Anatomy of a Genocide

by Omer Bartov

  44 Siewiński, “Pamiętniki,” 275–80. Up to five hundred Poles were incarcerated in Jazłowiec, and numerous cases of violence and murder by Ukrainian troops and peasants in the region were reported. Released in late January 1919, Siewiński discovered that his house had been ransacked: “Everyone acted on their own initiative, did whatever they wanted, and no one obeyed anyone else” (288–90, 305, 309–17).

  45 Siewiński, “Pamiętniki,” 327–36.

  46 Ibid., 336–37, 340–61; CAW, I:400.2213, Testimonies from the Polish-Ukrainian War, p. 5; CAW, I:400.1554, pp. 27–28, 33–35, 41; The History of the Ukrainian Army (Lviv, 1936, in Ukrainian), 504; Encyklopedja Wojskowa, ed. O. Laskowski (Warsaw, 1932), 2:87.

  47 Siewiński, “Pamiętniki,” 361–62, 370–77; Encyklopedja Wojskowa, 2:88; History of the Ukrainian Army, 509; CAW, I:400.1554, 2 (28), 7–10 (33–36), 14 (40), and throughout, 1–16 (27–42). See also testimonies about beating and looting of Poles by Ukrainian soldiers in the Buczacz area: AAN-Ministerstwo Spraw Zagranicznych (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, hereafter MSZ), 5341a, pp. 227, 233–34; CAW, I:400.2213, testimonies from the Polish-Ukrainian War 1918–19, 5; CAW, I: 301.9.6, “Naczelne Dowództwo W. P. 1766/III, Komunikat operacyjny frontu wschodniego z dn. 7 Lipca 19 r.,” and “W. P. 1747/III, Komunikat . . . z dn. 8.7.19”; W. Laudyn, Bój pod Jazłowcem, 11–13.VII 1919 (Warsaw, 1932), 4–9; S. Wierżyński, Zarys historii wojennej 14-go Pułku Piechoty (Warsaw, 1929), 10–12; W. Hupert, Zajęcie Małopolski Wschodniej i Wołynia w roku 1919 (Lwów, 1928), 102; Prusin, Nationalizing a Borderland, 102–4; Subtelny, Ukraine, 370–71; P. R. Magocsi, A History of Ukraine, 2nd ed. (Toronto, 2010), 548–51. The worst pogrom occurred in Lwów in November 1918, when 150 Jews were killed and 400 wounded. W. W. Hagen, “The Moral Economy of Popular Violence,” in Antisemitism and Its Opponents in Modern Poland, ed. R. Blobaum (Ithaca, NY, 2005), 129. See also D. Engel, “Lwów, 1918,” in Contested Memories, ed. J. D. Zimmerman (New Brunswick, NJ, 2003), 32–44. The author Isaac Deutscher wrote, “I lived through three pogroms during the very first week of reborn Poland. This is how the dawn of Polish independence greeted us.” The Non-Jewish Jew and Other Essays (Boston, 1982), 11.

  48 Siewiński, “Pamiętniki,” 379–80.

  49 BOss., manuscript department, sygn. 13502/II: Papiery różne związane ze działalnością Komitetu Obrony Narodowej we Lwowie z lat 1919–20, pp. 5, 7, 9; CAW 332.46.1, sector command Buczacz, 1919–20: “Pow. Dow. Etapowe w Buczaczu, Rozkaz Nr. 1,” July 20, 1919; CAW 332.46.1, letter to the editor (name of newspaper not mentioned), signed Chairman Józef Wolgner, August 10, 1919. Another speech was delivered by Second Lieutenant Chlebek, likely the old gymnasium professor’s son; CAW 332.46.1, “Do Dowództwa Okręgu Etapowego we Lwowie, Raport sytuacyjny, 30.8.1919,” Major Wolgner. See also Leuchs Adressbuch aller Länder der Erde, vol. 19b: Galizien u. Bukowina, 10th ed. (Nuremberg, 1907–13), 117, http://genealogyindexer.org/view/190713Leuchs19b/190713Leuchs19b%20-%200133.pdf (accessed September 22, 2016), showing Wolgner as a landowner in Komarówka, near Monasterzyska in the Buczacz district, and as a partner in the lime-producing firm Wolgner & Co.

