The Russian Prisoners of War in Nazi-ruled Ukraine as Victims of Genocidal Massacre

The "Russian" Prisoners of War in Nazi-Ruled Ukraine as Victims of Genocidal Massacre Karel C. Berkhoff

Netherlands Institute for War Documentation

Ukrainian and Russian primary sources enable us to integrate the civilian Soviet population into the story of the Wehrmacht's treatment of Soviet POWs during World War II. This article reveals a little-known phenomenon: the myriad attempts of bystanders—usually thwarted—to save the lives of the prisoners. Most importantly, it seems likely that in Ukraine prisoners' mass mortality could have been avoided. However, German policymakers and prison guards' desire to eliminate most Soviet POWs, based on the view that these were "Russians" and thus irreversibly "Bolshevized" or simply superfluous, resulted in a "genocidal massacre" that lasted until at least the end of 1942.

In the capital of the Third Reich Lev Dudin, former editor of Kiev's Germansponsored Russian-language newspaper, Posledme novostt (Latest News), often met with highly placed Germans. One day he heard from them that during the winter of 1941/1942, "about two million" Soviet prisoners of war had died in German captivity The Germans mentioned it "with complete calm, as if the topic was not human beings, but livestock " Their comment shows that the Soviet POVV mortality reported by the Wehrmacht Supreme Command in May 1944, a figure well known to the historical profession, was hardly a well-kept secret before then. Dudin added a general observation "Indeed most Germans, and certainly almost all party members, did look upon the Russians as livestock, undeserving of pity if a million of them died. This generally held attitude, and not the sadism and cruelty of some individuals, was the main reason for the millions of deaths."1 Wehrmacht callousness toward "Russians" is a central theme of this study of the Soviet POWs in German captivity during World War II- it accompanied and facilitated the shooting and starvation of millions of German-held Soviet POWs. But, as I will argue, that callousness in turn resulted to a large degree from racist orders by German policy-makers who thought of the multiethnic Soviet prisoners as "Russians," and who tried to eliminate most of these "Russians" in a chain of events that can be considered genocidal

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This contribution focuses on the part of Ukraine, mostly west of the Dnieper River, that fell under Nazi civilian rule after the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941- the territory of the Reichskommissanat Ukraine, created in September 1941 I used primary sources of various kino's, including published and unpublished diaries, memoirs, and interviews in German, Ukrainian, and Russian 2 The Slavic sources provide various political and ethical perspectives, ranging from Ukrainian or Russian nationalism to communism and humanism These little-known Slavic sources shed light on the brutal treatment of the Soviet POWs, and enable us to integrate the civilian Soviet population into the story, revealing a phenomenon hardly ever descnbed in German sources or in the existing historiography the myriad attempts by civilian bystanders to save the lives of the prisoners These attempts usually were thwarted, but they suggest, contrary to what some historians have assumed, that the mass mortality of these POWs probably could have been avoided1 Since the 1970s scholars such as Christian Streit, Alfred Streim, and Omer Bartov have thoroughly analyzed the German treatment of the Soviet POWs,4 but no allencompassing term for what happened to these POWs during the war has been adopted This is not surprising if scholars explain the mass mortality as resulting primarily from highly unfavorable circumstances. Among the factors that have been mentioned in this regard are the prisoners' large numbers; the fact that many were already exhausted and hungry when they fell into German hands; the bad conditions of the roads, and the unusual seventy of the winter of 1941/1942 For instance, Joachim Hoffmann has wntten that the cause of their mass starvation dunng that winter was "not so much ill will, as the technical inability to adequately feed and shelter millions of pnsoners who were often already totally emaciated.'"5 Most students have not dismissed evil intentions this easily, however Streit stressed Hitler's broader concept of a "war of extermination," and has called die Soviet POWs "victims of Nazi extermination policy" fi Nevertheless, readers of bus work still may gain the impression that most of the deaths were not intended More recently, Reinhard Otto's detailed study of the Soviet POWs deported to the Reich concludes that an unprecedented "state mass murder" was committed' In a discussion about the events of fall 1941, Chnstian Gerlach has spoken of "a conscious policy of murder" vis-a-vis the Soviet POW camps H I submit that the shootings of the Red Army commissars and other Soviet POWs, along with the starvation of millions more, constituted a single process. It was a process that started in the middle of 1941 and lasted until at least the end of 1942. I propose to call it a genocidal massacre. It was a massacre because it was "an instance of killing of a considerable number of human beings under circumstances of atrocity or cruelty."9 Although no full-blown genocide, this massacre was genocidal—"tending toward or producing genocide " l 0 The non-Jewish Soviet pnsoners of war, identified by their overseers as Russians, were subjected to acts that came close to the parame-

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ters of the United Nations' definition of genocide, of being intended to destroy many, if not all the members of a "national, ethnical, racial or religious group," in this case an imaginary community of "Russians "" From the Nazi perspective, most Slavs were racially inferior, but they could be useful.12 That was why POVVs identified as Ukrainian often were released, especially in 1941 As for "the Russian," however, many soldiers in the Wehrmacht evidently assumed that he had been irreversibly "infected" with Bolshevism, the vicious ideology and political part)' created by "Jewry." In this Nazified frame of mind, "Russians" were either superfluous or positively dangerous In short, racism was the motor behind the unmistakable tendency deliberately to destroy most of the "Russian" POVVs. An analysis of this land needs to pay close attention to the problem of nomenclature The captured Red Army soldiers (Russian, boitsy) and commanders (komandiry) were labeled "Bolsheviks" in German propaganda, with the connotation that they were zealous adherents of the communist ideology, and thus mortal enemies. But most members of the Wehrmacht, when writing or speaking, called them "Russian prisoners of war" or simply "Russians."11 Western historians often fail to employ the adjectival noun "Soviet," similarly calling them "Russians." That ethnic adjective imposes an identity upon the prisoners that would have sounded strange to many of them Russifying the prisoners in this way is no small matter. During the years 1941 and 1942, as this study will argue, the very imposition of a Russian identity upon the multiethnic multitudes of Soviet POWs was crucially important in shaping their fate. The local population of Ukraine was the most precise, however, in calling the Soviet POWs "Red Army soldiers" or simply "[our] prisoners " In this study the generic term "the prisoners of war" will generally be used, with the addition of an ethnic designator when necessary.

Capture The German armed forces found widespread defeatist attitudes in Ukraine, which explains in part why such huge numbers of Red Army soldiers and commanders (the word "officer" became official only in 1943) fell into their hands. German Army Group South counted 103,000 captured near Uman', south of Kiev (early August 1941); a staggering 6&5,OOO near Kiev (by 26 September), 100,000 by Melitopol' and Berdians'k near the Sea of Azov (by 10 October), and another 100,000 at Kerch in the Crimea (by 16 November) l4 By the time these men—and a considerable number of women—surrendered or were taken captive, they were hungry and under severe physical strain. Among the survivors of the Kiev encirclement were people who had aged heavily during the preceding months, some cned all the time."The prisoners quickly realized that things were going to be difficult. In the Right Bank (Ukraine west of the Dnieper) the German authorities forbade the local civilians to bury the bodies of fallen Red Army soldiers for weeks.1"

The "Russian" Prisoners of War in Nazi-Ruled Ukraine JS Victims of Cenocidal Massacre

The German army treated the captives ruthlessly. Regarding those who evaded the Germans, an operations order of 10 July 1941 stated that "soldiers in civilian clothes, generally recognizable by their short haircut, are to be shot if it is determined that they are Red Army soldiers (exception- deserters) " Commandos of the Security Police (SiPo) and the SD shot all fleeing soldiers they considered suspect, and even prisoners who had been released elsewhere but were not able to give details proving they were residents of the area in which they had been arrested or what they were doing there 1T Those Soviet military who were formally recognized as POWs were treated by the German army and the Security Police on the basis of various instructions One order on 6 June 1941 concerned the military commissars (Russ. sing voenmji komissar) in the Red Army, men who reported to the NKVD and in practice often issued orders The "Guidelines for the Treatment of Political Commissars," known as the "Commissar Order," stated that the commissars were to be shot Had this death verdict been limited to them, then—contrary to what some historians have assumed—it would have found support among the Red Army rank-and-file, for many, if not most commissars were hated.IK In practice, however, the Wehrmacht or the Security Police killed not only commissars, but also prisoners of many other categories, often at different times. One group were the Jewish soldiers and commanders, simply because they were Jews. Another category consisted of the "political leaders" (Russ sing politicheskii rukovoditel' or pohtnik). Like the commissars, these were Communist Party activists who shared command, but only within small units (companies, batteries, and squadrons). Although Communist Party members, often they were hardly strong believers Also killed, for some time at least, were non-Jewish commanders, simply because they held such positions Apparently this was because SiPo Einsatzgruppe C, which had orders (since the middle of July) to shoot mid-level Soviet officials, heard from one arrested official that all commanders above the rank of first lieutenant were communists.19 During the first months of the campaign, the SiPo also murdered many Muslims and "Asiatics" (the former because they were circumcised and thus mistaken for Jews) The "Asiatics" were shot as such, against the backdrop of a vicious propaganda campaign in the German press with photographs of "Asiatic, Mongol physiognomies from the POW camps", these were "truly subhumans," it was asserted ai The widespread shootings of these non-Slavs gradually ended after September 1941, when Nazi officials told the Security Police that not all should be killed Ominously, the Russians were conspicuously missing from the list of nationalities to which this warning applied (included were North Caucasians, Armenians, and the various Turkic peoples, as well as Ukrainians and Belorussians)2I Another set of instructions dealing with the POWs was the "Guidelines for the Conduct of the Army in Russia" of May 1941 and a supplement of 25 July 1941 These guidelines called for "utmost reserve and the sharpest attention" toward the Red Army soldiers and "ruthless and energetic drastic measures against Bolshevik rabble-

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rousers, irregulars, wreckers, and Jews, and the total elimination of any active and passive resistance " "Particularly the Asiatic soldiers of the Red Army," the ruling said, were "devious, unpredictable, eager to ambush, and callous " The supplemental instructions ordered ever)' German soldier to treat the POVVs in ways "that bear in mind the fierceness and the inhuman brutality of the Russian during battle. The feeling of pride and superiority must remain visible at all times . Where it is necessary to overcome insubordination, revolts, etc , armed force must be employed immediately Especially fugitive prisoners of war must be shot immediately, uathout even first calling a halt. Any delay in the use of arms can constitute a danger " Germans who considered treating "the Russian" as a human being were warned that "any leniency or even chatting" would be punished severely.22 Red Army veteran Leonid Volyns'kyi wrote about his own captivity under such people. Captured in Left-Bank Ukraine on 18 September 1941, he and others were beaten in the face and then were herded into a collective-farm yard in the village of Kovali This provisional camp quickly filled up and eventually held around ten thousand prisoners The next day a S1P0 commando arrived A uniformed interpreter ordered all commissars, "communists," and Jews to step forward This selection lasted for about an hour Then the interpreter announced that anyone giving up a remaining commissar, communist, or Jew could take his things Somebody denounced Volyns'kyi, who was a party member, but when the Ukrainian interpreter heard that he was not a commissar, he consulted with one of the Germans and sent him back. The prisoners who had been taken out, some four hundred people, were shot As Volyns'kyi put it They were taken away in groups of ten, past the trees There, the first ten men dug themselves a common grave (the required amount of shovels had been arranged), and a brief volley of automatics rang out The next ten were ordered to cover the grave with earth and to dig a new one Thus it went on till the end All died in silence, only one suddenly fell down with a heartrending cry He crawled across the ground to the legs of the soldiers [sic, S1P0] who were coming to get the next ten "Don't kill me, my mother is Ukrainian'" he screamed They booted him hard, kicked his teeth out, and dragged him away under his arms He fell silent, his bare feet dragging a On 6 May 1942, Hitler agreed to lift the Commissar Order "on a trial basis " But the Security Police never stopped shooting Red Army prisoners they disliked They simply refrained from doing so near the regular troops 24

