Participation of local administration bodies of provisional military administration and Reichskommissariat ‘Ukraine’ in ensuring holocaust measures (1941-1944)

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Participation of local administration bodies of provisional military administration and Reichskommissariat `Ukraine' in ensuring holocaust measures (1941-1944)

The purpose of the research paper is to uncover the role and significance of local administration bodies that were established on the territories under the control of the Provisional Military Administration (PMA) and the Reichskommissariat `Ukraine' (RKU) in ensuring the Holocaust policy.

Scientific novelty is based on the original documentary sources analysis. It is determined that the employees of local administration bodies in the German occupation zones of Ukraine, even against their will, took an active part in various forms of preparation and technical support for actions to exterminate Jews, their persecution by the authorities, and looting of the property belonging to them.

Conclusions. In the territories under the control of the PMA and the RKU, local administration bodies were established, which, although not unified, were still typical institutions of occupation administration. Despite the unequal organizational structure, local administration bodies had to perform all the tasks assigned by the German authorities. In the practical activity of those authorities, there were no repressive and punitive functions, but it was their staff who had to provide the measures that were the basis of the Holocaust policy, which was consistently and all-out conducted by the Nazis in occupied Ukraine.

Performing the functions of the occupation administration, the employees of the local administration bodies of the PMA and the RKU took an active part in both the preparatory measures and the purely technical support of actions for the extermination of the Jews. With the assistance of the local administrative staff members, the German authorities managed to settle the matter of registration and identification of the Jewish population, establish an effective system of control over issuing personal documents, as well as search and selection of places for conducting the massacres. Without their active participation, the Nazis would not have been able to organize actions of extermination people so quickly, as well as to identify systematically those who managed to avoid death and were hiding from the persecution of the German occupiers. Also quite actively, some employees of local administration bodies participated in propagandistic provision and justification of massacres of the Jews in Ukraine.

Local authorities took part in the redistribution of property that belonged to the killed Jews. A great part of the former Jewish property, with the permission of the German authorities, was given to the local authorities, and the funds received after its sale were transferred to the bank accounts of the local authorities and used to finance their activities. At the same time, many employees of local administration bodies, using their official position, tried to obtain part of the property of people who had already been killed.

Keywords: Holocaust, occupation administration, Reichskommissariat `Ukraine', Provisional Military Administration, Nazis, local administration bodies

УЧАСТЬ ОРГАНІВ МІСЦЕВОГО УПРАВЛІННЯ ТИМЧАСОВОЇ ВІЙСЬКОВОЇ АДМІНІСТРАЦІЇ ТА РАЙХСКОМІСАРІАТУ «УКРАЇНА»

У ЗАБЕЗПЕЧЕННІ ЗАХОДІВ ГОЛОКОСТУ (1941-1944 РР.)

Олексій Гончаренко1, Аліна Іваненко2

1 Університет Григорія Сковороди в Переяславі (Переяслав, Україна)

2 Національний університет «Чернігівський колегіум» імені Т.Г. Шевченка (Чернігів, Україна)

АНОТАЦІЯ holocaust occupation administration reichskommissariat

Мета статті - встановити роль і значення органів місцевого управління, які були створені на теренах підконтрольних Тимчасовій військовій адміністрації (ТВА) та Райхскомісаріату «Україна» (РКУ) у забезпеченні політики Голокосту.

Наукова новизна. На основі аналізу оригінальних документальних джерел встановлено, що працівники органів місцевого управління німецьких окупаційних зон України, навіть поза своїм особистим бажанням, брали активну участь у різних формах підготовки та технічного забезпечення акцій знищення євреїв, їх переслідуванні з боку владних структур і пограбуванні належної цим людям власності.

