Lwów residents search for their friends and relatives among the corpses of Soviet prison massacre victims. German-occupied Lwów, between June 30-July 2, 1941.
The Germans arrived in Lwów on June 30, 1941, supported by Ukrainian nationalist activists. After arriving, they discovered the corpses of some 2,000-3,000 political prisoners. Just days before, these prisoners had been massacred by the city’s Soviet occupiers who were fleeing the approaching German forces. Publicly blaming Jews for the Soviet prison massacre, the German occupiers and Ukrainian nationalist activists incited local non-Jews to antisemitic violence. Local Jews were forced to lay out the bodies of the massacred political prisoners for public display.
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