  50 CAW 332.46.1, “Powiatowe Dowództwo Etapowe Buczacz,” situation report, October 25, 1919; November 1, 1919; November 15, 1919.

  51 CAW I:400.2213, 5–6; Subtelny, Ukraine, 363, 372–75; Magocsi, History of Ukraine, 2nd ed., 537; I. M. Cherikover (Elias Tcherikower), The Pogroms in Ukraine in 1919 (New York, 1965, in Yiddish), and review by E. Schulman, The Jewish Quarterly Review 57/2 (October 1966): 159–66, citing N. Gergel, “The Pogroms in Ukraine in 1918–1921” (in Yiddish), Yivo Shriftn far Ekonomik un Statistik, vol. 1 (Berlin, 1928), estimating a total of 100,000 Jewish victims. On the battles around Buczacz and Bolshevik rule in the area, see M. Tarczyński, ed., Bitwa Lwowska 25 VII–18 X 1920, pt. 1 (Warsaw, 2002), 315, 378, 412, 445, 468, 516, 662, 870–71, 896; P. Shandruk, ed., The Ukrainian-Muscovite War (Warsaw, 1933, in Ukrainian), 122, 129–30, 134–35, 137, 139–41, 144–47, 149–50, 216–17, 225, 227; I. K. Rybalka, ed., The Civil War in Ukraine, 1918–1920 (Kiev, 1967, in Russian), 337–38; “Miscellanea Archiwalne,” Wojskowy Przegląd Historyczny 39/1–2 (1994): 160–63, 176–77; M. Klimecki, Galicyjska Socjalistyczna Republika Rad (Toruń, Poland, 2006), 183; B. I. Tyshchyk, The Galician Soviet Socialist Republic of 1920 (Lviv, 1970, in Ukrainian), 64, 84, 92–93, 95, 102, 106.

  52 Siewiński, “Pamiętniki,” 380–81, 435–37. On prosecutions of Polish teachers suspected of collaborating with the Bolsheviks, see TsDIAL, fond 205, op. 1, spr. 822: “Prokuratura sądu apelacyjnego we Lwowie,” January 1921, pp. 35–39.

  53 Text of the treaty in The Consolidated Treaty Series, ed. C. Perry (New York, 1919), 225:412–24D. See also “The League and the Minority Treaties,” Bulletin of International News 5/18 (1929): 3–10.

  54 See also C. Fink, “Minority Rights as an International Question,” Contemporary European History 9/3 (2000): 385–400; M. Mazower, “Minorities and the League of Nations in Interwar Europe,” Daedalus 126/2 (1997): 47–63; D. Engel, “Perceptions of Power: Poland and World Jewry,” and M. Levene, “Resurrecting Poland,” Jahrbuch des Simon-Dubnow-Instituts (hereafter JBDI) 1 (2002): 18–19 and 29–40, respectively. On the two commissions of inquiry established to investigate the situation of the Jews of Poland, see National Polish Committee of America, The Jews in Poland: Official Reports of the American and British Investigating Missions (Chicago, n.d.), 7, 14, 16–17, http://www.archive.org/stream/cu31924028644783/cu31924028644783_djvu.txt (accessed September 23, 2016). See also A. Kapiszewski, “Controversial Reports on the Situation of Jews in Poland in the Aftermath of World War I,” Studia Judaica 7/2 (2004): 286, 293–94; I. Zangwill, The Voice of Jerusalem (London, 1920); N. Davies, “Great Britain and the Jews, 1918–20,” Journal of Contemporary History 8/2 (1973): 129; W. W. Hagen, “Before the ‘Final Solution,’ ” Journal of Modern History 68/2 (1996): 351–81; J. Michlic-Coren, “Anti-Jewish Violence in Poland,” in Polin, vol. 13: Focusing on the Holocaust and its Aftermath, ed. A. Polonsky (London, 2000), 34–61.

