The Center for Urban History in Lviv has posted on its web site an informative virtual tour of Holocaust sites in the city.
It is part of the Center’s “Lviv Interactive” project and was designed on the basis of the materials of the street exhibition “Lviv, Lwów, לעמבערג, Lemberg’43: City of (un)memory”, hosted at 12 locations within the urban space during summer and autumn 2018.
That exhibition was designed within the program “Lwów, לעמבערג, Lviv, Lemberg’43: City that Did (Not) Survive. Commemorative Events for the 75the Anniversary of the Liquidation of Ghetto and Janowska Concentration Camp in Lviv”.
The virtual tour includes historic photographs, contemporary photographs, images of documents, and text to tell the story of the destruction of the Jewish community during the Shoah — from first persecutions, through the ghettoization of Jews in 1941, and liquidation of the ghetto two years later.
The photos include elements from the 2018 exhibition and maps — historic and today’s — to situate the descriptive text and photos on physical places.
The texts include excerpts from diaries and official documents as well as description, such as in this section on the ghetto:
On November, 8, 1941, the Nazi occupation administration announced the start of ghettoization of Jewish population of Lviv. In November-December, 1941, about 60,000 of Jews were forced to resettle to the areas allocated for the ghetto, at Klepariv and Zamarstyniv. First, they were allowed to move under the railway bridges at Kleparivska Street, and Peltevna Street (presently – Chornovola Street) and Ogrodova Street (Polova), and later only at Peltevna Street. The process was supervised by the security police and SD staff, of the 2nd regiment, and the 74th police battalion, and the Ukrainian Auxiliary Police. Among other things, it was accompanied by plundering of Jewish property and selection of those who turned out “unfit for work”, such as the elderly, the sick, the disabled, etc. At least, 3,000 persons selected this way were executed. It was the first mass killing in Lviv, including women among victims. […]
The ghetto territory was surrounded with boarded fence. Along the perimeter, it was guarded by the German Guard Police and the Ukrainian Auxiliary Police. Internal administration was within the jurisdiction of the Jewish council (Judenrat) and the subordinate Order Service (Jüdischer Ordnungsdienst). During 1942, there were several so called “actions” in the ghetto when the detained Jews were sent to the Belżec death camp or executed at the outskirts of Lviv, in Lysynychi forest and in the Pisky terrain. The largest action took place on August, 10—22, 1942, when 38,000 persons were deported to Belżec, and about 2,000 more were shot on site. Pursuant to the decree of the SS and police chief in the District Galicia Fritz Katzmann, in August—September, 1942, there was a second stage of ghettoization of Lviv Jews when those who stayed to live in the “Arian” part of the city had to resettle to the ghetto, too. Thus, one could only get outside to do some works in other parts of the city.
“One shall leave or enter the Jewish residential quarter exclusively through the gate for entry and exit at Peltevna Street… Passage of Jews shall be permitted on the basis of the work card for Jews stamped by the SS and police führer” (from Katzmann’s decree dated August, 21, 1942)
In February, 1943, the ghetto was reformatted into the Jewish camp (Judenlager) administered by the SS Hauptsarführer Josef Grzimek. In June, 1943, it was finally liquidated: 5,000 to 6,000 persons were deported to the Sobibor death camp, 10,000 to 12,000 were executed in the terrain of Pisky, about 2,000 persons were forced into the Janowska slave labour camp“. When searching through the houses, they found at least 3,000 bodies of those who committed suicide.