Anatomy of a Genocide

by Omer Bartov

  24 MWC, letter by Mendel Reich on behalf of the Talmud Torah Association, Buczacz, February 26, 1936. See also Heller, “My Memories,” in Sefer Buczacz, 163. Reich is citing Psalms 121 and Deuteronomy 32:25. See also W. Melzer, No Way Out (Cincinnati, 1997), 39–52, 131–53; D. Ofer, Escaping the Holocaust (New York, 1990), 3–20; R. Breitman and Alan M. Kraut, American Refugee Policy and European Jewry (Bloomington, IN, 1987), 11–111.

  25 MWC, letter by directorate of the Talmud Torah Association, Buczacz, December 2, 1937; letter by Mendel Reich, president, and Chaim Kofler, headmaster of the Talmud Torah Association, Buczacz, December 8, 1937; letter by Mendel Reich to Abraham Sommer, December 21, 1937.

  26 MWC, letter by Jacob Shapira to Abraham Sommer, March 30, 1939.

  27 DATO, fond 274, op. 4, spr. 78, p. 36. The other two men were Izaak Witzinger and Samuel Hecht. See also Heller, “My Memories,” in Sefer Buczacz, 164–65. Subsequent members included egg-factory worker Juda Reich, trade assistant Juda Waldfogel, wage earner Leon Buchbaum, and gymnasium graduate Marja Englender. A second group included Izak Bein, Moritz Scharf, Dawid (Ducio) Friedlender, and nineteen-year-old Natan (Nadje) Dunajer. The last two led resistance groups under the German occupation and were killed shortly before the liberation. A final group included former yeshiva student Fischel Gaster, age twenty-four; his younger sister, gymnasium graduate Chana Gaster; gymnasium graduate Oskar Neuberger, twenty-three; Jechiel Buchwald, twenty-seven; Munio Braunstein; and Dreszer. AAN, zesp. 982, sygn. 9, February 1929, p. 199; DATO, fond 231, op. 1, spr. 2325, February 15, 1935, p. 27, March 16, 1935, p. 34, May 1, 1935, p. 67, June 25, 1935, p. 97, July 26, 1935, p. 135; spr. 1802, March 18, 1933, p. 88; spr. 1990, January 9, 1934, pp. 1, 9–8; fond 274, op. 4, spr. 292, pp. 11–13, 21, 27–30, 36–37; fond 8, op. 1, spr. 101, January 25, 1936, p. 1, June 24, 1935, p. 126; op. 1, spr. 116, January 25, 1936, p. 1, January 18, 1937, p. 5. See also J. T. Gross, Revolution from Abroad, revised 2nd ed. (Princeton, 2002); Carynnyk, “Foes of Our Rebirth”; Rudling, “The OUN, the UPA and the Holocaust”; H. Cimek, “Jews in the Polish Communist Movement,” Studies in Politics and Society 9 (2012): 50–56. In 1938 Stalin dissolved the communist parties of Poland, Western Ukraine, and Belarus; their leaders were summoned to Moscow, where most were murdered. The vast majority of Polish Jews did not support communism, but one-fourth of the Communist Polish Party (KPP) leadership, and half of its Central Committee, were of Jewish origin. M. C. Steinlauf, Bondage to the Dead (Syracuse, NY, 1997), 35–36.

  28 United Ukrainian Organizations of Chicago and Vicinity, Report on the Polish-Ukrainian Conflict in Eastern Galicia by the Rev. James Barr, M.P., and Mr. Rhys J. Davies, M.P., House of Commons, September 1931 (1931), 1–4, 9–14, 119–23. See also, “Der Hilferuf der gemarterten Ukrainer,” Ostdeutsche Morgenpost, October 28, 1930; E. Revyuk, ed., Polish Atrocities in Ukraine (New York, 1931), 3–6; M. Sycz, “Polish Policy toward the Ukrainian Cooperative Movement,” Harvard Ukrainian Studies 23/1–2 (1999): 25–45.

