Editing Lviv (section)

====German occupation====
{{Main|Battle of Lwów (1941)}}
On 22 June 1941, [[Nazi Germany]] and several of its [[Axis powers|allies]] invaded the USSR. In the initial stage of [[Operation Barbarossa]] (30 June 1941) Lviv was taken by the Germans. The evacuating Soviets [[NKVD prisoner massacres#Poland|killed most of the prison population]], with arriving [[Wehrmacht]] forces easily discovering evidence of the Soviet mass murders in the city<ref name="Lviv massacre">{{cite web |url=http://www.alfreddezayas.com/Chapbooks/Lembergmassacre.shtml |title=Lviv massacre |publisher=Alfreddezayas.com |access-date=3 May 2012 |archive-date=7 July 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110707111610/http://www.alfreddezayas.com/Chapbooks/Lembergmassacre.shtml |url-status=live }}</ref> committed by the [[NKVD]] and [[People's Commissariat for State Security|NKGB]]. On 30 June 1941 [[Yaroslav Stetsko]] [[Declaration of Ukrainian Independence, 1941|proclaimed in Lviv the Government of an independent Ukrainian state]] allied with Nazi Germany. This was done without preapproval from the Germans and after 15 September 1941, the organisers were arrested.<ref name="history.org.ua">Організація українських націоналістів і Українська повстанська армія. Інститут історії НАН України.2004р Організація українських націоналістів і Українська повстанська армія,</ref><ref name="autogenerated1940">І.К. Патриляк. Військова діяльність ОУН(Б) у 1940–1942 роках. – Університет імені Шевченко \Ін-т історії України НАН України Київ, 2004 (No ISBN)</ref><ref>ОУН в 1941 році: документи: В 2-х ч Ін-т історії України НАН України К. 2006 {{ISBN|966-02-2535-0}}</ref>
[[File:Львівське гетто.jpg|thumb|Memorial to Lviv ghetto victims of the [[Holocaust]], erected in 1992 on Chornovola Street. The inscription reads "remember and keep in your heart".]]
The [[Sikorski–Mayski Agreement]] signed in London on 30 July 1941 between the [[Polish government-in-exile]] and the Soviet government invalidated the [[German–Soviet Frontier Treaty|September 1939 Soviet-German partition of Poland]], as the Soviets declared it null and void.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://avalon.law.yale.edu/wwii/polsov.asp |title=Text of Polish-Soviet Treaty of 1941 |publisher=Avalon.law.yale.edu |date=30 July 1941 |access-date=3 May 2012 |archive-date=10 August 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110810225919/http://avalon.law.yale.edu/wwii/polsov.asp |url-status=live }}</ref> Meanwhile, German-occupied Eastern Galicia at the beginning of August 1941 was incorporated into the [[General Government]] as ''[[District of Galicia|Distrikt Galizien]]'' with Lviv as the district's capital. German policy towards the Polish population in this area was as harsh as in the rest of the General Government.<ref name="auto">ОУН і УПА в 1943 році: Документи / НАН України. Інститут історії України. – К.: Інститут історії України, 2008. – 347 с. {{ISBN|978-966-02-4911-0}} p.166</ref>

During the occupation of the city, the Germans committed numerous atrocities, including the [[Massacre of Lwów professors|killing of Polish university professors]] in 1941. German Nazis viewed the Ukrainian Galicians, former inhabitants of Austrian Crown Land, as more [[aryan]]ised and civilised than the Ukrainian population living in the territories belonging to the [[Soviet Union|USSR]] before 1939. As a result, they escaped the full extent of German acts in comparison to Ukrainians who lived to the east, in the German-occupied [[Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic|Soviet Ukraine]] turned into the ''[[Reichskommissariat Ukraine]]''.<ref name="auto"/>

[[File:Janowska Nazi camp orchestra.jpg|thumb|The imprisoned [[Tango of Death|Tango of Death orchestra]]]]
According to the [[The Holocaust|Third Reich's racial policies]], local Jews then became the main target of German repressions in the region. Following the German occupation, the Jewish population was concentrated in the [[Lwów Ghetto]] established in the city's Zamarstynów (today ''[[Zamarstyniv]]'') district and the [[Janowska concentration camp]] was also set up. In the Janowska concentration camp, the Nazis conducted torture and executions to music. The [[Lviv Theatre of Opera and Ballet|Lviv National Opera]] members, who were prisoners, played one and the same tune, Tango of Death.{{citation needed|date=March 2022}}

On the eve of Lviv's liberation, German Nazis ordered 40 orchestra musicians to form a circle. The security ringed the musicians tightly and ordered them to play. First, the orchestra conductor, Mund, was executed. Then the commandant ordered the musicians to come to the center of the circle one by one, put their instruments onto the ground and strip naked, after which they were killed by a headshot.{{citation needed|date=March 2022}} A [[Tango of Death (orchestra)|photo of the orchestra players]] was one of the incriminating documents at the [[Nuremberg trials]].

In 1931 there were 75,316 [[Yiddish]]-speaking inhabitants, but by 1941 approximately 100,000 Jews were present in Lviv.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/media_cm.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005171&MediaId=1581 |title=Lvov 1939–1944 Timeline |work=United States Holocaust Memorial Museum |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090506162225/http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/media_cm.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005171&MediaId=1581 |archive-date=6 May 2009}}</ref> The majority of these Jews were either killed within the city or deported to [[Belzec extermination camp]]. In the summer of 1943, on the orders of [[Heinrich Himmler]], [[Standartenführer|SS-Standartenführer]] [[Paul Blobel]] was tasked with the destruction of any evidence of Nazi mass murders in the Lviv area. On 15 June Blobel, using forced labourers from Janowska, dug up a number of mass graves and incinerated the remains.<ref>Gilbert, M. (1989), ''Second World War'', Weidenfeld & Nicolson, p. 438</ref>

Later, on 19 November 1943, inmates at Janowska staged an uprising and attempted a mass escape. A few succeeded, but most were recaptured and killed. The [[Schutzstaffel|SS]] staff and their local auxiliaries then, at the time of the Janowska camp's liquidation, murdered at least 6,000 more inmates, as well as the [[Jews]] in other forced labour camps in Galicia. By the end of the war, the Jewish population of the city was virtually eliminated, with only around 200 to 800 survivors remaining.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chDkIitLUnY |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211030/chDkIitLUnY |archive-date=2021-10-30 |title=A True Story of Holocaust Survivors. The documentary includes 60 historical pictures. 1932–1944, Lwow, Poland (now Lviv, Ukraine) |website=[[YouTube]]|date=6 March 2020 }}{{cbignore}}</ref><ref>Filip Friedman, ''Zagłada Żydów lwowskich'' (Extermination of the Jews of Lwów) – [http://www.mankurty.com/fridpl.html online in Polish, Ukrainian and Russian] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140417082332/http://www.mankurty.com/fridpl.html|date=17 April 2014 }}</ref>