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Chełm's Unraveling: The Holocaust and Interethnic Violence in Nazi-Occupied Poland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 February 2023

Jason Tingler
Jason Tingler*
Affiliation:
Marion Technical College, USA, tinglerj@mtc.edu
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Abstract

This article explores the myriad ways that Polish and Ukrainian residents engaged in violent and cruel behavior during World War II through a case study of the Chełm region. Under Nazi occupation, this formerly peaceful community exploded into a horrific scene of nationalist and popular violence. Jews were widely assaulted by their Polish and Ukrainian countrymen; Poles and Ukrainians engaged in mutual killings and ethnic cleansing; rural villagers were subjected to countless raids from area partisans; and escaped Soviet POWs were often denounced or otherwise attacked by area residents. Treating this outbreak as a whole, I argue that anti-Jewish violence was embedded in a vicious social transformation that engendered an array of crimes against multiple groups. By interweaving the fates of different ethnicities into a single study, my paper contextualizes Polish complicity during the Holocaust and highlights the sordid interactions between the German invaders, Jewish citizens, and local Christian society.

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Slavic Review , Volume 81 , Issue 3 , Fall 2022 , pp. 653 - 676
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Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies

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Footnotes

I would like to thank Thomas Kühne, Wendy Lower, David Silberklang, and several anonymous reviewers for their invaluable feedback on this article and related projects. My research was made possible through the generous support of the Claims Conference, European Holocaust Research Infrastructure, and the International Institute for Holocaust Research at Yad Vashem.

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19. Jachymek, Oblicze społeczno-polityczne wsi lubelskiej, 217.

20. Fortunoff Video Archive, HVT-2376: Account of Abraham D. (Jan. 17, 1991); Zajączkowski, Ukraińskie podziemie, 63–64.

21. Jan Gross, Revolution from Abroad: The Soviet Conquest of Poland’s Western Ukraine and Western Belorussia (Princeton, 2002), 67, 117–19.

22. Hoover Institution Archives (HIA), Ministerstwo Informacji i Dokumentacji 1939–1945 (MID), Box 245, Folder 1, #7355: Account of Teodor Wichniewicz (Undated), #5189: Account of Józef Lewiński (Undated), and #10237: Account of Leon Kuczyński (Undated); Paweł Kiernikowski, “Wrzesień 1939 na ziemi chełmskiej,” Rocznik Chełmski, t. 4 (1998), 140.

23. HIA, MID, Box 245, Folder 1, #1109: Account of Zbigniew Korb (April 17, 1943).

24. Jerzy Masłowski, “Agresja sowiecka na Wołyniu i Ziemi Chełmskiej w świetle Pamiętnika Wincentego Pietrzykowskiego,” in Tomasz Rodziewicz, ed., Agresja sowiecka 17 września 1939 roku na Kresach Wschodnich i Lubelszczyźnie: Studia i materiały (Lublin, 2011), 135–36.

25. Janusz Łosowski, “Krótka okupacja sowiecka widziana oczami czternastoletniego chłopca. Fragment rozmowy ze Stanisławem Kupczyńskim,” Agresja sowiecka, 154.

26. Longin Tokarski, “Zapiski Wiesławy Skibińskiej o Chełmie, Niemcach I Sowietach we wrześniu 1939 roku,” Agresja sowiecka, 143.

27. Wincenty Pietrzykowski, “Nieznany pamiętnik Wincentego Pietrzykowskiego,” Pro Patria: Magazyn Katolicko-Społeczny 12, no. 2 (86): 32; Masłowski, “Agresja sowiecka,” 133.

28. Manis Zitrin, “Eye Witness Accounts,” Yisker-bukh Chełm, at www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/chelm/Che555.html#Page563 (accessed August 11, 2022).

