Talk:Lviv pogroms
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[edit] Russian sources
Russian sources are quite specific with regard to the pogroms. The Russian historian Sergei Chuguyev (whom I understand was a former KGB archivist) wrote: "That on June 30 in Lviv the German administration started mass repressions. The commander of the "Einzatzgruppen C" Dr. Rasch had incriminated the death of those incarcerated in the Lviv jails to the "Jews from the NKVD", which became the spark for the terror against the Jews and Poles in Lviv. In the bloody murder of the Jews the Einsatzgruppen under the command of brigadeerfuhrer SS Karl Eberhard Schenhardt took prominence. The sections of this group under the command of H. Kruger and W. Kutshman on July 4 murdered 23 Polish professors and their families. On July 11, 2 more were killed, and later the former prime-minister of Poland, professor Bartel. In the Autumn of 1941 a ghetto was formed in Lviv"[1].
Also, the initial number of 4,000 deaths was originally the number ascribed to the Ukrainian and Polish Political prisoners who were killed in their cells by the Soviets during their withdrawal. This particular number seems to have wandered over to the anti-jewish pogroms. What the mechanism was for this is not clear.
The number of Jewish deaths that was quoted in an article I recently read from the Nuremberg trials (this is just off the top of my head was I think) was more like 30,000 which is considerably more than 4,000, although I do also remember that there was a not regarding the fact that these numbers could have been inaccurate. One of the reasons that Babi Yar did not become a major topic during Nuremberg was because the numbers for Babi Yar were at that time so small in comparisonto Lviv and Kharkiv.
An international commission was set up at The Hague in the Netherlands in 1958 to carry out independent investigations initially into Federal Minister Oberländer but also it touched on the Nachtigall battalion which he commanded. The members were four former anti-Hitler activists, Norwegian lawyer Hans Cappelen, former Danish foreign minister and president of the Danish parliament Ole Bjørn Kraft, Dutch socialist Karel van Staal, Belgian law professor Flor Peeters, and Swiss jurist and member of parliament Kurt Scoch. Following its interrogation of a number of Ukrainian witnesses between November 1959 and March 1960, the commission concluded: "After four months of inquiries and the evaluation of 232 statements by witnesses from all circles involved, it can be established that the accusations against the Battalion Nachtigall and against the then Lieutenant and currently Federal Minister Oberländer have no foundation in fact.[2]"
A valuable source of a detailed study of archival documents of this period are in de Zayas book "The Wehrmacht War Crimes Bureau, 1939-1945" University of Nebraska Press, Rockport, Maine, 2000 edition [3]. Sections regarding the investigation of the Lviv attrocities are available online[[1]].
One should keep in mind that in the fall of 1959 the Soviet press mounted a major disinformation campaign against the then minister in the West German Adenauer cabinet, Theodor Oberländer, who at the time was commander of the Nachtigall Battalion made up of a couple of hundred Ukrainian volunteers. The Soviets accused him and the Ukrainian division of participating in the SS murders in Lviv. On 5 September 1959 the "Radianska Ukraina" newspaper wrote: "Eighteen years ago the fascists committed a horrendous crime in Lviv in the night of 29 - 30 June 1941. The Hitlerites arrested on the basis of prepared lists hundreds of Communists, Communist youth, and non-party members and murdered them in brutal fashion in the courtyard of the Samarstinov Prison." These accusations were picked up by the Western press and eventually led to Oberländer's resignation. The investigation by the district attorney's office in Bonn, however, completely cleared Oberländer[4]. The accusations of Oberlander and the Nachtigall Battalion keep resurfacing in Western sources however. (This is based on the fact that for a short time he was a former assistant to the infamous Gauleiter Erich Koch and also because of his then political alliances to far-right movements).
This year in Ukraine the government has honoured Roman Shukhevych who was the Ukrainian Commander of the Nachtigall Battalion. Some sources in Ukraine (particularly Eastern Ukraine and the areas in Russia with significant Ukrainian populations) are once again making accusations of involvement in anti-jewish pogroms. I'm sure there will be much more information during the course of the year. Bandurist 21:12, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Re sources
As I read through more and more sources and books from Russian, Ukrainian, Polish and Jewish sources one begins to get a feeling with regard to the various POV's that are out there.
Despite the fact that the Russian accounts are probably the most detailed, I have noticed numerous inaccuracies in the Russian sources. Incorrect names, dates that do not fall within the parameters of particular actions. Material which was also avoided and not mentioned. The ascribing of Soviet atrocities to others. Soviet scholarship had many of these holes, however, although current Russian Scholarship seems to be better it still continues in that particular vein.
Polish sources from the 60's seem to have been fed from Russian sources and mirror what was stated or written in Russia at the time. Many of these works are being brought up in recent times. Tracing where they got there information from is interesting.
Jewish sources often quote Polish sources, particularly from the 60's which in turn were often restatements of Soviet materials.
Soviet Ukrainian materials seem the least reliable. Emigre Ukrainian materials avoid the subject almost completely, and the subject regarding Ukrainian collaboration with the Germans is if not avoided, then dealt with extremely sparsely, however, there is enough there to check the more detailed Russian accounts. Bandurist (talk) 16:55, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