  29 TsDIAL, fond 348, op. 1, spr. 1380, May 30, 1910, March 2, 1923, April 16, 1930, May 10, 1930.

  30 Branch members included treasurer Sylvester Vynnytskyi; director of the district union of cooperatives Mykola Kharkhalis; Ivan Bobyk, who served as mayor of Buczacz under the Germans; and secretary Ostap Voronka, who was arrested by the NKVD in 1941 and subsequently murdered. Thanks to his son Roman Voronka for sharing this information. TsDIAL, fond 348, op. 1, spr. 1379, Prosvita meeting minutes, February 25, 1930, April 2, 1930, and April 15, 1930; spr. 1385, March 18, 1930, pp. 1–2, 5, July 13, 1934, p. 6, and July 10, 1939, pp. 7–14; DATO, fond 8, op. 1, spr. 14, November 16, 1931, p. 40; spr. 84, November 4, 1935, p. 47; spr. 128, June 9, 1936, p. 25; spr. 220, May 5, 1938, p. 20; fond 274, op. 4, spr. 78, pp. 13, 15.

  31 TsDIAL, fond 348, op. 1, spr. 1379, March 16, August 25, September 4, October 8, 26, 28, 29, 1931; September 11, 1933; February 24, 1934; October 31, 1934; March 5, 1935; DATO, fond 274, op. 4, spr. 78, p. 79.

  32 Prosvita meeting minutes, May 20, 1929. The Buczacz district reading clubs network boasted 14,242 books and 3,082 readers, averaging six books per reader per year; altogether club members read on average three books per year, while Ukrainians in the district as a whole read on average one book every four years.

  33 DATO, fond 231, op. 1c, spr. 1216, Buczacz, September 10, 1929, pp. 12–24; spr. 1075, Buczacz, March 4, 1929, p. 8; spr. 1390, Tarnopol, September 24, 1930, p. 97; Buczacz, January 7, 1930, p. 79; spr. 1553, Buczacz, October 19, 1931, pp. 4–5, October, 26, 1931, pp. 9–12; spr. 2264, Buczacz, June 12, 1934, pp. 14–16, for the case of Luh’s confrontation with the authorities in the village of Trościańce (Ukrainian: Trostyantsi).

  34 DATO, fond 274, op. 4, spr. 78, 1935, police files of Mykhailo Baran, Bazyli Band, Sylvester Vynnytskyi, Mykhailo Hrynov, Frantek Volodymyr, Mykola Kharkhalis, Antoni Korol, Onufry Pendziy, and Volodymyr Kolcho, pp. 12, 6, 18, 27, 30, 90, 94, 44, 76, 5; Volodymyr Posatski, Yaroslav Harasevych, Yatsko Baran, Mykhailo Biloskurski, Volodymyr Levitski, Roman Lisovski, Petro Gonzalas, Mykhailo Snihurovich, pp. 33, 78, 7, 8, 56, 21, 88. For further instances of Buczacz activists, see fond 8, op. 1, spr. 79, Buczacz, March 22, 1935, p. 7; spr. 210, Buczacz May 18, 1938, p. 8; spr. 119, Buczacz, October 8, 1936, pp. 9–10; spr. 145, Buczacz, January 13, 1937, pp. 3; fond 231, op. 1c, spr. 1703, personnel overview based on 1931 census, pp. 28–31.

  35 T. Zahra, “Imagined Non-Communities,” Slavic Review (hereafter SR) 69 (2010): 93–119. There were also a number of Ukrainian communists in the Buczacz district, such as the KPZU branch in Jazłowiec, who also had contacts with Jewish communists in Buczacz. But very few Ukrainians appear in police reports. DATO, fond 274, op. 4, spr. 292, 1935, pp. 31, 41.

  36 On the larger context, see E. D. Weitz, “From the Vienna to the Paris System,” American Historical Review 113/2 (2008): 1313–43.