  55 Copy of memorandum by American Legation in Warsaw, sent by the British legation to the Foreign Office, September 6, 1919: The National Archives (hereafter TNA): Public Record Office (hereafter PRO), Foreign Office (hereafter FO) 688/1/15, pp. 173, 178–83.

  56 Report by Whitehead to Sir Horace Rumbold, British Legation, Warsaw, April 2, 1920, TNA: PRO, FO 688/2/3/, pp. 1–3 (295–97). See also the hilarious account of a discussion between Rumbold and Papal Nuncio Monsignor Ratti, later Pope Pius XI, in Warsaw in 1920, in C. Malaparte, Coup d’état, trans. S. Saunders (New York, 1932), 248–50.

  57 New York Times, May 22, 1915, reproduced with slight alterations in V. Stepanovsky, The Russian Plot to Seize Galicia, 2nd ed. (Jersey City, NJ, 1915), 51–55; L. Wasilewski, Die Ostprovinzen des alten Polenreichs (Kraków, 1916), 265–68.

  58 Whitehead to Sir Horace Rumbold, 4–5 (298–99). See also M. Carynnyk, “Foes of Our Rebirth,” Nationalities Papers 39/3 (2011): 315–25; P. A. Rudling, “The OUN, the UPA and the Holocaust,” in The Carl Beck Papers in Russian & East European Studies 2107 (Pittsburgh, 2011), 1–72.

  59 M. Lozinsky, “The Problem of Eastern Galicia before the Peace Conference,” in Congressional Series Set: 66th Congress, First Session, May 19–November 19, 1919: Senate Documents (Washington, 1919), 19:728–33; “Deutsche Gesandtschaft in Warschau an das Auswärtige Amt, Berlin, March 28, 1922: 1; “Die allgemeine Lage der ukrainischen Bevölkerung in Ostgalizien,” Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amts (Political Archive of the Foreign Ministry, Berlin, hereafter PAAA), Deutsche Botschaft Warschau, 1921–39, Karton 42; League of Nations, Treaty Series (London, 1923), 15:398, “Decision Taken by the Conference of Ambassadors regarding the Eastern Frontiers of Poland. Paris, March 15, 1923,” pp. 260–61. See also “American-Ukrainians Protest Poland’s Mandate of East Galicia,” New York Times, January 16, 1920; Ukrainian National Council, The Case for the Independence of Eastern Galicia (London, 1922), 5�
�7; S. Skrzypek, The Problem of Eastern Galicia (London, 1948), 4–5; M. Palij, The Ukrainian-Polish Defensive Alliance (Alberta, 1995), 55–56; Subtelny, Ukraine, 371, 425–28.

  60 Polish Atrocities in Ukrainian Galicia (New York, 1919), 3–16. See also Y. Petrushevych, L’Ukraine Occidentale (1921), in PAAA, “Politik 1: Polen/Galizien, 1921–1939,” R 81428; Ukrainian National Council, The Case for the Independence of Eastern Galicia.

  61 “Report on Ukrainian Cruelties Committed on the Polish Population of Eastern Galicia,” August 1919, Department of Information, AAN-MSZ, zesp. 322, sygn. 9412a, 1–4.

  62 Ibid., 5–15.

  63 Ibid., 16. A. Cieszynski et al., Galicie Orientale en chiffres et en graphiques (Warsaw, 1921), 19, 25–26, writes that in 1912–13 the University of Lwów had 3,386 Polish, 1,275 Ruthenian, and 664 Jewish students; over half of the land of Galicia, almost two-thirds of municipal property, and almost all large estates were in Polish (but actually also Jewish) hands; 92 percent of Ruthenians were peasants, compared to 45.5 percent Poles; only 6.5 percent of Ruthenians worked in industry and commerce and 2.5 percent in the liberal professions, compared to 39 and 17.5 percent of Poles, respectively (again lumping in Jews as well). PAAA, Politik 1: Polen/Galizien, 1921–39, R 81429.