Висновки. На теренах підконтрольним ТВА та РКУ були створені органи місцевого управління, які представляли собою нехай і не уніфіковані, але усе ж типові структури окупаційного управління. Незважаючи на неоднакову організаційну структуру, органи місцевого управління повинні були виконувати усі завдання, які віддавалися німецькими властями. У практичній роботі цих органів влади були відсутні репресивно-каральні функції, але це їх персоналу усе ж довелося брати учать у забезпечення заходів, які покладалися в основу політики Голокосту, яку неухильно і в тотальному вигляді проводили нацисти в окупованій Україні.

Виконуючи функції окупаційного адміністрування працівники органів місцевого управління ТВА та РКУ брали активну участь як у підготовчих заходах, так і суто технічному забезпеченні акцій знищення євреїв. За допомогою місцевих управлінців німецькій владі вдалося налагодити питання реєстрації та ідентифікації єврейського населення, установити дієву систему контролю за видачею особистих документів, пошуку та виборі місць масових убивств. Поза їх активною участю нацистам не вдалось би так швидко організувати акції знищення людей, а також провести планомірне виявлення тих, хто зумів уникнути смерті та переховувався від переслідувань німецьких окупантів. Так само доволі активно, частина працівників органів місцевого управління брала участь у пропагандистському забезпеченні та виправданні масових убивств євреїв України.

Місцева влада брала участь у перерозподілі власності, яка належала убитим євреям. Значна частина колишньої єврейської власності, за дозволами німецьких властей, була передана органам місцевого управління, а кошти, отримані від її реалізації потрапила на банківські рахунки місцевої влади та йшла на фінансування їх діяльності. При цьому немало працівників органів місцевого управління, використовуючи своє службове становище, намагалося отримати у власне розпорядження частину власності вже убитих людей.

Ключові слова: Голокост, окупаційна адміністрація, Райхскомісаріат «Україна», Тимчасова військова адміністрація, нацисти, органи місцевого управління

INTRODUCTION

The policy of the Holocaust, i.e. the measures taken by the German leadership for the total extermination of the Jewish people, entered the history of human civilization as one of the pages of the practical implementation of the ideology of Nazism, which was based on racist postulates. Trying to build an ideal society of `Aryans', the political leaders of Nazi Germany saw no place for the Jews in it. In fact, the fate of Ukrainians and other Slavic nations looked quite unenviable in the event of Germany's victory in that war.

During the Second World War, over ? of the Ukraine Jewish community were exterminated by the Nazis and their accomplices. According to historians, 600 000- 700 000 people survived the war out of 2.5 million citizens of Jewish nationality in Ukraine1.

A component of the Nazi `new order' in occupied Ukraine was the total extermination of the Jewish population. Implementing of the ideological basis of Nazism, the doctrine of racist anti-Semitism, ultimately caused significant disproportions in the ethnic composition of the post-war Ukraine population, losing its significant intellectual, social and cultural, and genetic potential.

Having declared the Jews their racial and political opponents, the German occupiers sought to take advantage of the ethnic and mental stereotypes of the local population, which were the destructive consequences of the activities of the Soviet occupation regime for Ukrainian society; on that basis to form collaborationism as a mass social and political phenomenon, and then use the representatives of other ethnic groups to implement their racist plans.

With the occupation of Ukraine and other regions of the USSR, the practical part of

A. Hitler's plans for the `Final Solution to the Jewish Question' entered their final phase. It so happened that the lands of Ukraine became the training ground where racist crimes were committed from the first to the last day of the occupation. Declared enemies of humanity, the Jews began to be totally and systematically exterminated. In Europe, special camp institutions were established for that purpose. But in the territory of the occupied regions of the USSR and Ukraine, the extermination of Jews was conducted almost openly, without hiding that fact from the rest of the local population.

HISTORIOGRAPHY

In historiographical terms, the problem of the participation of Ukraine local administration bodies in the Holocaust is mostly studied by foreign scholars. It is considered simultaneously with the reconstruction of other, no less important issues, such as the complicity of the local population in the persecution of the Jews, looting of the property of those people, rescue, etc. The works of Frank Bajohr, Gerald Feldman, and Wolfgang Seibel are conceptual in terms of the looting of the Western Europe Jews' property2.

