November 1918 was marked by a number of significant events in world history, the main of which was the end of the Great War, which had been going on for over four years by that time. Millions of dead, tens of millions of broken destinies and personal tragedies. The end of the First World War was the simultaneous collapse of European empires and the emergence of new national states on their ruins.
It was at this time that the territories of Eastern Galicia turned into an arena of dramatic and bloody confrontation between Polish and Ukrainian state projects. On November 1, 1918, an armed confrontation began in Lviv between the military units of the Western Ukrainian People's Republic (WUPR) and supporters of the restoration of Polish statehood, which finally happened on November 11 of the same year. In fact, hostilities in the largest city of Galicia continued until November 22, when, as a result of the mistakes of the Ukrainian military command, as well as the desperate resistance of the Polish residents of Lviv, the city came under the control of the forces of the Polish Republic.
Even during the confrontation, the Polish-language Lviv newspaper “Pobudka” repeatedly pointed out that a certain part of the Jewish community of Lviv sided with the ZUNR and took part in military operations in the city with weapons in hand[i]. It is worth mentioning that from the moment of statehood, the ZUNR authorities in their proclamations recognized the Jews of Galicia as one of the nations of the region and called on them to create their own representative body – the Jewish National Council.[ii].
It is obvious that such news did not contribute to a positive image of the Jewish community in the eyes of the winners of the confrontation on the Polish side. It is no less important to consider the atmosphere that prevailed in the city, which for four years was one of the epicenters of the First World War[iii], and as of 1918 was full of people with weapons: not only servicemen of the army of the former Austria-Hungary, but also, in particular, people with openly criminal inclinations. The latter, even during the Polish-Ukrainian confrontation, tried to use the situation of anarchy for the purpose of their own enrichment - not shying away from looting and outright robbery.
On the morning of November 22, 1918, a huge crowd of people, including Polish soldiers, but also a huge number of civilians (including peasants from nearby villages), began to move towards the center of Lviv - towards Rynok Square, where the Polish flag had already been raised on the city hall building. The first object of the pogromists' aggression was the jewelry store of the Tsiper Trading House[iv]. From there, the crowd moved to Krakivska Street, where many Jewish shops were located, and then towards the Zamarstyniv district of the city[v]. In the vanguard of the pogromists were Polish soldiers, who without the slightest hesitation used firearms to intimidate. Following the soldiers, civilian looters seized and destroyed shops.
On the same day, representatives of the Jewish community of Lviv (Commissioner of the Jewish Religious Community and Councilor of the Lviv City Council Dr. Oziya Waser together with Dr. Emil Parnas) appealed to General Bolesław Roja, who headed the Polish military group that came from Lesser Poland to help the defenders of Lviv. General Roja issued an order introducing a state of emergency in the city and initiating military courts. However, the desired calm did not occur. According to researchers, this was due to the reaction of another military leader, Colonel Czesław Monczynski, who held the position of Chief Commandant of Lviv and Lviv County. Unlike General B. Roya, C. Monczynski was directly at the epicenter of military clashes throughout the entire period of the Ukrainian-Polish confrontation and actually coordinated the activities of all Polish units. Ideologically, the colonel was close to the Polish national-democratic environment (the so-called “Populists”), whose representatives, even before the restoration of the Polish Republic, had repeatedly expressed an openly anti-Semitic view of the future of Polish society. Therefore, he viewed the beginning of anti-Jewish violence as a kind of group punishment of Jews for disloyalty to the Polish state[vi].
Having received the order, Ch. Monchinsky ignored it for two days and only on November 24, when the pogrom stopped, posters with the corresponding order were posted in the city.
In total, 73 people were killed and 437 were injured during the pogrom. The rioters looted and damaged by arson several Jewish synagogues – the Hasidim Shul[vii], Hadashim[viii], Temple[ix], and the Great Suburban Synagogue[x]. In total, more than 50 buildings were partially destroyed or destroyed.
In February 1919, 79 defendants (of whom only 8 were Polish servicemen) were brought to trial. As a result, only 44 people were found guilty and sentenced to short-term imprisonment. 3 people found guilty of especially serious crimes were executed. Colonel Ch. Monchinsky from December 1918 participated in the war against the army of the ZUNR, and later - Bolshevik Russia, was not brought to justice.