  Chapter 3: TOGETHER AND APART

  1 Heller, “My Memories,” in Sefer Buczacz, 146–47, 158.

  2 Ibid., 159–60; M. Karniely, “My Brother Shmuel,” in Sefer Buczacz, 223–24; Y. Beilin, Israel (New York, 1992), 30.

  3 Heller, “My Memories,” and M. Held, “The Chalutz Federation in Buczacz,” both in Sefer Buczacz, 160–62 and 179–80, respectively. See also R. Yona, “Let’s All Be Pioneers” (PhD diss., Tel Aviv University, 2014, in Hebrew); E. Mendelsohn, Zionism in Poland (New Haven, CT, 1981), 170–71, 237–40, 328–29.

  4 TsDIAL, fond 339, op. 1, spr. 22, “Keren Kayemet LeYisrael (Jewish National Fund, hereafter KKL) Central Bureau for Eastern Lesser Poland,” February 11, 1930, pp. 5–6; April 2, 1930, p. 81; December 11, 1932, p. 20 (all in Hebrew); Held, “The Chalutz Federation in Buczacz,” in Sefer Buczacz, 180. The Fourth Aliya (1924–28) brought an estimated eighty thousand Jews to Palestine; twenty thousand left soon thereafter because of the economic recession (Beilin, Israel, 34–35).

  5 Masuah Archive, Institute for Shoah Studies, Tel-Yitzhak, Israel (hereafter MAISS), AR-T-025-32/10294, D. Cymand, “The ‘Zionist Youth’ Movement in Galicia, 1926–1933,” 1–4; oral testimony by Cymand, February 21, 1966, Hebrew University, Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEQcJiGX89c (accessed September 25, 2016); M. Dagan, On a Mission (Tel Aviv, 1972, in Hebrew). For complaints about delayed immigration certificates and the inability to bring along older family members, see U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum (hereafter USHMM), Record Group (hereafter RG) 31.043M (fond 342-microfilm): Records of “Ahva”; TsDIAL, fond 342, “Achwa,” 1926–39, op. 1, spr. 101, 1933–35; spr. 117, 1935; spr. 27, 1932–36, p. 47; fond 337, op. 1, spr. 49, 1934, “Hanoar Hacijoni,” 1929–39, pp. 32–34.

  6 TsDIAL, fond 342, op. 1, spr. 27, “Achwa,” 1926–39, December 16, 1935; February 19, 1935; October 26, 1936, pp. 82–83, 87, 160, respectively. Achwa’s fundraising for the “Undertaking for Fortification and Security,” TsDIAL, fond 342, op. 1, spr. 27, p. 159. Heller, “My Memories,” in Sefer Buczacz, 163; MAISS, AR-T-003-17/1254/8511, M. Shif, “Achwa in Eastern Galicia”; USHMM, RG 31.043M (fond 342-microfilm): Records of “Ahva”; TsDIAL, fond 342, “Achwa,” 1926–39, op. 1, spr. 101, 1933–35; spr. 117, 1935; spr. 27, 1932–36, p. 21. Achwa was banned by the Soviets in 1939.

  7 One of the names on the list was Izrael Schimmer, a Polish-German variation of my maternal grandfather’s name. By 1935 the shekel was paid by as many as 1,177 people, but my grandfather’s name was no longer on the list; he had meanwhile procured an immigration certificate and taken his family to Palestine. USHMM RG31.041M, Shekel Commission, Lwów, 1922–39, microfilm: correspondence with “Shekel” Commission, Buczacz branch, 1929–35, from TsDIAL, fond 336, op. 1, spr. 32, pp. 1–81. The 1935 list mentions attorney Artur Nacht, Fabius Nacht’s third son. An earlier list includes Regina Schojmer, likely my maternal grandmother, aka Rina Schimmer (Szimer) or Regina Bergmann.