The forms and methods of looting the property of the Jews of Western and Eastern Europe were studied by Martin Dean. In his work, he emphasized that the most valuable property was sent to Germany, although a certain part of it remained on the ground and was handed over to local administration bodies, which in turn replenished financial resources for own maintenance at the expense of its sale3. The scholar noted that the economic exploitation of the Jewish population in the occupied Soviet territories was an element of the Holocaust as well4.

Looting of Jewish property and participation of the local population in that process were studied by Yitzhak Arad5 and other foreign scholars6. The participation of the representatives of the local population in the looting of Jewish property is at the center of the attention of Patrick Debois7, Dieter Pohl8, and Timothy Snyder9.

Karel Berkhoff provides some facts about the participation of local administrations of the Reichskommissariat `Ukraine' (RKU) in the Holocaust. For the most part, he studies the procedure for registering the population and paying salaries to local policemen, the source of which was the funds taken away from the Jews. The scholar notes that the local authorities were forcibly involved in the persecution of the Jews, in particular, when they carried out German orders regarding the preparation of the places of execution10. Aforementioned Yitzhak Arad dwells on the participation of local administration bodies in the Holocaust. The scholar specifies such a field of work of the local administration as the registration of the whole civilian population and the personal responsibility of its leadership for revealing persons who were not local residents. That gave the German authorities the opportunity to identify tens of thousands of Jews who were trying to save themselves in the regions where no one knew them11.

The work of Wendy Lower is important for understanding the role and significance of local administration bodies in the Holocaust and focuses on the problem of

organizing pogroms in the western regions of Ukraine that occurred in the summer of 1941. Of course, the local Ukrainian population took an active part in those tragic actions. The author of the work does not focus attention on the participation of local administration bodies in pogrom actions, although she mentions such facts, such as, for example, in Dubno, Ukrainians, acquiring power, organized a Jewish pogrom.

At the same time, the author of the study draws her attention to the relevant activities of Ukrainian nationalist cells, including both Bandera and Melnyk supporters, who took an active part in establishing local authorities and police forces, and which, in turn, organized Jewish pogroms. Often, there were the leaders of local nationalist cells who participated in the organization of pogroms. For example, in August 1941, Mytka Zaviriukha organized a Jewish pogrom in Korets, Volyn. At that time, he was the head of the local nationalist cell. The scholar notes that in the summer of 1941, coordinated cooperation between German commanders and Ukrainian leaders was more often a standard situation than an exception. In parallel with the establishment of local authorities, the members of Ukrainian nationalist cells took an active part in establishing of police units, which also exterminated the Jewish population. The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) was not the only nationalist group that seized local power and organized pogroms. Supporters of Taras Bulba-Borovets from the so-called `Poliska Sich' conducted similar activities12.

In another research work, Wendy Lower studies in more detail the issue of establishing the local administration in occupied Ukraine. In the example of Zhytomyr region, she reconstructs the process of establishing a local administration and the participation in it of both representatives of the German authorities and the OUN cells. Having established the local authority body, the German leadership required it to perform a whole set of administrative tasks, which included the registration of the local population13.

As of today, a national school of Holocaust study has been formed in Ukraine. Since, within the framework of the current study, it is impossible to enumerate all scholars and their studies, we will limit ourselves to stating the fact of the appearance of works summarizing this issue, which is of a purely historiographical nature14. Their authors, in particular, emphasize that the participation of local administration bodies in the Holocaust is insufficiently studied. Certain aspects of the participation of the local administration of the RKU in the Holocaust are highlighted in the monograph of

M. Kunytskyi15, and the publications of F. Vynokurova16 and I. Shchupak17. The publication of R. Mykhalchuk is devoted to the participation of the local population in the Holocaust in the territory of Volyn and Podillia General Districts18.

