologues believed, this could be facilitated by the regions historic bond with the Germanic Habsburg monarchy. They soon gave the city, officially referred to once again as Lemberg, a German character. Ukrainian street names, meant to conceal the city’s prewar Polish character, were being replaced by German ones. By 1942, 156 streets and squares’ names succumbed to Germanization.1726 Even Nazi pseudo-scientific studies were conducted to research modern German contributions in municipal economic development or laws. In some instances, administrators asked for help to justify Germanic proof from among non-Aryans. The city’s Stadthauptmann for example consulted Polish scholar and archivist Karol Badecki for such help.1727 According to Tarik Cyril Amar, the creation of Lemberg mixed “German fantasies of backwardness and transformation with mass murder.”1728 By the end of 1942, some four-fifths of the city’s 111-119 thousand Jews were dead. One year later virtually all were exterminated. In the end, almost one-tenth of all Holocaust victims came from Eastern Galicia; a population which numbered between 540 and 650 thousand at the start of German occupation.1729 In the meantime, Slavs were exploited as a surplus labor source. Any semblance of Polish-Ukrainian cohesion was seen as detrimental to occupation and exploitation. To prevent this but also to maintain loyalty from the deutschfreundlich Ukrainians, Frank advised Wächter to take special interest in the Ukrainian question.1730 1728 Ibid, 90. 1729 Pohl, Nationalsozialistische Judenverfolgung in Ostgalizien, 43-44; Hryciuk, Polacy we Lwowie, 50. 1730 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/24/I, Regierungssitzung in Regierungsgebäube zu Krakau, March 11, 1942, pp. 8-10; 15 1731 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/2, Abteilungsleitersitzung, May 10, 1940, p. 155; DHF, GK 95/8, Wirtschaftstagung, June 6-7, 1940, p. 46. 1732 Schenk, Hans Frank. Biografia generalnego gubernatora, 234-246. The German version of the Frank saying is a play on words: “Im Westen liegt Frankreich – im Osten wird Frank reich.” For a personal account of both Hans and Brigitte Frank, see Nikolas Frank, Meine deutsche Mutter (München: C. Bertelsmann 2005) and In the Shadow of the Reich. 1733 Schenk, Mord lwowskich profesorów…, 213-215. Through investingating Lasch, the SS hoped to also gain enough evidence to indict Frank, who they wished to remove from power, of corruption and abuse of power. When Lasch learned that his one-time close colleague Frank completely turned away from him following his arrest, he disclosed details of Frank’s profiteering. However, the Galicia District, just as the other districts of the GG was no idealized administrative zone. Whereas German and Austrian administrators at all levels served Hitler and the Reich, opportunism ran rampant. The GG was said to attract the most corrupt into its administrative ranks. Party officials wrote to the Reich chancellery describing the relationship forming between Jews and Germans. In Warsaw, for example, to escape the ghetto, some Jews bribed Germans with furs while “trade” became common among them. In Radom, a German official stole ration cards and sold them to Jews on the side. Even though Frank promised to severely punish corruption, he too epitomized it. After all, he did not hide this sentiment: “Looting the enemy is one of the great ancient pleasures of man.”1731 A saying of the time contextualized his profiteering: “France lay in the west – Frank is getting rich in the east.” Between May 1940 and October 1942, he transferred over 105,000 Marks from the GG treasury to his private Munich bank account. A man with a love for fur, he created a storage warehouse for the confiscated items valued at 75 thousand Marks. This to go along with the works of art and sculptures the general governor, the guardian of law and order, seized for himself. Frank’s wife Brigitte, the self-proclaimed “queen of Poland” who got rich at the expense of Poles and Jews – often “shopping” in the GG ghettos – was no better than her husband the “king.” For this reason, it was no surprise that in 1943 the SS began to commonly refer to the GG as the “gangster Gau.”1732 In Galicia, Wächter’s predecessor Karl Lasch was forced into suicide by the SS after investigations into his corruption. A later SS investigate conducted under Wächter’s watch found embezzlement and corruption continuing to run rampant.1733 Neither was Wächter an administrative saint. As governor of the Kraków District, he, along with his wife Charlotte, plundered and robbed the city’s national gallery for furniture and works of art by the likes of Dutch painter Pieter Bruegel or Polish artist Julian Fałat. In other words, throughout the districts, racial ideological administrators and their mission for the east mixed with profiteers searching for an “Eldorado.”1734 1734 Ogórek, Lista Wächtera..., 356-358; Sandkühler, “Endlösung” in Galizien..., 77. 1735 AAN, DRRPK,sygn. 202/II/8, Sprawozdanie sytuacyjne Delegatury Rządu na Kraj za IV kwartał 1942, p. 12. 1736 Quoted in Mick, Lemberg, Lwów, Lviv…, 316. 1737 AAN, DRRPK, sygn. 202/III/203, Sprawa ukraińska, December 1943, p. 8; AAN, AK, sygn. 203/XV/27, AK situational report by “Dawid Daktyl,” February 6, 1943, p. 116; Motyka, Ukraińska partyzantka, 101. Still, as throughout the GG, the occupiers ruled a “German” city and district which contained hostile non-Aryans. Aside from exterminating the Jews, a perceived Ukrainian image was maintained, particularly in low-level administrative positions, as a counterweight to the Poles. In this sense, a quarterly report by the Government Delegate for Poland described the district as experiencing the mildest course of Nazi occupation. “Terror,” it noted, “is substituted with an ethnic conflict which is fueled and won by the occupiers.”1735 One Lvovian described the new appearance of the city: “And once again dreams come true: the Poles are in trade, the Ukrainians in the administration and the Jews do the physical work.”1736 For Ukrainians, the administrative, educational, and cultural concessions they received gave the city the ethnic character they wanted. In provincial towns and villages, where Ukrainians even more so outnumbered Poles, the ethnic character was even stronger. There, new ranks of merchants, craftsmen, and intellectuals overtook the positions of Poles and liquidated Jews. Furthermore, the work of regional and local UTsK branches strengthened and fostered Ukrainian national consciousness among the peasantry. Ukrainian sołtyses undertook anti-Polish activity by, for example, entirely designating Poles for forced labor conscription to the Reich. Similarly, the OUN-B aimed to use all opportunities to take over trade, production, and administration as well as to facilitate the inflow of provincial Ukrainians into Lwów.1737 Aside from the occupier promoting the Ukrainian ethnic character of the district, Ukrainians wanted more. With no prospect of receiving a state in the near future, they sought to gain the next best thing in the district – property possession. Possession would provide something definitive within the GG legal framework rather than simply character or appearance; things which could change at the whim of the occupiers. The case of the once thriving Jewish community in Lwów and the district being a prime example. Following the incorporation of Eastern Galicia into the GG, the property nationalized by the Soviets was placed under the temporary protection of the administration. Property disposition came either by administrative permission or following an understanding with the district governor. Even though the Soviet economic system was abolished, nationalized property was not returned to previous owners. Removing all Soviet traces in agricultural production was something the Germans could only achieve bit by bit. As such, farmers who worked on collectivized farms were told to stay put and continue working. In essence, German Liegenschaften, which inherited previously collectivized farms, differed little from Soviet kolkhozy.1738 Although Bisanz claimed re-privatization was underway, Wächter questioned its progress. He told Frank that the issue – ever since the general governor’s 1941 proclamation aroused Ukrainian hopes – was one which needed to be tackled immediately, particularly in agriculture. Frank’s initial decree to return land of up to 50 hectares was repealed by the department of food and agriculture. To press the issue, Frank entrusted Bühler to give Wächter all necessary help to placate Ukrainian attitudes in this matter.1739 1738 Mitera, Zwyczajny faszyzm..., 34; Ważniewski, Starcone nadzieje..., 235-236. 1739 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/18, Tagebuch 1943: Januar bis April, pp. 65; 143-144; DHF, GK 95/29, Tagebuch 1943: September bis Oktober, p. 223. 1740 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 26, folder 2, Denkschrift über Organisation des Handwerks im Distrikt Galizien, April 20, 1942. 1741 Veryha, The Correspondence..., 1222-1225. 1742 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 27, folder 3, Aktenvermerk. Betrifft: Reprivatisierung in Galizien, 1942; volume 17 folder 24, Kubiiovych memorandum to Frank, February 25, 1943. 1743 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/20, Tagebuch 1942: August bis September, pp. Kubiiovych and Pan’kivs’kyi lobbied to both, reacquire property confiscated under the brief Soviet occupation and to acquire more. As already seen, Kubiiovych petitioned the Germans to return seized and confiscated Jewish property – purportedly stolen – back to Ukrainian hands. In turn, Ukrainian craftsmen, for example, were prepared to devote their energy to building the new order by cooperating loyally with the occupiers.1740 A detailed list of prewar Ukrainian industries – including chemical and candle factories, publishing houses, confectionaries, cooperatives – nationalized by the Soviets and later placed under the trust of the Treuhandstelle, was prepared with an appeal for swift re-privatization.1741 Whereas the share of Lwów businesses in Ukrainian hands increased, Kubiiovych also petitioned for possession among peasants. In his opinion, owning property was synonymous with peace of mind and stability; factors meant to increase agricultural output for the war effort from among Ukrainian peasants. Delaying property resolution equated to the continuation of Soviet occupation policy. Anti-German, anti-Ukrainian propaganda exploited uncertainty, claiming the Germans did not rectify the property question as they were preparing to move Ukrainians further east.1742 The Poles also hoped to regain what was taken from them by the Soviets in 1939. In speaking with Frank in Lwów, RGO representative expressed their wish to see Poles regain the shops or businesses nationalized. This, they said, would “greatly allay their [Polish] distress.”1743 As such, both ethnic welfare organizations hoped to regain previous possessions by looking to the Germans to correct injustices and to at least neutralize the other. Solving the re-privatization question was something the district authorities were hesitant to completely do as property ownership was only envisioned for the master race. However, various ideas circulated. One proposition, for example, envisioned returning to the state of ownership from August 1, 1939. This was ultimately rejected for political reasons – re-privatization was not to be perceived as a reward for Poles who all lost the war. Worse yet, such a position would completely alienate Ukrainians and gravely damage the occupier's divide and conquer policy toward the two groups; appearing to Ukrainians as a return back to prewar Polish times. One Kreishauptmann suggested the authorities undertake either a complete re-privatization program or completely forgo it; minor measures were to be avoided at all costs as they would not be beneficial in the long run.1744 1744 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/23/I, Polizeisitzung, June 18, 1942, p. 137; DHF, GK 95/19, Tagebuch 1942: Mai bis Juli, p. 242. 1745 Veryha, The Correspondence..., 1189-1190. 1746 AIPN, DHF, GK 196/255, Behandlung Fremdvölkischer, March 15, 1943, pp. 211-212. 1747 Veryha, The Correspondence..., 138. 1748 AAN, AK, sygn. 203//XV/45, p. 69. The Polish version was set to a rhym: “Niemcy wszystkich zadowolili: Żydom dali nędzę, Polakom pieniądze, Ukraińcom milicję, a sobie wzięli Galicję.” A repeating grievance among Ukrainians was the inconsistency of GG officials in the re-privatization matter. Whereas Frank’s proclamations theoretically abolished all previous nationalization laws and measures, with no definitive communiques or new laws passed, local administrators remained uncertain and often continued the Soviet-style nationalization they inherited. Some held the opinion that land, estates and peasants working them all became Nazi property.1745 The SS maintained property ownership to be a privilege exclusively reserved for racially valuable individuals; in other words Germans or Volksdeutsche. Conceding this privilege to non-Germans equated with a severe setback in racial ideology. As an SS report detailed, rewarding Ukrainians with ownership privileges would only fuel political rhetoric; a step in the direction of claiming ethnic territory for a future state.1746 Himmler wished to see the finalization of the issue suspended indefinitely but open to permitting Ukrainians to simply use property and not own it; in other words, to be tenants. In line with Nazi racial ideology, he envisioned land to be possessed by Germans who would soon populate the district following his grandiose expulsion and resettlement schemes. Krüger echoed this line, suggesting: “They [the Ukrainians] can only be promised the possibility of acquiring property in the future as long as they show the appropriate professional qualifications and a loyal attitude toward the authorities.”1747 On several occasions, the occupiers returned to the idea of extending property rights to Ukrainians, particularly to win them over to the anti-Bolshevik front. Ultimately the issue remained unresolved. The Polish underground closely observed and reported on the situation in what they continued to see as Polish Lwów. The basis for German occupation policy in Eastern Galicia crystalized in a wry witticism popularized among Poles: “The Germans pleased everyone: they gave the Jews destitution, the Poles money, the Ukrainians a militia and took Galicia for themselves.”1748 In his report to London, Stefan Grot-Rowecki correctly equated German political goals for the prewar eastern territories to the necessity of exploiting Ukrainian land for war needs. In comparison to the Ukrainians who looked to revive national life in the city and district through cooperation with the occupier, the Polish underground aimed to maintain the national substance there by conforming to the situation at hand, remaining loyal to the Polish state with the impending hope of the wars end.1749 This tactic was observed in a special Soviet report, describing Polish intentions of penetrating the administrative and economic apparatus by any means possible so as to maintain influence in the event of a German collapse.1750 1749 “Sprawy ukraińsko-polskie od września 1939 do listopada 1941 – przewidywania na przyszłość (November 15, 1941),” Armia Krajowa w dokumentach vol. 2, 139; Hryciuk, Polacy we Lwowie, 375-379. As Hryciuk explained, Poles who fled Lwów west, especially in the wake of the Soviet advance, were the butt of a local Polish joke: “In Kraków there is a fur coat for 100 złotys. What! What is it made out of? The hides of Lwów’s cowards.” 1750 Iljuszyn, UPA i AK…, 97. 1751 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/19, Tagebuch 1942: Mai bis Juli, pp. 240-242. During a three-day tour of the district in 1942 – the one-year anniversary of its attachment to the GG – Hans Frank described future German plans for the region. Travelling through Tarnopol, Czortków, Kołomyja, and Stanisławów, he met with German administrators as well as Ukrainians and Poles. In speaking with Kreishauptmänner, he gained a better image into occupational policy. Aside from mentioning of plentiful harvest yields, Morgens von Harbou, the Tarnopol Kreishauptmann for example, described Ukrainian persistence aiming at eliminating Polish influence wherever possible. He euphemistically added the Jews of his region were “for the most part evacuated.” Speaking of administrative problems, he mentioned of German authority diminishing in the face of radicalizing Ukrainian youth and hesitant peasants. These attitudes, he noted, were directly influenced by sympathetic communist elements from the Reichskomissariat Ukraine, gaining ground among the youth, particularly those with strong anti-German sympathies. The older generation resisted the message. The greatest effect of such propaganda was seen in the small number of young Galician volunteers for labor in the Reich. Although not completely opposed to it, he stated that the use of the police to forcibly recruit laborers could prove inefficient. Commenting on cooperation with Ukrainian administrators, he described their work as reasonable. Even though, for example, his Ukrainian deputy showed enthusiasm in his responsibilities, he acted as a lawyer for the Ukrainians rather than a devoted GG civil servant.1751 Frank’s reception by the Ukrainians befit that of a true head of state. Crowds enthusiastically greeted him upon his arrival at the railroad station in Tarnopol. He was welcomed with traditional bread and salt and bouquets of flowers wherever he arrived. Often, young Ukrainian girls welcomed him with these gifts. For example, arriving in Kosów, a small village outside of Czortków, the Ukrainian mayor greeted him while a young girl dressed in a traditional Hutsul folk costume presented him with flowers saying: “On the day of your arrival, we greet you General Governor – Heil Hitler!” When his motorcade reached the outskirts of Czortków, he was welcomed by a group of Ukrainians on horseback. While inspecting a tobacco factory in Tarnopol County, his breakfast there was accompanied by a Ukrainian choir which serenaded him while a folk ensemble later performed traditional dances. Even when inspecting a sawmill in Worochta, he was greeted by a Greek Catholic priest who assured him of Ukrainian desires to remain loyal and bound to the German Reich.1752 1752 Ibid, pp. 239; 267; 270-271; 277; 279. 1753 Ibid, pp. 261; 278-279; 281-282. 1754 Ibid, pp. 264-265. 1755 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/19, Tagebuch 1942: Mai bis Juli, pp. 288-294. Meeting with aid committee delegations, mutual cooperation over the past year was assessed. Words of thanksgiving were directed to Hitler, Frank, and the Wehrmacht for liberating Ukrainians from Soviet occupation. The mayor in Żabie (currently Verkhovyna) spoke of gratitude and veneration Ukrainians owed the Führer “our liberator and liberator of all civilized European nations.” They professed further loyalty and willingness to contribute to creating the New European order, hoping that through active involvement in this a place would be made for them in the future. The aid committee delegate in Żabie also proclaimed Ukrainian willingness in aiding to conquer Jewish-Bolshevik rule. Volodymyr Pylypets’, a Greek Catholic priest and aid committee delegate in Worochta, told Frank that Ukrainians were no longer passive spectators but an active element on the internal front; farmers and laborers supplying the Germans for the common eastern struggle. He ardently stated: “We will do all this and more in the future, with deep faith in the Führer, deep trust in Greater Germany, with the firm conviction that the Ukrainian people will find a worthy place in the New European Order.”1753 Upon meeting with Polish RGO delegates, Frank received a different message. While thankful for receiving financial aid and the ability for RGO branches to open kitchens throughout the district, they also mentioned of the severe loss of national substance, primarily in artisans and craftsmen, as a result of Soviet deportations. In speaking with RGO men from Tarnopol, Frank questioned their relationship with the Ukrainians; one described as non-existent. In response, he said he wished to personally see to it that they were in no way oppressed by the Ukrainians.1754 Whether this wish was genuine is questionable. It seems more correct to believe that Frank was most pleased in hearing that there were no talks, let alone any sign of evident rapprochement between Poles and Ukrainians on the horizon. Administrative meetings set the tone for further exploitation. One of the most outspoken individuals on this issue was district chief Ludwig Losacker. He urged officials to mimic their predecessors' brutal “Soviet cannon of absolutism;” calling for extreme measures in rounding-up more workers to the Reich, confiscating harvest quotas and punishment for those who did not meet their intended targets – death sentences or deportation to concentration camps, the two being one and the same in the end.1755 Frank’s speech at a mass NSDAP rally in Lwów, held at the opera house, expressed a bright Germanic vision for the district’s future. He began by thanking the Führer: for deciding to finally entrust into German fists this old Jew nest, this neglected castle of street knights, this homestead of Polacks who, with shovels in hand… made sure that the Germans could live here (deafening applause). I must admit to you comrade Wächter that you have done a piece of excellent work here. In the course of one year, you succeeded in forgetting what a hole this country was. Lemberg is once again a proud German city. And the most beautiful thing is that we will never relinquish that which once found itself in our possession (laughs and applause).1756 1756 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/20, Tagebuch 1942: August bis September, pp. 34-35. 1757 Ibid, pp. 35-36; 39-400; Pohl, Nationalsozialistische Judenverfolgung in Ostgalizien..., 94-95; Sandkühler, “Endlösung” in Galizien, 87. 1758 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 20, folder 26, Protokol iz narady pereselenchoї aktsiї, July 6, 1943. 1759 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 20, folder 31, Zvit pro pratsiu Viddilu Suspil’noї Opiky, September 24, 1943. He did not fail to mention the regions Jews, or lack thereof: And I do not speak of the Jews, which we still have here, we will deal with these Jews. Incidentally, I did not see a single one today. How can this be? There were supposed to be tens of thousands of these flat-footed Indians in this city – not a single one was seen… (boisterous laughter) In speaking of the GG’s future, he described it as future living space where German fathers would come to work and live with their families. As he stated, the war was not about founding colonies but about “enlarging the Lebensraum of our people.” This was to be achieved once all the non-desirables were either exterminated or expelled as “We [the Germans] are a master race.” Certainly, at the height of their power, over 14 thousand Reich Germans ruled a population of 4.5 million in a manner characterized as “totalitarian colonial.” In the meantime however, he urged them to also be attune to the pressing ethnic question: For the GG is about further ensuring the strength of the German element. We must always remember that we have 18 million foreigners, 18 million Poles, Ukrainians, etc... Therefore, while preserving the natural resources that the Ukrainians have here, it is desirable that we should always see them as our friends… After all, we will lose this space again if we limit ourselves to governing it only administratively, from the top down so to speak, while ignoring all levels of nationalism. This is the Eastern call that resonates in our work.1757 Germanization was accelerated in the district, albeit not on the scale of that in the Lublin one. Ukrainians and Poles were forced off land to make way for a Wehrmacht training grounds in Żółkiew. Ukrainian families, as well as Poles, were moved out of German colonial regions in Lwów and Stryj counties intended for ethnic Germans from the Caucasus fleeing the advancing Red Army.1758 This resettlement caused some problems as Ukrainians were averse to surrendering their farms to settlers who they claimed were not Germans – as they did not speak German – but rather Soviets. In Stryj, local administrators there were unable to completely settle the 400 German families which arrived on short notice.1759 To placate any dissatisfaction, the Germans provided financial compensation and exemption from harvest quotas to those Ukrainians being moved. Kubiiovych also proposed resettlements into and out of the district as a means to protect Ukrainians and subsequently strengthen the ethnic character of the district. Meeting with Bisanz and other administrators, he suggested a population exchange: move Ukrainians from the Rzeszów and Jarosław areas east with Poles sent west onto abandoned Ukrainian farms. To this, he saw it necessary to cleanse any remaining ethnically-mixed regions; relocating Ukrainians to Eastern Galicia with Poles sent east to the Kraków District. Furthermore, he suggested settling Ukrainian from Croatia into the district. Bisanz claimed that under Soviet occupation some 250 thousand Poles were deported, creating in turn room for Ukrainians to occupy and settle.1760 1760 Veryha, The Correspondence…, 600-601. 1761 Pan’kivs’kyi, Roky nimetskoї okupatsiї, 269; Kubiiovych, Meni 85, 104. Pan’kivs’kyi’s description of the GG here is worth comment as it reiterated the Ukrainian nationalist mindset of the Eastern Galician region being neither Polish nor eastern (Soviet) but a distinct ethnographic territory. 1762 Hryciuk, Polacy we Lwowie, 226-227; 326-367. 1763 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/24/I, Hauptabteilungsleitersitzung, June 4, 1942, p. 265. 1764 AAN, AK, sygn. 203/XV/41, Raport do 10 stycznia 1943, January 1943, p. 12. 1765 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/24/I, Regierungssitzung, July 13, 1942, p. 125; DHF, GK 95/21, Tagebuch 1942: September bis Dezember, p. 293; Schenk, Noc morderców..., 205. In his memoirs, Kost’ Pan’kivs’kyi claimed the German civil occupation of Eastern Galicia brought relative calm between 1941 and 1943; becoming what he called “an oasis of peace” between perceived the “Polish” lands of the GG and the Reichskommissariat. Kubiiovych also viewed the Ukrainian position in similar terms but understood this could change as long-term German occupation policies remained uncertain.1761 Indeed, as Grzegorz Hryciuk indicated, since the first wave of murders which targeted the Polish intelligentsia in July 1941, the occupiers refrained from carrying out any extensive Aktions against Poles or Ukrainians.1762 This is not to say they softened their policy toward ethnic groups under their control. On the contrary. Here, as in other districts, Ukrainians were also exploited just as their Polish counterparts. Harsh harvest quotas caused hunger. In June 1942, Frank proposed a tentative, uniform food ration policy toward the non-Germans of the GG; Poles to receive the same amount as Ukrainians who up until then received higher rations.1763 Rations were also used as a means of reward. For example, as a symbol of thanksgiving to Ukrainian administrators in Lwów, Stadthauptmann Egon Höller agreed to an additional butter allotment of 250 grams.1764 Describing the situation in the district, Wächter noted that the food situation, or lack thereof, decidedly affected worker output. Ethnically degrading Ukrainians to the level of Poles created what he saw as a developing danger, adding that heavy harvest quotas placed upon Ukrainian villagers caused passivity and restraint toward the occupiers. He urged to rectify degradation in favor of maintaining pro-German sympathies among Ukrainians.1765 From Krynica, Dmytro Paliїv also voiced his disappointment. Instead of close collaboration against Bolshevism, he bemoaned how Ukrainians were given “a shovel in their hands” while their land was transformed into a colony where farms were exploited to deliver harvests. In writing to the Vatican, Metropolitan Sheptyts’kyi called Pope Pius XII attention to the demoralization, murder, and loss for feelings of justice and humanity stemming from German occupation policy.1766 1766 Kupchyns’kyi (ed), Dmytro Paliїv..., 62; Stehle, “Sheptyts’kyi and the German Regime” in Morality and Reality…, 133-135. Paliїv called attention to German radio broadcasts which exclaimed, “Speaking to you are German workers who bring you freedom…” As he explained, the Ukrainians heard a similar message for decades from the Soviets: “Russian workers are carrying you freedom!” 1767 Hans von Herwarth, Między Hitlerem a Stalinem. Wspomnienia dyplomaty i oficera niemieckiego 1931-1945, trans. Eugeniusz Cezary Król (Warszawa: Bellona, 2016), 445; Alexander Dallin, German Rule in Russia, 1941-1945: A Study of Occupation Policies (London: Macmillan, 1957), 514. 1768 BA, R 52 III/12, Dr. Kost Pankiwskyj – Lage in Galizien, n.d., p. 3. 1769 Mick, Lemberg, Lwów, Lviv…, 310. 1770 Hryciuk, Polacy we Lwowie, 232-233. The Ukrainian members of the council were led by Stepan Bilak. The council itself met infrequently and had little influence on the internal organization of the city. 1771 Mick, Lemberg, Lwów, Lviv…, 312. Self-reflection among some German administrators concluded that their treatment of Ukrainians no better than under the interwar Polish regime was the gravest mistake they made. Hans von Herwarth recalled that at times, the Ukrainians seemed to think that Frank wished to avoid alienating the Poles and, as such, indirectly supported their claims toward Galicia. Theodor Oberländer compiled a memorandum on the third anniversary of the German eastern invasion. In it, he asserted that the New Europe could not stand without the help of the Slavs. In his opinion, an end to Untermenschen ideology, hastier agrarian reforms, a tolerant cultural policy and some sort of political pronouncement for the future were imperative.1767 While lobbying to improve the Ukrainian question, UTsK officials also put a good light on matters by claiming occupational exploitation as their positive contribution to the war effort. In a situational report of district aid committee work, Pan’kivs’kyi included, beside labor and harvest contributions, furs and winter clothing collected (the so-called Winterhilfe) to supply the Wehrmacht for their eastern campaign as well as Christmas care packages sent to German soldiers in the east as tangible signs of German-Ukrainian cooperation.1768 The occupational position in the district vacillated a zick-zack course as the Germans attempted to court Poles while maintaining amicable relations with the Ukrainians. A report noted of visible anti-German dispositions among Poles and some Ukrainians, concluding: “Otherwise little has changed. The Poles are seeking the return of their state and the majority of Ukrainians the establishment of a state of their own.”1769 One telling example of this was the appointment by the city’s Stadthauptmann of a special Polish-Ukrainian advisory council; consisting of 10 members, 5 from each ethnic group.1770 As Christoph Mick showed, even German children began greeting Poles with the Polish “dzień dobry” as a sign of politeness toward them. A Home Army report best contextualized German policy: in one place, they courted the Ukrainians, in another they flattered the Poles; in each case they discriminated against the other and managed to antagonize both.1771 Concerning Ukrainians, the occupiers forbade them to publically commemorate anniversaries of November 1 and January 22. Such acts combined with the German’s ambivalent position toward the Ukrainians led Pan’kivs’kyi to question their policy: “Up to the present day we still have no idea what will happen with us after the war. All social classes are suffering from political hunger. The feeling of uncertainty has wider repercussions as it reduces the joy of working and output.”1772 1772 BA, R 52 III/12, Sitzung des Ukrainische Hauptausschuss, December 10, 1943, pp. 45-52. 1773 Sowa, Stosunki polsko-ukraińskie..., 142-152; Motyka, Ukraińska partyzantka, 299-302. Underground plans envisioned AK units from Rzeszów and Lublin moving to Eastern Galicia in order to eventually reinforce units there. 1774 “Gen. Rowecki do N.W.: Metropolita Szeptycki i przedstawiciel Banderowców proponują rozmowy” in Armia Krajowa w dokumentach vol. 2, 474. 1775 Ihor Iliuszyn, ZSRR wodec ukraińsko-polskiego konfliktu narodowościowego na Ukrainie Zachodniej w latach 1939-1947, trans. Maria Buczyło (Warszawa: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, 2017), 111-112. 1776 Ronikier, Pamiętniki 1939-1945, 173-174. According to Ronikier, the conversation with Sheptyts’kyi developed however for his part any deeper negotiations were hampered from the side of the Government-in-Exile’s Delegate for Poland who forbid him from reaching any deciding understanding. He bemoaned this in his memoirs, writing: “What a reckless decision, later paid at the expense of the Polish state of being in Galicia and Volhynia!” Militarily speaking, the eastern front in 1943 was proving to be the critical theater on the European continent. As Soviet victories began pushing the Wehrmacht back, Poles began seeing this as the possible end of the Nazi Reich. Underground plans early in the war envisioned a general uprising at such a moment. However, with the Soviet Union breaking diplomatic ties with the Polish exile government over the propagandization of the discovery of the graves of executed Polish army officers in the Katyń Forest by the Germans, the underground modified their plans. Instead of a general uprising they envisioned underground units capturing major cities in the wake of the oncoming Soviets. Not only did these tactics of Operation “Tempest” intend to show the might of the exile government but, concerning Poland’s prewar eastern territories in particular, it also intended to underscore the Polish character of regions. It was on those territories, particularly Polish-Ukrainian ones, and especially Lwów, that the underground envisioned fierce conflict with Ukrainians who in most areas outnumbered Poles.1773 As the underground prepared plans for an uprising, they also engaged in talks with Ukrainians to gain intelligence of their strength and to consider if any possibilities for anti-German, anti-Soviet collaboration existed. In a dispatch to London Grot-Rowecki informed of Metropolitan Sheptyts’kyi’s efforts toward opening a dialogue between Poles and Banderites, one based on a mutually coordinated statute for inhabitants in ethnically-mixed regions of the future Polish state.1774 According to Iliushyn, the OUN, particularly the Bandera faction, entered into talks in an effort to either organize a common anti-Soviet Polish-Ukrainian front or to at least neutralize the attitude of the Polish underground toward their fight against the Soviets.1775 These talks ultimately proved fruitless as both sides quickly realized that neither was prepared to renounce their claims to Lwów and Eastern Galicia. Ronikier also met Sheptyts’kyi to discuss deteriorating ethnic relations. As he recalled, the Metropolitan saw the Soviets as a looming danger. The hierarch believed the Germans and Soviets, described as “bandits,” were done for and concluded: “The result of this must be the reappearance of Poland and it will be great and will have much to say in central Europe; from Poland will depend whether or not Ukraine can arise, which will only happen if Poland wants it and understands that it should desire it.”1776 Kubiiovych again met Mirosław Żuławski of the AK in March 1943. He began by suggesting the time for a Polish-Ukrainian understanding was good since the two shared common enemies – Germans and Russians. An anti-German, anti-Soviet understanding, he stated, could not be limited to Poles and Ukrainians but also had to include Belarusians, Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians. Concerning border delineation, Kubiiovych claimed Eastern Galicia was the chief concern for Ukrainians as a large, nationally-conscious element was concentrated there. For the Poles, he claimed this to be a mere borderland issue which did not concern “a native Polish population” whereas for them it was a deciding factor in their “to be or not to be.” Because of their position within the Allied camp, he claimed Poles were obligated to initiate far-reaching talks. However, to him the situation looked very different: Meanwhile there is a lack of any sort of warm gesture from the Polish side toward the Ukrainians, no statements from London nor in the press. Instead responsibility and justice for past sins and cooperation with the Germans or Bolsheviks are liberally tossed about when Poles did similar things in relation to Ukrainians. This must be underscored. A certain hierarchy of goals must be determined. The first must be an understanding between both nations between the Odra and Volga [rivers] and the will to avoid future conflicts.1777 1777 AAN, AK, sygn. 203/XV/45, Notatki z rozmowy z Kubanem, March 21, 1943, p. 152. 1778 Kulińska and Roliński (eds), Kwestia ukraińska i eksterminacja ludności polskiej..., 5. 1779 Torzecki, Polacy i Ukraińcy..., 150; 183. Some postwar émigré Poles, like Jerzy Stempowski, believed Polish-Ukrainain talks to be part of what he called the “violent process” of disappointment Ukrainians experienced after seeing German occupation policy treat them similar to the Poles. Had the Poles maintained better contacts with Ukrainian society, he argued, this disappointment could be turned into an opportunity for genuine talks as it presented possible common topics for the two groups to discuss and gather around. It must be added that his opinion was unique and rather unrealistic. Stempowski, W dolinie Dniestru…, 197; 225-226; In all probability, Kubiiovych’s meeting with the Polish underground had in mind gaining a better understanding of their view toward Eastern Galicia; whether they remained adamant that it return to postwar Poland or not. Furthermore, he maintained his previous opinion that any ethnic border changes would entail cleansing through resettlements. The meeting’s report indicated that Kubiiovych consulted his position with Melnykites who viewed a Polish-Ukrainian understanding as delicate in the wake of Polish-Soviet relations. A Polish underground report recorded: “However, now the belief that the Polish side is defeated prevails among the Ukrainians; with the Ukrainian question having appeared in the international diplomatic forum, any sort of ties with Polish political factors in the country was seen as pointless and premature.”1778 Although both sides initiated in some sort of talks, whether to survey opinions or to gain more serious assurances, Ryszard Torzecki correctly noted that difficulties toward any common consensus stemmed from the fact that both sides had nothing real to offer each other.1779 Rather, they were both left to the whim of military events and the geopolitical will of the great powers. What added to Ukrainians questioning their future place alongside the Germans was the situation of their compatriots in the Reichskommissariat Ukraine. Certainly, in likening the plight of Ukrainians under the two occupation administrations, comparisons are few and far between. Whereas GG Ukrainians were represented by a legal, pan-Ukrainian organization, such councils and regional administrations were suppressed in the Reichskommissariat; guaranteeing the native population no representation above the lowest local levels. Ukrainians there were meant to solely work and toil, not think culturally. As Erich Koch proclaimed: “if this people works ten hours daily, it will have to work eight hours for us.”1780 1780 Berkhoff, Harvest of Despair…, 47; 52-53; 191. 1781 Quoted in Melnyk, The History of the Galician Division of the Waffen-SS, vol. 1, 21. 1782 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 17, folder 24, Zvit z konferentsiї, December 17, 1942; Veryha, The Correspondence..., 577. 1783 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/24/I, Regierungssitzung, December 19, 1942, pp. 202-203. 1784 Berkhoff, Harvest of Despair…, 279. Even the Ukrainophile Wächter, following his visit to the neighboring Gau, saw the error of Koch’s ways in his treatment of Ukrainians there. In a letter to Martin Bormann, head of the party chancellery in Berlin, he conveyed his concerns and urged to win over the population there so as to avoid more formidable resistance: “We are dependent on the cooperation of the Ukrainians… if we show the Ukrainian a task and a place in the battle for the New Order of Europe, then the vast majority of the population will unite on our side and make the Reich’s battle its own.”1781 In a lengthy note concerning occupation policy there, Kubiiovych concluded: “We see the salvation of German rule in Ukraine only through a radical departure from the current politics there, by taking a much different and contrasting course according to the old tenet of any long-term imperial policy – “live and let live.”” In his opinion the first step toward change was replacing Koch’s administration with a military one as soldiers were presumably less driven by ideology than policemen.1782 Frank also noticed a stiffening of sentiments among GG Ukrainians. According to him, Koch’s brutal line in the east endangered his Ukrainian policy. He contextualized occupational differences through a simple example: “When you think that all Ukrainian schools there are closed beyond the fourth grade while in comparison we have Ukrainian gymnasiums, you will realize a political discrepancy in the treatment of a Volk group by one and the same power.”1783 Ukrainian opposition to the Germans began to take on a concerted tone by way of increased Soviet partisan activity in the neighboring Reichskommissariat Ukraine. Organized incursions, particularly into western Volhynia, subsequently showed many Ukrainians that the Germans could not protect them. Partisan significance came in their ability to disrupt everyday life in Nazi-ruled Ukraine. High on their agenda was the killing of German officials as well as all those deemed real or imaginary fascist collaborators – village elders, mayors, police leaders and Gestapo agents. With instability in the east mounting, Koch also pressed much harder on his Ukrainians, causing greater hostility and apprehension.1784 To combat incursions, the Germans employed brutal pacifications which further victimized innocent peasants. In combating one problem, they created another for themselves as collective reprisals radicalized society while also removing possible opposition to the strengthening partisans and Ukrainian underground. The two, especially the latter, gained more sympathizers as many young Ukrainians who survived pacifications and labor round-ups fled to the forests.1785 1785 Ibid, 280-285; Iliuszyn, ZSRR wobec ukraińsko-polskiego konfliktu..., 112-113; Aleksander Gogun, Partyzanci Stalina na Ukrainie, trans. Witold Stefanowicz (Warszawa: Bellona, 2015), 24-38. From 1942-1944, the chief of staff of Ukrainian partisan movement headquarters was deputy people’s commissar of internal affairs of Soviet Ukraine (1940-1942) Tymofii Strokach. 1786 Motyka, Ukraińska partyzantka, 105-108; 112-114; 118, 120-121; Bul’ba-Borovets’, Armiia bez derzhavy, 250-267. Taras Bul’ba-Borovets’, a Petlurite follower, organized the first so-called Ukrainian Insurgent Army in Polissia, what came to know as the Polissian Sich. His position with the German occupier vascillated between collaborating to combating them following collective reprisals aimed at local Ukrainian populations. 1787 AAN, AK, sygn. 203/XV/27, Dawid-Daktyl report, February 6, 1942, p. 117; Iliuszyn, ZSRR wobec ukraińsko-polskiego konfliktu..., 134. 1788 John-Paul Himka, “Former Ukrainian Policemen in the Ukrainian National Insurgency: Continuing the Holocaust Outside German Service” in Wendy Lower and Lauren Faulkner Rossi (eds), Lessons and Legacies XII: New Directions in Holocaust Research and Education (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press 2017); Snyder, “The Causes of Polish-Ukrainian Ethnic Cleansing 1943,” 223; Iliuszyn, UPA i AK…, 119-120. The 201st Schutzmannschaft battalion was created from members of the Nachtigall and Roland battalions in late 1941 and was sent to Belarus in 1942 to combat partisan acrtivity. The majority of people killed by the 201st and other Schutzmannschaft battalions there were not partisans but rather civilians. Some members of the battalion, such as Roman Shukhevych and Vasyl’ Sidor, later occupied leading positions in the Banderite UPA. Snyder, Bloodlands..., 250-251; Motyka, Ukraińska partyzantka, 115. For a more detailed discussion on Shukhevych’s role in the 201 Shutzmanschaft battalion, see Per Anders Rudling, “Obucheniie ubiistvu: Toward the end of 1942, Banderites decided to found an armed wing. Their first military units emerged in western Volhynia under the command of Dmytro Kliachkivs’kyi (alias Klym Savur). Initially called the Ukrainian Liberation Army (Ukraїns’ke Vyzvol’ne Viisko – UVV), they clashed with Taras Bul’ba-Borovets’ forces.1786 Following their third congress in February 1943, the Banderites concluded that a Soviet victory over the Germans was becoming more of a reality while also deeming both equal enemies. As such, they planned for an uprising with the goal of occupying Ukrainian territory to prevent a Soviet re-occupation. Under the influence of Roman Shukhevych, the OUN’s armed struggle policy transitioned to combat Soviet partisans as well as the German occupiers and local Polish inhabitants. They condemned all Ukrainians collaborating with German and Soviet authorities while agitating Ukrainian auxiliary policemen to join them. To prevent any such thoughts in Eastern Galicia, the Germans requisitioned rifles from Ukrainian policemen throughout the district, leaving only minimal amounts in precincts to be used during escorts.1787 By late March some 5 thousand policemen as well as soldiers from the 201 Schutzmannschaft battalion fled to the Volhynian forests. The Germans replaced them with some 1,200 Poles rounded-up for service. They were used in pacifying villages but also to defend themselves. Iliushyn described instances in which they even used their position to provoke German anti-Ukrainian Aktions. This further perpetuated the image of Polish collaboration with the Germans to eliminate everything Ukrainian. However, not all Ukrainians fled; those who remained in German service were used, like the Poles, during pacifications.1788 Regardless, the responsibility of individual Poles in German service – shutsmanshaft batal’ion 201 i Hauptman Roman Shukhevych v Bellorusii v 1942-om godu.” Forum noveishei vostochnoevropeiskoi istorii i kul’tury vol. 14 no. 1(27) (2017). 1789 Iliuszyn, UPA i AK..., 258; Snyder, “The Causes of Polish-Ukrainian Ethnic Cleansing 1943,” 211-212; 215. Grzegorz Motyka contested that the mass desertions by Ukrainians from German police forces to partisan units may have also stemmed from German plans to expose OUN members within the police ranks so as to avoid any hostile revolts. Those exposed would be arrested by the Gestapo. Motyka also presented evidence that Soviet partisans may have also worked to provoke Ukrainians to desert police forces in efforts to further weaken the Germans. However, as he noted, they did not envision the Ukrainians fleeing to partisan units in the forests; hoping instead to see them join the Soviet underground. See Motyka, Ukraińska partyzantka, 194-195. 1790 Mykola Lebed’, UPA Ukraїns’ka Povstans’ka Armiia. Її heneza, rist i diї vyzvol’nii borotby ukraїns’koho narodu za ukraїns’ku samostiinu sobornu derzhavu, 2nd ed (Suchasnist’ 1987), 53; Berkhoff, Harvest of Despair…, 287. In an open letter to the OUN-B provid, Bul’ba-Borovets’ condemned their plans to exterminate the Polish civilian population of Volhynia and urged: “Today, instead of mutually slaughtering one another, we must create a common revolutionary front of all captive nations against the occupiers rather than opening unnecessary fronts.” Quoted in Iliuszyn, ZSRR wobec ukraińsko-polskiego konfliktu narodowościowego..., 125. 1791 Iliuszyn, UPA i AK..., 110; Iliuszyn, ZSRR wobec ukraińsko-polskiego konfliktu narodowościowego..., 117; 121-123; 127. especially during pacifications – was collectively credited by the UPA to all Poles. In a short time, Ukrainian deserters formed the nucleus of the Banderite armed force which assumed the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (Ukraїns’ka Povstans’ka Armiia – UPA) name. More importantly, those who deserted German service and joined the UPA, such as Shukhevych, brought with them not only the knowledge of Jewish exterminations in the region but also practical participation in them. The lessons learned organizing and implementing mass annihilation were later applied to civilian Poles.1789 Beginning in March 1943, the Banderite UPA launched attacks on Polish settlements in western Volhynia. One month later, according to Banderite Mykola Lebed’, the UPA ordered Poles to leave Volhynia and Polissia. Soviet partisans noticed the general line of the Banderites at this time being directed “at the extermination of the Polish population and Polish villages.”1790 The complexity of the situation along with Polish instincts of self-preservation and survival forced them to search for protection from all sides. Some joined the Soviet partisans who actively searched for support among Poles. Others created local self-defense groups. Those in German service hoped to exploit their posts to strengthen positions in the region and create a base for future Polish influence following German defeat. For their part, the Polish underground called on Poles to join neither the Germans nor Soviets; both seen as traitorous to their envisioned plans of a national uprising in the near future. Regardless of which side they took, Polish sentiments in the region were overtly anti-Ukrainian.1791 How were the incidents in neighboring Volhynia observed by the UTsK? Perhaps worst of all was the fact that word of German pacifications trickled into the Galicia District. Based on limited reports, Kubiiovych denounced anti-partisan measures as “pouring oil onto the fire” since, in his opinion, any Ukrainian victims were deutschfreundlich. This caused deeper antipathy and directly strengthened the growing Ukrainian resistance. He further criticized losing the trust of Ukrainians; something which forced the Germans to exploit a slew of non-Ukrainian elements – Poles, Russians, communists, Bolshevik agents. In his opinion, these groups in turn exploited the occupiers’ brutality to further harass and eliminate Ukrainians while also creating further instability for the occupiers. The Bul’ba-Borovets’ group was identified as Ukrainian national partisans; a democratic-national movement.1792 1792 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 25, folder 10, Polozhennia na Volyni, September 2, 1943. 1793 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 25, folder 11, Die Lage in Wolhynien, May 1943; Veryha, The Correspondene..., 572-577. According to Iliushyn, Soviet documents often credited the Bulba-Borovets’ group with initiating the anti-Polish attacks in Volhynia. Iliuszyn, UPA i AK..., 116. 1794 Motyka, Od rzezi wołyńskiej…, 300-301; Iliuszyn, UPA i AK..., 107; 127-128. Meetings between Banderites and Bul’ba-ites in February and April 1943 toward creating one unified Ukrainian front in Volhynia ended in failure as Borovets’ opposed Banderite ideas of cleansing the entire insurgent territory of Poles. He was of the opinion that only Poles guilty of anti-Ukrainian excesses were to be punished, not society collectively. 1795 Hryciuk, Przemiany narodowościowe i ludnościowe..., 216. 1796 Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Heneralnii Huberniї, 407. Failing to clarify German use of Poles to replace Ukrainian administrators or auxiliaries who fled to the forests, Bul’ba’s men were said to have attacked Polish villagers and settlements only in retaliation of their purported support of the Polish auxiliary police who committed excesses against Ukrainian villages.1793 However, Bul’ba was incorrectly accused of some Polish attacks; ones committed by the Banderite UPA. As Grzegorz Motyka explained, initially the UPA name – originally used by Bu’lba-Borovets’ – was synonymous with him. In the GG, his portrait appeared on leaflets distributed among Ukrainians. This, he argued, contributed to popularizing his myth, regardless of the real strength of his movement. Additionally, some of Bul’ba-Borovets’ men deserted his ranks and joined the OUN, participating in anti-Polish attacks. Melnykites also initiated in attacks.1794 That image, combined with the lack of reliable, consistent information of events transpiring in Volhynia, remained prevalent within UTsK circles. Only did a late report from September clarify that Banderites vied with the Bul’ba group, viewing them as primitive villagers who should subject themselves to the more radical OUN-B. The Volhynian reports made no mention of Ukrainian mass anti-Polish attacks in early 1943 but rather nationalized perpetrators – Poles and Soviet partisans – and victims – pro-German Ukrainians. Translating occupational policy in the Reichskommissariat Ukraine to the GG, Kubiiovych made it clear that fair treatment of Ukrainians equated to deutschfreundlich sympathy and loyalty. Unjust excesses could propel disgruntled Ukrainians into anti-German arms. Just as in the Lublin District, so too in Galicia did Kubiiovych aim to vindicate and reclaim “polonized Ukrainians.” Hans Frank’s ordinance of December 15, 1942 announced plans for a census to be conducted on March 1, 1943.1795 Kubiiovych and the UTsK hoped to exploit the opportunity to increase Ukrainian statistical numbers by claiming Ukrainian-speaking Roman Catholics – latynnyky or “Latinites” – living in the westernmost parts of the district as ethnic Ukrainians. After the war, he explained that with the collapse of Poland in 1939, Polish influence on them automatically decreased while Ukrainian influence subsequently increased. Then, he insisted that ultimate national belonging could only be determined after the war.1796 During the war however, a campaign was initiated to convince what Kubiiovych generously estimated to be some 750 thousand Latinites of their pure Ukrainian blood. Kubiiovych saw the census as a legal means to further define the Ukrainian position in the GG by claiming the Galicia district as ethnically Ukrainian for the future; in turn weakening the Polish position there. As such, he ordered regional UTsK men throughout the district to spare no difficulties in creating a Ukrainian image. Formal orders were summarized in a short instructional note urging aid committees, delegates, and, most importantly, Ukrainian census commissioners to be mindful of having “all Ukrainians and all individuals of Ukrainian descent specify their nationality as Ukrainian by informing trusted men and public opinion of this action.” As the instructions concluded, mass Ukrainian identification meant one thing: “it will decide the national appearance of the country which we cannot in any case allow ourselves to ignore.” Concerning technical aspects, it was the commissioners who recorded information. Therefore, qualifying inhabitants to a given nationality was a subjective question depending on either the respondent’s decision or on that of the commissioners.1797 The importance of their role was often underscored since it was the local administrators, primarily in the hands of Ukrainians, who appointed them. 1797 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 18, folder 1, Protokol zїzdu okruzhnykh komitetiv z oblasti Halychyna, January 31, 1943; Hryciuk, Przemiany narodowościowe i ludnościowe..., 216. 1798 “Pered ispytom natsional’noї svidomosty,” L’vivs’ki Visti vol. 3 no. 37 (Febraury 20, 1943), 4. 1799 AAN, DRRPK, sygn. 202/III/121, Sprawozdanie sytuacyjne z Ziem Wschodnich za pierwszy kwartał 1943r., April 1943, pp. 150-151. 1800 “Pered ispytom natsional’noї svidomosty,” L’vivs’ki Visti vol. 3 no. 37 (Febraury 20, 1943), 4. 1801 Pan’kivs’kyi, Roky nimetskoї okupatsiї, 278. UTsK propaganda appeared on the pages of the press, claiming ethnic belonging could only be determined by racial factors and not by faith, language, the territory one inhabited, or national consciousness. Ethnically-mixed marriages were seen as a grave danger toward de-nationalization. An article appearing in L’viv’ski Visti described the census as the first “legal, objective [one]” conducted under different political conditions; a subsequent rejection by Ukrainians of the Polish interwar government’s censuses. Furthermore, the article contextualized its importance: “…they contain a national-plebiscite character on [ethnically] mixed territory… The conclusions are often reliable enough to solve national, educational, religious, and economic questions of this territory… the conclusions of the census will have a historic meaning.”1798 Stepan Baran urged to exploit the census in order to prevent any future Ukrainian abuses. Another article definitively claimed: “Now is the time to clarify to everyone that Ukrainians are all those citizens of Ukrainians descent regardless if they are Greek Catholics, Orthodox, Roman Catholics or Evangelists; regardless of what language they commonly use. In this case we must finally eradicate our narrow, primitive, and harmful views.”1799 Further propaganda called for graciously accepting those returning to the ethnic flock. Ukrainians were also called to search for “lost sheep” and awaken in them the dormant or lost national consciousness.1800 According to Pan’kivs’kyi, the press propaganda campaign also served to play down Banderite demands of removing Latinites, seen as non-Ukrainians, from their civic positions; particularly teachers.1801 A Polish underground report claimed the census falsified interwar figures, something they declared Polish society would neither recognize nor consider then or in the future. By searching for Ukrainian blood among ethnically-mixed Galician inhabitants, an article in Nasze Ziemie Wschodnie stated: “In a word, the Ukrainians are acceding toward fabricating Volks-Ukrainians or Stamm-Ukrainians on the basis of classic Hitlerite examples!”1802 Furthermore, it described attempts of Ukrainian agitation to win over Poles. In the Bełz region, for example, Ukrainians made attempts to convince Poles slated for resettlement by the Germans to “convert” to Greek Catholicism; to become Ukrainians if only to avoid displacement. According to the report, some Poles did convert. However, the Germans stopped this campaign and ordered priests to annul conversions and return fees collected. This did not stop Ukrainians from ridiculing converts for succumbing to their pressure so easily.1803 Concerning Ukrainian commissioners and the technical process, Służba Państwu wrote: “The majority of census forms and explanations were only in Ukrainian, the census organizers all Ukrainian, they gave the counters instructions that all documents were to be noted in pencil, evidently so as to easily make the necessary changes to uncomfortable information.”1804 1802 Hryciuk, Przemiany narodowościowe i ludnościowe..., 219. 1803 AAN, DRRPK, sygn. 202/III/121, Sprawozdanie sytuacyjne z Ziem Wschodnich za pierwszy kwartał 1943r., April 1943, pp. 150-151. 1804 Quoted in Hryciuk, Przemiany narodowościowe i ludnościowe..., 220. 1805 Quoted in ibid, 221. 1806 Amtliches Gemeinde- und Dorfverzeichnis für das Generalgouvernement auf Grund der Sumarischen Bevölkerungsbestandsaufnahme am 1. März 1943 (Krakau: Burgverlag Krakau, 1943). 1807 For a detailed analysis of figures for given counties and cities, see Hryciuk, Przemiany narodowościowe i ludnościowe..., 222-231. In 1943, the Galicia ditrict numbered a total of 4,233,071 inhabitants: 67,303 Germans, 3,262,840 Ukrainians (77,08%), 799,428 Poles (18,86%), and 87, 466 Jews (2,07%). Without question, the GG census of March 1943 was conducted on the backdrop of German ethnic occupational policy, social engineering, and in an atmosphere of rising ethnic tensions. The Poles questioned and dismissed it while the Ukrainians claimed that it was conducted objectively with the utmost reliability, giving such examples: “The Poles kept a close eye on the census recorders. They closely examined the pages so that any abuses to their disadvantage are excluded.”1805 According to Grzegorz Hryciuk, the official outcome was never, neither during the war nor after it, fully made public. A statistical report was published by the occupiers however it contained only total population numbers per county, broken down by villages without detailing numbers for specific ethnic groups.1806 In his comparison of population numbers from March 1943 with those from the most reliable Polish prewar census of 1931, Hryciuk concluded that the number of Poles in the district decreased by 40, 83% while the number of Ukrainians rose by 14, 57%.1807 The unexpected German defeat at Stalingrad ground to a halt the Wehrmacht drive east and showed that the Germans were not completely unstoppable as propaganda claimed. Dwelling little on this “dark episode” of defeat, Frank declared: “We are undoubtedly faced with the most difficult and, therefore, the most decisive part of the war.” Calling on all administrators and security personnel to cooperate closely with one another, the general governor remained steadfast in his mission: “I am determined to keep this country for the Führer and to ensure in every way that a block will be erected in the east.”1808 1808 IPN, DHF, GK 95/33, Polizeibesprechung, January 25, 1943, pp. 42-44. 1809 Mazower, Hitler’s Empire…, 454-458; Omer Bartov, Hitler’s Army: Soldiers, Nazis and War in the Third Reich (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1991), 44-45. Among those SS units formed out of those associated with the Habsburgs was a Muslim regiment recruited from among Bosnians. 1810 Wolfdieter Bihl, “Ukrainians in the Armed Forces of the Reich: The 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS” in Torke and Himka (eds), German-Ukrainian Relations…, 146. 1811 IPN, DHF, GK 95/33, Gouverneurbesprechung, January 24, 1943, p. 4; Polizeibesprechung, January 25, 1943, p. 18. In response to the Ukrainian desire to be organized militarily, Frank clarified that Hitler had yet to issue any concrete order approving of such measures. The Stalingrad debacle caused Germans to begin reconsidering the idea of using Eastern Europeans for more than just assisting in the killing of Jews or as a dispensable labor source. Ultimately, it forced them to reconsider their criteria for Germanness; coming to terms with abandoning the principle that only ethnic Germans could fight for the Reich. To boost military numbers, recruitment from among the Germanic people of occupied Europe into the Nazi armed forces began in earnest. Western European fascists organized volunteer SS divisions with some 125 thousand Dutch, Belgian, and French men eventually serving in their ranks. Although not an insignificant number, it showed that those Europeans were hardly burning to volunteer for armed service. With mounting losses and the ideological basis for non-German conscription becoming less stringent, Himmler realized it necessary to also exploit the fears and anxieties of those lying in the path of the oncoming Red Army. Volksdeutsche and ethnic Germans from Hungary, Yugoslavia, Romania, and Poland contributed men to the Waffen-SS. Estonians and Latvians contributed men to two SS national legions; by 1943, over 30 thousand were conscripted into both. The Germans also recruited from among those who shared some kind of historical association with Germany via the Habsburg monarchy.1809 In 1943, three sections of SS troops were created: German or Germanic SS-divisions; Germans or Germanic recruits conscripted into volunteer SS-Freiwillige units; and non-German, non-Germanic conscripts in Waffen or armed units.1810 To truly feel part of the new European order, Kubiiovych wished to actively enter into the struggle against Bolshevism alongside the Germans. As mentioned earlier, this is something which he, along with Mel’nyk, advocated immediately following the German invasion of the USSR in 1941. Wächter’s situational report noted that even though the political and security situation remained good, a noticeable restraint appeared among Ukrainians while the intelligentsia desired closer cooperation. This, he stated, stemmed from their fear of a possible Soviet return. Again, they expressed a desire to be organized into armed units to fight against the Bolsheviks. Wächter’s suggestion was clear – pay attention to their political treatment and exploit their willingness to cooperate.1811 Seeing circumstances as opportune for defining Ukrainian political interests under the Germans, émigré nationalists returned in earnest to lobbying for an armed military unit. On February 6, 1943 Mel’nyk wrote a lengthy memorandum to Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel in which he argued for including Ukrainians in the anti-Bolshevist front. According to him, they would do everything in their power to fight Moscow as long as they were certain that this would lead to a formal recognition of their right to exist as a state, “completely liberating Ukraine from Russian dominance… [and] Ukraine assuming its rightful place” among the free nations of the new Europe. Hetman Skoropads’kyi also echoed the desire to create a Ukrainian armed unit at all costs.1812 Andrii Vovk, leader of the nationalist Ukrainian Cossack movement, wrote two appeals for a Cossack unit to fight the Bolsheviks alongside the Germans. In both he stated that the creation of a Ukrainian state in the new Europe be the prerequisite to armed collaboration.1813 1812 Andrii Bolianovs’kyi, Dyviziia “Halychyna.” Istoriia (L’viv: L’vivs’ki natsionalny universytet im. Ivana Franka, 2000), 16-17. 1813 Hunchak, U mundyrakh voroha, 6. 1814 BA, NS 19/1785, Note from Governor Otto Wächter to SS Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler, March 4, 1943, pp. 16-17. 