Lower - Nazi Empire-Building and the Holocaust in Ukraine

Nazi Empire-Building and the Holocaust in Ukraine

2005
The University of North Carolina Press
All rights reserved

Published in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. The assertions, arguments, and conclusions contained herein are those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

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Manufactured in the United States of America

The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources.

Portions of the text have been previously published: Wendy Lower, A New Ordering of Space and Race: Nazi Colonial Dreams in Zhytomyr, Ukraine, 19411944, German Studies Review 25, no. 2 (2002): 22854; used by permission of German Studies Review. Wendy Lower, Anticipatory Obedience and the Nazi Implementation of the Holocaust in the Ukraine: A Case Study of Central and Peripheral Forces in the Generalbezirk Zhytomyr, 19411944, Holocaust and Genocide Studies 16, no. 1 (2002): 122; used by permission of Oxford University Press.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lower, Wendy.
Nazi empire-building and the Holocaust in Ukraine / Wendy Lower.
p. cm.
Published in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8078-2960-9 (alk. paper)

1. UkraineZHytomyrska oblastHistoryGerman occupation, 19411944. 2. GermanyPolitics and government19331945. 3. Holocaust, Jewish (19391945)UkraineZHytomyrska oblast. 4. World War, 19391945 UkraineZHytomyrska oblast. 5. GermanyColoniesUkraine ZHytomyrska oblastHistory20th century. I. Title.

DK508.833.L69 2005
940.534778dc22 2005001620

09 08 07 06 05 5 4 3 2 1

For the mothers and daughters of the Czilug family: Gitia Malik (born in Liubar, 1909), Rakhilia Stepanskii (born in Liubar, 1901; killed at Babi Yar, 29 September 1941), Liuba Stepanskii (born in Sarapul, 1926; killed at Babi Yar, 29 September 1941), and Klavdia Malik (born in Novohrad-Volynskyi, 1937)

Himmler speaking with Felix Steiner

Hitler visiting with German Red Cross nurses in Berdychiv

German Flyer: Passes for Red Army deserters

German road signs in the center of Zhytomyr

Soviet POWs in a Vinnytsia POW camp

SD officers prepare to hang Moishe Kogan and Wolf Kieper

Rounded-up Jews at the hanging of Moishe Kogan and Wolf Kieper

Organizational chart of the Reichskommissariat Ukraine

Organizational chart of a Gebietskommissariat in Ukraine

Kurt Klemm

Ukrainian forced laborers examined by a Wehrmacht doctor

Ukrainian forced laborers say good-bye to loved ones

Announcement forbidding the sheltering of Jews

Work on the Main Road, by Arnold Daghani

Back Home from Work, by Arnold Daghani

Mass Graves, by Arnold Daghani

German SS-policeman shooting a Jewish man in Vinnytsia

Hitler with Wilhelm List and Hermann Gring

Hitlers office at Werwolf

Himmler receiving birthday congratulations

Himmler inspecting cotton fields in Ukraine

Vinnitsa

German soldiers during the reconquest of Zhytomyr

Nazi-Dominated Europe in 1942 and Plans for a Greater Germanic Empire

The Reich Commissariat Ukraine, 1 May 1942

Administrative Map of the General District of Zhytomyr

Ethnic German Settlement Area, named Hegewald (preservation forest)

The Collapse of the Nazi Empire: The Forced Evacuation of Volksdeutsche from Ukraine, 1943

Little did I know when I started the research for this book that my interest in Ukraine and Holocaust history would end up demanding so much time and energy from family, friends, mentors, and colleagues in Ukraine, Germany, and the United States. Many people who helped me trusted that I would do justice to the material that they generously shared with me. I am responsible for any flaws in the book, but I cannot take full credit for its merits. During my research trips to Zhytomyr, Ukraine, I stayed with the Starovoitov family, without whom I could not have completed this study. I am forever grateful to Klavdia (Malik) Starovoitov, my host mother. She introduced me to Zhytomyrs Holocaust survivor community; she helped me translate handwritten sources in Russian and Ukrainian; and she opened up her home and dacha to me. She and her son Felix negotiated on my behalf with the local archives; as a Westerner with admittedly little sense of how to work the Soviet system of blat (personal favors, barter) and the like, I would have certainly been denied research opportunities without their involvement and know-how.