The Death Marches After the initial shootings, the prisoners were marched westward via transit camps (sing. Dulag) toward the permanent camps (sing. Stalag). Volyns'kyi described the beginning of his group's trek- "Having finished what they were doing, the blackuniformed men handed us over to guards who wore ordinary gray-green uniforms. Four of them stood at the exit, firing shots and brandishing sticks Almost every per-

The "Russian" Prisoners of War in Nazi-Ruled Ukraine as Victims of Genocida] Massacre

son who went out received a blow on the back, head, or arms if he tried to cover himself."" These marches lasted a very long time. Those captured in the Kiev Encirclement walked in September and October 1941 for over four hundred kilometers under the supervision of guards on horseback who brandished whips and shot into the air.26 Although historians have mentioned the brutality that occurred during these transports, none has called them what they really were—death marches.27 With the benefit of hindsight and the Slavic sources, it is obvious that the POW marches were frightfully similar to the better-known death marches of Jews, particularly those that took place from the middle of 1944. Not only "fugitive" prisoners were shot In accordance with yet another order, by the commander of the Sixth Army, Walter von Reichenau, stragglers—prisoners too tired and emaciated to keep up—were shot on the spot M That was why the army was under orders not to register prisoner names before their arrival in the permanent camps *" German reports on the implementation of von Reichenau s shooting order convinced one historian that in the "East" tens of thousands were shot in these circumstances.30 Otherwise, however, these accounts are not very informative For instance, Reich Minister Alfred Rosenberg mentioned these shootings in a letter of protest to the Chief of the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces, Field Marshal Wdhelm Keitel (28 February 1942), but spoke simply of "many" such cases.11 However, we also have many Ukrainian eyewitness accounts For instance, Fedir Pihido has noted in his memoirs that some time in early December 1941 he saw a German escort shoot a prisoner near the Dnieper, simply "because he lagged about ten steps behind " This reliable author adds that "later, during my travels in the Kiev and Chernihiv regions, I often heard stones about mass shootings of prisoners on the march "12 The transports brought to mind the Soviet deportations of the early 1930s and the middle of 1941, but did not shock the citizens of the Soviet Union any the less for that. Shootings occurred not only during the marches, but also during pauses. Volyns'kyi's marches stretched about forty kilometers, interrupted with one or two tenminute stops during which the guards fed themselves and their horses. Then the order to continue would go out One had to get up quickly, in order not to incur a blow with a whip, boot, or nfle butt But many had no strength to get up, and after every stop there were those who continued to lie That was the easiest way to put an end to one's suffering. An exhausted person would lie sitting on the side, an escort would approach on his horse and lash with his whip The person would continue to sit, with his head down Then the escort would take a carbine from the saddle or a pistol from the holster ** The prisoners were exhausted from hunger and thirst The lack of food and dnnk was not due to their large number, however, but to army policy. The Wehrmacht simply refused to feed them properly and prevented die local population from giving them food and water. All that Volyns'kyi received during his march was a ladle of

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water)' lentil or pea soup daily "Along the roads stretched the abandoned autumn fields. When there was something to eat there, nothing could stop us The escorts skirted us on the left and right, beat us with sticks, opened fire—it was all in vain. Leaving behind those killed in the . trampled field, the column moved on, crunching on mangle-wurzel [fodder beets], carrots, or potatoes." Once a prisoner about eighteen years of age ran far into the field and came back with a pumpkin "He was running as fast as he could to the road when an escort shot him with a pistol . At the sight of water, the column simply lost its mind We were ready to dnnk from any dirty pool, but they did not allow us to dnnk, not even from a river " As if this were not enough, some Germans engaged in sadistic teasing. In one village that they passed through, a Wehrmacht unit was stationed Half-naked Germans were splashing each other with water from wells An officer in ironed breeches with lowered suspenders was standing in the shadow with his arms behind his back A soldier standing ne.\t to him had taken a bundle of concentrated buckwheat from an opened case, and was throwing the package m the air, like a ball It was our army concentrate, very tasty, soft-boiled, with fat and fned onions Whenever somebody leaped from the column to catch the packet, the officer whacked him with a stick **

The civilian population, mostly Ukrainian women and children, avidly tried to feed the prisoners The general belief was that if everybody did this, somehow one's own relatives would be saved. Moreover, the locals had food to spare because the Ukrainian harvest of 1941 was very good, particularly in the Right Bank.'15 But it was very risky for them to become involved "Sometimes, fearless old women brought rusks [sukhan] or bread to the road," writes Volyns'kyi "They were instantly knocked down and a scuffle would ensue The escorts became enraged and broke into the swarming heap with their horses " Such women might also be beaten, after which some would send their children forward to throw bread, potatoes, or groats.1" One memoir by a Ukrainian-American author says that some people in her village did not throw food, but "sticks and clumps of dirt " Such behavior was unusual, however, and even here others tried to help the prisoners 3T German onlookers occasionally tried to help as well, but they faced ostracism. A German soldier who witnessed a transport responded to the pleas for bread ("Khleba, khleba") and gave away a loaf The column guard "roared" at him ^ Under these conditions, pretexts for shootings were not uncommon. One Ukrainian woman, referring to the year 1941, remembered that when civilians started giving out food, the guards "shot both those who gave and those who took." Thereafter peasant women started leaving bread, potatoes, corn, cabbage, and beets on the road ^ (It is possible that by 1942, people who tried to help were treated less harshly.40) Feeding the prisoners while a convoy was at rest was hardly any easier, as the reliable diary of the Kievan Iryna Khoroshunova shows. While looking for a relative

The "Russian" Prisoners of War in Nazi-Ruled Ukraine as Victims of Genocidal Massacre

who had been in the Red Army, on or after 24 September 1941, east of the Dnieper, she came across some 35,000 POWs pausing on their way from Brovary to Darnytsia They are sitting They look so terrible that our blood turns cold It is very clear that they don't get food The women bring them food, but the Germans don't allow them to approach The women are crying There are heartbreaking scenes at every turn The women throw themselves toward the prisoners The prisoners throw themselves at the offered food like animals, they grab it and np it apart But the Germans beat them on the head with nfle-butts They beat them and the women too Some time later at this site, women who saw relatives and hurled themselves toward them were chased away and beaten. Nevertheless other German guards "allowed them to approach and even talk " Khoroshunova was able to give her relative the food The prisoners had not eaten for nine days, she was told 41 To this point events in the countryside have been described, but the same scenes took place in the middle of cities Marching POWs through cities was meant to intimidate the populace and to convince them that, as German radio announced on 3 October 1941, the Soviet Union had indeed been defeated. Early in October 1941, pnsoner marches through Kiev took place almost every day Gerhard Kegel, an official at the Foreign Office in Berlin, writes in his memoirs that on one of those days he waited in Kiev for two hours at a pontoon bridge—that was the time it took for just one convoy to march across Afterwards, "in the divided street, which had a green strip in the middle and along which the prisoners of war had been driven, lay dozens of dead Soviet soldiers. . . . The escorts shot with their submachine guns any pnsoner who displayed signs of physical weakness or wanted to answer the call of nature on the green stnp I saw for myself how the Nazi escorts approached them from behind, murdered them, and moved on without deigning another glance at the victims " This was happening all the time, the Slavist and army intelligence officer Hans Koch told him. At the Kommandantur, an officer told Kegel that this agency was responsible for collecting the bodies onto wagons Sometimes the Kommandantur found out about such transports only afterwards, in which case the bodies, "almost always dozens," remained in the streets for hours 42 In chanes, memoirs, and interviews Kievans have recorded this horror. Perhaps most chilling to them was the seeming calm with which the guards put the bullets to people's heads.43 As in the countryside, the guards sought to prevent the locals from helping. Over the course of one hour on 5 October 1941 thousands of pnsoners passed through the street in Kiev where Khoroshunova lived When women brought water and rusks, "the pnsoners hurled themselves toward them, knocked each other and the women over, npped the rusks from the latters' hands, and then scuffled over them. Everybody around was crying. But the German guards with their brutal faces beat the pnsoners with sticks and rubber batons. . . We stayed behind and six bodies

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remained "•" Other Kievans saw guards beat both prisoners and the city-dwellers who tried to feed them.*1' Hungarian convoy escorts would appear to have behaved much like their German comrades "Regarding the treatment of the prisoners there was no difference between the Germans and the Hungarians," a woman from Kiev recalls in a memoir. When a prisoner fell, they beat him with a nfle butt to get him up, and when he lacked the strength to do so, they shot him right there, on the spot Botli Germans and Magyars did this When women pedestrians tried to throw bread at the prisoners, the soldiers— German and Hungarian—hurled themselves with nfles ready-to-fire toward the women, who dispersed in all directions M

Romanian soldiers are not known to have shot their non-Jewish POVVs in Ukraine, but the latter did complain to the German army about not getting any food from the Romanians and being beaten by them 41 Helping prisoners and thus "causing unrest" earned nsk in other cities and towns as well In September 1941 a major "disorder" occurred in Vinnytsia Mayor Aleksandr Sevastianov announced in the newspaper that thousands of prisoners would pass through town He called on the population to feed them, because they had not eaten for days Immediately city-dwellers and villagers spread the word and prepared food When the designated day came, they were lined up for kilometers It was a hot day. Villagers came m carts, women brought pots and pans, and there were heaps of apples and bread When the prisoners saw the reception, they quickened their pace The guards stopped them, however, and tried to disperse the locals Then the prisoners broke through Upon an order from the convoy officer, shots rang out The civilians fled or tried to flee, but as a result of the shooting and squeezing, several of them died as well Some threw the food on the ground, but the guards trampled it When it was all over, the locals concluded that the mayor and the Germans had wanted to tnck them ** As in the countryside, children also tried to help in the cities Although few of them realized it, they were risking their lives When prisoners of war were herded along Zhytomyr's Khhbna Street on 14 October 1941, Mrs. M A Iakivs'ka sent her ten-year-old daughter Nina out with a piece of bread. A Soviet investigation later established that one of the guards killed her on the spot 49 Even weeks later, nothing about the transports had changed. In the city of Oleksandnia, word got out in November 1941 that prisoners would be passing through In spite of a cold rain, thousands of people went to look for relatives and friends and to feed them A man saw how "the entire path of this tragic procession was paved with the bodies of murdered and dead prisoners They were not removed Cars drove across them, crushing extremities and squeezing out intestines."50 Jewish prisoners of war were treated the worst of all Whereas other columns

