Abstract
On June 30, 1941, the Germans occupied Lwów. They were preceded by a small advance party of Ukrainian volunteers—fewer than a battalion—who marched through the city singing. A curfew was immediately imposed, and already on that first evening one could hear the heavy tread of two helmeted German soldiers patrolling a deserted Kadecka Street in the moonlight. The curfew was enforced to the utmost: persons found at large after 9 pm were immediately shot, no questions asked, and little calling cards attached to their corpses showing the time of their demise: 9:10, 9:25, and so on. The Ukrainians pasted up yellow posters announcing the liberation of Ukraine from the dominion of the USSR and forecasting its purification from “outsiders”, but without any details about whom they had in mind. Although the posters carried a facsimile of Bandera’s signature, it did not seem to have received the imprimatur of the Germans, who simply ignored it. At the university there were bands of “lesser heroes” than Bandera, busy smashing up the statues of Lenin and Stalin that the Soviets had erected. There wasn’t much other university business to occupy them since the Germans appeared to be in no rush to reopen that institution. In fact, the Ukrainian professors, who had immediately assumed control of the university’s institutes and departments, treating their Polish colleagues with a crude lack of ceremony, soon found out that the Germans had no intention of handing the university infrastructure over to them for their own use, since for them it was just so much war loot. I heard indirectly of the opinion voiced by one of the Germans assigned to take control of the chemical plant in Lwów, namely that since Germany had for a considerable time officially recognized Soviet rule, and since, therefore, all buildings, factories, forests and lands that had been nationalized by the USSR were in German eyes the legal property of the USSR, it followed by an article of international law—unwritten but generally acknowledged—that that property could now be considered the German victors’ legitimate spoils of war.
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Notes
- 1.
So a few hundred at most.
- 2.
Now termed “ethnic cleansing”.
- 3.
Stepan Andriyovich Bandera (1909–1959), Ukrainian politician and leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists in Western Ukraine. Proclaimed an Independent Ukrainian State in Lwów on June 30, 1941, allied with Nazi Germany. However, ultimately the Germans refused them recognition, and in September 1941 Bandera and his followers were arrested. A controversial figure in modern Ukraine because of his cooperation with Nazi Germany 1939–1941.
- 4.
Brygidki is the building of the former Bridgettine order of nuns founded in Lwów in 1614. After the convent was secularized in 1784, it was used as a prison. It was one of several sites of mass murder of political prisoners by the NKVD in Lwów in June 1941, when approximately 7000 prisoners—mainly Poles and Ukrainians—were executed.
- 5.
In Ukrainian, “Zbruch”, a tributary of the Dniester, considerably to the east of Lwów. From 1921 to 1939 it marked the border between the Second Polish Republic and the USSR.
- 6.
Meier (Max) Eidelheit, Lwów mathematician. Another source gives the year of his death as 1943. See W. Żelazko, A Short History of Polish Mathematics. Warszawa 2007.
- 7.
S. Mosler was a mathematics docent at Lwów University 1940–1941.
- 8.
Since this may have suggested that the Germans connived at those murders?
- 9.
This was the beginning of the tragic event known as the “Massacre of the Lwów Professors” of July 1941. The author mentions by name about 22 prominent Lvovians, mostly professors, arrested together with some of their family members or guests, and then murdered by members of the German Nazi occupation force. According to contemporary sources the number of Polish academics from Lwów killed in July 1941 was 25, with altogether 45 identified victims. From Steinhaus’s list above, the following persons killed on the Wóleckie Hills (Wzgórza Wóleckie) were omitted: Dr. Jerzy Grzędzielski (Head of the Institute of Ophthalmology at the University of Lwów), Professor Edward Hamerski (Chief of Internal Medicine at the Academy of Veterinary Sciences in Lwów), Henryk Hilarowicz (surgeon, professor at Lwów University), Father Dr. Władysław Komornicki (theologian, a relative of the Ostrowski family), Professor Witold Nowicki (Dean of the Faculty of Anatomy and Pathology at the University of Lwów) with his son Jerzy, Professor Włodzimierz Sieradzki (Dean of the Faculty of Legal Medicine at the University of Lwów), Professor Adam Sołowij (former Head of the Department of Gynaecology and Obstetrics of the National Public Hospital in Lwów) and his grandson Adam Mięsowicz, Dr. Tadeusz Tapkowski (lawyer), and Professor Kazimierz Vetulani (Dean of the Faculty of Theoretical Mechanics at the Lwów Polytechnic). There were a further four people murdered in the courtyard of Bursa Abrahamowiczów (a school in Lwów): Katarzyna Demko (a teacher of English), Dr. Stanisław Mączewski (Head of the Department of Gynaecology and Obstetrics of the National Public Hospital in Lwów), Maria Reymanowa (a nurse), and Wolisch (a merchant; full name unknown).