  37 Ks. Piotr Mańkowski, Arcybiskup Tyt. Enejski, Pamiętniki, vol. 3, 1911–26, Biblioteki Naukowej (Scientific Library, Warsaw, hereafter BN), manuscript collection, sygn. IV/9781, microfilm 71320, pp. 115–28, 147–58. Subsequently published as P. Mańkowski, Pamiętniki (Warsaw, 2002), citations from original manuscript. See also “Biography of Bishop Piotr Mańkowski,” in Book of Remembrance, https://biographies.library.nd.edu/catalog/biography-1212 (accessed October 2, 2016).

  38 Główny Urząd Statystyczny Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej, Skorowidz miejscowości Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej, vol. 15: Województwo Tarnopolskie (Warsaw, 1923), 6, also noting that in 1921 Tarnopol province numbered 1.4 million inhabitants: 447,000 Roman Catholics, 848,000 Greek Catholics, and 129,000 of the Jewish faith; or 642,500 Poles, 714,000 Ruthenians, and 69,000 of Jewish nationality.

  39 P. Brykczynski, “Political Murder and the Victory of Ethnic Nationalism in Interwar Poland” (PhD diss., University of Michigan, 2013), 177, 181, 217–18, 228–29, 241, 245–47, 268–359.

  40 M. Zatoński, “Jewish Politics in the New Poland,” Slovo 24/1 (Spring 2012): 21–23, 37; D. Stachura, “National Identity and the Ethnic Minorities in Early Inter-War Poland,” in Poland between the Wars, ed. P. Stachura (Basingstoke, UK, 1998), 73; DATO, fond 231, op. 1, spr. 217, November 6, 1922, pp. 25–29.

  41 DATO, fond 231, op. 1, spr. 1135, p. 79; Heller, in Sefer Buczacz, 146; A. J. Groth, “Polish Elections, 1919–1928,” SR 24/4 (December 1965): 653–65; Mniejszości Narodowe w wyborach do Sejmu i Senatu w r. 1928: Opracowane przez wydział narodowościowy ministerstwa, spraw wewnętrznych (Warsaw, 1928), 70–71, 237, 246–47. The Buczacz district had a total population in 1931 of 12,000 Roman Catholics, 5,000 Greek Catholics, and 7,000 Jews, or 13,000 Poles, 2,500 Ukrainians, 2,000 Ruthenians, and 6,000 “Hebrew-speaking [!] Jews.” Notably, 20 percent of urban residents and 40 percent of villagers over ten years old were illiterate. Główny Urząd Statystyczny Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej, Drugi powszechny spis ludności z dnia 9 grudnia 1931r (Warsaw, 1932), 4; Wyniki Ostateczne: Opracowania spisu ludności y dn. 9.XII 1931 r. w Postaci skróconej (Warsaw, 1934), 4; Drugi powszec
hny spis ludności 1931 (Warsaw, 1938), 30; D. Dąbrowska, A. Wein, and A. Weiss, eds., Pinkas Hakehillot: Poland, vol. 2: Eastern Galicia (Jerusalem, 1980, in Hebrew), 83. See also J. S. Kopstein et al., “Between State Loyalty and National Identity,” Polin 24: 171–85; J. D. Zimmerman, “Józef Piłsudski and the ‘Jewish Question,’ ” East European Jewish Affairs 28/1 (1998): 87–107; N. Aleksiun, “Regards from My Shtetl,” The Polish Review 56/1–2 (2011): 57–71.

  42 P. J. Wróbel, “The Rise and Fall of Parliamentary Democracy in Interwar Poland,” in The Origins of Modern Polish Democracy, ed. M. B. B. Biskupsi, J. S. Pula, and P. J. Wróbel (Athens, OH, 2010), 148–49.

  43 AAN, zesp. 982, sygn. 13, May 1930, p. 135; DATO, fond 231, op. 1, spr. 1375, May 7, 1930, pp. 17–19; spr. 1370, pp. 9–10; spr. 1450, October 7, 1930, p. 88; AAN, zesp. 982, sygn. 14, November 22, 1930, p. 154.