The "Russian" Prisoners of War in Naa-Ruletl Ukraine as Victims of Genocida] Massacre

had ten to twenty guards, Jews were totally surrounded. Often they walked only in underwear, their clothes having been stolen by those who had "exposed" them as Jews An estimated three thousand Jewish POWs were marched toward Babi Yar (Ukr.. Babyn mr), a ravine on the western outskirts of Kiev, in late September and early October 1941. They were "killed if they ask[ed] for water or bread," as Khoroshunova observed.51 Equally memorable was a large group of sailors of the Dnieper flotilla who were moved to the same killing site. "It was already very cold, it was freezing, but they were chased in nothing but shorts and shirts," according to another woman's diary 'They were blue, their faces were bitter, but they were proud. Passersby expressed their sympathy and threw bread and potatoes at them, but some of them threw these aside saying, 'Feed your deliverers, the Germans ' Then they all sang the International "52 It is possible that after the German defeat at Stalingrad in early 1943, the shootings during the POW marches stopped or at least decreased. According to a Ukrainian witness, the Soviet POWs who walked through Vinnytsia in the middle of 1943 may have looked like "ghosts who barely resembled human beings," but though "the Germans tried to chase along those who fell if they saw that people were really exhausted and could not walk any further, they took them on the carts and drove them "53 Further research may reveal whether such behavior was part of a general trend The POW Camps The transit and permanent camps usually consisted of unheated wooden sheds in an open space surrounded by barbed wire. The number of camps and of camp inmates in Ukraine can only be estimated In the first months of the military campaign, POW camps in the Reichskommissanat Ukraine (then sbll without die Left Bank) probably held around 250,000 people, often penned up like animals By April 1943, the Reichskommissanat contained, besides smaller camps, at least twenty permanent camps, all but three west of the Dnieper 54 The treatment of the inmates was based in large part on September 8, 1941 secret orders of the Wehnnacht Supreme Command that said, among other things, that the camp guards were liable for punishment if they did not use their weapons, or did not use them enough. As Field Marshal Keitel told army intelligence officers who raised objections, at issue was "the destruction of a Weltanschauung." Camp guards, most of them reservists—men who had been trained dunng or even before World War I—seem to have complied " There was also a camp police (Lagerpolizei) consisting of prisoners armed with clubs and whips.w Besides POWs the camps also included civilians—or to be more precise, males in civilian clothes In the Zhytomyr camp, for example, an inmate saw many civilian "old men and teenagers."57 The Jews again were singled out, as the Security Police came to visit and took them out for shooting With few exceptions, the military au-

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thorihes cooperated and participated Various techniques were used to identify the Jews, including "medical" checks for circumcision is A core principle behind the guidelines for the POW camps was that feeding those inside amounted to stealing from the German people (In this regard, the camps were treated like the major "Russian" cities.) Any feeding had to be specifically reported, and ordinary German soldiers were frequently warned not to give the prisoners more than the minimal rations. On 16 September 1941, Reich Minister of the Economy Hermann Goring prescribed that the "Bolshevik" prisoners' "productivity" should determine their upkeep, the result was a further reduction of rations. By and large only individual lower-ranked men and officers attempted to alleviate the situation Under such conditions, mass starvation started at once and continued for months.'9 Streit has argued that up to then, those responsible for the starvation had underestimated the threat of famine, perhaps out of a prejudice that the "primitive Russian" would take longer to die than more "civilized" people. Such unawareness of the situation on the ground would explain why German policy changed somewhat on 31 October and on 7 November, Field Marshall Keitel and Gonng each ordered that the food made available should suffice to enable prisoners to work."0 The evidence provided below, however, suggests that all along, German policy-makers had wanted to see most of the prisoners die, and that from November, they continued to deliberately starve the numerous POVVs who could not work. It is true that the German military were faced with a difficult situation and were surprised to find Red Army units that had no field kitchens.61 But far more decisive was the view that prevailed at the top. at a meeting on 13 November 1941, some officers discussed ways of providing the non-working POW camp inmates with at least some food, but Quartermaster General Eduard Wagner interjected bluntly that those prisoners "should starve "62 One week later, Fntz von Manstein, commander of the Eleventh Army, banned the "release" of food to any prisoners or city-dwellers "as long as they are not in the service of the German Armed Forces " Such food provision would be "wrongheaded humanity."'" In a February 1942 letter to Keitel, Rosenberg worried about the prevalence of the attitude among German leaders that "the more prisoners who die, the better off we are " w In this regard, the behavior of the local population is particularly revealing The conduct of civilians shows that there was plenty of food available for the POW camps. Unless the Red Cross (discussed in some detail below) was involved, however, almost invariably this food was rejected or confiscated by camp guards and the police. In July 1941, a delegation of Ukrainian women asked the commander of the POW camp in Zhytomyr to allow them to feed the inmates. As the Ukrainian who interpreted recalls, the man responded that this was impossible, for "I have to follow strict directives. The Fiihrer has decided to exterminate Bolshevism, including the people spoiled by it." The Austrian commander, "visibly shaken," murmured "may God save

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you from the worst."55 Likewise, when in August 1941 the population of a village south of Kremenchuk brought food to the local camp, the Germans in charge rarely gave permission for its delivery.66 Rosenberg complained about the obstruction of attempts to save lives He had seen reports showing that civilians wanted to feed the prisoners, and wrote to Keitel, "Some reasonable camp commandants have indeed allowed this with success In most cases, however, the camp commandants have forbidden the civilian population to provide the prisoners of war with food and have preferred to let them starve to death "67 Rosenbergs letter did not mention another phenomenon—that the camp guards fired shots at the civilians. For example, in the western Volhynian town of Rivne, plenty of food supplies had remained intact after die Red Army's retreat But peasant women who brought it to the local camps were shot at by the guards and had to flee.6h The Darnytsia Camp in the woods near Kiev was surrounded by fields of potatoes and beets that could have been provided to the POWs They were not, however, and the camp guards stole all or almost all the food donations When, as a last resort, the women started trying to throw potatoes, carrots, and moldy bread over the fence the guards shot at them.69 Ukrainian women approached the fence of the transit camp in a village some fifty kilometers from Bila Tserkva in order to pass bread through the wire but "a German who saw that started shooting," a memoirist notes "The prisoners threw themselves at him and took his weapon," this unconfirmed account continues, after which, "by way of punishment, the German authorities quickly assembled the prisoners in the square in front of the barracks and shot every tenth one "7" In 1942 camp commandants apparently allowed food that civilians brought to be passed on. But then the badly supervised camp police, who controlled most of the turf, kept almost all of it For example, the Vinnytsia camp was largely run by some two hundred policemen, Ukrainians, Russians, Uzbeks, and Kazakhs, hardly ever older than twenty-five Keeping all food donations for themselves, these men never went hungry71 The camps had written and unwritten rules Guards and policemen in the rather typical camp at Zhytomyr imposed beatings every day, citing such pretexts as prisoners relieving themselves beyond the utterly inadequate toilets. When these beatings failed to produce line-ups at the toilets, transgressors were threatened with the death penalty The official daily ration was millet (un-ground), while on Sundays boiled horsemeat was provided. Only the most aggressive or lucky prisoners actually got the food, however, as an inmate who escaped wrote in 1941: Food ts given out in the evening We stand in line, but instead of leading us into the kitchen m an organized fashion, they shout, "To the canteenl" "Run'" The hungry people rush to the kitchen, where there are several dirt)' barrels with a millet slop Everybody knows that there is not enough food and tries to get at it first Jostling starts Now the "order supervisors" [camp policemen] appear and start up . a line using sticks, rods,

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rubber truncheons—anything they can beat you with The usual results are head injuries, nearly broken arms, or the murder of an emaciated and weak prisoner The beatings go on for hours Meanwhile, half of the prisoners no longer want to eat. . The)' he down on the damp ground—for there are not enough sheds for all—and sleep until 5 am

Each day started when a furious whistling, shouting, and barking resounded over the terrain 'This is the reveille The hungry, tired, and still sleepy pnsoners slowly start to get up. They are encouraged again by sticks, rubber truncheons, and rods Moreover, some Germans chase the prisoners into formation by setting German shep7 herds upon them " - The situation was equally bad in the Left Bank In the transit camp at Khorol "almost every day [in 1941], and sometimes several times a day, the camp commandant came to watch the food being distributed. He would spur his horse and cut into the line. Many people were killed under the hooves of his horse."71 Not all the sadism centered on food and feeding The Khorol camp occupied the premises of a former brick factor)'. Once when it was raining hard, a German shot with an automatic pistol at anyone who tried to shelter under the overhangs.74 In the POW camp in Poltava, imprisoned doctors told visiting Red Cross workers that one guard enjoyed setting his dog on weak pnsoners and seeing them torn to death, and that another practiced nfle shooting on them.75 The camp police also were cruel and sadistic, even more brutal than the guards, according to some memoirs.7" The scale of the starvation is difficult to calculate. The commander of the armed forces stationed in the Reichskommissanat Ukraine, Lieutenant General Karl Kitzinger, estimated in December 1941 that in his domain, about 2,500 POWs were dying from hunger every day Contemporary German figures for POW mortality in the Reichskommissariat dunng that month (then still without the Left Bank) differ substantially from the monthly total of 75,000 that Kitzinger's estimate would suggest, and ranged from 33,713, or about fifteen percent, to as high as 134,000, or about forty-six percent of the inmates.77 In the overcrowded Stalag on the outskirts of Kremenchuk, where inmates received at most two hundred grams of bread per day, bodies were thrown into a pit every morning dunng the fall of 1941. Sometimes still living people were discarded this way.78 Every morning in early 1942, carts loaded with corpses were dnven out of the camps in Bila Tserkva and Kirovohrad The inmates of these camps worked from dawn till dusk but received nothing other than a thin "balanda" (flour soup) ^ Khorol was a particularly notonous death trap Kievans shuddered at the thought of the forest camp that they called Babi Yar, near the ravine and murder site of the same name. (It was officially called Syrete'.y*1 The desperate prisoners, also tormented by lice, ate anything they could In one of Rivnes camps, a German noticed on 7 September 1941 how a tree was stripped virtually bare "On the top, two prisoners try to reach the last remaining bark, in order to alleviate their hunger," he wrote in his diary."' Cannibalism made its inevitable appearance A representative of the German steel industry reported in