At the Zhytomyr State Archives, Tatiana Nikolaevna Franz and Hrihorii Denisenko answered my many inquiries about the holdings, brought new material to my attention, and helped arrange interviews with former partisans and forced laborers. Mary Poltorak, Aleksei Pavlov, and Sergei Gonzar assisted me with additional translations and served as interpreters. Zhytomyr scholars Efim Melamed and the late professor Boris Kruglak shared their invaluable insight into the regions history. Kira Burova at the local Office of Jewish Affairs and Emigration provided me with recorded interviews of Holocaust survivors and invited me to conduct additional interviews with her. I am also grateful to Zhytomyrs veterans association led by Ivan Shinalskii. The newly revived synagogue in Zhytomyr opened its doors to me as well, allowing me to view its newspaper collections and use its copy machine.

In Germany, reference staff at the Zentrale Stelle der Landesjustizverwaltungen (Ludwigsburg) provided me with very useful materials. I am especially grateful to Dr. Dieter Pohl at the Institute for Contemporary History in Munich who helped me a great deal by commenting on my manuscript. Dr. Karel Berkhoff at the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies in the Netherlands also offered a constructive critique.

In the United States, thanks go to my Ukrainian language instructors, Natalie Shostak and Natalie Gawdiak (at the Library of Congress). At the National Archives, archivist and historian Timothy Mulligan saved me countless hours of research by guiding me through the labyrinth of captured German records. Just as I was preparing to return to the Zhytomyr archives for a second time in the spring of 1993, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum opened. Thanks to the museums specialist on former Soviet archival collections, Carl Modig, I learned of additional files in Zhytomyr. In the museums Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, fellows and scholars including Hans Mommsen, Susannah Heschel, Berel Lang, Aron Rodrigue, Gtz Aly, Peter Longerich, Gerhard Weinberg, Jean Ancel, Dennis Deletant, Konrad Kwiet, Rebecca Boehling, Henry Friedlander, Hans Safrian, Christian Gerlach, Rebecca Golbert, Viorel Achim, Kate Brown, Alexander Prusin, Katrin Reichelt, Misha Tyaglyy, Tim Cole, David Furber, Dirk Moses, Robert Bernheim, and especially the centers staff historians Peter Black, Jrgen Matthus, Geoff Megargee, Martin Dean, Vadim Altskan, Radu Iaonid, and Michael Gelb engaged me in scholarly discussions of my research and gave me pertinent materials. Alexander Rossino and Peter Black reviewed all or parts of the book manuscript. Museum staff in the archives and library, including Henry Mayer, Mark Ziomek, Michlean Amir, Anatol Steck, Aleksandra Borecka, Bill Connelly, Steve Kanaley, Sharon Muller, and Sara Sirman guided my use of the collections. The director of the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, Paul Shapiro, supported this work as a valued mentor and tireless advocate of Holocaust scholarship. Thanks also to my CAHS colleagues Robert Ehrenreich, Tracy Brown, and Lisa Zaid for sustaining me with their savvy computer skills and good humor. This work also benefited from continued exchange with former 1999 Summer Research Workshop participants Ray Brandon and Edward Westermann. On countless occasions I turned to the centers director of publications, Benton Arnovitz, for his counsel. I have enjoyed and appreciated working with the centers editorial coordinator, Dr. Aleisa Fishman, who conscientiously carried my work through the centers review process. Thanks to the distinguished scholars of the Publications Subcommittee for taking valuable time away from their full schedules to read and comment on this work. The transformation of this work from a dissertation to a book could not have been accomplished without the commitment and hard work of many people at the University of North Carolina Press, above all Senior Editor Chuck Grench, Editor Paul Betz, and Assistant Editor Amanda McMillan. I am especially grateful to Doris Bergen at the University of Notre Dame and Tim Snyder at Yale University, who devoted many hours to critiquing the manuscript. Dr. Vladimir Melamed helped with the Ukrainian transliterations.