29. Archiwum Żydowskiego Instytutu Historycznego (AŻIH), 302/104, Account of Joel Ponczek.

30. Andrew Zielinski, Conversations with Regina (Włodawa, 2008), 69.

31. Wewryk, To Sobibor and Back, 19.

32. Yad Vashem Archives (YVA), O.33/1852, Account of Hanka Kent; Visual History Archive (VHA), Interview 16387: Hanka Kent (18.6.1996); AŻIH, 302/104, Account of Joel Ponczek; VHA, Interview 36722: Helene Kurz (Oct. 29, 1997); Wewryk, To Sobibor and Back, 18.

33. AŻIH, ARG I 1006 (Ring. I/913), Account on Skryhiczyn (Jan. 1942), in Joseph Kermish, ed., To Live with Honor and Die with Honor!: Selected Documents from the Warsaw Ghetto Underground Archives “O.S” (“Oneg Shabbath”) (Jerusalem, 1986), 209.

34. Cała, Eternal Enemy, 241–42.

35. YVA, M.2/235, Account of Dr. J. L. (Oct. 11, 1940).

36. Bundesarchiv (BArch), B162/4325, Testimony of Samuel Fox (Jan. 14, 1963), 1218.

37. State of Israel, Ministry of Justice, The Trial of Adolf Eichmann, Record of Proceedings (1993), Volume I, Session No. 21, Testimony of Zvi Pachter (May 1, 1961), at www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/e/eichmann-adolf/transcripts/Sessions/Session-021-01.html (no longer available).

38. AŻIH, ARG I 708 (Ring. I/818), Events in Chełm to January 1940, in Aleksandra Bańkowska, ed., Archiwum Ringelbluma: Konspiracyjne Archiwum Getta Warszawy, vol. 6, Generalne gubernatorstwo relacje i dokumenty (Warsaw, 2012), 95–96; Samuel Kassow, Who Will Write Our History?: Emanuel Ringelblum, the Warsaw Ghetto, and the Oyneg Shabes Archive (Bloomington, 2007), 275.

39. VHA, Interview 28827: Celia Feldman (May 1, 1997); Interview 11205: Fira Silberbach (6.3.1996); Interview 41452: Sol Gruber (May 26, 1998); HVT-2234: Jack G. (Dec. 1, 1992); Harold Werner, Fighting Back: A Memoir of Jewish Resistance (New York, 1992), 20. On fishermen betraying Jews, YVA, M.20/134, Report from occupied Poland (circa Nov. 1943).

40. AŻIH, ARG I 708 (Ring. I/818), Account on Chełm (Nov. 30, 1939), Archiwum Ringelbluma. t. 6, 95–96.

41. David Silberklang, Gates of Tears: The Holocaust in the Lublin District (Jerusalem, 2013), 195–96.

42. YVA, O.3/3850, Account of Michael Temchin (Dec. 3, 1971).

43. AŻIH, ARG I 770 (Ring. I/814), Dychterman’s account, “Hrubieszów-Poland’s Granary” (June 30, 1942), Archiwum Ringelbluma, t. 6, 118–29.

44. AŻIH, ARG I 768 (Ring. I/810), Dawid Mandelbaum’s account “Hrubieszów” (July 10, 1942), Archiwum Ringelbluma, t. 6, 130–34. The Polish population actually outnumbered the Ukrainian population in Hrubieszów county, but the demographic balance was fairly close.

45. US National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), RG 242, T501/228, Report on laborers sent to Reich, September 1939–June 1943 (undated and unpaginated). On economic exploitation, Czesław Rajca, Walka o chleb, 1939–1944: Eksploatacja rolnictwa w Generalnym Gubernatorstwie (Lublin, 1991).

46. Note that one does not have to be a casualty or direct victim to be affected by violence.

47. Zygmunt Klukowsk, Dziennik z lat okupacji Zamojszczyzy (1939–1944) (Lublin, 1959), 279, (Aug. 20, 1942). Klukowski’s published diary was altered from the original manuscript, but it remains an immensely valuable source. Dariusz Libionka, “Polacy wobec eksterminacji Żydów: Kilka uwag na marginesie czytania źródeł,” in S. Buryła abd P. Rodak, eds., Wojna, doświadczenie i zapis. Nowe źródła, problemy, metody badawcze (Kraków, 2006), 71–90.