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October 1941 from the Kryvyi Rih and Dnipropetrovs'k regions that one night he saw how prisoners in a transit camp "roasted and ate their own comrades "82 In the camp in Shepetivka, and probably elsewhere, more aggressive pnsoners overpowered enfeebled ones in order to kill them and eat them.53 Before hunger brought on insanity, victims had time to ponder their fate Anger against "them"—the commissars, the NKVD, and the Communists—competed with frustration and regret at having allowed oneself to be taken alive. There was also anger at the Germans, the camp police, and at the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN). In October 1941, most of the prisoners of Stalag 365 in VolodymyrVolyns'kyi were Dnieper Ukrainian Red Army commanders One of them managed to ask a local about the Ukrainian state that had been declared by the Bandera faction of the OUN in July 1941 Nobody was talking about it anymore, the local responded. The prisoners had heard about it while still in the Red Army, they said. Now they were sure that it had been a German trick to get them to surrender and then starve them to death. "Now we curse this proclamation, which led us into this captivity We are dying like flies in the fall "IU News of the horrible treatment of the POVVs passed through the front very quickly, by word of mouth and through active propaganda—such as escaped pnsoners who were displayed, emaciated, to the Red Army The civilian population of Ukraine was convinced that this increased the Red Army's fighting spirit, and they were right "* Unless they got out through release or escape, the pnsoners' only chance for survival was to be selected for some kind of daytime work outside the camps For this, usually a watch or other bnbe had to be paid to the native police It was worth it, for many civilians tned to feed and otherwise help the prisoners they came across outside the camp For instance, when the pnsoners of war went outside the camp in Kremenchuk, "the local population always threw food at them," a fonner inmate recalls. "When going out to work, the prisoners even left their bags behind Upon their return, they would find food in them, and nobody touched the bags, not even the most desperate rascals "m There seemed to be almost no limit to the tasks to which the pnsoners were apphed. Initially, many cleared mines, some fifteen thousand were employed this way at the airport in Boryspil' east of Kiev Other tasks included loading flour, cutting wood, harvesting crops, digging ditches, working in quarries or mines, carrying luggage at train stations, and cleaning horses, cars, or apartments. They dug and covered mass graves for murdered Jews "7 The guards often beat them. At a bridge construction site in Kiev in early 1942 prisoners of war were "beaten terribly," a civilian who also worked there told a fnend. "They are collapsing from exhaustion, hunger, and cold If a poor soul staggers under the weight of the load on his back, he immediately gets a hit with a rubber truncheon. They don't care where they beat him. Our pnsoners sometimes even get meat, but it's dog's meat, and that [only] after they have managed to shoot a stray dog."hs On 8 October 1942, this friend, L. Nartova, saw POW laborers herself

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They had been taken to Korolenko Street, the Gestapo, to load peat They had to carry it in baskets from the street into the yard Next to the peat are standing politsai [the popular term for the native police] with nfles, and Germans with sticks When the wretched men return with empty baskets, or [enter with] not entirely full ones, the scoundrels beat them with the sticks and force them not to walk, but to run It is a terrible sight Many people stood still with tears in their eyes The politsai with the nfles chased them away, while the German beasts continued their shameless outrages And this was happening in the city center, for all to see *

Fieldwork provided the best chance to meet locals Many peasant girls married and thus saved these men; given the prevailing shortage of eligible bachelors, they attached little importance to their nationality90 Conditions in the camps and places of work were such that many prisoners sustained injuries that precluded their further exploitation—and thus their further usefulness to the German authorities Many were already disabled when taken captive Where possible, the Red Cross accepted such disabled POWs at its hospitals; but no later than the fall of 1942, and probably earlier, it became standard Nazi procedure to shoot them The origin of this policy remains obscure, but on 22 September 1942 Keitel is known to have secretly ordered that "Soviet prisoners of war who would have been released under the previous regulations because they are unable to work," be handed over to the Gentian police, who would "arrange forwarding or employment " In reality "forwarding" meant that virtually all the disabled POWs would be murdered.91 An example illustrates what this meant in practice Beginning in October 1942, many prisoners unable to work were removed from Stalag 358 in Berdychiv and shot. The turn of the last group came on 24 December. In the morning, SiPo men forced eight prisoners from the police prison to dig a pit near the village of Khazhyn, several kilometers down the road to Bila Tserkva. In the afternoon, about seventy POWs were taken there by motor vehicle. Only four Germans were at the site First came eighteen men missing legs. Following the standard procedure, they were made to lie on top of those killed before them, and then were shot in the back of the head. What followed was unusual, because many prisoners escaped in the second group were twenty-eight men with only slight disabilities. These were taken out of the vehicle in pairs After three of them had been shot, the others grabbed a gun from one of the two German guards nearby, shot them both, and ran off Two were shot on the run, but twenty-two got away Local peasants did not give them up By way of repnsal, the gendarmerie "checked" the political past of all previously released prisoners in the neighborhood and shot at least twenty "activists and Communist Party members."92

Rescue and Resistance Efforts The issue of the disabled prisoners brings to the fore that of releases and escapes. Many POWs were released, especially during the first months of the war, and, from September 1941, release specifically of Ukrainians was sanctioned at the highest level.

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On 8 September the German Supreme Command ordered that Ukrainian, Belorussian, and Baltic prisoners of war were eligible for immediate release, and on 29 September, Hitler personally spoke out in favor of large-scale releases of Ukrainians Russians were deliberately omitted from these orders. But several weeks later (on 7 November), Reich Minister Goring told a conference of officials that Hitler had ordered an end to the release of Ukrainians, though without giving Hitlers reasons, which remain unknown M This did not put a complete end to the releases, however, and five weeks later, Reichskommissar Erich Koch complained that his district commissars (Gebietekomnussare) frequently issued letters to camp commanders requesting the release of named prisoners He reminded his subordinates that "the release of prisoners of war is presently forbidden "B4 Even then, some releases continued to take place, particularly in the Left Bank, which remained under military rule until September 1942. Both random and organized releases took place Initially, in western Volhynia, the Right Bank, and the Left Bank, random releases occurred on a very large scale In the Zhytomyr camp, long-tenn inmates told a newcomer in late August 1941 that the first releases had occurred after such curt announcements as: "Zhytomyr Region, Cherniakhiv District: get out" People from these places received passes and were not asked any questions "* Numerous sources state that in the Right Bank, at first a prisoner merely had to call himself "Ukrainian," or that it sufficed when a local woman called him her husband, brother, father, or son "" After this bnef random stage, the camp authorities started demanding that local native authorities—a raion (district) chief or at least a village elder (starosta)—submit a statement vouching for the prisoner's reliability Probably one reason for the tightening of control was that some of those released had taken up partisan activity, or made an effort to cross the front line and therefore seemed to be partisans.97 If a prisoner's village of origin was nearby, its elder might be called in to select the men he wanted and take them with him, after signing for their loyalty. Elders also visited camps to "recognize" locals on their own initiative Prisoners from more distant raions might be taken to villages under guard and shown to the elder "" The main way for prisoners to contact their relatives was the "people's mail " Women avidly collected notes from POWs they came across and passed them on to the addressees This was how Iryna Khoroshunova received a note from her relative, and she distributed eighteen such notes herself in Kiev on 27 and 28 September 1941. "Wherever we went with the notes, other people had preceded us [with information] about the prisoners," she discovered. "Now all were united in surprising solidarity Everybody felt exactly the same—we must tell and we must help " " There were also organized, semi-official paths to release. One option was to join recruitment drives for the native police. Many activists of the OUN (Mel'nyk faction) were involved in these campaigns, particularly in the camp in Zhytomyr, where Ukrainians were invited to join what was supposed to become a "Ukrainian

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national militia."lno Another category of former POWs were the Free Cossacks (Vil'ne kozatstvo or Vil'ni kozaky), semi-official units that fought partisans and performed guard duties.101 The most common organized ticket to release from the camps was recruitment by the German army as a HilfsiviUiger (Hhvi)—a "voluntary helper " Because Hitler hated the notion of "Russians" in army service, these Hiwis remained an open secret, without official duties or rights, until as late as October 1942. They performed tasks ranging from carrying ammunition, blacking boots, and cooking, to driving trucks, caring for the wounded, and interpreting (Only a small percentage consisted of "real" volunteers, people who had not been prisoners ) The number of Hiwis in the Reichskommissanat Ukraine is unknown, but in the entire "East" there were by the spring of 1942 perhaps 200,000, a year later about 310,000, and thereafter an unknown but even larger number ua Until early 1942, unofficial Ukrainian Red Cross societies functioned, and they played an important role in the releases The Red Cross in Kiev sent out pairs of young women to establish the location of the camps and to compile lists of inmates These emissaries, who wore arm bands and traveled by train, also questioned the pnsoners about their treatment. As a result, by December 1941, this Red Cross office had fort)' thousand names at its disposal, and by February 1942, about sixty thousand The names were posted outside the building "" The organization also answered requests from relatives for the location of pnsoners By January 1942, one pnsoner search cost fifty rubles.104 If the Red Cross received a statement signed by a group of people vouching that a particular pnsoner of war had not been a member of the Communist Part)' or an NKVD informant, it tried to get the person released, presumably also for a fee The Kiev Red Cross ran a canteen at the city administration and a twenty-four-hour shelter where released prisoners could delouse, eat, and sleep A subsection organized fund-raising concerts two or three times per week for German soldiers "" Last but not least, the organization delivered food to the camps It had large amounts of food at its disposal, all—apparently—gifts from peasants solicited by its emissaries The German authonhes quickly developed a dislike of the Kiev Red Cross. Its chief, Fedir Bohatyrchuk, was convinced this was because of the successful food dnves. Late in 1941, he wntes in his memoirs, the camp authorities started to obstruct the Red Cross and "sometimes" to confiscate its food deliveries l0fi Then he asked the mayor of Kiev, Volodymyr Bahazn, for help Many people, he wrote, had asked the Red Cross to do something about the treatment of "the Ukrainian POWs " He asked Bahaai to demand from the Germans improved conditions, bans on random execution and theft of clothes; a transfer of all emaciated pnsoners to hospitals; Red Cross access to all pnsoners; a list of POW camps in Ukraine, and an order to the raion authorities to collect items for the pnsoners. Unfortunately we do not know how the mayor responded, although there is evidence that the city administration tried to get pnsoners released on its own lnT