  44 DATO, fond 231, op. 1c, spr. 1703, 1931; Perry, Consolidated Treaty Series, 412–24; Magocsi, History of Ukraine, 2nd ed., 637–38, noting Polish attempts to minimize Ukrainian demographic predominance by referring to them as Ruthenians and encouraging Carpathian subgroups such as the Lemko to develop their distinct culture and dialect. See also T. Snyder, Sketches from a Secret War (New Haven, CT, 2005), 68.

  45 DATO, fond 231, op. 1, spr. 1913, Buczacz, January 30, 1933, pp. 7, 9; spr. 2267, Buczacz, April 20, 1934, pp. 16–17; op. 6, spr. 2030, p. 11. See also AAN, zesp. 982, sygn. 36, Tarnopol, February 8, 1933, pp. 1–2, 4, 6, 8. In 1934 the Buczacz district had 109 elementary schools, of which 49 were Polish, 49 bilingual, and 11 Ruthenian; there were only 50 Ukrainian (and 11 Jewish) teachers out of a total of 252. Most Polish teachers supported the Government Bloc, most Ukrainians the UNDO, and most Jewish teachers supported Zionism.

  46 Województwo Tarnopolskie (Tarnopol, 1931), 83–95; Hoover Institution archives, Stanford University (hereafter HI), Poland, Ministerstwo Informacji i Dokumentacji (Ministry of Information and Documentation, hereafter MID), Records 1939–45: Reports of Polish Deportees, 1941, Box 198: Reports in Tarnopol Province: “Opis Województwa Tarnopolskiego” (undated, likely 1939 or 1940), pp. 2–3, 9, 33–35, 37, 39–41, 47–54. See also A. Krysiński, “Rozwój stosunków etnicznych w Ziemi Czerwińskiej w Polsce Odrodzonej,” Sprawy narodowościowe (hereafter SpNa) 11/5–6 (1937): 387–412, 555–84; Wróbel, “Rise and Fall of Parliamentary Democracy,” 150–52; D. Engle, “An Early Account of Polish Jewry under Nazi and Soviet Occupation Presented to the Polish Government-in-Exile, February 1940,” JSS 45/1 (1983): 1–16.

  47 Księga Adresowa Małopolski: Rocznik 1935/1936 (Lwów, 1936), 1213.

  48 For these and similar instances: Ministerstwo Spraw Wewnętrznych (Ministry of the Interior, hereafter MSW), W. Narodowościowy, 1251, OUN activities, 1931–32, pp. 77–78; DATO, fond 231, op. 1c, spr. 2070, Buczacz, June 23, 1933, p. 25, Buczacz, January 8, 1933, p. 27, January 1936, pp. 15–16; AAN, zesp. 982, sygn. 32, May 1937, p. 79, sygn. 29, January 1936, p. 15. See also “Żydzi: Wystąpienia antysemickie Ukraińców w Małopolsce Wschodniej,” SpNa 7/5 (1933): 573, citing Jewish press reports on “increased anti-Semitic propaganda by Ukrainian nationalists,” especially against Jews “residing in the rural areas of Eastern Lesser Poland”; “robberies of Jewish merchants, setting fire to houses, and even poisoning wells”; and cases in which “Ukrainian nationalist youngsters . . . threw stones at Jewish houses and shouted ‘Heil Hitler!’ and ‘Death to the Jews!’ ”