1815 Bolianovs’kyi, Dyviziia “Halychyna”, 27. 1816 Veryha, The Correspondence…, 530-531. Looking to take advantage of Ukrainian willingness to fight in the anti-Bolshevist struggle, Wächter wrote to Himmler, attaching a proposed call to arms to Galician Ukrainians.1814 Wächter argued that a Ukrainian division or unit within the SS would serve as a means of countering the growing underground movement by conscripting young Galician men into German-sponsored service. In early March, Bisanz met Kubiiovych and UTsK representatives, informing them of intentions to create a military unit regardless of their approval or criticism.1815 In turn, Kubiiovych wrote letters to both Frank and Wächter, petitioning to create a force consisting of Ukrainians from throughout the GG. Through this act of solidarity, he hoped to define a concrete political position for a future Ukraine in the Germanic continental order: The declaration of the Axis powers that every nation in the new Europe, under the leadership of the German Reich, will find its place, asserts in the Ukrainian people the belief that before them lies a beautiful future. This conviction calls upon the Ukrainian people to take an active part in the struggle against Bolshevism.1816 Given the weakened German position in the east, Kubiiovych gambled for a military force independently associated with them. Only as a second resort did he suggest creating one attached to the Wehrmacht. He believed in the possibility of the World War I scenario repeating itself again. At the very least, in case of German victory, he saw the opportunity for an autonomous ethnographic Ukraine as part of the new order in the east; one to be under the nominal administration of loyal Ukrainians and closely tied to Germany. At the very most he saw the possibility for more. The imminent German-Soviet clash could be decided on Ukrainian ethnographic territory. It was perceived that both armies would bleed each other out and ultimately collapse, forming a vacuum for smaller ethnic groups to pursue national interests – the inevitable land grab for ultimate statehood. To safeguard possessions gained until then, a trained military unit was needed which could form the nucleus of a future national army and defend territory. Kubiiovych became, as Pan’kivs’kyi described, “the division’s promotor, he led the talks with all the Germans and Ukrainian representatives, all responsibility lay on him…”1817 His vision was described by Dmytro Boiko, a member of the Lwów aid committee, to his NKVD captors in late 1944. Although the credibility of his testimony to the Soviets is questionable – whether he decided to pass the blame onto others in the hope of exonerating himself in the eyes of the new authorities as simply a small man in the collaboration of the UTsK with the Germans – his insight is worthwhile to consider. According to Boiko, the ultimate goal of the UTsK was the creation of an independent Ukrainian state, something to be achieved alongside the Germans with a heavy dose of anti-Bolshevik propaganda.1818 1817 Pan’kivs’kyi, Roky nimetskoi okupatsiї, 242. 1818 Bolianovs’kyi, Dyviziia “Halychyna”, 29 - unnumbered footnote; 62-63. 1819 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 18, folder 21, Protokol zїzdu UDK Krakivs’koї Oblasty, June 21, 1944. 1820 Ortyns’kyi, “Persha Ukraїns’ka Dyvizia na tli politychnykh podii druhoї svitovoї viiny” in Lysiakha (ed), Brody. Zbirnyk stattei i narysiv, 29. 1821 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 17, folder 24, Zvit z konferentsiї z Prezydentom d-r L’ozakerom, March 8, 1943. Kubiiovych claimed political rationality as the factor in pushing toward lobbying for an armed force under German auspices; meant to improve the mutual Ukrainian-German relationship. He claimed partisan forest forces – OUN-B and UPA – to be a romantic fantasy while only German training and leadership proved most beneficial in the long run.1819 In his postwar recollections, in an effort to absolve himself from the German collaborationist line he toted during the war, he claimed that one of the benefits of the SS-Galicia division was the later desertion of trained soldiers, often with their arms, to UPA ranks which also fought the German occupier.1820 In this way, he attempted to naively credit himself in contributing to the struggle anti-Germans partisan struggle. Meeting with Ludwig Losacker, head of the GG internal affairs department and Frank’s newly appointed envoy toward Ukrainian matters, Kubiiovych adopted an open, definite political line. He described his hope that events on the eastern front transpire in such a fortuitous way so as to both, definitively solve the Ukrainian question and create an independent army. Not only did he wish to see Ukrainians involved in the war against Bolshevism militarily but also politically since, in his view, these matters went hand in hand. He presented Losacker with his bold opinion of how the Germans could make the most of the Ukrainian question during the ongoing war: proclaim a Ukrainian state, remove German civil administration and replace it with a Ukrainian one; allow German troops to remain on Ukrainian territory either until the end of the war or until a Ukrainian army was formed. He revived the idea of Ukrainian ethnographic territory being awarded a special autonomous status (Sonderstellung); forming a personal union with the GG. To administer it, he revived his 1941 idea of creating a totalitarian, pan-Ukrainian organization – the Ukrainian National Community (Ukraїns’ka Narodna Spilnota).1821 Militarily speaking, Kubiiovych reiterated the fact that circumstances presented the optimal opportunity for creating a legion; citing the Latvian and Lithuanian examples. Furthermore, he claimed creating an analogous Ukrainian one would be the step in finally solving the re-privatization question. Recruitment, he recommended, was to be on a voluntary basis while officer positions were to be staffed by Ukrainians. He suggested it be closely tied to the UTsK leadership; Kubiiovych being spokesman.1822 Undoubtedly, this would bolster and strengthen his image among Ukrainians. 1822 Ibid. 1823 IPN, DHF, GK 95/25, Tagebuch 1943: Januar bis April, p. 213. 1824 Kubiiovych, Meni 85, 109. 1825 Initially, Himmler suggested rewarding those peasants who met their consignment quotas in 1941/42 and who were on the same track in 1943 with property rights. Those “rotten peasants” who failed to meet their requirements during those timeframes would gain no such rights. BA, NS 19/1785, Note from SS Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler to Governor Otto Wächter, March 1943, pp. 19-20. 1826 Bolianovs’kyi, Dyviziia “Halychyna”, 27. Radio announcement quoted in Sol Littman, Pure Soldiers or Sinister Legion: the Ukrainian 14th Waffen-SS Division (Montreal-New York: Black Rose Books, 2003), 1. 1827 Litopys Ukraїns’koї Povstans’koї Armiї, vol. 1 (Toronto: Litopys UPA, 1978), 91. 1828 Melnyk, The History of the Galician Division of the Waffen-SS, vol. 1, 28. 1829 Armstrong, Ukrainian Nationalism, 170. After examining these propositions, Frank approved plans for a unit and ordered Bühler to contact Kubiiovych to discuss preparations. He also appointed Wächter as his commissioner over the matter.1823 Even before official approval by the top echelons of the German administration, Kubiiovych recalled of Bisanz, Wächter’s then military advisor, disseminating rumors in Lwów about the formation of a “Ukrainian army.” Aside from simply talking with former Ukrainian veterans, he also tried to induce them to volunteer for service in a still non-existent formation.1824 Following much back and forth with Wächter, Himmler ultimately approved the idea of a Ukrainian armed division, on the condition there was no mention of the word ‘Ukraine.’1825 On March 24, 1943, the announcement of the establishment of an armed Ukrainian SS division was first broadcast over radio Weichsel-Donau.1826 Next, Wächter turned to gain support from among the Ukrainians; ideally from the OUN. The Banderites showed no solidarity toward the Germans and further criticized the pro-German Kubiiovych’s belief in placing the Ukrainian fate on the German card. Ideia i chyn, their official organ, made it clear that “every conscious and faithful son of the Ukrainian land” placed the future fate of the nation on the Ukrainian card, on the Ukrainian struggle for independence; in other words, on the OUN-B.1827 Turning to the UTsK, Wächter met confidentially with Kubiiovych. The Ukrainian looked to politicize the issue of the division as he advised the governor to pursue conscription only after gaining social support and creating a proper political base. Unauthorized to promise political concessions, Wächter told him that only through the division proving itself in battle could the Ukrainians gain political leverage in the future. To induce cooperation, he proposed Kubiiovych head a military board (Wehrausschuss) that would facilitate recruitment and welfare for soldier’s families.1828 Kubiiovych then met with Ukrainian civic representatives to discuss the governor’s conclusions. Melnykites played leading roles in the divisional development and gave it much publicity.1829 Some questioned the intentions of the occupiers – whether or not they truly sympathized with the Ukrainians. Others, such as Myroslav Semchyshyn, felt no definitive political concessions would be gained. Ultimately, consensus was reached to support the division but with several reservations including, among others: it be exclusively used against the Bolsheviks, its name, markings and officer corps be Ukrainian; it be attached to the regular Wehrmacht and considered the first unit of a Ukrainian National Army into which it would be incorporated in the near future; political prisoners and forces laborers be given amnesty in order to join the division; all other Ukrainian military units be dissolved.1830 1830 Kubiiovych, Meni 85, 110-111; Melnyk, The History of the Galician Division of the Waffen-SS, vol. 1, 337fn96; 34-35. 1831 Kubiiovych, Meni 85, 111. 1832 John-Paul Himka, “Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytsky and the Holocaust.” Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry vol. 26 (2013), 24; Zięba, “Szeptycki w Europie Hitlera” in Paź (ed), Prawda historyczna a prawda polityczna w badaniach naukowych..., 421-422. 1833 Veryha, The Correspondence…, p. 542. 1834 Hunczak, U mundyrakh voroha, 35. The UTsK head also looked to gain the opinion and advice of the Greek Catholic church’s authority. In a private meeting with Metropolitan Sheptytsk’yi, he gained his blessing. In his postwar memoirs, he evoked the hierarch’s words: “There is almost no price that one would not pay for the creation of a Ukrainian army.”1831 Alarmed over the Banderites, who he referred to as “unserious people” and “snot-nosed kids” (smarkachi), and their political violence, Sheptyts’kyi’s reasoning for endorsing an SS division in part looked to keep young Galician Ukrainians out of the UPA. However, it is equally plausible he used his position to not only attempt to break through any opposition to concerted German-Ukrainian collaboration in Berlin, as in 1941, but to also ensure young Ukrainians volunteered into what he saw as the first step to a Ukrainian military. Without his approval, Sheptyts’kyi knew a Ukrainian military unit would have minimal chances of existence or, worse yet, recruitment would be forcefully conducted by the Germans; completely alienating Ukrainian circles from any say in the matter.1832 Eliciting their earlier private meeting, Kubiiovych wrote a formal note to Wächter in which he presented, in a circumspect way, his thoughts and opinions. Expressing UTsK eagerness to “participate in this great task,” he assured the governor of success in calling to life a division even if a large recruitment pool of young males remained outside the district as laborers in the Reich. To compensate for this and, equally important, to give the future unit a pan-Ukrainian character, he proposed widening the recruitment pool from only Eastern Galician to the entire GG. This, he argued, would create greater enthusiasm and correspond to the pan-Ukrainian character of the UTsK. Additionally, he proposed that recruitment and care of the future troops be incumbent on the Committee.1833 In their visions of a Ukrainian military unit, converging Ukrainian and German objectives – combating Bolshevism – met with the Ukrainians also clinging to a romantic belief of it transforming into something much more. Fritz Arlt contextualized this by saying that the Germans knew the Ukrainians had their own objectives in the formation of a division but this did not matter so long as they would also serve German military needs.1834 However, the division’s SS organizers emphasized its importance for their victory and in the creation of Hitler’s New Europe, something Kubiiovych hoped to be a part of: “All call-ups to Ukrainians for the Division have been geared towards their planned deployment, not for Ukraine or Ukrainian culture, but rather as the contribution of the Ukrainian ethnic group in the battle to defend against Bolshevism and for a new Europe.”1835 As a result of early negotiations, Kubiiovych and the UTsK naively sacrificed short-term concessions for envisioned long-term substance; a forlorn hope of cooperation with the Germans from the side of the Committee and Melnykites. 1835 Quoted in Per Anders Rudling, “They Defended Ukraine: The 14. Waffen-Grenadier-Division der SS (Galizische nr. 1) Revisited.” The Journal of Slavic Military Studies vol. 25 no. 3 (2012), 338-339. 1836 David Marples, Heroes and Villains: Creating National History in Contemporary Ukraine (Budapest-New York: Central European University Press, 2007), 185. However, while the future Ukrainian position alongside the Germans remained uncertain, Kubiiovych hoped for the next best thing – to take advantage of the opportunity presented in the organization of a military unit to advance his agenda. Through his role in actively and consciously propagandizing the importance of the division and calling on young Ukrainians to volunteer to fight alongside the Germans, he hoped to be rewarded with a position in the new European order. In other words, he anticipated to be more than just the guardian of welfare and aid for GG Ukrainians but as a future political representative of Ukrainian interests under German rule. However, prospects for Ukrainian armed collaboration to achieve such objectives remained precarious since choosing to fight for the German side, whatever the motives, would always place division members and organizers in a treacherous light in Soviet eyes and less than reputable in the eyes of neutrals.1836 During the first meeting to take place in Lwów among German civil, security, and police representatives concerning the division, Wächter suggested correlating it with the SS, giving it the name ‘SS-Volunteer Division Galizien’ or ‘Volunteer Division Galizien.’ Grenadiers would constitute the lowest unit level. Field grey uniforms with SS badges, noted to be readily available, would be used. To identify it, a shield emblem was proposed to be worn on the upper right arm. At Bisanz’s suggestion, the emblem would depict the Galician coat of arms – the lion of Halych with three gold crowns surrounding it; the coat of arms given to the region by Empress Maria Theresa following its official addition to the Habsburg Empire. This symbol was considered part of the region’s tradition and in no way symbolized the idea of greater Ukraine. Wächter envisioned the officer corps consisting of Ukrainians from the World War I Austro-Hungarian military (about 300 officers), the Polish army (about 100), and from among Ukrainian military formations (the Galician Ukrainian army, the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen or the Carpathian Sich). Furthermore, he suggested those Ukrainians who for political reasons did not reach officer positions in the interwar Polish army be intensely trained in a 4-month long officer preparation course only after completing 3 months of service on the front. Recruitment would be based on those born primarily between 1905 and 1908; however exceptions were made to even include men born as early as 1901. Because of the strong religious ties of Galician Ukrainians to the Greek Catholic Church, it was suggested to appoint chaplains.1837 The regional character of the division showed the Germans were in no way willing or prepared to have a Ukrainian armed unit be propagandized by nationalists as a Ukrainian unit serving in the SS but rather as an SS unit consisting of Ukrainians from Eastern Galicia. Furthermore, the Germans showed little to no trust toward Ukrainians from Volhynia or Soviet Ukraine. In comparison, the fact that Eastern Galicia historically belonged to a proto-German empire for over a century made Galician Ukrainians appear to be a racially choice recruitment pool.1838 1837 BA, NS 19/1785, Abschrift – Niederschrift, April 12, 1943, pp. 38-45. Here it was also mentioned that the division would be a grenadier one. As such, horses (an estimated 2-3 thousand) and carts for this need would be supplied by the inhabitants of the district. The creation of a military orchestra within the division was also recommended since, the argument went, the Ukrainians liked music. Furthermore, it was proposed to call-up 600 non-commissioned German officers into the division – 300 from Holland and 300 from Oranienburg. 1838 Grzegorz Motyka, “Dywizja SS ‘Galizien’ (‘Hałyczyna’),” Pamięć i Sprawiedliwość vol. 1 no. 1 (2002), 111. 1839 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 17, folder 24, Protokol iz zasidannia kermanychiv, April 16, 1943. 1840 AAN, DRRPK, sygn. 202/III/198, Dywizja SS-Galizien, July 19, 1943, p. 116; Do depeszy rządu co do memoriałów, October 2, 1943, p. 131. 1841 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 17, folder 24, Pam’iatevyi protokol konferentsiї u Prezydenta d-ra L’ozakera, May 7, 1943. The German-language summary of the meeting is found in Veryha, The Correspondence…, 1220-1221. Receiving word of the Lwów meeting from Bisanz, Kubiiovych conveyed those conclusions to the UTsK. Stating that the name of the division was still uncertain, he erroneously described that through its badges, uniform, and language, it would have a strong Ukrainian character. He added the UTsK, or a military commission within the Committee headed by him, would be the active agent in its formation1839 According to Polish reports, Kubiiovych also travelled to Berlin where he met with Figol’ – the Committee’s representative there – and Sushko. His role in the division’s formation was accented all the more as Mel’nyk and Sushko were not directly involved in discussions nor consulted for top positions in the division or military board.1840 The division was to be a GG project, subsequently projecting some semblance of self-rule from the Reich bureaucrats. As such, GG officials certainly looked to do business with a willing Kubiiovych in whom they saw a loyal partner and someone who they could exploit to provide a large armed Ukrainian body to fight the Bolsheviks. Meeting with Losacker, Kubiiovych thanked the GG administration and Frank for their expediency in creating what the minutes called the “Galician Riflemen’s Division.” He then called attention to what he believed to be difficulties concerning the division - its regional designation as ‘Galician,’ not ‘Ukrainian;’ the lack of the Trident coat-of-arms and the lack of a connection with Ukrainian society. He also took the opportunity to lobby for concessions, specifically proposing placing L’vivs’ki Visti and Ridna Zemlia – two newspapers under direct German supervision – into Ukrainian hands.1841 April 28 was slated as the day Wächter would officially proclaim the creation of the division and military board. Several days prior, the authorities made a formal step toward revising their position vis-à-vis the Ukrainians as Frank issued an ordinance permitting for the complete privatization of Soviet nationalized land in Eastern Galicia. However it was short-lived as pressure from the SS in implementing and carrying out Germanization plans forced him to abandon the proposal.1842 1842 Bolianovs’kyi, Dyviziia “Halychyna”, 40; Melnyk, The History of the Galician Division of the Waffen-SS, vol. 1, 336fn80. 1843 Melnyk, The History of the Galician Division of the Waffen-SS, vol. 1, 36. 1844 Throughout its existence, the division underwent several name changes: 14 SS-Freiwilligen-Division “Galizien” (June 1943), 14 Galizische-Freiwilligen Division (October 1943), 14 Waffen-Grenadier-Division der SS (galizische Nr. 1) (June 1944), 14 Waffen-Grenadier-Division der SS (ukrainische Nr. 1) (November 1944), 1 Ukrainische Division der Ukrainischen National-Armee (April 1945). 1845 Veryha, The Correspondence…, 1207-1208. Laba sermon excerpt quoted in Melnyk, The History of the Galician Division of the Waffen-SS, vol. 1, 38. Wächter compiled a secret circular containing instructions concerning recruitment throughout all district levels. Recruitment commissions, ones to be presided over by Kreishauptmänner, would be created in tangent with the military board to support propaganda activity and, more importantly, to give the impression of equal German-Ukrainian partnership. Voluntary conscription was to be maintained at all costs. Further guidelines, ones meant to be destroyed after the contents had been memorized, advised recruiters to avoid addressing the Ukrainians in terms of allies or to give them the impression that the Germans were in any way dependent on their help. They were to also forgo any political topics – the mention of a greater Ukrainian state for example – and, if necessary, mention that conditions for such a state would be determined only on the basis of success in combat.1843 Following ceremonies at the governor’s palace, where Wächter proclaimed the formation of the SS Schutzen-Division “Galizien,”1844 he and his entourage attended thanksgiving services at St. George cathedral celebrated by Sheptytsk’yi’s auxiliary Iosyf Slipyi. There Vasyl’ Laba, later named the division’s leading Greek Catholic chaplain, delivered a sermon in Ukrainian which called on those assembled to view the division as the first step in reestablishing a Ukrainian army, saying: “The German government, with the approval of the Führer of the German people, has granted the Galician Ukrainians permission to set up their own volunteer Division of riflemen… on this day of celebration, the Ukrainian People’s Army is resurrected.”1845 Raising a glass and toasting to the success of the newly-proclaimed division during morning ceremonies, Kubiiovych politicized the meaning of its inception. Briefly evoking what Ukrainian nationalists viewed as the western European orientation of Eastern Galicia; something which, as he stated, even Bolshevism could not eradicate, he argued that the fate of Eastern Europe lay in the interest of Germany and appealed to politically organize Ukraine into the new order. According to him, Galicia, being the historic bridge between Eastern and Western Europe, was the only region which could assist the Germans in developing their eastern political order, wishing to see Ukrainians actively assist in it.1846 He made a second speech during that day’s lunch meeting; calling for even closer German-Ukrainian cooperation in their mutual struggle: 1846 Veryha, The Correspondence…, 1212-1213. 1847 Ibid, 1214-1216. 1848 BA, NS 19/1785, Note from Reich Chancellery head Hans Lammers to Reichminister for the Occupied Eastern Territories Alfred Rosenberg, May 10, 1943, pp. 50-51. 1849 Kubiiovych, Meni 85, 112. Kubiiovych wrote a note to Wächter proposing General Viktor Kurmanovych as honorary chairman of the military board. Veryha, The Correspondence…, 1219. Major Wolf-Dietrich Heike, chief of staff for the command of the Waffen SS Galizien division, claimed that the occupiers transformed the military board from a spokesman with a Ukrainian character to simply a welfare and aid committee. Wolf-Dietrich Heike, The Ukrainian Division ‘Galicia’ 1943-45: A Memoir (Toronto-Paris-Munich: The Shevchenko Scientific Society 1988), 4-5. Today, for Ukrainians in Galicia, is a very historic day, because today’s act realized one of the most coveted wishes of the Ukrainian people – to fight Bolshevism with weapons in our hands… This wish was the result of the deeper conviction that it is our duty to not remain neutral in the great struggle for building the new European order, and what we can do for the victory of the new Europe. On these principles we have based our active role in cooperating with the German government. We did everything possible. I have mentioned the voluntary departure of hundreds of thousands of workers to Germany. Their conscious contribution of quotas, the collection of winter clothing for the German Wehrmacht, the large donations of money for military purposes shows their readiness… We realize the great meaning of this greatest decision for our people. Therefore, we want to ensure that it will be the best. The formation of the Galician-Ukrainian division within the framework of the SS is for us not only a distinction but our responsibility to continue to [support] and maintain this active decision, in cooperation with the German state organization, until the victorious end of the war. I ask you, Governor, to accept our assurances that we will fulfill our responsibilities. This historic day was made possible by the condition to create a worthy opportunity for the Ukrainians of Galicia, to fight arm in arm with the heroic German soldiers off the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS against Bolshevism, your and our deadly enemy. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Of course, we also thank the Great Führer of united Europe for recognizing our participation in the war, the he approved your initiative and agreed to the creation of the Galicia division.1847 That same day, Kubiiovych sent a telegram to Frank, thanking him on behalf of the Führer for allowing the Ukrainians to finally participate in the anti-Bolshevik crusade with arms in hand.1848 In confirming the military board, Wächter went against his earlier promise and appointed Bisanz, not Kubiiovych, its head. In his memoirs, Kubiiovych described this as an act undertaken without any previous discussion with the UTsK, passing over them being the division’s advocate and spokesman.1849 Rather, he stated that the board worked in close harmony with the UTsK; undoubtedly stemming from Bisanz’s pro-Ukrainian disposition. However, the appointment of Bisanz showed Wächter’s intention to limit Ukrainian sovereignty and authority over the board; to instead appear Ukrainian while serving as a German propaganda tool. Aside from Bisanz and his German deputy, included in the board were many prominent and identifiable Ukrainians: Osyp Navrots’kyi, Ievhen Pyndus, Ivan Kedryn, Stefan Volynets’, Mykhailo Kushnir, Vasyl’ Laba, Mykhailo Khronov’iat, Andrii Palii, Volodymyr Bilozor, Lubomyr Makarushka, Iurii Krokhmaliuk, and Zenon Zelenyi. These men primarily represented three political orientations: Paliїv’s Front of National Unity, Mel’nyk’s OUN faction, and UNDO.1850 Of special importance to the division was the role of Dmytro Paliїv who was a strong proponent for its creation. According to Kubiiovych, he was privy to all divisional matters and guarded Ukrainian interests before the Germans, either in agreement with or against their wishes.1851 1850 Melnyk, The History of the Galician Division of the Waffen-SS, vol. 1, 38-39. Roman Krokhmaliuk who worked in as a recruiter in the military board claimed that Volynets’, Iuri Krokhmaliuk (his brother), Kushnir, Paliїv, and Khronov’iat belonged to the Front of National Unity. Zelenyi and Navrots’kyi represented the Melnykites while Makarushka, a prewar UNDO senator, and Kedryn represented UNDO. Krokhmaliuk claimed that Bilozor, Laba, and Pyndus were nonpartisan members. Krokhmaliuk, Zahrava na Skhodi..., 31. 1851 Kubiiovych, Meni 85, 112; Roman Khrohmaliuk, Zahrava na Skhodi. Spohady i dokumenty z pratsi u viis’kovii upravi “Halychyna” v 1943-1945 rokakh (Toronto-New York: Brotherhood of Former Soldiers of the 1st Ukrainian Division UNA 1978), 24-25. Heike wrote that the Ukrainians in the division had much to be thankful to Paliїv for as he “gave himself body and soul to the realization of the Ukrainian goals of the Division.” Heike, The Ukrainian Division ‘Galicia’, 8. 1852 Jockheck, Propaganda im Generalgouvernement..., 278. 1853 Bolianovs’kyi, Dyviziia “Halychyn”, 57. 1854 Quoted in Rudling, “They Defended Ukraine…,” 339fn45. Littman described Kubiiovych as becoming an “honorary member” of the division as he never participated in the formal training and combat of the unit. Littman, Pure Soldiers or Sinister Legion…, 63. 1855 Melnyk, The History of the Galician Division of the Waffen-SS, vol. 1, 54. The announcement of the division’s creation immediately appeared in the German and Ukrainian-language press. Articles propagandized Hitler’s purported decision to permit a Galician Ukrainian SS unit and Frank’s message – warning of the dangers of the “Jewish-Bolshevik moloch” and calling on Ukrainians to fight “shoulder to shoulder with their battle-hardened German comrades against the fiercest enemy and your Volkstum.”1852 To entice conscription, Wächter sanctioned all who volunteered be exempt from Baudienst service.1853 Immediately, a combined recruitment drive by the German authorities, military board and UTsK branches was orchestrated throughout the district. Kubiiovych, a veteran of the Ukrainian Galician Army, signed the first enlistment form and expressed his readiness to take up arms in the oath he swore: I, Dr. Kubiiovych, Volodymyr… declare, that I am ready, as a military volunteer, to join the ranks of the Waffen-SS Division Galizien and to take part in its military activities. I know, that on the basis of this declaration, I oblige myself to perform every minute quickly the orders of the Waffen-SS Galizien.1854 His and other civic leaders’ enlistment meant to be an example for Ukrainians. However, many, including Kubiiovych, later appealed their enlistments with the help of local UTsK branches and were formally discharged from service as they were deemed unabkömmlich or indispensable for social work. In only one day, the Lwów aid committee requested for the discharge of 30 individuals.1855 Calls to volunteer were laced with political euphemisms energetically undertaken by the UTsK, especially those member-veterans from the Galician Army. Kubiiovych urged to take advantage of the opportunity afforded by Hitler. This, he stated, was something which national honor and national interest demanded. He reiterated that Germany was the only nation and power capable of “destroying the Red Monster.” Turning to the youth, he called on them to invoke patriotism, firmness, and preparedness in seizing the moment: Ukrainian Citizens! The time for waiting, the time for deliberation and suffering has come to an end. Now, the great moment of armed deeds has also come for our people. Side by side with the heroic army of Greater Germany and the volunteers of other European peoples, we too come forth to battle our greatest national foe and threat to all civilization. The cause is sacred and great and therefore it demands great efforts and sacrifices. I believe that these efforts and sacrifices are the hard but certain road to our Glorious Future.1856 1856 Heike, The Ukrainian Division ‘Galicia’, 146-148. 1857 Kushnir’s note found as document 2 in Krokhmaliuk, Zahrava na Skhodi..., 190-192. 1858 PISM, MSW, volume A.9.V folder A.9.V/32, SS Schutzen Divizion “Galizien,” n.d. 1859 Volodymyr Ketsun, Spomyny Dyviziinyka (Andelaid: Vydavnytstvo Nasha Hromada, 2013), 4-5; Hunchak, U mundyrakh voroha, 18-19. For more recollections of Galician Ukrainians enlisting, see Melnyk, The History of the Galician Division of the Waffen-SS, vol. 1, 40-55. Ukrainians who served in the Red Army in 1941 were also recruited for divisional service from among Soviet POW camps. In the case of Ketsun, he was accepted as a conscript even though, as he recalled, he did not quite meet the age requirement of 18 nor the height requirement of 170 centimeters; he was 169 centimeters tall. UTsK propaganda included leaflets disseminated throughout cities, provincial towns, and villages. In a note to regional and county recruiters, Mykhailo Kushnir, the UTsK’s propaganda assistant in the cultural department, suggested they be disseminated outside churches and displayed on prominent building such as local aid committees or cooperatives. Because of the small number of copies, he also suggested that in villages leaflets be passed “from hut to hut, from hand to hand.” The text prepared by him described the role Ukrainian Galician Army veterans played in the recruitment as military board members for what he called the “SS Rifleman’s Division Galicia.” Calling on the next generation of Galician youth to volunteer, the leaflet indicated that they would be following in those footsteps.1857 Recruitment was supported by the Melnykites with such slogans as “the fight against Bolshevism” and “the creation of our own armed forces.”1858 Roman Krohmaliuk was appointed by the board as its recruiter in the Lwów region. To assist him in his work, the head of the Lwów County aid committee Lev Iatskevych supplied him with two men to register volunteers at the board’s office. Many of the men who worked as recruiters were often veterans of the Austro-Hungarian or Ukrainian Galician armies. Various motives compelled Ukrainians to volunteer. Some enlisted to join their colleagues or to follow in the footsteps of their fathers. Some joined to avenge personal experiences from the 1939-1941 Soviet occupation and to prevent such episodes from happening again.1859 Others saw service as a pleasing alternative to forced labor. A large number of deserters from the Baudienst labor service enlisted. Seeing the sudden loss of a sizable young labor pool for occupation projects flee to the division, Wächter issued a special directive in which he ordered those laborers who wished to volunteer first receive permission from their Baudienst companies. Without it, they would be turned away and sent back to work. Later ordinances also forbid recruitment commissions from conscripting Ukrainians looking to avoid labor in the Reich.1860 Many young Galician Ukrainian women enlisted as medical nurses. For this reason, Kubiiovych lobbied the GG population and welfare bureau to organize special 3-month courses to train them. As he noted, the UTsK would bear the costs – 15 thousand złotys – of the training.1861 1860 Bolianovs’kyi, Dywiziia „Halychyna”, 59-60. 1861 Verytha, The Correspondence..., 569; 1237 1862 Konieczny, Polacy i Ukraińcy na ziemiach obecnej Polski..., 173. 1863 Grzegorz Motyka, “Prawda i mity o udziale Ukraińców w zwalczaniu Powstania Warszawskiego” in Kazimierz Krajewski and Tomasz Łabuszewski (eds), Powstanie Warszawskie. Fakty i Mity (Warszawa: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej 2006), 118-119; Bolianovs’kyi, Dywiziia „Halychyna”, 87-88; Krokhmaliuk, Zahrava na Skhodi..., 39. Kubiiovych received official permission to conduct a recruitment drive in Warsaw from the GG Population and Welfare Department. See Veryha, The Correspondence…, 570. 1864 “Nasze Ziemie Wschodnie nr. 3 (May 1943)” in Archiwum Adama Bienia. Akta Narodowosciowe (1942-1944), eds. Jan Brzeski and Adam Roliński (Kraków: Biblioteka Jagiellońska-Księgarnia Akademicka, 2001), 71. Enlistment also came from Ukrainians beyond the Galicia district. Krohmaliuk recalled instances of young men from Volhynia, Chełm, or even Subcarpathian Rus’ coming to military board offices in Lwów to volunteer. Conscription was also conducted in the Kraków and Warsaw districts. In the former, Greek Catholic priests encouraged Ukrainians to join. In one village, the priest appealed to the youth: “The division Halychyna is forming, everyone should support it and boys should personally join its ranks to fight for an independent Ukraine.” Conscription ceremonies in the Zasiannia region often included the participation of church hierarchs, either Kotsylovs’kyi or Malynovs’kyi.1862 On June 25, 1943 a convention of UNR officers, non-commissioned officers and veterans in Warsaw attracted 800 men, of which 170 volunteered. About 50 of them were ultimately chosen. Additionally, some 22 Hetmanites also volunteered. The head of the Warsaw aid committee Colonel Pohotovko and Colonel Andrii Kryzhanivs’kyi led the recruiting commission there. Because of his position as aid committee head, Pohotovko was dismissed from conscription.1863 In most instances, cooperation between German administrators, board members, and UTsK representatives during recruitment progressed normally. Wächter personally participated in a recruitment drive in Kołomyja. During the so-called “arms holiday,” Ukrainians in folk costumes paraded on foot and on horseback before the governor.1864 Some 150 Ukrainian political prisoners were even released from jails in Lwów for enlistment. However, in some cases German administrators viewed recruitment as their responsibility, alienating Ukrainians in the process. When this happened, the Ukrainians turned to Bisanz or Wächter for help. Although recruitment was predominantly on a volunteer basis, Krokhmaliuk recalled isolated instances where the SD turned it into an ultimatum – either work in forced labor camps or enlist in the division. Some German starostas also used conscription lists from 1941, placing before those Ukrainians a simple choice: auxiliary service in the Wehrmacht or service in the division. Some Ukrainian administrators even ignored the voluntary aspect. For example, the Ukrainian deputy to the German Kreishauptmann in Złoczów used all methods available to enlist as many young men as possible to “volunteer” for service by levying punishment on their entire villages if they refused to enlist.1865 Among those who volunteered were also the older men who fought for the Austrians during World War I. For them, as well as for German officers involved too, memories of their previous comradeship again surfaced. To further express this bond, the Habsburg army’s Tenner parade march was adopted for the division.1866 1865 Krokhmaliuk, Zahrava na Skhodi..., 29-30; 32-33; 35-36; Lebed’, UPA Ukraїns’ka Povstans’ka Armiia..., 82. 1866 Heike, The Ukrainian Division ‘Galicia’, 19. 1867 Veryha, The Correspondence…, 1235-1236. This incident was also summarized and mentioned in Lebed’, UPA Ukraїns’ka Povstans’ka Armiia…, 82. 1868 Quoted in Michael O. Logusz, Galicia Division: The Waffen-SS 14th Grenadier Division 1943-1945 (Atglen, PA: Schiffer Military History 1997), 62; Bolianovs’kyi, Dywiziia „Halychyna”, 55. Anti-divisional propaganda hampered recruitment in some regions. Outside Stanisławów and Kołomyja, for example, attitudes toward the division were reported to be negative. Anti-divisional propaganda, claimed to be Polish or Bolshevik, spread among inhabitants and created a state of uncertainty and apprehension toward volunteering. Among the propaganda were such slogans as: “no patriot joins the division,” “let us go hand in hand with our Polish neighbors to annihilate the Germans,” “let us settle with the Ukrainian intelligentsia and clergy who have betrayed our people,” “we will build our state without the intelligentsia and spiritual traitors.” One report described a recruitment rally in Sołotwina, a provincial town 40 kilometers east of Stanisławów. Some 200 villagers, primarily old men and women gathered to listen to the speakers. Following riveting calls to volunteer, no effect was seen among the audience “who silently listened to the speeches.” Even when members of the military board and local aid committee intoned the Ukrainian national anthem, they were forced to finish singing it alone as the crowd remained silent. Polish Volksdeutsche were said to have been among the crowd, hissing and booing during the rally. Instead of supporting the recruitment drive, villagers questioned why Poles who harbored hostile attitudes toward the Germans remained in administrative positions.1867 Initially, the Banderites openly criticized and opposed the creation of a Ukrainian military unit outside their control. An article in Ideia i chyn correctly claimed that the German’s were forming the division to deprive the Ukrainians' national revolution of the most active elements, “throwing it away as cannon fodder,” concluding: “today, we have no doubts that not a Ukrainian, but a German colonial element is forming. The attitude of the Ukrainian nation to it is, as it was to all previous German experiments, negative.” To combat propaganda, Germans and non-OUN Ukrainians conducted counterpropaganda campaigns. For example, Werner Beker, the German starosta in Rohatyń, called claims of using Ukrainians as cannon fodder comical since, as he claimed, the Germans would never force foreign nations to bleed for their own interests but would fight alongside their colleagues.1868 Banderite Mykola Lebed’ claimed that German-UTsK cooperation over the division stemmed from the occupiers realization that they were in no state to completely and physically liquidate the nationalist independence movement. As such, they recruited UTsK “agents” to disseminate propaganda which, in his words, included anti-UPA sentiments condemning the youth in the forests. Instances arose in which Banderites even threatened Ukrainian sołtyses with severe repressions if they participated in recruitment drives.1869 One Banderite report stated: 1869 Lebed’, UPA Ukraїns’ka Povstans’ka Armiia…, 80; Kulińska, Kwestia ukraińska..., 6. 1870 “Fragment sporządzonego przez podziemie OUN przeglądu stosunków społeczno-politycznych wiosną 1943r.” in Polska i Ukraina w latach trzydziestych-czterdziestych XX wieku... vol. 4, 1273. 1871 Melnyk, The History of the Galician Division of the Waffen-SS, vol. 1, 59; Krokhmaliuk, Zahrava na Skhodi..., 40-41; Bolianovs’kyi, Dywiziia „Halychyna”, 101-103. 1872 AAN, DRRPK, sygn. 202/III/198, Report: Stworzenie dywizji ukraińskiej przy armii niemieckiej, May 18, 1943, p. 104; Bohdan Pidhayny, “Dva shliakhy – odna meta” in Lysiakha (ed), Brody. Zbirnyk stattei i narysiv, 60. Everybody here bitterly hates the Germans and because of this they trust none of Berlin’s insidious actions. To creating the so-called rifleman’s division – SS “Galizien” Ukrainian masses reacted with reserve, sometimes extremely hostile. Conscious Ukrainians say: “We don’t want to shed blood for the German cause. We will join an army organized by ‘Ukrainian authorities.’” This entire overrated act of creating the division became, above all, a matter of prestige for the Ukrainian [Central] Committee.1870 As recruitment continued, the Banderite position gradually became more ambivalent, eventually reaching an internal agreement between supporters and oppositionists. UPA leaders opposed the concept of the division as a successor to the Sich Riflemen or the Ukrainian Galician Army. However, they ultimately agreed to lift their recruitment boycott if only to exploit it for their purposes. Speaking over tea with Roman Krokhmaliuk, Shukhevych described his main goal – to organize and train an elite Ukrainian underground army. Since untrained UPA men were becoming a liability, he sought to use the division as a training ground for future partisans. SS desertion could also provide weapons. Both this and military training were important in the fight for a future Ukrainian state, not least against Polish underground organizations in the district and neighboring Reichskommissariat. As such, he promised Krokhmaliuk that all those who volunteered and deserted to the partisans would be sent back to the division for further training.1871 The Banderites also ordered some men to voluntarily enlist so as to infiltrate divisional troops, thereby transforming it into an independent Ukrainian military formation under their authority. Such was the case, for example, of Bohdan Pidhainyi who, during a meeting with Shukhevych, was urged to volunteer. As he recalled, the Banderite leader wished to have at least one OUN-B member among every seven soldiers in the division in order to guarantee the Germans would not exploit the men solely for their purposes and to possibly recruit future partisans.1872 Divisional chief of staff Wolf-Dietrich Heike recalled instances of UPA propaganda among recruits in their training camp outside of Dębica: “they attempted to stem the flow of new volunteers and tried to attract those who had already joined into their own ranks, and did not stop short of coercion to achieve this.” Lebed’ recalled that when the division saw combat in and around Brody, a number of soldiers and junior officers contacted the UPA and deserted to their ranks, bringing with them their German arms.1873 1873 Heike, The Ukrainian Division ‘Galicia’, 18; Lebed’, UPA Ukraїns’ka Povstans’ka Armiia…, 83. According to Lebed’, this was the opportune moment for the division to transform into a Ukrainian military formation loyal to the Banderites and the UPA. However, the Soviet offensive and battle at Brody ended that plan. 1874 Krokhmaliuk, Zahrava na Skhodi..., 54-57. 1875 PISM, MSW, folder A.9.V/34, Organizacja galicyjskiej dywizji SS dla młodzieży ukraińskiej, April 29, 1943; MSZ, folder A.11.851b/9, Sprawy ukraińskie w raporcie krajowym, n.d. 1876 “Nasze Ziemie Wschodnie nr. 3 (May 1943)” in Archiwum Adama Bienia..., 71. 1877 AAN, DRRPK, sygn. 202/III/193, Sprawozdanie miesięczne B.W., May 1943, p. 27; AAN, AK, sygn. 203/XV/49, Oświadczenie pełnoocnika na Kraj Rządu Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej, May 1943, p. 1. Also found in PISM, MSZ, folder A.11.851b/8. Bolshevik agitators denounced the division. Propaganda spread by word of mouth served to enflame defeatism and dispel the idea of an armed Ukrainian formation. Krokhmaliuk claimed that such agitation aimed to break the Ukrainians’ spirited disposition. He recalled instances of young Bolshevik activists urging Ukrainians to forgo volunteering for service by saying: “Boys, don’t go to the division. Head to the forests.”1874 Observing the enlistment campaign, the Polish underground and exile government claimed it to be the continuator of the arms friendship which united Germans and Ukrainians during the Austrian period. An underground report viewed the division as symbolizing a possible future national army. However, the note continued, the Germans did not fully realize the potential of armed Ukrainians; instead exploiting them as a quickly-trained source of cannon fodder.1875 Another report described it as harmful from the Ukrainian point of view as Kubiiovych and other “German agents” were condemning Ukrainians to the role of German cannon fodder while compromising their social perception in the eyes of the world.1876 Assessing factors surrounding the division’s organization, the underground claimed that both the German and Ukrainian sides were mutually disappointed in its overall effects. An unequivocal directive toward volunteers came from the Government Delegate for Poland: In conjunction with the creation by the occupier, with the participation of certain Ukrainian factors, on the territory of the southeastern voivodships of the so-called “SS Schützendivisionen Galizien,” to which Polish citizens of Ukrainian nationality are called to volunteer for enlistment into, I certify that Polish citizens entering into this formation will be seen as violating their faithfulness to the Polish State and will bring about the most severe consequences. The delegate claimed a small group of Germanophile agitators was staking the fate of the less conscious Ukrainians on cooperation with the Germans even when the latter’s defeat was obvious. He called on Ukrainians to repent their anti-Polish, anti-ally sympathies for the good of future relations: “I call on the blinded to look reality in the face, to think soberly of the possibilities ahead of the Ukrainian people in the near future on these lands and to immediately turn away from the wrong path.”1877 In discussing the UTsK and the OUN-B, a subsequent underground report mentioned of their supposed secret military agreement. The division, supported by the UTsK, was said to resemble the World War I Polnische Wehrmacht created in April 1917 by the Germans while the Banderite UPA was similar to the clandestine Polish Military Organization (Polska Organizacja Wojskowa - POW) organized in 1914.1878 1878 AAN, DRRPK, sygn. 202/III/198, Report: Stworzenie dywizji ukraińskiej przy armii niemieckiej, May 18, 1943, p. 105. The Polnische Wehrmacht was a military formation created in July 1917 in response to Józef Piłsudski’s refusal to swear loyalty and allegiance to Kaiser of Germany. Under German command, it numbered only 139 officers and 2,600 men in 1917-1918. Following the collapse of German occupation in the east, the Regency Council in Warsaw took over the administration of the Polish Wehrmacht, making it a part of the postwar Polish army. The clandestine Polish Military Organization was organized by Piłsudski in Warsaw in 1914 with the goal of fighting the Russian partitioner and later, during World War I, the Central Powers. Many of its members joined the legions formed by Piłsudski while others resisted German occupation in 1917 and 1918. By 1918, the POW numbered some 20 thousand men. See Wandycz, The Lands of Partitioned Poland, 346; 356-357; 365; 368. 1879 IPN, DHF, GK 95/33, Arbeitssitzung: Sicherheitslage im Generalgouvernement, May 31, 1943, p. 322. 1880 ‘Berich über die Werbeaktion bis 2. Juni 1943 einschliesslich.’ Found in Appendix A of Melnyk, The History of the Galician Division of the Waffen-SS, vol. 1, 402-403. The report breaks-down registration by county and those who volunteered, were accepted or rejected. 1881 Melnyk, The History of the Galician Division of the Waffen-SS, vol. 1, 61. 1882 Veryha, The Correspondence…, 1259-1263. 1883 Ibid, 601. 1884 LAC, VFK, MG 31 D 203, volume 17, folder 24, Protokol iz zasidannia Kermanychiv, June 9, 1943. The effects of the first recruitment campaign were successful yet misleading. The initial report which Wächter received on May 8 indicated 32 thousand volunteers. From then, that number grew exponentially as illustrated during a GG administrative meeting on May 31 during which Krüger expressed his gratification in knowing that 73 thousand Galician Ukrainians volunteered.1879 The military board published their enlistment figures from April 28 to June 2: 81,999 registered men of which 52, 875 were provisionally accepted for further service. The remaining 29, 154 were rejected without even undergoing medical examinations. Of the total number of volunteers, the majority – 63 thousand – came from the Galicia district while 18,999 volunteered from the Kraków one with much smaller numbers from Warsaw.1880 The high registration number meant to serve as propaganda since men too old and medically unfit for service or in reserved occupations were arbitrarily mobilized to boost enlistment figures.1881 The military board’s final recruitment report noted that from the 80 thousand men registered, only 27 thousand passed as medically fit. Of these, some 10 thousand actually reported to begin training. The unwillingness of the remainder to report for service stemmed from the fact that they did not want to serve in an SS formation and from OUN propaganda which convinced many young Ukrainians to join the UPA instead.1882 Kubiiovych and the UTsK credited the recruitment numbers as a testament not only to their contribution and success in the division’s organization but also as their ability to overcome enemy propaganda.1883 During a joint UTsK-German meeting, he argued that by contributing to this success, the Committee was emerging as a political factor in the GG.1884 Politicizing the UTsK appeared as the next, natural step among Ukrainians in the war and was discussed among them. Kushnir suggested that further division and security issues called for unlimited possibilities, i.e. political concessions. Kubiiovych added that German-UTsK discussions concerning important aspects of Ukrainian life proved that the Committee bore responsibility over the entire Ukrainian question, not just apolitical aspects. He invoked his 1941 proposal in which he called for the creation of a Ukrainian national Volksgemeinschaft from the UTsK, adding that now was the time for the GG authorities to positively reconsider the idea. To the idea of politically expanding the UTsK, Richard Türk stated that it could not be done within the current GG framework as such an act would inevitably cause competing parties to emerge, something he saw as untimely. However, he assured the UTsK that the authorities would give them more political authority in the near future.1885 Zynovii Knysh also saw how UTsK ambitions superseded those of the Melnykites as they viewed themselves to be the center directing Ukrainian interests. The belief that in the near future Kubiiovych would sit at a future peace conference as Ukrainian leader following German victory only proved Knysh’s view.1886 The illusionary and naïve idea that Kubiiovych and the UTsK transgressed their social welfare role to become a viable Ukrainian political element which could work toward gaining concessions to solve the Ukrainian question was reiterated on many occasions. During a military board meeting, Kubiiovych stated: “The division is a political matter… Indeed, the division has its politicians – everywhere in our homes and beyond our borders.”1887 Ostap Kotyk-Stepanovych claimed the Committee matured from a social, welfare organization to “a representative of Ukraine.”1888 1885 Veryha, The Correspondence…, 599-600; 605. 1886 Knysh, B”ie dvanadtsiata…, 152. 1887 Quoted in Bolianovs’kyi, Dyviziia „Halychyna”, 65. 1888 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 17, folder 24, Zasidannia Kollehiї Kermanychiv, December 12, 1943. 1889 Krokhmaliuk, Zahrava na Skhodi..., 38. 1890 Pan’kivs’kyi, Roky nimetskoi okupatsiї, 241-242. 1891 Melnyk, The History of the Galician Division of the Waffen-SS, vol. 1, 76-82. The departure of the first batch of 740 recruits from the Lwów region to their training camp in Heidelager near Dębica on July 18, 1943 was turned into a pompous event. Before a crowd of 50 thousand, a field mass was celebrated. Volunteers then marched before the Lwów opera house where speeches were given by German administrators, including Wächter, Bisanz, and UTsK officials. According to Krokhmaliuk, Italian and Japanese envoys were among the guests in attendance.1889 Kubiiovych, also in attendance, was to address the volunteers but, according to Pan’kivs’kyi, was forbidden to do so. It is likely that the Germans looked to prevent any politicization while underscoring the regional aspect of the division. Instead, Pan’kivs’kyi addressed the volunteers, appealing to the mutual fight against Bolshevism: “You know that a noble place in the new world, the new Europe, will only be given to those who fight for the new Europe against their enemies.”1890 Following a parade past the speakers’ tribune and to the cheers of the crowd, the volunteers, carrying flags, placards and banners, marched to the railway station. There, they boarded freight cars on which Tridents or pro-Ukrainian and anti-Bolsheviks slogans were drawn in chalk before heading west.1891 In addition to military training at Heidelager, they also received up to two hours of weekly National Socialist ideological indoctrination (Weltanschauung). Themes taught included the invincibility of the Third Reich, the equitable social living order, and the New Europe.1892 Furthermore, they were told that they were part of a chosen elite fighting a primitive, barbaric, racialized enemy and that they were “defending the traditions of Galician Ukrainianhood in the struggle for the common culture of all people of the honorable and beautiful part of the world which we call Europe. To get accepted into the Waffen-SS Galizien is a great honor.”1893 1892 Ibid, 98. According to Melnyk, for some, these lessons became a welcome opportunity to rest from the physical demands of military training. 1893 Rudling, “They Defended Ukraine…,” 339. 1894 Quoted in Ibid, 343. As Rudling showed, in February 1945 the SS planned to change the wording of the oath withouth changing its ideals to the following: “I swear before God this holy oath, that in battle against Bolshevism, for the liberation o my Ukrainian people, my Ukrainian homeland [Heimat], the commander in chief of the German Armed Forces and all fighters of the young European peoples against Bolshevism, Adolf Hitler, unconditional obedience and as a brave soldier I will always be prepared to lay down my life for this oath.” 1895 Quoted in Melnyk, The History of the Galician Division of the Waffen-SS, vol. 1, 71 and 72. The order was issued following several instances of German officials reporting of the Ukrainians referring to the division as a “Ukrainian” one. 1896 Pohl, Nationalsozialistische Judenverfolgung..., 12. About a month later, the recruits were officially sworn into SS service. The ceremony, attended by Wächter and UTsK representatives, included a religious field service. Recruits then swore an oath of absolute obedience to Hitler in the battle against Bolshevism: “and as a brave soldier I will always be prepared to lay down my life for this oath.” This oath, as Rudling mentioned, was mandatory until the last month of the division’s existence.1894 Given the text of the oath and Kubiiovych’s comments throughout the recruitment process, the volunteers committed themselves to German victory, the New European Order, and Adolf Hitler. Officially, the division was in no way dedicated to Ukrainian statehood or independence. A note written to Himmler (presumably by Rosenberg) echoed this sentiment: “All call-ups to Ukrainians called to the Division have been geared toward their planned deployment, not for Ukraine or Ukrainian culture, but rather as the contribution of the Ukrainian ethnic group in the battle to defend against Bolshevism and for a new Europe…” Even referring to it as Ukrainian was eventually banned by order of Himmler: “When mentioning the Galician Division I forbid all future mention of a Ukrainian division or of Ukrainian nationhood.”1895 Ukrainian sentiments only appeared unofficially among recruiters to help in rallying enlistment on the basis of patriotic obligation. In the midst of divisional recruitment, SD chief Walter Schenk reported the district’s security situation to be safe and sound.1896 This stemmed from its distance from any serious Soviet partisan or frontal operational zone, allowing the Germans to focus solely on economic exploitation. The Banderites seized the opportunity during the period of calm to develop their clandestine structures while strengthening activity in Volhynia. However, as Pan’kivs’kyi recalled, murders of well-known Ukrainians occurred, stemming from mutual vendettas being settled by both nationalist factions. The most notable was the assassination of leading Melnykite Iaroslav Baranovs’kyi in a Lwów suburb by the Banderites. Sheptyts’kyi condemned the killing.1897 Stability soon changed as a large Soviet partisan contingent led by Sydir Kovpak – a Ukrainian communist – raided Eastern Galicia. Appearing north of Tarnopol from eastern Volhynia, the partisans headed in the direction of the oilfields in the Drohobycz region. Their main goal was subversive activity, including incursions into Subcarpathian Rus’, Romania, Hungary, and Poland from their intended base in the Carpathians.1898 1897 Motyka, Ukraińska partyzantka, 128. 1898 Pan’kivs’kyi, Roky nimetskoi okupatsiї, 276-277; Gogun, Partyzanci Stalina na Ukrainie, 106. According to Pan’kivs’kyi, the German gendarmes claimed the Ukrainian policemen were “good for nothing” while the Ukrainians claimed that the Germans were the first to flee from combat at the sight of the partisans. 1899 Quoted in Gogun, Partyzanci Stalina na Ukrainie, 107. 1900 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 25, folder 10, Kubiiovych memorandum to Losacker, July 25, 1943; volume 25 folder 12, Note to Ukrainian Hauptausschuss in Lemberg, August 28, 1943. The German-language version of Kubiiovych’s memorandum is found in Veryha, The Correspondence..., 615-619. The burning bread threat came from partisans in Kołomyja. LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 25, folder 12, Partyzants’ki i inshi vatahy, September 1943. 1901 AAN, AK, sygn. 202/XV/28, Raport polityczny – sprawy dywersji bolszewickiej, September 18, 1943, pp. 72-71a. A third group, the Ruthenians, were noted in the report to share the Poles' opinion of the Soviet partisans, the only difference being their apprehension toward German repressions. 1902 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 25, folder 12, Note to Ukrainian Hauptausschuss in Lemberg, August 28, 1943. To eradicate the partisans, Himmler ordered: “… regardless of any difficulties, hunt-down Kovpak and his band until they surrender, and Kovpak, dead or alive, is in our hands.”1899 Kubiiovych informed Losacker of well-equipped brigades initiating subversive activity – destroying bridges, cutting telephone lines, plundering food supplies, destroying crop harvests, and murdering local civic leaders. Defeatism propagated among the population caused, in his words, many Jews to join the partisans. Aside from spreading pro-Soviet propaganda, partisans warned farmers from handing over their crops for consignment, threatening to “burn their bread” in response. Kubiiovych contested that Ukrainians showed a negative attitude and unwillingness to collaborate with the intruders; a thought corroborated by a later aid committee report.1900 A Polish underground report claimed Ukrainians feared the raids would be the beginning of a Soviet re-occupation while leftist Ukrainians were elated in seeing the “communist avant-garde” return.1901 Kubiiovych and the UTsK received reports from regional branches and delegates of the raids. The Kałusz delegate reported that Poles who joined the partisans provoked the Germans in an effort to stimulate reprisals and pacifications “aimed at destroying us [Ukrainians] with German hands.” To prevent open provocations, the delegate added that the Germans forbid conducting any public Ukrainian events.1902 Food was plundered from aid committee warehouses and cooperatives. Nor were villagers spared. Livestock was confiscated along with food and clothing while crops were destroyed. Alongside plundering, partisans also destroyed national symbols. In one village for example, they destroyed a portrait of Konovalets’ and a Trident. Ukrainian symbols were also synonymous with members of the local intelligentsia. Partisans searched for sołtyses, wójts, priests, and even Banderites or Melnykites. A young Ukrainian woman was reportedly beaten for wearing a Trident while divisional volunteers were harassed and their enlistment cards torn-up. Ukrainian public opinion was in a state of uneasiness as the raids “proved to the Ukrainians that they cannot count on anyone’s protection.” Hostility appeared toward UTsK delegates as some farmers refused to give-up portions of whatever remained of their harvested crops for German consignment.1903 1903 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 25, folder 11, Informatyvnyi ohliad, July 19, 1943; Bil’shovyts’kyi reid po Halychyni v lypni 1943, n.d. 1904 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 25, folder 12, Partyzants’ki i inshi vatahy, September 1943. 1905 Veryha, The Correspondence..., 616; 618. 1906 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 25, folder 11, Bil’shovyts’kyi reid po Halychyny v lypni 1943, n.d; AAN, AK, sygn. 202/XV/28, Raport polityczny – sprawy dywersji bolszewickiej, September 18, 1943, p. 72. 1907 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 25, folder 11, Note to Ukrainian Hauptausschuss in Lemberg, August 14, 1943. The partisan incursions nationalized supporters and opponents; often paying little to no regard to political orientation. In the eyes of the UTsK, partisan activity presented an aura of Polish-Soviet collaboration. One report summarized: “The Poles rejoiced – clearly they support the Bolsheviks.” Polish was reportedly spoken among partisans with raiders often leaving Poles alone; instead targeting anything Ukrainian. Some partisan groups were described in reports as being Soviet-Polish-Jewish while others, in which the men wore leather jackets and carried pe-pe-sha (PPSh) machine guns, were definitively described as Soviet. Around Kołomyja their national composition was described in one report to contain “Moskali, Belarusians, Jews, and even some Ukrainians. Among them are young Komsomol women.”1904 Certainly the Soviets demonstratively defended Poles and cruelly persecuted OUN or German-sympathizing Ukrainians. However, nationalizing partisan opponents intended to exonerate Ukrainians and further prove their deutschfreundlich position beside the occupier while supporters – Poles, Jews, communist sympathizers, etc. – were enemies of the new European order and deserved to be eliminated. Raids forced Poles and Ukrainians to also choose sides among the totalitarian powers. Kubiiovych reiterated the Ukrainian pro-German position when he claimed Ukrainians acted with “political maturity and discipline” as partisans were unable to find willful collaborators among them; being assessed negatively. To contest the partisans and their supporters, he proposed the occupiers increase Ukrainian police posts in threatened areas, arm policemen with pistols, machine guns and hand grenades; and organize self-defense posts.1905 An UTsK report commented on Sovietophile sympathies appearing among some enthusiastic Poles who, for example, joined and participated in plundering a Baudienst depot in Czortków. While one Polish underground note claimed that Poles were negatively disposed to the Soviets who they saw as enemies they would have to deal with next, they were pleased to see panic among the Germans and a nominal counterweight to the Ukrainian nationalists.1906 To combat the partisans, the Germans employed brutal pacification Aktions. In and around the village of Delatyń in Stanisławów County, 58 Ukrainians fell victim during one such Aktion.1907 At times, German frustration in failing to pacify partisan attacks resonated on innocent Ukrainians. In Zabże for example, after the failure of an Aktion, returning German forces arrested several Ukrainian farmers.1908 However, they were unable to completely eradicate the Soviet threat. The partisans were also unsuccessful in their overall plans in the Carpathians. In his assessment report, Kovpak described reasons for his setbacks: “In the mountainous regions, especially along the border with Hungary, the mountaineers’ – Hutsuls’ – disposition toward us was almost completely hostile. Especially sympathetic [to the partisans] were Polish villagers. Among Ukrainians – many traitors, German lackeys.” A Ukrainian administrator working for the German occupiers described this same regional disposition. According to him, it was the activity of Ukrainian nationalists that caused “…the quick escape from the mountains of Kovpak and his people as the Hutsuls were hunting for them as for bears.”1909 1908 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 25, folder 12, Partyzants’ki i inshi vatahy, September 1943. 