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Desperate to obtain a change in German policy, Red Cross activists visited highly placed German military figures in late December 1941. Bohatyrchuk's memoirs describe a visit to the head of the camp administration in Rivne, an old general not identified by name He showed Bohatyrchuk orders to starve the prisoners, but claimed to be defying them He even "promised to issue (which he did) an order to the camps regarding obstruction-free supply to our plenipotentiaries of any needed information, and banned the confiscation of parcels."los The memoirs of one of Bohatyrchuk's associates, Liudmyla Ivchenko suggest that this German, Major General Josef Feichtmeier, was the commander of all POWs in Ukraine According to this source, the commander promised to allow disabled and sick POWs to be released, allowed the Red Cross to mediate in the delivery of food and clothes by civilians, and ordered "Ukrainians" in each camp to be separated from the other prisoners."" The Red Cross did indeed distribute clodies, underwear, and medicines,"0 but altogether, its appeals to the authorities had little enough effect. In a sense, it was already too late, notes Ivchenko By the end of 1941 the impact of the Red Cross was bound to be limited because of the cold. "During every transport of prisoners from Darnytsia or Kiev to Zhytomyr, the URC and women came to the train station with warm food, tea, and all the warm blankets they could find. But half of the prisoners had frozen to death in the unheated box cars (teplushhj). They were thrown out and piled up like firewood "'" In February 1942, the Security Police disallowed any involvement with POWs The experience of the Ukrainian Red Cross in the Left Bank town of Poltava shows that more aid was possible in some regions, apparently because these were not yet part of the Reichskommissanat The German military authorities in the region publicly declared that they could not deal with the large number of prisoners, because they had their own soldiers to worry about Then Poltava's mayor appointed a woman to found and lead a Red Cross organization, which he, like many males, considered women's work. The person he chose was Halyna Ivanivna Viun, an energetic woman who got along well with both factions of the OUN Early in November 1941, she set up the Ukrainian Red Cross of the Poltava Region, which, unlike the Red Cross in Kiev, received official status. It had two departments, one to aid prisoners of war and the other to aid victims of Soviet persecution. Like their Kievan colleagues, the Poltavan activists visited camps and posted lists of names."2 Having concluded that the POWs were deliberately being starved to death, Viun and her associates issued calls for food donations. The German regional Kommandant, one Brodowsky, allowed them to repair a school and use it as a medical ward, which proved valuable even though it was little more than a heated place where food was available. In addition, Galician Ukrainians who worked for this Kominandant secured permission to collect food in the countryside. Because the town of Poltava was going hungry itself, it was easy to find one hundred volunteers for the trips Peasants also brought food on their own initiative In contrast to civilian-ruled Kiev,

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none of these food transports was barred With the aid of imprisoned doctors, the Red Cross activists tried hard to ensure that the food reached the prisoners, and the daily mortality in the nearby camps is said to have dropped sharply as a result, from the initial hundreds to "twenty-two." m In the winter of 1941-42 the Poltavan Red Cross was able to secure releases of Ukrainian prisoners who were disabled or sick and also had local relatives Some healthy prisoners who were Ukrainian and who were considered—in Viun's words— "valuable and worth saving" were also released POVVs with a higher education were not supposed to be released, even if Ukrainian, but the two German doctors involved with the POVVs ignored the rule (one in exchange for vodka, the other simply because he wanted to save lives)."4 The November 1941 ban on releases merely inaugurated a semi-secret buyout The Red Cross "could inform interested families," V"iun recalls, and "rather many of them, especially peasants who had homemade lambskin coats, were able to buy off their sons, brothers, fathers, etc from German captivity The Germans asked one lambskin for each prisoner"" 5 Local OUN activists were arrested in the late spnng of 1942, but the Red Cross continued to function, thanks in large measure to two sympathizing German intelligence officers, one of whom was the already mentioned Slavist, Hans Koch. Maintaining this relationship was a remarkable achievement, for potentially compromising OUN members had used the homes of Red Cross leaders to assemble and had traveled all over Ukraine with Red Cross papers Moreover, what the Red Cross workers called Little Russians (Russophile Ukrainians) and communist agents supposedly hated the organization "simply because it was Ukrainian," and often complained about it to the authorities Only on 1 August 1942, one month before the official introduction of civilian rule in the Poltava region, was the organization demoted to an ineffectual city "Social Aid Department"" 6 I have cited just two examples of regional Red Cross organizations, it is worth mentioning in passing, however, that there were others as well '1T A key question in any future study of these aid workers should be their stance toward those identified as Russians. Officially, no Red Cross official anywhere in Ukraine was allowed to help anybody identified as such, but the sources that have been found to date do not fully clarify the Red Cross's actual stand on the issue. V"iun claims to have disobeyed die Kommandant's demand that she help only "Ukrainian" camp inmates. Her memoir, however, mentions only Ukrainians among the recipients of aid, and the same German official later accused her of helping Ukrainians only."8 At the present stage of research, it does appear that "Russians" and other nonUkrainians could not expect Red Cross assistance unless their nationality could be concealed. Flight was the only other means of escape. According to Alfred Streim, an investigator of Nazi war crimes, flight attempts by Soviet POWs were a daily event in the "East "IIH At first, most occurred during the marches, especially at night. Some soldiers planned well ahead, as one of them observed in the Left Bank in 1942.

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To my surprise, many had stocked up on civilian clothes [Once] a prisoner who walked at the front without h;Jting took a duffel bag from his shoulders and took out a shirt Looking around, he started to change clothes Last came a cap All the military things he gave to his neighbors At the next stop, near a well in a village, the Gentian guard saw the civilian person among the military and immediately chased away the fellow When we moved on, this man followed us along the street for a long time '*"

Prisoners also attempted to escape from camps and work sites For example thirty inmates of the Volodymyr-Volyns'kyi Camp were working at the cemetery in June 1942 when they killed a guard, tied up the others, and fled Four covered for them with grenades and nfles. Still, sixteen were caught and shot. Three hundred unmvolved prisoners were shot as well, to avenge the escape m Camp inmates also dug tunnels, but those saved few lives.122 Many of the escapes were facilitated by outsiders. In the summer of 1942 more than 200 Darnytsia camp inmates managed to flee from the railway car repair factory and were assisted by civilian workers who gave them food and documents (Again, uninvolved remaining camp inmates likely received the death penalty )123 In the camp in the Podohaii town of Slavuta, the hospital director somehow helped a number of prisoners to get out and join the partisans, and apparently tried to kill native policemen who could not be bribed He and fourteen fellow-conspirators were eventually arrested and undoubtedly shot.124 Unfortunately, the extent to which the two political orientations claiming to represent the population—the OUN and the Communist Part)'—were committed to rescuing prisoners still awaits senous research An issue that may gain particular attention in Ukraine is whether the general population did "enough" to save the prisoners Halyna Viun has stated that when she created the regional Red Cross, the population of Poltava for some time was in the grip of a "bizarre passivity" in the face of the starvation of the prisoners. But then she found many active helpers.'" The same pattern—passivity followed by frantic efforts to save lives—possibly prevailed elsewhere In any case it should be kept in mind that, as in the case of helping Jews or saboteurs, helping POWs escape, or even failing to report them, led to the death penalty or at the very least imprisonment. Threats to this effect were often announced, as on June 1942 in a joint statement by Reichskommissar Koch and Lieutenant General Kitzmger.12" Whether they escaped, were released, or had never been imprisoned at all, former Red Army soldiers lived in the countryside in large numbers, particularly in the Right Bank, even as late as 1943 They worked as peasants or artisans, and sometimes started families—or rather, joined them, women with children and older couples whose husbands and sons had been drafted. Nobody thought badly of such women, for, after all, there was a war going on. Among the newcomers were Ukrainians from east of the Dnieper, Siberians, other Russians, and people from the Caucasus, but all were given notes by the village elders identifying them as locals l27 Their credenbals were eventually checked, though, in 1942 at the latest The Ortskommandantur

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would order the raion chief to supply data about "the pnsoners of war" or "the former Russian soldiers," such as the day of their arrival and whether or not they had been Communist Part)' members 12S The "localized" former Red Army men remained outsiders to some degree, and easy targets for denunciation Moreover, the German authorities occasionally re-arrested them, although how often this happened remains unclearI2B For all these reasons, when early in 1942 a campaign started to get people to work in Germany, they were among the first to leave, often as volunteers Conclusion French, British, American, and Canadian military men in German captivity, even if they were of Jewish descent, were very likely to survive World War II "° But the Eastern-European theater of the war was brutal everywhere On the German-led side, the behavior of military units made up of Hungarians, Italians, Romanians, Slovaks, and others still must be studied in detail, most especially from sources in the languages of these nationalities It already seems clear, however, that many of these non-Germans approached the level of callousness and cruelty toward their Soviet POWs that so many Wehrmacht officials and soldiers displayed The conditions of the German POWs immediately after capture and during their transport eastward have been little studied, but seem to have been horrific. Killings of these pnsoners were widespread.111 Nevertheless, this should not obscure what happened to the German-held "Russian" POWs. Those pnsoners, mistreated and killed by the millions, were not simply casualties of "war." The topic of the "Russian" POWs in Soviet territory is clearly in need of more research n 2 The evidence presented here, however, discredits still further the argument diat situational factors were the main cause of the Soviet POWs' suffenng and death It is likely that in the territory under study here, their captors could have prevented the mass pnsoner mortality. The prisoner transports actually were death marches The Ukrainian harvest of 1941 was excellent. As a result, the Gennan authonties and the native population had plenty of food to spare, the latter tned hard to pass some of it on Had those civilians not been obstructed so much, and had the escorts and camp guards behaved in a more humane fashion, hundreds of thousands of lives could and would have been saved Chnstian Streit was the first histonan to point out that when the Gennan authonties decided to employ the Soviet pnsoners as laborers in the Reich, this had no apparent impact on their treatment Even though the pnsoners were now supposed to survive, they continued to suffer senous abuse, despite repeated official appeals to moderate their treatment. m It would nevertheless be incorrect to conclude from this case study that the starvation, abuse, and shooting of the "Russian" POWs can be explained solely in tenns of racism As Omer Bartov has argued, not only was the Wehrmacht cruel because it was bombarded with racist justifications for cruelty, but the very day-to-day experience of total war bmtahzed its soldiers Future studies will

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perhaps reveal in detail how both the Germans in charge of the Soviet POWs and those POWs who became camp policemen underwent the same moral degeneration as the German and native (Ukrainian or other) policemen who implemented the Shoah.1'14 Once tliese lower-level perpetrators had grown callous, their violence against the prisoners gained momentum In this way, racism and hard-heartedness reinforced each other and produced a "genocidal massacre," in the sense of the deliberate killing of so many human beings of one "race" as to tend toward genocide But this study has argued that it was a racist notion of the vaguely defined "Russians" that made it possible to embark on their abuse and murder in the first place.

