Galician Trails: The Forgotten Story of One Family

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Galician Trails: The Forgotten Story of One Family Page 32

by Zalewski, Andrew


  37. Kurjer Lwowski October 4 and 7, 1916, cited military communiqués on fighting around Bohorodczany, with details of battles reported by both sides.

  38. The New York Times December 21, 1916, from the eastern front of the Great War. Other reports about fighting in Łysiec and Lachowce around Bohorodczany were reported in Kurjer Lwowski December 27, 1916.

  CHAPTER 10

  1. Kurjer Lwowski July 20, 1917, described three possible directions for the Russian attack on Lvov, indicating that the Russians had decided to take the longer southern route, which would take them west of Stanislawow.

  2. The term Bolshevik (meaning “majority”) denoted the political party that came to power during Russia’s October Revolution in 1917.

  3. Kurjer Lwowski July 31, 1917, described the lack of discipline in the Russian army during the last occupation of Stanislawow, and provided the quote of an unnamed Russian soldier.

  4. Kurjer Lwowski July 28, 1917, reprinted a communiqué of the Russian command, indicating battles around Łysiec on July 25, 1917. Łysiec was situated halfway between Bohorodczany and Stanislawow. There were reports of street fighting during the takeover of the city by German forces. Kurjer Lwowski July 31, 1917, recorded that the lancers arrived on July 22, 1917, and the city fell on July 25.

  5. Kurjer Stanislawowski March 17, 1918, reported that 32 lancers had been killed and more than 50 wounded in the battle of Krechowce, south of Stanislawow. The same issue quoted the German and Russian generals praising the bravery of the lancers.

  5. Kurjer Lwowski July 31 and August 2, 1917, reported on the visit of Emperor Charles I to Stanislawow and other towns of the region on July 29, 1917.

  6. Kurjer Stanislawowski February 17, 1918, reported that only two of the lancers held in Austrian internment had been released; the remaining soldiers were still being held by the Germans more than seven months after Charles I made the promise. Additional releases were announced in Kurjer Stanislawowski on July 21, 1918.

  7. Kurjer Lwowski, January 4, 1917; Kurjer Stanislawowski November 18, 1917, and January 13, 1918. Russian military campaigns with frequent changes of the front line had necessitated the transfer of several administrative departments from eastern Galicia west to Cracow and other towns. It would be no sooner than April and May of 1918 that all departments of the Railway Directorate would return to Stanislawow.

  8. Kurjer Lwowski February 14, 1918, reported that most of Galicia was transitioning back to civil administration.

  9. Kurjer Stanislawowski November 25 and December 2, 1917, reported on the dire conditions in the city. For days, local bakeries could not make bread due to the chronic lack of flour.

  Kurjer Stanislawowski March 10, 1918, provided a front-page report on secret transports to Germany of large quantities of meat, grain, and other food products, sometimes concealed in train cars designed for the transfer of oil.

  10. Kurjer Lwowski January 1, 1917, reported that the Russians had removed all the furniture from the directorate offices and devastated the machine shops.

  11. Kurjer Stanislawowski March 3, 1918, printed a personal thank-you note by the treasurer of the association to Mr. Joseph Regiec for a donation of 20 kronen. Kurjer Stanislawowski March 24, 1918, described the dire conditions of the boarding school that provided vocational (handicraft) training. The council was elected to revitalize the institution. The deputy mayor, Antonius Stygar, was elected its chairman; Joseph Regiec was secretary. Later in the year, Joseph became involved in the revival of another boarding school, one for peasants’ children in Stanislawow (Kurjer Stanislawowski July 21, 1918).

  12. Kurjer Lwowski January 1, 1917, reported from Bohorodczany that furniture and other valuables of the town’s inhabitants had been confiscated by the Russians. Kurjer Stanislawowski April 28 and May 19, 1918, confirmed the extensive damage to the town of Bohorodczany. The documents discovered in the State Archives in Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast revealed financial losses suffered by Helena Regiec Sobolewska.

  13. Kurjer Stanislawowski May 18, 1918, described bare fields in and around Bohorodczany.

  14. Pinkas Hakehillot: Encyclopedia of Jewish Communities, Poland. Yad Vashem. Jerusalem 1980; vol. II, p. 71. There is no independent report of these atrocities. However, Jews were often silent victims; their experiences were seldom reported in local Polish or Austrian newspapers. “The Eagle of the Tsar” by Ludovic H. Grondijs in The European War; New York 1917; vol. X, pp. 694–695; described the Cossacks in much more positive terms, focusing on their almost mythical perseverance.