DISCUSSION

The task of liquidating the political and racial opponents of the Third Reich was entrusted to special units of the Security Police (Sicherheitspolizei, SiPo) and SD, Action Squads (Einsatzgruppen), which, if necessary, were reinforced by units of the Guard Police (Schutzmannschaft) and SS troops. In general, Einsatzgruppen A, B, C, D, and 16 Einsatzkommandos were sent to the territory of the USSR. In Ukraine, there were two Einsatzgruppen - C and D. The Einsatzgruppen C included Sonderkommandos 4a and 4b and Einsatzkommandos 5 and 6. Sonderkommando 4a operated in the rear of the 6th Army, Sonderkommando 4b - in the rear of the 17th Army, and Einsatzkommandos 5 and 6 - in the rear of the army group. SD unit closely cooperated with the command of the Wehrmacht. To head the units, an authorized Chief of the SiPo and SD was attached for each army. He had to inform the army commander about the orders received from the Chief of the SiPo and the SD. After the establishment of a civil administration in occupied Ukraine, the fate of the Jewish population was in the competence of the established SiPo and SD19. It is necessary to pay special attention to the participation of the Field Police (Feldgendarmerie) units, which were under the command of the military commandant's offices, in the extermination of the Jews.

Several German occupation zones were established in the territory of Ukraine seized by the Third Reich: The District `Halychyna', the Reichskommissariat `Ukraine', and the area of responsibility of the Military Administration. The latter is more commonly called the Military Zone of Occupation (MZO). However, at the initial stage of the occupation, direct power in the occupied regions of the country belonged to the Provisional Military Administration (PMA), which gradually handed over the corresponding territories under the control of the civilian authorities of the District `Halychyna' and the RKU. This procedure occurred in the fall of 1941 and in the same period of 1942. It should be noted that the expediency of using the term PMA is substantiated in a research paper by one of the authors of this study20.

Despite certain differences in the administrative divisions of the occupied territories of Ukraine, the fate of the Jewish population remained unchanged. The Jews were subject to extermination in all occupation zones. The difference was only in the forms, terms, and methods of implementing the plans of the Nazis. Unlike European countries, the Nazis solved the problem of identification of persons who came from so-called mixed marriages in a slightly different way. If some of them survived in Europe, they were exterminated in occupied Ukraine.

Considering the periodization of the genocide of the Jews, which was conducted in the occupied territory of Ukraine, it is necessary to highlight the following stages of the `Final Solution'. The chronological framework of the first of them: June 22, 1941 - January 1942, that is, from the German act of assault on the USSR to the Wannsee Conference. During that period, actions of extermination took place in the territory controlled by the Wehrmacht. In the period from February 1942 to the fall of 1943, there was the second stage of the Holocaust. At that time, the liquidation of ghettos and labor camps, which were under the control of both civil and military administrations, was conducted. Extermination actions took place with particular intensity in the summer and late fall of 1942. The fall and winter of 1943-1944 were the chronological frameworks of the third stage. The surviving ghetto prisoners were transferred to concentration camps; after which they were killed.

The Holocaust was a system of anti-Jewish measures, the implementation of which was authorized by almost every occupation authority. Of course, none of them was supposed to go beyond the limits of the permitted regulations, implementing in practice their official competence. However, the employees of local administration bodies bear their share of the responsibility for the consequences of the Holocaust.