1909 Gogun, Partyzanci Stalina na Ukrainie, 108. According to Gogun, Kovpak feared punishment from partisan headquarters for his unsuccessful mission. However, the Soviets appreaciated his groups efforts and awarded him his second Hero of the Soviet Union gold star medal. 1910 TsDAVOVUU, UTsK, f. 3959, op. 1, spr. 5, Tezy UTsK dlia aktsiї za vderzhannia ukraїns’koho pravoporiadku v Halychyni, 1943, pp. 5-6b. 1911 Veryha, The Correspondence…, 1242-1243. 1912 “No. 3.27: Iz spravki zamestitelia nachal’nika Otdela po bor’be z banditizmom NKVD USSR V.G. Burylina v NKVD USSR o deiatel’nosti Ukrainskogo tsentral’nogo komiteta (UTsK) v oblastiakh USSR, vkliuchennykh v distrikt Galitsia (April 2, 1944)” in Ukrainskie natsionalisticheskie organizatsii… vol. 2, 121. The Banderites also disseminated propaganda denouncing the Soviet partisans, the Polish underground, and the German occupiers; all, in their radical views, enemies of the Ukrainian people. For example, one Banderite leaflet claimed of Stalin and Sikorski deliberately choosing Ukrainian territory in battling the Germans, knowing that such provocations would result in repressions or pacifications of Ukrainians. It declared: “The Ukrainian people Although bringing little military success, the Soviet raids into Eastern Galicia achieved substantial political success by giving life to pro-communist groups and further shaking Ukrainian perception in German protection. Harsh, collective anti-partisan pacifications only contributed to further destabilization. An UTsK resolution called attention to the intensification of ethnic hostilities: Survivors of the Bolshevik band have traversed throughout the whole country, spreading various criminal elements… Killings of both Ukrainians and Poles are occurring more frequently. Dark forces and renegades are focusing on the lowest instances, inciting the people to massacres and an inter-ethnic war… The source of anarchy is found among both groups, Poles and Ukrainians alike.1910 To allay Ukrainian concerns, the UTsK organized emergency field trips into areas affected by the raids. Their goal aimed to convince locals to take active, resolute counteraction against enemy propaganda. Meetings in cities, provincial towns and villages allegedly gathered from 100 to as many as 500 listeners of various backgrounds – priests, teachers, farmers, aid committee workers, etc. Topics mentioned included Bolshevism as the greatest threat and enemy toward Ukrainians, the necessity for further cooperation with the Germans (“he who fights Bolshevism is our friend”), the importance of the SS division and of the UTsK.1911 Other notes called on the youth act rationally, claiming Soviet partisans disseminated chaos and anarchy while division recruits were the epitome of Galician Ukrainian strength and authority.1912 are not fighting nor will they fight for world communism or the German new Europe. They will save their strengths for the final phase of the war so as to win power, under the leadership of the OUN, on their land. The Ukrainians, under the OUN, are hostile to all partisans, be they Muscovite or Polish, and will conquer them.” They also called on Ukrainians to organize self-defense forces in response to “Muscovite-Bolshevik” agents. In organizing a Ukrainian National Self-Defense, they initiated in localized subversion, destroying German supplies – milk reserves or telephone equipment – while threatening Ukrainians from handing-over their crops for consignment. The Germans responded by pacifying self-defense training camps in the western portions of the district. As Motyka contested, these battles were defensive actions by the Ukrainians in response to German Aktions. AAN, AK, sygn. 203/XV/28, “Raport polityczny – Sprawy ukraińskie,” July 7, 1943, pp. 16-17; Gogun, Partyzanci Stalina na Ukrainie, 109-110; Motyka, Ukrainska partyzantka, 218-220. 1913 IPN, DHF, GK 95/33, Tagung des Kriegeswirtschaftsstabes und Verteidigungsausschusses, September 22, 1943, pp. 361-362. 1914 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 17, folder 26, “Protokol iz zasidannia kermanychiv i referentiv,” August 6, 1943. 1915 AAN, AK, sygn. 203/XV/28, “IV. Sprawy ukraińskie,” 1943, p. 18. 1916 AAN, DRRPK, sygn. 202/III/121, “Sprawozdanie sytuacyjne z Ziem Wschodnich za miesiąc wrzesień,” September 1943, p. 164. 1917 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 25, folder 11, “Protokol spisanyi z o. Dudykevychem Volodymyrom,” November 7, 1943. For the occupiers, partisan activity disrupted the exploitation of district resources. Aside from greater apprehension in surrendering crops or their outright destruction and plunder by partisans, forestry work also ground to a halt. Here, the authorities suggested Polish and Ukrainian foresters do everything to combat bandits.1913 Some 9 thousand Ukrainians reportedly deserted from Baudienst service and 1,800 fled from the division; one thousand joining Ukrainian partisans in the forests.1914 To regain at least some of what they lost, the Germans pit Poles against Ukrainians. For example, to catch Baudienst deserters, Poles were hunted by the Ukrainian police while Ukrainians by the Polish one. Aside from both police forces mercilessly beating those captured, such actions gave the impression of Poles and Ukrainians enacting in mutual acts of vengeance for their pummeled brothers.1915 Regardless of the amount of crops destroyed, the Germans prepared a subsequent requisition campaign. Rural police forces were strengthened and a directive was prepared to punish anyone who disrupted collection. Wächter issued a call to farmers: “the German soldier gives his blood for you and you must give him bread for his struggle.” The UTsK also issued a similar call: “… Ukrainian bread is also valuable help for the war… the deposited quota is an offering made by the Ukrainian peasant on the altar of war – our common war.”1916 Forced labor recruitment also continued. Village priest Volodymyr Dudykevych reported an incident in which Germans and Ukrainian auxiliary policemen disrupted Sunday services to round-up fleeing worshipers outside the church. Many were claimed to be beaten while 18 young Ukrainians were arrested.1917 Frank remained adamant of German supremacy in the east, optimistically seeing imminent Soviet collapse. This, he believed, would come from strong German assaults, causing food shortages and internal distress; exactly what the GG was experiencing. He praised the security and police apparatus for combating partisans and put a positive spin on the situation by describing the inability to fully eradicate partisan danger not as German weakness but rather as “a sign of the desperate character of a last ditch struggle by the leadership of the émigré Poles and Bolsheviks who look to strangle us once and for all.” He emphatically stated that neither the military nor partisan situations would jeopardize the GG since the threat of constant danger to the Germans was not something new but something they felt everywhere they ruled. However, SD chief SS-Oberführer Walther Bierkamp warned of the impending threat of partisan intensification in disrupting supply convoys for the Wehrmacht in the east and of the possibility of an open uprising.1918 1918 IPN, DHF, GK 95/32, Regierungssitzung, July 22, 1943, pp. 50; 74-75; DHF, GK 95/28, Tagebuch 1943: Juli bis August, p. 144. Here Bierkamp also spoke of the success of the GG security apparatus in infiltrating the Home Army and arrested its commander Gen. Stefan Grot-Rowecki; what he called the biggest blow inflicted to the underground. 1919 Berkhoff, Harvest of Despair..., 291. 1920 Sowa, Stosunki polsko-ukraińskie, 180; Motyka, Ukraińska partyzantka..., 327-328. For an in-depth, village by village analysis of Polish losses at the hands of the Banderite UPA, see Władysław and Ewa Siemaszko, Ludobójstwo dokonane przez nacjonalistów ukraińskich na ludności polskiej Wołynia 1943-1945, vol. 1 and 2 (Warszawa 2000). 1921 Motyka, Od rzezi wołyńskiej…, 134-142; Snyder, “The Causes of Polish-Ukrainian Ethnic Cleansing 1943,” 227-228; 1922 Ronikier, Pamiętniki 1939-1945, 241-242. In neighboring western Volhynia, the activity of the Banderite UPA reached a brutal, barbaric character. By the summer of 1943, concerted massacres and mass atrocities against the civilian Polish inhabitants hit a bloody high point in July. Berkhoff suggested the Banderites may have chosen to attack then in response to the German retreat during and after their defeat at the Battle of Kursk.1919 The peak of massacres was from July 10 to 15, when 96 Polish villages were attacked. Killings continued into August and September. Poles fled to either Soviet partisans or German garrisons for help; something the UPA viewed as further proof of anti-Ukrainian collaboration.1920 Ukrainian peasants looked to seize the opportunity offered by UPA attacks. They were prepared to get hold of Polish land if only to stabilize their uncertain future. Such desires were all the more possible since the Poles had no state to protect them while Ukrainians rallied around those who wished to build a state, promoting an ideology of liberation and protection from Polish revenge. Joining the UPA attacks, peasants used scythes to kill Poles and then reaped wheat from their fields. Poles were bludgeoned or hacked to death with various crude farming tools – pitch forks, axes or hoes. This imparted a uniquely bloody character to the events.1921 With news of the massacres reaching Poles in the GG, Ronikier decided to petition the GG authorities to assist in organizing Polish guard militias among Volhynian villagers. However, his efforts were thwarted by the Government Delegate for Poland; presumably to prevent any image of Polish-German collaboration.1922 Sporadic reports of the violence reached the UTsK. One from Włodzimierz County, a region in western Volhynia bordering the GG and lying on the road between Hrubieszów and Łuck, focused on the response to the Polish massacres there. Ukrainian partisans began murdering Poles on July 12; claiming at least 200 killed with Poles fleeing to towns. Although not specifying the village attacked, it is possible that it was Dominopol, one of the first in that county attacked by the UPA on the night of July 11-12. About 220 Poles were killed while the village was not burned down. Instead, it was handed over to Ukrainian peasants.1923 1923 W. and E. Siemaszko, Ludobójstwo dokonane przez nacjonalistów ukraińskich... vol. 1, 914-916. 1924 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 25, folder 10, Vidpys – partyzanka u Volodymyrs’komu poviti, July 13, 1943. 1925 Quoted in Motyka, Ukraińska partyzantka…, 331. 1926 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 25, folder 10, Vidpys – partyzanka u Volodymyrs’komu poviti, July 13, 1943. 1927 Iliuszyn, ZSRR wobec ukraińsko-polskiego konfliktu narodowościowego..., 129; Motyka, Ukraińska partyzantka... 330-331, V’iatrovych, Druha polsko-ukraїnska viina, 161-163. V’iatrovych claims that the UPA attacks came in response to the organized self-defense force which attacked a neighboring UPA garrison and from the Poles informing German police units of the Ukrainian partisans. Furthermore, he contends that the massacres in Dominopol were not part of the organized, anti-Polish offensive that Polish historians – above all Grzegorz Motyka – claim the UPA began in July 1943. More attention in the aid committee report was given to the swift response – Polish auxiliary policemen organized by the Germans to pacify the newly-occupied Ukrainian village; claiming they were followed by Polish peasants who plundered farms and livestock. This suggests that Poles may have been taking back what was seen in their eyes as originally theirs. The report also mentioned of brutal atrocities committed by the police – hands and legs were twisted off, villagers thrown upside down into wells, some even nailed to barn walls alive.1924 To anyone reading the report, including those in the GG, this conveyed the image of anti-Ukrainian Polish barbarity. Conceivably, Polish barbarity may have stemmed from UPA barbarity. Here it is necessary to cite how Ukrainians described their attack on the village: “We knocked on the door. The colonel… opened it. We shot him on the threshold. We shot the captain in bed… Then the boys caroused through the village. By morning not a single living Liakh remained.”1925 Additionally, the note claimed the Ukrainian intelligentsia – referring to local administrators, teachers, priests, etc. – and conscious villagers were convinced the Banderites were led by Bolshevik agents. Calls to the Ukrainian auxiliary police to desert to the forests were credited as deliberate actions by the Soviets to minimize Ukrainian influence and replace it with Polish, pro-Soviet elements. Large numbers of Soviet partisans were said to be masquerading as Ukrainian nationalists while partisans offered no aid to Ukrainians targeted by Poles.1926 Although the Soviet partisans were very active in exploiting the Polish-Ukrainian conflict in Volhynia, their overall opinion of its character was generally negative. Furthermore, scholarly research proved Banderite UPA involvement in the Dominopol massacre.1927 However, conveying the image of Soviet complicity in Committee reports expressed to the reader the following image: Soviet partisans, masquerading as Ukrainian insurgents, were enflaming ethnic antagonisms with Poles to not only disturb the German administration but to provoke brutal pacifications against Ukrainian peasants. In other words, Soviet plans entailed means of eliminating Ukrainians with German and Polish hands. This position is one which appears to this day among Ukrainian discussions or perceptions of these events. From mid-1943, attacks began in the Galicia District, creating instability and unpredictability. For Ukrainian nationalists, the Volhynia massacres in conjunction with the decline of German authority became the impetus to begin settling old scores. Ukrainian writer Arkadii Liubchenko, who fled Kharkiv to Lwów in the wake of the advancing Soviets, noted in his diary: “now one also begins to destroy Poles here.”1928 The Germans received reports from both Ukrainian and Polish aid committees of Ukrainian gangs killing Poles in the countryside and Poles killing Ukrainians in the cities. The danger of the Volhynia massacres – where Bisanz wrote Polish losses could not be estimated yet claimed tens of thousands were murdered – repeating themselves in Eastern Galicia was seen as a real threat for the occupiers.1929 While concerted violence began as early as July, robberies, gang attacks and political murders increased beginning in mid-September. The increase undoubtedly stemmed from conclusions reached during the Banderite’s third congress (held on August 21-25, 1943); organized by Shukhevych. Aside from strengthening his authority, the congress proposed to transpose their experiences in Volhynia to Eastern Galicia. They concluded to either conduct an anti-Polish action in the district or, more believably, gave Shukhevych a free-hand in the matter.1930 1928 Liubchenko, Shchodennyk Arkadiia, 158. 1929 AAN, German microfilm collection, M-531, Note to Bisanz - Galizien Distrikt Population and Welfare Department head, August 7, 1943, p. 57. 1930 Motyka, Od rzezi wołyńskiej…, 214-217. During the congress, a heated encounter occurred between Dmytro Kliachkivs’kyi (ps. Klym Savur) and Mykola Lebed’. The latter claimed the UPA compromised itself through its anti-Polish excesses in Volhynia just as the OUN-B had through collaboration with the Germans. The Volhynian delegation was appauled with these comments and defended Kliachkivs’kyi. Mykhailo Stepaniak later recalled that the entire Banderite executive defended Kliachkivs’kyi and unofficially justified his previous actions as an official resolution was not made. 1931 Tadeusz Tomaszewski, Lwów 1940-1944. Pejzaż psychologiczny (Warszawa: Szkoła Wyższa Psychologii Społecznej, 1996), 164-165; “Gen. Komorowski do Centrali - August 19, 1943” in Armia Krajowa w dokumentach vol. 3, 59-60. 1932 Kulińska and Roliński (eds), Kwestia ukraińska i eksterminacji ludności polskiej..., 10; 16; 20.; Hryciuk, Polacy we Lwowie, 383. 1933 AAN, DRRPK, sygn. 202/III/193, Sprawozdanie sytuacyjne „GRANICY” z ziem wschodnich – Ukraińcy, November 1943, p. 114. A Home Army communique reported of increased, visible tension in Eastern Galicia as a result of the violence from Volhynia spreading south with many Poles fleeing to the GG to save their lives. This caused a state of fear and preparedness among them, causing some to even “sleep with axes under their pillows.”1931 In Lwów, the slogan “death to Poles” (smert’ liakham) became popular among Ukrainians; so much so that it was even used as an everyday greeting. In Stanisławów, it was used in response to the nationalist call “Glory to Ukraine.” Other Polish reports indicated of the imminent possibility of mass anti-Polish incidents looming as Ukrainians persistently spread such rumors. The Poles observed escalating uncertainty and conciliatory actions toward them by the occupier as signs of authority dwindling, viewing Ukrainians as the main enemy and threat to maintaining a Polish Eastern Galicia. In their opinion, the ultimate showdown would again be over Lwów.1932 However, one delegate report noted of visible uneasiness among Poles stemming from the exile government’s failure to provide clear directions for how to welcome the advancing Soviets.1933 RGO district representative Leopold Tiszner even turned to Wächter, urging for more concerted police measures in the face of increasing anti-Polish attacks and issuing weapons to Poles in the most dangerous regions.1934 1934 Kroll, Rada Główna Opiekuńcza..., 349-350. 1935 AAN, German microfilm collection, M-531, Bericht des Beraters beim Gouverneur des Distrikts Galizien, July 29, 1943, p. 58; Mick, Lemberg, Lwów, Lviv..., 324. 1936 Quoted in Mick, Lemberg, Lwów, L’viv..., 315. 1937 Hnatiuk, Odwaga i strach, 82-83. 1938 Veryha, The Correspondence…, 626; Volchuk, Spomyny z peredvoiennoho L’vova…, 105; Pan’kivs’kyi, Roky nimetskoї okupatsiї, 278. Volchuk described the Poles as a boїvka or troop. After the public funeral of Jałowy, the Ukrainian doctor Marian Panchyshyn died from a heart attack he suffered after receiving threaths from the Polish underground. As Ola Hnatiuk deduced, Ukrainian and Polish memoirs assessed Marian Panchyshyn in varying lights. The former lauded his medical achievements and accused the Polish AK of his death while the latter saw him as a collaborator, first with the Soviets and later with the Germans. According to Hnatiuk, the Polish opinion stemmed from bad personal experiences with Panchyshyn. Hnatiuk, Odwaga i strach, 81; Tomaszewski, Lwów 1940-1944. Pejzaż psychologiczny, 165. For this personal account, see for example Tomasz Cieszyński, “Działalność Wydziału Lekarskiego UJK we Lwowie w czasie II wojny światowej od września 1939 do sieprnia 1944 roku” Archiwum Historii i Filozofii Medycyny vol. 58 no. 2 (1995). The OUN noticed an increase in self-confidence appearing among Poles as the situation of the war changed. They were prepared for a British victory and awaited the appearance of the Red Army. Patriotic proclamations and leaflets bearing such titles as “Leopolis - Semper Fidelis” appeared in the city, calling for a free Poland with a free Lwów. Although strong in Lwów, the Polish situation was different in the countryside. There, open war raged between Polish and Ukrainian partisans bent on ethnically cleansing the territories. Poles were collectively accused of collaborating with the Germans, the NKVD and Soviet partisans to terrorize the Ukrainian population and settle ethnic scores. Filled with fear, many Poles fled to cities or west. A report by Bisanz even indicated of Ukrainians asking municipal janitors – largely Ukrainianized – to point-out the homes of prominent Poles. Poles approached German administrators and asked what they should do in response to increasing Ukrainian threats. As Ukrainian auxiliary policemen continued murdering Poles, Polish patrols organized in Lwów killed Ukrainians in response. Instances arose of the patrols even leaving the city in retaliation for UPA actions against Polish villages.1935 Attacks caused immediate responses from both sides, causing further counterattacks. A German county report contextualized the antagonism: “The two ethnicities… react to each other like chemical elements, with one side needing only a small push to begin murdering the other.”1936 In most cases, ordinary people fell victim to the senseless violence. For example, after the murder of Professor Andrii Lastovets’kyi, deputy head of the medical Fachkurse in Lwów, by a group of Poles, Ukrainians murdered Bolesław Jałowy, a Polish lecturer at the same Fachkurse. Lastovets’kyi’s assassination was approved by the Polish underground on the false charge of not accepting more Polish students for the Fachkurse. Ola Hnatiuk claimed that such accusations may have stemmed from a Polish candidate stooping to such a method of personal revenge for not being accepted; something which during a time of high animosity, although senseless, could have been easily accomplished.1937 Vasyl’ Hlibovyts’kyi claimed the Poles killed Lastovets’kyi because he was uncomfortable for them and described the incident as a planned Polish terrorist action. He also asked the Germans to intervene in such cases in order to prevent future anti-Ukrainian incidents.1938 UTsK member O. Pavliv frankly summarized the atmosphere: “shameless acts [of violence] come from both sides and it is impossible to say who initiated them.”1939 1939 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 17, folder 26, Zvit z konferentsiї u spravi poshyrennia form i zmistu propagandyvnoї pratsi, October 6, 1943. 1940 Tomaszewski, Lwów 1940-1944. Pejzaż psychologiczny, 166. 1941 UVAN, fond 26, series 6/2, folder III/5, Pan’kivs’kyi diary entry for March 16, 1944; Mick, Lemberg, Lwów, Lviv…, 313-314. 1942 “Raport dotyczący stanu stosunków polsko-ukraińskich, opracowany przez Delegaturę Rządu RP (September 1, 1943)” in Archiwum Adama Bienia..., 186. 1943 Stehle, “Sheptyts’kyi and the German Regime” in Magocsi (ed), Morality and Reality…, 135-136; “Slovo Metropolita,” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 4 no. 179 (August 17, 1943), 1-2. 1944 Zięba, “Szeptycki w Europie Hitlera” in Paź (ed), Prawda historyczna a prawda polityczna w badaniach naukowych..., 418; Amar, The Paradox of Ukrainian Lviv…, 141. Mutual attacks triggered collective Gestapo reprisals. In one instance, Poles and Ukrainians were rounded-up and sentenced for execution if a German was killed or if his killer could not be found.1940 Poles and Ukrainians were summarily tried and often executed publicly, at times even together, in response for the killings of Germans, membership in underground organizations, possessing weapons or hiding Jews. Polish homes were searched while Ukrainian villages were set ablaze. Pan’kivs’kyi’s residence was also searched. While in Lwów itself more Poles were murdered, in other parts of the district Ukrainians were almost exclusively the victims of the occupier’s latest wave of violence.1941 A Polish underground report contextualized the image of German pacifications in the countryside. The local German Landkommissar called a meeting of all Poles and Ukrainians; explaining how the war efforts demands peace behind Wehrmacht lines. Denouncing political murders, he urged Ukrainians to avoid terror tactics, warning of killing 10 Ukrainians for every Pole murdered. He claimed Poles urged Ukrainians to conduct sabotage, to flee to the forests or desert the division. Insisting the two obeyed the Germans, the meeting concluded with the Gestapo choosing Poles and Ukrainians to provide harvest consignments.1942 To stop or at least tone down the violence, Sheptyts’kyi issued pastoral letters in which he condemned the district-wide killing. He equated political murders to the gravest of moral sins, deserving the severest punishment, and denounced the lack of unity among Ukrainians. In another appeal, he claimed violence only benefited their enemies the communists.1943 However, the metropolitan never specifically stated that Poles were perishing from German or Ukrainian hands. Zięba viewed this silent position as rooted in the Galician Ukrainian vision of Poles as a threat to Ukrainian independentist aspirations. For moral reasons, he condemned ethnic violence by citing the fifth commandment – thou shall not kill – yet, for political reasons, i.e. to maintain a relationship with the occupier and to neutralize Poles, he remained silent in denouncing Polish killings. However, this was not only seen in his public appeals. For example, after remonstrating the metropolitan over Greek Catholic clergy involvement in attacks on Poles, the Government Delegate for Poland found Sheptyts’kyi to be saddened over this but he would not publicly intervene.1944 The UTsK also searched for a means of counteracting terror. Pan’kivs’kyi met with his Polish counterpart in Lwów to appeal for calm following the killing of several Ukrainian merchants. However, Committee members were also the target of killings perpetrated by the nationalists who viewed them as German collaborators.1945 In search for order, the occupier turned to the welfare institutions to publically call for calm. Following a joint meeting between Wächter, RGO representatives, the Roman Catholic and Greek Catholic episcopates, and UTsK men, the decision was made to issue statements denouncing the attacks spreading throughout the district. The Ukrainian appeal, signed by Kubiiovych, stated the once peaceful region of Galicia became the scene of “inter-ethnic Polish-Ukrainian slaughter.” Mixing nationalist and occupational propaganda, he reiterated that only through German cooperation could Ukrainian national, anti-Bolshevik life awaken in the future. According to the text, Soviet goals intended to exploit all means to destabilize the region, including exploiting Polish-Ukrainian antagonisms and causing a war between the two. The appeal concluded that neither the UTsK nor Ukrainian society wanted a war with the Poles – in the face of the Bolshevik threat, this was not the time for one – and urged: “We believe that Christian commandments and political contemplation will supersede both nations and not allow them to become blind tools of Bolshevism in a self-destructive war.”1946 The Polish underground described this call for peace as “undoubtedly approved by the Germans who are afraid of anarchy in Galicia.”1947 1945 Pan’kivs’kyi, Roky nimetskoї okupatsiї, 278-278; Mick, Lemberg, Lwów, Lviv…, 315. 1946 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 27, folder 8, UTsK – Nashe stanovyshche, August 1943. 1947 “Gen. Komorowski do Centrali: wzrost nastrojów antypolskich w Małopolsce Wschodniej – 19 sierpnia 1943r.” in Armia Krajowa w dokumentach vol. 3, 60. 1948 The RGO’s appeal also spoke of Poles being exploited by “foreign agents,” i.e. Soviets, who organized acts of sabotage, diversion, and mass pogroms. All this, it claimed, threatened the physical existence of the Poles and appealed to resist, maintain peace, and remain in their places of work and administration so as to show “that the Polish people in these territories are an element of order, peace, and work.” However, Hryciuk noted that the Polish appeal did not appear. Hryciuk, „Kumityt”..., 69. The calls for peace drafted by both committees deserve attention. In reverting to the use of Christian commandments to denounce inter-ethnic violence, Kubiiovych, like Sheptyts’kyi, morally condemned the violence. However, he did not expressly condemn anti-Polish violence but rather claimed it was a response to anti-Ukrainian excesses in the Lublin District; an argument, as will be seen below, which Ukrainian nationalists often used to explain or legitimize anti-Polish violence. Furthermore both appeals were ordered by the German occupiers to not only stem ethnic violence behind their military lines but more so to steer mutual animosity toward a common enemy – the Soviets. Both appeals blamed the Soviets – described as “foreign agents” or a “fifth column” – for pitting one against the other.1948 In this case, the appeals were classic examples of German propaganda which aimed to use the ethnic welfare committees as mouth-pieces in mobilizing two anti-Soviet elements behind them. This tactic was not something new as the occupier used the threat of a Soviet return to its advantage. In all instances, the message was clear – only through collaboration with the Germans could a Soviet return be stopped. The appeals drafted by both welfare committees echoed this message. In a note to Kubiiovych, Wächter stated internal order called for the security of all district inhabitants, including Poles. He commented on the increase in organized murders of Poles by Ukrainians and claimed that if they did not cease, further collective reprisals would be enacted against Ukrainians. To quell tensions, he assigned Kubiiovych and the UTsK the task of spokesman to further urge Ukrainians to stop the violence.1949 1949 Torzecki, Polacy i Ukraińcy…, 275. 1950 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 27, folder 8, Nashe stanovyshche do polozhennia v kraiu, August 4, 1943. Subsequent appeals fit the previous model as they claimed only through close collaboration with the Germans could Ukraine’s enemies be thwarted and eliminated. Detailed internal UTsK instructions also serve as an example of this model. In one, Kubiiovych began by calling attention to Ukrainian enemies – Bolsheviks and Poles – being conscious of the fact that Eastern Galicia was the center of Ukrainian organized life. As such, he continued, the spread of anarchy and chaos by them only meant one thing: “mowing down Ukrainian strength to its core;” causing reprisals by calling on farmers to stop handing over harvest consignments, for the youth to protest labor duty in the Reich and SS recruitment by fleeing to the forests. He warned: “Any Ukrainian who helps them in all of this is – subconsciously against their will – a destructive agent. And whoever does not oppose this heinous work assists them.” In this way, he divided Ukrainians into good – i.e. those who supported collaboration with the Germans – and bad. In some cases, he wrote, agitation succeeded in breaking loyal cooperation between Germans and Ukrainians. Even though he denounced the violence which erupted between Poles and Ukrainians, he implicated Poles for sparking it, saying: We do not want a war with the Poles. They began one on our western borderlands. Several hundred of our best people fell victim in this war. We warn the Poles of the consequences of their blind chauvinism. Toward an intensified Polish offensive against the Ukrainians we will respond by intensifying our civic activity and increasing our positive, creative work. We will build our national strength in all areas, securing for ourselves the right to live on our land.1950 Kubiiovych looked to maintain close cooperation by collaborating with the Germans to gain further rights to inhabit ethnographic territory not only after security stabilized but when the Germans defeated the Soviets and became regional masters. He further condemned nationalist Ukrainian and Soviet partisan activity by calling on Ukrainians to side with the Germans: We are entering a very important time. During such similar historic moments [as this one], an opposing center, always born out of anarchy, visibly emerges. Such is also the case now. They call on the Ukrainian youth to flee to the forest instead of into the regular Galician Division – a tragic display of anarchy. Our youth in the forests is condemned to annihilation. Our people in the green cadres are the ones who spread chaos and anarchy while those in the Division are elements of our strength, law and order. We must all remember that internal anarchy is currently our greatest misfortune. Throughout various periods in our history, such anarchy has always been a weapon for Ukraine’s enemies. Today’s critical order: rise above internal anarchy.1951 1951 Ibid. 1952 Ibid. 1953 Motyka, Ukraińska partyzantka, 220-225; 229-237. 1954 First quoted by Rossoliński-Liebe, who received the full text of the OUN document from Wächter’s son Horst (by way of John-Paul Himka). Rossoliński-Liebe, Stepan Bandera: The Life and Afterlife…, 284. The full-text of the document was also given to Magdalena Ogórek by Wächter’s son and subsequently translated into Polish. Ogórek, Lista Wächtera…, 279-280. 1955 Rossoliński-Liebe, Stepan Bandera: The Life and Afterlife…, 284. He concluded with a call for peace and stability in the region through gathering around the Ukrainian Central Committee: Feeling a sense of responsibility toward the fate of the nation, the UTsK demands a state of internal social peace within Ukrainian society. Only in such conditions will it be possible to successfully fight for peace and order in Galicia. Because of this, the UTsK calls on all Ukrainians, regardless of their outlooks, to come together in the ranks of our organization toward positive work to develop our strength. Only such work can guarantee our future.1952 For the Banderites, Poles and Soviet partisans were the two main enemies; Germans were primarily attacked by UPA forces to either obtain weapons or to prevent them from confiscating food. Attacks on Germans were even more seldom while the UPA even concluded local agreements with them to avoid fighting each other. Confident that the Germans would sooner or later withdraw from Ukraine, they focused on more threatening elements.1953 On September 28, 1943, the Banderites even went so far as to warn Wächter of a planned Soviet assassination of him. Proclaiming their insubordination to German policy, they wrote: “The Bolshevists are for us the number one enemy… Wächter is by the way, a quite decent man… We have allowed ourselves to take over the protection of your person…”1954 Both the Germans and Banderites kept collaboration with one another secret. As Rossoliński-Liebe added, upon their final retreat from the district, Germans even left the Banderite UPA with large caches of arms and ammunition; what they believed to be a good investment in the war against the USSR.1955 Meeting with UTsK members, Pan’kivs’kyi presented the SD position toward the Ukrainian question: “In Galicia there is no talk about an independent Ukraine. A definitive, complete commitment from the Galician Ukrainians is necessary and will be demanded.” With the looming peril of the Soviet advance and internal anarchy, the Germans forced further cooperation from the side of the UTsK since the consequences against it were equally damaging for them. To this end, the deputy providnyk declared: “The Ukrainian Central Committee will continue legal cooperation with the Germans in such a way as was once begun by the OUN with them. Whoever does not want to walk with the Germans, let them immediately withdraw from the UTsK. We must follow German politics.”1956 1956 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 17, folder 26, Protokol iz zasidannia kermanychiv i referentiv, August 6, 1943. 1957 Ibid. 1958 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 17, folder 26, Zvit z konferentsiї u spravi poshyrennia form i zamistu propagandyvnoї pratsi, October 6, 1943. 1959 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 27, folder 8, Tezy UTsK dlia aktsiї za vderzhannia ukraїns’koho pravoporiadku v Halychyni, October 1943. 1960 AAN, DRRPK, sygn. 202/III/193, Sprawozdanie sytuacyjne “Granicy” z Ziem Wschodnich, December 1943, pp. 142-143. In response to German accusations of Ukrainian police killing Poles and contributing to regional anarchy, Pan’kivs’kyi explained: “first and foremost, the issue of desertions bites at the Ukrainians and not some 50 murdered Poles.” He countered by saying that the Germans were naïve in believing Polish propaganda; the Ukrainians, in turn, did not hystericize over it. He then stated that pacifications were enacted by the occupiers wherever and whenever Ukrainians did not comply with them, adding: “The Germans are not our friends but our authorities.” He also warned that until the Ukrainians stabilized relations with one another, the Germans could abandon them and throw their support behind the Poles.1957 If anything, UTsK circles saw Banderite propaganda as working toward ultimately destroying Galicia by creating a state of chaos through pitting everyone against everyone.1958 At the behest of Wächter, the UTsK issued a thesis for law and order in Galicia. Anti-German elements – Bolsheviks, Poles, and the Ukrainian anarchists (Banderite nationalists) – were found on one side with the positive pro-German Ukrainian camp, led by the UTsK, on the other. What caused the destabilization of Ukrainian life in Eastern Galicia? According to the document several interrelated factors: mutual Polish-Ukrainian murders and reprisals, occupational punishment, and the appearance of Ukrainian partisans who “consciously strive to Volhynia-ize Galicia, that is to say they want to reach a similar state as is currently in Volhynia – chaos, destruction, and the complete ruin of Ukrainian life.” Whoever enflamed Polish-Ukrainian antagonisms also assisted the Bolsheviks. Although referring to them as anarchists, Banderites were said to be building a future Ukraine through war with everyone: Germans, Poles, Hungarians, Romanians, Czechs, Moscow and Bolshevism, and perhaps most importantly, against the UTsK. Instead of conquering the Bolsheviks, Banderite tactics and activity only benefited them with the Volhynia events a prime example of their purported shortsightedness. To prevent those events from affecting Eastern Galicia, all Ukrainians were called on to abide German laws while opposing the Banderite “war against everyone.”1959 Leaflets bearing these slogans and viewpoints were distributed by UTsK delegates in various provincial cities and towns. In Sambor, for example, they were given to Ukrainians leaving church services so as to reach a larger audience.1960 A joint call signed by the Ukrainian intelligentsia of Lwów appeared in the Ukrainian press calling on the youth to avoid enemy provocations and remain steadfast until the time of final victory.1961 An aid committee delegate in Rohatyń also issued an appeal for peace. He condemned the Banderite calls of “whoever is not with us is against us” as they brought collective reprisals on innocent civilians and stated: “whoever contributes to them [the reprisals] is a criminal toward the brothers, sisters, and fathers of their nation.” He subsequently called on the youth to avoid the nationalist element by contributing to positive work, i.e. cooperation with the Germans: in the Baudienst, auxiliary police, or the Galicia division.1962 Pan’kivs’kyi later stated that the Committee’s warnings and calls for calm went in vain as attacks continued while Banderite propaganda continued to spread.1963 The Polish underground viewed UTsK calls and appeals as a subsequent tactic by the occupier to weaken the Banderites by implicating them as Soviet collaborators.1964 1961 “Ukraїns’kyi Narode!” Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 4 no. 245 (November 2, 1943), 1. 1962 Krokhmaliuk, Zahrava na Skhodi..., 192-194. 1963 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 17, folder 26, Protokol iz zasidannia kermanychiv, November 16, 1943. 1964 “Informacja periodyczna Wydziału Informacji BIP dotycząca kwestii narodowościowych (December 31, 1943)” in Archiwum Adama Bienia..., 459. 1965 Grelka, “Polityka narodowościowa niemieckich władz okupacyjnych we wschodniej Polsce...,” 79. 1966 Motyka, Od rzezi wołyńskiej..., 230-233; 235. 1967 Lucyna Kulińska and Adam Roliński (eds), Antypolska akcja nacjonalistów ukraińskich w Małopolsce Wschodniej w świetle dokumentów Rady Głównej Opiekuńczej 1943-1944 (Kraków: Księgarnia Akademicka, 2003), 47. 1968 Quoted in Motyka, Od rzezi wołyńskiej..., 234. Acknowledging the increasing violence in the district, Frank wrote to Rosenberg; complaining the events in Volhynia caused some 20 thousand people to flee from there to the GG. This, he firmly believed, contributed to the internal destabilization in the Galicia district.1965 With ethnic violence mounting, the occupiers' divide and conquer policy reached a state of ambivalence. On the one hand, they were not opposed to seeing Poles and Ukrainians battle one another either for a place alongside them or to bleed each other out in order to control what was left. On the other, they could not afford regional anarchy behind military lines especially in the wake of the oncoming Soviets. Many Poles killed were civil servants or members of the intelligentsia, including Catholic priests. It was also at this time that the first mass-killing of Polish civilians occurred in the district as UPA forces attacked the village of Netreba in Tarnopol County on October 8. In burning homes and plundering livestock, they killed 17 Poles. Along with the violence, Banderites issued leaflets or verbally called on Poles to flee west to avoid impending death.1966 Because of the demoralization, in late October, the authorities announced a district-wide state of emergency. A Polish aid committee man described the escalation of anti-Polish violence: “Ukrainians, emboldened with impunity, are conducting consequential work in destroying the Polish population, killing in broad daylight on the streets priests, doctors, gamekeepers, post masters, administrators, farmers; Poles in general.”1967 In response to Ukrainian killings by the Polish underground, one Banderite proposed to kill “10 Poles, hacked with axes and left in sight, rather than shot” for every one Ukrainian murdered.1968 Until the end of 1943, some one thousand Poles perished in Eastern Galicia from Banderite UPA killings. Wächter described security suffering a severe setback and ordered his administration provide “a limited degree of self-protection to those loyal farmers” still threatened by partisans. Fortunately, he added, Poles and Ukrainians remained split in their attitudes toward them with no rapprochement in sight. Speaking specifically of Ukrainians, he mentioned pro-German sympathies evident primarily in the older generation while the youth were unstable, organized in anti-German and anti-Soviet nationalist groups. He saw continued Soviet propaganda as detrimental to the Germans holding the region and viewed a rapprochement between the Poles, Ukrainians, and Soviets as their ultimate death knell.1969 SS-Oberführer Bierkamp noted that in addition to the communist and non-communist Polish resistance being supplied by the Soviets and free Poles in London, the UPA also played a role in destabilizing the security situation, awaiting a German collapse so as to begin their struggle for a national state.1970 Speaking to a joint RGO-UTsK meeting in Lwów, Wächter told both that up until then he did all in his power to maintain order without resorting to drastic methods. However, he warned that if the mutual violence did not end, he would be forced “to reach for harsher methods.”1971 1969 IPN, DHF, GK 95/33, Tagung des Kriegeswirtschaftsstabes und Verteidigungsausschusses, September 22, 1943, pp. 346-348. Wehrmacht representatives were against the idea of arming German civilians with heavy weapons as they claimed that this would make them the target of the partisans. However, they were not opposed to arming them with small arms such as pistols. 1970 IPN, DHF, GK 95/29, Tagebuch 1942: September bis Oktober, p. 127 1971 AAN, DRRPK, sygn. 202/III/193, Sprawozdanie sytuacyjne „GRANICY” z ziem wschodnich – Ukraińcy, November 1943, pp. 75-76. 1972 Ibid, pp. 112-113. 1973 IPN, DHF, GK 95/30, Tagebuch 1943: November bis Dezember, pp. 31-36. In his diary, the meetings with the Ukrainians and Polish civic representatives (written in that order) were slated to last only some five minutes. The deteriorating military situation in the east caused Germans to begin plans to evacuate Lwów. Gestapo and civil servants packed-up families, sending them back west. Some German companies also closed-up shop and fled.1972 Speaking at a rally in the opera house commemorating the twentieth anniversary of the November 1923 Munich beerhall putsch, Frank used the memory of that event to call on the Germans in the east to remain steadfast and defend the easternmost outpost of the GG at all costs. Then, as he proclaimed, a combination of Jewish-Bolshevik-plutocrats prevented Germany from emerging as a continental power. Only under Hitler was that achieved. Now, he rhetorically questioned: “Do you want to fall victim to the Jews again?” To this, he emphatically answered: “Germans will never leave Lemberg or the Galicia District” because, as he argued, if not Germany then no one in Europe could stop Bolshevism. In mentioning non-German inhabitants, he stated that those who willingly cooperated with them were to be treated as loyalists while anyone associated with partisan activity, robberies and “Cheka murders” would only endanger their own lives. Described his earlier, brief meetings with Ukrainian and Polish civic representatives, he claimed both were horrified of the possibility of a Soviet return “and the fremdvölkische representatives made a solemn declaration that they regarded the leadership of Adolf Hitler as true happiness over what they had experienced during Bolshevik horror.”1973 Following this visit, a Polish report noted of increased defenses appearing in the city – anti-aircraft guns, reflectors, and pools of water – with troop transports moving through the city heading east.1974 1974 AAN, DRRPK, sygn. 202/III/193, Sprawozdanie sytuacyjne „GRANICY” z ziem wschodnich – Ukraińcy, November 1943, p. 113. 1975 “Informacja periodyczna dotycząca kwestii narodowościowych opracowanych przez Podwydział B Wydziału Informacji BIP (October 15, 1943)” in Archiwum Adama Bienia..., 369; Kubiiovych, Meni 85, 115; Pan’kivs’kyi, Roky nimetskoї okupatsiї, 415-417. 1976 AAN, DRRPK, sygn. 202/III/193, Sprawozdanie sytuacyjne „GRANICY” z ziem wschodnich – Ukraińcy, November 1943, p. 117; BA, R 102 II/16, Aktenvermerk – Betrifft: Die Lage im Distrikt Lublin, September 28, 1943, p. 30. 1977 AAN, DRRPK, sygn. 202/III/193, Sprawozdanie sytuacyjne „GRANICY” z ziem wschodnich – Ukraińcy, November 1943, p. 84. 1978 Hryciuk, Przemiany narodowościowe i ludnościowe..., 231. The remaining population figures for Lwów are as follows: Germans – 18,407 (7, 24%); Jews – 20,087 (2, 04%); others – 7,593 (2, 99%); “foreigners” – 822 (.032%). East of the GG, German losses on the front caused an influx of refugees fleeing Soviet occupation. In November, decisive battles in Kyiv and Zhytomyr began; leading to their ultimate fall. Dnieper Ukrainians began fleeing to the GG, especially Lwów and its surroundings, shortly after the Stalingrad debacle. As their numbers increased, the UTsK was forced to aid them; turning their plight into a social campaign. Dnieper Ukrainians were received in a brotherly manner – quartered in private residences in Lwów for example. In Tarnopol, a special committee to aid Dnieper Ukrainian refugees was organized by the UTsK aid committee there and called on Galician Ukrainians to share food and care for young Dnieper Ukrainians. To prevent their move west to the Reich for labor as Ostarbeiter, something the occupiers demanded, as well as to increase the Ukrainian character in the Lwów region, the UTsK issued documents securing them legal stay and work in the GG. A special sub-committee was created within the UTsK social welfare department for the Dnieper Ukrainians; led by Myron Luts’kyi from Kyiv. As Kubiiovych recalled, in this way many of them became re-born Galician ones.1975 The refugee influx provided Kubiiovych the opportunity to speak of strengthening Ukrainian presence in Lwów. During a lecture at the literary club, he reiterated the necessity to increase the number of Ukrainian inhabitants in the city to serve as “the most effective weapon to fight the inflow and significance of the Poles.” Additionally, he commented on the importance of preserving Halychyna as a future reservoir of Ukrainian strength in order “to have something to draw from when the need arises to populate the western territories.” He called on GG authorities to further divert transports of fleeing Ukrainians from the east to the district.1976 Articles even appeared in the press which scolded Ukrainians, particularly the intelligentsia, for the decrease in natural population growth. The author claimed that such families, even given their materially better social position, only had either one child or none at all.1977 Certainly, by 1943, the influx of suburban Ukrainians into Lwów combined with the arrival of eastern refugees caused an increase of 37, 45% or 18,630 as compared to the interwar period when they numbered just under 50 thousand. However, out of a total 254,291 inhabitants, Poles in the city still outnumbered Ukrainians: 139,014 (54, 67%) to 68, 377 (26, 89%).1978 Observing the situation, the Government Delegate for Poland noted the UTsK continued urging Ukrainians to volunteer for the Galizien division. According to one report, the mind-set in further recruitment aimed to create the basis for a large ethnic military formation, one which even if forced to retreat west would undoubtedly encounter the Anglo-Americans, including them in the inevitable war with the Soviet Union. This naive outlook, the note concluded, freed Committee representatives from the need to come to terms with Poles.1979 1979 “Informacja periodyczna Wydziału Informacji BIP dotycząca kwestii narodowościowych (December 31, 1943)” in Archiwum Adama Bienia..., 460. 1980 Mick, Lemberg, Lwów, Lviv…, 320. 1981 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203 volume 17, folder 26, Protokol iz zasiadannia kermanichiv, November 16, 1943; Pan’kivs’kyi, Roky nimets'koї okupatsiї, 418. 1982 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 17, folder 26, Zasidannia kolehiї kermanychiv, December 11, 1943. In the wake of the advancing Red Army, in November 1943, Pan’kivs’kyi called on aid committees in the district to begin down-sizing their posts. This was observed by the Banderites who noted the intelligentsia was preparing to flee while workers generally decided to remain put.1980 To facilitate evacuation west, Pan’kivs’kyi approached deputy governor Otto Bauer with plans to secure transport for Ukrainian archives, library and museum collections from Lwów west. Bauer refused to consider the proposition, claiming it a sign of defeatism. He urged the Ukrainians to endure alongside the Germans as after the Wehrmacht held the Soviet winter advance they were sure to initiate a counterattack.1981 However, it is also plausible that the military situation did not allow for the movement of non-essential, non-military goods. Regardless, being the deutschfreundlich loyalists they claimed to be also meant, in the eyes of the Germans, remaining steadfast alongside the occupier in times of triumph and tribulation. One month later, the population and welfare department recommended the UTsK begin liquidating its Lwów branch, thereby returning to the pre-1941 UTsK administrative center of Kraków. This decision provoked debate among leading Committee officials. According to Longin Holeiko, this was the opportune moment to present the GG authorities with plans to amend the UTsK statue. He suggested ignoring the population department’s suggestion, instead forcing for the complete transfer of the UTsK from Kraków to Lwów. Hlibovyts’kyi stated that both activity and prestige demanded that the branch remain in the city. Mykhailo Kushnir also echoed an offensive position. He criticized the Germans' wavering, unclear position toward Ukrainians and suggested assuming a closer position beside the occupiers: Kubiiovych as Frank’s advisor on Ukrainian matters while Committee department heads maintaining an open line of communication to their GG counterparts. Kotyk-Stepanovych believed the UTsK, in its current position and state, transcended its aid and welfare role; becoming the representative of GG Ukrainians. Zahaikevych claimed that a return to the original, Kraków center would only diminish the Committee’s image.1982 To them, Lwów and Eastern Galicia could be the only seat of any future Ukrainian political representative body in the GG. Other opinions also circulated. For example, Omelian Tarnavs’kyi suggested forgetting the idea of lobbying to make Lwów the seat of UTsK administration while Zenon Zelenyi urged to delay such actions. Figol' called attention to the fact that current Ukrainian issues required a political line, something which the Germans did not permit. In his opinion, gaining that line meant continuing lobbying the authorities. Kubiiovych came to a final decision. The UTsK would continue its 1942 German-defined position of Kraków and Lwów serving as centers of their administration.1983 Maintaining UTsK representation in Lwów meant both, a confirmation to further continue the legal role of providing welfare and aid but also showed that Kubiiovych and many Committee officials wished to maintain a foothold in the event the Germans stopped the Soviet advance and went on the offensive. Removing the UTsK abruptly from the district ultimately equated to losing influence, both real and expected, along with any hope of further representing and administering Ukrainians. 1983 Ibid. 1984 Veryha, The Correspondence…, 659-660; 662-664. 1985 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 17, folder 24, Protokol iz zasidannia kermanychiv, January 4, 1944. 1986 Motyka, Ukraińska partyzantka, 220. Kubiiovych undertook precautionary measures, writing to the authorities proposing to not liquidate but downsize the Lwów UTsK office; to instead serve as a district office to be headed by Pan’kivs’kyi with 2-3 workers. Some UTsK department offices which in 1942 were transferred there returned to Kraków. As Committee head, Kubiiovych remained the figurehead manager of the city’s office. He argued: “Nobody wants to move from Galicia to Kraków because of the decidedly hostile environment, difficult living conditions and lack of appropriate schools where one could send their children.” Liquidating the Lwów office would also have sever propaganda ramifications. First, he claimed it would sow mistrust among Ukrainians toward the occupier as they would view this as a bias toward Polish Kraków, not Ukrainian Lwów. Second, Kubiiovych, as the legal representative of Ukrainians in the GG, sought to have direct contact with the largest concentration of Ukrainians. Depriving him of this would hurt his influence and image.1984 Assessing overall UTsK work, Kubiiovych called attention to the instability throughout the region by noting of the center working more effectively than the regional branches. To remedy this, he called on all Committee members to work toward calming chaos by renewing contacts with local branches. Furthermore, he again described the UTsK’s role in divisional matters as affording it a greater political character.1985 The only thing left for the Committee was to transcend the self-perceived political character to official political representative. However, to achieve this meant official German recognition; something the occupiers did not see as necessary quite yet. The Red Army crossed the prewar Polish-Soviet border in January 1944. Beginning that year, UPA units, visible in all parts of the district, focused their strengths on conducting further anti-Polish actions.1986 During his last New Year’s meeting with Frank, aside from the usual praise and thanks, Kubiiovych recapitulated his and the UTsK’s work of the previous year; reminding Frank of Ukrainian contributions to the Reich war economy and their role in the active struggle against Bolshevism. Mentioning rather dispassionately German responses to ethnic violence in the district, he reiterated UTsK efforts to call for peace in the midst of what he called “counter forces,” i.e. Banderite nationalists. This effort, he stated, provided the basis for hope that German pacifications be mitigated. Concluding, he expressed his hope that 1944 would be a pivotal year in German-Ukrainian relations, not only in their common anti-Bolshevik position but also in the occupier creating conditions for further opportunities.1987 This vague hope undoubtedly centered on Kubiiovych and leading UTsK men’s opinion of affording them a political role alongside the occupier in anti-Bolshevik Europe. Frank’s response was simple – only under Hitler did Ukrainian culture and education blossom but any further concessions would come after the total defeat of Bolshevism. Responding to German measures against Ukrainians, the general governor mentioned that those “who oppose this necessary European course” – National Socialism – would be handled accordingly. After the meeting, SS-Obergruppenführer Wilhelm Koppe spoke personally with Kubiiovych and the UTsK delegation; asking them to further use their public position to denounce ethnic violence and call for order.1988 1987 IPN, DHF, GK 95/34, Tagebuch 1944 – Januar bis Februar, pp. 42-45. As tradition had it, Kubiiovych did not come empty handed and presented Frank with a gift – a landscape of the provincial city Zaleszczyki on the Dniestr River. Kubiiovych claimed that the city aroused the interest of the general governor. 1988 Ibid, pp. 46-48. Koppe succeeded SS-Obergruppenführer Friedrich Krüger as SS and police chief of the GG in October 1943. 1989 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 17, folder 24, Zasidannia kolehiї kermanychiv, January 31, 1944. 1990 “Naselennia Halychyny hotove borotysia i vmerty za sviatu i spravedlyvu spravu,” L’vivs’ki Visti vol. 4 no. 18 (January 27, 1944), 1. The delegation consisted of UTsK representatives from throughout Eastern Galicia, SS division military council representatives and representatives of the Ukrainian women’s section for Eastern Galicia. That same month Pan’kivs’kyi was contacted by Bisanz with orders to organize a demonstration of Ukrainians in Lwów for Frank’s upcoming visit. Aside from the very short notice, the tense atmosphere in the city forced him to question whether a manifestation was a good idea at that time. To convince Pan’kivs’kyi, Wächter expressed his desire to see the Ukrainians gain maximum political rights in the district. Furthermore, the governor claimed Erich Koch’s policy failed and, because of this, the opportune moment appeared to solve the Ukrainian question in the GG. He urged Pan’kivs’kyi to organize the manifestation, something described as personally important to him; to which the Ukrainian hesitantly agreeing.1989 Prior to Frank’s arrival, Wächter met with a Ukrainian delegation on January 22. Kubiiovych reiterated their position: “…the Ukrainian inhabitants are prepared, along with Greater Germany, to stand and fight this last battle and endure until a victorious conclusion.” He again pleaded the governor to pressure Frank and Himmler to agree for greater active Ukrainian participation in the anti-Bolshevik war; what he described prophetically as fighting and dying for a “holy and just cause.”1990 Afterwards, Wächter promptly cabled a summary of the meeting to Kraków. On the morning of January 30, 1944 Frank arrived by train to Lwów. He again spoke to a rally of district administrators at the opera house. This time, the historical backdrop of his speech was the eleventh anniversary of Hitler having been named chancellor in 1933. Again, he lauded non-German loyalists for not only their cooperation with the occupiers but, as in the case of the Ukrainians, their armed contribution. Interestingly enough, his comments concerning the Poles were more detailed. With the question of Poland’s postwar territorial composition a main topic among the allied powers, Frank commented on this issue as well; coming on the heels of his talks in Berlin concerning a more concerted pro-Polish position.1991 He stated that only with Hitler and Germany fully under control of the eastern region would the Polish territorial problem be fully solved; not by Moscow, England or America. In comparison to Soviet occupation, in which Polish workers and farmers “were the most oppressed and abused creatures in the world,” he claimed the Germans offered peace and cultural prosperity to millions of Poles. Whereas Britain initially entered the war to defend the Polish Corridor and Gdańsk (Danzig), it now demanded that the Poles renounce half of their territory. In comparison, he declared that the Germans, as the guarantors of peace in Europe, were prepared to allow the Poles to grow within their new order: “… the Reich will never release it [Polish territory] from its protection. The German flags in Lemberg, Warsaw, Kraków, Radom and Lublin will remain for the future.”1992 1991 IPN, DHF, GK 95/34, Tagebuch 1944 – Januar bis Februar, pp. 161-163. 1992 Ibid. 1993 Ibid, pp. 165-166. 1994 Ibid, pp. 167-170; “Shchastia Nimechchyny – shchastiam ukraїntsiv,” L’vivs’ki Visti vol. 4 no. 22 (February 1, 1944), 1-2. Outside the governor’s palace, Frank made some short comments to the gathered crowd which interrupted him on several occasion with cheers of “slava!” He also shook the hand of a young Ukrainian girl dressed in folk costume as a symbol of the German Reich shaking the hand of the Ukrainian people. Following his comments, another performance was conducted by the choir after which Frank, escorted by three Ukrainian girls in folk costumes, made similar comments from the palace balcony to the cheering Ukrainians below. Later that day, Frank received the Pan’kivs’kyi delegation. Outside the governor’s palace, a rally was held in which school children, Baudienst men, auxiliary policemen and Ukrainians marched. After a performance by a choir named after composer, choral conductor, and teacher Mykola Leontovych, Pan’kivs’kyi greeted the general governor and reiterated Ukrainian “willingness to participate in and join the struggle” against Bolshevism. He also asked Frank to relay to Hitler their steadfast position in defending Europe toward the final victory in the common Ukrainian-German struggle. A representative of the women’s organization also welcomed the general governor, expressing her joy in standing by Ukrainian men of all classes as well as her pride “that our sons and men are able to join the ranks of the best army in the world for the freedom of our people and for the European cultural fight.”1993 Expressing his pleasure and thanks for the boisterous greeting, Frank repeated of better treatment the Ukrainians received under German occupation as compared to prewar Poland or the Soviet Union. He played off of the Ukrainian desire to fight by applauding mutual cooperation and collaboration, especially among the men of the Galizien division – whom he described as “good sons of the [Ukrainian] people but also brave German soldiers” – and reassured of a just and bright future in the German Reich. He concluded: “Germany’s happiness is Ukraine’s happiness, Ukraine’s happiness is Germany’s happiness; this will keep us allied for the future.”1994 The next day, he flew back to Kraków. This was the last time the general governor visited the “little Vienna of the east.” According to the AK, UTsK and OUN circles claimed Frank intended to reach a common platform with Ukrainians in order to issue a general mobilization. However, without receiving any definitive political concessions, the Ukrainians refused to take part.1995 1995 Kulińska and Roliński (eds), Kwestia ukraińska i eksterminacja ludności polskiej..., 45. 1996 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 17, folder 24, Protokol iz zasidannia kermanychiv, February 5 and 7, 1944. 1997 TsDAVOVUU, UTsK, f. 3959, op. 2, spr. 45a, Zvit informatsiї – Instruktsiia ch. 3, July 29, 1941, pp. 13-14. One route for this journey ran from Hrubieszów south to the village of Ulchówek; from there further south to the village of Richky before reaching the town of Rawa Ruska. Following the incorporation of the Galicia district into the GG in August 1941 and subsequent, internal district border amendments, Rawa Ruska County was transferred from the Lublin to the Galicia district. Ukraїns’kyi zdvyh: Zakerzonnia. 1939-1947, 181-182. 