RUSSIAN MASSACRE OF UKRAINIANS IN LVIV IN 1941

In June, 1941, before retreating from Lviv, Capital of Western Ukraine, the NKVD troops massacred several thousands Ukrainian political prisoners. In 1959 the Soviet propaganda machine endeavored to shift the blame upon the Ukrainian Legion "Nightingale," organized by Wehrmacht.

Die Tat, a Swiss newspaper, reported on July 6, 1941 on these massacres:

"When the Soviet Russians were no longer in a position to assert themselves in Lemberg (Lviv - Ed.), the NKVD, prior to its flight, carried out a terrible massacre of innocent prisoners. According to the reports of neutral press correspondents, this massacre is one of the most dreadful and ruthless massacres ever heard of in the history of the world. In the police prison 20 prisoners were crowded together in each of the smallest cells; they were then shot through the spy-holes. 2,000 to 2,500 persons were murdered in this way.

The Stockholm Tidningen of July 7, 1941, wrote:

"Prior to their retreat the Russians, giving vent to their hatred a last time, carried out mass murders with inhuman brutality in many of the prisons. Shortly before they retreated, they set fire to "Brygidky" prison. In the cellars the Communists stacked the corpses of the murdered like piles of wood. On each layer of corpses they strewed sand so thickly that one could walk on it. On this layer of send they then spread another layer of corpses. I found no one alive among the prisoners..."

Nikita S. Khrushchev was first secretary of the Communist Party of Ukraine at that time and he gave orders to carry out these inhuman crimes!

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, September 17, 1960, No. 179, Vol. LXVII

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