  49 DATO, fond 231, op. 1, spr. 2266, Buczacz, May 16, 1934, p. 13; spr. 2361, Buczacz, June 21, 1935, pp. 10, 12; fond 8, op. 1, spr. 99, Buczacz, May 28, 1936, p. 4; AAA, zesp. 982, sygn. 29, Tarnopol, February 1936, pp. 26, 39. Initially supportive of the government, Orthodox Jews in the Tarnopol province were alienated by the Sejm resolution of 1936 prohibiting kosher slaughter: Haluzevyi derzhavnyi arkhiv Sluzhba bezpeki Ukraïny (State Archives Department of the Security Service of Ukraine, hereafter HDA SBU), Ternopil branch, spr. 3787-II. See also Melzer, No Way Out, 81–90; J. M. Karlip, The Tragedy of a Generation (Cambridge, MA, 2013), 183; J.-P. Himka et al., “Ukrainian Radical Party,” Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 5 (1993), http://www.encyclopediaofukraine.com/display.asp?linkPath=pagesUKUkrainianRadicalparty.htm (accessed October 4, 2016).

  50 AAN, zesp. 982, sygn. 29, Tarnopol, March 1936, pp. 45, 47, 49–50, April 1936, pp. 65, 67, May 1936, pp. 78–79, 82, June 1936, p. 97, July 1936, pp. 117, 120, 121, August 1936, pp. 135–37; sygn. 32, Tarnopol, February 1937, pp. 23, 25, 32, March 1937, p. 43. See also J.-P. Himka, “Ethnicity and the Reporting of Mass Murder,” in Shatterzone of Empires, ed. O. Bartov et al. (Bloomington, IN, 2013), 378–98.

  51 AAN, zesp. 982, sygn. 32, March 1937, p. 53, May 1937, pp. 76–77, December 1937, p. 214; Melzer, No Way Out, 25–28. See also Joanna Beata Michlic, Poland’s Threatening Other (Lincoln, NE, 2006), 87; S. Rudnicki, “Anti-Jewish Legislation in Interwar Poland,” in Blobaum, Antisemitism, 160–61.

  52 Provincial police reports could no longer identify any “signs of coexistence” between Poles and Ukrainians: AAN, zesp. 982, sygn. 32, September 1937, p. 161, October 1937, p. 175; Svoboda (October 10, 1937): 7. The share of Jewish university students in Poland declined from 25 percent of the student body in 1921–22 to 10 percent in 1937–38, and university authorities increasingly condoned anti-Jewish violence. Melzer, No Way Out, 71–80.

  53 The Jews were described as “also often harmful” to the Polish state, displaying “more sympathy for the Ruthenians and generally to strangers” and providing “outstanding propagators of communist ideology” that “only they have been disseminating.” AAN, zesp. 982, sygn. 35, likely 1939, pp. 1–4, 7. In 1937 the Tarnopol province registered 267 “subversive acts” resulting in eight fatalities, all attributed to the UVO-OUN; 188 suspects were arrested, of whom 118 were indicted. Most actions were directed at Poles, but proportionately Jews were more likely to be attacked. CAW VIII.800.72.1, Załącznik Nr. 5, “Zestawienie wystąpień elementów wywrotowych na tle działalności O.U.N.-U.W.O. za czas od 1.I. do 31.XII.1937 r.,” p. 95. See also DATO, fond 8, op. 1, spr. 294, Buczacz, April 18, 1939, pp. 10–11; A. Krysiński, “Struktura narodowościowa miast polskich,” SpNa 11/3 (1937): 282; AAN, zesp. 14, sygn. 414, Instytut Badań Spraw Narodowościowych, September 10, 1937, pp. 861–64.

  54 PAAA, Polen (Poland, hereafter Pol.) V, Po 6, R 104149, Warsaw, June 21, 1938, pp. 99–103, 104–9, November 15, 1938, pp. 168–72. See also Magocsi, Historical Atlas, 132–33; V. Rothwell, The Origins of the Second World War (New York, 2001), 117–19; Melzer, No Way Out, 113–14, 126–27. The Moltke clan produced two imperial army chiefs of staff and an anti-Nazi activist. The ambassador joined the NSDAP in 1937 and died in 1943 as ambassador to Spain. E. Sáenz-Francés, “The Ambassadorship of Hans Adolf von Moltke (1943),” German History 31/1 (2013): 23–41.