48. US Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM), RG-15.043M, Reel 2, Report for November-December 1943, 130.

49. Pitirim Sorokin, Man and Society in Calamity (New York, 1942).

50. Among others: Archiwum Państwowe w Lublinie (APL), 616/93, Report of Hrubieszów County for April–June 1941, 241; APL, 616/77, Report of Dubienka delegate (June 19, 1941), 45.

51. APL, 616/91, Report of PKO Chełm for October 1942, 1048. This is not to say that Poles did not contribute. Donations came largely from wealthy estate owners and urbanized intelligentsia or office workers, and less from smaller landholders and working poor, who made up the majority population. See Janusz Kłapeć, Rada Główna Opiekuńcza w dystrykcie lubelskim w latach 1940–1944 (Lublin, 2011).

52. Stanisław Salmonowicz, “Patologie społeczne okresu okupacji hitlerowskiej,” Czasy Nowożytne 3 (1997): 5–20.

53. Yehuda Bauer, The Death of the Shtetl (New Haven, 2009), 92–151.

54. Grabowski, Hunt for Jews, 55–59.

55. BArch, B162/6188, Testimony of Karl Schroedel (April 23, 1964), 890.

56. Bogdan Musiał, Deutsche Zivilverwaltung und Judenverfolgung im Generalgouvernement: eine Fallstudie zum Distrikt Lublin, 1939–1944 (Wiesbaden, 1999), 309. Emphasis in original.

57. On the May 1942 pacification: Jason Tingler, “At the Crossroads of Genocide and Mass Murder: The Chełm Region during World War II,” in Avinoam Patt and Erin McGlothlin, eds., Lessons and Legacies, vol. 5 (forthcoming).

58. APL, 514/38, Report for January 1943 (Jan 28, 1943), 25.

59. APL, 514/38, Report for February 1943 (Feb. 24, 1943), 42.

60. APL, 514/38, Report for January 1943 (Jan. 27, 1943), 18.

61. NARA, T501/225, Report of OFK Lublin (Dec. 21, 1942), 1272.

62. Werner, Fighting Back, 77–86; Grabowski, Hunt for Jews.

63. BArch, B162/3749, Interrogation of Erich Bauer (Jan. 16, 1963), 1366.

64. Daniel Blatman, “Polish Antisemitism: A National Psychosis?” in Ezra Mendelsohn, ed., Studies in Contemporary Jewry, vol. 23 (Oxford, 2008), 213–26.

65. AŻIH, ARG I 770 (Ring. I/814), Dychterman’s account, “Hrubieszów-Poland’s Granary” (June 30, 1942), Archiwum Ringelbluma, t.6, Document #37, 128; Dariusz Libionka, “ZWZ-AK i Delegatura Rządu wobec eksterminacji Żydów Polskich,” in Andrzej Żbikowski, ed., Polacy i Żydzi pod okupacją niemiecką 1939–1945: Studia i materiały (Warsaw, 2006), 130.

66. Archiwum Akt Nowych (AAN), 1325/202/II-29, Report on the Lublin region (Feb. 17, 1943), 60.

67. Rachel Feldhay Brenner, “Polka-Katoliczka and the Holocaust: The Enigma of Zofia Kossak,” Yad Vashem Studies 45, no. 2 (2017): 125–59.

68. AŻIH, 302/104, Account of Joel Ponczek.

69. YVA, O.3/2019, Account of Cypora (Frydman) Korn (Jan. 17, 1962).

70. USHMM, RG-15.177M, Reel 3, SSKL 70, Testimony of Rywka Segał (April 8, 1945), 13; Protocol of the main hearing (June 23, 1945), 33–36.