Acknowledgments Thanks to Paul Robert Magocsi, Dieter Pohl, Johannes Houwink ten Cate, and the anonymous referees for their comments on earlier versions of this study. The research was supported by grants from the Department of History, the Travel Grant Fund of the School of Graduate Studies, and the Centre for Russian and East European Studies at the University of Toronto, and by the Government of Ontario

Notes 1 Unfortunately Dudin's memoir does not identify these German conversation partners by name or rank [Lev Vladimirovich] Dudin, "Velikii Mirazli Sobytiia 1941-1947 godov v poniinami sovestskogo cheloveka," 1947, Archives of the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, B I Nicolaevsky Collection, Series no 178, box 232, folder 10, fols 168-169 I thank Amir Weiner for bringing this source to my attention 2 For details about primary sources, see Karel C Berkhoff, "Ukraine under Nazi Rule (19411944)- Sources and Finding A\ds," Jahrbuclierfur Gcschichte Osteurxrpas 45 1 (1997), pp 8 5 103, and 45 2 (1997), pp. 27.3-309 3 According to Christian Streit, unusual mortality {erne erlwhte Sterblichkeit) was inevitable among the POWs captured near Kiev, Viaz'ma, and Bnansk Die Wehniiacht und die sowjetischen Knegsgefangenen 1941-1945 (Stuttgart Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1978), pp 137 and 189 Likewise, according to S P. MacKenzie, "a significant number of prisoners probably could not have been saved with the ljest will in the world," see his T h e Treatment of Prisoners of War m World War U," Journal of Modern History 66 3 (1994), p .507 4 On the historiography, see Jorg Osterloh, Soivjettsche Knegsgefangene 1941-1945 im Spiegel nationaler und internationaler Untenuchiingen Forschungsuberblick und Bibliographie (Dresden- Hannah-Arendt-lnstitut fur Totahtansniusforschung, 1995), and Christian Streit, "Sowjetische Knegsgefangene in deutscher Hand. Em Forschungsuberblick" in Klaus-Dieter Muller, et al, eds, Die Trngodte der Gefangenschafi in DeuLschland und in der Sowjetunwn 1941-1956 (Cologne Bohlau, 1998), pp 281-90 5 Joachim Hoffmann, Stalins Vernichtungskneg 1941-1945 (Munich Verlag fur Wehrwissenschaften, 1995), p 89 6 Christian Streit, "The German Army and the Politics of Genocide" in Gerhard Hirschfeld, ed , Jetus and Soviet Prisoners of War in Nazi Germany (London- Allen & Unwin, 1986), pp

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1-14, Streit, T h e Fate of the Soviet Prisoners of War" in Michael Berenbaum, ed , A Mosaic of Victims Non-Jews Persecuted and Murdered by the Nazis (London I B Tauns, 1990), pp 142^19; Streit, "Soviet Prisoners of War" in Israel Gutnian, ed , Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, vol 3 (New York: Macmillan, 1990), pp. 1192-95 7 Reinhard Otto, Wehnnacht, Gestapo und sowjetisclie Knegsgefangene im deutschen Reichsgebiet 1941/42 (Munich R Oldenbourg, 1998) 8 Christian Gerlach, "Die Ausweitung der deutschen Massenmorde in den besetzten sowjetischen Gebieten im Herbst 1941 Uberlegungen zur Vernichtungspohtik gegen Juden und sowjehsche Knegsgefangene" in his Kneg, Ernahrung, Volkennord Forschungen zur deutschen Vernichtungspohtik im Ziueiten Weltkneg (Hamburg: Hamburger Edition, 1998), pp 10-84, esp 11 and 36. 9 Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged, vol 2 (Chicago Encyclopaedia Bntannica, 1981), p 1388 10 Ibid , vol 1, p 947 11. The term "genocidal massacre" comes from Frank Chalk and Kurt Jonassohn, The History and Sociology of Genocide Analyses and Case Studies (New Haven, CT Yale University Press, 1990), pp 23-26, where it is proposed as a term for cases that fit most, but not all, dimensions of these authors' own definition of genocide "a form of one-sided mass killing in which a state or other authority intends to destroy a group, as that group and membership in it are defined by the perpetrator" For the United Nations definition, see ibid , p 10 12 For a detailed discussion, see John Connelly, "Nazis and Slavs From Racial Theory to Racist Practice," Central European History 32 1 (1999), pp 1-33 13 Examples of sources that show this usage are cited below in nn 22 and 128 It is also evident from published German dianes and memoirs 14 Streit, Wehnnacht, p 83 15 I A Khoroshunova, "Kievskie zapiski, 1941-1944" in Erhard Roy Wiehn, coinp , Die Schoah von Babij Jar Das Massaker deutscher Sonderkommandos an derjudischen Bevolkerung von Kiew, 1941 funfzig Jahre danach zum Gedenken (Constance Hartung-Corre, 1991), p 279 16 Petr Timofeevich Berdnik, "Kharaktenstika polozhenn na okkupirovannoi terntoni," n d , Central State Archive of Civic Organizations of Ukraine (TsDAHOU), f 1, op 22, d. 123,1 68. 17 Ernst Klee and Wilh DreBen, eds , "Gott nut uns" Der deutsche Verntchtungskrieg im O
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18 See the accounts by prisoners captured near Kiev, as reproduced by the reliable Ukrainian witness Fedir Pihido F Pihido-Pravoberezhnyi, "Velyka Vitchyzntana vnna" (Winnipeg Vydannia "Novoho Shliakhu," 1954), p 85 19 Streit, Wehnnacht, pp 91 and 100 20 Alexander Dalhn, German Rule in Russia, 1941-1945 A Study of Occupation Policies (2'"1 rev ed , London, Boulder, CO Macmillan, Westview, 1981), p 69 21 Streit, Wehrmacht, p 98 22 Ibid , pp 49-50, 106, and 318, n 128, Muller, Die fasclmtische Okkupatwnrpolitik, pp 169-71 Emphasis in the original 23 Leonid Volynskn, "Skvoz' noch' K lstom odnoi bezymiannoi mogily," Novyi mtr 29 1 (January 1963), pp 119-24 24 Hitler's decree revealed an awareness on his part of the shootings of commanders, it spoke of "Soviet commanders, commissars, and politruks " Streit, Wehnnacht, p. 254 Alfred Strenn ascribed the presence of the word "Komniandeuren" to an error by the person who wrote down the order, but this is incorrect See his Sowjet'ische Cefangene m Hitlers Vemichtungs-kneg Berichte und Dokumente 1941-1945 (Heidelberg C F Muller Junshscher Verlag, 1982), p 96, n 49 25 He discovered later that "this tactic was employed everywhere " Volynskii, "Skvoz' noch'," p 125 26 Ibid , Streit, Wehrmacht, p 164, Ilya Ehrenburg and Vasily Grossman, eds , The Black Book The Ruthless Murder ofJews by German-Fascist Invaders Throughout the TemporarilyOccupied Regions of the Soviet Union and m the Death Camps of Poland During tlie War of 1941-1945 (New York Holocaust Library, 19S1), pp 546-^7 27 The term, a translation from the German Todesnwrsclie, was coined during World War II by prisoners of German concentration camps and was adopted by postwar historians as meaning "forced inarches of long columns of prisoners under heavy guard, over long distances, and under intolerable conditions, m the course of which the prisoners were brutally mistreated and many killed by their escorts " Shmuel Krakowski, "Death Marches" in Gutman, ed , Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, vol 1, pp 348—54 Krakowski is exceptional in also applying the term to the Soviet POW marches in Ukraine and Belorussia Otherwise, it has been applied to the marches of Jews, particularly those in 1944 and 1945, to the marches of the German POWs captured at Stalingrad in February 1943, and to the marches of Soviet-held Polish POWs out of Western Ukraine in June 1941 See Albrecht Lehmann, "Ennnerungen an die Knegsgefangenschaft" in Wolfram Wette and Gerd R Ueberschar, eds , Stalingrad Mythos und Wirkllchkeit emer Schlachl (Frankfurt Fischer, 1992), pp. 178-89, and Jan T Gross, "Polish POW Camps in the Soviet-Occupied Western Ukraine" in Keith Sword, ed , The Soviet Takeover of the Polish Eastern Provinces, 1939—41 (London Macmillan, 1991), pp 44—56 28 German army intelligence reported on 31 October 1941 "the 6th Army has ordered all collapsing prisoners of war to be shot " That order has not been preserved Streit, Wehnnacht, p 171, Klee and DreBen, "Gott nut tins," p 140 29 A 26 June 1941 Wehrmacht order about the "Russian" POWs, cited in Gerlach, "Die Ausweitung der deutschen Massenmorde," p 24

24

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30 Streit, Wehnnacht, pp 152, 167, and 171 31 Ibid , p 98 The full text is in Trial of the Major War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal [TMWC], vol 25 (Nuremberg n p , 1949), pp 1.56-61 32 Pihido-Pravoberezhnyi, "Velyka Vitchyzniana vnna," p 138 Another Ukrainian saw "countless new rows of voluntary prisoners" on the way from Kiev to Rivne and L'viv "Many of them fell on the road, and the escorts shot them dead Therefore beside the road were many graves, decorated by our people with bluebottles and red field poppies " Panas Khurtovyna [Mykhailo Podvomiak], Pid nebom Volyni (Voienm spomijmj klinptyianijna) (Winnipeg n p , 1952), pp 105-6 On the street near the Volhynian town of Korets' as well, a man saw how stragglers were "nonchalantly" shot Ulas Samchuk, Na btlomu kom Spomyny i vrazhenma (Winnipeg Volyn', 1972), p 242 See also Halyna V"iun, Pid znakom Chervonoho Khresta v Poltau 1941-42 rr Spohad-zvit dha istorii ([Neu-Ulm] Vydavnytstvo "Ukrains'ki Visti," 1973), p 8 33 Volynslai, "Skvoz' noch'," pp 125-26 .34 Ibid.pp 126-28 35 This is noted in, for example, Anatoln Kuznetsov (A Anatoln), Babu tar Roman-dokument (New York Possev-USA, 1986), pp 192-93 36 Volynskii, "Skvoz' noch'," p 127, Vera Fedorovna Bogdanova ([Russian?] born in 1911), interview by the Commission on the History of the Patriotic War in Ukraine (CHPWU), n p , 20 January 1946, TsDAHOU, f 166, op 3, d 243,1 114 37 Julia AJexandrow with Tommy French, Flight from Novaa Salow Autobiography of a Ukrainian Who Escaped Starvation in the 1930s Under the Russians and Then Suffered Nazi Enslavement (Jefferson, NC, London McFarland, 1995), p 56, regarding the Podohan village of Nove Selo 38 Walther Bienert, Rwxen und Deutiche Was fur Memchen smd das? Benchte, Bilder und Folgerungen aui dem Zweiten Weltkrieg (Stein am Rhein Christiana, 1990), pp 57-58 39 Halyna Lashchenko, "Povorot," Samostima Ukraina 11 11 (119) (Chicago, November 19.58), p 13 See also TsDAHOU, f 166, op 3, d 243,1 65. 40 That year, villagers along the road to Poltava threw pieces of bread and boiled potatoes at the prisoners of war passing through from the battle near Kharkiv This caused crowding "The Germans shot into the air and chased the women away, but they did not leave until they had given away everything they had " I A Lugin, Polglotka svobody (Pans YMCA, 1987), p 174 41 Khoroshunova, "Kievskie zapiski," p 284 42. The wide street must have been the present-day Lesia Ukrainka Boulevard or Taras Shevchenko Boulevard Gerhard Kegel, In den Stunnen unsercs Jahrhunderts Em deutscher Kommunvst uber sem ungewohnhches Leben (Berlin Dietz, 1984), pp 302 and 305-7 43 Valentyna Pavlivna Kravchenko (Ukrainian born in 1922 in Kiev), author interview, Kiev, 10 August 1995 (the quote), Klavdna Iakovhvna Hrynevych (Ukrainian bom in 1930 in Klyntsi [Kirovohrad oblast]), author interview, Kiev, 10 August 1995, anonymous Kievan, interview # 1000, B-6 by the Harvard University Refugee Interview Project (HURIP), Boston, August 1950, at the Archives of the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, Alexander Dallin

