Ukrainian Auxiliary Police in Tarnopol (Ternopil) District, wartime documents, 1941-1943 | Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust

This Collection comprises documents related to financial documentation in regard to sustanance of the Ukrainian Security (auxiliary) Police stationed in the county (powiat) locations and in Tarnopol itself.

The other part of this Collections are personal files compiled of personal questionnaires of the NSDAP members employed in police authorities in General Gouvernement and at the reported period in the Tarnopol District of the General Gouvernement.

This collection also contains official correspondences between the German agencies in Germany, General Government and in the General Gouvernement. To this sub-collection also could be related correspondences between the Ukrainian Auxiliary Police and German Authorities in the Tarnopol District of the General Gouvernement.

This collection comprises basic three parts, financial documents in the form of payrolls to the units of Ukrainian Security (auxiliary) police stationed in the counties (powiaty) of Tarnopol (Ternopil) district of the District Galizien (East Galicia), personal files of the NSDAP members holding posts in Police, Military and German Administration in the General Government. The third part relates to official documentation issued in regard to service duties of the members of Ukrainian Auxiliary Police stationed in Tarnopol (Ternopil) region in 1941 – 1943.

Ukrainian auxiliary police was largely referred as Ukrainian Police and became an official established agency in August 1941.It was regarded patriotic to serve in Ukrainian Police for that was a way to get military trained, trusted with weapon and be in position of power once a political situation may change and Ukraine (at least East Galicia) will receive an autonomous if not independent status. Until then a trustful and devoted service to Germans who liberated Ukraine from the Soviet rule would be a right thing to do. Ukrainian police in district Galicia often was given a task of executing Jewish actions, controlling the ghettos and implementing round ups and deportations of Jews.

A phenomenon of devoted service lasted until spring of 1943. With the activization of the OUN - UPA resistance activity in the forests and with a perception of Germans loosing the war, the cause of Ukrainian independence rose up to the occasion to show allegiance to Ukrainian national cause by joining the OUN - UPA combat units. That action was reified by desertion from the Ukrainian Police to the forests. Largely shrinking of the ranks of Ukrainian police took place after almost all of Jews in East Galicia were deported to extermination camps or annihilated in ghettos and local concentration camps.

In the spring of 1943, the formation of Ukrainian SS Division Galizien was authorized by highest German authorities in Berlin. It took almost a year to complete recruitment, training and staffing with all required military attributes and cadres. This division amounted around 14,000 soldiers, although over 44,000 volunteered. It is regarded that the former servicemen of the Ukrainian Police joined the ranks of the 14th SS combat Ukrainian division Galizien.

Ukrainian Police is largely regarded a collaborationist and criminal organization serving the National Socialist cause in German-occupied territories. Its officers and rank-and-files were implementers of the Final Solution to the Jewish Question.