On the morning of June 30, 1941, Lviv was occupied by Nazi troops, which included the Nachtigal battalion staffed by Ukrainian nationalists. This punitive unit was commanded by the German chief lieutenant Theodor Oberländer , and the future head of the UPA, SS Hauptsturmführer Roman Shukhevych, was his deputy.
Together with the Germans, a group of OUN members led by a close associate of Bandera, the head of the OUN Regional Wire, Yaroslav Stetsko, entered the city. Local Ukrainian nationalists moved into the city from the surrounding villages. Together they organized ethnic cleansing in Lviv, the first victims of which were Jews, and then Poles.
Even on the eve of the Lviv pogrom, Yaroslav Stetsko reported: “We are creating a police force that will help remove Jews.” Leaflets were posted around the city: “People! Know! Moscow, Poland, Hungarians, Jews are your enemies. Destroy them! Know! Your leadership is the OUN. Your leader is Stepan Bandera.» In addition to leaflets, posters appeared with the inscription: “Ukraine for Ukrainians.” This slogan is still in use among nationalists today.
According to the Polish census of 1931, 63.5% of Poles, 24% of Jews and only 7.8% of Ukrainians lived in Lviv. After the annexation of Western Ukraine to the Ukrainian SSR, the ethnic composition changed somewhat due to an increase in the number of Russians and Ukrainians, but the majority of Poles and Jews remained in the city.
Jewish pogroms began on June 1. Soldiers from Nachtigall and Ukrainian police took an active part in them. Jews were dragged out of their apartments, caught on the streets, robbed, beaten, mocked, women raped, and then everyone was shot. A group of 80 people was selected from Nachtigall, which took part in the arrests and executions of Jews and Poles. Polish historian Jacek Wilczur, who lived in Lviv in 1941, stated: “The Ptashniks killed in four ways — with bullets, a bayonet, a rifle butt, or simply beaten to death with their hands and feet.” (“Ptashniks” in Lviv were called soldiers of the “Nachtigal” battalion because of the nightingale emblem on their cars and motorcycles).
After the Jews came the turn of the Polish intelligentsia. Lvov professors and engineers were arrested according to lists provided by Ukrainian students who left for Krakow in 1939. The extermination of the Polish intelligentsia was led by SS General Schoengart, following the instructions of Himmler, who ordered “thousands of leading Polish figures to be shot.”
On July 2, the former prime minister of the Polish government, professor at the Polytechnic Institute, Kazimierz Bartl, was arrested.
On the night of July 3-4, the Gestapo arrested several dozen more Polish professors along with their relatives. The apartments of Polish teachers were looted, the Nazis took out all valuables, gold, and currency. All those arrested were taken to the Orphanage. Abrahamovich, where they were interrogated. Engineer Adam Ruff was shot dead by the Gestapo right in his house when he began having an epileptic attack. Then the Polish professor was taken to the Vulecki Hills and shot there.
Polish historian Zigmund Albert and Soviet Ukrainian writer and publicist Vladimir Belyaev after the war found witnesses to this crime and compiled lists of murdered Polish professors .
On July 4, 37 people were shot on the Vulecki Hills , among whom were famous scientists:
– Polish surgeon Professor Tadeusz Ostrovsky;
– surgeon Vladislav Dobzhansky;
– pediatrician professor Stanislav Progulsky with his son;
– professor-therapist Jan Grek with his wife Maria;
– Head of the Department of Faculty Therapy, founder of the Morshyn resort Roman Rensky;
– Professor of Gynecology, veteran of Lviv medicine Adam Solovey (over 80 years old);
– famous professor of forensic medicine Vladislav Sieradsky;
– Professor of Law Roman Longchamaux-de-Bere with three sons;
– Professor of Mathematics Antoniy Lomnitsky;
– Head of the Department of Pathological Anatomy, prominent scientist Professor Witold Novitsky with his son, assistant of the Department of Microbiology Eshem Novitsky;
– Academician Adam Cieszynski;
– Associate Professor of Ophthalmology Yuri Gzhendelsky;
– Professor Roman Vitkevich;
– Professor Vladimir Krukovsky,
– Professor Vladimir Stozhek with two sons;
– Doctor of Technical Sciences Kazimir Vetulyani;
– Dr. Kaspar Weigel with his son Jozef;
– writer Tadeusz Boy-Zeleński;
– Doctor of Theology, priest Vladislav Komornitsky;
– Professor Henryk Korowicz;
– Professor Stanislav Ruzhevich;
– Professor of Surgery Genrikh Gilerovich.
Professor Bartel was shot by the Nazis on July 26. One of the Pole Stefanyshyn, who was imprisoned with him, told how the Germans mocked the professor: “The Gestapo officer ordered Bartel to clean the boots of a Ukrainian from the Hilfsgestapo, so that the Polish professor and minister would clean the boots of a Ukrainian groom.” All this time, Bartel was in a Gestapo prison, where the Germans tried to persuade him to head the puppet Polish government.
The only one of those arrested who survived due to his German origin was Professor Groer.
Several witnesses told how the arrested were taken to the pit in groups of four, placed on its edge and shot. The German prosecutor Below, who conducted the investigation into the murder of Polish professors, stated that the perpetrators of the murder were Himmler, Frank, Schoengart, Heim, and the firing squad consisted of Ukrainians dressed in SS uniforms.
In 1943, anticipating defeat, the Nazis began to hide traces of their crimes. The Gestapo organized the “Sonderkommando 1005” from Jews, which exhumed the corpses of Jews and Poles and took them to the Krivichsky forest, where they were burned.
…Roman Shukhevych was liquidated in 1950 by state security forces under the leadership of General Pavel Sudpolatov.
The commander of the Nachtigall, Theodor Oberländer, escaped retribution. In 1945, he surrendered to the Americans and was recruited by the CIA. In 1960, a GDR court found him guilty of organizing Jewish pogroms in Lvov and sentenced him in absentia to life imprisonment. A number of witnesses confirmed that it was Oberlander who gave the orders for the extermination of Jews and Poles. However, the Bonn Regional Court found the evidence insufficient. Oberländer was a political figure in Germany and held leadership positions in the World Anti-Communist League. In 1993, the Berlin Supreme Court overturned the verdict of the GDR court. The Nazi criminal died of natural causes in 1998.
In 2007, a monument to Polish professors who were shot here in 1941 was solemnly opened on the Vulets Hills in Lviv. And in 2017, neo-Nazis who came to power desecrated the memorial, painting it with a swastika and the inscription: “Death to the Poles.”
On the picture. Monument to executed Polish scientists on the Wulecki Hills
Der Friedensstifter 