With the occupation of Ukraine's territory, the German authorities faced the task of establishing and ensuring the successful functioning of local administration bodies, which had become a convenient tool for carrying out multifaceted fundamental objectives of occupation policy, one of which included the total extermination of the Jewish people. Various agencies in Germany worked on the practical implementation of Holocaust measures, primarily repressive and punitive, as well as occupation administrative and territorial bodies. But authorities, which initially should not have been involved in those matters, were drawn into the orbit of extermination preparations as well. Those included the local administration bodies established by the German occupation institutions. Named local administration bodies were represented by town/city, raion, and village administrations. In some regions of Ukraine, in the first months of the occupation, local administration bodies of the regional level, so-called oblast administrations, were also established. However, over time, the German authorities refused such an approach, because, in the opinion of the occupation officials, that could strengthen the role and importance of `Ukrainian' authorities. The civil administration of the RKU responded particularly negatively to such an approach. And therefore, after acquiring control over the corresponding territories, the authorities of the RKU carried out measures to liquidate oblast administrations21. They were finally liquidated in the spring of 1942, and their employees joined other bodies of the occupation administration. In the context of the objectives of our study, we should note that they still functioned for several months, and therefore also participated in ensuring the measures of the Holocaust.

In order to show the place of local administration bodies in the Holocaust, it is still necessary to bring to light their administerial essence, official competencies, and, accordingly, their potential ability to influence the fate of the Nazis' victims. Local administration bodies were established in the first days of the occupation. Often, such processes were carried out at the initiative of the local population, intelligentsia, and the cells of `expeditionary groups' of the OUN. In any case, those processes ended with the harsh influence of German regulations. All employees of those bodies were subject to a strict check for their loyalty to new authorities. Of course, former communists, representatives of the Soviet active, and the Jews could not engage in them. However, the reality of the occupation, in particular, the shortage of personnel, turned out to be so significant that it influenced the principled approaches of German officials regarding the employment of former communists and Soviet activists. In such a way, the Head of `Bila Tserkva' Gebietskommissariate, Dr. Stelzer, expressively noted that he was more interested in the professional qualities of the employees, rather than their former political views. And only in the middle of 1942, when the resistance movement was intensified in the region, repressions began to be applied to former communists22. However, the occupation authorities mercilessly eradicated from those bodies all those who supported or were connected with the cells of the OUN groups, which did try to establish their control over local administration bodies. During several months of occupation, under the merciless pressure of the German special services, the local administration bodies were transformed into obedient and impersonal tools for implementing any instructions and orders from the Nazis.

The German occupation authorities did not have clear and unified regulations regarding the organizational structure of local administration bodies. Usually, the details of the formation of local authorities depended on the personal vision of German officials, who often reproduced the Soviet organizational structure in a certain way, as well as the number of the population, industrial infrastructure, etc. As a result, a fairly wide diversity of the organizational structure of local administration bodies was observed in occupied Ukraine. As a rule, the organizational structure of raion and town/city administrations comprised administrative, land, financial (tax), educational, and medical departments, as well as the civil registry bodies. In the cities, the administrations could include industrial and legal departments23. The names of the departments indicated the main areas of activity of raion and town/city administrations. Village administrations had an even more simplified organizational structure. Usually, the village administration was represented by a starosta and a clerk subordinate to him24.

In some regions of Ukraine, which were under the control of the PMA, police units were introduced into the local administration bodies. Nominally, their heads were subordinated to local authorities at the raion and town/city levels and carried out the corresponding instructions. But such a situation did not last long enough, and the local police were placed under the command of the Feldgendarmerie, which was structurally a part of the military commandant's offices. And it was under the command of the Feldgendarmerie that the local police took an active part in the extermination of the Jews25. It is clear that the heads of local administration bodies could not give the policemen the appropriate orders. After the establishment of the RKU bodies, the local police became subordinate to the Feldgendarmerie. At the same time, to support the work of village administrations, one or several representatives of the police were at their disposal. Usually, those policemen were a part of the Self-defense Kushch Units, which in turn were subordinated to the corresponding bodies at the raion level.

Thus, the professional duties of the employees and the main directions of activity of the structural departments of the local administration bodies prove that they were typical occupation local power bodies, which implemented the tasks, set by the German authorities, being under their total control. At the same time, the organizational structure and personnel lists of local administration bodies were aimed at implementing the tasks assigned to the PMA and RKU, the German institutions of the occupation administration26.