71. YVA, M.31.2/5006, Account of Jack Kuper (Dec. 19, 1988); Jack Kuper, Child of the Holocaust (Toronto, 1968), 68.

72. Feliks Tych, Długi cień zagłady: szkice historyczne (Warsaw, 1999), 43.

73. Klukowski, Dziennik, (Nov. 26, 1942), 299.

74. Michael Temchin, The Witch Doctor: Memoir of a Partisan (New York, 1992), 72.

75. Grabowski, Hunt for Jews, 83.

76. Incomplete German records indicate at least 6,000 Soviet POWs escaped German camps in the General Government during the winter of 1941/42. NARA, T501/221, 968 (Nov. 27. 1941), 967 (Dec. 2, 1941), 1115 (Dec. 16, 1941), and 833 (Feb. 2, 1942).

77. Kazimierz Przybysz, Pomoc społeczna na wsi polskiej 1939–1945 (Warsaw, 1990).

78. Adam Puławski, “Sowiecki partyzant-polski problem,” Pamięć i Sprawiedliwość 9, no. 1 (2006), 217–54.

79. NARA, T992/8, vol. 26, Hans Frank Diary, Session on the security situation in the Lublin District (May 29, 1943), 428.

80. Werner, Fighting Back, 70. Stephan was the head of the family.

81. AAN, 1325/202/III/28, Report on the Nazi treatment of Soviet POWs (Oct. 24, 1941), 470. A facsimile of Krüger’s announcement is published in Józef Fajkowski, Wieś w ogniu: Eksterminacja wsi polskiej w okresie okupacji hitlerowskiej (Warsaw, 1972).

82. Leszek Gorycki, “Stosunek ludności cywilnej do jeńców sowieckich w niewoli niemieckiej II wojna światowa,” in Jakub Wojtkowiak, ed., Jeńcy sowieccy na ziemiach polskich w czasie II wojny światowej (Warsaw, 2015), 129

83. Tomasz Frydel, “Judenjagd: Reassessing the Role of Ordinary Poles as Perpetrators in the Holocaust?,” in Timothy Williams and Susanne Buckley-Zistel, eds., Perpetrators and Perpetration of Mass Violence: Actions, Motivations, and Dynamics (New York, 2018), 187–203; Andrzej Żbikowski, “’Night Guard’: Holocaust Mechanisms in the Polish Rural Areas, 1942–1945: Preliminary Introduction into Research,” East European Politics & Societies 25, no. 3 (August 2011): 512–29.

84. YVA, O.53/68, Gendarmeriezug Lublin to Hauptmannschaft Lublin (June 8, 1942), 65–67.

85. USHMM, RG-15.175M, Reel 14, SAL 75. Testimony of Jan Kozlowski (Oct. 2, 1947), 5; Interrogation of Edward Fusiarz (Dec. 23, 1949), 211.

86. Archiwum Instytutu Pamięci Narodowej (AIPN) Lublin, SSKL 58, Trial of Piotr Daciuk; SWL 21, Trial of Mikołaj Rutkowski.

87. USHMM, RG-15.176M, Reel 16, SOL 22, Trial of Jan Wielebski, 102–24.

88. Julian Tobiasz focuses exclusively on the support provided by Polish society, but briefly concedes this point. Julian Tobiasz, Na tyłach wroga: obywatele radzieccy w ruchu oporu na ziemiach polskich: 1941–1945 (Warsaw, 1972), 81.

89. NARA, T501/215, Report from OFK Lublin (June 19, 1942), 939–40;

90. Shmuel Krakowski, War of the Doomed: Jewish Resistance in Poland, 1942–1944 (New York, 1984), 31.

91. John Lowell Armstrong, “The Polish Underground and the Jews: A Reassessment of Home Army Commander Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski’s Order 116 against Banditry,” Slavonic and East European Review 72, no. 2 (April 1994), 259–76.

92. NARA, T501/217, OFK Lublin Report (April 24, 1943), 234; US NARA, T992/8, vol. 25, Diary of Hans Frank, 419 (May 29, 1943); APL, 498/68, Report of Chełm County (May 5, 1943), 132; Janusz Gmitruk, Arkadiusz Indraszczyk, and Adam Koseski; eds., Pro memoria, 1941–1944: Raporty Departamentu Informacji Delegatury Rządu RP na Kraj o zbrodniach na narodzie polskim (Warsaw, 2005), 398–99.

