The Holocaust occurred gradually. It was a process initiated and implemented by Nazi Germany. Possible chronological frameworks are 1933-1945 or 1939-1945. The Holocaust was intertwined with World War II, so it should be understood in the context of the war. Without the war, the Holocaust did not and could not have happened. Jews were the main target of the Nazis for destruction. But their fates are connected with the fates of other groups of victims of National Socialism: people with disabilities, Roma, Ostarbeiters, Soviet prisoners of war, representatives of the Polish elite, homosexual men.
In Ukraine, the murders of Jewish communities took place directly on the ground ("Bullet Holocaust"), only the Jews of Western Ukraine (the majority) were deported to death camps created by the Nazi regime on the territory of Poland (deportations to Belzec of Jewish communities from the territories of Eastern Galicia; deportations to Auschwitz of Jewish communities from Transcarpathia). 25% of all Holocaust victims in European countries died on the lands of Ukraine. About 1.5 million Jews. According to researchers, in the fall of 1941, 80% of Holocaust victims were still alive; by the end of 1942, 20% remained alive (K. Browning).
- Extermination methods: Western Europe - deportations to death camps in Poland (Auschwitz, Sobibor, Belzec, Chelmno, Majdanek, Treblinka), sending to ghettos in Poland, the USSR (Belarus, Latvia, Ukraine); Eastern Europe - Holocaust on the ground.
- Operation "Reinhard". The murder of Jews from Poland and Western Europe in the death camps (Treblinka, Sobibor, Belzec) during March-December 1942.
- The criminal activities of the Einsatzgruppen (4 groups: A, B, C, D) in Eastern Europe.
- The uprising in the ghettos and death camps (Warsaw, Białystok, Treblinka, Sobibor) in 1943, and the destruction of traces of the crimes ("Operation 1005").
- The last major exterminations in the Auschwitz death camp (1944) and the "death marches" (1945).
The Jews of European countries, including the Ukrainian territories, who survived the Holocaust, managed to escape thanks to their saviors, neighbors, friends, acquaintances and strangers, non-Jews who risking their own lives, saved them. Also alive were those who managed to evacuate or escape before the Nazis arrived. “The Holocaust was an event in human history. All the victims involved, witnesses, collaborators, rescuers and perpetrators, were only people with their feelings and needs. Recognizing this common humanity for all of them does not excuse the murderers and in no way mitigates the past. It only makes studying the Holocaust even more painful” (Bergen Doris L. War and Genocide. A Brief History of the Holocaust/Trans. from English by Kateryna Dysa. – K.: Spirit and Letter, 2021, p.21)
Understanding the historical context of World War II, in particular the history of the Holocaust in Europe, helps us in Ukraine today to understand and realize Russia’s modern aggression and war against Ukraine, the behavior of the aggressor country, the terrible anti-Ukrainian propaganda and hatred of our country, Ukrainian culture, people from Russia, the fate of civilian Ukrainian citizens.
Anatoly Podolsky,
Ukrainian Center for the Study of the History of the Holocaust, Kyiv
www.holocaust.kiev.ua