1998 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 8, folder 9, Bericht für den Monat Juni 1941, July 2, 1941. The AK report noted that with no political concessions in sight, even Kubiiovych deemed in appropriate to leave Lwów. Indeed, he did leave Lwów for Kraków to begin discussing evacuation plans for UTsK branches in the eastern portions of the district; ordering documents be collected and prepared for evacuation. Unnecessary ones were to be destroyed outright.1996 6.2 – The Lublin District: Ethnic Resettlement and the Polish-Ukrainian Conflict As already seen, during the Committee’s formative period, thanks to the work of Kubiiovych and the UTsK apparatus in conjunction with German ethnic occupation policy, the eastern counties of the Lublin district gained a strong Ukrainian character. However, Kubiiovych’s propositions of cleansing mixed territory to create an ethnically-homogenous Ukrainian region within the GG were put on the back burner as more pressing occupational issues superseded such ideas. Wartime events during the subsequent period – military outcomes on the eastern front alongside internal decisions – destabilized the delicate ethnic situation in the region causing an open conflict in the GG to erupt, something which ultimately tested the occupier’s divide and conquer policy. Contextualizing the Ukrainian-UTsK position beginning in 1942 as well as the German plans for the district, this section will discuss elements which destabilized occupational control, contributed to the escalation of a Polish-Ukrainian conflict and how Kubiiovych reacted to all of it The flight of Ukrainian nationalists back to Eastern Galicia weakened the local UTsK apparatus in the Lublin district. A survey of social and political attitudes following the German invasion presented mixed reactions among Ukrainians.1997 The UTsK instructed any workers who left to be officially terminated from their positions. New workers were to replace them. However, these were yet to be properly trained. Whereas nerves appeared among aid committee and delegate branches, particularly in the borderland zone, travels conducted by UTsK representatives aimed to both, explain the current working conditions as well as future endeavors.1998 Holeiko, UTsK representative alongside the district governor, called for more attention be paid to local Ukrainian villages and communities; creating a stronger rapport with them. For example, in counties with 100 cooperative branches, he urged to organize 100 children’s nurseries. He called on aid committees to organize more public manifestations while suggesting training or indoctrinating middle-school children to be cultural-educational ambassadors in their villages. He also proposed sending students (age 14-18) to Eastern Galicia for summer vacation.1999 1999 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 24, folder 3, Holeiko instructions to UDK branches in Lublin District, April 27, 1942. 2000 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 17, folder 24, Protokol narady u spravi Kholmshchyny i Pidliashshia, October 2, 1942. 2001 Ibid, Presova konferentsiia, November 19, 1942. 2002 Adam Mastaliński, Karty męczeństwa Zamojszczyzny. Dziennik spisany pod okupacją hitlerowską. (Zwierzyniec: Wydawnictwo Lipiec, 2011), 20-21. 2003 Sowa, Stosunki polsko-ukraińskie 1939-1947, 156. The idea of influencing Ukrainian youth from the Lublin district via influences from the Galicia one was also proposed by Kubiiovych. During a special Committee meeting dedicated to the Chełm and Podlasie regions, many agreed either to the idea of sending Chełm Ukrainians to Eastern Galicia for training or to integrate Chełm children by sending them to Eastern Galicia and vice versa. Lublin aid committee men even suggested educating Galician Ukrainians on the importance of the Chełm region. These measures meant to not only strengthen the Ukrainian position and belonging in the region but to also prevent Polish pressure there. Kubiiovych declared: “The Kholmshchyna and Pidliashshia have a pan-Ukrainian meaning; there we cannot be victims who suffered a loss of territory.” He proposed a territorial defense force for the Chełm region and called for more volunteers to work there.2000 As in the Galicia District, so too in the Lublin one did Ukrainian occupational expectations begin changing, particularly following German successes in the east and with the ethnic degradation of the Ukrainians. Kubiiovych saw them becoming a subsequent “object of experimentation” after the Jews and Poles. This, he claimed, caused Ukrainians to transgress into a state of physical survival.2001Adam Mastaliński recalled speaking with a Ukrainian colleague from Zamość, one he described as a “non-chauvinist,” i.e. non-nationalist. A man who previously believed in an independent Ukraine alongside the Germans, he noted his disillusionment stemming from the treatment of his fellow countrymen to the east, both in the Reichskommissariat and in District Galicia; bluntly summarized in the phrase nur für Deutsche.2002 Being placed on an even level with Poles in conjunction with no German-sponsored Ukrainian state in sight, and partly due to the lack of Galician nationalist guidance, echoes of conciliation were heard. Some local activists appealed to stop categorizing each other, instead aiding each other regardless of ethnicity.2003 Ukrainians, particularly those in Chełm County, were also displeased with the lack of attention Kubiiovych and the UTsK paid them; complaining of unequal treatment between Galician and Chełm Ukrainians. Some saw the period of Galician work in local UTsK branches as harmful, claiming that unqualified Galician émigré Ukrainians ousted qualified locals from decisive positions. “Galician agitators” were said to have incited less conscious Ukrainians only to deepen the hatred between Polish and Ukrainian neighbors.2004 Kubiiovych was also criticized for not conducting personal field trips to the region. Whereas a Chełm collegium was organized in Lwów, no Chełm Ukrainians were included. In essence, their grievances centered on the fact that Chełm issues were being decided by non-Chełm Ukrainians.2005 Pan’kiv’skyi even proposed moving Ukrainian institutions from the least nationally-conscious ethnic regions in southern Podlasie to territory further south, between Włodawa and Chełm. Such propositions conveyed to Chełm Ukrainians the view of their Galician counterparts in the UTsK having no ideas or answers for them.2006 2004 Veryha, Dorohamy druhoї svitovoї viiny, 236. 2005 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 24, folder 4, Zvit z poїzdky do Liublyna, March 4, 1943. The Chełm collegium (translated as the “collegium for Chełm and Podlasie issues”) alongside the UTsK was officially organized in September 1942. It was headed by Volodymyr Tymtsiurak, the UTsK’s first representative beside the Lublin governor. Other members included Ivan Krypiakevych and Andrii Palii. Its purpose included moral responsibility, material aid and care for the youth of the region. Throughout its one-year existence, the collegium met only four times to discuss primarily issues of integrating young Chełm Ukrainians with their Eastern Galician counterparts. As a collegium report noted, some 200 students participated in this Ukrainian exchange program between districts. LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 24, folder 6, Zvit z diial’nosty Kolehiї dlia sprav Kholmshchyny i Pidliashshia, September 22, 1943. 2006 Pasternak, Narys istoriї Kholmshchyny i Pidliashshia, 287-288. 2007 BA, R 102 II/15, Ilarion note to GG Propaganda Department, July 29, 1943, pp. 44-45; Ilarion note to Lublin District Governor, July 29, 1943, pp. 61-62. 2008 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 17, folder 26, Protokol is zasidannia kermanychiv v spravakh kholms’ko-pidlias’kykh, June 19, 1943. 2009 Torzecki, Polacy i Ukraińcy…, 53-54. Following the resignation of Tymtsiurak in late 1940, he was replaced by Neofit Kybaliuk. Torzecki noted then that little was known of Kybaliuk. However, an obscure monthly brochure entitled “Ukrainian Orthodox World” – the official publication of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the USA – provides someinsight into who Kybaluk was on the basis of his son Sviatoslav’s obituary. These feelings of inferiority compelled them to turn to Ilarion with a memorandum voicing their concerns, hoping the bishop be their voice vis-à-vis the occupiers. Ilarion used his position as moral authority and relationship with local German civil administrators in petitioning for more concessions; something which ostensibly lay in the sphere of the UTsK. In doing so, he often invoked deutschfreundlich, Nazi language: “Orthodox Ukrainian clergy have repeatedly provided the German government with evidence of their active participation in the introduction of the new order in our country…”2007 For this reason Holeiko mentioned of the bishop being too involved in UTsK matters as his role contested Kubiiovych’s absolute leadership position.2008 To placate matters as well as to be abreast of the situation and dispositions in the counties, Kubiiovych ordered regular field trips and reports by aid committee delegates. Working relations between UTsK representatives and occupational authorities in the district appeared to be close. According to Torzecki, relations between Ukrainians and the SD there were not something unusual nor uncommon throughout the war. He claimed – albeit with some uncertainty – that Volodymyr Tymtsiurak, the first Lublin aid committee head and UTsK representative to the governor, resigned from his position in 1940 only because he skewed away from collaboration with Globocnik. Holeiko, an attorney and publicist, collaborated with Globocnik intensively. Torzecki believed that this relationship began while his colleague Tymtsiurak headed the Lublin aid committee.2009 If this indeed were the case, it According to the text, both Neofit and his wife Maria came from “old Ukrainian well-to-do families” from Volhynia. Neofit was a professor of religious law, active in Ukrainian social and political affairs. He was appointed by Petliura as inspector of a junior officers’ school in Zhytomyr. He contributed to the organization of Prosvita societies in Volhynia during the interwar period. He was also a candidate to the Polish Sejm. However, as the obituary claimed: “because of his activity in the Ukrainian national enlightenment work he was arrested, stripped of his citizenship and deprived of the right to live in the Ukrainian parts of Poland.” The text claimed the family was “forced” to move to Poland proper, finally settling in Lublin. It is entirely possible that Kybaluk and his family fled Volhynia from Soviet occupation. Interestingly enough his mother Maria (nee Iepishova) was said to have assisted her husband in his work and “gave financial support to the ukrainization and development of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church in Poland.” This leads one to believe that the Kybaluks supported the autocephalous Orthodox Church of the GG. With little other information concerning wartime matters, the obituarty stated that after the war, the family “found themselves” in Augsburg, Germany. Neofit died there in 1948 while his son and widow immigrated to the USA and settled in Chicago. See “Sviatoslav Kybaluk of Blessed Memory,” Ukraїns’ke Pravoslavne Slovo – Ukrainian Orthodox Word vol. LVII issue V-VI (May-June 2007), 32-33 (accessed: January 17, 2018) 2010 Bogdan Musiał, “Przypadek modelowy dotyczący eksterminacji Żydów. Początki „akcji Reinhardt” – planowanie masowego mordu Żydów w Generalnym Gubernatorstwie” in Dariusz Libionka (ed), Akcja Reinhardt. Zagłada Żydów w Generalnym Gubernatorstwie (Warszawa: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, 2004), 27; 35. 2011 Daniel Brewing, “Musimy walczyć. Codzienność zwalczania partyzantów w Generalnym Gubernatorstwie w 1942r.,” trans. Anna Mikołajewska in Tomasz Chiciński (ed), Przemoc i dzień powszedni w okupowanej Polsce (Gdańsk: Wydawnictwo Oskar 2011), 61. Also Christian Gerlach, “Die Bedeutung der deutschen Ernährungspolitik für die Beschleunigung des Mordes an den Juden 1942. Das Generalgouvernement und die Westukraine” in Christian Gerlach (ed), Krieg, Ernährung, Völkermord. Forschung zur deutschen Vernichtungspolitik im Zweiten Weltkrieg (Hamburg: Hamburger Edition 1998), 167-257. could serve as an example of SS influence and importance in the district as compared to the civil authorities. Stimulated by the vision of quick successes in the east, the SS turned the Lublin district into what Czesław Madajczyk coined a “special laboratory” or Sonderlaboratorium. Although he adapted this classification to the resettlement-expulsion Aktions in Zamość County, it can certainly be expanded to encompass all German plans in the district in which they implemented and mixed racial schemes – ghettoization, extermination, resettlement, and ethnic antagonism – in order to prepare it for future colonization and Germanization. Unlike in other districts, here such plans lay in the domain of the racially-motivated SS chief Odilo Globocnik. According to him, the GG was to be treated as an internal space to be completely settled by Germans. In writing to Himmler, he made it clear that security and stability could only be achieved after the settlement of ethnic Germans in place of expelled foreign peoples “since the political activity of Poles and Ukrainians as well as the influence of Jews, intensified by the influx of thousands of POWs, has taken on such a form that here also, from the political-security perspective, immediate intervention is necessary.”2010 1942 became the turning point in GG occupational politics, the year in which, as Daniel Brewing noted, various long-term racial processes converged in one place and led to the increased brutalization of everyday life.2011 On the backdrop of this brutalization, Kubiiovych and the UTsK worked to maintain a defined position, particularly in relation to the Poles of the district. His line in relation to Ukrainian matters fluctuated from offensive to defensive and vice versa to meet the opportunities appearing from changing occupational policies. First and foremost, it was in the Lublin district that various aspect of the occupier’s Jewish policy converged, transgressing from the initial, wide-ranging GG policy of isolation by way of ghettoization and creating a Jewish “reservoir” into a systematic, organized extermination campaign. As Musiał noted, the Jewish question, which in 1939 was a racial and ideological problem for the GG occupiers grew quickly into an economic and social one; Jews became an army of useless food consumers.2012 With no victory over Britain in the west, early plans to resettle them to Madagascar fell through.2013 Furthermore, the unexpectedly prolonging war with the USSR made expulsion to the east tentatively inaccessible. Following the Soviet invasion, mobile killings which occurred on a mass scale there were transformed into a wide-scale campaign of mass murder in the GG, codenamed Operation Reinhard. Upon his return from Berlin, Frank informed his officials of plans for mass extermination. Unable to expel the Jews from the GG, he declared: 2012 Musiał, Deutsche Zivilverwaltung..., 124-134; 179-181. 2013 Aly and Heim, Architects of Annihilation…, 160-165. 2014 IPN, DHF, GK 95/17, Regierungssitzung, December 16, 1941, pp. 307-308. 2015 Peter Longerich, Heinrich Himmmler, trans. Jeremy Noakes and Lesley Sharpe (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2012), 528. 2016 Peter R. Black, “Rehersal for “Reinhard”?: Odilo Globocnik and the Lublin Selbstschutz.” Central European History vol. 25 no. 2 (1992), 206-226. Although Globocnik’s Selbstschutz units were dissolved at the behest of the district and GG authorities to regain influence there, they later formed the experienced corps for his subsequent personal auxiliary police force, the “Trawniki men.” As such, Black argued that the Selbstschutz units of the Lublin district be seen as a “transitional link” between the Einsatzgruppen and Death’s Head squads of 1939 and the systematic mass murder conducted between 1941 and 1943. So, liquidate them yourselves… We must annihilate the Jews wherever we find them and wherever it is possible, in order to maintain the structure of the Reich as a whole… The Jews represent for us also extraordinarily malignant gluttons… We cannot shoot or poison those 3,500,000 Jews but we shall nevertheless be able to take measures which will lead, somehow, to their annihilation, and this in connection with the gigantic measures to be determined in discussions from the Reich.2014 In mid-1942, Himmler ordered the deportation of Jews in ghettos to death camps – Bełżec, Sobibor, and Treblinka; restructured and refitted with gas chambers for maximum extermination. This fell in line with his adjustment toward the implementation of ethnic cleansing in the east, something which he believed be handled immediately and not, as originally planned, after the war.2015 Central to this campaign was Globocnik. Prior to overseeing mass extermination, he exploited the SS reserve Selbstschutz – self-defense units under his personal command – to confiscate and resell possessions, often from Jews; organize forced labor service for Jews, and brutally assault district inhabitants.2016 Following a later meeting with Frank, he and Himmler agreed on evacuating Jews east. Given that none would be accepted in those zones, ‘evacuation’ became a euphemism for murder. In total, some 1.2 million Polish Jews perished in the three camps. Among these were also Jews from the Galicia district. The extermination of the district’s Jews was almost complete by early November 1942, just in time for Himmler and Globocnik to begin further resettlement. Out of an estimated 260-320 thousand Jews in the district, by the end of 1942 only some 20 thousand remained.2017 Aside from fulfilling racial ideological plans, the mass murder was also motivated, as Aly and Heim indicated, to speed up what they described as “the industrialization and agrarian rationalization of the GG as an ‘emerging country.’” Dealing in this way with what Arlt designated as over population and under-productivity, the GG became a transit zone during the war with the USSR. From there, it was on the road to becoming a productive province in the new European order.2018 2017 Mazower, Hitler’s Empire..., 384-385; Dieter Pohl, “Znaczenie dystryktu lubelskiego w “ostatecznym rozwiązaniu kwestii żydowskiej”” in Libionka (ed), Akcja Reinhardt. Zagłada Żydów w Generalnym Gubernatorstwie, 48-52. Bogdan Musiał accepts the higher figure of 320 thousand as one which better represented the number of the districts Jewish inhabitants at the beginning of 1942. Musiał, Deutsche Zivilverwaltung..., 341. Musiał also argued that the expansion or creation of 3 death camps in the Lublin district shows of the German plans to not only exterminate Jews from the district but to achieve their Final Solution by exterminating all non-German inhabitants including Poles and Ukrainians. Musiał, “Przypadek modelowy dotyczący eksterminacji Żydów...,” 36. 2018 Aly and Heim, Architects of Annihilation…, 184-185. 2019 Czesław Madajczyk, et al, Vom Generalplan Ost zum Generalsiedlungsplan (München-New Providence-London-Paris: K.G. Saur, 1994), v-xxi. Whereas the eastern and southeastern portions of the Lublin district were envisioned as a Ukrainian Piedmont by Kubiiovych, following the extermination of the Jews, the Germans set to work toward creating the first areas of Lebensraum there. Plans for this project crystalized in Himmler’s Ministry for the Strengthening of Germandom (RKFDV). Racial politics toward ethnic groups in their vastly-extended occupation zone became even more radical, culminating in plans for total social engineering as prepared in Generalplan Ost or General Plan East. The plan’s goal centered on extending German living space by enacting brutal methods leading to a total change in the population composition of eastern regions. Beginning with the extermination of European Jewry and the elimination of millions of Soviet prisoners of war, subsequent ethnic groups were to be completely displaced to the east – a measure to control population growth through harsh living conditions. Those ambiguously considered dangerous would be eliminated in concentration camps, a portion of the population would be left as a slave labor workforce for the Germans, and children deemed racially valuable were envisioned for immediate Germanization. In addition, the Germans also took into account material aspects of this plan; that is they calculated how best to exploit the confiscated property of the displaced and exterminated peoples to finance this enormous project.2019 General Plan East was envisioned to be a grandiose campaign to say the least. Through the expulsion of non-Germans and the resettlement of ethnic Germans in their place, Nazi visionaries intended to drastically shift the ethnic border of the Reich – its Volkstumsgrenze – some one thousand kilometers east and as far south as the Crimean peninsula while also changing the economic structure of Eastern Europe. However, for the latter to begin, population density in eastern regions demanded immediate attention. Over a 30 year period following the end of the war, the plan aimed to colonize the territory of present-day Poland, the Baltic States, Belarus and Ukraine; encompassing some 45 million non-German easterners including 5-6 million Jews. 31 million deemed racially worthless were to be expelled to Siberia. Those who remained would be physically exploited to primarily build the vast network of roadways and cities for new German settlers, to administer the lowest-levels of this colonized zone, or simply be Germanized. The numbers concerning expulsion were daunting – from Polish territory, some 80-85% of the inhabitants were to be forced out; 64% of those living in western Ukraine would be expelled while 75% of Belarus was to be emptied. Thus, General Plan East combined concepts for making the continent self-sufficient in food stuffs by redirecting grain supplies from the southern areas of the USSR to central Europe with a strategy to achieve permanent German hegemony and living space.2020 2020 Generalny Plan Wschodni. Zbiór dokumentów, ed. Czesław Madajczyk (Warszawa: Główna Komisja Badania Zbrodni Hitlerowskich w Polsce IPN, 1990), 15; 19-20; Aly and Heim, Architects of Annihilation..., 256-258. Upon examination of the Generalplan Ost outline, Nazi beaurocrats noted that the number of 45 million inhabitants in the envisioned colonized zone was too small; 65 million being more accurate. Also, they noted that between 46 and 51 million inhabitants would be expelled, far surpassing the initial number of 31 million. Among the cities and town marked to serve as future Germanized bases were ones in or around which GG Ukrainians inhabited: Kraków, Jasło, Zamość, Przemyśl, and Lwów. 2021 For Himmler’s colonization plans of Hegewald, see especially Lower, Nazi Empire-Building…, 162-179. 2022 Brown, A biography of No Place…, 192-205; Mazower, Hitler’s Empire…, 212-213. 2023 Zamojszczyzna-Sonderlaboratorium SS. Zbiór dokumentów polskich i niemieckich z okresu okupacji hitlerowskiej vol. 1, ed. Czesław Madajczyk (Warszawa: Ludowa Spółdzielna Wydawnicza 1977), 5. According to Johannes Sachslehner, Globocnik’s relations with Himmler abated following his so-called “Zakopane affair” in which the Reichsführer urged Globocnk to call-off his engagement with Irmgard Rickheim over her purported meetings with other men while at a sanatorium in Zakopane. See Sachslehner, Zarządca do spraw śmierci…, 131-143. Unable to realize the vast colonization plan while the war raged on, in 1942 Himmler accepted the idea to begin realizing the creation of smaller settlements in the east; what Mazower deemed pilot schemes. In Lithuania for example, farms were confiscated by the SS to make way for Baltic Germans awaiting land. In the Reichskommissariat Ukraine, a problem encountered by racial SS men was the inferior quality of the Volksdeutsche there. In comparison to the neat, clean villages of blond-haired and blue-eyed Germans that racial experts from Berlin hoped to find, they saw the complete opposite – villagers in poor and ragged clothing living in wrecked homes and villages; a far cry from their expectations. During a Volksdeutsche Christmas celebration, supposedly German children stood around the tree and sang carols in Ukrainian. However, this did not deter Himmler from organizing villages around his field headquarters in Hegewald with plans to resettle Germans onto them; to create, as Wendy Lower elucidated, a string of defensive pearls to protect Germans from Asiatic hordes.2021 Even in the Protectorate of Bohemia-Moravia, plans were implemented to Germanize half the Czech population with the other half slated for deportation east. The territory was to be directly annexed into the greater Reich.2022 In the GG, Zamość County was determined a region with historic German colonial ties and an area to be de-nationalized and Germanized. Strategically, it lay on a valuable communication artery intended to link the Reich with occupied Soviet territory. The provincial city of Zamość was to serve as the regional capital for some 60 thousand German colonial farmers who would work the farms and fields of the non-Germans they replaced. The agrarian plans for this region resonated in Himmler’s envisioned name for the settlement area – Pflugstadt or city of the plough.2023 With Himmler caught-up in his racial visions, district officials viewed these plans more realistically. According to a note sent by the Zamość County Kreishauptmann to governor Zörner concerning Himmler’s visit and plans, the official made several suggestions: non-Germans were to be placed in designated remote areas, ones nowhere close to Lublin so as to prevent a return of those displaced and, more importantly, to avoid any undesired disturbances. Concerning the Ukrainians, he specifically recommended relocating them in non-Polish areas while also creating a separate transition camp for them.2024 It was clear that officials took into consideration how best to maintain the air of divide and conquer even in large-scale racial projects. 2024 BA, R 70 POLEN/323, Abschrift von der Kreishauptmann des Kreises Zamosc an den Herrn Gouverneur Zörner, April 4, 1942, n.p. 2025 Huppenkothen’s deposition was quoted in Zamojszczyzna-Sonderlaboratorium SS... vol. 1, 43-45; Mańkowski, Między Wisłą a Bugiem 1939-1944..., 173; Brendt Rieger, Creator of Nazi Death Camps: The Life of Odilo Globocnik (London: Vallentie Mitchell 2007), 98. 2026 Quoted in Mańkowski, Między Wisłą a Bugiem 1939-1944..., 174. 2027 Adam Puławski, “Kwestia sowieckich jeńców wojennych w polityce Polskiego Państwa Podziemnego,” Rocznik Chełmski vol. 18 (2014), 274. 2028 IPN, DHF, GK 95/24/I, Regierungssitzung, March 11, 1942, pp. 56; 62; DHF, GK 95/19, Tagebuch 1942: Mai bis Juli, p. 19; DHF, GK 95/23/I, Polizeisitzung, June 18, 1942, pp. 129-130. According to Globocnik, the central figure to Himmler’s plan, Poles would be imprisoned and crushed, both economically and biologically, by intense German settlement. SS-Standartenführer Walter Huppenkothen, in his postwar testimony before the Nuremburg trials, recalled Globocnik’s air of autonomy in the district. Although he formally fell under the authority of Zörner, needing, for example, his agreement to issue ordinances, the SS chief did not comply with the hierarchy. Instead he acted independently, invoking his close relationship with Himmler to explain decisions if questioned. In fact, he even envisioned combining his SS position with that of district governor so as to be the sole arbiter of the Gau in the near future.2025 As such, he viewed the GG civil administration with much skepticism at best. On one occasion, he denounced Frank to party secretary Martin Bormann saying: “There cannot be a second Führer alongside the Führer [Hitler] who admittedly declares that he is dependent on him but discards his ideas, central to the Reich.”2026 In the midst of exterminating and planning to deport non-German undesirables to make way for colonists, the occupiers dealt with a thorn in their side – the ever increasing activity of partisan and marauder gangs. In mid-1942, following the increase in Nazi terror throughout the GG and in neighboring regions, the topic of security appeared more frequently on the administrative agenda. The breakdown of law and order provided a breeding-ground for common banditry and partisan activity especially in the countryside. Differentiating between acts of common banditry and partisan activity became more complicated following Himmler’s order of July 31, 1942 in which the term “bandit” was assigned to criminals and partisans interchangeably.2027 GG administrative reports noted of escaped Soviet POWs forming gangs and inciting attacks or violence in parts of the district. Local Poles were said to have behaved well so long as they were not provoked. Concerted organization and activity came with the parachuting-in of Soviet officers.2028 Throughout 1942, organized Soviet partisans initiated in wide-scale subversive activity – cutting telephone communication lines, derailing transport trains – and armed attacks on administrative buildings, mills, sugar refineries, police posts.2029 The Polish underground noted an increase in Soviet agents dropped into the GG, particularly into the Chełm, Zamość, and Lublin regions. An AK report assessed the work of the communists: “Value of their anti-German actions – none. They only cause bloody repressions and confusion which makes our job more difficult and are already attempting to call for uprising that will not affect the war but only lead to a mass slaughter of the population.”2030 By this point, other partisan insurgents were also in the field. A well-equipped communist movement attracted Poles who were frustrated with the AK’s absence of concerted action. Peasant Battalions (Bataliony Chłopskie – BCh) were loyal to the prewar Peasant Party; one also represented in the government-in-exile. Jewish bands consisted of survivors which often sympathized with the left while the National Armed Forces (Narodowe Siły Zbrojne – NSZ) identified with the radical right. A split emerged between these groups along the lines of those sympathetic to the Soviets and anti-Soviets.2031 2029 Puławski, “Kwestia sowieckich jeńców...,” 272. In February, an organized operation included partisans dropped in by the Soviet air force with the aim of liberating a POW camp in Lubartów County. The operation achieved partial success in that several Germans guards were killed while several freed POWs bolstered the ranks of the parachutists who retreated into the local forests. 2030 “Gen. Rowecki do centrali: skutki prowokacyjne sowieckich spadachroniarzy” in Armia Krajowa w dokumentach vol. 2, 209. Gen. Rowecki even went so far as to suggest the government-in-exile intervene directly with the Soviets, urging them to limit their partisan-diversionary activity to territory lying east of the prewar 1939 Polish-Soviet border and leaving the western regions in the Polish independentist sphere of underground activity. Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski conveyed a similar position in his memoirs where he noted of Soviet partisans alienating local inhabitants by requisitioning supplies, primarily food, in a brutal, ruthless fashion: “It was really no different from pillage and theft.” Bór-Komorowski, The Secret Army..., 119. 2031 Lukas, Forgotten Holocaust…, 76. A detailed description of the various insurgent partisan formation in the Lublin district is found in Mańkowski, Między Wisłą a Bugiem…, 175-192. A British report on Polish resistance noted: “One thing is certain. The Germans are helped by the lack of unity in the underground and by the fact that each side has other aims than fighting the Germans.” 2032 IPN, DHF, GK 95/26, Tagebuch: Mai 1943, pp. 253-254; 258-261. According to Puławski, the idle state of the Polish underground at this time stemmed from the exile government’s caution in showing any anti-Soviet signs so as not to upset their position within the allied camp. Nor did the Poles wish to see partisan activity contribute to further German repressions or transform into a preemptive, uncontrolled uprising. Puławski, “Sowiecki partyzant – polski problem,” 225-236. 2033 Lotnik, Nine Lives..., 22-26. The occupier described “bandit” activity in terms of a varied character. As police and security personnel reported, former Soviet POWs were strengthened by political commissars parachuted in and by local peasants who “worked the fields in the day and joined the bandits at night.”2032 The initial lukewarm German assessment of “bandit” activity may have stemmed from the fact that fewer Germans were targeted than, for example, Ukrainians. The memoirs of a BCh partisan suggest that killing a Ukrainian in pursuit of loot was not high on the occupiers list of crimes to pursue and punish. Only when Germans were killed were severe police measures used in response.2033 Ukrainians in the countryside were terrorized by “bandits” and criminal gangs. Most often, attacks targeted what was seen as the weakest and most visible symbol of collaboration, civic leaders: village mayors, priests, teachers, school inspectors, administrators, auxiliary policemen. These individuals at times also fell victim to German collective reprisals.2034 Teachers were threatened to the point that they fled their posts, leaving schools at a standstill, or were robbed. In the least nationally-conscious region – Biała Podlaska – Ukrainian children were sent to Polish schools.2035 Under duress or facing the threat of death, farmers, both Ukrainians and Poles, were forced to give-up food and clothing to “bandits” or partisans. Such forceful seizure, especially by Soviet partisans, was viewed by the Polish underground as common robbery and banditism.2036 Vitalii Sivak recalled such activity as characteristic of former Soviet POWs turned partisans marauding throughout villages. Among the Soviets were also Poles whom he described as recently freed criminal elements.2037 2034 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 25, folder 5, Bandy i patsyfikatsiia v Dystrykti Liubel’s’kymi, 1942. 2035 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 25, folder 21, Biała Podlaska aid committee note to UTsK-Lublin branch concerning current school situation, November 26, 1942. 2036 Puławski, “Sowiecki partyzant – polski problem,” 239. 2037 Sivak, “Krov ukraїns’ka, krov pol’s’ka” in Ivanyk (ed), Krov ukraїs’ka, krov pol’s’ka..., 80. 2038 Zajączkowski, Ukraińskie podziemie..., 206-207; Bul’ba-Borovets’, Armiia bez derzhavy, 294. Included in the staff were: Colonel Iakiv Halchevs’kyi-Voinarovs'kyi, Iurii Lukashchuk, Ivan Romanchenko, Tymofii Stakhurs’kyi and Ievhraf Iarosh. 2039 Rafał Ziętek, “Konflikt polsko-ukraiński na Chełmszczyźnie i południowym Podlasiu w okresie okupacji niemieckiej.” Rocznik Chełmski vol. 7 (2001), 261; Pasternak, Narys istorii Kholmshchyny i Pidliashshia, 274. On August 6, 1942 Poles attempted an attack on the legion headquarters in Hrubieszów; one ultimately repelled. However, as Pasternak suggested, the attack showed the weak nature of the legion, forcing its members to think of obtaining, presumably from the Germans, more adequate weapons. 2040 Hałagida, “Ukraińskie straty ludnościowe w dystrykcie lubelskim...,” 370. 2041 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 25, folder 23, Note to Ukrainian Lublin aid committee, 1942. 2042 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 25, folder 9, Vidpys. Khronyka vazhniishikh vypadkiv v Bilhorais’komu poviti, November 4, 1942. Common looting and partisan activity caused the organization of a Ukrainian defense force – the Chełm Self-Defense Legion. Under the initiative of former Petliurite officers and permitted by the occupier, it also included Melnykites within its ranks. Its headquarters was located in Hrubieszów and was headed by a 5-person staff which included local aid committee members.2038 At the time of its inception, it numbered only some 20 men. During the first phase of resettlements, legion members participated in guarding and escorting Ukrainian settlers.2039 In its situational reports, the UTsK nationalized “bandit” perpetrators. According to Hałagida, incidents of common plunder served as a pretext for nationalizing blame.2040 Concerning “bandits,” some documents described them ambiguously while other reports nationalized them. One described them as a mixture of Polish “chauvinist elements” and Bolshevik agitators. Volksduetsche were also described as “essentially Polish chauvinists and Ukrainian enemies.”2041 Often, “bandits” were collectively described as Soviet-Polish-Jewish. Unidentified ones also “appeared” Polish as, for example, reports indicated that in ethnically-mixed villages, Ukrainian elements were terrorized while Polish ones were often left alone.2042 Speaking a mixture of broken Polish and Russian also added to the Polish appearance. However, one Ukrainian-language report described their composition as varying: They are primarily composed of escapees from prisoner-of-war camps and local criminal elements, added to them are small numbers of local Polish-Ukrainian communist elements; the leading role is played either by Bolshevik agents who may have come to organize the bandy or by superior escapee elements and, in the end, by people from clandestine Polish organizations.2043 2043 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 25, folder 5, Bandy i patsyfikatsiia v Dystrykti Liubel’s’kym, 1942. 2044 Partacz and Łada, Polska wobec ukraińskich dążeń niepodległościowych..., 106; Puławski, “Sowiecki partyzant – polski problem,” 245-246. The AK also differentiated between ‘internal’ and ‘external’ banditism. Both were used to characterize acts of sabotage aimed at destabilizing security, order and the interests of the Polish state. Internal bandits were associated with political or military groups (for example the communist Polish Workers Party) while external ones correlated with a foreign state (Soviet partisans). 2045 Chodakiewicz, Between Nazis and Soviets..., 91en8; Puławski, “Sowiecki partyzant – polski problem,” 245. 2046 PAA, MCF, 85.191, box 59 file 6, Erläuterungen über der Verhältnisse im Kreise Hrubieschow, March 9, 1943. The categorization of the three types of “bandits” was specified as evident beginning in the spring of 1942. Such a description insinuated that only disloyal, communist Ukrainians joined either the partisans or bandits. However, Banderite reports claimed that while partisan units were often commanded by Soviet agents, they tended to be composed of local Ukrainians who either sympathized with communism or who saw opportunities in partisan activities.2044 The question of collectively nationalizing perpetrators deserves attention. Without question, Poles – whether communist sympathizers who joined Soviet partisans, marauders who organized gangs of common criminals, auxiliary policemen under German supervision, members of the underground or ordinary men searching for personal revenge – contributed to Ukrainian deaths in the Lublin District. Incidents of Polish non-communists or peasants masqueraded as Soviet partisans occurred while Soviets “banditized” themselves by enacting in common acts of robbery or plunder. As such, nationalizing “bandit” incidents was not simple as an individual could be a fugitive, bandit or partisan and not necessarily in that order.2045 One UTsK report categorized “bandits” into three types: ones consisting of former Soviet POWs, of criminals and Soviet POWs, and of ideologically-politically motivated Poles. Polish civilians were described as friendly to the first type of “bandits” as they saw in them “natural allies.” The two remaining types – mixed criminal-Soviet POW and politically-motivated Poles – were described as “difficult to distinguish [as] they work closely together.”2046 The fact that this report was either written or translated in German means it was intended to serve as a guide for the occupiers. From the above categorization it is evident that collectively nationalizing “bandits” and gangs as “Polish” served several purposes. In doing so, the UTsK intended to maintain a clear distinction between good and bad fremdvölkische peoples; creating a positive opinion of Ukrainians as loyal people targeted for their deutschfreundlich sympathies, primarily by Poles, who always showed anti-German, anti-Ukrainian, and now pro-“bandit,” pro-communist tendencies. Poles were depicted as disloyal, uncertain, romantic rabble-rousers who would always be a problem for the Germans. They were described as occupational enemies allied, via the London exile government, with the Jewish Soviet-British alliance; being a western fifth column within the GG. This did not mean some or most Poles but “the entire Polish Volksgemeinschaft is hostile to the Germans.” On the other hand, Kubiiovych poignantly reiterated: “It is well known that there were no communists among the Ukrainians…”2047 Rather, they were “absolutely committed to the closest cooperation with the Germans toward the Neuordnung…”2048 2047 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 26, folder 36, Kubiiovych note to Krüger, June 28, 1943. 2048 Veryha, The Correspondence…, 959. 2049 AAN, RGO, sygn. 43, Notatka o wypadkach w pow. Zamojskim i Hrubieszowskim, February 1, 1943, p. 14; Ronikier, Pamiętniki 1939-1945, 19. 2050 V’iatrovych, Druha pol’s’ko-ukraїns’ka viina…, 90; Serhiichuk, Trahediia ukraїntsiv Pol’shchi, 50-51. 2051 Veryha, The Correspondence…, 959. 2052 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 26, folder 36, Aktenvermerk – Betrifft: Sicherheitsfragen des ukrainischen Gemeinschaftslebens, January 2, 1943. 2053 Iliuszyn, UPA i AK…, 101. In comparison to the UTsK, the Polish RGO contextualized gangs in reports and memorandums as either bandits, Soviets or with the neutral term “forest people.” In doing so, it appears they sought to avoid nationalizing gangs so as to prevent collective punishment on Poles. This lay in line with Ronikier’s reason for collaborating with the Germans – to maintain the substance of the Polish nation.2049 It is interesting to note of Banderite underground reports which categorized Soviet and Polish pro-communist partisans also as “bandits.” A later OUN-B appeal to Chełm and Podlasie Ukrainians described the Germans, Polish auxiliary police (“wild bands”) and Soviet partisans (which included Russians, Gypsies and Jews) as “bandits.”2050 Kubiiovych accused all Polish civic leaders as liable for increased underground or partisan activity since “they solidarize with them, even cleverly supporting them.” Whereas they outnumbered Ukrainians and where used in administrative and auxiliary police roles, he claimed, their positions in the civil apparatus was used to directly influence Polish anti-German, anti-Ukrainian propaganda. Worst of all, he believed, their work “completely undermined Ukrainian confidence in the German administration since for the enemies of Germany, Ukrainian-German cooperation represents a dangerous increase of Germany’s power in the East.” According to Kubiiovych, the successes Ukrainians achieved under German rule “caused the Poles to set in motion a new onslaught against everything Ukrainian.”2051 Rather, they were “absolutely committed to the closest cooperation with the Germans toward the Neuordnung…”2052 What occurred in the ethnically mixed, contested regions of the Lublin District was a phenomenon of collective responsibility. The actions of individuals or small groups of Poles and Ukrainians translated into accusations against all members of each group. In this case, as Iliushyn wrote, the average Pole or Ukrainian was less likely to associate violence with the German occupier. Rather, they imposed responsibility and guilt upon each other, viewing Polish auxiliary policemen and Ukrainian social activists as German collaborators.2053 Collective nationalization also determined who in the eyes of the UTsK deserved to be punished – Poles; both civilians and partisans. However, this was not always the case in that Ukrainians were also targeted in collective pacifications. Collective nationalization also became a form of combating Polish influences in either ethnically-mixed or Polish-majority areas; meant to either fully remove or severely neutralize them. This resembled what Snyder contextualized as Ukrainian nationalist thought which saw Poles as a hindrance to building a future state. Poles were described as a political collectivity expected to behave according to an anti-Ukrainian political schematic. Removing them from Ukrainian ethnographic territory equated to achieving the ultimate nationalist end – Ukrainian statehood.2054 In the case of Kubiiovych, the ethnic cleansing he promoted to GG authorities echoed this nationalist rhetoric. 2054 Snyder, “The Causes of Ukrainian-Polish Ethnic Cleansing 1943,” 232. 2055 Mastaliński, Karty męczeństwa Zamojszczyzny..., 43. 2056 Maria Wardyńska, Formacja Wachmannschafteb des SS- und Polizeiführers im District Lublin (Warszawa: Główna Komisja Badania Zbrodni Przeciwko Narodowi Polskiemu Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, 1992), 29; V’iatrovych, Druha pol’s’ko-ukraїns’ka viina, 92-93. 2057 Chodakiewicz, Between Nazis and Soviets…, 192-193. 2058 IPN, DHF, GK 95/24/I, Regierungssitzung, July 13, 1942. Such acts of sabotage were primarily undertaken but not limited to the AK; especially after Sikorski’s April 1942 order to increase subversive activity specifically through railroad sabotague in efforts to destroy or at least delay German arms and supplies to the eastern front. Bór-Komorowski later recalled that the order was meant to be a tangible sign that the independentist underground was making all efforts to inflict losses on the Germans; what Sikorski described as “fulfill[ing] our duty towards our Allies.” He provided an assessment atesting to this work. In February 1944 alone, he wrote, 17 freight trains and 5 express traines were derailed; 17 engines and 78 railway cars were destroyed while the Germans lost 540 dead and one thousand wounded. “Sikorski do Roweckiego – Rozkaz wzmożenia akcji sabotażowo-dywersyjnej na kolejach (April 27, 1942)” in Armia Krajowa w dokumentach vol. 2, 221-222; Bór-Komorowski, The Secret Army..., 109-110. To contest “bandits,” the occupiers hung posters reading: “Report Bolsheviks and bandits to the police.”2055 To physically combat them, Aktions were conducted using various security and military formations with the goal of pacifying territory. These began with gendarmerie or police forces; often accompanied by Polish auxiliary policemen or SS-ukrainische Wachmannschaften men from the Trawniki camp. Several Ukrainian underground reports even indicated Polish Volksdeutsch policemen used during pacifications.2056 By 1943, they began deploying larger police and Wehrmacht units, mostly composed of non-German auxiliaries under Reichsdeutsche leadership. Toward the end of the war, regular army divisions in addition to SS regiments and non-German auxiliaries operated against the partisans. Employing the tactic of collective responsibility led to the indiscriminate killing of innocent civilians.2057 Important for the occupier was the need to secure crop harvests from destruction and rail lines in order to provide the uninterrupted flow of valuable supplies to the Wehrmacht on the eastern front.2058 Using Polish auxiliary policemen during pacifications, the Germans created the image of Polish-German collaboration to intrinsic Ukrainians. Similar to Ukrainian auxiliaries in Galicia, so too did the Polish ones use their positions alongside the Germans to settle ethnic or personal scores. As such, the German anti-bandit campaign gained a greater air of ethnic conflict as ordinary Ukrainians and Poles began charging each other as responsible for police crimes and excesses rather than associating them with the occupier.2059 This position appeared in many UTsK aid committee and delegate reports and served to lobby authorities to ultimately remove Polish traces from ethnographic and ethnically-mixed regions in favor of Ukrainians. 2059 Iliuszyn, UPA i AK…, 101. 2060 Veryha, The Correspodence..., 959-962; 967. 2061 “Fragment biuletynu OUN z czerwca-lipca 1942r. dotyczący wydarzeń w Chełmskiem” in Polska i Ukraina w latach trzydziestych-czterdziestych XX wieku... vol. 4, 1261. The OUN viewed collective pacifications as a concerted, premeditated plan by the Poles and Bolsheviks to physically liquidate Ukrainians from ethnically-mixed regions at the hands of the Germans. In other words, this was seen as a Polish-Bolshevik-German liquidation plot. Conversely, the AK viewed them as German attempts at completely liquidating Poles rather than combat partisans. Puławski, “Sowiecki partyzant – polski problem,” 248-249. 2062 Hałagida, “Ukraińskie straty ludnościowe w dystrykcie lubelskim...,” 368. 2063 Ronikier, Pamiętniki 1939-1945, 202. 2064 AAN, RGO, sygn. 45, Notatka z rozmowy z p. Prez. Ohlembuschem, July 8, 1943, p. 65. 2065 Mastaliński, Karty męczeństwa Zamojszczyzny..., 27. Ukrainians were being arrested on claims of being or supporting communists. Some policemen accused them of disarming Poles during the September 1939 campaign or of confiscating and re-christening Catholic churches into Orthodox ones.2060 One OUN report detailed the excesses of Polish policemen: “All this happened in territories where the Polish police existed and informed pacification unit commanders. They always pointed out the most conscious Ukrainian citizens, ones employed as cooperative directors or in educational societies, as crypto-communists.”2061 As Hałagida noted, blind arrests or executions of members from both ethnic groups served not only as a means for mutual accusations against each other of openly collaborating with the occupier but also became a form of denouncing the other side to the Germans; something which often resulted in arrests or death.2062 Collective pacifications brutalized the countryside. Ronikier provided an interesting explanation of Polish experiences. In fear of collective reprisals, he explained that villagers fled to the forests where they organized gangs; at times joining what he termed “professional” bandits. In seeking safety and security for their villages, they instead brought about further pacifications. Ronikier justified such self-defense as understandable as “peaceful and courageous” farmers defended their families and property. Others were driven to the forests in despair. From there, they observed the destruction of property or the killing of families and sought revenge.2063 Often villagers were subject to repeated violence; first by bandits and then by the Germans. Those who did not comply with bandit demands were killed while those who did were deemed to be collaborating with them, subsequently killed during German pacifications.2064 The recollections of one villager best described a typical scene following the arrival of police forces in a village raided by partisans: “Then the Germans appeared, a battle with the partisans occurred, followed by the final judgement. Accusing the inhabitants of aiding diversionaries, the Germans mercilessly burned-down the village and executed the villagers, including women and children.”2065 In some instances, reinforcements were even called-in from Warsaw to assist in pacifications. This fact alone, Mariusz Zajączkowski indicated, attested to the scale of the bandit problem for the Germans.2066 A view into the eyes of German pacification units came from an operation report compiled following a pacification Aktion in Radzyń County. Of interest is the description of the behavior of Poles and Ukrainians in the ethnically-mixed village: 2066 Zajączkowski, Ukraińskie podziemie na Lubelszczyźnie..., 96-97. 2067 Quoted in Ibid, 99. 2068 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 24, folder 7, Zvit z poїzdky na naradu Komiteti v Kholmi, September 25, 1942. 2069 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 24, folder 8, Zvit z poїzdky do Biloї Pidlias’koї, October 10, 1942. The reported claimed that the gang in the Biała Podlaska area burned down the entire village of Sławatycze; an estimated 200 homes. During this operation special attention was drawn to the fact that young men, as well as women, fled towards the forests as the police forces approached. A portion of them was arrested or shot during the escape… Through their behavior, the local villagers showed that they are afraid of the police or that they have guilty consciences… Therefore, no misgivings in shooting such elements during their escape appeared… The inhabitants of this operational territory were mixed. Poles blamed the Ukrainians and Ukrainians the Poles of aiding the bandits…2067 District-wide aid committee field trips and reports communicated the effects of bandit activity and German reprisals. In many counties, teachers were threatened and fled for their lives. Parents were afraid of sending children to schools. In one instance, a report claimed a Ukrainian teacher was killed for standing up to a gang. With no teachers willing to replace them and with the possibility of a gang return looming, many village schools were simply closed. In areas around Lublin, German police expeditions killed local UTsK men. In other areas, Ukrainian life was reported disrupted not just by bandit incursions but also from the mass arrests or executions of innocent villagers in response. In counties where gang activity temporarily abated – such as in Chełm for example – German arrests disrupted everyday life.2068 In parts of the southern Podlasie region, where Ukrainian national consciousness and overall work was the weakest, gangs – described as consisting of former POWs and Polish “plunderers” – initiated in anti-Ukrainian excesses: terrorizing local inhabitants, burning village homes and villages, robbing cooperatives. A report summarized the effects of such incursions there: Active Ukrainian consciousness is decreasing because of the belief that Poland will return again and will severely punish all Ukrainians for everything. Under the pressure of such rumors, Ukrainian villagers who until recently nationally identified themselves as Ukrainian now, fearing revenge from the oncoming Poland, identify themselves as Poles. A decrease in Ukrainian elements in Pidliashshia is an expression of the rise of Polish propaganda; that the current political situation is transitional, and a weakening of the Ukrainian activity is the best measure of the strengthening and tightening of Polish political propaganda.2069 Kubiiovych turned to the occupier for protection. To contest bandits, he demanded either replacing Polish auxiliary policemen with Ukrainian ones or at least creating local armed militias since “villagers can’t chase bandits away with sticks.”2070 Concerning Ukrainians rounded-up and sent off for either labor in the Reich or to concentration camps, the UTsK cooperated closely with the occupation and security authorities to identify them and work for their release.2071 2070 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 17, folder 24, Presova konferentsiia, November 19, 1942. 2071 Veryha, The Correspodence..., 959-962; 967. 2072 “Notatka o szczegłowym rozporządzeniu Reichsführera SS – 30 lipca 1941” in Zamojszczyzna-Sonderlaboratorium SS... vol. 1, 23; “Pismo SS-Hauptsturmführera H. Müllera w sprawie osadnictwo niemieckiego w Zamojszczyźnie – 15 października 1941” in Ibid, 31. The first trial resettlement operation was conducted in November 1941, on orders of Himmler, in which some 2 thousand Poles from seven villages were expelled to make room for 105 ethnic German families from the Radom district. AsWinstone added, the men used by Globocnik in this operation were members of Oskar Dirlewanger’s SS brigade of convicted criminals (men used to staff the Bełżec concentration camp in 1940, for example); showing that this trial was in no way carried out delicately. Furthermore, he contested that it was not entirely successful as plans to ship the Poles further east to Volhynia were stalled by the authorities there while Poles and Ukrainians, catching wind of the operation and fearing that they would be next, abandoned some of their villages. Winstone, The Dark Heart of Hitler’s Europe…, 189. 2073 IPN, DHF, GK 95/24/I, Regierungssitzung, March 11, 1942, p. 63. 2074 Sachslehner, Zarządca do spraw śmierci..., 160-162. 2075 IPN DHF, GK 95/20, Tagebuch 1942: August bis September, pp. 70-71. Additionally, Frank added that the Galicia District contained vast swaths of fertile land. He suggested settling Volksdeutsche there “at an accelerated pace.” 2076 IPN, DHF, GK 95/19, Tagebuch 1942: Mai bis Juli, p. 18; GK 95/20, Tagebuch 1942: August bis September, pp. 60-63. Zörner’s deputy Engler suggested closer cooperation with the civil authorities could With “bandit” activity rampant, the decision was made by SS authorities to begin small-scale deportations of Poles from 11 villages in Zamość County.2072 Initially, Zörner expressed concerns over Polish and Ukrainian knowledge of intentions to Germanize the district. Unable to alter or stop Himmler’s plans, he urged to begin them after fall harvests.2073 In July 1942 Himmler definitively approved designating the GG as a German settlement area. In touring the Zamość region, he ordered Globocnik to accelerate preparations for expulsions by creating an SS quarter in the city – one including the “German old town” – as well as space for German colonists throughout the county. Ironically, this came on the backdrop of a Ukrainian folk festival the men attended earlier that day. Concerning his role as Himmler’s implementer of Germanization in the east, Globocnik was described as very confident in his mission – the annihilation of “unfriendly nationalities” in order to create an “anti-Slavic dam.”2074 The next month, during a GG administrative meeting in Lublin, SS police chief Krüger informed the authorities of official plans to designate the Lublin and Zamość counties as the first resettlement zones. Who was to replace the ousted Poles and Ukrainians? He listed the various Volksdeutsche who would be sent to agricultural farms there: from Bosnia, Leningrad, the Baltic States, Volhynia, and Flanders, Denmark, Holland.2075 Whereas Frank ultimately approved the resettlement plan, he added his own conditions – the operation create no disturbances and plans be submitted directly to him; a measure intended to prevent Himmler and the SS from usurping his authority in the region.2076 Like Himmler, Frank too was obsessed with the vision of Germanized alleviate these problems in the future. Frank even went so far as to accuse Krüger of going behond his back on various occasions and building a “state within a state.” 2077 IPN, DHF, GK 95/19, Tagebuch 1942: Mai bis Juli, p. 61. 2078 Ibid, p. 21; Mazower, Hitler’s Empire..., 250. According to the Nazis, German settlers first appeared in Lublin in the 12th century. Du Prel (ed), Das Deutsche Generalgouvernement Polen, 139. 2079 BA, R 102 II/15, Note from Krüger to Zörner, July 4, 1942, n.p; Housden, Hans Frank, Lebensraum and the Holocaust, 174. Lebensraum in the east. During a Hitler youth meeting in Kraków, he told those assembled: “Any German who comes to this area [the GG] finds here their home.” He added that the district capitals of the GG should become the equivalents of Vienna or Hamburg.2077 Speaking with Zörner while passing through Lublin, he again spun his vision of the future in which he envisioned creating a belt of colonial settlements for Germans to inhabit; something he claimed would return the image of Lublin to its historic, Germanic roots. With the Jews gone, he added: “it is not our task to improve the life of the Poles but to create from this area a future reservoir for the victory of our German people.”2078 Unlike the SS who saw no use of non-Germans, Frank looked to continue exploiting them so long as it lay in the interests of the GG and Reich. The internal tug-of-war between GG civil officials and SS men also consumed Frank’s attention. A dichotomy emerged in district authority. Zörner did everything in his power to maintain stability while intensifying economic output for the war economy. Contrastingly, Globocnik undertook ever increasing destructive steps toward Germanization. With the growing influence of the SS rising, the civil administration became a soft target for wholesale criticism by the security apparatus. With views of conglomerating civil administration into his hands, Globocnik began his offensive by accusing Zörner of uncomfortably close relations with Ukrainians. This was reiterated by SS and police chief Krüger when he told the governor, in no uncertain terms: “… there is no reason to treat Ukrainians differently from Poles.”2079 By this time, Zörner’s amicable approach toward non-Aryans was on the radar of the SS. A detailed report commented his relations and behavior toward both Poles and Ukrainians. Concerning the latter for example, he was accused of accepting a one thousand złoty donation from Ilarion for a wounded German soldier’s fund. As the report stipulated, the sum was returned to the Ukrainians since “it would be intolerable that foreign people controlled by us provide support for the care of Germans.” During the installation of the new Kreishauptmann in Chełm, the governor invited Ilarion to attend the ceremony as an expression of thanks for the loyal behavior of the Ukrainians. Krüger protested this. Subsequently, security reports indicated that in 1940 and 1941, Ukrainian delegations were invited to attend the governor’s birthday festivities at his private villa. Speeches were made by them while a concert was conducted in the garden. Worst of all, the report claimed, was the fact that the invited Ukrainians may have overheard things “by no means intended for their ears.” Perhaps most damning of all was the accusation that on numerous occasions Zörner was overheard expressing to Ukrainians that in the near future, an autonomous Ukraine would emerge under German protection.2080 2080 Ibid, Abschrift: Verhalten des Gouverneurs Zörner gegenüber der fremdvölkischen Bevölkerung, August 25, 1942, pp. 1-3. Accusations were also listed concerning Zörner’s relations with the district Poles. 2081 Winstone, The Dark Heart of Hitler’s Europe..., 189. 2082 Veryha, The Correspondence…, 962. 2083 Zamojszczyzna-Sonderlaboratorium SS… vol. 1, 6. 2084 Aly and Heim, Architects of Annihilation…, 276-278. 2085 “Rozkaz dowódcy SS i policji w dystrykcie lubelskim O. Globocnika w sprawie osiedlenia w powiece zamojskim – 22 listopada 1942” in Zamojszczyzna-Sonderlaboratorium SS... vol. 1, 194. Even though the Germans never developed a systematic plan for killing all Poles in the GG, as Winstone mentioned, the Zamość Aktion developed in parallel with the mass murder of Jews and was perpetrated by the same men and agencies almost at the same time.2081 As such, the Germans sent Poles and Ukrainians to the same transit camps as their Jewish neighbors; property was also confiscated or re-confiscated in some cases. Concerning confiscations, Kubiiovych wrote to authorities that this caused Ukrainians to question the occupiers understanding of law and justice.2082 Additionally, the two groups were also sorted in a similar way as the Jews were; 1/5 of those expelled were to be sent to the Auschwitz and Majdanek concentration camps.2083 The colonization plan for the Germanization of the Lublin District was carried out in three phases from November 1942 to August 1943 on the territory of the Zamość, Hrubieszów and Biłgoraj counties. Ultimately, over 100 thousand inhabitants were expelled from their homes with many dying in transit and concentration camps or simply in the struggle to survive. On November 27, 1942, the first expulsions began, ending on December 31. According to an underground note, some 1 thousand villagers were interned in an old fort in Zamość from which they were transported east beyond the Bug River in groups. Others were sent in the opposite direction to either Berlin or Auschwitz so as to begin a selection process for forced labor. Those Poles sent to the Reich capital were to replace Jewish factory workers – now deemed unfit for work – who with their families were sent in the opposite direction to Auschwitz. The resettlement operation served as a test case for the implementation of population policy in the near future. In other words, the Zamość Aktion was meant to be “a kind of model exercise in economic and social rationalization, where more would be produced by fewer workers.”2084 Among those expelled were also Ukrainians. To prepare for resettlement, the UTsK, at the behest of the Germans, issued leaflets in advance of moves which claimed settlers would receive plots of land, buildings, livestock, and homes. Everything else would be guaranteed them on their new farms; at the expense of Poles as it would turn out. Finally, it urged: “Ukrainians! You are under the protection and care of the German authorities… Execute all ordinances and orders. Maintain calm. Be patient.”2085 According to Globocnik, the leaflets meant to convince Ukrainians that they were not being “deported” but simply “resettled;” euphemisms which in this case ostensibly meant one and the same. Instructions from the resettlement office in Zamość stipulated the process of moving Poles and Ukrainians. The latter were considered an exception. Those who either provided documents attesting to their Ukrainian ethnicity or who were guaranteed by UTsK representatives during the resettlement Aktion to be Ukrainian were treated differently from their Polish counterparts. For example, instead of one hour to pack belongings, Ukrainians were given four. They were also allowed to take livestock, something the Poles were forced to leave behind. In the company of an SD officer, aid committee representatives, and Ukrainian auxiliary policemen, columns headed to transit point from which they were sent east to Polish villages in Hrubieszów County. There, the SD officer alongside Kreishauptmann Busse decided which villages to clear out and where to settle Ukrainians.2086 Regardless of the preferential treatment of Ukrainians, a Polish underground note described their attitude as “evoking enormous discontent and a drop in their further trust toward the Germans.”2087 When all was said and done, some 9,771 Poles were expelled during the first phase. Concerning Ukrainians, SD special commando units reportedly removed 1,777 families numbering 6,878 individuals from November 27 to December 21.2088 Meeting with Bühler toward the end of 1942, Kubiiovych described the resettlement of Ukrainians as overall satisfactory since they were moved to ethnographic territory; strengthening the Ukrainian character and state of belonging there.2089 2086 Ibid, 180; 194; 198. 2087 AAN, DRRPK, sygn. 202/III/28, Raport o pierwszych wysiedleniach w powiecie zamojskim, November 11 1941, p. 137; “Fragment raportu referenta organizacyjnego Polskiego Komitetu Opiekuńczego w Zamościu S. Michalskiego – 12 grudnia 1941” in Zamojszczyzna-Sonderlaboratorium SS... vol. 1, 38-39. 