The Lwów pogrom (also called the Lemberg pogrom) of the Jewish population of Lwów (now Lviv) took place on November 21 - November 23 1918 during the Polish-Ukrainian War. In the course of the three days of unrest in the city, an estimated 52-150 Jewish residents were murdered and hundreds injured, with widespread looting carried out by Polish soldiers^[1][2][3][4],^[5] militiamen and local criminals.^[6] Hundreds more Christians (primarily Ukrainians) are reported to have been killed during this time as well.^[7][8] Over a thousand people were arrested by Polish authorities during and after the riot.^[9][10][6]

The events, widely publicized in the international press, led to US President Woodrow Wilson appointing a commission, led by Henry Morgenthau, Sr., tasked with investigating excesses against the Jewish population in Poland.^[11]

Background

The chaos during the Polish take-over of the city^[vague] was accompanied by unrest in which dozens of civilians - Ukrainians, Jews and Poles ^{[citation needed]} perished.

In 1918, the Jews of Galicia found themselves caught in the middle of the post-World War One Polish-Ukrainian conflict, and fell victim to a rising wave of pogroms,^[12] fuelled by lawlessness, perpetrated by both sides of the conflict. Throughout the 1918-1919 Polish-Ukrainian conflict, Jews had served as scapegoats for the frustrations of the warring forces.^[13] On November 9-10, the Jews of Lwów formed a militia and declared their neutrality in the Polish-Ukrainian conflict over the city.^[9] Poles resented the Jewish neutrality, and there were reports, leading to exaggerated rumors, that some Jews collaborated with the Ukrainians and shot at the Polish forces.^[9][10] On the morning November 22, after taking the city in the night of November 21 to November 22, and amidst rumors that Lwów's Jews would be made to pay for their neutrality in the Polish-Ukrainian conflict, Polish forces interned and disarmed the Jewish militia.^[9][10]

Before withdrawing from the town, Ukrainian forces let the criminals out of the prisons.^[9][10][6] The town was also full of Austrian army deserters. Polish authorities also armed a number of volunteers (including some former criminals) who promised to fight the Ukrainains.^[9] The riots, including pogroms in the Jewish quarters (but an even larger disturbance in the Ukrainian quarters, with three times as much dead),^[8] broke out after Polish forces managed to get control over all parts of the city, including the Jewish quarters.^[9] Ukrainian and Polish criminals, militia volunteers, soldiers, civilians, and even officers began robbing and pillaging parts of the city.^[9] According to many eyewitnesses and victims testimonies rioting Polish soldiers asserted, that they were given by their officers 48 hours to pillage Jewish quarters, as a reward for capturing the city from Ukrainians.^[9] Such an order was never found in the Polish archives, and Polish commanding officer and amateur historian, Czesław Mączyński, in his history of 1918 battle of Lwów, noted that he heard rumors of such an order, which the criminal elements attempted to buy, without success.^[6] Mączyński argues that the Polish forces tried to stop the riots quicker, but were undermanned.^[6]

In his 1919 report, Henry Morgenthau concludes that in Lemberg, as well as in the Polish cities of Lida, Wilna, and Minsk "the excesses were committed by the soldiers who were capturing the cities and not by the civilian population."^[14] Joseph Tenenbaum, a leader of the Jewish militia and eyewitness to the pogrom, wrote that troops cut off the Jewish quarter and that patrols of 10-30 men, each led by an officer and armed with grenades and rifles went through the quarter banging on doors. Doors not opened were blown open with grenades. Each house was systematically plundered, and its occupants beaten and shot. Shops were likewise looted, with the stolen goods loaded onto army trucks.^[15] Writing in the journal Central European History, William W. Hagen reports that the pogrom was carried out by Polish Blue Army forces, together with lawless civilians, with the connivance or toleration of their military superiors.^[16]

