Lviv (Lvov, Lwow, Lemberg) | Lviv

Lviv is located 470 kilometers west of Kyiv and 341 kilometers southeast of Warsaw, on the southeast border with Poland. The first record of a Jewish community dates back to 1340. Then the town had become a major transit and trade center. In 1550, 352 Jews lived within the city and 559 in the suburb. The city was home to Orthodox Jews and Karaites. There were two separate synagogues, ritual baths and one cemetery for both communities.

By 1648 the Jewish community grew to 4,800 people comprising 25% of the total population. During the next centuries, the local Jewish community was involved in trade, local and international, particularly in cattle, food, and leather, and handicraft. In regard to business affairs, there was large tension between Christians and Jews.

In 1772 Lviv was taken over by Austro-Hungarian Empire, becoming the administrative center of Galicia. In 1792, 11,765 Jews lived in the city and by 1800 there were 13,302. At this time four schools for boys and one for girls were built. Several social and ideological movements, such as Haskalah and Hassidism were created. The Zionists appeared later, in the 1780s. According to the 1820 census, 17,931 Jews lived in Lviv making up 38% of the total population. About half of them were involved in small-scale trade, about a quarter worked in crafts. Some Jews owned distilleries, breweries, restaurants, and coffee houses. However, the majority of Jews lived in poverty until 1868 due to trade and residential restrictions. By 1900 the Jewish population reached 44,258 residents.

Between the two wars, Lviv was under Polish rule and became home to the third-largest Jewish community in Poland. In 1939, as a result of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the town was taken over by the Soviets. In April 1940, hundreds of Jews were deported to Siberia after having refused to get Soviet passports. All Jewish cultural and religious movements were banned and Jewish activists were arrested. The interwar period was marked by an alarming increase of anti-Semitism among Poles and Ukrainians and the discriminatory policies of the Polish government, and then there was also cultural and economic development in the city thanks to the local Jews. On the eve of the war, some 150,000 Jews lived in the city, including refugees from western Poland. The city was occupied by the German army on June 30, 1941. 

During the first days of the occupation a pogrom was organized by Einsatzgruppe C. As a result of misinformation, that supposedly Jews were responsible for thousands of victims being tortured and murdered by the NKVD in Lviv prisons before, the local population murdered between 2,000 to 5,000 Jews in the course of three days. In addition, approximately 2,500-3,000 Jewish men were shot by Einsatzgruppe C with the assistance of the local police. In late July 1941, another pogrom, known as the “Petlura Day” was conducted, in which another 1,000 Jews were murdered. In August 1941, eastern Galicia was attached to the central government in Poland, and the German authorities introduced many repressive measures, such as the obligation to wear armbands bearing the Star of David and the confiscation of Jewish property. The small executions continued throughout the summer and were conducted in different places; in the woods to the east of Lychakivska street, in the Lysynychi forest, or in the Pyaski sand quarry near the Janowska camp. The Lviv ghetto was created in November 1941 in the northern part of the city, in the Zamarstyniv and Klepariv districts, near the railway line of Lviv-Ternopil. In an area where 20-30 thousand people used to live, the Nazis resettled 138 thousand Jews, of which about 80 thousand of them, were forced to move from the “Aryan” part of the city. Before being taken to the ghetto, the Jews passed through a selection. Those who were considered fit to work were sent to the ghetto, while children, the elderly, and the weak were sent to the Belzec killing center. The Jewish prisoners were subjected to perform labor for the Wehrmacht, particularly in clothing manufacturing and construction. It is estimated that only 3,000 Jews worked in the factory that belonged to a Berlin industrialist, Schwartz. In September 1941, the Germans set up a network of factories to service the needs of the Army on Janowska Street, today Taras Shevchenka Street. By the end of October, about 600 Jews worked there and the factories were transformed into a closed labor camp, known as the Janowska camp, which later became a transit camp, and by mid-1943 was transformed from a concentration camp into a death camp. In mid-May 1943 alone, over 6,000 Jews were murdered in the sand quarry, called Pyasky, located behind the camp. According to the historical sources, the total number of murdered prisoners inside the camp is estimated at 35,000-40,000, while the total number of the inmates who passed through the camp is estimated at 100,000. The local Jewish population was not only exterminated in and around Lviv but were also deported in large numbers to the nearest death camps. The first large scale deportation was carried out in March 1942, at the same time as the deportation from the Lublin ghetto. Over 15,000 Jews, mostly the elderly, women, and children, after having been gathered at the Sobielski school, were taken to the railway station and deported to the Belzec killing center. Besides the “aktions” organized by the Nazis, the inhuman living conditions and epidemics prevailed in the ghetto. 

On June 24-25, 1942, another execution was carried out in the sand quarry, when about 1,200 Jewish inmates from the ghetto were taken to the Janowska camp after the selection 1,080 were murdered. 

In addition, a large scale execution, known as “The Great Aktion” took place in August 1942 and lasted two weeks. Within these two weeks, an estimated 42,000 Jews were murdered either within the city, at the Belzec camp, or in the SS-run Janowska camp. The deportations continued during the winter of 1942-1943. In January 1943, approximately 24,000 Jews were still alive inside the ghetto, although the real number of the Jewish prisoners was probably higher. In yet another execution, 10,000 Jews were murdered, the ghetto was transformed into a work camp, known as the Judenlager, or Julag, which according to the Soviet archives numbered 8,000 Jews and existed until June 1943. During its liquidation, the Germans met some resistance. Only a few managed to escape through the sewer system. 

In June 1943, as part of the Aktion 1005, the mass graves at the Janowska camp, as well as in the Lysynychi forest were opened. The bodies recovered from the pits were burned, and their ashes were either buried or scattered in the fields, in order to hide any evidence of the Nazi crimes. 

According to the archives about 200,000 civilians, the majority of whom were Jews, as well as prisoners of war from the Red Army and other countries were murdered in Lviv under the German occupation. It is estimated that approximately 1, 000 Jews from Lviv, less than 1% of the pre-war population, survived the war. According to the diary of David Kahane, a synagogue rabbi, the Greek Catholic Archibishop of Lviv, Andrei Sheptyts’kyi, saved as many as 150 Jews by hiding them in his living quarters.