Mykola Balaban

My project analyzes a short but intensive period of mass violence in the city of Lviv during the first two weeks of the Nazi-Soviet war from June 22 to July 5, 1941. Three waves of violence included the NKVD’s massacre of local prisoners during the Soviet retreat; anti-Jewish violence, with pogroms and killings at the start of the Wehrmacht occupation; and the execution of Polish professors. These events have usually been presented as three distinct stories. My research attempts to write a comprehensive history of these events, emphasizing their complexity by portraying the mixture of both internal and external actors and factors.