Polish forces were able to bring order to the city after one or two days (reports vary), on November 23 or November 24.^[9][10] Ad hoc courts handed verdicts during the riots.^[10] About one thousand people well jailed for participating in the riots.^[9][10] Mączyński notes that between 1300 to 1500 people were jailed, primarily Ukrainians (60%), the rest Polish (30%), but also some Jewish criminals (10%).^[6] Mączyński also gives the statistical breakdown of professions, that includes 18 officers and 54 soldiers among those arrested.^[6]

Casualties

Figures for the death toll vary; according to William W. Hagen, citing a report prepared for the Polish Foreign Ministry, approximately 150 Jews were murdered and 500 Jewish shops and their businesses were ransacked,^[9] while the 1919 Morgenthau report counted 64 Jewish deaths. A simultaneous British government investigation led by Sir Stuart Samuel reported that 52 Jews were killed, 463 injured and a large amount of Jewish property was stolen.^[17] Jewish contemporary sources reported 73 deaths;^[9] Official city documents support only 41 deaths.^[6] According to Tadeusz Piotrowski, in the chaotic events of the riot, more Christians than Jews have died,^[7] and Morgenthau Report, for example, raised a question of whether the label pogrom it technically applicable to such riots in the times of war.^[7] The report submitted to Polish Foreign Ministry cited by Hagen characterized the incident as a pogrom, and criticized the inaction of Polish officials in failing to halt the violence, while accusing the officials of publicizing inflammatory charges against Lwów's Jews.^[9] Historian Norman Davies has cited figures of 340 total deaths in the violence, of whom two thirds were Ukrainian Christians and the remaining 70 were Jews.^[8] Davies questioned whether these circumstances can be accurately described as a "pogrom," suggesting that Polish forces may have carried out two distinct massacres — an anti-semitic pogrom against Jews and an anti-Ukrainian massacre.^[8]

Aftermath

Over a thousand people were arrested, hundreds individuals accused of participation in the pogrom were punished by Polish authorities after they established themselves in the city, promises of material compensation were made.^[6][10][11]

The events were widely reported by European and American press,^[18] including The New York Times^[19] News reports of the massacre, claimed by some historians (ex. Davies, Kapiszewski, Piotrowski) to have been greatly exaggerated, were later used as a means of pressure on Polish delegation during Paris peace conference into signing the Minority Protection Treaty (the Little Treaty of Versailles).^[10][18][8] and in 1921, the events also resulted in Polish government awarding liberal minority rights for Polish Jewish population in the March Constitution.^[20]

International outrage at the series of similar acts of violence committed by Polish military (Pinsk massacre, Lida, Minsk and Vilna pogroms) and civilian population (Kielce pogrom) against the Jews led to the appointment of an investigation commission by US President Woodrow Wilson in June 1919^[21][22]. On October 3, 1919 commission lead by Henry Morgenthau, Sr. published it's findings. According to Morgenthau Report excesses in Lwow were "political as well as anti-Semitic in character".^[11]

Quotes

On Oct. 30, 1918, when the Austrian Empire collapsed, the Ukrainian troops, formerly in the Austrian service, assumed control of the town. A few hundred Polish boys, combined with numerous volunteers of doubtful character, recaptured about half the city and held it until the arrival of Polish re-enforcement on Nov. 21. The Jewish population declared themselves neutral, but the facts that the Jewish quarter lay within the section occupied by the Ukrainians and that the Jews had organized their own militia, and further, the rumor that some of the Jewish population had fired upon the soldiery, stimulated among the Polish volunteers an anti-Semitic bias that readily communicated itself to the relieving troops. The situation was further complicated by the presence of some 15,000 uniformed deserters and numerous criminals released by the Ukrainians from local jails, who were ready to join in any disorder particularly if, as in the case of wholesale pillage, they might profit thereby.

