Volodymyr Kubiyovych - Second World War

Second World War

During World War II he headed the Ukrainian Central Committee (UCC) in Cracow which was the officially recognized Ukrainian community and quasi-political organization under the Nazi occupation. It was responsible for social services, veteran affairs, education, youth and economic activities. For example, after a flood and famine in Transcarpathia, the Committee was able to save and resettle 30,000 children. By late 1943 it operated 1,366 kitchens and was able to feed 100,000 people. When the Germans began to kill Ukrainian peasants in the Zamosc region for alleged resistance, Kubiyovych's protest to Hans Frank was able to halt that slaughter. The Committee was also able to build student residence housing for 7,000 students, provided scholarships worth 1.35 million zlotys, and organized over 100 youth groups, camps and sports clubs.

After the Soviet-Nazi alliance ended in June 1941, Kubiyovych worked with the Germans in the creation of the "Galicia Division", 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS Galicia (1st Ukrainian) and took a leading role in its organization. The division was organized after the battle of Stalingrad as part of the German program of creating foreign formations of the Waffen-SS to fight on the Eastern Front against the Soviet Union and was to be commanded by German officers. These foreign units were formed mainly with volunteers recruited from nations that suffered enormously under the Soviet rule: Estonians, Latvians, Ukrainians, but also ethnic Russians (e.g. ROA). The proponent and formal organizer of the division was SS Brigadeführer Otto Wächter, the Nazi governor of the newly created Galicia District and former governor of Cracow. The proposal was made to Himmler on March 1, 1943 and the division was publicly inaugurated on 28 April. With the examples before him of the Polish and Ukrainian legions formed in Austria-Hungary during the First World War, Kubiyovych was hoping to influence its essence and structure as the core of a future national army which would defend the interests of the Ukrainian people after the defeat of Germany and the chaos that was expected to ensue. However, the Germans would not allow the use of the name "Ukrainian" in the division's name and the end of the Second World War turned out to be quite different from what was expected.

During the war, on more than one occasion Kubiyovych protested to the German authorities against the rough treatment of the local Ukrainian population. Some of this material was later brought up as evidence at the famous Nuremberg Trials of Nazi war criminals.

Some Ukrainian sources claim that during the war Kubiyovych used his official position to ameliorate Ukrainian-Polish tensions in Galicia and in 1944 called for a halt to the fierce armed underground conflict between the two sides. These sources also credit him with saving some three hundred people, "basically Jews", from persecution by the Nazi authorities.