93. Piotr Majewski and Jan Vajskebr, “Sytuacja w Generalnym Gubernatorstwie w świetle niemieckich statystyk policyjnych. Próba analizy ilościowej,” Przegląd Historyczny, vol. 107 (2016), 581–618.

94. NARA, T501/216, Report for September 1942 (Oct. 5, 1942), 1101; T501/225, Report for October 1942 (Nov. 12, 1942), 1452; Report for November 1942 (Dec. 15, 1942), 1326; Report for December 1942 (Dec. 29, 1942), 1308; OFK Lublin Report (Nov. 18, 1942), 1383.

95. NARA, T992/8, Vol. 26, Hans Frank Diary, Meeting on Lublin District security (May 29, 1943), 419; APL, 498/68, Report of Chełm County (March 8, 1943), 124; Report of Chełm County (May 5, 1943), 132.

96. USHMM, RG-15.011M, Reel 8, File 107, KdO Lublin Telegram (Sept. 21, 1943), 18.

97. VHA, Interview 27879: Chil Grynszpan (April 4, 1997); Klukowski, Dziennik, 290 (Oct. 21, 1942), 319–20 (Feb. 22, 1943).

98. Wewryk, To Sobibor and Back, 124.

99. APL, 498/68, Report of KH Chełm for April 1943 (May 5, 1943), 131.

100. Krystyna Kersten and Tomasz Szarota, Wieś polska 1939–1948, vol. 3 (Warsaw, 1970), 333.

101. Ireneusz Caban and Zygmunt Mańkowski, eds., Zwiazek Walki Zbrojnej i Armia Krajowa, vol. 2 (Lublin, 1971), 28.

102. Paweł Markiewicz, “The Ukrainian Central Committee, 1940–1945: A Case of Collaboration in Nazi-Occupied Poland” (PhD diss., Jagiellonian University, 2018).

103. USHMM, RG-67.014M, Reel 286, H283, File 3, Review of Ukrainian Press, 1008 (Nov. 1, 1942). Historians estimate that 20,000 Ukrainian expatriates came to the General Government from Soviet-occupied Polish territory, many of whom returned to the east after June 1941. Zajączkowski, Ukraińskie podziemie, 87–88.

104. Nicholas Terry, The Trawniki Men: Soviet Prisoners of War and Ukrainian Civilians in the Service of the SS, 1941–1945 (Unpublished Report for the Metropolitan Police, 2011), 63–64, quoting a July 1943 report of UDK activist Iaroslav Dzindra.

105. Ryszard Torzecki, Polacy i Ukraińcy: sprawa ukraińska w czasie II wojny światowej na terenie II Rzeczypospolitej (Warsaw, 1993); Robert Ziętek, “Konflikt polsko-ukraiński na Chełmszczyźnie i południowym Podlasiu w okresie okupacji niemieckiej,” Rocznik Chełmski 7 (2001), 251–89.

106. APL, 514/38, Report of Polizeireiterabteilung-III for 26.10–25.11.1943 (Nov. 23, 1943), 151. This is an exaggeration but reflects an uneven burden that was true.

107. NARA, T992/4, Vol. 11, Hans Frank Diary, 293 (April 18, 1941); Frank Golczewski, “Shades of Grey: Reflections on Jewish-Ukrainian and German-Ukrainian Relations in Galicia,” in Ray Brandon and Wendy Lower, eds., The Shoah in Ukraine: History, Testimony, Memorialization, eds. (Bloomington, 2010), 114–55.

108. Provincial Archives of Alberta (PAA), Michael Chomiak Papers, 85.191/59, List of Ukrainian activists killed in the Chełm and Podlasie regions (Jan. 22, 1944).

109. USHMM, RG-15.011M, Reel 2, File 33, KdGend Lublin to KdO Lublin (April 22, 1944), 62.

110. Zajączkowski, Ukraińskie podziemie, 237ff.

111. PAA, Michael Chomiak Papers, 85.191/59, Commentary on Hrubieszów County.

112. Grzegorz Motyka, Tak było w Bieszczadach: walki polsko-ukraińskie 1943–1948 (Warsaw, 1999), 136.

113. NARA, T175/73, Krüger to Himmler (Jan. 28, 1943), 2590448.

114. PAA, 85.191/59, List of Ukrainian activists killed in the Chełm and Podlasie regions (Jan. 22, 1944); Commentary on events in Hrubieszów County by UDK-Hrubieszów (Chrusztsch).