  15. Notes from school inspections in April 1916 and June 1918 were retrieved from the State Archives in Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast.

  16. Kurjer Stanislawowski December 9 and 16, 1917, reported the lack of heating in Stanislawow and the school closings. The narrow-gauge railroad was responsible for a number of accidents and was dismantled, as reported in Kurjer Stanislawowski September 15, 1918.

  17. Kurjer Lwowski December 17, 19, and 27, 1917, described conditions of the cease-fire signed on December 15, 1917. The final peace treaty would not be signed until March 3, 1918.

  18. Kurjer Stanislawowski February 17, 1918.

  19. Kurjer Lwowski February 13, 1918, summarized the agreement pertaining to the formation of the first modern Ukrainian state. The main marches took place in Lvov and in Stanislawow on February 18, 1918. Kurjer Stanislawowski February 24, 1918, described the march. The protests were over the inclusion in the Ukrainian state of a territory considered part of a future Poland, which had been governed by Russia prior to the war.

  20. Kurjer Lwowski March 16, 1918, described under the title “German Ultimatum” the visit of Polish politicians from Warsaw to Germany. The chancellor refused to discuss the borders of a future self-governing Poland, but he indicated that conditions were steadily changing in favor of the Central powers. Poles were advised to sign the agreement quickly, as their bargaining power was becoming smaller and smaller.

  21. Kurjer Lwowski March 5, 1918, provided the content of the peace treaty in detail.

  22. Kurjer Stanislawowski September 15 and 22, 1918.

  23. Kurjer Lwowski January 11, 1918, printed the Fourteen Points in their entirety, despite censorship. However, the Central powers started to weigh the Points’ acceptance only in October 1918. The lands that were considered Polish were not clearly defined, but they loosely covered the territory that had been partitioned between Austria, Prussia, and Russia at the end of the eighteenth century.

  24. Kurjer Lwowski March 9, 1918, reported on the demands of Polish parliamentarians for a guarantee from Vienna that Galicia would not be split into two administrative regions (western, predominantly Polish; and eastern, predominantly Ukrainian). Kurjer Lwowski October 19, 1918, described the plan of the Austrian prime minister to establish Ukrainian sovereignty in the eastern part of Galicia.

  25. Kurjer Lwowski October 3 and 5, 1918, printed a speech by the prime minister of Austro-Hungary in parliament and the reactions of parliamentarians. The speech referred to the feeble negotiations of a few Poles with Germans about the transition of power, and self-governance as a basis for a quasi-independent Poland.

  26. Kurjer Lwowski October 6, 1918, reprinted the original diplomatic note. Kurjer Lwowski October 19, 1918, announced on its front page the manifesto signed by the emperor and the prime minister. Kurjer Lwowski October 29, 1918, announced the cease-fire, with the Austrian foreign minister accepting all additional demands from the United States.

  27. Kurjer Lwowski October 20 and 21, 1918, described proceedings of the Ukrainian National Council that gathered for the first time in Lvov. Its members included all Ukrainian legislators from the upper and lower houses of the national parliament and the Galician diet. In addition, representatives of other political parties were invited. Polish and Jewish representatives from the claimed territories were invited to join the council in the future.

  28. Kurjer Lwowski October 30 and 31, 1918, reported on the meetings of the commission, which announced tha
t all Polish lands within the territory of Austro-Hungary (i.e., Galicia) had ended their alliance with the central government.

  29. Gazeta Lwowska November 3, 1918, provided a brief description of the first day of fighting, with major strategic buildings guarded by the Ukrainians. This was the last issue before the paper was shut down for several weeks. Gazeta Lwowska January 9, 1919, described the transfer of power in Lvov on November 3, 1918. Kurjer Lwowski resumed its publication after Polish forces retook Lvov. The issue of November 23, 1918, described damage to many buildings in the city, allegedly set on fire by escaping Ukrainian troops. Reports of artillery fire falling on Lvov continued for weeks. In The European War; New York 1921; vol. XX, pp. 63–64; the perilous state of Lvov’s defenses was described.

  30. Kurjer Lwowski November 23, 24, and 25, 1918, reported on big fires in Jewish districts. The attackers allegedly were wearing military uniforms. The public was warned that military courts were empowered to issue only death sentences against those caught. There were reports of 1,000 to 1,500 arrested during the three days of these attacks.