Upon the final departure of the Ukrainians, these disreputable elements plundered to the extent of many millions of crowns the dwellings and stores in the Jewish quarter, and did not hesitate to murder when they met with resistance. During the ensuing disorders, which prevailed on Nov. 21, 22 and 23, sixty four Jews were killed and a large amount of property destroyed. Thirty eight houses were set on fire, and owing to the paralysis of the Fire Department, were completely gutted. The synagogue was also burned and a large number of the sacred scrolls of the law were destroyed. The repression of the disorders was rendered more difficult by the prevailing lack of discipline among the junior officers to apply stern punitive measures. When officers’ patrols under experienced leaders were finally organized on Nov. 23, robbery and violence ceased.

On December 24, 1918, the Polish Government, through the Ministry of Justice, began a strict investigation of the events of Nov. 21 to 23. A special commission headed by a Justice of the Supreme Court, met in Lemberg for about two months, and rendered an extensively formal report which has been furnished the Mission. In spite of the crowded dockets of the local courts, where over 7,000 cases are now pending, 164 persons, ten of them Jews, have been tried for complicity in the November disorders, and numerous similar cases await disposal. Forty-four persons are under sentence ranging from ten days to eighteen months. Aside from the civil courts the local court-martial has sentenced military persons to confinement for as long as three years for lawlessness during the period in question. This Mission is advised that on the basis of official investigations the Government has begun the payment of claims for damages resulting from these events.
From the Morgenthau Report (1919).

On November 22, in the early hours of the morning, the frightened population of the Jewish quarter heard the whistling and hooting of Polish soldiers coming in, and accompanied by shooting and harmonica playing, as well as by curses and foul names called out to the Jews. The real pursuit of the Jews had begun at seven in the morning. It began according to a plan worked out with military precision. Machine guns and armored cars were stationed on the thoroughfares of the Jewish quarter and the streets were raked with fire, so that no one dared step out of his house. The machine guns were placed at the following locations: at Cracow Place near the State theater, and at the entrances to Boznicza, Cebulna, Teodora Place, Zolkiewska etc. At the same time, patrols organized and every larger one was assigned to an area in which it could "work" witout restriction or curtailment. A headquarters for the plundering legionnaires was set up in the State theater, where orders were issued and reports received. A large reserve squad—of robbers and murderers—was also posted there...the Jewish quarter was cut off from the rest of the city by a powerful military cordon, through which no unauthorized person could enter or leave.

—Joseph Bendow [Joseph Tenebaum], leader of the Lemberg [Lvov] Jewish militia. Der Lemberger Judenpogrom. Nov 1918-Jan 1919. (Vienna 1919).

