Background
Prior to September 1939 and the joint Nazi-Soviet invasion of Poland, Lviv (Lwów in Polish), then in the Second Polish Republic, had 318,000 inhabitants of different ethnic groups and religions, 60% of whom were Poles, 30% Jews and about 10% Ukrainians and Germans. The city was one of the most important cultural centers of prewar Poland, housing five tertiary educational facilities including Lwów University and Lwów Polytechnic. It was the home for many Polish and Jewish intellectuals, political and cultural activists, scientists and members of Poland's interwar elite.
After Lviv was occupied by the Soviets in September 1939, Lwów University was renamed in honor of Ivan Franko, a major Ukrainian literary figure who lived in Lviv, and the language of instruction was changed from Polish to Ukrainian. Lwów was then captured by German forces on June 30, 1941 after the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. Along with the German Wehrmacht units, a number of Abwehr and SS formations entered the city.
During the Nazi occupation, almost all of the 120,000 Jewish inhabitants of the city were killed, within the city's ghetto or in Bełżec extermination camp. By the end of the war, only 200-800 Jews survived.
In order to control the population, prominent citizens and intellectuals of all ethnic groups, but particularly Jews and Poles, were either closed in ghettos or transported to the execution sites such as the Gestapo prison on Pełczyńska Street, the Brygidki Prison, the former military prison at Zamarstynów and to the fields surrounding the city—in the suburb of Winniki, the Kortumówka hills and the Jewish Cemetery. Many of the people killed were prominent leaders of Polish society: politicians, artists, aristocrats, sportsmen, scientists, priests, rabbis and other intelligentsia. The mass murder of people suspected of potential anti-Nazi activity was seen as a pre-emptive measure to keep the Polish resistance scattered and to prevent the Poles from revolting against Nazi rule. It was a direct continuation of the infamous AB Action (Ausserordentliche Befriedungsaktion ) and one of the early stages of Generalplan Ost, after the German campaign against the USSR started and the eastern half of prewar Poland fell under German occupation in place of that of the Soviet Union. One of the earliest Nazi crimes in Lviv was the mass murder of Polish professors together with some of their relatives and guests, carried out at the beginning of July 1941.
Read more about this topic: Massacre Of Lviv Professors
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—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)
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