Filed under: Field Report | Tags: Civilians, Eastern Europe, Grimalov, Local Cooperation, Local Involvement, Mass Murder, Nazis, Pogram, Ritual, Ternopil, Wehrmacht, Witnesses
The involvement of local populations in the Nazis’ extermination plan is always a significant question. To what extent did non-Jews resist the removal of Jewish rights, the scheduled deportations, the impromptu massacres? If local populations didn’t resist, were they actively involved? Father Desbois’ expedition to Ternopil brings to light an important instance of local cooperation with the Nazis.
In Ternopil, the Nazis took advantage of that longstanding Eastern European ritual–the pogrom–and organized their own, more deadly pogrom. Father Desbois writes:
“We managed to find witnesses who would agree to speak about pogroms: four people recounted the execution of nearly a third of the Jewish population of the village of Grimaïlov… They were instigated and, in part, led by the newly arrived Wehrmacht… The [Wehrmacht] encouraged the civil Ukrainian population to take part in the shootings..”
Pond in Grimalov, site of the pogrom.
Stanislav refused to participate in the pogrom.
If the Nazis created the most organized machine for mass murder that has ever existed, they also used a more unscripted method that had existed for hundreds of years.
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[...] Stansilav told us that the Wehrmacht offered their guns to young Ukrainian locals, and that many Ukrainians did in fact participate in shooting 500 Jews lined up at the side of the pond in Grimalov. Stanislav refused to participate in the pogrom. [...]
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