  8 TsDIAL, fond 338, op. 1, spr. 240, The Jewish Federation in Buczacz, the Local Committee, 1925–November 1939, pp. 1–3, 24; letter of January 19, 1939, p. 65. In February the Buczacz General Zionists formed the United Jewish Bloc of all Zionist parties, reflecting their sense of urgency and isolation (66).

  9 YIVO, leaflet, RG 28, May 5, 1921; An-Sky, Destruction, vol. 2, pt. 4, 406, wondered why “the destruction of the cemetery was perceived” by the old Jew who reported it to him “as a greater tragedy than the destruction of the city.”

  10 Joint Distribution Committee Archives online, microfilm 142, letter from Solomon Stern, Talmud Torah Association, Buczacz, to Jacob Schiff, New York, March 26, 1920. (Thanks to Natalia Aleksiun for this document.) See also N. W. Cohen, Jacob H. Schiff (Hanover, NH, 1999).

  11 Biuro Sekczyi, Nakładem Centralnego Komitetu Krajowego Opieki nad Żyd. Sierotami Wojennemu w Galicyi, Centralny Komitet Kraj. Opieki nad żydowskiemu sierotami woj. w Galicyi, sekcya Lwów: Sprawozdanie za czas od 1. stycznia 1918 do 30. czerwca 1921 (Lwów, n.d.), 14–15, 36. The committee included Mrs. Pauli Meerengel, Mrs. Cecilia Ausschnitz (or Ausschnitt), and Mrs. Gusty Kaminer, along with Dr. David Silberschein and Dr. Zygmunt Kok.

  12 M. Guter, Honoring One’s Mother, ed. A. Shenhar (Haifa, 1969, in Hebrew), 8–13. See also Sprawozdanie Centralnego Komitetu Opieki nad Żydowskimi Sierotami w Lwowie, za lata 1923–1926 (Lwów, n.d.), 25–38, 63; A. Roll, “The Jewish Health Association,” in Sefer Buczacz, 187.

  13 Heller, “My Memories,” and Pepa Anderman-Neuberg, “The Orphanage in Buczacz,” in Sefer Buczacz, 165 and 184–85, respectively.

  14 Słowo Żydowskie, Nr. 1 (Tarnopol, March 4, 1927): 4, in Biblioteka Uniwersytecka we Warszawie (Warsaw University Library). Palek taught German and mathematics, as well as an extracurricular class on Jewish religion, at the state gymnasium before 1914. Sprawozdanie dyrekcyi Gimnazyum w Buczaczu, 1914, 25–28.

  15 Spis Nauczycieli, ed. Z. Zagórowski (Lwów, 1924), 333; Szkoły Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej w roku szkolnym 1930/31, ed. M. Falski (Warsaw, 1933), 449, 542; BJ, Mf. 11712, Sprawozdanie Dyrekcja Państwowego Gimnazjum w Buczaczu za rok szkolny 1932–1933 (Buczacz, 1933), i–iii, xxx, 1–42; Sprawozdanie . . . za rok szkolny 1935–1936 (Buczacz, 1936), 3–5, 49. See also M. Jarecka-Żyluk et al., “From History to the Present: Faces of Gender in Poland,” in Education and Gender, ed. O. Holz et al. (Münster, 2013), esp. 123. Viktor Petrykevych (see below) is listed on the gymnasium teachers’ roll for 1933; Antoni Siewiński is listed as retired from the local four-grade school in 1925: Spis szkół i nauczycieli w okręgu szkolnym lwowskim, ed. S. Lehnert (Lwów, 1926), 213–14.

  16 Kowalski, Powiat Buczacki, 68–79, also citing Ostapowicz’s memoir.

  17 Ibid., 79–80. See also K. Steffen, Jüdische Polonität (Göttingen, 2004); K. Steffen, “Das Eigene durch das Andere,” JBDI 3 (2004): 89–111.