Realizing the negative effect on the image of the newly created Polish Republic, its authorities launched a powerful campaign at the end of 1918 to adequately cover this event. Most Polish-language newspapers ignored the word “pogrom”, and the main culprits of the riots in Lviv were called Ukrainians and the “carnival crowd”. Publications in the Austrian or German press were ignored or branded by Polish politicians as deliberate attempts by the Central Powers to harm and eliminate Polish statehood.
In January–May 1919, an Extraordinary Government Investigative Commission operated in Lviv, which was supposed to give an official conclusion on the causes of the pogrom. However, the report on the results of its work was never published. The Polish author G. Gauden cites an interesting fact that during the Commission’s work, the commandant of the Lviv city police, V. Sulimirsky, issued an order according to which police officers were to mention only the participation in the pogrom of Ukrainians, Jews, or bandits whose nationality could not be established.
Given that Lviv was not the only place where anti-Jewish pogroms took place in 1918 and realizing the damage this had done to Polish foreign policy interests, Polish Foreign Minister Ignacy Paderewski asked US President Woodrow Wilson to send an international commission to provide the public with independent conclusions regarding these events. Led by Henry Morgenthau (Sr.)[xi], the Commission worked in Poland from July to September 1919. Despite establishing the number of victims and individual facts of anti-Jewish violence, the Commission’s final report did not indicate the responsibility of the Polish authorities and did not use the word “pogrom” at all.
In 1921, C. Monchinsky in his memoirs denied his own guilt and the responsibility of the Polish authorities in general, pointing out that most of the looters during the pogrom were Ukrainians[xii].
Twenty years later, at the end of June 1941, the streets of Lviv and other Galician cities would once again turn into hell for local Jews. However, this time the pogroms, provoked by the German occupation authorities and with the participation of the local non-Jewish population (Ukrainians and Poles), turned into a prologue to the Nazi plan for the total extermination of the Jews of Ukraine and Europe.
Yehor Vradii
[i] Cenne pryznania. “Pobudka”. 1918. № 15 (20 listopada). S. 2.
[ii] See. det.: Fan R. History of the Jewish National Autonomy during the period of the Western Ukrainian Republic. Lviv, 2019.
[iii] The first anti-Jewish pogrom during World War I took place in Lviv on September 27, 1914. Its direct perpetrators were the Russian occupation authorities and the Russian army. According to various sources, from 18 to 47 people died as a result of the pogrom, and about 70.
[iv] Today, Rynok Square, 32.
[v] Currently Shevchenkivskyi district of Lviv.
[vi] From the beginning of World War I, volunteer Polish formations – “Polish Legions” – were created within the army of the Austro-Hungarian Empire on the initiative of J. Pilsudski. The formation, in addition to Poles, included representatives of various ethnic groups (Ukrainians, Lithuanians, Hungarians, Armenians). However, it was the Jews, or as they were sometimes called “Poles of the Mosaic confession”, who were the second largest group of military personnel after the Poles. In 1918, the majority of the soldiers of the Polish Legions became the basis for the newly created Polish Army.
[vii] Hasidic suburban synagogue (founded 1791). It was located on the corner of present-day Sianska and Lazneva streets. It was destroyed by the Nazis in 1941.
[viii] Hasidic synagogue "Hadashim" ("Yakub Glantzer Shul") (founded 1840). The building of the former synagogue is located on the corner of the current Ugulna Street and St. Theodore Square.
[ix] Tempel (Progressive Synagogue) (founded 1846). Located on the current Old Market Square. Destroyed by the Nazis in 1941.
[x] Suburban synagogue (founded 1632). Located on the corner of present-day Staraya and Syanska streets. Destroyed by the Nazis in 1943.
[xi] Henry Morgenthau (Sr.) (1856–1946) – American lawyer, diplomat. In 1913–1916 – US Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire. One of the first to report on the planned and targeted killing of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, which was later recognized as genocide. During the work of the Investigative Commission headed by him in Poland, one of the translators on the Polish side was a student of the Faculty of Law of Lviv University, Hersh Lauterpacht (1897–1960) – in the future a famous scientist, theorist of international law, one of the founders of the concept of “crime against humanity”.
[xii] Czesław Mączyński. Boje lwowskie. Т. II. Warszawa, 1921. S. 29.