  31. Gazeta Lwowska November 28, 1918, unequivocally condemned the anti-Jewish attacks with no excuses or obfuscation. In contrast, Kurjer Lwowski December 1, 1918, expressed regret over the events but provided a skewed view of alleged Jewish transgressions during the past weeks. The New York Times on November 10, 1919, returned to the Jewish massacre in Lvov. Gazeta Lwowska December 28, 1918, provided a preliminary assessment of a fact-finding commission sent to Lvov by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Poland.

  32. Goniec Krakowski June 19, 1919, reprinted the request from the prime minister of Poland to the president of the United States to appoint an American mission to investigate anti-Jewish events in Poland. Henry Morgenthau Sr., who was chosen to lead the investigation, was a highly respected lawyer and former United States ambassador to the Ottoman Empire. After visiting Lvov and taking part in hearings concerning anti-Jewish atrocities, Morgenthau’s report was submitted to the International Commission to Negotiate Peace, which was in Paris deliberating the fate of the warring nations. The report itself was an objective review of the historical context of Jewish life in Poland, and the chaos that had reigned in Lvov and many other cities in the aftermath of the 1918 collapse of Germany and Austro-Hungary. The Polish side in Lvov and elsewhere did not deny these atrocities but viewed them as isolated cases unrelated to the fact that the victims were Jews. Instead, the victims’ alleged sympathy with the Bolsheviks was often cited as the cause of the violence.

  33. Goniec Krakowski December 28, 1918, brought the news of retaliations against the railway employees of Stanislawow by the Ukrainian administration. The article mentioned the initiative of Mr. Rauch and other influential citizens of the city.

  34. Kurjer Lwowski December 2, 1918, and Gazeta Lwowska December 22, 1918, described thousands of POWs stranded in Stanislawow. Gazeta Lwowska January 10, 1919, mocked the reports of alleged calm in Stanislawow. Goniec Krakowski May 30, 1919, referred to alleged crimes against civilians and POWs committed by Ukrainian troops in eastern Galicia.

  35. The Kiev-based Ukrainian National Republic (in today’s eastern Ukraine) entered the conflict with a poorly disciplined army, one that was sometimes responsible for pogroms. For example, Goniec Krakowski June 7, 1919, summarized their crimes against Jews, committed in 56 towns in eastern Ukraine, alleging the killing of 5,000 in Zytomierz. In later years, some contrasted the Kiev-based Ukrainian National Republic with the more disciplined military force of the Stanislawow-based West Ukrainian People’s Republic (in today’s western Ukraine). However, propaganda efforts by Poland painted all Ukrainians as savages. Gazeta Lwowska July 11, 1919, reprinted a report from the Ukrainian newspaper Narod, March 30, 1919, about attacks by soldiers on Jewish stall owners in Stanislawow.

  Paul Robert Magocsi; A History of Ukraine: The Land and Its People; University of Toronto Press Inc. 2010; p. 550; provides a description of the successful military campaign by the West Ukrainian forces in the early months of 1919 but notes that Poles were favored by the Allies.

  36. Documents retrieved from the State Archives in Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast list Helena among three female teachers who refused the oath. She was reinstated when a Polish administration was established in May or June of 1919.

  37. Goniec Krakowski May 30, 1919; and Gazeta Lwowska May 31 and June 12, 1919; provided vague descriptions of the underground military organization that had orchestrated the Polish takeover of Stanislawow. Gazeta Lwowska and Goniec Krakowski June 7, 1919, reprinted a delayed communiqué of the Romanian army approaching Bohorodczany. Goniec Krakowski June 26 and 28, 1919, gave an eyewitness report from the town of Tłumacz, about 17 miles east of Stanislawow. It was about two weeks before the regular units of the Polish army took control of the area. Other papers tried to deny the presence of Romanian troops in Stanislawow, noting that only a single Romanian liaison officer was stationed there.

  Gazeta Lwowska June 15, 1919, described inhabitants’ fears of roaming Ukrainian peasants. The newspaper gave an example of the self-defense force organized in tense Stanislawow. Even on June 19, 1919, Gazeta Lwowska tried to reassure the public that Stanislawow was safe. In the same issue, it was announced that railroad traffic between Lvov and Stanislawow had resumed.

