Czarny Las massacre

Background

Before World War II, Stanisławów (now Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine) was the seat of Stanisławów Voivodeship in the Second Polish Republic. Following the 1939 invasion of Poland, the region was annexed by the Soviet Union. After Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, Stanisławów was initially occupied by a Hungarian contingent of the Wehrmacht, who were reported to be relatively friendly toward the local Polish population and who ended pogroms against local Jews carried out by groups of Ukrainian nationalists. In early August 1941, German forces replaced the Hungarians and, with assistance from Ukrainian nationalists, began preparations for the mass killing of the Polish intelligentsia, under the command of SS-Hauptsturmführer Hans Krueger, who had previously taken part in the Massacre of Lviv professors.

The massacre

On the orders of Gestapo chief Hans Krueger, during the night of August 8–9, 1941, Ukrainian auxiliary police arrested members of the Polish intelligentsia in Stanisławów, mostly teachers, on the pretext of an organizational meeting ahead of the school year. Some were also targeted on accusations of teaching communist ideas; a list of names had reportedly been partly prepared by a professor at a Ukrainian high school. Around 250 people were arrested that night and held in a Gestapo prison, with families initially permitted to visit.

During the night of August 14–15, 1941, the prisoners were loaded onto trucks and taken to Czarny Las (Black Forest), near the village of Pawełcze, where they were shot. Peasants from Pawełcze had earlier been ordered by the Germans to dig mass graves. One person is reported to have survived by escaping from a truck under cover of rain and darkness — a Polish forester from the village of Sołotwina. Those killed included teachers, doctors, priests, and civil servants.

Families were not informed of the victims' fate. In September 1941, a delegation sought information from the local Gestapo; Krueger falsely assured them that the prisoners were alive and under investigation, and allowed families to send food and clothing parcels, which were reportedly diverted rather than delivered. In the winter of 1942, Countess Karolina Lanckorońska, acting as an envoy of the Central Welfare Council, visited Stanisławów and spoke with Krueger and German prosecutor Rotter; in that conversation, Rotter reportedly suggested that Krueger had been responsible for the killings.

Post-war developments

Mass graves at Czarny Las were located in 1988 through the efforts of victims' families and local residents. In 1991, Poland's Council for the Protection of Struggle and Martyrdom Sites erected a monument at the site. In August 2011, a commemorative cross was placed there during a ceremony attended by the governor of Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast and representatives of victims' families and the Council.