The Polish city of Lvov was occupied by the Soviet Union in 1939, under the terms of the German-Soviet Pact. After Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, German troops occupied Lvov.
Street scene following the German occupation of the city of Lvov. Lvov, Poland, June 1941.
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A mass grave dug by Jewish forced laborers for the bodies of individuals murdered by the NKVD in Lvov prisons. The NKVD (Soviet secret police) murdered thousands of Ukrainian nationalists, as well as some Jews and Poles, before retreating from the Nazi invasion. The Germans and their Ukrainian collaborators then used the massacre as a pretext for anti-Jewish pogroms, claiming that the Jews had helped the secret police. Lvov, Poland, July 3, 1941.
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Scene during a pogrom against the Jews of Lvov. Poland, 1941.
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![People gathered along the street watch as Jews are rounded up and marched through Lvov. [LCID: 62116]](https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/images/thumb/cebebc9c-0e2e-4735-8a7d-a9b167f2f2af.jpg)