  38. Gazeta Lwowska June 14, 1919, reported the welcome ceremony for the foreign military mission and the hearing at City Hall, attended by Poles and Ukrainians.

  39. Kurjer Lwowski December 29 and 30, 1919, reported from Paris that the Council of Four Powers (Great Britain, France, Italy, and the United States) had reversed its prior decision granting Poland only temporary administration of eastern Galicia. France was the main proponent of the changes, convincing Great Britain that, given recent victories of the Bolsheviks over the White Russians, a decision in favor of Poland should be made. Even the Polish press was aware that it was geopolitical factors, rather than ancient claims to the territories, that had tipped the balance.

  CHAPTER 11

  1. Kurjer Lwowski March 15, 1918, described the return of prisoners released by the Russians. The efforts by the Danish consul in Kiev and the journey through Ukraine to the border with Galicia were described.

  2. Franciscus recorded these words in his biographical sketch, which was submitted years later to the military authorities. There, he included the name of the teacher, Professor Antonius Talar, who was from the city of Przemysl, in Galicia. The handwritten document was obtained from the Central Military Archives in Poland.

  3. Kurjer Lwowski March 17 and 21, 1918, continued the story of the horrific travel conditions endured by released POWs. The article described the journey from Kiev that normally would take 1 day but instead took 10. Of note, Kiev was much closer to Galicia than was Samara, where Franciscus had been interned.

  4. Kurjer Lwowski November 2, 1918, printed an order from the Cracow military headquarters of the nascent Polish army commanding all former Austro-Hungarian officers and soldiers up to age 35 to report for duty. The exact date Franciscus reached Galicia remains unknown, but he resurfaced in Cracow sometime in December 1919.

  5. Roman Knauer, Zarys Historii Wojennej 11-go Pulku Piechoty, Warszawa 1930, described the history of the 11th Infantry Regiment. Franciscus was there at the inception of this unit, as the first daily order was issued by the regiment’s commanding officer on January 17, 1919.

  6. In 1918, the Soviet Russian Republic (or Soviet Russia for short) was formed; it evolved into the Soviet Union after the 1922 conclusion of domestic wars on its territories. During the years 1918 to 1922, the terms Bolsheviks and Soviets were used interchangeably.

  7. Kurjer Lwowski October 12 and 26, 1919, cited press reports from the capitals of Europe that alleged anti-Bolshevik unrest in Moscow and St. Petersburg. The White Russian army was spotted less than 20 miles from St. Petersburg. Within a few days, however, the Bolshevik army claimed victory over the White Russians (Kurjer Lwowski November 6, 1919).

  8. The Polish-Lithua
nian relationship was strained. The Lithuanian government was concerned about Polish aggression and territorial claims to Vilnus. Polish-Latvian cooperation was more in evidence; their joint armed forces conducted operations against the Bolsheviks in 1919 and 1920.

  9. Forces of the Kiev-based Ukrainian National Republic, under the command of the nationalist general Symon Petlura, had fought Bolshevik Russia and Poland during the war in Galicia in 1919. They should not be confused with the forces of the West Ukrainian People’s Republic, which had been defeated by the Polish and Romanian armies in the summer of that year. After Petlura’s forces were repelled from most of Ukraine by the Bolsheviks, he and his remaining troops fled to the territory of their former enemy, Poland. By April 1920, General Petlura had signed the Treaty of Warsaw, aligning his army with Poles in a common fight against Russia.

  10. Gazeta Lwowska August 17, 1920, reported that Russian units had briefly taken over a town approximately 18 miles east of Warsaw. In the same issue, the military press office described heavy fighting in the region where the 11th Infantry Regiment was positioned.

  11. The handwritten report was filed by Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Zawadzki, commanding officer of the 11th Infantry Regiment, while recommending Lieutenant Commander Sobolewski for the highest military decoration. It was sent via military field mail on December 27, 1920 (recovered from the Central Military Archives in Poland).

  12. Gazeta Lwowska August 8, 11, and 17, 1920, reported that French troops and officers were on their way to Poland. In addition, supplies of tanks and ammunition were arriving there. France also led efforts on the diplomatic front, lobbying in support of Poland with the governments of the United States, Hungary, and England. The bleakest time in the conflict came when Russian troops were only a few miles from Warsaw. At that time, the Polish government issued desperate appeals, calling for courage among soldiers and the inhabitants of the threatened city.

 

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