2088 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 17, folder 24, Protokol narady, December 14, 1942; Zamojszczyzna-Sonderlaboratorium SS… vol. 1, 250. Between December 7 and 21 alone, Globocnik noted of 1,105 Ukrainian families – 4,295 individuals – expelled and temporarily placed in transit camps in Hrubieszów County. 2089 LAC, VFK, MG 31 D 203, volume 17, folder 24, Protokol zasidannia, December 21, 1942. 2090 Sachslehner, Zarządca do spraw śmierci..., 257-258. 2091 Kiełboń, Migracja ludności w Dystrykcie Lubelskim..., 64; “Fragment sprawozdania kierownika UWZ w Łodzi H. Krumeya za marzec 1943 o osiedlaniu Ukraińców w powiecie zamojskim – 4 kwietnia 1943” in Zamojszczyzna-Sonderlaboratorium SS. Zbiór dokumentów polskich i niemieckich z okresu okupacji hitlerowskiej vol. 2, ed. Czesław Madajczyk (Warszawa: Ludowa Spółdzielna Wydawnicza 1979), 6. The next phase of resettlements began in 1943. By then partisans began taking revenge on some German and Ukrainian settlements in and around Zamość. To combat attacks, Globocnik ordered a reprisal on January 4 in which seven villages were pacified with 147 villagers killed.2090 Further resettlement only inflamed Polish-Ukrainian antagonism as on January 13 he ordered the Ukraineraktion – the deportation of Poles from villages in the north-west portions of Hrubieszów County to make way for more Ukrainians from Zamość. This phase, although officially lasting until March 6, ceased in early May with a total of 1,756 Ukrainian families – 7,072 men, women and children – moved there. Out of the planned 14, 738 Poles to be expelled, the Germans succeeded in only moving 5,578. Some qualified workers, at the request of starostas were exempt and remained while others either fled to family in neighboring counties or to the forests. Some were taken-on as farm hands by Poles.2091 Expulsions and resettlements created a buffer or cordon sanitaire around German colonial settlements; what was envisioned as the first line of attack for Poles seeking revenge. In other words, the Germans were consciously enflaming ethnic animosities with the intent of not only protecting German colonies but further controlling and slowly eliminating Poles and Ukrainians. To avoid or at least delay expulsion, some Poles “converted” to Orthodoxy, thus becoming Ukrainian – at least on paper – so as to be treated more humanely as Ukrainian settlers. Kreishauptmänner were immediately ordered to put a stop to these pseudo-conversions. However, this became a method by which Poles tried to avoid expulsion. Klukowski noted of such a peculiar situation during expulsions from Zwierzyniec (Zamość County): “Only Polish people, mostly Catholics, are being forced to move out. Ukrainians and Orthodox are being allowed to stay. Because of this, many people are congregating across from the Orthodox parish, requesting applications for changing their religion from Catholic to Orthodox.” He noted of some 553 people converting.2092 2092 AAN, RGO, sygn. 43, Notatka o wypadkach w w pow. zamojskim i hrubieszowskim, February 1, 1943, p. 14; Klukowski, Diary from the Years of Occupation 1939-44, 270-271. 2093 “Pismo doradcy RGO na okręg lubelski A. Skrzyńskiego do gubernatora dystryktu lubelskiego w sprawie pacyfikacji wsi Wirkowice w powiecie zamojskim przez oddział SS – 12 sierpień 1943” in Zamojszczyzna-Sonderlaboratorium SS… vol. 2, 157. 2094 “Rozkaz nr 51 kierownika UWZ w Łodzi H. Krumeya w sprawie dodatkowego wysiedlenia Polaków ze wsi Jamki i Mojsławice w powiecie hrubieszowskim – 20 kwietnia 1943” in Zamojszczyzna-Sonderlaboratorium SS… vol. 2, 12. 2095 Lotnik, Nine Lives…, 38. Poles were reportedly visiting starostas and asking to recognize them as either Volksdeutsche or Ukrainians. Other reports described ethnic conversions also taking place in Biłgoraj County where Ukrainians were purportedly forcing inhabitants to claim either Ukrainian or Volksdeutsche identity. The result was some 200-400 people daily attempting to convert to Orthodoxy.2093 This practice soon stopped since for the SS, religion had little relation to deportation. The Orthodox, whether Ukrainians or Poles, would simply be evacuated to Ukrainian regions. In fact, an ordinance prepared by the central resettlement authorities stated of documents prepared by Ukrainian aid committees as the only legitimate form of identification to prevent evacuation from farms. Church documents, the ordinance read, were invalid.2094 Pretending to be Polish or Ukrainian was ultimately an effort to save one’s life. Waldemar Lotnik, stopped by two Ukrainian militia men, responded to the men’s broken Polish with remarks in broken Ukrainian. To this “one of them bellowed at me that I should not pretend to be Ukrainian when I was Polish.”2095 UTsK reports conveyed the opinion of recent German resettlements exposing them to vengeful Poles; making out of them, in other words, a source of cannon fodder. Volodymyr Levyts’kyi, Committee coordinator for the resettlement Aktion, noted: As last year’s resettlement goal was to vacate villages for German settlers around the city of Zamość, this year’s plans were geared toward creating a living security rampart out of Ukrainian settlers placed in villages left by Poles and security from Polish gangs as well as to separate German colonies, now more numerous, from Polish villages. All our efforts to change these plans, which according to us were doomed from the beginning, ended unsuccessfully. Following efforts by the UTsK Providnyk to convince the SS of the futility of such a false line for our settlement, I also, as coordinator, tried several times to alter the resettlement border… It was already evident that our settlers, moved so far to the north, alone and in Polish surroundings, could not survive there for long especially if the security question is not duly resolved by competent German authorities.2096 2096 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 20, folder 24, Zvit z pereselenchoї aktsiї na tereni povitiv: Zamistia, Bilhorai-Tarnohorod i Hrubeshiv, August 11, 1943. 2097 “Fragment sporządzonego przez podziemie OUN przeglądu stosunków społeczno-politycznych wiosną 1943r.” in Polska i Ukraina w latach trzydziestych-czterdziestych XX wieku... vol. 4, 1274-1275. 2098 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 17, folder 24, Kubiiovych report to Frank, February 25, 1943. Incidentally, this document was often cited by some Ukrainian historians as “proof” of Kubiiovych’s opposition to blind, willful collaboration and cooperation with the German occupiers. Conversely, it served as evidence of German war crimes accusations during the postwar Nuremburg trials. See Shablii, Volodymyr Kubiiovych: Entsyklopediia zhyttia i tvorennia, 112. 2099 Aktenvermerk I. Vorschlag und Randbemerkung des Ukrainischen Hauptausschusses in Krakau, July 6, 1943; “Notatka służbowa przewodniczącego Głównego Komitetu Ukraińskiego W. Kubijowicza o rodzinach ukraińskich które czekają na osiedlenie w powiecie zamojskim – 28 września 1943” in Zamojszczyzna-Sonderlaboratorium SS… vol. 2, 228-229. 2100 AAN, RGO, sygn. 43, Notatka o wypadkach w w pow. zamojskim i hrubieszowskim, February 1, 1943, p. 14; “Fragment sprawozdania kierownika UWZ w Łodzi H. Krumeya z przesiedleń w powiecie zamojskim za kwiecień 1943 – 24 kwietnia 1943” in Zamojszczyzna-Sonderlaboratorium SS… vol. 2, 17-18. An OUN report echoed this sentiment, noting the Germans deliberately settled Ukrainians on Polish farms. The Poles who fled to the forests, it read, created partisan gangs with the aim of “exterminating, above all, the Ukrainian population.”2097 Kubiiovych also wrote Frank expressing his concerns. Without dedicated German protection and a cessation of collective reprisals on villages and towns, he claimed innocent Ukrainians remained powerless and afraid; what could entice some to flee to the forests and join bandits. He stressed bountiful work by the deutschfreundliche Ukrainians could only be achieved in the new Germanic order through stability and fewer manhunts.2098 Kubiiovych and others claimed this phase of resettlement was conducted in close contact and cooperation with Globocnik’s SS “according to plans and without any misunderstandings.” He even claimed that both, the Germans and UTsK were generally pleased with the fact that Ukrainian settlers were moved to predominantly ethnic-Ukrainian regions and finally freed from Polish surroundings, presumably once and for all.2099 With the arrival of more Ukrainians to Hrubieszów County, a concerted ukrainization campaign began. Polish RGO memorandums reported of Ukrainians lobbying local German authorities to replace all Polish civic leaders with Ukrainians. For example, aid committees searched for Ukrainian craftsmen to replace Poles who still remained in some workshops.2100 In some areas where Ukrainians did replace Poles, Catholic Churches were adopted for Orthodoxy. The Germans also replaced Polish auxiliary police posts with Ukrainian ones in areas recently settled. To catch Poles still hiding in villages avoiding expulsion, the Ukrainian police, in conjunction with German security units, hunted them out in what the occupiers deemed “combing out Aktions;” reportedly apprehending, arresting or executing them outright.2101 When left on their own to maintain order, the Ukrainian police settled personal or ethnic scores. One witness recalled them following German orders faithfully but also initiating in their own round-ups of Poles; either sending them off as labor to the Reich or outright shooting them. He recalled the adage of one brutal policeman: “I can’t eat breakfast if I don’t kill a Pole.”2102 Hrubieszów Kreishauptmann Busse reported that Ukrainian auxiliary policemen were used partly in response to the murders of Ukrainian sołtyses, aid committee men and other social activists. He admitted incidents of police excesses occurred; suggesting formulating more precise orders in the future.2103 Polish reports claimed of the Ukrainian police “raging, killing any Pole who appeared in evicted gminas.”2104 2101 “Fragment sprawozdania kierownika UWZ w Łodzi H. Krumeya z przesiedleń w powiecie zamojskim za kwiecień 1943 – 24 kwietnia 1943” in Zamojszczyzna-Sonderlaboratorium SS… vol. 2, 14-16. 2102 AAN, RGO, sygn. 43, Sprawozdanie z objazdu Delegatur w gminach objętych akcją przesiedleńczą od 13 I. do 15 III. 1943r., pp. 29-31; Zajączkowski, Ukraińskie podziemie..., 115. 2103 IPN, DHF, GK 95/26, Tagebuch: Mai 1943, p. 241. 2104 AAN, RGO, sygn. 42, Notatka z pow. Hrubieszowskiego, April 17, 1943, p. 25. 2105 Puławski, “Sowiecki partyzant – polski problem,” 237; Zajączkowski, Ukraińskie podziemie..., 238. 2106 Motyka, Tak było w Bieszczadach, 172; Hałagida, “Ukraińskie straty ludnościowe w dystrykcie lubelskim...,” 372; Zajączkowski, Ukraińskie podziemie..., 238; Snyder, The Reconstruction of Nations..., 156. The Polish underground closely observed the resettlements. The London government sent instructions urging for counter attacks – subversion, sabotage, and assassinations – to remain contained and localized on territory only directly touched by German resettlements. Mass resistance, it added, would only lead to large-scale massacres; something to be avoided. On January 22, 1943 AK headquarters issued reprisal orders; the primary goal being “harassing opponents and inflicting severe blows through subversive and sabotage activities.”2105 Although there was no specific mention of Ukrainians per se, historians agree that this order served as an impetus for Poles to, in Motyka’s words, “shoot-out Ukrainian sołtyses, agronomists, [Ukrainian aid committee] trusted men, as well as all those deemed harmful to Poland.” Certainly it was much easier for the Polish resistance to execute those they perceived as collaborating Ukrainians than Germans, as this was less likely to bring German pacifications against Polish civilians.2106 Violence erupted in Hrubieszów County where the underground employed organized terror beginning in late January 1943. This began what Zajączkowski termed Polish retaliation to the Ukraineraktion as the underground targeted German colonists and Ukrainians seen as collaborators – primarily auxiliary police men and aid committee representatives directly involved in the resettlement. To halt or at least delay what they saw as the ukrainization of Polish lands, leaflets called on Ukrainians to resist being “murderous tools in German hands.” The role of Ukrainian auxiliary policemen was said to have especially deepened the tragic misunderstanding between Poles and Ukrainians while: Our common enemy is actually Germany who, for their purposes, pit in one area Ukrainians against Poles and in another Poles against Ukrainians, pleased with the mutual conflicts. Our common enemies are all those, Poles as well as Ukrainians, who collaborate with the Germans and aggravate our misunderstandings. Do not believe German promises, because they only sell that which they plundered. In retaliation for perceived collaboration, one leaflet warned: 1. For every Polish village evacuated with the assistance of Ukrainian police or militias, two Ukrainian villages will be immediately burned down 2. For every Pole killed by a Ukrainian, two Ukrainians will be immediately killed.2107 2107 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 25, folder 17, “Do Ludności Ukraińskiej zamieszkałej na terenie pow. Hrubieszowskiego,” April 25, 1943. 2108 Partacz and Łada, Polska wobec ukraińskich dążeń niepodległościowych..., 122. 2109 AAN, RGO, sygn. 37, Notatka w pow. Zamojski, June 19, 1943, p. 89; Partacz and Łada, Polska wobec ukraińskich dążeń niepodległościowych..., 122. 2110 Tekla Liborska, “Tragedia Chełmszczyzny” in Bogdan Huk (ed), Za to że jesteś Ukraińcem... Wspomnienia z lat 1944-1947 (Koszalin-Warszawa-Przemyśl: Stowarzyszenie Ukraińców Więźniów Politycznych i Represjonowanych w Polsce, 2012), 31. 2111 An obituary notice was placed in Krakivs’ki Visti by Voinarovs’kyi’s wife and son, citing that he died tragically. It appreaed toward the end of the number on page 5. Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 4 no. 67 (March 31, 1943). A subsequent obituary was taken out by Colonel Vasyl’ Budzyllo. Krakivs’ki Visti vol. 4 no. 77 (April 13, 1943), 5. Iaroslav Hrynevych described the assassination of Strutyns’kyi. One morning, there was a knock on his door. When Strutyns’kyi asked who was knocking, the reply was “a client” to see the attorney. Upon opening the door, he asked the young man in what matter he came to see him. In response, the assailiant pulled-out a pistol. Strutyns’kyi’s wife began screaming while he pushed the assailant from the door outside. During the scuffle, the assailant shot him and fled. Taken to a local hospital, he died later that day from the gunshot wounds. Iaroslav Hrynevych, “Svastyka nad Kholmshchynoiu” in Ivanyk, Krov ukraїns’ka, krov pol’s’ka…, 159. A Polish RGO report claimed Voinarovs’kyi voluntarily changed his nationality to Ukrainian from the Polish Wojnarowicz. This seems to have been a means by which to legitimize his killing as changing his surname from a Polish to Ukrainian one may have gained him the image of a traitor in the eyes of Poles. However this version is unlikely given the fact that Voinarovs’kyi came from Dnieper Ukraine. AAN, RGO, sygn. 42, Notatka z pow. Hrubieszowskiego, April 17, 1943, p. 25. Indeed, assassinations by Poles targeting Ukrainian civil and social representatives increased during this phase of the resettlements. A Banderite report describing the events of the first half of 1943 clearly stated that Poles organized a strong terror campaign aimed at the conscious Ukrainian intelligentsia who took an active part in either social-political or cultural-educational life.2108 Poles were also targeted by “forest bandits;” either partisans or gangs. Often they fell victim in already colonized villages where they worked for the Volksdeutsche Dorfführer.2109 Based on UTsK reports, victims again included wójts, sołtyses, aid committee workers, trusted men, teachers, agronomists, auxiliary police men, a miller and peasants. Some Ukrainian villagers, such as Tekla Liborska, later recalled that those being killed were guilty; of what she does not specify.2110 For various reasons – in response to the ukrainization of parts of Hrubieszów County or to the creation of a self-defense legion – the Polish underground eliminated one of the legion’s founders, Colonel Iakiv Halchevs’kyi-Voinarovs’kyi, and aid committee head Mykola Strutyns’kyi.2111 Strutyns’kyi’s funeral was a manifestation of Ukrainian solidarity in Hrubieszów. Kubiiovych was one of the many who eulogized the slain committee head from the balcony of the aid committee building. The Chełm self-defense legion guarded the funeral while Ukrainians lined the processional route with flowers and singing religious or patriotic songs.2112 2112 Hrynevych, “Svastyka nad Kholmshchynoiu” in Ivanyk, Krov ukraїns’ka, krov pol’s’ka…, 159-160; Iurii Strutyns’kyi, “Pro moho batka, Mykolu Strutyns’koho” in Ivanyk, Krov ukraїns’ka, krov pol’s’ka…, 165. 2113 Pasternak, Narys istorii Kholmshchyny i Pidliashshia, 274; Ziętek, “Konflikt polsko-ukraiński na Chełmszczyźnie...,” 266. Even though this incident of local peace talks in Hrubieszów County appeared in several Ukrainian memoirs, Igor Hałagida skeptically criticized the legitimacy of the recollections; suggesting further archival research is necessary to attest the validity of the event. 2114 Sowa, Stosunki polsko-ukraińskie..., 159; Torzecki, Polacy i Ukraińcy..., 289-290fn128. 2115 AAN, DRRPK, sygn. 202/III/11, Sprawozdanie za okres 15 III – 15 VII 1943: Sprawy narodowościowe, p. 6. 2116 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 17, folder 24, Protokol iz zasidannia kermanychiv v spravakh kholms’ko-pidlias’kykh, June 19, 1943. 2117 AAN, AK, sygn. 203/XV/45, Rozmowa z Kubanem, March 21, 1943, p. 152. Ironically, those assassinations came after talks were held between Poles and Ukrainians in efforts to cease ethnic tensions; what some historians saw as the last chance to avoid an open Polish-Ukrainian conflict. Conscious of rising ethnic tensions, the Ukrainians initiated the talks, meeting with Polish RGO aid committee men. Both sides promised to “stand down.” However, this truce lasted only several days; the eliminations of the two men in Hrubieszów ultimately put to rest any illusions of ethnic peace.2113 In addition, among the various Ukrainian and Polish civil administrators and activists killed was prewar senator Ivan Pasternak in Biała Podlaska.2114 A Polish government delegate report categorized the murders as retaliation for the involvement of Ukrainian civic representatives in the SS resettlements. More importantly, it summarized the effects of these and the killings of other, less prominent civic leaders: “… the murders are not stopping and with them comes a sharp foment in Polish-Ukrainian relations.”2115 Holeiko also conveyed the gravity of the situation, claiming Ukrainians in Hrubieszów County were on the offensive while an ethnic war loomed over the district.2116 At his March meeting with Żuławski in Lwów, Kubiiovych also raised the issue of the murders. He claimed that such actions pushed Poles and Ukrainians away from talks or rapprochement and only increased ethnic antagonisms. He claimed the cause of the killings lay in the fact that the Germans allowed Ukrainians more time before resettling them. Kubiiovych saw this as the reason for Poles viewing Ukrainians as the cause of their expulsion. Concerning territory, Żuławski reported he did not question Polish rights toward the Chełm and Podlasie regions; in turn placing the Ukrainian card on Eastern Galicia.2117 Such a position went against Kubiiovych’s academic research into the Ukrainian aspects of that region as well as UTsK work in raising the level of national consciousness there. It is plausible to believe that his position aimed to convince the AK of Ukrainian willingness to rescind claims to the region as a means for the Home Army to order a stop to the killings of Ukrainian aid committee men and social activists in the region. During this phase of resettlements and pacifications, a total of 313 Ukrainians were killed with 4 gravely wounded. Out of that total, 95 perished at the hands of the Germans in collective pacifications. The remainder were most likely killed by various combinations of Polish underground insurgent formations in Zamość and Hrubieszów counties. Additionally, some 129 Ukrainians were arrested; 100 of which were sent to concentration camps.2118 Kubiiovych and district UTsK representatives lobbied local authorities on numerous occasions to free those unjustly confined. Regardless of the number of murders, the UTsK apparatus, and Ukrainians in general, had good reasons to be concerned in the district as the Polish organized underground – the AK and BCh – were strong enough to threaten their position.2119 2118 Hałagida, “Ukraińskie straty ludnościowe w dystrykcie lubelskim...,” 374-375. 2119 Ziętek, “Konflikt polsko-ukraiński na Chełmszczyźnie...,” 264. 2120 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 24, folder 4, Kholmshchane i Pidliashane! Ukraїntsi vsikh viroispovidan’!, February 1943. 2121 Ibid, Zvit z poїzdky do Liublyna, March 4, 1943. 2122 AAN, RGO, sygn. 1030, Zarząd Gminy Turka, pow. Cholm Do Pana Sołtysów gminy Turka, February 27, 1943, pp. 1-3. On the backdrop of resettlements and open hostility caused by them, the UTsK worked on compiling statistical data for the March 1943 GG census. Posters were prepared calling on Ukrainians to identify themselves as such. Specific attention was given to Roman Catholic Ukrainians. One poster read: You changed your religion but your blood, hearts, thoughts and love to your native land will always remain Ukrainian. The Roman Catholic religion does not equate to belonging to the Polish nation, because other nationalities are Roman Catholics, for example Germans, Italians, Lithuanians, Belarusians… Kholmshchane and Pidliashane! Think and decide! Your future and the fate of our Kholm-Pidliashia lands depends on the way you declare yourselves. Do not allow yourselves to be swallowed-up by enemy propaganda! Do not listen to false or malicious fallacies!2120 Like in the Galicia District, so too in the Lublin one were Ukrainian aid committee or trusted men used as official census counters in ethnically-mixed areas; this coming following an official decree by Zörner. This meant Polish sołtyses were forced to conduct censuses in their alongside Ukrainian counters; something which only exacerbated antagonisms between the two groups. An UTsK note described the authority’s use of Ukrainian counters to be purely objective.2121 However, Poles saw it differently. For example, in the Turka gmina of Chełm County, the Polish sołtys described increased agitation by Ukrainian aid committee representatives as well as members of the local intelligentsia – teachers and priests. Documents were provided attesting to Ukrainian nationality; those who opposed accepting them were threatened with deportation. He claimed of incidents in which the counters did not permit him to look at data collected while in some cases, records did not correspond with statements made by those questioned. This caused ethnic conflicts in which the SD was at times forced to intervene. In some villages, Orthodox inhabitants were automatically classified as Ukrainian.2122 Poles turned to the RGO with complaints and grievances of inaccuracies and fraud. Local RGO branches in turn submitted corrections to German administrators, noting of Ukrainian fabrications.2123 Zörner described the census as generally conducted in an orderly fashion. Concerning Chełm County, he claimed incidents between Poles and Ukrainians contributed to a mutual falsification of the data and demanded further investigation.2124 2123 Ibid, Polski Komitet Opiekuńczy w Chełmie do RGO w Krakowie, March 17, 1943, pp. 9-10. 2124 AIPH, PJB, GK 196/255, Auswirkungens der Umsiedlung im Kreis Zamosc, february 24, 1943, p. 240. 2125 HIA, MSZ, 800/42, box 68 folder 10, Stosunki Polsko-Ukraińskie w kraju, October 17, 1943. 2126 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 24, folder 4, Zvit z poїzdky do Liublina v dniakh 24 i 25 liutoho 1943, 4 March 1943. 2127 Ibid. 2128 Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Heneralnii Huberniї, 406-407. 2129 Grzegorz Jacek Pelica, “Kościoł chełmsko-wołyński (Walki polsko-ukraińskie na ziemiach lewostronnego Nadbuża w latach czterdziestych XX wieku),” Rocznik Chełmski vol. 5 (1999), 234-235. With unrest mounting in the region, Kubiiovych and the UTsK did not forget the kalakut question either. Just as some Poles identified as Ukrainian to avoid resettlement, a similar phenomenon appeared among the kalakuts. Reports drew attention to fear among them, seeking to identify themselves as Polish to avoid terrorization. One report compiled by the Polish exile foreign ministry noted that the Belarusian-Ukrainian conflict, along with inhabitants disdain toward the Germans, created a situation in which their attitude toward Poland became more favorable.2125 In a note describing census progress, Holeiko concertedly stated: “we must reckon with the fact that the decided majority of kalakuts declare themselves as Poles.” He added that after speaking with low-level delegates, even those Catholics who spoke Ukrainian and were in close contact with aid committees declared themselves as Poles. This, he claimed, stemmed from the influence of Polish Catholic clergy.2126 German security authorities also denounced Ukrainian efforts to nationalize kalakuts. Lublin’s SD chief noted that in peacetime, this would pose no problem. However, given the resettlement Aktion, it only caused them to declare themselves Ukrainian to prevent being expelled. Worst of all, he claimed the aid committee in Hrubieszów profiting from this since it sold them documents attesting to their self-assumed Ukrainian identity.2127 Kubiiovych assessed the overall kalakut question as one of theory with little practical results. Aside from sending children to Ukrainian schools or taking part in some organized events, he stated that they reacted passively to ukrainization. He admitted the weak position of organized Ukrainian life in the Biała Podlaska region combined with the exodus of nationally conscious elements and a severe lack of trained cadres to replace them as detrimental: “We did not lack idea but, unfortunately, we lacked executors.” To completely nationalize, he noted the kalakuty demanded from him and the Central Committee that everything Polish would not return to those territories again.2128 Without such a guarantee, they were open to claim Ukrainian ethnicity in order to avoid German anti-Polish oppression and to benefit from the Ukrainians more privileged position while also able to claim Polish ethnicity to avoid any repressions by Polish partisans or later, from the Soviet army.2129 GG civil authorities closely observed the work of the SS and social reactions. At this time, both Poles and Ukrainians saw themselves next in line for extermination as resettlement and forced expulsion resembled steps toward the ultimate Jewish fate. One aid committee note to the district SD even surmised that if these feelings remained, Ukrainians, like Poles, would flee to the forests and join partisan or bandit gangs.2130 In some cases, Poles aided Ukrainian settlers and vice versa while others, out of fear, fled their new farms, destroying crops and livestock.2131 Indeed, Frank was correct in saying that SS methods created a “chaotic situation” and “indescribable panic” when he wrote to Hitler. Reporting on crop and harvest destructions, Bühler deemed it necessary to subsidize farmers, suggesting funds be allocated to supply farms with livestock for upcoming harvests to replace what was destroyed.2132 The drop in agricultural productivity also concerned Zörner. Even though for political reasons the Ukrainians were treated better than their Polish counterparts, he constantly feared insecurity could lead to a possible rapprochement between the two. Avoiding this, he noted, lay in the interest of the occupiers.2133 Lublin SD chief Helmut Müller best captured the occupier’s systematic and controlled divide et impera approach and consequences in directly enflaming ethnic antagonisms: “…the security police deliberately interjected itself into the ethnic battle between Ukrainians and Poles.”2134 2130 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 25, folder 5, Ukrainische Hauptausschuss Lublin note to Lublin District SD Chief Turm, December 28, 1942. 2131 Sowa, Stosunki polsko-ukraińskie 1939-1947, 160; Winstone, The Dark Heart of Hitler’s Europe..., 197. 2132 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/25, Tagebuch 1943: Januar bis April, pp. 116-117; “Pismo generalnego gubernatora GG do Führera w sprawie zakresu kompetencji administracji GG i RKFDV – 25 maja 1943” in Sonderlaboratorium SS… vol. 2, 66-70. 2133 AIPN, PJB, GK 196/255, Zörner note to Bühler re: Effects of Resettlement in Zamość County, February 24, 1943, pp. 259-260. 2134 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/26, Tagebuch 1943: Mai, p. 241. 2135 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/25, Tagebuch 1943: Januar bis April, p. 117. Although Frank questioned the advisability of conducting mass resettlements given the unsettled situation, he reminded officials that it was the wish of the Führer for the GG to be Germanized and warned of judging the project from the standpoint of “benefits and losses.” To arguments of resettlement harming future agricultural harvests, he replied that new German settlers would produce better, more bountiful yields.2135 However, his timidity reflected both, his ambiguous attitude toward Germanization as well as the weakness of his position. Frank’s old foes – Himmler, Bormann and Lammers – compiled a 100-page dossier listing his failings, including misappropriations and personal plunder. According to Housden, the investigation was key to Himmler by-passing the general governor from interfering in his resettlement project. Frank defended himself as a man who stood for justice in the face of SS injustice. During his university speaking tour in Berlin, Munich, Heidelberg and Vienna, he defended his rule of law: “a nation does not allow itself to be governed by force… The German nation lives freely by virtue of its law and can never be compelled to become a Volksgemeinschaft by force.” Frank remained adamant – there could be no New European Order without law and order.2136 Even though his case underwent a scrupulous investigation, he ultimately lived to govern another day as Hitler gave him another chance.2137 2136 Housden, Hans Frank…, 171-172; Höhne, The Order of the Death’s Head, 319-323. 2137 Winstone, The Dark Heart of Hitler’s Europe…, 197-198; Housden, Hans Frank, Lebensraum and the Holocaust, 188; Mazowe, Hitler’s Empire…, 252-254. 2138 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/25, Tagebuch 1943: Januar bis April, pp. 218-220. As a token of appreciation for his service to the Führer, Reich and GG, Frank presented the outgoing Zörner with a special framed photograph. 2139 Musiał, Deutsche Zivilverwaltung…, 398. Wendler’s sister Mathilde married the brother of Heinrich Himmler, Gebhard Ludwig Himmler in 1926; making the two brother-in-laws. 2140 “Fragment sprawozdania sytuacyjnego kierownika UWZ w Łodzi H. Krumeya za maj 1943 dotyczący stanu osiedlenia i zagospodarowania powiatu hrubieszowskiego przez Ukraińców” in Zamojszczyzna-Sonderlaboratorium SS… vol. 2, 73. 2141 Sachslehner, Zarządca do spraw śmierci..., 273-275. The area of the forests near Parczewno number some 136 km2. 2142 AAN, RGO, sygn. 37, Notatka o okręgu Lubelskim, July 26, 1943, p. 93. Zörner was not so fortunate. With mounting pressure from above combined with his own frustrations, he resigned his post on April 10, 1943. Frank showered him with a farewell eulogy in which he praised his work and commitment toward maintaining law and order.2138 Warsaw governor Fischer served as interim governor before Frank nominated the Austria-born, German educated Nazi Richard Wendler as Zörner’s successor. His credentials as an administrator were certainly impressive: municipal commissioner in Kielce, Stadthauptmann of Częstochowa (where he ordered the creation of a ghetto) and Radom, governor of the Kraków District. Originally an SA-man, he joined the SS and rose to the position of Gruppenführer and Generaleutnant of the police.2139 Insecurity and resistance made it easier for the SS to justify resuming expulsions and pacifications. Beginning in the spring, they launched a counteroffensive in the eastern parts of the district. Krumey noted that “combing-out” Aktions did not include Hrubieszów County to avoid jeopardizing spring farming there.2140 Code-named Operation Ostersegen (“Easter Blessing”), on April 22 some 1,630 order policemen began a concentrated assault on the forests near Parczewo, a provincial town northeast of Lublin. Combating Jewish and Soviet partisans, the police battalion killed hundreds of Jews over a two-day period. However, they were unable to completely eliminate the threat. Several months later, in Operation Nachpfingsten (“After Pentecost” – June 23-July 4), order police units again returned to the forests and again were unsuccessful.2141 Further bandit pacification and resettlement was combined in Globocnik’s largest operations to date – Wehrwolf I and Wehrwolf II – which lasting from June to August in the southern and western counties. In general, Poles deemed as bandit sympathizers, meaning any and every one, were targeted for pacification and expulsion.2142 Concerning Ukrainians, Globocnik planned to move those remaining in Zamość to the southern parts of that county, areas considered ethnographically Ukrainian, as well as to parts of neighboring Biłgoraj County. However, lacking enough villagers for settlement, he also ordered the movement of some one thousand Ukrainian families from Hrubieszów County west; so as to fully create the planned Ukrainian wall to protect German colonies and settlements from attacks. As he saw it: “through such settlement, Ukrainians, not Poles, will become a defensive strength and live in a constant state of restlessness.”2143 2143 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 17, folder 24, Zahal’nyi zvit pro perebih pereselenchoï aktsiï v chastyni Zamis’koho povitu, August 17, 1943; “Notatka dowódcy SS i policji w dystrykcie lubelskim O. Globocnika do osobistego sztabu Reichsführera SS określająca założenia akcji Wehrwolf I – 1 lipca 1943” in Zamojszczyzna-Sonderlaboratorium SS… vol. 2, 91. 2144 Okupacja i ruch oporu... vol. 2, 359-360. 2145 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 20, folder 25, Note concerning Polish-Ukrainian resettlements, 1943. 2146 Ronikier, Pamiętniki 1939-1945, 253-254. 2147 AAN, RGO, sygn. 37, Pacyfikacja w części byłego powiatu Nisko, 1943, p. 71; Untitled report of resettlements and pacifications in Lublin District, 1943, p. 105; Relacje z pow. Krasnystaw, p. 106. 2148 Wardyńska, Formacja Wachmannschaften..., 29-30. 2149 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 17, folder 24, Zahal’nyi zvit pro perebih pereselenchoï aktsiï v chastyni Zamis’koho povitu, August 17, 1943. Himmler hedged much hope in the Aktion finally Germanizing Zamość County. Even though he naively claimed all operations would be conducted without disturbing regional security, he expressed no reservations in the inevitability of dealing with difficulties. Concerning ethnic questions, he envisioned acts of revenge by those expelled to be directed against Polish or Ukrainian settlers, urging: “We must strive toward ethnically mixing villages in which Poles and Ukrainians from Zamość County are to be settled in such a way so we can achieve a balance between [them], then it will be easier for us to conquer them.”2144 For his part, Kubiiovych hoped that this phase of the resettlements would remove threats to Ukrainian settlers and finally clarify Polish-Ukrainian territorial disputes. In his opinion, those Poles in Biłgoraj County slated for expulsion – described as an “anti-German population cooperating with gangs” – were to “make room for Ukrainians.”2145 In comparison, Ronikier petitioned civil authorities to cease pacifications collectively affecting Polish farmers, arguing that the overwhelming majority were anti-communist, deeply religious conservatives who only sought to peacefully till and harvest their fields. In his words, any support bandits received from them came by way of armed threats, not from personal conviction.2146 Pacifications and resettlements resembled a common scenario. Designated villages were surrounded, sometimes at night, from all sides by heavily armed German units which opened fire on those attempting to flee; seen either as bandits or bandit sympathizers. Survivors were identified and placed on transports to either transit or concentration camps. Often, men fled to the forests; leaving women, children and the elderly behind for expulsion.2147 A slew of German forces were used during the operations – gendarmes, SS units, the Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe as well as non-German auxiliary formations including the SS-ukrainische Wachmannschaften; the latter used during pacifications as well as for guard duty after German units vacated villages or regions.2148 The SS even ordered the Tomaszów Lubelski aid committee head to round-up 100 men to be dispersed throughout villages in Biłgoraj County. There, they were charged with requisitioning livestock left-behind by expelled Poles for incoming Germans.2149 Through the operations, Globocnik succeeded in systematically clearing out some 171 villages; as compared to only 116 from November 1942 to March 1943. A final report however concluded it too difficult to determine the actual number of Ukrainians and Poles resettled as they often fled their new settlements in fear of reprisals by those expelled.2150 Apart from those remaining in Zamość, included in the resettlement were also landless Ukrainians from parts of Eastern Galicia; at least some 250 families. As one report indicated, one settler family often received several former Polish farms to oversee and harvest. For example, in a village outside of Tomaszów Lubelski, 13 Polish farms were amassed to form 4 new Ukrainian ones.2151 Klukowski recalled seeing Ukrainians rounded-up for resettlement from a Polish-majority region: “This morning all Ukrainians were moved from Szczebrzeszyn and other villages to Tarnogród. This was done in a completely different manner from the evacuation of the Poles. Each Ukrainian received a horse-drawn wagon and was allowed to take as much of the household as he or she wished. This was an official action. Anyone registered as Ukrainian had to go.”2152 2150 “Wykaz wsi osiedlonych przez Niemców w powiatach: zamojskim, hrubieszowskim, biłgorajskim i tomaszowskim – sierpień 1943” in Zamojszczyzna-Sonderlaboratorium SS vol. 2, 197. 2151 AAN, RGO, sygn. 37, Notatka o okręgu Lubelskim, July 26, 1943, p. 93; sygn. 43, Gmina Majdan Sopocki – Sytuacja obecna, n.d., p. 99. 2152 Klukowski, Diary from the Years of Occupation 1939-44, 272. 2153 AAN, RGO, sygn. 43, Notatka z okręgu Tomaszowskiego, August 1943, p. 77; Veryha, The Correspondence..., 1011-1012. 2154 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 26, folder 36, Oleh Kulyniak note to Lublin SD, July 9, 1943. 2155 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 17, folder 24, Zahal’nyi zvit pro perebih pereselenchoï aktsiï v chastyni Zamis’koho povitu, August 17, 1943. 2156 AAN, German microfilm collection, M-531, Der Kreishauptmann in Zamosc – Umsiedlung von Polen und Ukrainern, October 15, 1943, p. 63. In some cases, local Ukrainian aid committees conducted resettlements on their own accord. Only after several days, when German officials arrived to inspect areas were those Ukrainians forced back to where they came from. Aid committees recommended Polish villages for eviction, claiming they were either bandit nests or villages lying on Ukrainian settlement areas preventing the creation of a mono-ethnic area.2153 Some aid committee men lobbied SD officials to remove purported Polish bandit supporters from among ethnically-mixed villages. One report named two such Poles to be removed “in accordance with the bandit counter action and the building of a closed Ukrainian settlement area.”2154 The haste and ill-preparedness of the operation appeared in UTsK field reports. Due to the short-notice of moves, Ukrainians were only allowed to pack-up personal belongings, bedding and kitchen utensils; livestock was left-behind for Volksdeutsche colonists. Some Ukrainians were moved without aid committee knowledge. Furthermore, Ukrainians were settled into villages partially cleared of Poles; often the majority avoided expulsion by fleeing to nearby forests. Arriving in such villages or ones not cleared at all, Ukrainians were forced to settle in barns or sleep in the open air.2155 The Zamość Kreishauptmann proposed moving such farmless Ukrainian settlers to Hrubieszów from which more German settlers were expected to be moved into Zamość.2156 Even though one UTsK note claimed that ideally, the Ukrainian majority was to use the Polish minority in ethnically-mixed areas as an agricultural labor source, it presented a more realistic effect of resettlement: “…supported by bandits from the forest, the Poles will completely terrorize the Ukrainians to such a degree that they’ll be the Poles’ laborers who won’t eat their own bread or it will lead to a mutual massacre in which the Poles will destroy the Ukrainians.” However, this was not always the case. Instances appeared in which Polish peasants returned to their farms settled by Ukrainians and worked with them.2157 Uninformed of plans to move Ukrainians, aid committees were unable to offer proper assistance during the process. This, in conjunction with Ukrainians being moved out of Hrubieszów County, tarnished the deutschfreundlich image between the occupiers and UTsK while keeping Ukrainians in a state of uncertainty and fear. To further cause doubt among Ukrainians, Polish propaganda spread rumors claiming the UTsK managed entire resettlements with the Germans simply approving them.2158 2157 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 24, folder 6, Zvit iz poїzdky po Kholmshchyni, August 31, 1943; AAN, RGO, sygn. 43, Gmina Pasieki – Sytuacja obecna, n.d., p. 95. 2158 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 20, folder 25, Note concerning Polish-Ukrainian resettlements, 1943; Vrazhinnia z aktsiї pereselennia na Kholmshchyni, 1943. 2159 “Artykuł w czasopiśmie konspiracyjnym AK Biuletyn Informacyjny o przebiegu akcji pacyfikacyjno-wysiedleńczej na Zamojszczyźnie w lecie – 29 lipca 1943” in Zamojszczyzna-Sonderlaboratorium SS vol. 2, 129. 2160 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 17, folder 24, Zahal’nyi zvit pro perebih pereselenchoï aktsiï v chastyni Zamis’koho povitu, August 17, 1943. 2161 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 20, folder 25, Aktenvermerk – Betrifft: Aussiedlungen in dem Distrikt Lublin, July 13, 1943. Ukrainians settled in the southern portions of Zamość and Biłgoraj counties were exposed to attacks as German protection waned. For the SS, their vision of Polish revenge unloading itself on Ukrainian settlers was coming to fruition. In efforts to prevent enflaming the ethnic conflict, one issue of the AK’s Biuletyn Informacyjny appealed to differentiate between those who collaborated with the Germans – “the unbridled and hated Ukrainian police approving of rape and plunder” – from the general populace which was “equally afflicted by German persecution as our people” before taking revenge.2159 However, by this time, such cautious warnings bypassed what was actually happening in the field. Poles who avoided expulsion by fleeing to nearby forests returned to their farms and took revenge on Ukrainian settlers who they regarded as the initiators and culprits of their misfortune. In these instances, Ukrainians often simply fled back from where they came.2160 Kubiiovych expressed his concern and dismay over the fact that Ukrainians were being moved into ethnically-mixed, partially cleared villages. He was conscious of what this entailed – a deterioration in Polish-Ukrainian relations and increased violence. As he argued, Ukrainians were heretofore exposed to “Polish chauvinism” and victims of gang terror.2161 His personal intervention with district civil administrators proved fruitless. Observing the situation, the Banderites called on their men in the field to inform Ukrainians to return to homes on their fatherland, Eastern Galicia. This included, first and foremost, exposed agents who could be threatened by Poles. They also called on villagers to take-up arms and join the ranks of the UPA to either “actively defend themselves” and the Kholmshchyna or “peacefully die from the German or liakh bullet.”2162 Based on UTsK documents, the number of those murdered by non-Germans over the three-month period of the Wehrwolf Aktion – 81 – occurred primarily in three counties: Biłgoraj, Chełm and Hrubieszów.2163 2162 Motyka, Ukraińska partyzantka, 395; Serhiichuk, Trahediia ukraїntsiv Pol’shchi, 51. 2163 Hałagida, “Ukraińskie straty ludnościowe w dystrykcie lubelskim...,” 376-377; 380. 2164 “Pismo doradcy RGO na okręg lubelski A. Skrzyńskiego do gubernatora dystryktu lubelskiego w sprawie pacyfikacji wsi Wirkowice w powiece zamojskim przez oddział SS” in Zamojszczyzna-Sonderlaboratorium SS vol. 2, 157. 2165 “Sprawozdanie sytuacyjne starosty powiatowego w Biłgoraju za lipiec 1943 dla gubernatora dystryktu lubelskiego – 5 sierpnia 1943” in Zamojszczyzna-Sonderlaboratorium SS vol. 2, 148-149; IPN, DHF, GK 95/28, Tagebuch 1943: Juli bis August, p. 128. 2166 AAN, RGO, sygn. 37, Notatka o okręgu Lubelskim, July 26, 1943, p. 93. 2167 Ibid, sygn. 43, Untitled report of resettlements and pacifications in Lublin District, August 1943, p. 60. Instability and insecurity brought further drops in harvest production. Delays in crop collection stemmed not only from population shifts and outright fear to remain on confiscated farms but also from the fact that fields were never properly measured and delineated to their new peasant tenants who did not know where to harvest. Farmers warned officials of increased threats of partisan activity which could lead to crop destruction, demanding armed security during harvesting. An RGO representative noted that bandit attacks made farming difficult for both Ukrainians and Poles.2164 Frank cynically commented the situation: “You have to admit that it was crazy to evacuate villages during the harvest [season].”2165 Ukrainian auxiliary policemen were used as an additional source of manpower during expulsions or to patrol villages from which German police withdrew, further enflaming ethnic antagonisms. One RGO note described: Aktions were carried out by SS units with the participation of the 2nd Wehrmacht division and the Ukrainian police. Currently, only the Ukrainian police remains in the territory – at least in Biłgoraj County – expelling the remaining inhabitants from villages encompassed in the Aktion, capturing evacuees. During the latter, murders occur and even alleged scalping.2166 Policemen brought in from Eastern Galicia were often assigned the “dirty work” by their German superiors – rounding-up and capturing Poles remaining in evacuated villages only to place them on transports to transit or concentration camps. Instances of excesses were common: “Given the opportunity, the Ukrainian policemen are using their presence to spread terror and murder those apprehended.”2167 They were reportedly indiscriminately shooting at Poles not yet removed from villages or returning to them. In Biała Podlaska County, they assisted the Germans in pacifying villages in which some 183 Poles perished. The Germans even used Ukrainian auxiliary policemen and Polish-Ukrainian ethnic antagonisms as blackmail against Poles outside the district. During the pacification of counties in parts of the Radom district bordering the Lublin one for example, the Germans threatened to unleash the Ukrainian policemen – described as “capable of revenge for the previous pacifications conducted by Polish factors on Ukrainians” – on villages if sołtyses and wójts failed to completely reach harvest quotas.2168 The Lublin Roman Catholic vicar general called on Wendler to curtail lawless Ukrainian murders of unarmed Poles: “the hitherto impunity of Ukrainian actions conveys among Poles the conviction of deliberate tolerance by the German authorities of this state of affairs.”2169 2168 Ibid, sygn. 42, RGO Biłgoraj note to RGO Lublin, August 27, 1943, p. 31; sygn. 37, Notatka o okręgu Radomskim, July 26, 1943, p. 111; Koshel’nyk, “Pol’s’ko-ukraїns’kyi konflikt na Kholmshchyni v rokakh druhoї svitovoї viiny,” 458. 2169 “Fragment Informacji bieżącej nr. 32(105) zawierający treść memoriału wikariusza generalnego diecezji lubelskiej do gubernatora dystryktu lubelskiego w sprawie terroru niemieckiego” in Zamojszczyzna-Sonderlaboratorium SS vol. 2, 168. 2170 Klukowski, Diary from the Years of Occupation 1939-44, 258-259; 280; 286-287. Klukowski decribed Germanization in Zamość and Szczebrzeszyn. Concerning the former, he wrote: “On the streets most people are Germans… Children run carrying swastikas’.” 2171 AIPN, PJB, GK 196/255, Vermerk, July 1, 1943, pp. 115-116. 2172 AAN, RGO, sygn. 37, Notatka – Dalsze uzupełnienia wiadomości o akcji pacyfikacyjno-wysiedleńczej, August 9, 1943, p. 95; “Fragment informacji w czasopiśmie konspiracyjnym CKRL Wieś-AL o spadku nasilenia akcji pacyfikacyjnej i o aktualnej sytuacji na Zamojszczyźnie – 3 sierpnia 1943” in Zamojszczyzna-Sonderlaboratorium SS vol. 2, 140. 2173 AAN, RGO, sygn. 43, Biłgoraj report, Septeber 3, 1943, p. 87. 2174 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 24, folder 6, Zvit iz poїzdky po Kholmshchyni, August 31, 1943; volume 24 folder 5, Bericht über die Tätigkeit des Beraters des Ukrainischen Hauptausschusses beim Gouverneur des Distrikts Lublin und über die Lage der ukrainische Bevölkerung, December 9, 1943. 2175 Iliuszyn, UPA i AK..., 101-102. The Wehrwolf operations did not achieve the successes imagined. Although some cities, such as Zamość or Szczebrzeszyn, were somewhat Germanized, the countryside was in no way safe for settlers.2170 Globocnik’s security report, although heavily embellished to present a stable and successful image to Himmler, gave a look into the Ukrainian aspect of the operation. He noted they received space to the north and south of forests in Biłgoraj County. This, he added, caused a shift in the Poles state of hostility, from Germans to Ukrainians.2171 In this case, he was correct since many Ukrainians and Volksdeutsche were reluctant to assume farms in fear of the forest people. Many fled either before or after attacks.2172 Some settlers even plundered what was left behind by expelled Poles before fleeing.2173 One UTsK field report tersely stated: “In my opinion, neither the resettlement nor pacification actions were conducted according to plan and did not benefit either the Germans or Ukrainians.” Holeiko interpreted this in another way, writing: “The entire resettlement Aktion ended with 6,000 people resettled to Biłgoraj County – 4,000 fled back to their previous homes.”2174 In losing the countryside and retreating to larger cities, the Germans created a vacuum rife for ethnic violence. One question plaguing the Polish-Ukrainian conflict in the Lublin District is whether anti-Ukrainian events there prompted the OUN-UPA anti-Polish massacres in Volhynia. This remains a source of contention among Ukrainian and Polish historians. Without question the Banderites were aware of the German resettlements and effects of them.2175 Postwar Ukrainian memoirs often credited the Volhynia massacres as the direct reaction to the anti-Ukrainian violence in the Lublin District. This position was maintained by many Ukrainian historians, especially those sympathetic to the Banderites and UPA.2176 The Polish position, on the other hand, viewed the murders of Ukrainian social activists, auxiliary policemen or Orthodox priests as a response to their collaboration with the German occupier.2177 A certain voice in this delicate debate can be ascertained from UTsK documents and data. 2176 For example: Anatolii Prachuk, Kholmshchyna: ukraїns’ka trahedia. Do pytannia pro pols’ko-ukraїns’ki konflikty (Lutsk: Nadstyr’ia, 2011), 24; Makar, Kholmshchyna i Pidliashshia..., 40-41; V’iatrovych, Druha pol’s’ko-ukraїns’ka viina, 94-98. 2177 For example: Motyka, Tak było Bieszczadach..., 147. 2178 Hałagida, “Ukraińskie straty ludnościowe w dystrykcie lubelskim...,” 369. 2179 PAA, MCF, 85.191, box 6 file 59, Erläuterungen über die Verfälle im Kreis Hrubieschow, die im Laufe der Jahre, Mitte 1942 bis 21 März 1944 ihr Platz gehabt haben, n.d. 2180 Hałagida, “Ukraińskie straty ludnościowe w dystrykcie lubelskim...,” 379-380. Based on official UTsK documents which kept the best, albeit incomplete, tally of district violence victims – German pacifications, partisan or bandit attacks, resettlements and anti-partisan operations – a relatively small number of Ukrainians perished from Polish hands in 1942 – 382. The overwhelming majority – 316 – perished either by German or German-sponsored (Polish and Ukrainian auxiliary police) hands during pacifications in response to partisan or bandit raids; particularly during the second half of the year. Furthermore, at least 290 Ukrainians were arrested and sent to concentration camps by German and auxiliary police units.2178 It is then no surprise that an UTsK German-language report detailing events in Hrubieszów County described the killing of 12 Ukrainian civil servants in July 1942 as such: “This phenomenon has not yet had a mass character but it has caused great excitement in the Ukrainian community precisely because respected people were killed.”2179 For 1943, a total of 616 Ukrainians perished at the hands of non-Germans. Between January and May, 222 Ukrainians were recorded killed while from June to December 394 died. To the overall total can be added 129 Ukrainians who perished that year. However, the place and date of their deaths is unknown. The most victims came from Hrubieszów (352) and Zamość (149) counties. The main problem Hałagida called attention to is the difficulty in definitively assigning blame to the appropriate parties; surmising that they perished at the hands of the Polish underground. Simultaneously, throughout 1943, a total of 127 Ukrainians perished at the hands of Germans and Polish or Ukrainian auxiliary police units. The majority – 95 – died between January and May. The numbers subside over the remaining period; likely due to the increase in underground activity following the Germans abandoning further resettlements. Between non-German and German casualties, a total of 743 – 872 Ukrainians perished. In addition to this, 216 Ukrainians were arrested during that year; the majority of which (186) during major German Aktions of the first half of the year. Out of this figure, 125 landed in concentration camps where at least 22 died.2180 Although these findings are not final and incomplete, the data provides a tangible yet varied image into perpetrators and victims in the district. Anti-Ukrainian incidents in the district between 1942 and 1943 did not have a mass character. As anti-Polish attacks and killings began in eastern Volhynia in April, in the Lublin District Ukrainians killed between January and May (313) perished by German and Polish hands. In comparison, in eastern Volhynia between March and April, some 7 thousand men, women and children were killed by the UPA in the first days of attacks. During the bloody Holy Week massacres there, 600 Poles alone perished in an attack on the Janowa Dolina colony. Snyder described UPA operations in Volhynia as “coordinated attacks by armed men upon a leaderless and disorganized minority population.” Conversely, in the Lublin District, attacks were coordinated overwhelmingly against those deemed to be German collaborators – Ukrainian civic activists and auxiliary policemen. While during the summer of 1943, especially in July when Polish massacres in Volhynia took on a larger scale, anti-Ukrainian violence in the Lublin district during that same period was an inconsistent tendency. In June alone only 16 Ukrainians were killed by non-Germans.2181 The disproportionate figures suggest that anti-Polish violence in Volhynia began while anti-Ukrainian violence in the Lublin district was isolated and by and large a response to population movements onto ethnically-contested territory by the German occupiers. 2181 Ibid, 376; Snyder, “The Causes of Ukrainian-Polish Ethnic Cleansing 1943,” 220-221; Motyka, Ukraińska partyzantka, 316-317. 2182 Panas Khurtovyna, Pid nebom Volyni (Winnipeg: The Christian Press, 1952). These memoirs were in fact written by Mykhailo Podvorniak, a Ukrainian Baptist. 2183 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 27, folder 8, Proiekt deklaratsiї UTsK v spravi deiakykh podii na tereni Halychyny, February 20, 1944. However, anti-Ukrainian violence in Lublin was exploited by the Banderites as anti-Polish propaganda to justify their ethnic cleansing and anti-Polish attacks. Information of incidents from the winter and spring of 1943 did appear in the Ukrainian-language press in Lwów and in Volhynian memoirs. One Volhynian Ukrainian recalled: We also received information that on Ukrainian land across the Bug [River], on the so-called General Government, Polish partisans frightfully persecute our people. This information was always true. It’s understood that the German hand was in all of this, to lead both enslaved nations to mutual combat.2182 Kubiiovych also made mention of anti-Ukrainian excesses in his response to events in Eastern Galicia. He condemned anti-Polish violence yet laid the blame for it as stemming from Polish “bandits” in the Lublin District: Polish terrorist organizations in the Chełm region, beginning in the spring of 1942, applied mass social and individual terror, murdering about 1,000 Ukrainians in the Chełm and Podlasie regions. Such blind politics of some chauvinistic Polish circles poisoned Polish-Ukrainian relations at all levels. We do not know what position responsible Poles have taken to these murders, but the fact that no one from among Polish society has acted against them, speaks for itself.2183 Including such comments in his text equated to a subconscious approval of anti-Polish Ukrainian revenge and may have fueled it. In other words, Kubiiovych condemned the plight of the Ukrainian minority to condone the vengeance of the Ukrainian majority. According to Motyka, such an explanation was also a “tactic” of Banderite propaganda to justify anti-Polish attacks and killings. From the Polish side, the AK did have knowledge of massacres of Poles in western Volhynia. However, the information was imprecise and could not stand as the basis for an organized, concerted response against Ukrainians in the GG.2184 2184 Motyka, Od rzezi wołyńskiej..., 227; Hałagida, “Ukraińskie straty ludnościowe w dystrykcie lubelskim...,” 376. As Motyka wrote, the Banderite UPA completely negated the possibility of Ukrainian committing anti-Polish excesses while they meticulously noted all Polish anti-Ukrainian excesses with the intention of exploiting them for propaganda purposes. They even considered issuing a special “white book” describing all anti-Ukrainian acts committed by the Polish underground. This book was envisioned to be published in Ukrainian, Polish and French. 2185 Kubiiovych, Meni 85, 114. 2186 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 20, folder 25, Betrifft: Aussiedlung in dem Lubliner Distrikt, July 13, 1943. 2187 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 24, folder 6, Zvit iz poїzdky po Kholmshchyni, August 31, 1943. 2188 Winstone, The Dark Heart of Hitler’s Europe…, 202. It is apparent that localized conditions and the radicalizing ethnic Polish-Ukrainian conflict caused by German occupation policies stimulated violence in both Volhynia and the Lublin District yet at differing times. Nonetheless, the two events are directly linked in the opposite order as anti-Polish massacres in Volhynia contributed to increased anti-Ukrainian violence in the Lublin District which, as will be seen, in turn contributed to further anti-Polish violence there. Without question, all phases of Himmler’s Germanization scheme in the GG only exacerbated ethnic violence in the southern and eastern portions of the Lublin district. After the war, Kubiiovych contended Bolshevik “agents” along with German resettlements and pacifications caused the bloody clashed between Ukrainians and Poles.2185 His overall perception of the Aktions during the war differed greatly from that of the Germans: “The guiding principle of the resettlement of Ukrainians in the district was to create national conditions, introduce sound security measures, conclude the continuous battle between Ukrainians and Poles, and finally create healthy economic conditions.”2186 He hoped Ukrainian resettlement would strengthen belonging on ethnographic territory, especially throughout Chełm and Hrubieszów counties. As he saw it, Ukrainians moved from the western portions of the district were to predominantly populate those two counties. He certainly was not opposed to moving them to what he saw as ethnographic territory so long as they received adequate protection from the side of the Germans. As he and others believed, the only way to guarantee protection on those territories was through ethnically cleansing them and creating a clearly delineated border between Polish and Ukrainian territory.2187 SS plans for Germanization dashed Ukrainian hopes of ethnic homogenization; placing them instead in the line of fire against angry, vengeful Poles. Even though Himmler clung to the belief that further resettlements could resume, he ultimately transferred Globocnik in August 1943 to his home city of Trieste where he engaged in brutally combating Italian and Yugoslav partisans as well as murdering Jews. Prior to leaving the GG, he oversaw the liquidation of the Białystok ghetto.2188 While the resettlements were deemed by the Germans to be temporarily suspended and ultimately stopped, Ukrainians saw them as incomplete. In their eyes, all Ukrainians were not settled onto ethnographic territory. They expressed disappointment and concern over the fact that resettlements and pacifications upset security and order. Additionally, the image created by the Germans of Ukrainians being treated better than Poles during the movement process served to only further enflame Polish anti-Ukrainian feelings.2189 This forced Kubiiovych to petition the occupiers to increase protection among settlers found in hostile regions and to also continue the Aktion, making it the definitive operation to cleanse ethnically-mixed regions in order to create a clearly defined and delineated Ukrainian zone within the borders of the GG. 2189 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 25, folder 5, Aktenvermerk – Betrifft: das Sicherheitsproblem der urkainischen Bevölkerung Im Distrikt Lublin, January 28, 1944. 2190 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 20, folder 25, Aktenvermerk I. Vorschlag und Randbemerkung des Ukrainischen Hauptausschusses in Krakau, July 6, 1943. 2191 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/28, Tagebuch 1943: Juli bis August, pp. 167-169. On behalf of the UTsK, Holeiko presented a daunting proposal to district authorities – a precise division between Polish and Ukrainian ethnographic regions. He began by reiterating that following Tsarist and Polish domination, the Ukrainian ethnic border was pushed east by those two dominant powers; eschewing away from its historic position. What he proposed was to move all Ukrainians, those in ethnically-mixed regions and especially those remaining on ethnically Polish territory, onto Ukrainian ethnographic territory. As he argued, not only would this remove unfriendly German elements and replace them with deutschfreundlich ones but placing Ukrainian peasants and farmers on their Volkskreise would ensure, aside from security, further agricultural output. He proposed strengthening the Ukrainischen Walle by moving some 43,450 Ukrainians to territories in the southern portions of Zamość County, Biłgoraj and Chełm counties while internally moving Ukrainians onto their territories in Biała Podlaska County.2190 Kubiiovych took the cause to the top GG authorities. Speaking with Frank, he voiced concern over inevitable retribution against Ukrainian settlers by expelled Poles. To guarantee their safety, he proposed moving them to closed Ukrainian settlements (geschlossenen ukrainischen Siedlungsgebieten). Any remaining Poles were to be moved out. Concerning Hrubieszów County specifically, he stated Ukrainians there, in fear of expulsion and settlement by Volksdeutsche, stopped their farming and harvesting. Frank reassured Kubiiovych that collective pacifications would stop.2191 The next day, his concerns were discussed in the company of Frank, Wendler and Losacker. As a gesture of thanks and appreciation for Ukrainian cooperation, Frank presented Kubiiovych with an autographed photograph. Concerning his proposal to move settlers from hostile regions to ethnographic territory, Wendler pledged to do all to keep Poles from being settled among Ukrainians. Frank agreed to provide 300 thousand złotys for aid to settlers. Furthermore, the Germans agreed to bolster security forces, especially in Chełm and Hrubieszów counties; pledging to provide 1000 rifles for local Ukrainian militias. To Kubiiovych’s proposal of a complete ethnic cleansing into separate Polish and Ukrainian cantons, both Frank and Wendler agreed that such a Sonderaktion could only be undertaken once security stabilized in the future and after consultations with all parties, i.e. Germans, Ukrainians and Poles. According to Frank, only then “one can speak of a great cleansing.”2192 2192 Ibid, pp. 196-200. 2193 BA, R 102/212, Aktenvermerk - Betrifft: 247 ausgesiedelte ukrainische Familien im Kreise Zamosc die seit August 1943 auf die Ansiedlung im östlich-südlichen Teil des Kreises Zamosc warten, September 28, 1943, pp. 24-26. 