The "Russian" Prisoners of War in Nazi-Ruled Ukraine as Victims of Cenocidj] Massacre

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collection, Box 8, folder 2, fol 9, Emigrant [pseud ], "Nemtsy v Kieve (Iz vospominann ochevidtsa)," Hoover Institution Archives, B I Nicolaevsky collection, Series no 236, box 409, folder 19, fol 52. 44 Khoroshunova, "Kievskie zapiski," p 295 45 Iurn Mikhailovich Markovskii (Ukrainian bom in 1904), CHPVVU interview, Kiev, 12 March 1944, TsDAHOU, f 166, op 3, d 244,1 22, Aleksei Mikhailovich Bashkulat (Ukrainian born in 1909), CHPWU interview, Kiev, 28 February 1944, TsDAHOU, f 166, op 3, d 243, 1 43v (the quote) 46 Liudmyia Ivchenko, "Ukrains'kyi Chervonyi Khrest u Kyievi (1941-1942)" in iModest Ripeckyj, ed , Medychna crpika v UPA = Litopys UPA, vol 23 (Toronto, Lvov Litopys UPA, 1992), p 39. 47 German translations of letters, at United States National Archives microcopy T-501, roll 278, frames 1105-6 and 1108. 48 Mikhail Ivanovich Sokolov, CHPWU interview, [Vinnytsia?], 20 January 1946, TsDAHOU, f 166, op 3, d 246,11 29-30 49 Klee and DreBen, "Gott mit tins," p 37 50 Mikhail Mikh Skirda, et al, "Otchet o podpol'noi partiinoi rabote l partizanskoi bor'be v Kirovogradskoi oblasti (avgust 1941 goda-mart 1944 goda)," n d , TsDAHOU, f 1, op 22, d 391,1 16 51 Khoroshunova, "Kievskie zapiski," pp 288 and 294 (the quote), Feliks Levitas and Mark Shnnanovskn, Babu utr StramUy tragedu (Kiev. Slid, 1991), pp 33—4 52 "Iz dnevnika uchitel'nitsy gor Kieva L Nartovoi," TsDAHOU, f 1, op 22, d 347 [hereafter Nartova diary], 1 6 Two other Kievans also recalled that the sailors declined bread and cigarettes Bashkulat, CHPWU interview, 1 43, Professor N A Shepelevskii, "Prebyvame nemtsev v Kieve," Central State Archive of the Highest Organs of Authority and Government of Ukraine (TsDAVOV), f 4620, op. 3, d 243a, 1 59 Another Kievan apparently saw how they were shot at Babn Yar Bogdan A. Martinenko, "Tragedna Bab'ego lara Rassekrechennye dokumenty svidetel'stvuiut" in Wiehn, Die Schodh, p. 367. 53 Mykhailo Seleshko, Vinnytsia Spomyny perekladacha Koniisn doslulw zfochymo NKVD v 1937-1938 (New York Fundatsna mi O Ol'zhycha, 1991), p. 113. 54 Gerlach, "Die Ausweitung der deutschen Masseninorde," p. 45; German map, reproduced from an undisclosed archival location, in Leonid Abramenko, comp , Kyios'kyi protees Dokumenty I malerinhj (Kiev: "Lybid'," 1995), between pp 176 and 177 55 Reinhard Rurup, ed., Der Krieg gegen die Sowjetunion Eine Dokumentation (Berlin. Argon, 1991), pp 110-11, Strenn, Sowjetische Cefangene, pp 16, 32, 34, 145, Iaroslav Haivas, Koly kinchalasia epokha (n p. Nakladom Ukrains'ko-Amerykans'koi vydavnychoi spilky v Chikago, 1964), p .54 56 Streit, Wehrmacht, p 181, Streim, Sowjetische Cefangene, p 145 57. Motel'e, "O inoem partizanskom otnade 'Pobeda lli smert','" report written after 16 October 1941, TsDAHOU, f 1, op 22, d. 122,1. 84 Motel'e was taken prisoner in late August 1941

26

Holocaust and Genocide Studies

and taken to the POW camp in Zhytomyr, and somehow got out Cf Ereigmsmcldung UdSSR 37 (29 July 1941), p 7 On civilians in the POW camps in the Kirovohrad Oblast, see Slarda, "Otchet," 1 35 58 In late 1941 the camp commander in Vmnytsia initiated a court-martial against his deputy and two others for shooting 362 Jewish prisoners Motel'e, "O lnoem partizanskom otnade," 11 81-82, Ehrenburg and Grossman, Black Book, pp 385-87 On the Vinnytsia camp, see Streit, Wehrmacht, pp 101-3 59 Streit, Wehrmacht, pp 143-44 and 161 60 Ibid , pp 145 and 154 61 Ibid , p 150 62 In the original German "haben zu verhungern " Gerlach, "Die Ausweitung der deutschen Massenmorde," pp 41-42 63 Streit, Wehrmacht, pp 161-62 64 TMWC, vol 25, pp 156-61, Gerd R Ueberschar, comp , "Ausgewahlte Dokumente" in Gerd R Ueberschar and Wolfram Wette, eds , "Unternehmen Barbarossa' Der deutsche Uberfall aufdie Smujetumon 1941 Benchte, Analysen, Dokumente (Paderbom F Schonigh, 1984), pp 399-400, Klee and DreBen, "Gott mit uns," pp 142-47 65 Borys Lewytzkyj, Die Soujetukrame 1944-1963 (Cologne, Berlin Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 1964), p 398, n 9 66 The village was Onufriivka I Kuzenkos [sic] (Ukrainian born in 1916), CHPWU interview, Kiev, 29 October 1946, TsDAHOU, f 166, op 3, d 244,1 .56 67 TAAVC, Vol 25, pp 156-61; Ueberschar, "Ausgewahlte Dokumente," pp 399-400, Klee and DreBen, "Gott nut uns," pp 142-47 68 Natalia Iakhnenko, Vid biura do Brygidok Trokhy spohadiv z 1939-1941 rokiv, L'vw (Munich Bereha, 1986), p 249 69 Kuznetsov, Babu iar, pp 179-80 70 These prisoners only received 100 grams of bread per day and sometimes soup Lashchenko, "Povorot," p 13 71 Angon Iron, "V nimets'kim poloni (Spohady)," Virti Bratitva kol Voiakw 1UD UNA 5 1-2 (Munich, 1954), pp 12-14 and 5 3-4 (19.54), pp 19-21, a memoir by a native of the Caucasus region On the Zhytomyr camp in 1942, see Klee and DreBen, "Gott mit uns," p 37 72. Motel'e, "O moem partizanskom otnade," 1 83 73. Ehrenburg and Grossman, Black Book, p 386 On the Darnytsia camp, see Kuznetsov, Babu iar, p L81 74. Volynskii, "Skvoz' noch'," p 128 75 Viun, Pid znakom Chervonoho Kliresta, p. 17 76 Iron, "V nimets'kim polom", Kuznetsov, Babii iar, p. 182

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77 Streit, Welirmacht, p 133, Gerlach, "Die Ausweitung der deutschen Massenmorde," p 45 78. Bogdanova, CHPWU interview, 11 114 and 116 Bogdanova escaped from this camp 79 Berdnik, "Kharaktenstika polozhenii," 1 68, Pihido-Pravoberezhnyi, "Velyka vuna," p 141

Vitchyzmana

80 An extensive account of the conditions there, apparently based on a conversation with a Jewish survivor, appears in Kuznetsov, Babii tar, pp 300-14 For a survivors account about the Khorol camp in 1941 and of a death march toward it, see Danylo Shumuk, Life Sentence Memoirs of a Ukrainian Political Prisoner (Edmonton Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta, 1984), pp 43-50 81 Klee and DreBen, "Cott mit uns," p 141 82 They were shot for this Streit, Welirmacht, p 152 For another example, see Klee and DreBen, "Cott mit uns," p 141 83 This was in late September 1941, as reported by a German dianst, who added that the camp "doctor" took the trouble to film the spectacle Klee and DreBen, "Gott mit uns," p 142 84 Hryhom Stetsiuk, Nejwstavlemji pam"iatmjk

(Spohachj) ([Winnipeg] H Stetsiuk, 1988),

p 33 85 E g , Pilndo-Pravoberezhnyi, "Velijka Vitchyzmana vuna," p 141 The SD did not report alxiut this belief until after the Battle of Stalingrad MeUlungen aus den besetzten Ostgebieten 47 (26 March 1943), pp 12 and 19 86 Bogdanova, CHPWU interview, 1 115 Similar in HURIP interview on Mykolaiv, n p , 7 October 1950, Hoover Institution Archives, collection "Harvard University Russian Research Center Interview transcripts, ia5O-ia51" (hereafter HURIP collection), Box 22, # 32 AD, B-6, fol 8 87 Mikhajl Nikolaevich Svindovskii (bom in 1908), CHPWU interview, Kiev, 3 March 1944, TsDAHOU, f 166, op 3, d 246,11 9-14 (on Boryspil'), Reichskommissanat "Lagebeneht" for December 1941, TsDAVOV, f 3206, op 2, d 27, 1 26, Motel'e, "O moem partizanskom otnade," TsDAHOU, f 1, op 22, d 122, 1 83, Iron, "V nimets'kim poloni," p 20 (on graves), MeUlungen aus den besetzten Ostgebieten 43 (26 February 1943), p 17 88 Nartova diary, 1 6, note of 19 March 1942 Similar comments Me in V Tverskoi, "Dorogie druzia," Kiev, n d , TsDAHOU, f 166, op 3, d 248, 1 31 89 Nartova diary, 1 17 For similar evidence on Zhytomyr, where POWs worked twelve to fourteen hours per day in the fall of 1941, see Motel'e, "O moem partizanskom otnade," 1 84 90 "Lagebencht fiir die Monate September und Oktober 1942," TsDAVOV, f 3206, op 5, d 15, 1 489, Dr Ackennann for Wirtschaftsinspektion Slid, Chefgnippe La, to the WirLschaftkommamlos, 27 September 1941, TsDAVOV, f 3206, op 4, d 6,1 40, S Slavko, "Hef z 'mternatsionalizmom' v pytanniakh shliubu," Ukrains'kyi /lofos (Proskunv/Khniel'nyts'kyi), 21 December 1941, p 2 91 The German phrase was "fur Weitedeitung