The local administration bodies, established by the PMA and subsequently placed under the control of the RKU, were aimed at the direct implementation of the algorithm, set by the German institutions, for implementing the occupation policy. Among such traditional measures of the German authorities as merciless economic exploitation of the local population, wringing out food, raw materials, and human resources from the country, the `Jewish' segment stands out. Local administration bodies did not have any independence or at least autonomy. Since they were considered `auxiliary' bodies, they had to follow the instructions of German authorities. At the same time, the German administration did not care about the attitude of local authorities toward the atrocities they committed in Ukraine.

Officials of local administration bodies enjoyed a special social and legal status. Since they were engaged in administrative activities, they were subject to German criminal law and special laws adopted for such activities. Control over the criminal punishments of such employees was carried out by German authorities. Therefore, the officials of local administration bodies were immediately informed after the appointment that they “in their service bear increased responsibility, and in case of illegal actions related to their official activities, they should expect a particularly severe punishment”27.

In the context of the subject of our study, we should note that employees of local administration bodies were subject to punishment if they failed to provide or conceal information from the German authorities about Jews or rendered them any form of assistance. Usually, the sanction of criminal prosecution of persons found guilty of such illegal actions was the application of an extreme penalty in the form of capital punishment. As of today, we do not have any statistical data on how many employees of local administration bodies were punished for their helping the Jews, but the isolated cases of such actions nevertheless occurred. Opinions were expressed that it was precisely for sabotaging the orders of the German authorities, which related to the extermination of the Jews in Babyn Yar, that Kyiv burgomaster V. Bahazii was executed by shooting28. However, those were individual attempts by employees of local administration bodies to render some assistance to the victims of the Nazis, including for financial compensation. Such facts were not common but still known. In such a way, on December 16, 1942, during the shooting of Jews in the village of Piatyhory of Tetiiv raion, Kyiv oblast, eight women called themselves Ukrainian and survived. Determining their nationality and preliminary gathering evidence was carried out by the village administration. Two women were returned to the place of execution, but the others were sent to the raion police, where their final identification was carried out. Still, some of the women were saved, and one of them, already in 1959, testified in a criminal case against one of the collaborators and confirmed that fact. Thus, the employees of the village administration, together with the local police, having real information about the nationality of at least one of the women, confirmed her Ukrainian, not Jewish, origin29.

At the same time, there was no mention of any normative-legal influence on the part of local authorities in assisting the Jews. It could not exist even theoretically, because, from the very beginning of the occupation, the Jews were removed from the jurisdiction of the local authorities, and were in the SiPo and SD influence zone, which in the Soviet period was called the `Gestapo', although there was no such police agency in occupied Ukraine. As for individual forms of assistance to the Jews, including the local police, they did occur30.

Like any other occupation authorities, certain bodies of the PMA, as well as the RKU, had to find out the number and nationality of the local population. Therefore, in the area of responsibility of the PMA, from the first days of the occupation, the measures to register the entire existing civilian population began. It goes without saying that the implementation of the mentioned measures was of great importance for the establishment of the occupation administration system. A managerial logic implied the occupation authorities get statistical data on the number of the population and its social and ethnic composition. The German occupation authorities constantly monitored that area of their work. Population censuses were of a permanent nature. In general, one gets the impression that the various branches of German power did not trust each other. Thus, when some territories were transferred from the military to the civilian bodies of the RKU, the latter started similar registration measures, having already been performed by the previous authorities. And although the lists were already compiled in the local administration bodies, it was necessary to start everything from the very beginning.

That segment of the first administrative measures of the PMA and the RKU authorities was implemented quite quickly. Thanks to the efforts of local authorities, the separate lists of Soviet activists, communists, the Jews, and all, in general, unreliable persons from the point of view of the authorities, were handed over to the German authorities. Persons who had a criminal record, former senior officials of Soviet institutions, courts, prosecutor's offices, and the directorates of the NKVD were recognized as unreliable ones. Many of them were persecuted by the German authorities after the denouncements, including collective ones. Information on persons who did not live in the area before the war was added to the separate list. All statistics on the population flow were carefully collected and systematically passed to the leadership. Similar measures were carried out during the period of functioning of the RKU institutions31.