2194 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 24, folder 3, Ukrainer in Kreisen Krasnik und Lublin, August 12, 1943. 2195 Motyka, Od rzezi wołyńskiej..., 293. 2196 “Informacja Ukraińskiego Komitetu Pomocy o sytuacji ludności ukraińskiej w powiecie biłgorajskim dla szefa urzędu dystryktu lubelskiego – 18 października 1943” in Zamojszczyzna-Sonderlaboratorium SS vol. 2, 252. 2197 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 26, folder 36, Aktenvermerk – Betrifft: Massnahmen zur Liquidierung der Banden und polnischer terroristischen Geheimorganisationen im Distrikt Lublin, March 5, 1943. 2198 AIPN, PJB, GK 196/255, Geheime – Behandlung Fremdvölkischer, March 15, 1943, pp. 210-212. With no definitive cleansing in sight, Kubiiovych took it upon himself to propose corrections to the resettlement Aktions. For example, he petitioned the civil authorities to intervene in moving 247 families – 1,192 individuals – who did not receive farms and remained in Zamość County. He blamed their hapless fate of uncertainty on Polish agronomists and administrators in Tomaszów Lubelski, their intended destination, who stalled their transfer by returning farms to Poles.2193 Similar propositions were made to move Ukrainians from Lublin and its suburbs – 3,400 in total – east. Since they were living in a “Polish sea,” they were isolated from Ukrainian ethnographic territory and ultimately faced two alternatives: destruction or polonization. Immediate resettlement to Hrubieszów County was recommended.2194 To calm settlers, villages needed protection. In 1943, as Motyka elicited, Ukrainians in the Lublin District counted on protection exclusively from the Germans and Ukrainian auxiliaries since, unlike in Eastern Galicia, the OUN was yet to build its network there.2195 Ukrainian auxiliary as well as German police posts in the countryside were both, understaffed and under armed; preventing them from viably combating attacks. In Biłgoraj County, 144 policemen were unable to combat attacks on settlers as posts were not properly distributed among all settlement villages.2196 To Kubiiovych, protecting Ukrainians was synonymous with protecting ethnic belonging on ethnographic territory; something envisioned only through German-Ukrainian collaboration. He made it clear that the Germans could in no way combat anti-German propaganda coming from the combined exile government in London, bandits and underground with Poles. Only the occupation administration in combination with German and Ukrainian policemen could.2197 District SS men were very skeptical of arming Ukrainians. One note warned of avoiding repeating the mistakes of the Austrian-Galician tradition in which Polish and Ukrainian legions only betrayed that state and, as the argument went, contributed to its downfall. Furthermore, following the Austrian precedent, the report added that arming non-Germans inevitably meant affording them political concessions as a reward for their service; translating into the death of the occupier’s ethnic policy.2198 However, increasing bandit and partisan activity forced the German hand. Bühler equated police consolidation in the countryside with surrendering to the bandits. SS chief Krüger correlated the need for increasing defensive strength with the need to better exploit non-Germans, using them as a subsequent defensive force.2199 He saw insecurity as an internal GG problem and expressed his opinion that it be solved in that sense; averse of any outside forces being brought in to pacify regions. 2199 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/33, Arbeitssitzung über die Sicherheitslage des Generalgouvernements - April 15, 1943, p. 245. 2200 Ibid, pp. 252; 257; DHF, GK 95/33, Arbeitssitzung über die Sicherheitslage im Generalgouvernement, May 31, 1943, p. 314. 2201 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/26, Tagebuch: Mai 1943, p. 254. 2202 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 24, folder 6, Zvit iz poїzdky po Kholmshchyni, August 31, 1943. 2203 AAN, RGO, sygn. 37, Untitled report of resettlement-pacifications in Lublin District, August 1943, p. 103. 2204 Veryha, The Correspondence..., 590-591. 2205 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 26, folder 36, Aktenvermerk – Betrifft: die Anwerbung der Ukrainer aus dem Distrikt Lublin zu den Waffen SS, May 29, 1943. 2206 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 24, folder 5, Bericht des Beraters des Ukrainischen Hauptausschusses über die Tätigkeit seiner Dienststelle, June 24, 1943. Men trained in the SS camp in Trawniki often served as labor or concentration camp guards and auxiliaries during the Aktion Reinhardt Jewish extermination campaign. Specifically concerning the Ukrainians, Losacker called attention to Kubiiovych’s suggestion of increasing the number of auxiliary policemen in ethnically-mixed regions and arming “Ukrainians acting directly in German interests,” i.e. heads of aid committees and trusted men; in this way creating local armed Selbstschutz or Ortschutz. Certainly the creation of such rural militias, especially from among Volksdeutsche settlers in Zamość County, brought what Karl Naumann described as a drop in attacks since “bandits know that they will be meet with active resistance.” Citing the example of Hrubieszów County, Losacker expressed satisfaction in Ukrainian policemen who replaced Poles there.2200 To redress the need for more policemen, Globocnik even suggested creating a 2-3 thousand man strong police regiment out of the Galizien Division recruits; one under the command of German NCOs.2201 Both civil and security authorities were on-board with using Ukrainian auxiliaries to maintain order on Ukrainian territory. Krüger informed of plans to create a Ukrainian regiment commanded by German officers and noncommissioned officers. UTsK reports conveyed German urgency to train and put Ukrainian defenders in the field as quickly as possible as, for example, mobilization in Chełm was announced by the Kreishauptmann as compulsory.2202 The RGO reported of Germans demanding Ukrainians for combat on the eastern front. In exchange, “the Ukrainians supposedly demanded they hand over the entire Lublin district to them – for now they are only giving them Biłgoraj County.”2203 Confident of their enthusiasm, Kubiiovych favored a recruitment drive from among Lublin Ukrainians to be trained for Selbstschutz service in settlement villages. Only after security stabilized did he suggest recruiting men for the Galizien Division.2204 The image of young Ukrainians with arms in hand preparing to fight for the new Europe meant to convey a strong impression of German-Ukrainian cooperation.2205 Following meetings with district SD representatives and the commandant of the SS training camp in Trawniki, some 1,200-2,000 Ukrainians were recruited for training there.2206 Kubiiovych also petitioned For a valuable account of the Trawniki camp and its men’s role in the Holocaust, see Black, “Foot Soldiers of the Final Solution….” 2207 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 26, folder 36, Kubiiovych note to Krüger, June 28, 1943. 2208 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 24, folder 5, Bericht über die Tätigkeit des Beraters des Ukrainischen Hauptausschusses beim Gouverneur des Distrikts Lublin und über die Lage der Ukrainischen Bevölkerung im Distrikt Lublin, December 9, 1943. 2209 Zajączkowski, Ukraińskie podziemie..., 194. 2210 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 24, folder 5, Aktenvermerk: Das Sicherheitsproblem der ukrainischen Bevölkerung im Distrikt Lublin, January 28, 1944. 2211 Black, “Foot Soldiers of the Final Solution…,” 35-36. 2212 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 26, folder 33, Zvit z perevedenoї na tereni kholms’koho povitu mobilizatsiї do viddiliv SS u Travnykakh, July 13, 1943. 291 men came from Chełm County, 192 from Włodawa. The note stated they were to wear blue-yellow patches on their left sleeve to designate them as Ukrainian. 2213 Veryha, The Correspondence…, 1008; LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 26, folder 33, UDK v spravi poklykanykh do “SS” u Travnykakh, August 17, 1943. Krüger to declare an amnesty for all Ukrainians imprisoned in jails or concentration camps so as to gain more recruits for German-sponsored armed units. He justified his argument by writing: “every Ukrainian is fully aware that the only way to improve the fate of Ukrainians is to cooperate with the German authorities, and that strengthening German military power also lay in Ukrainian interests.”2207 More concerted recruitment campaigns occurred in the summer of 1943, conscripting Ukrainians to serve in various German-sponsored police and security units. Auxiliary policemen were transferred from Eastern Galicia to Chełm and Hrubieszów counties to create Ortschutz units. In Biłgoraj County, Hauptsturmführer Schubert recruited, with the help of local aid committees, 700 Ukrainian volunteers for the 32nd Polizeiregiment.2208 Ukrainians joined the criminal police – 30, the SD – 40, Schutzpolizei – 1,200, Verwaltungspolizei – 600.2209 In conjunction with the SS district chief, aid committee branches in Chełm and Hrubieszów also conducted recruitment campaigns to the SS-ukrainische Wachmannschaften in which 1,300 volunteers joined.2210 Largely due to Soviet Ukrainians rather bad reputation among Trawniki camp administrators – described often as “uncouth and unreliable, especially under the influence of alcohol” – they turned to the civil authorities who in turn engaged aid committees to recruit indigenous Ukrainians for service.2211 Aid committee men actively assisted in recruitment, maintaining order and discipline during enlistment. In some cases, committee heads and members even served as recruitment commissioners. A total of 483 Ukrainians enlisted from Chełm and Włodawa counties and were sent to the camp for immediate training.2212 Initial moods among the recruits were good as they were described as showing a healthy will to actively fight against “Polish terror” and Bolshevism.2213 Even though Kubiiovych, Holeiko, and other UTsK representatives underscored repeatedly that Ukrainians serving in German-sponsored security and police units be explicitly sent to defend Ukrainian settlements, this was not always the case. Here was another example of German interests intersecting with and superseding Ukrainian ones as trained men were sent to fill-in where needed. Some were deployed to Norway while about 120 were sent to the Italian front. Others trained in Trawniki were reportedly used for guarding transports of expelled Poles from Zamość and Biłgoraj counties for work in the Reich.2214 However, in areas where they were dispatched, Polish reports described excesses committed by them. Those brought in from Eastern Galicia often squabbled and fought among themselves over better farms.2215 One RGO report described Ukrainian police as “superseding the Germans in ruthlessness and cruelty.”2216 Policemen and Selbstschutz who appeared in Biłgoraj County threatened Poles of forthcoming expulsions or murdered them outright; in this way “removing” Polish traces.2217 Throughout the summer and autumn of 1943, various Polish underground units continued organized attacks on Ukrainian auxiliary police stations as well as on villages recently settled by Ukrainians.2218 2214 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 24, folder 6, Zvit iz poїzdky po Kholmshchyni, August 31, 1943. 2215 “Informacja bieżąca nr 29(102) o akcjach pacyfikacyjnych okupanta wobec ludności Lubelszczyzny - 29 lipca 1943” in Zamojszczyzna-Sonderlaboratorium SS vol. 2, 128. 2216 “Informacja o wzmożonym terrorze okupanta wobec mieszkańców Lubelszczyzny w okresie czerwiec-lipiec 1943 i zmianie na stanowisku gubernatora dystryktu lubelskiego” in Zamojszczyzna-Sonderlaboratorium SS vol. 2, 179. 2217 “Pismo doradcy RGO na okręg lubelski A. Skrzyńskiego do gubernatora dystryktu lubelskiego w sprawie pacyfikacji wsi Wirkowice w powiece zamojskim przez oddział SS” in Zamojszczyzna-Sonderlaboratorium SS vol. 2, 157. 2218 Sowa, Stosunki polsko-ukraińskie 1939-1947, 164. 2219 Veryha, The Correspondence..., 591. 2220 Zajączkowski, Ukraińskie podziemie..., 196. It goes without saying that Kubiiovych’s role in actively lobbying for and recruiting for either German-commanded security or Selbstschutz units was a factor which directly contributed to enflaming the Polish-Ukrainian conflict in ethnically-mixed regions particularly since he saw this as a concerted measure to not only protect Ukrainians but to also combat everything Polish – bandits, partisans, remaining villagers, administrators, etc. – on contested territory. Subsequently, he also sought to prepare in the long-term for a possible show-down against Poles, or perhaps Soviets, in the event of German collapse. What he envisioned was most telling: the eventual expansion into the Lublin district of recruitment to the Galizien Division, strengthening auxiliary police posts on Ukrainian territory with policemen from the Galicia District, opening a police academy in Chełm, creating a motorized police unit – equipped with grenades and machine guns – capable of combating gangs anywhere and at any time, fully arming Ukrainian Selbstschutz groups.2219 His vision did come partially to fruition in that auxiliary policemen participated in the Polish-Ukrainian conflict. However, they most often deserted their posts and joined the ranks of the UPA.2220 Following the Wehrwolf catastrophe, anti-occupational and anti-Ukrainian sentiments rose among Poles in the eastern and southeastern counties. Historians agree that one cause for the increase stemmed from AK commander Bór-Komorowski’s order 107/Kdw of August 4, 1943 which served as a green light for larger-scale revenge attacks by the Polish underground against Ukrainians, particularly in Hrubieszów County. In it he ordered: to liquidate individuals who, during the pacifications, acted with zeal and bestiality in tormenting, pursuing or murdering Poles; to burn German villages or colonies which participated in the occupier’s crimes, massacring the inhabitants; attacking camps and prisons with the aim of freeing arrested Poles. Perhaps most importantly, as Zajączkowski added, was the fact that Bór-Komorowski ordered revenge attacks only after German pacification units completely left intended targets. This, he noted, confirmed the fact that the attacks were aimed at German colonists and Ukrainian settlers. Although the text of these instructions were interpreted in various ways in different counties, one thing is certain – beginning in the second half of 1943, up until the appearance of Soviets in July 1944, the Polish underground in the Zamość region saw Ukrainians, not Germans, as the more formidable enemy.2221 Zygmunt Klukowski’s observations of murders on Ukrainian civic activists’ stand for dozens of others: 2221 “Gen. Komorowski do N.W.: meldunek półroczny o sprawach AK i położenie w kraju (August 31, 1943)” in Armia Krajowa w dokumentach vol. 3, 90-91; Iljuszyn, UPA i AK…, 147; Motyka, Od rzezi wołyńskiej…, 293; Zajączkowski, Ukraińskie podziemie..., 246-247. Zajączkowski noted that Bór-Komorowski’s order also meant to be a response to pacifications in the Kraków and Radom districts. 2222 Klukowski, Diary from the Years of Occupation 1939-44, 273. 2223 Motyka, Od rzezi wołyńskiej..., 282. 2224 Leon Popek, “Uchodźcy z Wołynia w latach 1943-1944 w świetle dokumentów przechowywanych w Archiwum Państwowym w Lublinie,” Rocznik Historyczno-Archiwalny vol. 10 (1995), 181; Joanna Kiełboń, “Napływ Polaków zza Buga do dystryktu lubelskiego w latach 1943-1944 (ustalenia liczbowe),” Zeszyty Majdanka vol. 13 (1991), 29-48. 2225 Ziętek, “Konflikt polsko-ukraiński na Chełmszczyźnie...,” 269. 2226 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 25, folder 16, Zvit z diial’nosty orhanizatsiinoho referatu, October 7, 1943. On Monday the Ukrainian mayors Zholkievka and Fik, and the village administrator Turobin were assassinated. Two hand grenades were thrown as they drove along in an official car, killing both instantly. The killing of Fik was a mistake; he was a very good man. On the other hand, the Ukrainian was already the target of many actions but he always escaped injury.2222 An equally important reason for increased anti-Ukrainian sentiments was the arrival of Polish survivors from Volhynia. According to Motyka, the after-effects of those massacres stood in the way of the Germanization campaign fully eliminating anti-German, anti-Ukrainian elements in the district.2223 Following the eruption of the concerted ethnic cleansing by UPA forces there in July, it was estimated that some 24 thousand Polish survivors fled west to the Lublin district. Some only travelled through that district, making their way to the Kraków, Radom or Warsaw ones. An estimated 6 thousand settled in the Lublin one: 3 thousand in Chełm County, 1 thousand in Hrubieszów County and 2 thousand in Lublin.2224 By the end of 1943, their number increased to 30 thousand with over 14 thousand in Chełm County. According to Ziętek, the actions of the Polish underground aimed to remove Ukrainian elements – through persuasion, propaganda and eliminating Ukrainian auxiliary police stations – so as to prevent Volhynia-like ethnic cleansing by Ukrainians. However, in removing Ukrainian elements, the Poles failed to recognize that this too would equate to an ethnic cleansing, albeit on a much less violent scale.2225 One UTsK report from Hrubieszów correctly diagnosed the increase in Polish terrorization there in September 1943 as “revenge for Volhynia and the return of Poles from Majdanek.”2226 Other field reports described Polish activity: “Toward the end of September pamphlets appeared in Lublin and throughout Poland with appeals for Polish youth to join the ranks of ‘the avengers of wrongs on Volhynian Poles.’ Under their influence emerged large armed gangs who began murdering innocent Ukrainian peasants.”2227 Polish survivors, describing the grizzly massacres they witnessed, often warned those in the Lublin district that their time was next. One aid committee note reported that many Poles packed bundles and did not sleep; anticipating for the worst. The report described the twofold benefit of such propaganda: causing unfavorable harm for both the Germans and Ukrainians.2228 Ethnic hostility and revenge superseded rationality as Poles in the district failed to realize that the majority of Ukrainians were forced against their will into the German colonization scheme and had nothing in common with the massacres committed by the Banderite UPA in Volhynia. Furthermore, Ukrainian families left without farms in parts of Biłgoraj County were moved, thanks to the intervention of the UTsK, to either Ukrainian or ethnically-mixed parts of Hrubieszów County. Their arrival came on the heels of increased anti-Ukrainian Polish underground activity in revenge for the Volhynia massacres as well as against the OUN and auxiliary police.2229 2227 TsDAVOVUU, UTsK, f. 3959, op. 2, spr. 132, Visti z Hrubeshivshchyny, October 13, 1943, p. 2. 2228 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 25, folder 20, Nastroï i żyttia v pov. Krasnostav, September 29, 1943. 2229 Zajączkowski, Ukraińskie podziemie..., 249. 2230 Various reports in AAN, RGO, sygn. 1496. 2231 BA, R 102 II/16, Aktenvermerk – Betrifft: Die Lage im Distrikt Lublin, September 28, 1943, p. 27. 2232 “Raport bieżący Wydziału Bezpieczeństwa Departamentu Spraw Wewnętrznych Delegatury Rządu RP, dotyczący kwestii ukraińskiej (November 3, 1943),” in Archiwum Adama Bienia..., 399; Zajączkowski, Ukraińskie podziemie..., 261. The Ukrainian and Polish aid committees both reacted to incoming refugees. The RGO assisted financially by supplying aid branches in cities and towns to feed and house them; by supplying stipends for refugees to make ends meet, assisting in finding work for them and helping obtain Kennkarte.2230 Kubiiovych reported his alarm over the inflow of Poles onto ethnographic Ukrainian territories; claiming their presence could not only upset the Ukrainian state of belonging but also lead to further hostility. He cited instances in Chełm where refugees were openly welcomed in manifestations which turned into anti-Ukrainian demonstrations. He called on the occupiers to forbid Volhynian Poles from remaining, either temporarily or permanently, on Ukrainian or ethnically-mixed territories.2231 He viewed this as a form of “Polish favoritism” by the district authorities while Ukrainian demands for protection were, in his opinion, being addressed. Furthermore, ethnic antagonisms even appeared between the aid committees as the RGO refused to accept financial aid from the UTsK for Volhynian Poles to be moved out.2232 At the behest of the occupier, the Chełm UTsK branch issued a call for peace and calm in which all acts of terror and vengeance between Poles and Ukrainians were claimed to lay in the phenomenon of the enduring, historic war between the two. It denounced all attempts to “pass the blame for these acts [Volhynian massacres] onto Ukrainians or calling for vengeance against it.” Instead, it urged to forego succumbing to feelings of the moment, advising instead to work and believe the Germans will defend their interests. The Polish country delegate viewed this simply as further propaganda aimed to enflame Ukrainian anti- Polish violence; a Polish denouncement to the occupiers.2233 Holeiko voiced his resentment over an RGO Hrubieszów committee appeal in which blame for the increasing hostilities was credited to both Poles and Ukrainians.2234 Tense moods were felt among Ukrainians who feared Polish revenge. One report warmed that anti-Ukrainian propaganda being spread by arrivals from Volhynia would only lead to further assassinations. In Tomaszów, a Banderite report described some Polish villagers reaction to the killing of a Ukrainian cooperative man: “That was retribution for the beastly destruction in Volhynia.”2235 During religious services at the Orthodox cathedral in Chełm, SS-Wachmannshaft men were even brought in from Trawniki to ensure protection. The occupiers attempted to placate both sides. For example, they offered to help any Poles wishing to return to Volhynia while promising to provide Ukrainians in Chełm with 20 rifles for self-defense.2236 2233 AAN, DRRPK, sygn. 202/III/193, Sprawozdanie sytuacyjne “GRANICY” z ziem wschodnich, October 1943, p. 75. 2234 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 24, folder 5, Bericht über die Tätigkeit des Beraters des Ukrainischen Hauptausschusses beim Gouverneur des Distrikts Lublin und über die Lage der ukrainische Bevölkerung, December 9, 1943. 2235 Serhiichuk, Trahediia ukraїntsiv Pol’shchi, 52. 2236 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 25, folder 8, Aktenvermerk – Betrifft: Neue Morde der führenden Ukrainer durch die Polen im Distrikt Lublin, September 7, 1943; Zajączkowski, Ukraińskie podziemie..., 260-261. 2237 Zajączkowski, Ukraińskie podziemie..., 262-268. 2238 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 25, folder 16, Note to Ilarion describing incidents in Mircze, October 24, 1943. German resettlements and pacifications (in Zamość and Biłgoraj counties) combined with the appearance of Poles from Volhynia (primarily in Chełm and Hrubieszów counties) served as catalysts in turning Polish-Ukrainian antagonism into a violent conflict. The anti-Ukrainian position following the appearance of Volhynian refugees caused the Ukrainian underground to increase open acts of violence against civilians. The Banderite OUN in the Chełm region reactivated its cells especially following orders by UPA district officers calling on Ukrainians to join their ranks and combat Germans, Soviets, and Poles. In September, leaflets appeared around Włodawa, Chełm and Hrubieszów calling on Poles to flee or face death. Polish country delegate reports mentioned of “Ukrainian agitators” from Volhynia appearing in the Chełm region, stirring-up anti-Polish feelings among local Ukrainians. Banderite forces conducted several collective attacks against Polish farmsteads, particularly in the Hrubieszów region where they burned barns and murdered inhabitants. Those who survived fled to larger towns or cities, particularly in Zamość County. Banderite ranks swelled as some auxiliary policemen deserted German service and joined the nationalists. Melnykites from Volhynia as well as Chełm defense legion forces also participated in revenge on Poles.2237 In turn, the Polish underground committed acts of revenge against Ukrainians. In one village, BCh forces burned-down 150 barns and killed 36, primarily women and children as men fled to the forests.2238 The underground also targeted Ukrainian auxiliary policemen, particularly in Chełm and Hrubieszów counties. At times, Polish partisans engaged in common acts of banditry as they plundered Ukrainian farms of livestock or food. Nightly “talks” were conducted by underground Poles to persuade Ukrainians to flee. Propaganda rides were also conducted, with Poles warning Ukrainians of revenge on those “manipulated” by Galician nationalists to sow disorder.2239 One aid committee report noted of Polish propaganda “graciously promising” the right to an independent state yet “never on the eastern kresy.”2240 From Biłgoraj County, a Ukrainian wrote a sharply-worded letter, questioning the UTsK where their promised and deserved protection was: 2239 Zajączkowski, Ukraińskie podziemie..., 274-276; Sowa, Stosunki polsko-ukraińskie 1939-1947, 164. 2240 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 24, folder 11, Predstavnytstvo UTsK Liublyn – zvit pratsi, November 25, 1943. 2241 Veryha, Dorohami druhoї svitovoї viiny..., 236-238. 2242 “Raport bieżący Wydziału Bezpieczeństwa Departamentu Spraw Wewnętrznych Delegatury Rządu RP, dotyczący kwestii ukraińskiej (November 3, 1943),” in Archiwum Adama Bienia..., 399. 2243 AAN, RGO, sygn. 42, Notatka z powiatu Hrubieszowskiego, October 14, 1943, p. 52. 2244 Klukowski, Diary from the Years of Occupation 1939-44, 286 Where are the Galician agitators who instigated villagers, who aggravated hatred and increased the rift between two neighbors [Poles and Ukrainians]? They’re not here, they fled long ago, leaving the people as a Polish sacrifice… And you brag about the SS Galician Division? The same kholmshchaky serve in the police and Shupo; they guard factories and Jews in ghettos while Polish bandits attack their fathers and sisters. This is protection?.. When it came to securing harvest consignments – the army came, while in securing the life and property of these people who always complete their responsibilities 100% - there is no one… Now all Poles are hostile to us and help the bandits… Our youth fights on the front but for who? For the new Europe? But not for us because if this continues not a single one will survive to the end of the war… So long as Poles and Volksdeutsche will be in the administration on our land –the Polish intelligentsia, clergy, gamekeepers, land official – there will be no peace here because from them comes subjugation and only they instigate Poles against us.2241 In response to anti-Ukrainian violence, Kubiiovych warned it could provoke a response by Ukrainians in Eastern Galicia on the basis of the Volhynia massacres. As such, he claimed further efforts by him and Metropolitan Sheptyts’kyi’s to stem the violence there would be fruitless.2242 RGO reports described increases in Ukrainian attacks on Poles in Hrubieszów County by combined auxiliary policemen and local elements. The uncertainty of Ukrainian intentions paralyzed RGO work there.2243 Klukowski recalled hearing of anti-Polish violence in Hrubieszów: This morning Jerzy Płomieński came by to see me. For some time he was a guest at the Scibor-Rylski estate in Ulhrynów, Hrubieszów County. But after Ukrainians burned the mansion he escaped, and now he is going back to Warsaw. He told me of the Ukrainian terror in the eastern provinces. This is occurring even in Hrubieszów County, where Ukrainian peasants are killing Poles. People are trying to escape to the west.2244 Kubiiovych stressed the Ukrainian situation was at its worst: “… as before only individual people who played an active role in Ukrainian social life were murdered, now Ukrainians are murdered without distinction; conducted even in large centers and in broad daylight.”2245 Contextualizing the violence caused by the Germanization Aktions and flight of Volhynian Poles to the GG, Sowa accurately concluded that the collective violence over the simple fact of whether one was Polish or Ukrainian created a chain of events in which it was becoming more and more difficult to determine what was retaliation for what.2246 2245 BA, R 102/212, Aktenvermerk, September 28, 1943, pp. 25-26. 2246 Sowa, Stosunki polsko-ukraińskie 1939-1947, 167. 2247 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/24/I, Regierungssitzung, March 11, 1942, p. 13; Housden, Hans Frank, Lebensraum and the Holocaust, 206-207. 2248 Mazower, Hitler’s Empire..., 447-448. 6.3 – Ethnic Chaos and the Collapse of the General Government Military catastrophes combined with occupation policy toward non-Germans in the GG but also in regions bordering it increased anti-German hostilities. On this backdrop, ethnic antagonisms boiled over as Poles and Ukrainians prepared to fight one another over territory they hoped to claim for future states. Over a year after Hitler approved General Plan East, Himmler was forced to change priorities – from Germanizing to protecting Germanness. The breadth of the gravity resonated in the Reichsführer declaring the entire GG Bandenkampfgebiet or a partisan war zone. Even though Frank remained content in exploiting ethnic antagonisms to win-over Ukrainians against Poles, increased reprisals by the Polish resistance movement to hard-handed occupational policies combined with the changing tide of the war propelled him, albeit naively, toward an attempted reconciliation with Poles. His reevaluation of eastern people and occupation policy echoed a Realpolitik; distancing himself from the racial, ideological visions of the SS in favor of calming and ultimately countering or weakening Polish resistance. While he believed Poles to be “experienced organizers of clandestine activity,” he saw in them the potential for a large ally to corral into an anti-Bolshevik bloc.2247 Frank and Goebbels were strong proponents of exploiting the shock felt in the GG following the discovery of the mass graves of slain Polish army officers at the hands of the NVKD in the Katyń Forest. Meeting with Hitler in June 1943, Frank urged the Führer to give-up on “ideology and falsely constructed supremacies;” instead proposing to raise rations, improve conditions for Polish workers in the Reich, end public executions of women and children, and ease-up in the use of collective terror.2248 The general governor made several small public gestures in the direction of a pro-Polish policy. For example, he opened a Chopin museum in Kraków, publicly thanked peasants for their hard work, opened a theater, and indorsed publishing leaflets urging Poles to support the Germans against the Bolsheviks. However, Poles were not convinced. Their hatred for the occupier and Frank’s track record prevented them from believing anything the general governor said. Toward the end of January 1944, Frank felt this hatred first-hand as he narrowly escaped death when his train was blown up outside of Kraków.2249 Regardless, he defended his policy to Hitler. Addressing the fact of being seen in some Nazi circles as Polish friendly, he reasoned that his approach meant to ultimately secure Polish labor in all strata of GG life, particularly since the Germans were in a distinct minority there. Hitler equated Frank’s approach with that of the Habsburgs, deeming it successful then and hoped for the same results. 2249 Lukas, Forgotten Holocaust..., 114-115. 2250 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/34, Tagebuch 1944: Januar bis Februar, pp. 237-239. As seen above, Frank was always critical of Koch’s policy toward the Ukrainians in the Reichskommissariat. He believed he could be the man to introduce law and order among Ukrainians there while also engage them in collaboration, presumably against Soviets and Poles. Grelka, “Polityka narodowościowa niemieckich władz okupacyjnych we wschodniej Polsce...,” 79. 2251 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/34, Tagebuch: Januar bis Februar 1944, p. 62. 2252 Tomasz Strzembosz, Akcje zbrojne podziemnej Warszawy 1939-1944 (Warszawa: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1983), 334-336. Ryszard Torzecki claimed that Pohotovko’s assissination came primarily because of his collaboration with the Gestapo and SD. See Torzecki, Polacy i Ukraińcy..., 51-52. This opinion was partially validated by Kubiiovych who wrote that the German police authorities did everything possible in order to have loyal persons in the Warsaw committee. See Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Heneral’nii Huberniї, 413. A The two also discussed the Ukrainian question. The general governor praised his ethnic policy in the Galicia district and the success it achieved as well as the forbearance of his Ukrainians. Turning to the situation in the neighboring Reichskommissariat, Frank proposed re-conquering the territory by attaching Volhynia to the GG once the military situation stabilized. As a former voivodship of prewar Poland, he viewed it natural for the region to follow in the footsteps of Eastern Galicia; not only to increase the number of loyal Ukrainians but for the vast, fertile, sparsely populated swaths of arable land there. According to him, the GG lacked such land and, given his self-perceived successful record, he believed he could properly exploit it for the Reich.2250 Ultimately, Frank was all talk with little results as, aside from miniscule concessions, his language and ideas failed to turn into concrete actions. Although toting a somewhat milder Polish tone, he often expressed the insincerity of his strategy to German audiences. Perhaps most famously he said: “Once we have won the war, then, as far as I’m concerned, mincemeat can be made out of the Poles and Ukrainians and all the others here. This moment depends on whether it is possible to keep almost 15 million hostile people from organizing against us and in peace and order, working and disciplined. If it does not succeed, then at least I can triumphantly say: I have killed 2 million Polacks.”2251 Alongside violent instability in the Lublin and Galicia districts, the Warsaw one was a center of Polish resistance attacks against the Germans. There, Ukrainians were also targeted by the underground. On March 31, 1944, members of the Home Army liquidated aid committee head Mykhailo Pohotovko and his deputy in their aid committee office. 3 other workers were also killed; purportedly in response to their role during Galizien Division recruitment.2252 To Ukrainians living there, the killing did not come as a surprise since the former officer of the Home Army stated that the aid committee was also the headquarters for a Soviet intelligence section for Warsaw. See Mikołaj Siwicki, Dzieje konfliktów polsko-ukraińskich vol. 2 (Warszawa: Zakład Wydawniczy Taras, 1992), 226-227. Roman Szagała and Emilian Wiszka suggest that, according to Home Army documents from the Lwów region concerning the liquidation of Ukrainian centers in Kraków and Warsaw, such assassinations lay in the national interests of the underground state (and the Lwów region). See Szagała and Wiszka, Ukraińcy w Warszawie, 135. 2253 Lukasevych, Rozdumy na skhylku zhyttia, 223. 2254 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/34, Tagebuch Januar bis Februar 1944, p. 87. 2255 The assassinations of high-ranking German officials concerned the GG authorities since, as Bühler stated during a security meeting, they did not have men to replace them. AIPN, DHF, GK 95/34, Tagebuch 1944: Januar bis Februar, p. 15. 2256 BA, R 52 III/12, Ordentliche Sitzung des Ukrainischen Hauptausschusses in Krakau, December 10, 1943, pp. 47- Polish underground used this method to eliminate those they saw as German political collaborators.2253 Frank did not hide any reservations concerning maintaining law and order in the GG at all costs when he told NSDAP party officials meeting in Kraków: “I have not been afraid to declare that when a German is shot, up to a hundred Poles will be shot.”2254 In response to the brutal and bloody round-ups and street executions conducted by district SS and police chief Franz Kutschera, the underground succeeded in assassinating him on February 1, 1944 in broad daylight while on his way to police headquarters in the heart of the city.2255 In response, one thousand Varsovians were killed. Certainly, this was not the way Frank envisioned his pro-Polish policy to unfold. The Ukrainian situation in the GG remained uncertain. At the top level, the UTsK was prepared to amend its welfare statute into something much more political. They believed the weakened German position was the opportune time to make such demands. To them, doing the Germans’ “dirty work” proved their deutschfreundlich loyalty and entitled them to concrete political privilege-concessions. The “dirty work” included: confiscating harvests for the GG and Reich, labor and construction service recruitment (described as the “least favorite” aspect of Committee work), collecting winter clothing and funds for wounded German soldiers; and propagandizing recruitment for the Galizien Division. Anti-Bolshevik propaganda trips calmed peasant fears and contributed to a purported 8 thousand young Ukrainians returning to the Baudienst service they abandoned. Directly contributing to recruiting 80 thousand divisional volunteers was considered “a testament to the political maturity and decided anti-Bolshevik attitude as well as a vigorous and active will of the Ukrainian people toward German-Ukrainian cooperation.” On the one hand, such work taxed the Committee both physically and financially while on the other, in their eyes, it transcended the GG statute governing them. They looked for political concessions as recompense for their pro-German work: …the success of our work would be much greater and more significant if we had better organizational opportunities and, in particular, if we had a clear, positive political platform, without which our activity looks like a tree without roots.2256 While meeting with Wächter, Kubiiovych reiterated feelings of Ukrainian-German cooperation and willingness to remain alongside them in the battle against the oncoming Bolsheviks.2257 In one memorandum, he repeated his vision of the Germans as the creator of the New European Order. However, the Ukrainian future remained murky; with the example of the Reichskommissariat providing no positive hope. He suggested the occupier begin preparations with “competent Ukrainians” – i.e. himself and the UTsK – for the inevitable anti-Bolshevik offensive and to gain the full confidence of the Ukrainian Volksgemeinschaft by ensuring Ukrainian statehood under German protectorate, creating a government with clearly defined competencies, transferring to it authority over affairs of state, and a national army.2258 To avoid the label of German collaborator, Kubiiovych conveniently omitted UTsK politicization attempts from his memoirs; writing the main goals of the Committee at this time were defending Ukrainians and liquidating the UTsK.2259 2257 “Naselennia Halychyny hotove borotysia i vmerty za sviatu i spravedlyvu spravu,” L’vivs’ki Visti vol. 4 no. 18 (January 27, 1944), 1. 2258 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 26, folder 28, Ausfunkt über das ukrainische Problem im GG, April 1, 1944. In envisioning transferring the power over state affairs to a future Ukrainian government, Kubiiovych proposed clearly defining the division of powers between the Wehrmacht, whom he envisioned being on Ukrainian protectorate territory until the creation of a Ukrainian army, and the government. 2259 Kubiiovych, Meni 85, 115. 2260 UVAN, fond 26, series 6/2, folder III/5, Pan’kivs’kyi diary entry, February-March 1944. 2261 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/38, Gouverneur- und Hauptabteeilungsleitersitzung, February 16, 1944, pp. 47-48. 2262AIPN, DHF, GK 95/34, Tagebuch 1944: Januar bis Februar, pp. 52; 275-276; 95/38, Gouverneur- und Hauptabteilungsleitersitzung, February 16, 1944, p. 86. Wächter was convinced that the time was suitable for political concessions, especially as fear of a Soviet return increased among Ukrainians. In his opinion, the administration failed to take full advantage of their anti-Bolshevik feelings, especially among the youth which on numerous occasions petitioned for closer collaboration and a concrete German line defining their position in the Neuordnung. He made attempts to search for Ukrainian political partners who he could collaborate with in some sort of self-governing role under German supervision. Talks were conducted between Wächter and UNDO men headed by Mudryi. Observing the talks, Pan’kivs’kyi noted Mudryi spoke well of autonomy but he claimed this came too late from the side of the former Sejm speaker.2260 Making a pro-Ukrainian gesture also meant neutralizing the youth from joining the radical nationalists; ideally turning them into a pro-German element. Key to this was Wächter’s intention to exploit the Galizien Division’s first baptism of fire as the basis for political concessions. He even went so far as to suggest including Ukrainian political commissars in the division as a means of further propagandizing or indoctrinating volunteers. He summarized his thoughts succinctly: “The political moment should not be neglected…”2261 Much to the Ukrainians’ chagrin, the GG authorities were still not willing to offer any political concessions. Bühler favored promoting the heretofore Ukrainian line. He opposed any concession of autonomy; seen as German weakness in the eyes of the enemy. Instead, Frank expected both the Ukrainian and Polish committees to continue their welfare role; tending to refugees fleeing the eastern portions of the GG from the oncoming Soviets.2262 Incoming refugees, non-Germans as well as Volksdeutsche, were to move west and serve above all as a subsequent labor source in the Reich. GG labor department head Wilhelm Struve succeeded in rounding-up 3 thousand laborers from this incoming mass. According to Frank, Hitler agreed to accept 10 thousand Ukrainian refugees into the GG.2263 More importantly, Frank wished to maintain German hegemony: “we must strive by all means to maintain authority throughout the entire region regardless of even the greatest difficulties, wherever our authority is in danger, we must rescue it immediately. We are the Reich’s shield here.” The general governor was motivated to achieve this by GG means alone; without outside help. To him, the latter amounted to a loss of his territory’s sovereign authority to the Reich center, something he was not yet prepared to give up: “In that case we will not be the masters of our home but puppets representing the central authorities who, in reality, will lose hold of the reins.”2264 2263 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/34, Tagebuch 1944: Januar bis Februar, p. 130. 2264 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/38, Regierungssitzung, February 16, 1944, pp. 3-4; 7-8. 2265 Mazower, Hitler’s Empire..., 522-524. 2266 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/38, Regierungssitzung, April 19, 1944, pp. 128; 133; Amar, The Paradox of Ukrainian Lviv…, 137-138. 2267 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/35/a, Tagebuch 1944: März, pp. 118-119. The military situation on the continent in 1944 began the downfall of Hitler’s vast German empire. That summer, the Soviets launched Operation Bagration – an effective, overwhelming and devastating military offensive which sent the Wehrmacht into retreat. Within a few weeks, Soviet armored units covered more than 300 miles, reaching the Gulf of Riga and the outskirts of Warsaw. One Polish onlooker recalled the heavenly sight of retreating German soldiers: “They were no longer soldiers, but moving human tatters… exhausted, horrified, inert, in a state of visible physical and moral decline… they wore long beards and had dispirited faces and sunken eyes.” In the west, joint Anglo-American forces landed at Normandy in France; propelling Germany into a taxing two-front war; the most violent stage of the conflict. In the final nine and a half months of the Reich’s existence, the number of war dead nearly doubled that from before July 1944 – 4.8 million as compared to 2.8. Regardless, the Wehrmacht had not completely given up.2265 The wave of Polish massacres in Volhynia soon reached the Galicia District with equal ferocity. German administrators reported of rising panic with refugees fleeing west. Wächter claimed over 200 thousand eastern refugees fled into his district from the oncoming Soviets. He viewed ceaseless Polish massacres as “a severe blow to German authority” while Poles were described “more energetic and disciplined” but also more dangerous in comparison to Ukrainians. However, this did not stop the Germans from exploiting the ethnic conflict. For example, the governor refused Polish requests to establish militias, even under German command, while other officers assisted Ukrainian fighters.2266 Furthermore, the occupier was slowly losing the opportunity to extract resources. Early spring harvests quotas could not be reached in the east as roads were a Wehrmacht priority. Partisan activity crippled farming while Ukrainian peasants were “throwing themselves on warehouses… stealing everything they got their hands on.”2267 Ethnic violence increased as Ukrainian policemen killed Poles to steal their documents with the Polish underground assassinating Ukrainian policemen in response. According to AK reports, the Germans were reluctant to engage nationalists who left them alone for the most part. Conversely, Banderite reports described Poles terrorizing Ukrainian villagers while propagating the idea that the region belonged to Poland. The governor was prepared to further recruit Ukrainian youth into SS or border and police services if only to restore order and combat Soviet partisans.2268 However, as the Germans prepared to evacuate, they simultaneously provided what Christoph Mick called the framework for a Polish-Ukrainian conflict; one fueled not by racism but nationalism. Poles and Ukrainians were preparing a repeat of their 1918-1919 war. In viewing the Soviets and Poles as their main enemies, the Banderites and UPA aimed to remove both elements by combating the former and terrorizing the latter to such a degree that Poles would simply flee or be liquidated. In this way, their plan for regional control was not chaotic but rather, as Motyka described, practical for their aims. UPA aimed to create strong bases in the Carpathians and Tarnopol region, to encircle Lwów by controlling surrounding areas and crosscutting the Lwów-Lublin corridor; to, in effect, be able to send units in both directions if need be. In this way, they would achieve an optimal position vis-à-vis the Poles, especially in Lwów where they outnumbered Ukrainians, and, as they also believed, the Soviets.2269 2268 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/34, Tagebuch 1944: Januar bis Februar, p. 319; DHF, GK 95/38, Gouverneur- und Hauptabteeilungsleitersitzung, February 16, 1944, p. 45; Mick, Lemberg, Lwów, Lviv..., 321. In response to the killing of young Poles by Ukrainian auxiliary police men in Lwów, the AK ordered patrols to walk the streets with the task of killing all police men in sight. The effects were 11 police men killed and two wounded as comepared to two AK men killed. However, the Polish goal was achieved as the murders temporarily ceased in Lwów. The designation the AK gave to the action was “vespers” (Akcja “Nieszpory”). Motyka, Od rzezi wołyńskiej…, 207. 2269 Mick, Lemberg, Lwów, L’viv..., 321-322; Iliuszyn, UPA i AK…, 154-155; Motyka, Od rzezi wołyńskiej..., 224. 2270 Pan’kivs’kyi, Roky nimetskoї okupatsiї, 420-422. 2271 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 26, folder 28, Ausfunkt über das ukrainische Problem im GG, April 1, 1944.; Motyka, Ukraińska partyzantka, 128-129; Armstrong, Ukrainian Nationalism, 178-179. Pan’kivs’kyi noted in his diary that the Germans accused Melnykites of contacts with Finland and Hungary with the goal of contributing to the fall of Germany. UVAN, fond 26, series 6/2, folder III/5, Pan’kivs’kyi diary entry for February 15, 1944. Ukrainian political efforts took on a concerted tone in Lwów. Melnykites met there to, as Pan’kivs’kyi believed, remind Ukrainians of their existence and presence. He described their efforts to create a pan-Ukrainian national center by consolidating various political currents under the OUN-M. To him, these efforts meant nationalist desires to neutralize the political aspirations of the UTsK.2270 On January 14, 1944 Roman Sushko was assassinated in Lwów, purportedly by the Banderites. The Melnykite reaction was a response entitled “We accuse” in which they blamed Banderites for killing political rivals, causing German and Soviet partisans to confiscate food from peasants, and unleashing senseless violence on Poles. In early 1944, Mel’nyk and other leading members were arrested following attempts to establish relations with the Allies. According to Kubiiovych, this aroused public opinion.2271 In February, NKVD agent Nikolai Kuznetsov, disguised in a Wehrmacht uniform, succeeded in assassinating deputy governor Otto Bauer and his secretary Heinrich Schneider in the heart of Lwów.2272 It is assumed that the intended target was Wächter. That day, Kubiiovych and Pan’kivs’kyi visited the governor with condolences. At Bauer’s funeral on February 15, Kubiiovych also gave a eulogy.2273 2272 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/34, Tagebuch 1944: Januar bis Februar, pp. 13-14. Wächter’s son Horst believes that his father was the intended target of the assassination. Ogórek, Lista Wächtera…, 278. 2273 UVAN, fond 26, series 6/2, folder III/5, Pan’kivs’kyi diary entry for March 9 and 15, 1944. According to Pan’kivs’kyi, the Horodenka starosta who was travelling with Bauer and his secretary survived the assassination. Furthermore, Pan’kivs’kyi recalled in his diary that the evening after the funeral, he and Kubiiovych met with Wächter at his residence. There, they met SS-Brigaderführer Harry von Craushaar – newly-appointed head of the GG internal department for the first time. The meeting consisted of unofficially appointing Bauer’s successor. According to Pan’kivs’kyi, Joachim Freiherr von de Leyen – the Kreishauptmann of Lwów County – deferred the appointment in favor of Dr. Josef Brandl who, in February 1942 was appointed to lead the district’s economic department. In 1944 he replaced Bauer as head of the district administration. Pan’kivs’kyi noted that he was unknown to the Ukrainians. Pohl, Nationalsozialistische Judenverfolgung in Ostgalizien…, 412; 417. 2274 AAN, RGO, sygn. 45, Notatka o powiecie czortkowskim, February 3, 1944, pp. 99-100. 2275 Iljuszyn, UPA i AK…, 157-158. 2276 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 18, folder 21, Protokol zїzdu UDK Krakivs’koї Oblasty, June 21, 1944. 2277 Motyka, Od rzezi wołyńskiej…, 221-222; 242-251 The Germans continued to pacify pro-Soviet, anti-German regions. Aside from the increased presence of the Banderite UPA, Soviet partisans also terrorized the population for food, clothing or money. Victims included Poles and Ukrainians; at times in the same villages. However, these did not always have the desired effects. For example, when the German police executed 11 Ukrainians in response to Poles murdered in a village outside of Czortków, 27 Polish farmers were killed several days later by the UPA.2274 Poles organized self-defense militias in villages; at times receiving arms from local German police forces, at times having them confiscated on charges of supporting Soviet partisans.2275 At the same time, Ukrainian men aged 14-35 were being forcibly conscripted into various regular or auxiliary Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe (Flakhelfer) services beyond the GG; older men drafted into the former, younger ones into the latter. Neither Kubiiovych nor Pan’kivs’kyi were opposed to them serving in military formations per se. However, they both wished to see conscription be voluntary with volunteers placed solely in the Galizien Division.2276 Beginning in February, anti-Polish attacks increased exponentially throughout the district as the Banderites looked to seize the moment in the wake of the oncoming Soviets. They constituted a tactic of attacking select villages – those they deemed dangerous or with some sort of self-defense base. In this way, they looked to avoid a repeat of the Volhynian incidents in which Polish self-defense bases formed immediately after the massacres began. Villages were raided by Banderites and UPA formations murdering most in their path. The ferocity mimicked the Volhynia massacres. For example, in the village of Słobódka Wasylskowiecka (Stanisławów County) 8 Poles were killed including an infant “whose hands the criminals broke and nailed to its cradle.” 2277 Huta Pieniacka, a Polish village some 50 kilometers from Tarnopol, stood out as it became a refuge for Poles and Jews from surrounding villages which cooperated with pro-Soviet partisan forces. On February 28, the village was pacified in response to injuries accrued during that day’s assault. Men from the Galizisches Freiwilligen Regiment 4 along with UPA partisans who sought to settle scores with what they viewed as pro-communist Poles participated in the destruction of the village – burning 172 farmsteads to the ground – and massacring all Polish inhabitants. Between 700 and 1,200 Poles were killed. The Banderites ordered UPA forces to be on good terms with regiment and divisional Ukrainians so as to exploit them in their anti-Bolshevik, anti-Polish operations and to eventually convince them to join the UPA. Word of the pacification conducted by soldiers affiliated with the Galizien Division in response to the death of two comrades appeared in an UTsK aid committee report: “In response the SS unit encircled the village and conducted a pacification.”2278 2278 PAA, MCF, 85.191, box 59 file 6, Report of massacres in Galicia, Podlasie and Chełm region, Febraury-March 1944; Rudling, “They Defended Ukraine…,” 346-354; Iliuszyn, UPA i AK…, 161-162. The first attack on the village failed on February 23, 1944. In the spring of 1944, the 3rd battalion of the 4th regiment was moved to the front to combat the advancing Red Army near Zbaraż and Tarnopol. By early June, the 4th regiment was disbanded and their soldiers incorporated into the Galizien division. Motyka, ““Dywizja SS Galizien (Hałychyna),” 114-115. An OUN-B memorandum (February 29, 1944) with orders for Banderites in the field called for them to make contacts with Galizien Division soldiers who were being used in anti-partisan operations so as to “exploit the SS Galizien Division in combating Bolshevik partisans and Polish “bandits” on Ukrainian territory.” Furthermore, subsequent orders called on them to absord any Galizien soldiers disarmed into UPA ranks by taking them to the forsests. Iliuszyn, UPA i AK…, 162. 2279 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 27, folder 8, Proiekt deklaratsiї UTsK v spravi deiakykh podii na tereni Halychyny, February 20, 1944. 2280 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 18, folder 21, Protokol zїzdu UDK Krakivs’koї Oblasty, June 21, 1944. 2281 “Projekt depeszy dotyczącej kwestii narodowościowych przygotowany przez Wydział Informacji BIP (January 15, 1944)” in Archiwum Adama Bienia..., 484. 2282 PAA, MCF, 85.191, box 59 file 6, Report of massacres in Galicia, Podlasie and Chełm region, Febraury-March 1944. Officially and publically, the UTsK prepared another note condemning the escalating ethnic violence. “Irresponsible elements” – the synonym for Banderites – upset law and order; elements which, according to the text, allowed Ukrainians to build their national life alongside the Germans. Clandestine Bolshevik elements were said to be taking advantage of the Polish-Ukrainian ethnic conflict while “chauvinistic Poles poisoned relations throughout the GG.”2279 Overall, the activity of the Banderites and UPA was seen by the UTsK as a failure to protect Ukrainians from either Poles or Bolsheviks. In their opinion, it was doing the exact opposite – causing German reprisals on innocent Ukrainians. As Pan’kivs’kyi commented, UPA was the Ukrainian “weak point.” Kubiiovych went further by stating: “No soldier would do that which the underground does. Anachronistic anarchy.”2280 Increased German repressions against the Banderites and UPA in the region were met with the approval of the UTsK if only to maintain their overt pro-German line.2281 An UTsK report listing killings of Poles in Eastern Galicia between February and March 1944 described perpetrators very ambiguously – most often as either “an armed group of people” or “unknown armed people.” Conversely, attacks by “Soviet” or “Polish” partisans or were described as such.2282 Here, it is necessary to note the difference in the language used to describe events by the UTsK. Ukrainian murders in the Lublin District, as mentioned earlier, were nationalized and ascribed to “Polish bandits” while in contrast, Polish murders in the Galicia District were de-nationalized and credited to unknown assailants. This illustrates a dichotomy of the UTsK. On the one hand, the Committee publically denounced the Banderites and UPA as this was the occupier’s line at the time and lay in line with the “apolitical” image of the Committee who was concerned over German retaliations for nationalist actions against innocent Ukrainians. On the other hand, this suggests two things. First, it appears as a ‘silent approval’ or at the very least indifference by the UTsK of Banderite and UPA anti-Polish actions in Eastern Galicia; perhaps as “revenge” for anti-Ukrainian violence in the Lublin District. Conversely, this could have equated to a belief that either Banderite-UPA strength could possibly “win” Eastern Galicia for Ukrainians or it was an evident signal that the UTsK would not contest the strengthening nationalists over authority in the region, ceding it especially as the influence of their sponsor – Nazi Germany – waned. In turning a blind eye to the perpetrators of anti-Polish violence there, the UTsK focused its attention on stemming and combating anti-Ukrainian violence in the Lublin District by pressing the German occupiers to react against the Poles en force. If successful, this could have brought reclaiming ethnographic territory by Ukrainian nationalists in that district a step closer. District-wide downsizing and dissolution of aid committees began in earnest after the Red Army forced the Zbruch River in March 1944. Civil authorities ordered all non-essential Reichsdetusche and Volksdeutsche to evacuate the eastern portions of the district; evacuating Tarnopol on the 9th, Czortków on the 10th and Kołomyja on the 25th. A German transport report specified over 80 thousand combined Reichs and Volksdeutsche in need of rail transport further west. Ukrainians caught in the regions overrun by the Soviets were forced into the Red Army while members of the intelligentsia were executed outright. Those who remained in Kołomyja for example, were rounded-up and deported east for heavy labor.2283 German authorities ordered evacuees from the threatened eastern portions of the district to western regions; settling many in southwestern areas in and around Sambor, Stanisławów, Stryj, and Drohobycz.2284 2283 BA, R 52 III/1, German transport report for evacuation from the Galicia District, n.d., p. 4; LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 18, folder 21, Protokol zїzdu UDK Krakivs’koї Oblasty, June 21, 1944. 2284 Pan’kivs’kyi, Roky nimetskoї okupatsiї, 419. 2285 BA, R 52 III/1, German transport report for evacuation from the Galicia District, n.d., p. 4. Out of the estimated 100 thousand Ukrainians in need of transport west, the report specified about 40 thousand consisting of civil servants and families, about 8 thousand auxiliary police men and families, some 40 thousand SS Galizien soldiers and families, and about 10 thousand UTsK employees and families. Furthermore, the report envisioned evacuating about 25 thousand Poles west. In total, 135 trains were needed to move about 200 thousand Germans, Ukrainians and Poles west. 2286 Mats’kiv, Z-nad Dnistra na kanads’ki preriї..., 144. Civil servants and families were ordered to evacuate Lwów on March 23. Ukrainians also began fleeing. The same German report mentioned above estimated close to about 100 thousand Ukrainians in need of rail evacuation. This included: civil servants, auxiliary police men, Galizien SS men, UTsK workers and the families of all.2285 Tymotei Mats’kiv who worked in a Lwów appellation court recalled evacuating: “…we took with us only personal belongings, clothing and one suitcase. Everything else was left in our Lwów apartment because we were assured this was only a temporary evacuation and we would return.”2286 The Banderites looked condescendingly on Mats’kiv and members of the intelligentsia who, with their families, were fleeing west: “Our intelligentsia in the majority are slaves who wear white collars.”2287 2287 Quoted in Mick, Lemberg, Lwów, Lviv…, 321. 2288 Bruder, “Den ukrainischen Staat erkämpfen oder streben!”..., 210-212; Motyka, Od rzezi wołyńskiej..., 222-223; Lucyna Kulińska and Czesław Partacz, Zbrodnie Nacjonalistów Ukraińskich na Polakach w latach 1939-1945. Ludobóstwo niepotępione (Warszawa: Bellona, 2015), 100-106. Just as the UTsK apparatus documented and reported murders in its various notes and memorandums, so too did the Polish RGO. For such reports, see especially Kulińska and Roliński (eds), Antypolska akcja nacjonalistów ukraińskich w Małopolsce Wschodniej w świetle dokumentów Rady Głównej Opiekuńczej 1943-1944. 2289 Hempel, Pogrobowcy klęski..., 55-56. 2290 “Meldunek sytuacyjny nr. 1 – 22 marca 1944” in Armia Krajowa w dokumentach vol. 3, 383. 2291 BA, R 52 III/1, Aktennotiz – Reise mit dem Gouverneur SS-Brigadeführer Dr. Wächter, April 9, 1944, pp. 53-55. By April, Ukrainians and Poles were killing each other in every county of the district as UPA command gave orders to begin a mass anti-Polish expulsion campaign. The Banderites and UPA began intense attacks during Holy Week that month; as previously in Volhynia. After giving Polish villagers an ultimatum to either flee or die UPA forces massacred all who remained – men, women and children. Those who escaped fled to larger towns or cities, hoping for protection from either the German police or Polish self-defense militias. Others fled the district entirely. Killings in villages ranged from either several dozen to several hundred Poles murdered; often by machine gun but also with axes as in Volhynia. The Banderites and UPA in no way envisioned the assimilation of Poles into their future Ukrainian state and, until the arrival of the Soviets, targeted Polish elites and organized Poles whose elimination they considered inevitable. Terrorizing and killing Poles throughout the entire district equated to what nationalists saw as a necessary step to de-polonize the region, seen as a possible threat to future Ukrainian claims over it.2288 Members of the auxiliary police also took part in anti-Polish violence. In light of this, the RGO in Lwów prepared a memorandum demanding the Germans dissolve the formation and place police duties in Polish hands. Whereas this went unanswered, the authorities proposed creating a Lwów citizens watch under the supervision of the Ukrainian auxiliary police. Poles hastily rejected any part in it.2289 Polish disparity and hope was reported to London by AK commander Bór-Komorowski: “more and more people await the Bolsheviks as defenders and avengers against Ukrainian massacres.”2290 Bisanz’s report of Wächter’s inspection conducted on April 7-8 corroborated the Poles pro-Soviet disposition. He noted of many Poles remaining in eastern towns as they hoped the Soviets would treat them differently from the Germans and protect them from the UPA. Ukrainians claimed incoming Soviets also brandished pro-Polish dispositions since they saw Ukrainians as “unreliable and German-friendly, and the Bandera fascists are [our] enemies.”2291 Even though the UTsK was occupied with evacuating the district, it still took the time to lobby the authorities to forbid Poles from placing obituaries of recently killed UPA victims – often described as “died tragically” – in the Polish press. In this way, the Committee again silently approved anti-Polish Banderite and UPA tactics. By mid-1944, an estimated 9,490 Poles perished at the hands of armed Ukrainian formations in Eastern Galicia while a purported 300,000 people fled west.2292 2292 Iliuszyn, UPA i AK…, 168; Kulińska and Partacz, Zbrodnie Nacjonalistów Ukraińskich..., 107-108. Ukrainian estimates claimed that as many as 425 thousand Poles fled Eastern Galicia by mid-1944. 2293 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 27, folder 1, Kubiiovych’s memorandum to Frank concerning Ukrainians in Kraków District, December 1943. 2294 Magocsi, With Their Backs to the Mountains…, 283. 