- 10.
Stanisław Michał Progulski (1874–1941), Polish pediatrician and professor at the University of Lwów. Celebrated member, with his son, of the Lwów Photographic Society.
- 11.
Stanisław Ruziewicz was arrested on July 11, 1941, and killed on July 12.
- 12.
Stanisław Pilat (1881–1941), professor of petroleum technology, Chief of the Institute of Technology of Petroleum and Natural Gases at the Lwów Polytechnic.
- 13.
Professor Władysław Dobrzaniecki (1897–1941), Head of the Surgery Faculty of the National Public Hospital in Lwów. Arrested together with Eugeniusz Kostecki, husband of his servant.
- 14.
Tadeusz Ostrowski (1881–1941), Head of the Institute of Surgery at the University of Lwów. Murdered with his wife Jadwiga.
- 15.
Stanisław Ruff (1872–1941), Head of the Department of Surgery of the Lwów Jewish Municipal Hospital.
- 16.
Kasper Weigel (1880–1941), Chief of the Institute of Measures at the Lwów Polytechnic. Murdered with his son Józef.
- 17.
Jan Grek (1875–1941), professor at Lwów University, pathologist, internist, and well-known art collector. Killed together with his wife Maria.
- 18.
Roman Witkiewicz (1886–1941), Head of the Institute of Machinery at the Lwów Polytechnic.
- 19.
Kazimierz Bartel was arrested a day earlier than the others, that is, on July 2, 1941, and murdered on July 26 in Brygidki Prison after refusing to collaborate with the Nazis.
- 20.
Włodzimierz Krukowski (1887–1941), Polish scientist and electrical engineer. Head of the Institute of Electrical Measurement at the Lwów Polytechnic.
- 21.
Henryk Korowicz (1888–1941), Polish economist. Rector of the Academy of Foreign Trade in Lwów (changed to the Lwów State Institute of Soviet Trade during the Soviet occupation), Head of the Institute of Economics at this Academy. Arrested by the Gestapo on July 11, 1941, and murdered on July 12.
- 22.
Possibly Wiesław Grzymalski, Polish engineer and architect.
- 23.
“He can come along too.”
- 24.
“Shut your mouth!”
- 25.
That Gr¨oer tried to pass himself off as German is denied by Zygmunt Albert—see: Z. Albert, “Mord profesorów lwowskich w lipcu 1941 roku” [The massacre of the Lwów professors in July 1941], in Kaźń profesorów lwowskich. Lipiec 1941. Studia oraz relacje i dokumenty zebrane i opracowane przez Zygmunta Alberta [Execution of the Lwów professors. July 1941. Studies and relations, and documents gathered and edited by Zygmunt Albert], Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego, Wrocław 1989, p. 44.
- 26.
“No conversations”
- 27.
A town about 45 km southeast of Lwów.
- 28.
“So you are Count Schoenborn of the Jewish aristocracy.”
- 29.
“You are a Jew!”
- 30.
Muta’s sister.
- 31.
“Look, he’s sitting so comfortably here.”
- 32.
“He could work for us.”
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Steinhaus, H. (2015). The Second Occupation. In: Burns, R., Szymaniec, I., Weron, A. (eds) Mathematician for All Seasons. Vita Mathematica, vol 18. Birkhäuser, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-21984-4_9
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