115. PAA, 85.191/59, Report on the Situation of the Ukrainian Population in the Lublin District (Dec. 9, 1943).

116. Waldemar Lotnik, Nine Lives: Ethnic Conflict in the Polish-Ukrainian Borderlands (London, 1999), 66.

117. USHMM, RG-15.177M, Reel 5, SSKL 143, Testimony of Czesława Mekalska (March 21, 1946), 68.

118. Igor Hałagida, “Ukraińskie straty osobowe w dystrykcie lubelskim (październik 1939−lipiec 1944)–wstępna analiza materiału statystycznego,” Pamięć i Sprawiedliwość 29, no. 1 (2017): 383–86.

119. APL, 1072/23, Information Dispatch (Sep. 30, 1943), 14.

120. Brian Porter, When Nationalism Began to Hate: Imagining Modern Politics in Nineteenth Century Poland (New York, 2000); Cała, Eternal Enemy.

121. On increased communalism: Ervin Staub, The Roots of Evil: The Origins of Genocide and Other Group Violence (Cambridge, Eng., 1989); Sudhir Kakar, The Colors of Violence: Cultural Identities, Religion, and Conflict (Chicago, 1996). On atomization: Jan Gross, Polish Society under German Occupation: The Generalgouvernement, 1939–1944 (Princeton, 1979).

122. Marcin Zaremba, “The ‘War Syndrome’: World War II and Polish Society,” in Stefan-Ludwig Hoffman, ed., Seeking Peace in the Wake of War: Europe, 1943–1947 (Amsterdam, 2015), 62.

123. NARA, T501/217, Report from OFK Lublin (Sep. 21, 1943), 435.

124. Bartov, Anatomy of Genocide, 247; Natalia Aleksiun, “Intimate Violence: Jewish Testimonies on Victims and Perpetrators in Eastern Galicia,” Holocaust Studies 23, no. 1–2 (2017): 17–33; Anna Wylegała, “About “Jewish Things” Jewish Property in Eastern Galicia during World War,” Yad Vashem Studies 44, no. 2 (2016): 83–119.

125. Emanuel Ringelblum, Polish-Jewish Relations during the Second World War (Evanston, 1992), 77.

126. Christopher Browning, Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland (New York, 2017 [1992]); Scott Straus, The Order of Genocide: Race, Power, and War in Rwanda (Ithaca, 2008); Fuji, Killing Neighbors.

127. Jared McBride, “Peasants into Perpetrators: The OUN-UPA and the Ethnic Cleansing of Volhynia, 1943–1944,” Slavic Review 75, no. 3 (September 2016): 630–54; Frydel, “Judenjagd.”

128. Alexander Korb, Im Schatten des Weltkriegs Massengewalt der Ustaša gegen Serben, Juden und Roma in Kroatien 1941–1945 (Hamburg, 2014); Bergholz, Violence as a Generative Force; Schnell, Räume des Schreckens.

129. Randall Collins, Violence: A Micro-Sociological Theory (Princeton, 2009), 20.

130. Gross, Neighbors, 133.

131. Susanne Karstedt, Hollie Byseth Brehm, and Laura Frizzell, “Genocide, Mass Atrocity, and Theories of Crime: Unlocking Criminology’s Potential,” Annual Review of Criminology 4 (2021): 75–97.

132. For criticism of national groupings, Tara Zahra, “Imagined Noncommunities: Indifference as a Category of Analysis,” Slavic Review 69, no. 1 (Spring 2010), 93–119.

133. APL, 514/38, Report of Polizeireiterabteilung-III (March 24, 1943), 52; Wojciech Lada, Bandyci z Armii Krajowej (Krakow, 2018).