2295 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 18, folder 21, Protokol zїzdu UDK Krakivs’koї Oblasty, June 21, 1944. During the evacuation of the Tsentrosoiuz, some of its inventory remained in Lwów as cooperative vehicles were commandeered by workers to escape the oncoming Soviets. Stopped by the Wehrmacht, their cars were in turn confiscated for the army. They were placed in transport rail wagons and transported to a transit camp outside of Vienna. Sycz, Spółdzielczość ukraińska w Galicji…, 214. The main transit camp was located in the Bakończyce district of Przemyśl. It was built in 1940 by the GG Arbeitsamt and consisted of wooden barracks intended initially to house Soviet prisoners of war. Later, it was used as a transit camp for laborers either going to or returning from the Reich. LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 20, folder 23, Dilova zapyska u spravi: taboriv dla vtikachiv zi skhodu i robitnykiv-povorottsiv z Raikhu v Peremyshli, December 10, 1943. The Kraków District became the site of welfare and violence. In areas bordering the Lublin and Galicia districts, partisans and bandits from both appeared; increasing ethnic tensions between Poles and Ukrainians. Kubiiovych credited this increased violence in the eastern parts of the district – Jarosław, Sanok, and Krosno – solely to either Polish underground organizations or bandits. Again, leading Ukrainian civic activists – teachers, priests, and cooperative heads – were the main target. Kubiiovych proposed strengthening Ukrainian police forces to repel attacks and organizing self-defense militias on the basis of those formed by Volksdeutsche colonists in Zamość or Ukrainians in Hrubieszów; ones which, in his opinion, proved themselves.2293 A combination of harsh Nazi policies and repressive Ukrainian measures against large segments of Lemko secular and religious leadership prompted many young Lemkos to join the partisans. Some joined the AK while the majority of others, because of their traditional leftist Russophile sympathies, joined Polish pro-communists; carrying out successful operations against Nazi authorities and Ukrainian auxiliaries.2294 Southern and eastern counties of the district became the site for evacuees temporarily placed in camps or villages along the Limanowa-Gorlice-Lemko region line. A transit camp in Przemyśl was the temporary destination for Dnieper Ukrainians. Galician Ukrainians filtered through a camp in Kraków before moving further west to, for example, Częstochowa. Tarnów contained a transit camp meant for laborers, either for the Reich or for the district. Other sites for evacuees included areas in and around Nowy Sącz, Krynica and Sanok. Some cooperative offices – such as the Tsentrosoiuz – were evacuated there.2295 Given that Krynica remained a German resort and convalescence town, GG officials forbid evacuees from being accommodated there yet permitted temporary (one-two night) stays at the Ukrainian sanatorium. The initial wave of Galician evacuee consisted of aid committee family members, Galizien Division military board members, Fachkurse academics and auxiliary policemen.2296 In fear of the Soviet advance, Rev. Malynovs’kyi moved the Lemko Apostolic Administration curia from Sanok to a village near Krynica.2297 2296 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 20, folder 23, Türk’s note to Kubiiovych, February 21, 1944. 2297 Nowakowski, “Administracja Apostolska Łemkowszczyzny…,” 236; Przybylski, Rola duchowieństwa greckokatolickiego..., 157-158. 2298 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 20, folder 23, Aktenvermerk – betr. Flüchtlingswesen, May 21, 1944. 2299 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 24, folder 11, Zvit Predstavnyka UTsK v Liublini pro stan nashykh klityn, June 16, 1944. 2300 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 17, folder 26, Zasidannia, April 8, 1944; volume 20 folder 23, Aktenvermerk – Betrifft: Flüchtlinge aus Galizien, April 26, 1944. 2301 AAN, RGO, sygn. 1050, Sprawozdanie z akcji pomocy uchodźcom w miesiącu maju 1944, pp. 7-10. According to the RGO report, evacuees were not transported from Lwów on two Sundays, because of a Soviet air raid on the city, and because of the Pentecost holiday. By May, the UTsK reported 30-40 thousand Ukrainian refugees in the GG. The majority were placed throughout the Lemko region but also in the Radom and Warsaw districts. Of the total number of refugees, about half were Dnieper Ukrainians – described as farmers and laborers; Galician refugees were of the Ukrainian intelligentsia.2298 Aid committees were tasked with engaging German county officials in order to care for evacuees. Warehouse inventories and financial treasuries of liquidated Eastern Galician aid committees served as a basis for refugee aid. Makeshift kitchens were organized while aid committees were allowed to petition the GG authorities for financial assistance to buy more foodstuffs. The Germans obliged, providing 300 thousand złotys to the UTsK which distributed the money among the committees.2299 While some refugees, especially those who fled eastern Ukraine to the GG, were selected for work in the Reich, much was done to keep Galician Ukrainians – the intellectual elite – in the district. If they were sent-off for labor, the Committee intervened so they were not categorized as Ostarbeiter but as GG laborers.2300 To keep Ukrainians from being sent west as laborers, the UTsK suggested finding work for them. This included: loading and unloading construction materials, building barracks or working in aid committee warehouses. Ukrainians were not the only ones fleeing. Poles were also evacuating the Galicia district in the face of the oncoming Soviets. In May, 7,482 Poles registered with the RGO to evacuate. The majority – 1,999 – came from Lwów; ultimately 1,563 were transported from there. Three-fourths fled to relatives in other GG districts; the remainder was placed under the welfare of Polish aid committees. The majority were dispersed throughout the Kraków District, including regions alongside evacuated Ukrainians. Some were also selected for labor and sent to the Reich.2301 Kubiiovych assessed the evacuee issue in a lengthy memorandum to the GG authorities. Content with an impending German counter-offensive, he began by suggesting members of the Galician Ukrainian intelligentsia remain on or nearby ethnographic territory in order to inevitably return to Eastern Galicia. The significance of treating Ukrainian evacuees and refugees properly was all the more important, according to him, as it was necessary to avoid anti-German sympathies from appearing among Galizien Division soldiers whose families were not being treated as their German counterparts. He claimed émigrés would continue establishing and deepening German-Ukrainian relations during and after the war. Furthermore, he called attention to the varied treatment of Ukrainian refugees by the Germans as an issue ripe for Bolshevik propaganda. In his opinion, this could propel Ukrainians to join the UPA rather than flee west.2302 2302 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 20, folder 23, Aktenvermerk – betr. Flüchtlingswesen, May 21, 1944. 2303 Ibid. 2304 Kulińska and Roliński (eds), Antypolska akcja nacjonalistów ukraińskich..., 266. 2305 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 20, folder 23, Zvit iz poїzdky dr. Mykhaila Rosliaka do Tarnova, April 8, 1944. 2306 AAN, RGO, sygn. 1050, Note from the RGO branch in Busko to RGO in Radom, April 5, 1944, p. 141. 2307 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 18, folder 21, Protokol zїzdu UDK Krakivs’koї Oblasty, June 21, 1944; volume 20 folder 23, Aktenvermerk – betr. Flüchtlingswesen, May 21, 1944. In addition to his technical assessment, Kubiiovych also called attention to the relocation of incoming Poles near or in Ukrainian evacuation areas. Given the tense and violent hostilities between the two ethnic groups in the Galicia and Lublin districts, relocating them in or near neighboring areas was seen by him as a further danger to GG security. He claimed of incidents in which Galician Polish anti-Ukrainian propaganda began to influence the mood of local Poles. Of concern to him was also the scenario in which, for example, Ukrainians from the Lublin district were evacuated on German orders to the Radom one. This placement of Ukrainians on non-ethnographic, unquestionably Polish territory, worried Kubiiovych. To prevent further unnecessary incidents, he suggested avoiding ethnically mixing refugees by creating a cordon sanitaire – placing Ukrainians strictly on ethnographic territory in the Kraków District and Poles on ethnic Polish territory there. Of course, Ukrainian territory was to be closed-off to incoming Poles.2303 Poles also expressed their disdain as Ukrainian aid committees facilitated registering entire families in internment camps for residency in the district. This, an RGO note claimed “portrayed the image of only Ukrainians receiving legal residency – Polish refugees are deprived care and aid.”2304 Richard Türk of the population and welfare bureau met with UTsK and RGO representatives, ordering both to influence their respective groups and prevent unwanted hostility. According to him, the gravity of the situation demanded charitable-humanitarian aid, not ethnic enmity.2305 However, ethnic incidents – both trifle and hostile, were unavoidable. One Polish report described how a German starosta refused to provide an aid committee with foodstuffs while Ukrainians, who had no aid committee of their own to aid them, were provided with food.2306 Near Krynica, local Poles were said to have refused to assist in aiding Ukrainians even when offered financial compensation. UTsK officials there also reported of Polish partisans, purportedly consisting of local Poles, accosting Ukrainian evacuees and searching for the families of Galizien Division soldiers.2307 Aid committee reports from Jarosław especially noted of incidents in which local Polish “bandits” terrorized Ukrainian social activists. Acts of Polish auxiliary police brutality were recorded. With the influx of Ukrainian evacuees, incidents of attacks increased with Ukrainian being blamed for the Volhynia massacres.2308 In one note, the head of the Jarosław aid committee accused incoming Galician Poles of spreading rumors of Banderite UPA atrocities on Poles in Eastern Galicia to foment anti-Ukrainian resentment among Poles. A worthwhile question to ask here is whether or not the aid committee head knew of UPA anti-Polish attacks in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia or if this was a means of maintaining the historic image of Polish imperialism toward Ukraine. In his note, he spoke of the need to forge unnecessary ethnic violence: “Polish-Ukrainian problems will not be decided by various wandering gangs, regardless of their character or ethnicity. Time and history will decide this problem.”2309 2308 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 25, folder 18, UDK Iaroslav – informatsiinyi zvit za berezen’ i kviten’, April 20, 1944; UDK Iaroslav – informatsiinyi zvit za kviten’ i chastynu travnia, May 11, 1944. 2309 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 25, folder 18, UDK Jarosław note, May 29, 1944. 2310 Sowa, Stosunki polsko-ukraińskie 1939-1947, 156. 2311 Zajączkowski, Ukraińskie podziemie..., 268-280. 2312 AAN, RGO, sygn. 42, Notatka, February 4, 1944, p. 64. 2313 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/38, Gouverneur- und Hauptabteilungsleitersitzung, February 16, 1944, p. 51 Violence caused by German resettlement and pacification Aktions in the Lublin District transformed into a genuine Polish-Ukrainian conflict. The fate of Ukrainians in the southeastern portions of the district was ultimately decided by the conviction among local Poles as well as the underground of mass Ukrainian support for the occupier. As an UTsK delegate commented: “According to them [Poles], the German administration would have collapsed long ago if not for the Ukrainian police and conscious Ukrainian inhabitants.”2310 From November 1943 to the summer of 1944, the southern portions of Hrubieszów and Biłgoraj counties became the arena of fierce fighting between the Polish underground, pro-communist Polish partisans, Soviet partisans and a slew of Ukrainian forces: the OUN self-defense, Banderite UPA formations, the Melnykite Ukrainian self-defense legion from Volhynia, and units of the SS Galizien Division. Beginning in January, the Banderites increased anti-Polish activity in the Chełm region by taking revenge on local Poles. Anti-Polish attacks sparked reprisals particularly from Peasant Battalions.2311 Anti-Ukrainian attacks in turn caused reprisals by the auxiliary police. For example, after a Ukrainian wójt was killed by “forest people” in Biłgoraj County, the auxiliaries conducted a reprisal against Poles gathered for Sunday church services. Purportedly drunk, they entered the church, killed the priest and terrorized those gathered in the village of Potok Górny.2312 Fearing for his life – presumably to avoid being captured or killed as a Ukrainian collaborator either by Soviets or Poles – Ilarion asked whether GG authorities could “guarantee him a return to the Reich.” They informed him of his primary role as church hierarch – strengthening Ukrainian confidence in German might. However, if the need proved vital, he would be evacuated west. In July he fled to Warsaw before moving he fled to Krosno. Besides facilitating Ilarion’s transfer from Warsaw in the wake of Soviet pressure, the occupation authorities also moved Dionysius and Palladius to Krosno.2313 Whereas the Polish-Ukrainian conflict of 1942-1943 fell within the understanding of a natural, biological struggle for survival during German Aktions in the Lublin District, in 1944, according to Motyka, the Polish underground went a step further as it unleased collective reprisals on a scale yet unseen there on Ukrainian civilians.2314 Although the impetus for the large-scale reprisal operation in the Hrubieszów region is debatable, it has been colloquially described as a “revolution” or an “anti-Ukrainian offensive” in Polish-language historiography.2315 Regardless, the Polish underground attack – conducted by joint units of the Tomaszów and Hrubieszów AK supported by a BCh battalion commanded by Stanisław Basaj (ps. “Ryś”) – resembled a brutal pacification. 2314 Motyka, Od rzezi wołyńskiej... 292. 2315 The accepted understanding of the impetus for organized, large-scale anti-Ukrainian violence by the Polish underground in Hrubieszów is that it meant to forestall Banderite plans to extend their anti-Polish massacres from Eastern Galicia to the Chełm region. For example, Zajączkowski, Ukraińskie podziemie..., 286-287; Motyka, Tak było w Bieszczadach…, 187. However, Andrzej Leon Sowa has proposed a contending reason for Polish motivation. He associated Polish activity with AK military plans and with the Volhynian underground’s participation in Operation ‘Tempest’ (Akcja Burza). In his opinion, the underground aimed to lure Ukrainian forces into the region before destroying them and opening the Polish road toward Lwów where forces would rush to for the impending uprising. Sowa, Stosunki polsko-ukraińskie, 256-257; Andrzej L. Sowa, Kto wydał wyrok na miasto? Plany operacyjne ZWZ-AK (1940-1944) i sposoby ich realizacji (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 2016), 255. A similar opinion appeared in V’iatrovych, Druha pol’s’ko-ukraїns’ka viina…, 189. 2316 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 24, folder 5, Zvit Predstavnyka UTsK na Distrikt Liublyn z poїzdky, March 14, 1944. 2317 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 25, folder 17, Protokol ziznannia Maksyma Shchyrby, May 4, 1944; Veryha, Dorohami druhoї svitovoї viiny..., 228. Mariusz Zajączkowski cited examples of some ordinary Poles patrolling their farms alongside the Ukrainian self-defense militias from increasing Polish-Ukrainian attacks and, above all, to simply protect their families. Zajączkowski, Ukraińskie podziemie..., 292. 2318 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 25, folder 17, Zvit pro zhorstokyi teror pols’kykh band na Hrubieshivshchyny, April 10, 1944. The symbol of Polish violence fell on three Ukrainian-majority areas in and around the villages of Sahryń, Szychowice and Łasków; regions the underground deemed as centers of Ukrainian strength in Hrubieszów County. One UTsK field report described what they believed Polish intentions to be: “…first liquidate our purely Ukrainian villages along the Bug [River] and ethnically-mixed ones… they’ll easily handle us later.”2316 Beginning on March 10, 1944, a common scenario appeared as Poles attacked. Large underground forces amassed in neighboring forests surrounding villages, most often during the early morning hours, before setting fire to huts and barns either with incendiary bullets or hay doused with gasoline. Ukrainian Ortschutz defended some villages but were forced to retreat as Polish strength was too large. In Łasków for example, Ukrainian defenders numbered 20 against 200 Poles. The Hrubieszów aid committee head even turned to the German Kreishauptmann and security officials for protection from the Wehrmacht, gendarmerie or the Galizisches Freiwilligen Regiment 5. He even noted of three Melnykite Volhynian Legion units nearby.2317 However, no intervention was made by the Germans. They only came to survey and document the destruction and carnage following attacks.2318 Then the killings began. Men, women, children; young and old were not spared. At times, partisans even returned several hours later or the next day to search-out any remaining Ukrainians in hideouts; often throwing grenades in to either kill or flush them out. Following the killings, Poles plundered whatever remained intact or dug-up what Ukrainians buried for safe keeping. Many Ukrainian survivors recalled recognizing neighbors or common villagers during the attacks in their testimonies. At least one witness noted the Poles wore various uniforms but all had white and red armbands.2319 A Polish partisan involved in the attacks recalled: “And judgement day began! Everything is burning. Pigs are squealing, cows hollering, and horses galloping. Terrible confusion and chaos – we continue pressing forward. It became light, Ukrainians are retreating and shooting at us. We responded with fire from all our weapons.”2320 2319 Ibid, Protokol ziznannia Sofiї Mudryk, April 27, 1944. 2320 Quoted in Zajączkowski, Ukraińskie podziemie..., 295. 2321 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 25, folder 17, Protokol ziznannia Kateryny Pamasiuk, May 2, 1944. 2322 Ibid, Protokol ziznannia Malymon Ziny, April 26, 1944. 2323 Ibid, Protokol ziznannia Mykhaila Huchaka, May 3, 1944; Protokol ziznannia Maksyma Shchyrby, May 4, 1944. 2324 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 24, folder 5, Zvit Predstavnyka UTsK na Distrikt Liublyn z poїzdky, March 14, 1944. 2325 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 25, folder 5, Zvit Predstavnyka UTsK na Distrikt Liublyn z poїzdky, April 1, 1944. 2326 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 25, folder 17, Illarion’s letter to Kubiiovych, March 12, 1944. Dantean scenes of brutal violence were reported to the UTsK. Nineteen year old Kateryna Pamasiuk of Łasków, who testified to the Hrubieszów aid committee, recalled Poles using axes to cut-off heads, arms and legs. She even described one young Ukrainian beheaded with the head later thrown into a burning fire.2321 Twelve year old Zina Malymon was forced at gunpoint to point-out Ukrainian auxiliary police hideouts in her village. Unable to find what they were looking for, the Poles killed her mother, sister and several other women; severely injuring Zina.2322 Mykhailo Hychak and Maksym Shcherba witnessed the Poles kill and mutilate the body of Łasków priest Lev Koropchuk with shovels after pulling him out of a hideout.2323 Polish auxiliary policemen were noted as passively observing the events, at times arresting fleeing Ukrainians on charges of being “Volhynian partisans.” Commenting on the plight of innocent Ukrainians, Volodymyr Levyts’kyi wrote in his field report: “When you see and hear all of this, even someone with an immovable heart would have tears in their eyes.”2324 Polish brutalization continued until April 2, the date of the last large-scale anti-Ukrainian action in the region. In his field report documenting the aftermath, Levytsk’yi wrote: “Now, the entire Hrubieszów region, from the Bug to the Huczwa [rivers] – once rich with several dozen Ukrainian villages and Polish colonies – lay in complete ashes. Today it can be said that this is not the end because now begins the decisive, bloody showdown-massacre for the national character of this land.”2325 Ukrainians made calls for help. In a letter to Kubiiovych, Illarion wrote of Orthodox villagers “killed by the hundreds,” churches burned and profaned while Poles were said to be demanding conversions to Catholicism. He pleaded: “In the name of all Orthodox faithful, I beg you to immediately defend our lives and property.”2326 An aid committee report from Hrubieszów criticized the Germans for not ordering police or Wehrmacht units stationed nearby to pacify the Polish underground yet urged for immediate action if only to save remaining villages and the refugees who fled to them.2327 2327 PAA, MCF, 85.191, box 59 file 6, Erläutenungen über die Verfälle im Kreise Hrubieschow, March 21, 1944. 2328 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 26, folder 24, Aktenvermerk, March 30, 1944. 2329 Hałagida, “Ukraińskie straty ludnościowe w dystrykcie lubelskim...,” 383-385. The Banderite underground’s figures run similar to those of the UTsK. From March to April, they recorded 35 villages destroyed (875 victims) with around 2 thousand total victims with large numbers of women and children. V’iatrovych, Druha pol’s’ko-ukraїns’ka viina…, 191. 2330 HDA SBU, 13, 376: Informatsiї (Volodymyrshchyna-Horokhivshchyna), March 28, 1944, p. 76. Accessed via the Ukrainian Liberation Movement Electronic Archive, March 12, 2018 2331 Ihor Iliuszyn, “Tragedia wołyńska lat 1943-1944: przyczyny, przebieg, skutki,” Pamięć i Sprawiedliwość vol. 13 no. 1 (2014), 398. 2332 Sowa, Stosunki polsko-ukraińskie 1939-1947, 255. 2333 Grzegorz Motyka, “Chełmszczyzna 1944 – kontekst,” Karta 95 (Spring 2018), 98-99; Iliuszyn, UPA i AK..., 148. Given the dense concentration of villages attacked, Ukrainian casualties were heavy to say the least. The symbol of the massacres among Ukrainians was the village of Sahryń. Kubiiovych claimed of at least one thousand victims in the villages of Sahryń, Szychowice and Łasków.2328 According to UTsK records, that number was indeed higher, numbering at least 1,264 killed in just one day – March 10. Out of this total, 495 women and 291 children fell victim in the massacre. On that day in Sahryń and its immediate surroundings, 606 Ukrainians were massacred; out of which 227 were women and 151 children. At least 35 villages were burned to the ground. In total, from March 9/10 until April 2, 1,969 Ukrainians perished at the hands of the Polish underground. Perhaps most disparaging is the large number of women (769) and children (348) who perished in the ensuing ethnic conflict.2329 Banderite reports claimed survivors fleeing east to Volhynia.2330 Even though the comparison can be made to the Volhynia and Eastern Galicia anti-Polish massacres, Iliushyn argued the anti-Ukrainian massacres in Hrubieszów “minimally resembled” the Banderite actions against Poles further east.2331 Certainly he is correct when comparing the numbers of victims and the character of Banderite premeditation. However, the number of Ukrainian victims in the Sahryń region also attests to the character of the massacres there; something which Andrzej L. Sowa drew on: “The Polish action was planned in such a way so as to cause the most possible losses among Ukrainians in Sahryń. Because only in this way can be interpreted a plan aimed at preventing Ukrainians from fleeing villages.”2332 Grzegorz Motyka definitively described the “Polish offensive” as the bloodiest anti-Ukrainian act of revenge conducted by the Polish underground. Ihor Iliushyn termed it a “retaliatory-preventative” action.2333 Indeed, the Sahryń massacres serve as an example of local or regional underground leaders interpreting general AK command orders to legitimize their version of revenge for the ethnic cleansing in Volhynia. Without any doubt, both anti-Polish and anti-Ukrainian massacres should be concertedly condemned as the overwhelming majority of victims were innocent people. Polish-Ukrainian violence in the Galicia and Lublin districts was best described by Bierkamp during a GG security meeting: “In Hrubieszów County, Poles burned Ukrainian villages while in the Lemberg [Galicia] District, Ukrainians burned Polish ones. The murders that occurred there were so numerous that it was completely incomprehensible to Germans how one could kill others in this way.”2334 Given the unprecedented scale of mass murder committed by the Nazi occupational regime, Bierkamp’s reaction is surprising. However perhaps even he could not envision the magnitude of mutual violence being committed by both ethnic groups. Kubiiovych reported the atmosphere following the brutal killings in Hrubieszów County. According to him, the perception of Polish auxiliary policemen either passively watching or apprehending fleeing villagers shook Ukrainian perception of German law and order. Furthermore, he questioned why the Galizien Division was not used to pacify the situation. This, he claimed, convinced Ukrainians of the occupier’s unwillingness to protect them. To regain the trust and cooperation of the co-builders of the GG, he suggested increasing auxiliary police and Selbstschutz arms and presence in Ukrainian villages while employing all Ukrainians under German command, in the Galizien Division or the Wachmannschaft units, in the fight against the Poles.2335 2334 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/38, Regierungssitzung, April 19, 1944, p. 115. 2335 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 26, folder 24, Aktenvermerk, March 30, 1944. 2336 Melnyk, The History of the Galician Division of the Waffen-SS, vol. 1, 191. 2337 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/35/b, Tagebuch 1944: April bis Mai, pp. 67-68; DHF, GK 95/38, Regierungssitzung, April 19, 1944, p. 146. 2338 AAN, German microfilm collection, MF-531, Bericht über die allgemeine Lage im Distrikt Lublin, June 19, 1944, p. 76. 2339 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/38, Koppe opposed Kubiiovych’s idea of employing the Galizien Division to combat Polish partisans as he claimed the volunteer regiments were unreliable. This however stemmed from the SS underarming and underutilizing them.2336 Only in proving themselves in battle would he reconsider his decision. Arming Ukrainian auxiliary policemen was considered a grave risk. Kubiiovych’s proposals were not even discussed among the police apparatus as, in Koppe’s opinion, carrying them out would entail the slaughtering of more Poles.2337 Frank agreed with both opinions. However, as in the Galicia district, young Ukrainians were also being forced into Flakhelfer or other auxiliary service. Kubiiovych urged the Germans to place them alongside their counterparts in the Galizien Division.2338 Incidentally, German opposition to Ukrainian requests served as another example of the Galizien Division compliant to the occupier and German orders, not Ukrainian wishes. The ethnic battle appeared as a secondary concern to the GG security apparatus. While Koppe saw Poles and Ukrainians as less dangerous since they battled each other and not the Germans, the greater dangers stemmed from Russian-Polish communist partisans, especially those in the Biłgoraj forests, who conducted concerted sabotage actions on vital rail lines. This is not to say that the security apparatus did not observe the Polish non-communist underground. Aware of their plans for a general uprising, Koppe urged all security posts to closely monitor and screen any and all suspicious individuals. Special attention was paid to women and bicyclists since “bicycles played a special role in all Polish uprisings.”2339 The occupier observed the violent Polish-Ukrainian conflict through the divide and conquer lens; hoping the two bleed each other out to such a degree that the Germans could simply mop-up what remained and regain order. As such, they focused on combating the communist partisans in Biłgoraj County. This, however, did not mean they opposed defusing the conflict. Koppe regretted the “mad bloodshed” between the two groups and proposed the Polish and Ukrainian committees appeal to their people for peace. Concerning the latter, he even suggested the UTsK “order their men” to cease and stand down.2340 2340 Ibid, Regierungssitzung, April 19, 1944, p. 146. 2341 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/35/a, Tagebuch 1944: März, pp. 234; 237; LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 24, folder 5, Zvit Predstavnyka UTsK na Distrikt Liublyn z poїzdky, March 14, 1944. 2342 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/38, Regierungssitzung, May 12, 1944, p. 194. 2343 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/35/a, Tagebuch 1944: März, pp. 113-114; DHF, GK 95/35/b, Tagebuch 1944: April bis Mai, pp. 131-132. 2344 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/35/a, Tagebuch 1944: März, p. 244; AAN, RGO, sygn. 42, Notatka, April 1942, p. 63. Combating partisans in the district was taxing the order police. According to Wendler, it caused “an absolute lack of obedience and malice” among inhabitants, something “never before noticed.” This, combined with the sheer number of district villages, meant the occupier could not protect everyone everywhere. Often, the German police fled to cities or towns, ordering Ukrainian auxiliaries to defend themselves from Bolshevik attacks.2341 To Frank, as with the Galicia District, the greatest danger was losing the ability to further extract valuable food supplies. Wendler reported Ukrainians killing Poles in broad daylight while Germans or Volksdeutsche were forced to work the fields; taking them away from self-defense and police duties.2342 The occupier soon evacuated the Landkommissar office as “nothing more can be exported.” With a blow to German authority in the GG, Polish labor was out of the question as Wendler claimed a spirit of uprising was awakening in them. As he saw it, the GG was on the brink of repeating the scenario of the Reichskommissariat Ukraine.2343 The Germans maintained the hope that the Red Army would be stopped. However, Soviet planes were reaching the district, conducting bombing runs on Krasnystaw and Lublin.2344 Evacuation plans were under way as German and Volksdeutsche women and children were moved from Zamość County while men were organized into Selbstschutz militias to bolster defenses. During a fieldtrip to Lublin, Volodymyr Levytsk’yi noted of 1,812 German families and inventories evacuated toward the end of March. Local administrators also urged aid committee men to begin evacuating Ukrainians particularly since refugees who came into the district were not permitted long-term stay. The inventory in aid committee warehouses was to also be packed-up and moved out. It was suggested Ukrainians be evacuated to the refugee camp in Tarnów where the UTsK had a representative overseeing Galician evacuees. Levyts’kyi urged those evacuating, especially cooperatives, to head to ethnographic territory in the Lemko region. However, given the experience of some Lublin Ukrainians, he stated they feared the idea of “German camps” and preferred to evacuate across the Bug River to neighboring Volhynia or Eastern Galicia. 2345 2345 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 24, folder 11, Zvit Predstavnyka UTsK v Liublini pro ostanni podiї na ioho tereni, March 25, 1944. 2346 Ibid. 2347 Ibid, Zvit Predstavnyka UTsK v Liublini pro stan nashykh klityn, June 16, 1944. 2348 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 20, folder 23, Evakuatsiia vtikachiv, July 12, 1944. 2349 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 25, folder 5, Zvit Predstavnyka UTsK v Liublini pro ostanni podiї na ioho tereni, April 1, 1944. Word of Soviet practices in the east provided further reason to flee. According to Levyts’kyi, inhabitants were being divided into four groups. Those deemed German collaborators or Ukrainian nationalists were either liquidated on the spot or sent east for hard labor. Anti-Soviet partisans were also executed at once. Men capable of carrying arms were pressed into military service and sent to the front. Based on this he warned: “all Soviet tactics are returning to the conquered territories… In no way will there be a change for the better for us after the return of export-greedy Bolshevik politics!”2346 To avoid Soviet repression, many Volhynian Ukrainians fled west. An UTsK report claimed as many as 800 crossing into the district daily. They were placed in a transit camp in Lubartów, north of Lublin, from which many were sent to the Reich for labor. Those deemed unfit for work were transferred to Chełm where the aid committee looked after them; providing foodstuffs. Agitation was reported among these Ukrainians as Polish Red Cross representatives reportedly visited and urged them to declare themselves Poles so as to receive better aid or be released from the camps and avoid labor deployment to the Reich.2347 In Biała Podlaska, Belarusian and Russian evacuees were reported to have appeared with Poles and Ukrainians from Volhynia. All were directed to either Ukrainian or Polish aid committees. District authorities provided both committees with money for welfare. In the wake of fleeing, the Ukrainian aid committee petitioned the UTsK to in turn lobby the GG authorities to allow Ukrainians to be sent to Nowy Sącz.2348 The UTsK apparatus worked to evacuate Ukrainians, their belongings, aid committee workers and amassed goods. The bulk were directed to the transit camps in the Kraków District. Some Orthodox priests and their families fled to Warsaw. The Ukrainian theater in Chełm was packed-up and sent to Gorlice along with many families as some parts of the county became Soviet “partisan republics” with Polish “bandits” roaming in others. Schools were closed as the school year was abruptly suspended. The gymnasium principal reportedly planned to flee to Austria. In speaking with local Ukrainians, Levyts’kyi heard several common things – their fear in the advancing Soviets, their fear of “bandits,” and their lost hope in German strength to protect them from both.2349 By the turn of April 1944, UPA units from Eastern Galicia arrived in the eastern parts of the district, beginning a large-scale anti-Polish offensive. Aside from Banderite UPA forces, Volhynian Ukrainians, presumably Melnykites, took part in anti-Polish reprisals. An Ortschutz was organized in Hrubieszów, receiving German arms and ammunition.2350 Earlier massacres at the hands of Poles served the Banderites as subsequent proof of the unique suffering Ukrainians first faced in the Kholmshchyna in comparison to Polish sufferings later in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia. Furthermore, they served as the pretext for increased anti-Polish violence in the Galicia and Lublin districts beginning that spring. Reports reached the RGO of Polish villages and farmers in Hrubieszów, Chełm and Zamość counties attacked and burned by Ukrainian “terrorist groups.” Ukrainian SS Trawniki men were quartered in villages bordering Chełm and Hrubieszów counties. An RGO report claimed of Galizien Division soldiers and local Ukrainians raiding Polish villages in that border zone. At least in one case, Soviet partisans defended Poles from Ukrainian attacks.2351 2350 Ibid. 2351 AAN, RGO, sygn. 45, Notiz über die Lage der polnischen Bevölkerung in den Kreisen Hrubieszów, Zamość und Cholm, April 4, 1944, p. 117; sygn. 42, Sytuacja w powiecie Chełmskim, April 24, 1944, p. 70. 2352 Zajączkowski, Ukraińskie podziemie..., 306; Motyka, Od rzezi wołyńskiej…, 295-297; Iliuszyn, UPA i AK..., 149. 2353 Bolianovs’kyi, Dyviziia “Halychyna,” 220; Motyka, “Dywizja SS Galizien (Hałychyna),” 115. In June 1944, the regiment was disbanded; its men incorporated in the Galizien division. 2354 Melnyk, The History of the Galician Division of the Waffen-SS, vol. 1, 187-190. 2355 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 25, folder 5, Zvit Predstavnyka UTsK v Liublini pro ostanni podiї na ioho tereni, April 1, 1944. 2356 AAN, RGO, sygn. 42, Notatka, April 1944, p. 62. Although the arrival of UPA forces seemed to be a response to anti-Ukrainian massacres, Grzegorz Motyka is of the opinion that it was a concerted military decision. Aware of Polish underground plans for a general uprising, he believes, they aimed to create a strong partisan force along the route of an eventual Polish advance on Lwów in conjunction with supporting a pan-Polish uprising throughout the GG. What emerged in the Lublin District was a Polish-Ukrainian armed front; one spanning some 100 kilometers including a no man’s land in which the Polish underground was entrenched opposite UPA forces. From April to June 1944, battles were fought between Ukrainian and Polish undergrounds. Only the oncoming of the German-Soviet front interrupted the violence.2352 To curtail Soviet and Polish partisan activity, Galizisches Freiwilligen Regiment 5 was located in parts of the district, pacifying Polish villages.2353 However, many Ukrainian soldiers from the regiment deserted to join the UPA. The Germans reported of as many as 119 Ukrainians deserting, taking with them valuable weapons. They succeeded in preventing some desertions. Those apprehended were disarmed and sent to the Reich.2354 Ukrainian deserters fled across the Bug River to the Banderites who “usually on Sunday… party, raising our flag on trees, singing sharpshooter songs to which our policemen respond.”2355 RGO branches reported of Poles fleeing Hrubieszów County from UPA troops and joint Galizien Division-German gendarmerie forces. Some 450 families made their way to either Krasnystaw, Lublin or Zamość counties.2356 Klukowski captured the exodus in his diary: During the entire day horse-drawn wagons passed through carrying Polish evacuees from around Hrubieszów. We received information about what is occurring in the areas of Hrubieszów, Tomaszów and Sokal. Ukrainian nationalists are murdering Poles and singling out large farmers and ranches. The Polish units kill Ukrainians. Thousands of people have perished on both sides.2357 2357 Klukowski, Diary from the Years of Occupation 1939-44, 316-317. 2358 Quoted in Pan’kivs’kyi, Roky nimetskoї okupatsiї, 427. 2359 Sandkühler, “Endlösung” in Galizien…, 108; Mick, Lemberg, Lwów, Lviv..., 323-324. 2360 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/38, Regierungssitzung, April 19, 1944, p. 131. 2361 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 17, folder 24, Protokol zasidannia kermanychiv, May 16 and 22, 1944. 2362 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 17, folder 26, Zapyska iz narady v spravi evakuatsiї material’nykh tsinnostei UTsK, June 1, 1944. With the front steadily moving west, the occupiers attempted to continue portraying German strength in Galicia to the ever more doubtful inhabitants. UTsK representatives continued to express their appreciation. A delegation visited Wächter on his birthday, proclaiming: You followed a new path in Ukrainian matters. We firmly believe that the best strength of the Ukrainian nation – the division – will, through its military actions, bridge the gap and justly solve the Ukrainian question within the European community of nations. We believe that our nation, united in fate with the European community of nations, will have free and independent life in the New Europe.2358 Hitler’s fifty-fifth birthday was celebrated in Lwów with a Wehrmacht parade and muster. Himmler visited the city for the last time in May. Meeting with Galizien Division officers, he congratulated them on their “beautiful homeland.” Just three weeks before their evacuation, the third anniversary of the city’s liberation was celebrated; festivities meant to serve as a last attempt to mobilize the population against Bolshevism. Wehrmacht troops marched with uniformed Ostbahn men and postal workers. German speeches echoed anti-Bolshevik rhetoric; reminding those assembled who liberated and protected them. Speaking on behalf of the Ukrainians, Stepan Bilak thanked the occupiers for forming the division which allowed “defiant youth of this land, standing shoulder to shoulder with German soldiers, to secure the future of the homeland in the European family of nations.”2359 Right up until the end, Ukrainians maintained their deutschfreundlich tone, speaking the Nazi language and continuing to see themselves as contributors to the fading new European order. At the same time, Ukrainian nationalists were reportedly burning large farms to prevent the oncoming Soviets from re-organizing kolkhozy.2360 Pan’kivs’kyi reported of the self-liquidation of aid committees, especially those in the way of the advancing Soviets in the east. Many committee heads simply fled, forcing him to either find replacements or order their complete liquidation. Whereas farmers continued to flee with their families, craftsmen and merchants refused to leave. As an UTsK report mentioned, they viewed Eastern Galicia and not the western GG as their economic center. Of importance to Kubiiovych was ensuring care during the evacuation of elites; to look after them and ensure they remained on ethnographic territory.2361 In the haste of evacuating, aid committees were ordered to disperse warehouse goods among local inhabitants while furniture from UTsK offices was to be packed-up and sent to Kraków and school laboratory equipment to the Lemko region.2362 Following his inspection of Galizien Division troops, Himmler was convinced of their preparedness for combat. As such, the division was transferred to the eastern front in the district around the city of Brody. Even though Soviet troops outnumbered German ones, this did not stop the latter from attempting to defend their line against the Red Army offensive. It was at Brody that the Germans threw the Galizien Division into battle. This was the division’s defining moment and its most significant military engagement. Facing attacks from the air, they were unable to halt Soviet armored units which eventually encircled the combined German-Ukrainian forces. The division’s losses were staggering – some 7 thousand died or were captured. Others deserted to join UPA forces while some 3 thousand who survived retreated to Subcarpathian Rus’. Among the dead was Dmytro Paliїv. After the debacle, Himmler ordered the division reconstructed in Neuhammer (currently Świętoszów), Silesia with more recruits added to bring it back up to its 10 thousand man strength. 2363 2363 Melnyk, History of the Galician Division of the Waffen-SS vol. 1, 252-276. Dieter Pohl is of the opinion that there is a “high probability” that divisional soldiers participated directly in the round-up of Jews in Brody in February 1944. Pohl, Natzionalsozialistische Judenverfolgung in Ostgalizien…, 365. 2364 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 18, folder 21, Protokol zїzdu UDK Krakivs’koї Oblasty, June 21, 1944. 2365 Ibid; Kubiiovych, Meni 85, 116. 2366 Kost’ Pan’kivs’kyi, Vid Komitetu do Derzhavnoho Tsentru (New York-Toronto: Zhyttia i mysli, 1968), 11; Mick, Lemberg, Lwów, Lviv..., 325. Concurrently, UTsK activity focused on tending to the needs of evacuated Ukrainians. However, during a Committee meeting, Kubiiovych touched on what the minutes termed “Polish problems.” Whereas he stated the ethnic conflict was escalating, he again blamed the Poles for initiating it in the Chełm region in the early 1940s. In the next breath, he denounced the violence, stating: “Nothing can justify the massacre of Poles or Ukrainians.” Condemning the killing of women and children as politically and ethically ignominious, he concluded it could not solve the so-called “Polish problem” in Eastern Galicia. He admitted ethnic violence was occurring on territory where Poles had an advantage and urged to avoid provoking them. This included Polish evacuees fleeing Eastern Galicia and finding temporary solace alongside Ukrainians in the GG. Such provocations equated to, in his eyes, unnecessary difficulties for the Germans. Instead, he urged to demand help from the authorities; specifically security.2364 Toward the end of June, Kubiiovych travelled to Lwów one last time to meet with Metropolitan Sheptyts’kyi and bid him adieu. The UTsK providnyk recalled the Galicia District, once the oasis of peace and calm, as the focus of Ukrainian attention; where nationally-conscious individuals were molded.2365 On July 19, 1944 Wächter evacuated from Lwów to Drohobycz; never to see his Vienna of the east again. That same day, also following a brief meeting with Sheptyts’kyi, Pan’kivs’kyi and 2 UTsK workers left the city for the last time; headed for Kraków in three lorries. With them were some Ukrainians who earlier refused to evacuate. A Banderite report described the intelligentsia as panic-stricken. This, it claimed, made them forget to join their ranks; attempting instead to escape from the oncoming Red Army by car or train. They looked with disdain on all those fleeing instead of fighting for a Ukrainian state: “One saw people with expressions of insensate terror whose only impulse was to save their own precious skin.” After being disbanded, Ukrainian auxiliary policemen were evacuated on trucks with their family toward Sambor.2366 No such images or ceremonies portraying German strength were held in Lublin. The destabilization and violence caused by various waring partisan, underground formations brought Ukrainian cultural activity to a virtual stand-still as many fled; crippling aid committees throughout the district. Instead of mustering and speeches, UTsK representatives issued plans to move aid committee warehouse inventories to the Kraków District.2367 To fill the void, Chełm Ukrainians called to life a council under Ilarion as their representative body. According to one report provided to the Soviets by an OUN informant, the council represented a new political group which saw Kubiiovych, the UTsK, the SS Galizien Division and the Ukrainian self-defense legion as bodies which no longer shared any authority among the Germans. Conversely, Ilarion was reported to have greater authority in the eyes of the occupier – who the report noted financially sponsored him – and Ukrainians. Equally, the council served as a political sponsor for the UPA in the region.2368 The creation of this short-lived council is a subsequent example of Ukrainians in the Chełm region gathering around their religious denomination rather than national consciousness as the means for representation. 2367 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 24, folder 11, Zvit Predstavnyka UTsK v Liublini pro stan nashykh klityn, June 16, 1944. 2368 “No. 3.52: Obzor referenta OUN Kuchera o sotsial'no-politicheskom polozhenii na Kholmshchine v mae 1944 g. (May 17, 1944)” in Ukrainskie natsionalisticheskie organizatsii… vol. 2, 215-216; Motyka, Od rzezi wołyńskiej…, 297. 2369 AAN, RGO, sygn. 42, RGO Zamość report to RGO in Lublin, May 31, 1944, pp. 68-69. 2370 Ibid, Notatka RGO Lublin, June 30, 1944, pp. 72-73. A RGO note from Biłgoraj County claimed the greatest fear came from the Kalmuks under the Germans who were prone to spreading vanerial disease following acts of rape. 2371 Ibid, Powiat Biłgorajski, n.d., pp. 81-83. The Germans initiated brutal pacifications throughout the district; their last-ditch effort to stabilize the territory. The Poles noted this as the beginning of the end of German occupation. During the operations, a hodge-podge of units under German command were employed: Wehrmacht units (including the Viking one), gendarmes, the Gestapo and ethnic formations (Cossacks, Armenians, Turkmeni, Azerbaijani, Kalmuk and Ukrainian). Poles fled villages in Zamość County targeted and burned-down by UPA forces. They fled either to neighboring counties, the Kraków District or east across the San River.2369 Planes were used during some pacifications as a quick means of attacking marauding Soviet partisans. Arrests were conducted primarily by the Wehrmacht, Gestapo or gendarmes. Beside robbing and plundering villagers, acts of rape on women and young girls were common. For their part, the Germans permitted such excesses or even ordered them.2370 In parts of Biłgoraj County, where Soviet partisans combated the hated Kalmuks, the latter murdered and plundered Poles and Ukrainians equally. In the village of Józefów, lying between Biłgoraj and Tomaszów Lubelski, the RGO delegate reported caring for and feeding over one thousand Orthodox Ukrainians who fled there. His reasoning was clear: “I could not question it [feeding them], and must help them as based on their actions, they do not consider themselves Ukrainians.”2371 Lublin was liberated by the Soviets on July 23, 1944. Several days prior, Zygmunt Klukowski observed the last German civil administrators leaving Szczebrzeszyn, spending their final hours “drinking heavily and shooting.”2372 A pro-communist Polish National Liberation Committee arrived with the Red Army and NVKD; issuing their Moscow-penned manifesto in Chełm on July 22, 1944 and making Lublin their first seat of authority. 2372 Klukowski, Diary from the Years of Occupation 1939-44, 347. 2373 Lukasevych, Rozdumy na skhylku zhyttia, 244. 2374 Hałagida, “The Significance of the Bazylian Monastery in Warsaw…,” in Coranič (ed), História Rádu baziliánov sv. Josafáta, 190. 2375 Jerzy S. Majewski and Tomasz Urzykowski, Przewodnik po powstańczej Warszawie (Warszawa: Muzeum Powstania Warszawskiego 2007), 183; Szagała and Wiszka, Ukraińcy w Warszawie, 138-140; Lukasevych, Rozdumy na skhylku zhyttia, 247. The Warsaw Uprising compelled Frank to further push for his pro-Polish policy, even proposing transforming the RGO into a Polish National Committee. However, the need never ultimately arose for such a line as the military and internal situations forced the authorities to continue battling all enemies. 2376 Several seminal works on the topic of the Warsaw Uprising include: Norman Davies, Rising ’44: The Battle for Warsaw (New York: MacMillan 2003); Alexandra Richie, Warsaw 1944: Hitler, Himmler and the Crushing of a City (New York: William Collins 2014); Jan Ciechanowski, The Warsaw Rising of 1944 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974); Władysław Bartoszewski, Dni walczącej stolicy (Warszawa: Świat Książki, 2008). For a perspective into the Warsaw Uprising as seen from the Soviet and German sides, see respectively: Nikołaj Iwanow, Powstanie Warszawskie widziane z Moskwy (Warszawa: Znak 2010) and Hans von Krannhals, Der Warschauer Aufstand 1944 (Frankfut am Main: Bernard & Graefe Verlag, 1962). The latter was recently translated into Polish. 2377 Andrzej A. Zięba, “Ukraińcy i Powstanie Warszawskie,” Znak no. 413-415 (1989); Veryha, Dorohamy druhoї svitovoї viinyi, 7-49. The outbreak of the Warsaw Uprising on August 1, 1944 forced the GG authorities to throw their attention toward suppressing the Polish insurrection. Prior to its outbreak, many Ukrainians fled the city without German written permission.2373 The uprising found Ukrainians in the city, like all inhabitants of Warsaw, in difficult circumstances. The cellars of the Greek Catholic Basilian monastery served as shelter for many, Poles and Ukrainians alike, either caught in the cross-fire unable to reach their homes or as a bomb shelter during Luftwaffe raids.2374 Immediately following the eruption, Home Army security forces began a search and arrest of some Ukrainians – those deemed to be collaborators or diversionaries. In this way, the principal of the city’s Ukrainian school Vasynchuk perished. Others, such as the children in the Orthodox orphanage were massacred by the Germans. Still others joined the ranks of the AK and fought in the uprising. Some died in battles while those who survived the urban insurrection found themselves in German captivity alongside Poles afterward. In total, some 200 Ukrainians, including several Greek Catholic monks, perished during the uprising.2375 Since the collapse of the Iron Curtain, much has been written concerning the Poles bloody sixty-three days struggle to liberate their capital; creating an AK fait accompli before the advancing Soviets.2376 One myth appearing during and after the uprising was the use of SS Galizien Division troops by the Germans against Varsovians. Recent scholarly research has discredited their role in the uprising.2377 The Germans employed other eastern units for their bloody pacification of the city. These included Oscar Dirlewanger’s German criminal brigade, soldiers of General Vlasov’s Russian Liberation Army (ROA), and men from Bronisław Kamiński’s Russian National Liberation Army (RONA). According to Motyka, attributing blame to Galizien Division Ukrainians for the crimes of other eastern units during the rising stemmed largely from UPA massacre reports in Volhynia. This stigma caused Poles to associate and describe all Slavic foreign units fighting alongside the Germans, especially those which engaged in brutal measures, as ‘Ukrainian.’2378 2378 Motyka, Od rzezi wołyńskiej..., 266-268; Motyka, “Dywizja SS Galizien (Hałyczyna),” 116. This is not to say that no Ukrainians were involved in suppressing the uprising. As Motyka contends, 2 auxiliary police companies were stationed in the city as well as performing guard duty in the infamous Pawiak prison. Galizien division officers and non-commissioned officers trained in Poznań were used as translators. The Germans also used two Volhynian Self-Defense Legion units – numbering some 219 men – against the insurgent Poles. Ukrainian poet Ievhen Malaniuk, living in Warsaw at the time of the uprising, recalled after the war: “During the German occupation, a short soldier in German uniform entered a Warsaw streetcar. [He had] typical central-Asian features – Armenian, Kazach or simply Mongolian: slanted eyes, brown complexion, short stature… But two typical Warsaw “ladies,” with poorly covered wrinckles on their moving cheeks, whispered to each other: Look Madame – a ‘Ukrainian!’” Quoted in Szagała and Wiszka, Ukraińcy w Warszawie, 136. 2379 Mazower, Hitler’s Empire…, 527-528; Marta Dyczok, The Grand Alliance and Ukrainian Refugees (New York: St. Martin’s Press 2000), 14. 2380 Zynovii Knysh described the ease of his move from Eastern Galicia to Austria in his memoir Na porozi nevidomoho (spohady z 1945 roku) (Toronto: Sribna Surma, n.d.), 8. 2381 AAN, DRRPK, sygn. 202/III/125, Informacja wschodnia i narodowościowa 1944, pp. 15; 58. 6.4 – German Political Warfare and the Ukrainian Flight West The swift advance of the Red Army and defeat of German forces in the east propelled Hitler to order troops to turn cities and towns they still held into eastern fortresses meant to break the enemies advance. Civilians were turned into what Mazower termed “last-ditch defenders of the Reich.” This, in conjunction with orders that held back evacuations, led to an estimated 500 thousand deaths in the eastern provinces. Still, millions ignored the orders and fled. What began was a desperate mass evacuation away from the invading Red Army into the heart of the Reich. Among evacuees fleeing were the same Nazi party bosses and administrators who ordered civilians to stay put. By May 1944, over an estimated 11 million refugees were in Western Europe alone. This did not include displaced Germans. Among them were 3 million Ukrainians.2379 The German and Galizien Division defeat at Brody as well as the Red Army’s occupation of the Galicia district and portions of the Lublin one forced the UTsK to retreat to Kraków with plans to move further west. The looming fear of Soviet reprisals for collaboration with the Germans in any way was reason enough for Ukrainians to flee. While some nationalists remained in UPA ranks, prepared to fight the Soviets on Ukrainian territory, others, like Zynovii Knysh, fled to Austria where they envisioned continuing the political struggle from abroad.2380 A Government Delegate for Poland report observed UTsK attempts at normalization in the face of the advancing front. Kitchens were maintained for evacuees while in Krynica courses were hastily organized for future cultural guardians; to be sent to work among Ukrainian laborers in the Reich upon completion. One report added that as of mid-April, UTsK offices declared Kubiiovych to be undergoing unspecified treatment; suspending indefinitely all audiences and meeting.2381 Following German evacuation orders, plans were made to move the UTsK and Ukrainians beyond the GG. Committee offices were to be evacuated west onto Reich territory; Kubiiovych would remain in Kraków for as long as possible; travelling between the GG and Reich whenever necessary. In discussing evacuation plans for non-Germans, Frank agreed to facilitate the move of loyal Ukrainians and Poles west; supplying them with the necessary documents to cross the Reich border effortlessly. The population and welfare department prepared temporary instructions for UTsK activity on Reich territory. As laborers fell under the jurisdiction of the German Labor Front office, Committee work was envisioned to initially extend over Galizien Division volunteers, their families and all other workers. However, the UTsK could continue to provide laborers with aid via the labor office.2382 2382 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/37, Tagebuch – August 1944 bis März 1945, pp. 25-26; IPN, PJB, GK 196/303, Der Bevollmächtigte des Generalgouverneurs – Betrifft: Tätigkeit des Ukrainischen Hauptausschusses in Reich, October 16, 1944, p. 235. Knysh recalled meeting young Ukrainians domestic servants while in Vienna in 1944. Knysh, Na porozi nevidomoho…, 9. 2383 AIPN, PJB, GK 196/303, Der Bevollmächtigte des Generalgouverneurs – Betrifft: Tätigkeit des Ukrainischen Hauptausschusses in Reich, October 16, 1944, p. 235; Pohl, Nationalsozialistische Judenverfolgung…, 422; Knysh, Na porozi nevidomoho..., 43-44. In his capacity as Kreishauptmann, Wendt was informed of and aware of the liquidation of Jewish ghettos, especially the Złoczów one in April 1943. 2384 Pan’kivs’kyi, Vid komitetu do derzhavnoho tsentru, 28; Knysh, Na porozi nevidomoho..., 30-31. 2385 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 18, folder 14, UTsK pidchas pratsi v Nimechchyni 1944-45 rr. Legally moving the field of activity of a GG institution onto Reich territory meant talks were necessary to facilitate the issue. Frank tasked his plenipotentiary in Berlin to oversee the matter. A central welfare office for GG Ukrainians (Abteilung Zentralfürsorgestelle für Ukrainer aus dem GG) was specially created alongside the plenipotentiary to oversee incoming Ukrainians. In Berlin, the former German Kreishauptmann of Stryj, Kałusz and Złoczów Otto Wendt supervised Ukrainian activity headed by Stepan Kotyk and Myron Luts’kyi.2383 A similar office was also opened in Vienna. Duties of the welfare offices primarily included gaining legal residency for evacuees and finding work for them. Work was not always heavy-industry or agricultural based. As Knysh recalled, evacuees were found working in even the most menial of jobs: as servers, bakers, nurses, nannies or domestic helpers. Even some, like Knysh, were employed as local, low-ranking civil servants beside Landrats.2384 In evacuating the UTsK from the GG, a process of de-centralization occurred as Kubiiovych and the organizational, financial and social-welfare departments formally remained in Kraków while the other departments moved to offices in the Reich and Austria. He remained the head of a committee beginning work on the basis of temporary orders on foreign, non-GG, territory. Often, offices were organized on an ad hoc basis, without formal permission by the GG plenipotentiary to both, meet the needs of Ukrainian evacuees and refugees constantly moving and to represent them before Reich authorities.2385 “New Lwóws” or Ukrainian colonies sprang-up with the UTsK transitioning to both, overseeing the welfare of Ukrainian laborers and new evacuees while subsequently working to bridge the national mindset gap between western and eastern Ukrainians. With the Soviet offensive again mounting, GG authorities prepared to evacuate Ukrainians and Poles to Slovakia and Hungary from the Kraków District. Following talks with Slovak officials, it was agreed they accept no more than 30 thousand Ukrainians.2386 Kubiiovych tasked Mats’kiv with travelling to Slovakia, by way of Vienna, to facilitate the evacuation of Ukrainians there. Believing the Soviets would not cross the Carpathians, refugees were again to remain close to Eastern Galicia for their optimistic return home. Arriving in Bratislava, Mats’kiv met with Iulian Revai, leader of the brief Carpatho Ukrainian government, who facilitated talks with Slovak representatives. Kubiiovych also met with Slovak and German officials concerning transferring refugees.2387 An UTsK office was organized there, headed by Myron Konovalets’. By late August, 15, 742 refugees were dispersed throughout Slovakia; the overwhelming majority being Galician Ukrainians. Among them were also the three autocephalous bishops who fled the GG: Dionysius, Ilarion and Palladius. Some were sent to the Reich as laborers. Contrary to German plans, over 2 thousand were reportedly transported to Hungary.2388 According to Pan’kivs’kyi, Ukrainians also saw Hungary as a destination for evacuees; presumably to settle them on the territory of Subcarpathian Rus’. In his memoirs, he noted the GG SD opposed the idea of an UTsK representation there as they sought to prevent mixing Ukrainians with Poles.2389 2386 AAN, Der Beauftragte des Generalgouveneure für die Betreuung der ukrainische Flüchtlinge in der Slovakei, sygn. 6, Bericht über den Ablauf der ukrainischen Flüchtlingsbewegung in der Slowakei, October 24, 1944, p. 124. 2387 Mats’kiv, Z-nad Dnistra na kanads’ki preriї..., 145-146; Kubiiovych, Meni 85, 189. 2388 AAN, Der Beauftragte des Generalgouveneure für die Betreuung der ukrainische Flüchtlinge in der Slovakei, sygn. 4, Übersicht über die ukrainische Flüchtlinge, August 27, 1944, p. 10; sygn. 6, Ukrainische Flüchtlingsbewegung in der Slovakei, September 6, 1944, p. 53; Zięba, “Biskupstwo krakowsko-łemkowskie...,” 133. 2389 Pan’kivs’kyi, Vid komitetu do derzhavnoho tsentru, 14-15. 2390 Out of 4 lorries carrying Maslosoiuz documents, office furnishings and equippment from Tarnopol, Stanisławów, Kołomyja and Stryj, the one from Tarnopol reached Lüben. Two were directed to Slovakia, where they remained as no documents were provided to officially permit them to travel further west, while one was burned in Sanok. Sycz, Spółdzielczość ukraińska w Galicji…, 213. 2391 Pan’kivs’kyi, Vid komitetu do derzhavnoho tsentru, 14; 27-28. By late summer 1944, many UTsK offices moved from Kraków to the Lower Silesian town of Lüben (currently Lubin), situated some 70 kilometers northwest of Breslau (Wrocław), where a main representation was organized. The town soon became a little Lwów as many Galician Ukrainians, members of the Galizien Division military board and the board of Ukrainian cooperatives moved there.2390 The representations sphere of activity centered on eastern Reich territory; with offices in Breslau, Katowice, Częstochowa, Poznań and Danzig. Pan’kivs’kyi, Mats’kiv, and Dobrians’kyi were charged with moving offices there. The sight was chosen by GG officials. Pan’kivs’kyi believed Richard Türk chose Lüben out of sentiment for his native Lower Silesia.2391 However, it is more plausible that the town was chosen as a temporary Committee seat so as to be close to GG administrative offices being moved throughout the region in the wake of the Soviet advance. With GG approval, Kubiiovych appointed Pan’kivs’kyi head of the UTsK office there. A Ukrainian group which initially fled Kharkov under Volodymyr Dubrovs’kyi evacuated to Lüben. He and Kubiiovych penned a formal mutual letter calling for Dnieper and Galician Ukrainians to band together in aiding all refugees evacuating west in various forms: material welfare, maintaining the cultural spirit of the people, securing religious needs and legal protection. Their first agreement came while still in Kraków on June 11, 1944.2392 Prior to this, Kubiiovych spoke of the need to form a relationship between western and eastern Ukrainians. Described as visibly tired from their evacuation, he stated they were normal Ukrainians who could be valuable to them.2393 Kubiiovych’s allying with Dnieper Ukrainians was both a step toward securing the sympathy of the large Soviet Ukrainian Ost labor force on Reich territory for the UTsK as well an effort to prevent other trends – i.e. the Banderite OUN – from exploiting or infiltrating the less conscious eastern Ukrainians. 2392 Mats’kiv, Z-nad Dnistra na kanads’ki preriї..., 148; Kubiiovych, Meni 85, 190; Pan’kivs’kyi, Vid komitetu do derzhavnoho tsentru, 15; 239-240. 2393 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 18, folder 21, Protokol zїzdu UDK Krakivs’koї Oblasty, June 21, 1944. 2394 Pan’kivs’kyi, Vid komitetu do derzhavnoho tsentru, 33-34. 2395 Knysh, Na porozi nevidomoho..., 8. Knysh recalled of bombings in Austria or the Protectorate occurring less often. When they did, targets were primarily industrial or communication plants. 2396 Pan’kivs’kyi, Vid komitetu do derzhavnoho tsentru, 14. 