  18 Kowalski, Powiat Buczacki, 81–84.

  19 Sprawozdanie: Dyrekcji państwowego gimnazjum w Buczaczu za rok szkolny 1936–1937 (Buczacz, 1937): Class lists include the future priest Ludwik Rutyna (see below); interview with Y. Bauer, Ramat Aviv, Israel, 2003 (hereafter Bauer 2003). Among his Jewish teachers Bauer remembered the former Piłsudski legionnaire Weingarten and his Latin and homeroom teacher Kornblüth, a convert to Catholicism. Thanks to Bauer’s daughter Ela for introducing me to him. See also E. Bauer, Between Poles and Jews (Jerusalem, 2005, in Hebrew).

  20 DATO, fond 231, op. 1, spr. 2017, January 29, 1933, pp. 66–67, 72, 80, also noting that the right-wing Revisionist Party gained 7 percent of the Jewish vote and had “influence especially on the Jewish youth,” while manifesting a “completely correct” attitude toward the state (28). For statute and official recognition of the Economic Bloc see DATO,
fond 8, op. 1, spr. 15, February 17, 1931, pp. 1, 5, 8; Heller, “My Memories,” in Sefer Buczacz, 16.

  21 DATO, fond 231, op. 1, spr. 1910, July 11, 1932.

  22 DATO, fond 231, op. 1c, spr. 1703, pp. 9, 90; op. 6, spr. 982, September 15, 1932, p. 18; spr. 2034, April 22, 1933, p. 37; spr. 2049, 1935, pp. 1–14; op. 1, spr. 2325, June 24, 1935, p. 126; spr. 3372, 1937, pp. 19–21; fond 8, op. 1, spr. 289, May 24, 1939, p. 4; TsDIAL, fond 338, op. 1, spr. 218, October 23, 1934, pp. 17–18; C. Roll, “WIZO,” in Sefer Buczacz, 186–87; Drugi powszechny spis ludności z dn. 9.XII 1931 r. (Województwo Tarnopolskie) (Warsaw, 1938), 30; Maurice Wolfthal private collection, Phoenix, Arizona (hereafter MWC), Directorship of Jewish Community in Buczacz to United Buczaczer Ladies Auxiliary in the Bronx, New York, February 4, 1937. My mother too attended the Polish public school and consequently did not know any Hebrew when she arrived in Palestine in 1935. Thanks to Mr. Wolfthal for sharing his father’s documents with me in 2006. Izrael Wolfthal and his future wife, Tyla Falik, attended the state gymnasium and the Talmud Torah afterschool in Buczacz; they were also members of Hashomer Hatza’ir, and Izrael was associated with the communists. They fled from Buczacz to the Soviet Union in 1941. The documents had previously belonged to Izrael’s acquaintance, Abram Sommer, secretary of the Buczaczer Ladies Auxiliary in New York City.

  23 Roll, “The Hospital,” and Y. P., “Dr. M. Hirschhorn,” in Sefer Buczacz, 182–84 and 220, respectively; DATO, fond 8, op. 1, spr. 62, August 10, 1934, pp. 1–3; spr. 96, February 25 and March 22, 1935, pp. 4–5; spr. 94, pp. 2–7; spr. 180, September 9, 1937, pp. 1, 21; spr. 245, May 16, 1938, pp. 3–4; spr. 249, June, August, and September 1938, 1–9; spr. 287, February 20, 1939, p. 6; spr. 250, pp. 1–2; spr. 288, March 2, 1939, p. 4. Makabi had 40,000 members in Poland in 1936, Hapoel 5,600, and Beitar 40,000. J. Shavit, Jabotinsky and the Revisionist Movement (New York, 1988), 55; D. Blecking, “Jews and Sports in Poland before the Second World War,” in Jews and the Sporting Life, ed. E. Mendelsohn et al. (New York, 2008), 21–22; Encyclopaedia Judaica, 2nd ed. (Farmington Hill, MI, 2007), 1:499.