Ukrainian Auxiliary Police in the City of Lviv and Lviv Region, 1941-1944 | Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust

The arrangement scheme for the record group was imposed during processing in the absence of an original order. Materials are arranged by identifier, as assigned by the processor.

Record group is comprised of six items.

This is a collection of service-related applications and self-narrated biographies. Prospective servicemen of the Ukrainian auxiliary police under the German command, had to submit application and biography with the emphasis of why he was seeking service with the Ukrainian Police in Lviv and Lviv region, 1941 -- 1944.

The service-related instructions and records also comprise this collection.

Ukrainian auxiliary police in Lviv was initially organized as Ukrainian militia in the first days after the German Army occupied town.  The organization and structure of the Ukrainian Police in Lviv and Lviv region underwent changes in organizational and structural terms. On the local level its units were under command of Ukrainian officers, however the police as an entity was subordinated to the German police and security forces and specifically to the German administration of the city.

In the course of the German presence in the city, the Ukrainian police became not a nucleus of a Ukrainian administrative organ of security, as it was expected by many Ukrainians, but largely in to the implementer of the Holocaust. These police, once ordered, to engage, participated in anti-Jewish actions in the ghettos and concentration camps. Specifically, its role in the round-ups in the Lviv ghetto and then deportation to the Janowska concentration camp and to the Belzec death camp became notoriously known. It should be also noted that beginning with the Spring of 1943, an ample number of Ukrainian policemen deserted into forests to join the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA).

Relatively short applications and concise self-narrated biography shed light on social, cultural and political profile of prospective Ukrainian police forces. Many of them previously served in Polish Army, some were members of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists. The local collaborationist Ukrainian newspaper, Lvivski Visti, reflected on the progress in training and the increase of manpower of the Ukrainian auxiliary policy in Lviv and in the region.