2397 Maslosoiuz documents and office equippment came to Vienna from Lüben to avoid Soviet occupation; furnishing an office in the Austrian dairy union offices. Liquidation of the cooperative began soon after the move. During Allied bombing of the city, the dairy union building was damaged and with it the Maslosoiuz office. Many workers fled to German Bavaria. Sycz, Spółdzielczość ukraińska w Galicji…, 214. Pan’kivs’kyi called the Lüben representation a phantom from day one. The distance from Berlin and Vienna made travel a necessity to remain in constant contact with UTsK representations as well as Reich and military board officials. Travel to Kraków was necessary if only to attend the final UTsK meeting on GG territory in December 1944 during which financial and organizational matters for refugees was discussed.2394Furthermore, the Committee’s state of legal uncertainty made talks with Reich officials difficult as many did not even know of its existence let alone its role and purpose. Former Lwów mayor Iurii Polians’kyi evacuated to Vienna (where an UTsK office was opened) as many Ukrainians, primarily Galician ones, fled there directly. UTsK jurisdiction included all of Austria and German Bavaria throughout which 6 offices were organized. Some food stuffs – whatever was transported in the haste of flight – were sent to feed refugees. According to Knysh, Austria became a temporary destination for many, especially those from southern and western Germany, who sought to survive intensifying allied bombing raids.2395 For several reasons, it was in Austria that some semblance of a national community began to form among political and non-political refugees. The country evoked memories of the Habsburg and Austro-Hungarian Empire’s ethnic tolerance toward Galician Ukrainians. As Pan’kivs’kyi recalled, precisely for this reason, Ukrainians felt more “at home” in Vienna – the center of the Habsburg Empire – than in the foreign Berlin.2396 Furthermore, it was also the home of the early Ukrainian nationalist movement and maintained an OUN representation throughout the war. Finally, some Ukrainian institutions from the GG – the Maslosoiuz cooperative and the publishing house including Krakivs’ki Visti which continued publication until the end of the war – moved there.2397 There, something most resembling the UTsK structure from Kraków was replicated as the committee office contained an organizational, cultural-educational, social welfare, financial and cooperative-economic departments. The Galizien Division military board was also represented by Khronoviat and Bisanz. A gymnasium and two elementary schools were organized for evacuee children along with a warehouse for foodstuffs, office equipment and private belongings.2398 A Soviet report claimed that while Galician Ukrainians went to work in German factories, the “Galician-Volksdeutsche UTsK intellectuals” began “drinking or exchanging [transported Committee goods] for hard currency.”2399 2398 Mats’kiv, Z-nad Dnistra na kanads’ki preriї..., 149-150. The heads of the respective departments were: Mats’kiv, A. Kniazhyns’kyi, Osyp Holinatyi, V. Kokhan, and Ivan Shelarovych. 2399 “No. 3.96: Politicheskii obzor neustanovlennogo litsa iz rukovodstva UPA ob osvobozhdenii S. Bandery, Ia. Stetsko i riadu drugikh deiatelei OUN iz kontslageria, vzaimootnosheniiakh sredi razlichnykh ukrainskikh natsionalisticheskikh organizatsii, otnoshenii k sovmestnoi bor’be s A.A. Vlasovym proti bol’shevisma, znachenii UPA v bor’be za nezavisimost’ Ukrainy (October 1944)” in Ukrainskie natsionalisticheskie organizatsii… vol. 2, 383. 2400 Pohl, Nationalsozialistische Judenverfolgung…, 414; Winstone, The Dark Heart of Hitler’s Europe…, 105; 108; Mats’kiv, Z-nad Dnistra na kanads’ki preriї..., 150. In Tarnopol, Hager issued an order for ghettoization as early as September 1941, despite Frank’s ban. Mats’kiv incorrectly claimed he was starosta in Volhynia. Concerning Ukrainian memoirs, Knysh’s recollection of Hager is more accurate. 2401 Dallin, German Rule in Russia..., 497. From the German side, Horst Dressler-Andress – a specialist in Reich and GG radio propaganda – and Gerhard Hager oversaw UTsK work in Vienna. In the GG, Hager served as the Chełm Stadtkommissar and Kreishauptmann before moving east; working in that same capacity in Tarnopol and Rawa Ruska. An alcoholic who often quarreled with Globocnik, he established one of the earliest ghettos in the Lublin district while embezzling Jewish property on a large scale. He continued this practice later in the Galicia district. In recalling the two, Mats’kiv described Dressler-Andress as very easy-going and pleasant to work with while Hager was unpleasant. However, to gain his favor, Ukrainians bribed him with alcohol.2400 In the midst of evacuating from the GG, German authorities in the Reich returned to the idea of organizing and exploiting Slavic and non-Slavic ethnic groups in a last-ditch effort for a large counterattack against the Red Army. Even though they never succeeded in bringing the Poles into their brand of political warfare, among some eastern Slavs the practice partially succeeded. According to Alexander Dallin, the concept of political warfare consisted of: appealing to the Soviet population with a distinct political program or promise for the future, organizing a political focus (whether a government-in-exile or liberation committees), and arming the masses.2401 While they courted Belarusians, Caucasians, Cossacks, Kalmuks and Tartars, the most success came from the Wlassow-Aktion in which the Germans organized a collaborationist Russian liberation movement around the rogue Soviet general and POW Andrei Vlasov. Taking advantage of his defection in 1942, they aimed to exploit him into garnering anti-Stalin, anti-Bolshevik support from among Russians; ultimately in the form of an armed group of Red Army deserters – a Russian Liberation Movement – prepared to die for the German cause. Following a brief interruption, the SS took the lead in promoting the movement; officially calling to life the Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia (KONR) – and a fremdvölkische army on November 14, 1944 in Prague.2402 Many Soviet Ukrainians eventually joined the ranks of his movement. 2402 Ibid, 553-586; 602-606; 613-620; 632-636; Herwath, Między Hitlerem a Stalinem…, 453. 2403 Torzecki, Kwestia ukraińska w polityce III Rzeszy, 334-335. Torzecki also believed the Germans were concerned with the possability of a social revolt, especially with the Soviets close to the Reich borders. By organizing them under respective nationalist movements, they would gain cannon-fodder while also neturalizing dissention. 2404 Aside form the Ukrainian one, among the national committees in the Rosenberg Ostministerium were Georgian, North Caucasian, Turkestani, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Belarusian, Volga Tartar and Crimean Tartar ones.Rosenberg briefly described his preparations for the separatist national committees as well as his feelings of being slighted in favor of Himmler. See Rosenberg, Dzienniki 1934-1944, 465-473. 2405 Rossoliński-Liebe, Stepan Bandera: The Life and Afterlife of a Ukrainian Nationalist…, 286-287; Bul’ba-Borovets’, Armiia bez dzherzhavy, 303. Ukrainians lobbied for their form of political warfare since the beginning of the war. For his part, Kubiiovych proposed utilizing the Ukrainians in exchange for political concessions on three occasions – in August 1941, in mid-1943 and in 1944. Then, German military might made conquest of Europe a possibility while racial ideological superiority repudiated any such thoughts. Even as might waned, they still believed the Soviets could be stopped and saw no need for a Ukrainian political body under their auspices. The approval and formation of the Galizien Division was the first de facto step of using Ukrainians in political warfare. In September 1944, Berlin returned to the neglected question of Ukrainians and political warfare. An asset on German territory was the large body of Ukrainian laborers. Ukrainian nationalists saw in them the possibility to replenish their ranks for further underground activity. The Germans looked to find among those same laborers anti-Bolshevik elements ready and willing to fight the encroaching danger.2403 At this time, most Banderite and Melnykite leaders were kept in German confinement during the critical months in which Ukrainian territory was falling under Soviet re-occupation. By October 1944, when Bandera, Stets’ko, Bul’ba-Borovets’ and Mel’nyk were released, nearly all Ukrainian lands had passed from German to Soviet control. With a turn in their policy toward the eastern people, Fritz Arlt was chosen to head the national committee liaison offices in the Rosenberg Eastern Ministry and urged Ukrainians to come to terms with joining the Vlasov movement. A pressing problem immediately encountered was the fact that Ukrainian nationalists, along with many other separatists, considered Vlasov their bitterest foe in emigration.2404 Initial efforts in forming a Ukrainian national committee proved fruitless. Following his request, Bandera spoke with SS-Obergruppenführer Gottlob Berger who suggested cooperation with Vlasov. He turned down the proposal since he believed cooperation would cause him to lose his support base in Ukraine; claiming his movement was so strong that Stalin would have difficulty in defeating it. Even though Bandera was not opposed to collaborating with the Germans per se, he, like other non-Russian nationals, saw in Vlasov an imperialist; a pan-Russian nationalist. Bul’ba-Borovets’ conveyed a similar opinion; believing it best the Russians liberate themselves and Ukrainians themselves.2405 Germans even visited Andrii Livyts’kyi outside of Łódź. During a hunting trip, they attempted to convince the exile UNR president that a national committee under the Vlasov movement would be beneficial to Ukrainians. As in the previous cases, so too did these talks prove fruitless as Livyts’kyi reiterated identical arguments to the German idea.2406 2406 Bykovs’kyi, Z Heneral’noї Huberniї do Vartegau…, 93-94. 2407 AIPN, PJB, GK 196/303, SS note to Bühler and von Craushaar, November 9, 1944, p. 237; LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 25, folder 4, Konferentsiia z prez. Dr. fon Kravsharom, December 16, 1944. 2408 Dallin, German Rule in Russia..., 624-625; Armstrong, Ukrainian Nationalism, 180-181. According to a 1953 CIA report, following talks with Mel’nyk and the Germans unwillingness to agree to his proposals, he along with Dmytro Andriievs’kyi and Osyp Bidunyk left Berlin for Bad Kissingen in Bavaria. CIA-FOIA, “Information Report – Organization and Operation of Ukrainian Nationalist Organization: January 3, 1953 (accessed April 16, 2018) < https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80-00809A000600030378-0.pdf> 2409 Kubiiovych, Meni 85, 190; Torzecki, Kwesita ukraińska w polityce III Rzeszy, 340-341. Bandera proposed Volodymyr Horbovyi to head a Ukrainian national representation under the Germans. However, this proposal was quickly rejected as the whereabouts of Horbovyi were unknown. 2410 After the occupation of Warsaw in 1939, Dr. Haary von Craushaar headed the city’s civil administration alongside Wehrmacht VIII army command prior to the formation of the General Government. Before the war, he served as deputy chief of the civil administration alongside the IV Wehrmacht corps during the German occupation of Czechoslovakia in March 1939. From 1940 to 1943, he served as deputy head of the civil administration in occupied Belgium before being posted to the GG. In 1943, he was advanced to the rank of SS-Brigaderführer. Szarota, Okupowanej Warszawy dzień powszedni, 346-347. Mel’nyk was initially pressured by the Germans to form a committee; within a week he even succeeded in reaching a nominal agreement with various political émigré groups: the monarchists around Skoropads’kyi, socialists, the Petliurites and Livyts’kyi, as well as Bandera. He prepared a declaration pledging the establishment of a sovereign Ukrainian ethnographic state, calling for no subordination to either Vlasov or any other Russian committee, and demanding the Galizien Division be the basis for a national army. He was even prepared to make concessions while suggesting Eastern Galicia remain in the future German sphere of interest.2407 However, these positions were too much for the Germans who were not yet prepared to give an émigré committee formal recognition, transforming it into a government-in-exile.2408 Kubiiovych also meet and spoke with prominent Ukrainian émigré politicians. Ultimately, they rallied around Livyts’kyi who was seen as a neutral personage. This was convenient in that any representation formed by or around him gave the impression of the continuation of UNR exile authority and could serve as a basis for future political means. To counterbalance the position of Vlasov the military man, Livyts’ky proposed Colonel Pavlo Shandruk head the proposed Ukrainian representation to be centered in Weimar. Upon arriving from the GG to Berlin in November 1944 and after talks with émigré circles, Shandruk agreed to undertake the mission of talking with the Germans and heading a representation. Torzecki is of the opinion that he may have been persuaded by Arlt, aware of the colonels military and political valor, to agree to heading the representation. Regardless, German and Ukrainian nationalist interests conveniently converged.2409 In the GG, talks were conducted between Kubiiovych and Haary von Craushaar who, from 1944, headed the GG internal affairs department.2410 Kubiiovych was told by GG officials that neither the Vlasov movement nor a Ukrainian committee would liberate Eastern Galician in the immediate future. Furthermore, Frank did not wish to see “his Ukrainians” participate in either since he was neither directly approached nor consulted in the matter; maintaining that the fate of GG Ukrainians was to be determined by his administration alone and not Berlin. Kubiiovych replied by discrediting Vlasov from representing Ukrainians who were an “independent people” from the Russians. His concern lay in the fact that recognition of Ukrainians in the movement would overtake his and the UTsK role in representing Ukrainians – those from the GG and the Ost laborers in the Reich. Furthermore, if added to the Vlasov movement, he believed Ukrainians still willing to fight the Bolsheviks alongside the Germans would be drafted for ROA training; something which could temper their national consciousness and diminish the ranks of the Galizien Division.2411 2411 AIPN, GK 196/303, Report of talks with Kubiiovych, December 18, 1944, p. 238. 2412 Ibid. 2413 Ogórek, Lista Wächtera…, 338-340; Jürgen Thorwald, Iluzja. Żołnierze radzieccy w armii Hitlera, trans. Wawrzyniec Sawicki (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN 2010). Wächter met Vlasov in Berlin, making a good impression on the Russian general. 2414 Veryha, The Correspondence…, 586-587; Shandruk, Arms of Valor..., 207-208. On behalf of the UTsK and urged-on by Ukrainians in Berlin, Kubiiovych published a protest denouncing the Russian movement. According to him, a national committee was tantamount to represent all Ukrainians who deserved their own voice. In his eyes, as head of the UTsK “he was already a political leader of the western Ukrainians before the occupiers, felling responsible for them, also in political terms.” If propositioned to join the national committee, “for obvious reasons of loyalty,” he stated he would first seek Frank’s permission. In case the general governor refused, he prepared an ultimatum: either he be permitted to join or he resign from leading the UTsK.2412 Himmler appeared determined to create one, pan-Russian liberation movement including all national committees. Perhaps for this reason he tasked Wächter to be a liaison with Vlasov and more importantly, because of his trust among Galician Ukrainians, to convince them to submit to the Russians.2413 Shandruk travelled to Kraków to meet with Kubiiovych with the intention of offering him a position in a future national committee. After discussions, Kubiiovych agreed in principal to join. As he stated, a national committee was needed if only to prevent Galizien Division Ukrainians from being incorporated into ROA; what equated to ultimately losing an armed national formation. This was not a new concept. In petitioning the Germans to permit divisional recruitment from among Chełm Ukrainians, he expressly contended that Vlasov Russians refrain from visiting or talking with aid committee representatives. As Shandruk recalled, he threw his weight behind the committee if only to rescue the division. Shandruk’s opinion of him, whom he met for the first time, was positive: “I was impressed with Dr. Kubiiovych’s fine manner and erudition, and mainly with his sober and serious approach.”2414 Polish reports claimed Kubiiovych’s affinity to the Galizien Division stemmed from the desire to present Anglo-Americans following the conquest of Nazi Germany with a fait accompli in the envisioned war between the west and the USSR. In such a conflict, one report claimed, Ukrainians saw themselves as a force to fight alongside the west to liberate ethnographic territory. However the UTsK was described as doubtful of German victory yet collaborated with them if only to in some way combat the oncoming Soviets.2415 2415 “Notatka w kwestii ukraińskiej przygotowana przez Podwydział Z Wydziału Informacji BIP (1943-1944?)” in Archiwum Adama Bienia…, 531. The BIP report described the attitude of Ukrainian masses as decidedly anti-Soviet. In comparison to the Soviets, German occupation was seen by them as bearable while times in interwar Poland were remembered as overall good. However, Poland was viewed as weak internationally, in a weak position among the Allies Powers. Often, the report continued, the Ukrainian intelligentsia expressed an opinion of shared cultural values with Poles and, it concluded, if Poland returned to the European map , either via a path of treaties and agreements or by its own accord (which was unrealistic at this point), Ukrainians would accept this openly and peacefully. 2416 AIPN, PJB, GK 196/303, Abschrift – Betrifft: Vermerk über die Besprechung des Professor Kubijowitsch mit Herrn Präsidenten Dr. von Craushaar, January 4, 1945, p. 240. 2417 Bul’ba-Borovets’, Armiia bez dzherzhavy, 302. Hans von Herwarth recalled the Turkmeni committee also refusing to join the Vlasov movement. They were prepared to recognize the ex-Soviet general as primus inter pares but were not prepared to subject themselves to him and his movement. Herwarth, Między Hitlerem a Stalinem…, 536-537. 2418 Pan’kivs’kyi, Vid komitetu do derzhavnoho tsentru, 45-49. 2419 Rossoliński-Liebe, Stepan Bandera: The Life and Afterlife of a Ukrainian Nationalist…, 287; Motyka, Ukraińska partyzantka, 429. Richard Türk made several comments concerning Kubiiovych’s talks with his superior. He described the Ukrainian argument of Vlasov as “typically cunning and stubborn.” According to Türk, Frank was only willing to pledge nominal autonomy under the Germans to Galician Ukrainians; those from Dnieper Ukraine he treated like Russians. Furthermore, he condemned the notion of the UTsK as a political representation. If anything, aside from a welfare committee, it could be regarded as the official Ukrainian ethnic representative. He questioned Kubiiovych’s self-declared description of being political leader, noting it also revealed how many GG Ukrainians recognized him as a leader. Finally, Türk added that Kubiiovych’s meetings with SS officials in Berlin concerning Ukrainian matters could be seen by many, especially Frank, as disloyal; inimical to his previous comments.2416 According to Bul’ba-Borovets’, Ukrainians saw in a national committee the opportunity to return to Ukraine.2417 However, Ukrainians were also conducting meetings and talks of their own. Galician and Dnieper Ukrainians agreed of the necessity to rally around one common representation and to create a political center. The former saw the continuator of Ukrainian state authority in the UNR exile government.2418 For their part, the Germans envisioned exploiting Ukrainians against the Soviets in forms other than a national committee. In December, the Abwehr transported Bandera and Stets’ko to Kraków where they assisted in preparing a Ukrainian unit to be parachuted into the suburbs of Lwów. They were to give Shukevych one million stolen Russian Rubles (provided by the Germans) as well as letters and instructions to fight the Soviet army from the rear. Bandera also conveyed his preparedness in returning to Ukraine.2419 Toward the end of 1944, Kubiiovych divided his time between Kraków, Lüben, Berlin, Bratislava, Prague and Vienna; visiting Ukrainians and organizing UTsK offices. As Shandruk met with representatives from the Eastern Ministry or foreign office to lobby for a Ukrainian committee, he proposed Kubiiovych also attend as a means to bolster and legitimize his position. However, Kubiiovych refused on the grounds he had no official relations with the committee since it was yet to be officially recognized by the Germans.2420 On November 14, he led a group of Ukrainian farmers to meet with Frank; what would be the last recorded meeting in the general governor’s diary between the two men. During belated, modest fall harvest festivities, Frank thanked Ukrainian peasants for faithfully completing their agricultural work in the face of the advancing Bolsheviks. He urged them to “faithfully and diligently serve the earth as your peasant conscience commands you.”2421 2420 Shandruk, Arms of Valor..., 209. 2421 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/37, Tagebuch: August 1944 bis März 1945, pp. 239-242. 2422 Ibid. 2423 Ibid, p. 372. 2424 Winstone, The Dark Heart of Hitler’s Europe…, 233; Bykovs’kyi, Z Heneral’noї Huberniї do Vartegau…, 99-100. Frank then used the occasion to denounce Bolshevism and propagandize the Germans as protectors of all those previously oppressed by them. In mentioning of Galician territory overrun by the Red Army, he reiterated the specter of communism – nationalization of peasant land. In turning Ukrainians into faceless kolkhoz slaves, the general governor stated: “The Jewish Bolshevik masterminds know exactly why there can be no room in their system for a land-based peasantry.” He assured present this fate would not meet them when the Wehrmacht would push the Bolsheviks out once and for all. Until this could happen, he assigned them a special task: to be the embryo of conscious peasant life who, once eastern territory was liberated by the Germans, could mold those peasants into obedient, loyal agricultural workers for the Reich. He concluded this thought by reassuring: “As long as the Reich fights, the flag and the idea of European peasantry is upheld. All European peasants who have recognized or will recognize their mortal enemy in Bolshevism will gather around this flag regardless of how the fronts will stand.”2422 To this, Kubiiovych thanked Frank for receiving the delegation, promising Ukrainian farmers remain loyal and obedient to the Germans with the hope of returning to Eastern Galicia. On January 17, 1945, the day the Red Army captured what remained of ruined Warsaw, Hans Frank’s diary recorded his final departure from Kraków: “The General Governor leaves the castle with a motorcade in the most magnificent winter weather and bright sunshine.”2423 His last act of the day was to personally pull down the swastika flag from the castle masthead. That day, Soviet tanks broke through German defensive positions north of the city, forcing Frank's immediate flight. One Pole described his observations of the German evacuation as resembling “our escape in 1939 magnified ten-fold” as Germans fled by all available means. Those unable to find a vehicle went on foot “dragging suitcases behind them through the snow. Soldiers, civilians, women, children, all were running – not walking, but actually running down the road.” Ukrainians also fled. Livyts’kyi and UNR members reached Lüben by way of Kalisz after five days of travelling to avoid Soviet bombings. From there the group eventually reached Weimar.2424 According to postwar documents, Kubiiovych also fled Kraków then; arriving in Lüben on January 20 before heading on to Berlin. Presumably, as a loyal Ukrainian collaborator, his evacuation was facilitated by GG authorities. In the Reich capital he was reunited with who he later called his “friends from the old days” – Wächter and Arlt.2425 2425 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 1, folder 2, Kubiiovych German-language biographical resume, n.d.; volume 1, folder 9, Kubiiovych notorized statement of identity, 1950; Kubiiovych, Meni 85, 190. In his memoirs, Kubiiovych stated he visited the Krynica region and his native Nowy Sącz for the last time in mid-August 1944. 2426 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/37, Tagebuch – August 1944 bis März 1945, p. 373; Winstone, The Dark Heart of Hitler’s Europe…, 234; Ogórek, Lista Wächtera…, 351-352; Schenk, Hans Frank…, 363-370. 2427 Pan’kivs’kyi, Vid komitetu do derzhavnoho tsentru, 53. 2428 Melnyk, History of the Galician Division of the Waffen-SS vol. 2, 127; 2429 Bolianovs’kyi, Dyviziia Halychyna, 274. Among the German units involved in crushing the Slovak National Uprising were the 18th Volunteer Panzer Grenadier Division Horst Wessel and the SS-Sturmbrigade Dirlewanger. Even though the documentation of Galizien division unit activity in Slovakia is fragmentary, Per The direction of Frank’s convoy was the village of Seichau (currently Sichów) in Lower Silesia. The castle there, designated as his evacuation point, served as a storage facility for art treasures plundered from Kraków. Large quantities of foodstuffs and alcohol were sent there prior to his arrival. During the brief stay, Frank and his entourage burned a large amount of documents brought with them from the Burg before depleting the food and alcohol supplies; ultimately leaving in a drunken state. From there, he travelled to Neuhaus, a small town in Bavaria by the Schliersee, where he chose the modest Café Bergrieden as the new headquarters for the General Government. His staff numbered a modest five people. To feel more at home, he hung several works of art stolen from Kraków in the café – da Vinci’s Lady with an Ermine, a Rembrandt self-portrait, a Rubens crucifixion as well as pieces by Dürer, Guardi and Cranach.2426 After receiving orders to evacuate Lüben, Pan’kivs’kyi arrived in Berlin on February 1. In the haste of the evacuation, documents and foodstuffs were left behind, falling into the hands of the oncoming Soviets. According to his memoirs, Kubiiovych returned to Lüben from Berlin to accompany the Ukrainian evacuation from there.2427 The Berlin UTsK branch supplanted the Lüben one for the Altreich; those territories part of Nazi Germany before 1938. It became the de facto center of the UTsK while offices organized in several Bavarian towns, particularly Augsburg and Würtzburg. From then until the end of the war, Kubiiovych moved about throughout the Reich and neighboring territory, overseeing welfare and aid for refugees and evacuees. He spent New Year’s 1945 in Vienna while during Greek Catholic Christmas, he and Pan’kivs’kyi visited division troops in Slovakia. Small delegations visited reserve units, making speeches to boost morale and propagandizing news of developments surrounding the national committee.2428 The Soviet encroachment onto Slovak territory and eruption of a national uprising forced Ukrainians to again flee. After the Brody debacle, units of the Galizien Division were stationed in Slovakia where they were involved in counter-insurgency operations. It was also used to crush the Slovak National Uprising – an anti-fascist insurgency aimed against the Germans and their collaboration regime – in concert with other brutal SS and SD formations, including Vlasov detachments.2429 German reports showed the local Slovak population feared Rudling called attention to Slovak historians work in clarifying the issue of atrocities against the Slovak people. However, more work is necessary. Rudling, “They Defended Ukraine…,” 357-358. 2430 Quoted in Rudling, “They Defended Ukraine…,” 258. 2431 AAN, Der Beauftragte des Generalgouveneure für die Betreuung der ukrainische Flüchtlinge in der Slovakei, sygn. 6, Fernschreiben – Betrifft: Ukrainische Flüchtlinge in Südslovakei, September 23, 1944, p. 40. 2432 Zięba, “Biskupstwo krakowsko-łemkowskie…,” 133-134. According to Zięba, Palladius and Ilarion were transported to Kraków where they took refuge in Palladius’ tenement house residence. There, they continued the work of the autocephalous synod by appointing parish administrators for Lemko churches. 2433 Pan’kivs’kyi, Vid komitetu do derzhavnoho tsentru, 51; Mats’kiv, Z-nad Dnistra na kanads’ki preriї..., 150-151; Knysh, Na porozi nevidomoho…, 41-42; 58-59. and despised the Ukrainian soldiers. One note concluded: “No Slovak has any confidence whatsoever in these Ukrainians.”2430 Perhaps out of this local hatred, Slovak insurgents terrorized recently arrived Ukrainian evacuees. Instances arose in which partisans’ threatened those who refused to join their ranks, forcing them to flee. One report noted of 1,500 Ukrainians displaced in this fashion.2431 German transports moved refugees to transit camps in central Slovakia and Strasshof, north of Vienna. In Sankt-Pölten, just to the west of the Austrian capitol, the GG autocephalous hierarchs were reunited as Ilarion and Palladius were moved there from Krosno via Kraków. Dionysius was moved there from Piotrków Trybunalski in central Poland.2432 The UTsK office in Bratislava succeeded in sending a rail wagon packed with documents and office equipment to Lüben. With some difficulty, the wagon was attached to a Wehrmacht transport and sent to Augsburg, Bavaria. To it were added Ukrainian women and children. However, Mats’kiv recalled with disdain of some men who took it upon themselves to remove UTsK office supplies from the transport; replacing it with their private belongings. Some even fled on the transport without even notifying their spouses. The influx of refugees into Austria forced the UTsK to disperse them throughout the country; to southern and western regions as well as onto western Czech territory where Committee offices were also opened. According to Knysh, particularly enticing to many evacuees were western Austrian regions bordering Switzerland; particularly in the Voralberg region.2433 By later October, the last refugee transports were being organized by the Germans to move Ukrainians from central Slovakia primarily to Austria but also to Hungary. With Allied bombing raids increasing on targets and cities in the Reich and Austria – the heaviest and most damaging ones targeting Dresden in February 1945 – the UTsK organized its headquarters in Weimar, the central German city whose surrounding regions became a makeshift center for Ukrainian life in Germany. Again, Pan’kivs’kyi was charged with organizing some form of welfare life for émigrés and refugees. Given the various émigrés with differing political orientations in the region, his chief task became consolidating them into one representative movement. Besides Augsburg, Berlin and Weimar, offices were quickly prepared in Hannover, Nuremberg and Munich. In case of the need to evacuate Vienna, the UTsK was to evacuate to Kaufbeuren in Bavaria. In addition to aiding evacuees, many recently freed concentration camp prisoners – among them Melnykites – found their way to those centers. A chief responsibility of UTsK offices was allocating ration cards and housing from local German officials. A roof over one’s head often meant sleeping in barns, in parts of factories designated for housing, rooming with friends, paying Germans or Austrians for boarding (something illegal as they were not allowed to house foreigners) or in makeshift barracks.2434 At times and because of the disorder caused by the Allied advance, some refugees were left to find housing on their own. 2434 Pan’kivs’kyi, Vid komitetu do derzhavnoho tsentru, 58-61. 2435 Shandruk, Arms of Valor…, 229-231. 2436 “On the Formation of the Ukrainian National Committee and Ukrainian National Army March 1945” in Heike, The Ukrainian Division ‘Galicia’ 1943-45, 150-151. 2437 Pan’kivs’kyi, Vid komitetu do derzhavnoho tsentru, 69. After meetings and negotiations with Reich officials, the Ukrainian National Committee (Ukraїns’kyi Natsional’nyi Komitet – UNK) was authorized by Rosenberg on February 23, 1945 in Weimar; shortly after the Red Army reached the Oder (Odra) River. It was officially recognized on March 12 and became the representative organization of Ukrainian life in the Reich. Apart from Shandruk, Kubiiovych and Oleksandr Semenenko were appointed his deputies. During UNK meetings in Weimar, Mel’nyk remained cautious about the last crusade against the USSR. Contrastingly, Bandera argued for “full support to the end, whatever it may be.” However, both nationalist fractions agreed to consider Kubiiovych representing Galicia in the committee. As such, the UNC consisted of territorial representations centered around an “émigré key:” Kubiiovych represented Galician Ukrainians and émigrés in the Reich, Semenenko Dnieper Ukrainians and émigrés while Shandruk represented the old Petliurite émigrés.2435 With Kubiiovych serving in the UNK, welfare and aid over Ukrainians on Reich territory fell under its jurisdiction as UTsK offices became committee ones. Bandera, Mel’nyk and Skoropads’kyi were all also involved in establishing the committee, convincing their political supporters to continue fighting the Soviets. The announcement of the committee’s formation called it “a new page in the socio-political life of Ukrainian citizens…” while it declared itself to be the spokesman for Ukrainians yearning for a sovereign nation-state. It was preparing a national army from among Ukrainians in German military ranks to fight for statehood while also protecting all Ukrainians in the Reich.2436 No formal mention was made of collaboration with the Germans in the final victory or in constructing the new European order, presumably to conceal previous intentions and, more importantly, to avoid any accusations of collaboration after the war. The task of Bandera, Mel’nyk and Skoropads’kyi was to convince their political supporters to continue fighting the Soviets. However, postwar memoirs claimed not many Ukrainians were hurrying to work in or with the UNK.2437 This may have stemmed from the notion that adherents of those political movements consciously aimed to white wash or overlook this last episode of Ukrainian-German collaboration. For example, in his memoirs Melnykite Osyp Boidunyk labelled those Ukrainians in the UNK “politically naïve and crude.” In not actively collaborating in the national council, Knysh stated the Melnykites defended themselves and their honor; maintaining a clean moral slate. This distancing may have also stemmed from the fact that the OUN did not have a political monopoly over the national committee.2438 The Banderite OUN and UPA already created their own Ukrainian Supreme Liberation Council in July 1944 to convey a “democratic” image and eventual cooperation with the Americans and British. However, while also in Weimar, Bandera mobilized Ukrainians for an army that would support the Nazis in the fight against the Soviets. He later informed OUN members and the CIA that he had not supported the national committee of the Third Reich after his release from the Sachsenhausen concentration camp.2439 2438 Boidunyk, Na perelomi, 125; Knysh, Na porozi nevidomoho..., 45; Pan’kivs’kyi, Vid komitetu do derzhavnoho tsentru, 68-69. 2439 Rossoliński-Liebe, Stepan Bandera: The Life and Afterlife of a Ukrainian Nationalist…, 265; 288. 2440 Rudling, “They Defended Ukraine…,” 358-360; Golczewski, “Die Kollaboration in der Ukraine,” 181. During that time, the division was joined by a number of auxiliary police formations, including the bulk of Schutzmannschaft Batallion 31, also know as the Volhynian Legion. Bolianovs’kyi, Ukraїns’ki viis’kovi formuvannia…, 266; 301. In a memorandum prepared by Mykhailo Krat, commander of the First Division of the Ukrainian National Army, to the British command on April 20, 1945, he protested any association of the national army with the German SS. He wrote: “The Ukrainian people knew of the conflict between Germany and other European states besides Moscow, but it was thought that this was only a matter for Germany since the Ukrainian people had no conflicts with these peoples, does not have them and does not want them... The Ukrainian volunteers had nothing to do with the program of the Nazi Party and during their service in the Ukrainian Division they did not commit any crime that defiled their national honor or violated international law.” Bolianovs’kyi, Dyviziia Halychyna, 358. 2441 Kubiiovych, Meni 85, 191-192. Wächter was tasked with organizing a civil administration for northern Italy. According to postwar historiography, the UNK’s greatest success was transforming the Galizien Division into the First Division of the Ukrainian National Army under the command of Shandruk, raised to the rank of general, and saving troops from falling into Soviet captivity or worse. Following their expulsion from Slovak territory, Galizien troops continued combating anti-Nazi partisans in Slovenia and were stationed on the front line near Graz, Austria until the end of the war. On March 15 Livyts’kyi officially recognized Shandruk and the future national army he would command as the armed forces of the Ukrainian People’s Republic in exile. Frank Golczewski termed this a “fairytale discourse” created by Galizien Division veterans who claimed that neither the division nor the National Committee cooperated with the Germans or even the Nazis but independent Ukrainian formations with the goals of combating the Soviet Union and making contact with the Western Allies.2440 Based on Kubiiovych’s memoirs, Wächter played an important role in the matter of the Galizien Division surrendering to the western allies. After speaking with him, the former Galician governor turned military administrative chief in Italy promised to do all in his power to facilitate the troops move west from Slovenia. This, Kubiiovych claimed, was a promise he kept. Indeed, Wächter remained with the division up until the end.2441 He, Arlt and Bisanz accompanied Shandruk as Reich and Wehrmacht representatives in his travels to divisional troops, during their swearing in to the Ukrainian national army and in celebrating Greek Catholic Easter (May 3, 1945) with troops. According to Melnyk, the Germans tolerated the name change of the division and its oath of allegiance to Ukraine as symbolic; tactical control of the division remained German until the final surrender.2442 2442 Melnyk, History of the Galician Division of the Waffen-SS vol. 2, 231; Shandruk, Arms of Valor…, 256; 271; 277; 279; The text of the new oath was: “I swear to Almighty God on His Holy Gospel and His Living Cross, sparing neither life nore health, always and everywhere to fight with weapons in my hand under the Ukrainians National Banner for my people and for my homeland, Ukraine. Aware of my great responsibility as a soldier of the Ukrainain National Army, I swear that I will carry out all orders of my superios obediently and without question, and to keep secret all service orders. So help me God and the Holy Virgin, Amen.” 2443 Torzecki, Kwestia ukraińska w polityce III Rzeszy, 341-342. 2444 Ibid, 344-345; Golczewski, “Die Kollaboration in der Ukraine,” 181. Without any doubt, no National Committee could be formed had the Germans not released Ukrainian nationalists from concentration camps and facilitated in the unification of the various nationalist groups, albeit for their own strategic purposes. This begs the question – what did Ukrainians hope to achieve through the Ukrainian National Committee? Inevitably, they strove toward assuring they became legal, legitimate allies with the Germans. By providing welfare and aid over evacuees and laborers in the Reich, they aimed to gain new supporters, especially from among the latter, to strengthen the committee’s position by preventing their return to Soviet Ukraine; creating a strong émigré base. In addition, the political mindset of Shandruk and Livits’kyi worked toward making sure Ukrainians remaining in the Reich would not be treated by a future German government as stateless people who could be simply evicted. As such, they planned to move the former émigré center from pre-war Polish territory to the Altreich. This meant to prevent weakening and decreasing the OUN while strengthening a non-OUN nationalist movement. Furthermore, Shandruk’s rather amicable position vis-à-vis Poles also presented the possibility for concerted talks with them to repair ethnic relations in the search for allies.2443 Indeed, the recognition of the UNC was the coronation of German-Ukrainian collaboration as Ukrainians could show the world they finally rose to becoming a political power which never renounced the struggle for an independent, nationalist Ukrainian state. Furthermore, it suggested they would have to be dealt with after the war with more seriousness than as simple stateless émigrés. The Germans, on the other hand and in the face of defeat, organized a political masquerade which de facto protected Ukrainian nationalism. This “tomfoolery,” as Torzecki termed it, cost them nothing and could only benefit them in the future; propagandized after the war in the sense that ‘good’ Germans were willing to right the previous wrongs committed against Ukrainians by ‘bad’ and brutal Nazis. Similarly, a strong Ukrainian nationalist movement equated to a means of weakening the powerful Soviet Union during an impending east-west conflict. According to this logic, as Golczewski explained, becoming anti-communist crusaders would immediately absolve nationalists of their recent collaboration or partisan past.2444 With the impending collapse of Germany evident, instructions were issued for the entire German front to disengage from the Red Army and move to regions occupied by US and British troops. Arlt, fluent in English, accompanied Ukrainian representatives with documents describing the national committee and national army as an interpreter to talk with the British near Klagenfurt. Wächter planned to move the Ukrainians troops to northern Italy. However, the presence of Yugoslav communist partisans in the region forced him to abandon this plan. On May 10, 1945, the division officially surrendered to US and British forces in Austria.2445 2445 Melnyk, History of the Galician Division of the Waffen-SS vol. 2, 246-249. 2446 Mazower, Hitler’s Empire…, 530-534. In addition to making Dönitz Reich president and commander-in-chief, Hitler made Goebells prime minister and Bormann head of the Nazi Party. In breaking with the old system of power, he expelled Himmler and Göring for the Nazi party on grounds of treachery as both men attempted to enter into negotiations with the Allies. 2447 Knysh, Na porozi nevidomoho…, 79-80; Mats’kiv, Z-nad Dnistra na kanads’ki preriї..., 154-155. In early Febuary 1945, Bandera, his wife and daughter fled Berlin and travelled to Vienna with the help of some Banderites, including Lebed’. That same month, an OUN leadership meeting in Ukraine reelected Bandera in absentia leader of the entire OUN-B. During an OUN-B conference in Vienna, he was elected representative of the Foreign Units of OUN (Zakordonni Chastyny OUN). As the Red Army approadched the city, he went to Prague and from there to Innsbruck. Rossoliński-Liebe, Stepan Bandera: The Life and Afterlife of a Ukrainian Nationalist…, 288. The advance of Allied troops onto Reich territory from both the east and the west signaled the beginning of the end of Hitler’s thousand year Reich. Budapest had surrendered in February. In early April, the Red Army began an offensive aimed at capturing Vienna and break through the German Ostwall created along the Austro-Hungarian border while the battle of Berlin was launched on April 16. In the waning days of the war, Hitler conducted three final acts: he married Eva Braun, dictated a political testament naming Grand-Admiral Karl Dönitz Reich president and supreme commander of the armed forces; and committed suicide with his newlywed on April 30, 1945. Despite his suicide, National Socialism lived on until Dönitz authorized General Alfred Jodl to sign the ultimate surrender before American forces on May 8, 1945.2446 The fear of the Soviet front reaching Reich and Austrian territory prompted many Ukrainians to flee as far west as possible. Allied bombers were targeting industrial plants and cities in Austria. With the Red Army nearing eastern Austria, Hager signed several hundred blank passes which were used by the UTsK in Vienna to facilitate the flight of Ukrainians west. Knysh recalled a similar scene in Dornbirn where “documania” overcame Ukrainians as the local German authorities began hastily issuing passports and passes. Even though these documents were useless in the wake of German collapse, he remembered the line of people being long while they could not be convinced they were wasting their time. Office and publishing house documents and equipment, as well as private belongings, were loaded onto a rail transport and sent to Aufkirch in Bavaria. What remained, particularly foodstuffs, was “sold” to the Greek Catholic parish pastor in Vienna with the intent of being used solely for Ukrainians who remained there. Mats’kiv and his spouse followed the route of the transport, also evacuating to Aufkirch.2447 In April, the last UTsK conference was conducted in Berlin; focusing on aiding as best as possible refugees and evacuees. With the front approaching, Kubiiovych left Berlin and made his way to Weimar where he met with Livyts’kyi, Pan’kivs’kyi and others. Between April 17 and 27, Kubiiovych issued instructions dissolving the Ukrainian Central Committee and appointed a liquidation commission to transfer UTsK assets to a future Ukrainian representative organization. On April 26, American forces appeared in Bavaria. In and around the village of Blonhofen where Ukrainians settled, a temporary committee was organized – what Mats’kiv called a “little UTsK” – headed by Vasyl’ Mudryi. A similar committee was organized and headed by Knysh in Dornbirn before the recently arrived French forces. From Weimar, Kubiiovych travelled to Augsburg and Aufkirch before reaching the western Austria town of Schwarzach in the Voralberg region. Several UTsK members – including Mykhailo Kushnir, Zenon Zelenyi and Roman Holod – settled there alongside him. While there, Knysh recalled Kubiiovych found a bicycle and travelled about.2448 Due to Schwarzach’s close location to Switzerland, an NKVD report from August 1945 claimed both Kubiiovych and Pan’kivs’kyi took refuge there before returning to Bavaria.2449 2448 Kubiiovych, Meni 85, 192; Mats’kiv, Z-nad Dnistra na kanads’ki preriї..., 157; Knysh, Na porozi nevidomoho…, 85-94; 102. 2449 “No. 3.186: Spravka A.M. Leont’eva nachal’niku 1 Upravleniia NKGB SSSR P.M. Fitinu o zarubezhnoi deiatel’nosti i sviaziakh OUN (August 15, 1945)” in Ukrainskie natsionalisticheskie organizatsii… vol. 2, 760. 2450 Kubiiovych, Meni 85, 198. In addition to this Kubiiovych described that the Polish government-in-exile in London viewed him as a traitor since in their eyes he was a Polish citizen who collaborated with their enemy. 2451 “No. 3.163: Iz spravki nachalnika 1-go Otdeleniia 4 otdela Upravleniia kontrrazvedki SMERSH 3 Ukrainskogo fronta maiora I. Trostianskogo o deiatel’nosti Ukrainskogo tsentral’nogo komiteta (April 24, 1945)” in Ukrainskie natsionalisticheskie organizatsii… vol. 2, 636-637. Ukrainians in Germany and Austria made their way to regions which would fall under the occupation of the western allies to avoid at all costs a reparation to Soviet-occupied territory and, worse yet, being tried and sentenced as Nazi collaborators. In his memoirs Kubiiovych recalled his apprehension at the thought of being turned-over to the Soviets: “The Bolsheviks branded me as one of the main German collaborators and co-responsible for their [German] criminal behavior, I was responsible for the rise of the division…”2450 Such opinions undoubtedly equated with a death sentence. Certainly the Soviets viewed any Ukrainians cooperating with the Germans as traitors. A Soviet SMERSH counter-intelligence agent attached to the Red Army’s Ukrainian front compiled a secret report detailing the activities of the UTsK. It was described as a “counter-revolutionary nationalist organization” financed by the Germans. Pro-German excerpts were also quoted, ones which expressed UTsK willingness to cooperate with the occupiers. All aspects of UTsK work – from recruiting Ukrainians for labor in Germany, for service in the GG construction service or convincing Ukrainians to relinquish harvests for the Germans – was considered anti-Soviet. Perhaps the greatest example of anti-Soviet corroboration was the UTsK’s role in supporting the creation of the SS Galizien Division and encouraging Galician Ukrainians to enlist in its ranks.2451 Put another way, the counter-intelligence report convicted any and all workers or members of the UTsK as fascist collaborators in the eyes of the Soviets; a sentence which meant either long-term imprisonment, years of hard labor, or immediate execution. Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet party boss who oversaw liberated Ukrainian territory, spelled-out in no uncertain terms how to handle Ukrainian collaborators: “… they are despicable helpers of the Germans and we must deal with them as with the German invaders.”2452 2452 “No. 3.27: Iz spravki zamestitelia nachal’nika Otdela po bor’be z banditizmom NKVD USSR V.G. Burylina v NKVD USSR o deiatel’nosti Ukrainskogo tsentral’nogo komiteta (UTsK) v oblastiakh USSR, vkliuchennykh v distrikt Galitsia (April 2, 1944)” in Ukrainskie natsionalisticheskie organizatsii… vol. 2, 122. 2453 Stempowski, W dolinie Dnietru..., 286. Among the others who Stempowski desscribed as lying-low were Mykhailo Khronov’iat and Milena Rudnyts’ka. 2454 Shablii, Volodymyr Kubiiovych: Entsyklopediia zhyttia i tvorennia, 139-140. Even before the ultimate surrender was signed by the Germans and World War II in Europe came to an end, Ukrainians in the former Reich and Austria, particularly Eastern Galician ones, repeated what they had done before the Germans after Poland’s fall in September 1939 – they began organizing into committees in an effort to again present their interests before the new conquerors. However, now welfare and aid correlated with and was superseded by two important goals: searching for western asylum to avoid “repatriation” to the Soviet Union and countering accusations of Germanophilism and collaboration. In his travels throughout postwar Germany to make contacts with Ukrainians there, Jerzy Stempowski noted Kubiiovych and other nationalists, “compromised by their cooperation with the Germans,” either attempted to rehabilitate themselves or simply lay low and out of sight.2453 This was true of Kubiiovych who, while shortly in Austria and later in postwar Germany, avoided any association with Ukrainian public life so as not to be identified with the tradition of the Ukrainian Central Committee. Upon returning to Bavaria and with the end of the war ensuing, Kubiiovych was arrested by the American military police and interrogated for 6 weeks, claiming he was no collaborator.2454 Apparently the chaos of wars end combined with the Allied forces confusion and simply not knowing who was really who helped many like Kubiiovych to receive a “blank check” for a rather peaceful postwar life. Conclusion The end of World War II in May 1945 on the European continent was not the end of armed combat in Poland per se. By 1944, Stalin was convinced that ethnic homogeneity along the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop border would make Poland and Ukraine easier to rule in the future. Just as the Germans coquetted Ukrainians to gain their loyalty, so to was the Soviet dictator prepared to give Poles a “national state” and Ukrainians “western Ukrainian” territory; binding both in this way to the USSR. Contrary to 1939 when territory was transferred from Poland to the Soviet Republics, beginning in 1944, the practice of transfer centered on exchanging populations defined by nationality in order to create ethnic homogeneity between Poland and Ukraine. For the Polish communists assuming power, the Ukrainian question was of minor importance in their homogenization of postwar Poland. Rather, it served a political purpose if only to nationalize and legitimize the communists as the new authority. Since postwar countries were to be built on the national principle and not on the principle of nationalities, the communists set-out to polonize postwar Poland.2455 From 1944 to 1946 a process of reparations was initiated in which Poles from the territory of the new Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic were to be moved west while Ukrainians on Polish territory were to go east. In sum, about 1 million Poles and Ukrainians were deported to either communist Poland or Soviet Ukraine.2456 2455 Jan Jacek Bruski, “Polska 1944-1947: od państwa narodowościowego do narodowego” in Procesy Transformacyjne w Polsce i Czechosłowacji w latach 1944 (1945)-1948/Procesy transformace v Polsku a v Československu v letech 1944 (1945) – 1948, eds. Jan Jacek Bruski, Eduard Maur, Michał Pułaski, František Svátek (Wrocław: Opole, 2004), 231-243; Snyder, The Reconstruction of Nations…, 182-183; 187; Motyka, Od rzezi wołyńskiej…, 457-460. 2456 The best source for the Ukrainian repatriations from Poland between 1944 and 1946 is Pisuliński, Przesiedlenie ludności ukraińskiej z Polski do USRR.... A worthwhile monograph concerning social trauma and deportations in postwar Poland immediately after the war is Marcin Zaremba, Wielka trwoga. Polska 1944-1947 (Kraków: Znak, 2012). 2457 For monographs dedicated to discussions concerning Operation ‘Vistula,’ and its aftermath, see: Eugeniusz Misiło (ed), Akcja “Wisła.” Dokumenty i materiały (Warszawa: Archiwum Ukraińskie, 2012) (especially Misiło’s introduction); Jan Pisuliński, Akcja specjalna “Wisła” (Rzeszów: Wydawnictow Libra, 2017); Roman Drozd, Polityka władz wobec ludności ukraińskiej w Polsce w latach 1944-1989 (Warszawa: Tyrsa, 2001); Igor Hałagida, Ukraińcy na zachodnich i północnych ziemiach Polski 1947-1957 (Warszawa: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, 2002). A valuable monograph into the ethnic policy of the Polish communist regime toward However, the ‘repatriations’ did not successfully move all Ukrainians east. Polish communist officials saw any further movement of Ukrainians as an internal matter. In February 1947 plans were conceived to move any and all remaining Ukrainians to the so-called “recovered territories;” northern and western lands postwar Poland inherited from the defeated Reich. The assassination of Deputy Defense Minister General Karol Świerczewski in March 1947 by the UPA proved the opportune incident to launch their action. Code-named Operation ‘Vistula,’ the resettlements took on a violent character since they also envisioned uprooting any remnant UPA fighters once and for all. In total, over 140 thousand Ukrainians were move north to alien lands with the hope of assimilation to the new Polish state.2457 The Ukrainians in People’s Poland is Roman Drozd and Igor Hałagida, Ukraińcy w Polsce 1944-1989. Walka o tożsamość (Dokumenty i materiały) (Warszawa: Burchard Edition, 1999). 2458 Zaremba, Wielka trwoga..., 581. 2459 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/35, Tagebuch 1944: März bis Mai, p. 171. 2460 Schenk, Hans Frank…, 383-384. 2461 Ogórek, Lista Wächtera…, 301-321. According to the research conducted by Magdalena Ogórek, Wächter was poisoned by Karl Hass, a SS man who immediately after the war was recruited by the United States Army Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC). Later CIA reports indicated that Hass was a double-agent, working as a Soviet agent within the CIC. 2462 Begliar Navruzov, 14-ia grenaderskaia diviziia SS „Galitsiia“ (Moscow: Veche, 2010), 26fn2. operation ultimately defeated the UPA in Poland; something which consolidated communist power and earned the new authorities some credibility in the eyes of average Poles. Marcin Zaremba went a step further, claiming the operation was supported by Polish society who both, remained under the pressure of fear of Ukrainian nationalists or the UPA and wanted revenge for the Volhynia massacres.2458 More over the cleaning of ethnically-mixed territory, something so desperately desired by Ukrainian nationalists as a precursor to founding a mono-ethnic state, was conducted but by the victorious Soviet Union and their communist puppets who became the new hosts of East Central Europe. However, Operation ‘Vistula’ remains an incident which Ukrainians recall as the final act by the Poles in destroying the remaining traces of Ukrainianess on Polish territory and a topic which Polish and Ukrainian historians debate to this day. After the total defeat of Germany, the Allies looked to collectively punish captured Nazi figureheads and administrators for their wartime actions. Hans Frank was one of the many high-ranking Nazis on trial at Nuremberg. Just as throughout the war, during the postwar trials he continued to maintain that the divide and conquer policy he oversaw in the GG was a “sensible, humane” one.2459 During his time in allied custody, he converted to Catholicism, attempted suicide twice and had time to reassess his role as general governor, concluding: “…I can say that for five years I was a king but a king with no authority. This was simply a façade just like the entire leader-state of Hitler'’.”2460 After testifying on two occasions during the trial proceedings, he was executed on October 16, 1946. Other administrators met different postwar fates. After spending time hiding in the Austrian mountains, former Galicia District Governor Otto Wächter capitalized on his contacts in the Vatican, particularly with the Austrian Bishop Alois Hudal, and fled to Rome where he hid under the assumed names of Dr. Oswald Werner and Alfredo Reinhardt. He died in 1949. Recent research into his mysterious death points to poisoning by a Soviet agent.2461 Neither was Alfred Bisanz so lucky. In the summer of 1945, he was arrested in Vienna by a Soviet secret agent. Taken to the USSR, he was convicted of sabotage and sentenced to death. In 1951, he was executed in the Vladimir prison.2462 Other GG men were much luckier after the war. Former Abwehr men and Ostforscher, such as Theodor Oberländer, made a career in West German politics: serving as government minister (1953-1961) and Bundestag parliamentarian. Fritz Arlt, so instrumental in the GG population and welfare department and program, landed in American captivity along with the Galizien Division. While interned, he compiled studies for the Americans concerning German relations with the east and the psychology of warfare. Following a de-nazification process in Munich in 1949, he served as a member of the German industrial institute, managing director of the Walter Raymond Foundation, and as a business consultant. One of those who vouched for Arlt during the de-nazification process was Kubiiovych who described him as “a respected German exception” in the GG; a man of “Christian, humane, incorruptible and benevolent attitudes” who provided Jews, Poles and Ukrainians with welfare and aid. This position, Kubiiovych argued, distanced Arlt from the occupation policy of Eastern extermination preached by Frank and Himmler.2463 As is evident, Kubiiovych’s defense of Arlt stemmed from ignorance or unwillingness in identifying him as a member of the divide and conquer policy of the GG. Such admittance however would only have incriminated Kubiiovych of also collaborating with the Nazis to divide the ethnic groups in the GG. 2463 Arlt, Polen-, Ukrainer-, Juden-Politik im Generalgouvernement..., 64-65; 144-145. Others who provided testimonies defending Arlt were Adam Ronikier, Ivan Hryniokh, Mikhailo Sopuliak, Oleksandr Malynovs’kyi and M. Weichert (who wrote from the Jewish perspective). 2464 UVAN, fond 26, series 6/2, folder III/1, “Perły,” Gwiazda Polarna (March 18, 1972); Pan’kivs’kyi, Vid komitetu do derzhavnoho tsentru, 72-75; 2465 Volodymyr Kubiiovych, Volodymyr Kubiiovych: Naukovi pratsi (L’viv: Feniks, 1996), 305. After the war, some Ukrainians continued involvement in public or political life within the émigré diaspora in Germany. Kost’ Pan’kivs’kyi served as a justice minister, deputy prime minister, and minister without portfolio in the UNR government-in-exile successfully reorganized by Andrii Livyts’kyi in 1947. After immigrating to the United States, he published recollections, which were faced with criticism. One review appearing in the Polish-American newspaper Gwiazda Polarna described him as an “ardent and loyal apostle of cooperation with the German occupier.”2464 The stigma of collaboration left its stain on him. Volodymyr Kubiiovych returned to a life of scholarship and academia; perhaps as a means of distancing himself from his wartime experiences and the stigma of collaboration. He worked at the Ukrainian Free University in Munich before immigrating to France. His greatest postwar contribution was compiling the ten-volume Entsyklopedia Ukraїnoznavstva. The project, spanning many years, put him in contact with many prominent Ukrainian scholars and intellectuals who contributed pieces to the various entries. His view placed some recent wartime events in a different light. For example, his assessment of Banderite and UPA activity placed it on the margin of Ukrainian history. He wrote: We [Ukrainians] were merely objects in this battle [between the USSR and Germans]. Not only did we suffer enormous losses in people but, in exception to small unimportant episodes, we had no strength to conduct a real battle with the occupiers. Golden and bloody was the history of Ukraine during the years 1917-1931, bleak and bloody in 1941-1945.2465 However, his opinion of Polish-Ukrainian relations concerning the topic of the UTsK were much different. In guidelines he sent in 1979 to fellow scholar and Galizien Division volunteer Wasyl Veryha for writing a proposed history of the UTsK, Kubiiovych wrote: “If we are writing about Polish-Ukrainian relations, they are to be presented in terms of mainly a mutual destruction.”2466 Thus, such incidents as the ethnic cleansing of Poles by UPA forces or Ukrainian collaboration with the Germans were censored and distorted in favor of a mutual ethnic destruction thesis. 2466 LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 54, folder 45, Kubiiovych to Veryha – Plan “Istorii UTsK,” September 17, 1979. By war's end, the Ukrainian Central Committee ended as it began – overseeing the welfare and aiding a stateless people fleeing the occupation of their ethnographic living space by one of their historic enemies, the Soviet Union. However, this simple, concise definition of the Committee’s work over a five-year period leaves much to be said. First and foremost, in discussing and analyzing its work as collaboration in the sense of cooperation, I believe the historical myth of the UTsK being an apolitical welfare organization created by men such as Kubiiovych or Pan’kivs’kyi and perpetuated throughout the postwar years was challenged. In my view, what emerged from this study was a balanced and detailed examination into not only the work of the Ukrainian Central Committee but also its relations with the Nazi occupier and GG Poles. Understanding Ukrainian wartime collaboration in the General Government through the lens of cooperation shows through the activity and actions of the UTsK and its head Volodymyr Kubiiovych – the desire to neutralize and remove all Polish traces on ethnically-mixed or Ukrainian-majority territory, to mold and develop the national consciousness of Ukrainians, and being a contributor to the Nazi new European order – both political motives and faith in the German occupier to achieve these goals. The forlorn hope in the Germans which many postwar memoirs spoke of remained hopeful right up until the last days of the GG’s existence. After fleeing to Austria and Germany, many Galician Ukrainians or UTsK members did anything and everything to find themselves under Allied occupation. Ironically, loosely-organized welfare committees began springing-up along the same lines as those in October and November 1939 after the collapse of Poland. Again, Ukrainians met the new occupiers of defeated German with the desire to cooperate and avoid at all costs a return to Ukrainian territory in the east now under Soviet occupation. No deeper understanding of the UTsK could not be possible without understanding the occupational politics of the Nazis in the GG. As was evident, the occupier’s divide and conquer policy expanded to all aspects of life in the GG, including the ethnic social and welfare apparatus. By agreeing to privilege-concessions in religious, cultural, educational and social aspects of life, the occupier not only won over the Ukrainians by giving them what the prewar Polish state marginalized them in but also unloaded built-up nationalist aspirations. In the Ukrainians, the occupier gained a loyal group of Slavs who were used in their anti-Polish, anti-Jewish and anti-Bolshevik politics. This study of the Ukrainian Central Committee also became a study of Ukrainian life in the General Government; something lacking historiographically. As such, the organization of the UTsK apparatus and the occupier’s policy of ethnic divide and conquer contributed to the understanding of Polish-Ukrainian relations during World War II. Openly promoting Ukrainians in positions of local administration or turning-over Catholic churches to Orthodox faithful in many cases became the visual confirmation of traitorous collaboration with the Germans for many Poles. Without question the occupier’s policy directly contributed to increasing Polish-Ukrainian antagonisms; just as the Germans planned. However, once they were unable to maintain a sense of control over the antagonisms or the regions in which Poles and Ukrainians lived side-by-side, bloody battles erupted in which Ukrainians and Poles mutually killed one another in response to previous killings. This cycle of violence was interrupted as the German-Soviet front drove west. In this context, Ukrainians often looked toward the Germans for protection or arms of their own. However, Ukrainians were also victims; something which must not be forgotten. In their desire to cooperate with the German occupier in the GG, the UTsK exceeded the context of its welfare role; seeing “welfare” as a term open for wide-ranging interpretation. In exploiting Ukrainian willingness to cooperate, the occupiers took advantage of prewar marginalization and historic antagonisms to employ a regime with the intent of Germanizing lands inhabited by Ukrainian, Poles and Jews for future German colonists and inhabitants. In cooperating with the occupier, often the specter of Nazi German occupation was forgotten as Ukrainians and Poles blamed each other for their mutual plights. It is precisely these issues which continue to cause debate and disagreements among historians on both sides. If anything, this study of the Ukrainian Central Committee will only add to the debate with the hope of reaching a mutual understanding. 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