Notes

1. ^ Joanna B. Michlic. Poland's Threatening Other: The Image of the Jew from 1880 to the Present. University of Nebraska Press, 2006. One of the first and worst instances of anti-Jewish violence was Lwow pogrom, which occurred in the last week of November 1918. In three days 72 Jews were murdered and 443 others injured. The chief perpetrators of these murders were soldiers and officers of the so-called Blue Army, set up in France in 1917 by General Jozef Haller (1893-1960) and lawless civilians
2. ^ Herbert Arthur Strauss. Hostages of Modernization: Studies on Modern Antisemitism, 1870-1933/39. Walter de Gruyter, 1993. |quote= In Lwow, a city whose fate was disputed, the Jews tried to maintain their neutrality between Poles and Ukrainians, and in reaction a pogrom was held in the city under auspices of the Polish army
3. ^ Gilman, Sander L. (1999). Jewries at the Frontier: Accommodation, Identity, Conflict. University of Illinois Press. p. 39. ISBN 0252067924,. OCLC 9780252067921. After the end of the fighting and as a result of the Polish victory, some of the Polish soldiers and the civilian population started a pogrom against the Jewish inhabitants. Polish soldiers maintened that the Jews had sympathized with the Ukrainian position during the conflicts {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help); Check |oclc= value (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link)
4. ^ Marsha L. Rozenblit. Reconstructing a National Identity: The Jews of Habsburg Austria During World War I. Oxford University Press US, 2001. The largest pogrom occured in Lemberg. Polish soldiers led an attack on the Jewish quarter of the city on November 21-23, 1918 that claimed 73 Jewish lifes
5. ^ Zvi Y. Gitelman. The Emergence of Modern Jewish Politics: Bundism and Zionism in Eastern Europe. University of Pittsburgh Press, 2003. In November 1918, Polish soldiers who had taken Lwow (Lviv) from the Ukrainians killed more than seventy Jews in a pogrom there, burning synagogues, destroying Jewish property, and leaving hundreds of Jewish families homeless
6. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h i} Template:Pl icon Czesław Mączyński, Boje Lwowskie, 1921
7. ^ ^{a b c} Template:En icon Tadeusz Piotrowski (1997). Poland's Holocaust: Ethnic Strife, Collaboration with Occupying Forces and Genocide... McFarland & Company. pp. p. 41-42. ISBN 0-7864-0371-3. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |chapterurl= and |coauthors= (help)
8. ^ ^{a b c d e} Norman Davies. "Ethnic Diversity in Twentieth Century Poland." In: Herbert Arthur Strauss. Hostages of Modernization: Studies on Modern Antisemitism, 1870-1933/39. Walter de Gruyter, 1993.
9. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l m n} William W. Hagen. "The Moral Economy of Popular Violence The Pogrom in Lwow, November 1918." In: Robert Blobaum, Antisemitism and Its Opponents in Modern Poland, Cornell University Press, 2005, ISBN 0801489695, Print, p.127-129
10. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h i} David Engel. "Lwów, 1918: The Transmutation of a Symbol and its Legacy in the Holocaust." In: Joshua D. Zimmerman, Contested Memories: Poles and Jews During the Holocaust and Its Aftermath, Rutgers University Press, 2003, ISBN 0813531586, Google Print, p.33-34
11. ^ ^{a b c} Morgenthau, Henry (1922). "Appendix. Report of the Mission of the United States to Poland". All in a Life-time. Doubleday, Page and Company. Retrieved 2008-09-05.
12. ^ Ezra Mendelsohn. The Jews of East Central Europe Between the World Wars. Indiana University Press, 1983.
13. ^ Scott Ury. Who, What, When, Where, and Why Is Polish Jewry? Envisioning, Constructing, and Possessing Polish Jewry. Jewish Social Studies, Volume 6, Number 3, Spring/Summer 2000:205-228.
14. ^ Henry Morgenthau, French Strother. [All in a Life-time. Doubleday, Page and Company, 1922, p. 414. Original from the New York Public Library, digitized Jul 17, 2007>
15. ^ Joseph Bendow (Joseph Tenebaum). Der Lemberger Judenpogrom. Nov 1918-Jan 1919. (Vienna 1919).
16. ^ William W. Hagen. Murder in the East: German-Jewish Liberal Reactions to Anti-Jewish Violence in Poland and Other East European Lands, 1918–1920. Central European History, Volume 34, Number 1, 2001 , pp. 1-30. Page 8.
17. ^ Cited in: American Jewish Committee. The American Jewish Yearbook 5682. Original from the University of Michigan, Digitized Mar 3, 2005.
18. ^ ^{a b} Andrzej Kapiszewski (2004). Controversial Reports on the situation of Jews in Poland in the aftermath of World War I, Studia Judaica, pp.257-304
19. ^ "A Record of Pogroms in Poland". New York Times. June 1, 1919. Retrieved 2008-09-06.
20. ^ Jacob Goldstein, Abraham Cahan, Jewish Socialists in the United States: The Cahan Debate, 1925-1926, Sussex Academic Press, 1998, ISBN 1898723982, Google Print, p.11
21. ^ Little, John E. (1999). "Morgenthau, Henry". The United States in the First World War: An Encyclopedia. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 0815333536. OCLC 9780815333531. {{cite book}}: Check |oclc= value (help)
22. ^ Marcus, Jacob Rader (1989). United States Jewry, 1776-1985: The Sephardic Period. Wayne State University Press. p. 391. ISBN 0814321887. OCLC 9780814321881. Retrieved 2008-09-05. {{cite book}}: Check |oclc= value (help)

See also

• Pogroms in Ukraine
• Lviv pogroms