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JewishHistoryעברית

Lviv pogrom of 1941

Date
30 June 1941 – 2 July 1941Hebrew date: 5th of Tamuz, 5701 – 7th of Tamuz, 5701
Location
Lviv (Lwów, Lemberg)Ukraine
Then part of
German-occupied eastern Galicia
Perpetrators
  • German occupation authorities (State)
  • Ukrainian militia and OUN-B activists (Militia / auxiliaries)
  • Local Polish and Ukrainian civilians (Mob)
Killed (estimate)
2,000 – 4,000[2]Jews murdered in the first days of the German occupation. YIVO records that Ukrainians took part in attacks that murdered some 2,000 Jews. USHMM's Lvov article gives about 4,000 killed in early July. USHMM's dedicated pogrom article says at least several hundred, and possibly a few thousand, were murdered on 30 June–1 July, and that the commonly cited figure of 4,000 most likely also includes later German executions in July.
Locality

1% – 2.7% of the Jewish population of Lviv (Lwów, Lemberg)[3]

Worldwide

0.012% – 0.024% of the worldwide Jewish population (c. 1939)[4]

Category
Pogrom
Confidence
DisputedYIVO gives some 2,000 Jews murdered in the attacks that followed the German occupation. USHMM's Lvov article gives about 4,000 in early July. USHMM's dedicated 1 July pogrom article says estimates of 2,000 to 8,000 are commonly cited but that recent scholarship treats those figures as too high because they likely mix pogrom victims with later German executions in July; it puts the pogrom itself at least at several hundred and possibly a few thousand. The 2,000–4,000 range used here covers the early-July violence as reported by YIVO and USHMM's Lvov article and does not include the separate late-July Petliura Days pogrom (USHMM: more than 2,000 murdered).

Summary

German forces occupied Lviv on 30 June 1941 together with OUN-B activists and a German military battalion of ethnic Ukrainians. After discovering 2,000–3,000 corpses of political prisoners killed by the retreating Soviets, German authorities and OUN-B activists publicly blamed Jews, ordered a newly formed Ukrainian militia to seize Jews, and forced them to remove and display the bodies at city prisons. On 1 July the violence became a pogrom: German soldiers, Ukrainian militiamen, OUN-B activists, and local Polish and Ukrainian civilians beat, robbed, raped, and murdered Jews in the streets and at the prisons. German forces also shot Jews at the prisons, including up to 100 at Brygidki. USHMM states that German authorities ended the pogrom violence by the end of 2 July. A further pogrom, the "Petliura Days," followed in late July: USHMM records more than 2,000 Jews murdered then.

Sources

  1. The Lwów Pogrom of July 1, 1941. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  2. Lvov. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  3. Rachel Manekin, L’viv. YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe

Jewish population (estimates)

  • Worldwide: 16,500,000 – 16,633,675[4]c. 1939DellaPergola's revised core estimate for 1 January 1939 is 16.5 million. The American Jewish Year Book 1948–49 compiled 16,633,675 at the end of 1939.
  • Lviv (Lwów, Lemberg): 150,000 – 200,000[3]Jews in Lviv. YIVO gives about 150,000 in 1941, when German forces took the city, including refugees from western Poland; that is the community at the time of the late-June pogrom. USHMM gives over 200,000 in September 1939, of whom nearly 100,000 were refugees from German-occupied Poland, before Soviet rule.

Sources for population estimates

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  20. Sergio DellaPergola, World Jewish Population, 2024. American Jewish Year Book 2024, via Berman Jewish DataBank / Israel CBS host (2025)
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