bzw

Beschafligung sorgen " Streit, \Ve/ir-

niacht, p. 185 92 Streim, Sowjetische Cefangene, pp 119-28

2S

Holocaust and Genocide Studies

93 Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jeios, vol 3, rev ed (New York, London Holmes & Meier, 1985), p S98, n 23, Muller, Die faschistische Okkupatwnspohtik, pp 200 and 216, Ueberschar, "Ausgewahlte Dokumente," p 385 94 Der Reichskomnussar fiir die Ukraine, II c 4, mi Auftrag gez Schreiber, "Betnfft Entlassung von Ukrainern ans der Knegsgefangenschaft," Rivne, 15 December 194 L, TsDAVOV, f 3206, op l , d 111,1 .53 95 Motel'e, "O moem partizanskom otnade," 1 84 96 Pihido-Pravoberezhnyi, "Vehjka Vitclujzmana vnna," pp 83, 123, and 129, Mykhailo Demydenko (Ukrainian born in 1928 in the village of Trusivtsi near Chyhyryn), author interview, Bohuslav, Kiev oblast, Ukraine, 18 July 1995, electrician and former Hiwi from Kherson, HURIP interview, n p , 2S-29 November 1950, Hoover Institution Archives, HURIP collection, Box 32, # 121 AD, B-6, fol 16 97 Natives called such a loyalty statement a spravka or pnjhovor Letter to a camp commandant by a woman from the village of Stebly about her son, 15 December 1941, and the accompanying spravka about the man's character, written by the elder and five other villagers, in the State Archive of the Kiev Oblast (DAKO), f r-2209, op 1, d 2, U 119-20, Motel'e, "O moem parhzanskom otnade," 1 84, F P Bogatyrehuk, Moi zluznenmji put' k Vlasovu i Prazlikomu manifestu (San Francisco Globus, 1978), p 132 98 Motel'e, **O moem partizanskom otnade," I 84, Pavlo Temivs'kyi [Ivan Zhyhadlo], "Spohady emigranta" (autograph manuscript, 1945), fol 24, at Library and Museum, Ukrainian Cultural & Educational Centre, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, A S Kozmra and V R Drolle, "Kopna Zam nachal'nikii 4-go Otdela NKVD USSR maiom tov Kniazevu," 12 November 1941,TsDAHOU, f 1, op 22, d. 117, 1 33, Ehrenburg and Grossman, Black Book, pp 387-88 99 Khoroshunova, "Kievskie zapiski," pp 282, 285, and 291 See also Kuznetsov, Bahii tar, pp 182-83 100 John A Armstrong, Ukrainian Nationalism, 3rd ed (Englewood, CO Ukrainian Academic Press, 1990), p 67, Vasyl' Veryha, Vtraty OUN v chasi Druhoi Svitovoi vimij abo "Zclobudesh ukrains'ku clerzliavu abo zhynesh u horot'bi za net" (Toronto Vydavnytstvo "Novyi Shhakh," 1991), p 149, Motel'e, "O moem partizanskom otnade," 11 82-3 101 One "Cossack" group that was fonned in March 1942 in Vinnytsia Oblast immediately joined the partisans Three NKVD reports to N S Khmshchev, September and October 1942, TsDAHOU, f 1, op 23, d 115, I 28 and f 1, op 23, d 124, 11 27-28 and 76-77, Voloclyniyr Serhnchuk, [comp ], OUN-UPA v roky vnnij Novi dokumentij i inatenaly (Kiev Dnipro, 1996), p 349, Aleksandr Reent and Aleksandr Lysenko, "Ukrainians in Armed Formations of the Waning Sides dunng World War II," The Journal of Slavic Military Studies 10 1 (March 1997), p 226 102 Dallin, German Rule in Russia, pp 535-36, Timothy Mulligan, The Politics of Illusion and Empire German Occupation Policy m the Soviet Union, 1942-1943 (New York, London Praeger, 1988), p 148 In the Sumy Oblast, which was never part of the Reichskommissanat Ukraine, thousands (estimates range from 4,000 to 10,000) of Ukrainians constituted an actual military fomiation This was the so-called Sumy, or Ukrainian, Division, about which virtually nothing is known Presumably consisting of former POWs, it was apparently fonned in late

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1941 and early 1942, and was virtually obliterated at the Battle of Stalingrad Peter J Potichnyj, "Ukrainians in World War II Military Formations An Overview" in Yury Boshyk, ed , Ukraine dunngWorklWarJI History and it? Aftermath A Symposium (Edmonton Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta, 1986), p 63, Mark R Elliott, "Soviet Military Collaborators dunng World War II" in ibid , pp. 92 and 95, Reent and Lysenko, "Ukrainians in Armed Formations," pp 226-27 103 Ivchenko, "Ukrains'kyi Chervonyi Khrest," pp 43 and 45, Ereigmsmeldung UdSSR 191 (10 April 1942), p 39 104 Red Cross leader Fedir Bohatyrchuk to a Cehietikommissar, 16 January 1942, DAKO, f r-2209, op 1, d 22,1 132, raion chief Okhnmenko to all village elders of the Pohs'ke Raion, letter, 29 January 1942, ibid , 1 131 In his memoirs, Bohatyrchuk writes incorrectly that the Red Cross searches for named POWs were "completely free of charge " Bogatyrchuk, Moi zluzncnnyi put', p 132 105 Bohatyrchuk to Mayor Bahazn, 26 November 1941, DAKO, f r-2.356, op 1, d. .58, II .33-4; "Dopovidna Zapyska," 15 March 1942, DAKO, f r-2356, op 15, d 21,1 1; Lashchenko, "Povorot," p 13 106 Bogatyrchuk, Moi zluznenniji put', pp 132-34, Ivchenko, "Ukrains'kyi Chervonyi Khrest," p 41, letters by raion chiefs, at DAKO, f r-2679, op 1, d 1,1 26 and f r-2145, op I, d 1, I 17 Schools also raised money and collected food for POWs and wounded soldiers, see DAKO, f r-2275, op 1, d. 1,1 14 107 Bohatyrchuk to Mayor Baliazn, 26 November 1941, DAKO, f r-2356, op 1, d 58, 11 33-34, letters at DAKO, f r-2356, op 17, d 1, passim 108 Bohatyrchuk, in his memoirs, calls him a "decent" man Bogatyrchuk, Moi zliiznennyi put', pp 134-35 109 Ivchenko, "Ukrains'kyi Chervonyi Khrest," pp 47-49 In early 1942, she apparently even spoke with the Army Commander for Ukraine, Lieutenant General Karl Kitanger 110 "Dopovidna Zapyska," (see note 105), 1 1 This anonymous report, presumably written by a Ukrainian, also says that "under the permanent care of this [POW aid] section were 12,000 prisoners of war, held in Kiev and vicinity" It is unclear what this meant in practice 111 Ivchenko, •"Ukrains'kyi Chervonyi Khrest," p 47 112 Viun, Pid znakom Chcrvonoho Kliresta, pp 9-10 and 12-15 That V'nin headed the Poltavan Red Cross is confirmed by an NKVD report from 26 October 1943, at TsDAHOU, f. 1, op. 23, d 527, 11 9-10, published in Serhiichuk, OUN-UPA, pp 99-101 113 Viun, iW znakom Chervonoho Kliresta, pp 16, 18, and 20-25 114 lbid,pp 17 and 26-27 115 Ibid , p 28 116 Ibid , pp 15, 32-36, and 41 In the Novi Sanzhary Raion of the Poltava Oblast, the Red Cross was banned already in February 1942 H Sova [Hryhoni Kanak], Do Lslorii bol'shewjts'koi diis'nosty (25 rokiv dujttia ukrams'koho hromadwmjna v SSSR) (Munich Instytut dim vyvchennia istoriT i kul'tuiy SSSR, 1955), p 82

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117 For example in Rivne This Red Cross is said to have had the potential to feed and clothe many camp inmates According to one witness, the former editor of the German-sponsored newspaper Volyn', Red Cross aid could not have averted the mass starvation, but a more reliable witness, the Evangelical Christian Mykhailo Podvomiak, has stated that "all the prisoners" could have been fed by the organization Lake the others, this Red Cross was soon banned Samchuk, Na bilomu koni, pp 206-7; Khurtovyna, Pid nebom Volym, p 106 118 Viun, Pid znakom Cheroonoho Khresta, pp 14, 26, and 36 Cf Ivchenko, "Ukrains'kyi Chervonyi Khrest," p 44. 119 Strenn, Sowjetische Cefangene, p 161 120 Khurtovyna, Pid nebom Volym, p 106, Lugin, Polglotka svobody, p 173 (the quote) 121 M VKoval'andN M Lemeshchuk, "Soprotivlenie sovetskikh voennoplennykh fashizmu na vremenno oklcupirovannoi terntoni Ukrainy," Istoriia SSSR no 3 (May-June 1971), p 116, based on materials of die Soviet commission for the investigation of Nazi war crimes 122 For example in Zhytomyr and Slavuta See ibid , pp 116-17 123 Ibid , p. 118, citing TsDAHOU, f 166, op 2, d 221, U 214-15 124. Meldungen aus den besetzten Ostgebieten, 19 (4 September 1942), p 6 125 Viun, Pid znakom Chervonolio Khresta, p 9 126 Ukrains'kyi holos, 2 July 1942, p 1, Ulas Samchuk, Na koni voronomu Sponujny i orazhennia (Winnipeg Volyn', 1975), p 196, Die deutsche Zivdverualtung in den ehemaligen besetzten Ostgebieten (UdSSR), vol 2 (Ludwigsburg Zentrale Stelle der Landesjustizverwaltungen in Ludwigsburg, 1968), pp 289, 306, 327, and .336 127 Volynskn, "Skvoz' nodi'," p 137 (the quote), Pihido-Pravoberezhnyi, "Velyka Vitchyzmana vuna," p 155, Ol'ha Mykolaivna Kutsenko (Ukrainian bom in 1926 in the village of Poberezhka), author interview, Bohuslav, Kiev oblast, Ukraine, 18 July 1995 128 E g , Liashchenko, chief of the Borodianka Raion to elder of Nemishaivo, 23 December 1941, DAKO, f r-2145, op 1, d 1,1 16 129 Pihido-Pravoberezhnyi, "Velyka Vitchyzniana vuna," p 155, Nikolai Makarovich Kharchenko (born in 1906), CHPWU interview, [Melitopol'?], 22 January 1946, TsDAHOU, f. 166, op 3, d 246,1 92, on rearrests in the Melitopol' Oblast in April 1942 130 Shmuel Krakowsla and Yoav Gelber, "Jewish Prisoners of War" in Gutman, ed , Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, vol 3, p 1189 131 MacKenzie, "The Treatment of Prisoners of War," pp 510-11 132 For example, there is as noted above a need to know more about possible changes in the treatment of the POWs after the Battle of Stalingrad, about Red Cross activities in various localities, about the extent to which Ukrainian prisoners were distinguished from nonUkrainians (and if so, why and by whom), and about the stance of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and the Communist Party regarding the prisoners

The "Russian" Prisoners of War in Nazi-Ruled Ukraine as Victims of Cenocidal Massacre

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133 Streit, Wehrmacht, pp 161, 169-70, and 240 Until March 1942, only 1,202 POVVs had officially been sent from the Reichskommissanat Ukraine to the Reich In March 1942, 5,876 were sent "Ugebencht fur Februar 1942," TsDAVOV, f 3206, op 5, d 15,11 268-69, "Lagebencht fiir Marz 1942," ibid , 1 319 134 Omer Bartov, Hitler's Army Soldiers, Nazis, and War in the Third Reich (New York, Oxford Oxford University Press, 1991), pp 86-89, Christopher R Browning, Ordinary Men Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution w Poland (New York HarperPerennial, 1993)

32

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