  55 PAAA, Pol V, Po 6, R 104149, Bericht des DNB-Vertreters Brandt über die Ukraine, Kattowitz, December 23, 1938, pp. 203, 208–14. On the German News Agency, see R. J. Evans, Lying about Hitler (New York, 2001), 50; A. Heider, “Deutsches Nachrichtenbüro,” in Enzyklopädie des Nationalsozialismus, ed. W. Benz et al. (Munich, 1997), 427. See also A. Statiev, The Soviet Counterinsurgency in the Western Borderlands (New York, 2010), 45; D. R. Marples, “Stepan Bandera,” in In the Shadow of Hitler, ed. R. Haynes et al. (New York, 2011), 232; S. Redlich, “Jewish-Ukrainian Relations in Inter-War Poland as Reflected in Some Ukrainian Publications,” in Polin, vol. 11: Focusing on Aspects and Experiences of Religion, ed. A. Polonsky (Oxford, 1998), 232–46; Y. Petrovsky-Shtern, “Reconceptualizing the Alien,” Ab Imperio 4 (2003): 519–80.

  56 PAAA, Pol V, Po 6, R 104149, Lemberg, July 27, 1939, pp. 243–49; R 104150, Lemberg, Die Stimmung unter den Ukrainer, August 3, 1939, pp. 67–71. Seelos was not a member of the NSDAP and was dismissed from the Foreign Service after a posting to Copenhagen in 1940–42; he rejoined the Foreign Ministry in 1953. See also Institut für Zeitgeschichte Archiv (Institute for Contemporary History, Munich), ZS-390, Dr. Seelos, Gebhard, 1287/54, Bericht, July 25,
1945, pp. 1–5; 5679/77, Seelos, Erinnerungen, March 31–August 27, 1939, evaluation by W. Jakobmeyer, May 29, 1974, pp. 6–9, and manuscript, 10–71, where Seelos notes that his last cable to Berlin on August 25, 1939, confirmed that no uprising should be expected because the UNDO had proclaimed its loyalty to the Polish regime for tactical reasons (manuscript, 54). For critical views, see Braunbuch (Berlin, 1968), 325, 360–61; T. Rabant, “Antypolska działalność niemieckiej służby dyplomatycznej i konsularnej w Polsce w przededniu II wojny światowej oraz jej ewakuacja i likwidacja,” Pamięć i Sprawiedliwość 1/9 (2006): 204–5, 214.

  Chapter 4: SOVIET POWER

  1 V. Gekht, “The Road from Ghetto to Orphanage,” in Parallels, Nrs. 6–7 (Moscow, 2005, in Russian), 248–74, here 248–53; V. Gekht, “Stolen Childhood,” in Korny 23 (2004, in Russian): 137–48, here 137–39; V. Hecht, “A Long Search for Roots,” http://www.buchach.org/Buczacz/djonek.htm (in Hebrew, accessed October 23, 2016, orig. pub. in Korny 25 (2005, in Russian): 119–32; V. Poznanskyy, “Crushed Childhood,” in Alef 936 (2006, in Russian), http://www.alefmagazine.com/pub549.html (accessed October 23, 2016); personal account by Hecht, courtesy of his cousin Zvi Karniel (Hirschhorn), in Hebrew, undated; J. W. Turkowa, HI, Pol., MID, Box 199, folder 5 (Buczacz), 4968, p. 11; W. Janda, Archiwum Wschodnie (Eastern Archive, Warsaw, hereafter AW), II/1561, pp. 19–20. See also E. Pytler, HI, Pol., MID, 199/5, 4507, p. 53; J. Anczarski, AW II/1224, p. 20; and J. Anczarski, Kronikarskie zapisy z lat cierpień i grozy w Małopolsce Wschodniej (Kraków, 1996).

  2 V. Petrykevych’s handwritten diary, Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine, in Ukrainian, transcribed and translated by S. Grachova, edited by the author, in preparation for publication. See also chapter 5.