The German authorities were particularly scrupulous about compiling lists of the Jews. The Jews' personal information was always put on a separate list32. Such lists were prepared in several copies and were handed over to German institutions and local police forces. Thus, when preparing actions to exterminate Jews, both the German and local police authorities obtained statistical information on their number, age, and professions, which in turn made it possible to prepare for the planned measures more systematically.

Village starostas received the orders to prohibit the stay of non-local people in the villages and were personally responsible for that33. The orders of the occupation authorities stated that officials found guilty of failing to carry out those orders would be severely punished34.

All executors of German orders were personally responsible for the correctness of the information entered such lists, especially since they were handed over both to local authorities and police forces. In any case, the German authorities had never been `stingy' on the repressive actions against employees of local administration bodies who improperly performed their official duties. Thanks to those registration measures, the German authorities got information about the number, age, and social framework of the Jewish population.

The registration measures of the German authorities were systematic and comprehensive. Practice of entering information into house registers, introduced in Soviet times, was continued. The owner of the house was required to show the house register on demand of the local authorities or the police representatives, and the latter, in turn, inscribed that the entered data were correct. Personal information on minor children was also added to such house registers35.

A special place in the occupiers' system of repressive measures took the janitors, passport officers, and house custodians in the cities. They were the ones who had full information about those who lived in the houses, visited their relatives, etc. Often such people worked in the same positions before the war. They immediately awoke the interest of the police forces of the PMA and the RKU and whether they wanted it or unwillingly, but still cooperating with the authorities due to their job responsibilities, they unmasked the Jews who were hiding from persecution. Otherwise, they could become the victims of the occupiers. Such was the harsh truth of the occupation. Passport officers, who wrote down the information about the dwellers, necessarily entered data on their nationality. The former senior officers of the local police testified to such information. For example, M. Tomasevych, the Chief of Bila Tserkva raion police of Kyiv Generalkommissariat, while under investigation, told the NKGB officer about regular meetings with certain employees, at which he obliged them to find out the origin of each dweller, and to identify the Jews who were hiding from persecution. In turn, according to the words of the former Chief of the raion police, the officials faithfully performed the duties imposed on them, and some of them even on their own constantly searched for and unmasked the Jews who were hiding in the town from the persecution of the Nazis36.

Issuing identification documents was a separate page of the relevant activity of local authorities. The primary document that allowed the identification of a person was the Soviet passport. Departments responsible for issuing identification documents were established in almost all town/city and raion administrations. Usually, that function had the former Soviet civil registry bodies. Moving even within small towns without documents was a deadly action. Quite often, apprehended persons who did not have documents with them could be shot37.

The Jews, who, under various life circumstances, managed to obtain identification documents that proved their non-Jewish origin, dramatically increased their chances of salvation and integration into the local society. The `captiousness' of the employees of local administrations departments when issuing documents often made it impossible to save people.

Persons who were not local and came from other regions of the country, as well as those who, due to various circumstances of the war, lost their identification documents, were under special control. They were obliged to apply to the local administration bodies for identification documents, and hence the right to live in a specific settlement. The same was about the Soviet prisoners of war officially released from German captivity, or those of them who managed to get out of the camps.

Usually, to obtain documents identifying the owner's identity, it was necessary to apply to the local authorities. After that, a procedure was carried out to interrogate witnesses who could testify on the circumstances of the loss of documents or prove the origin of such people and their previous place of residence. Somewhat later, with the establishment of a system of local judicial institutions, such functions were delegated to them. In so doing, a judicial investigation was conducted, witnesses were interrogated, etc. And only after that, in accordance with court decisions, local administration bodies issued necessary documents.

Of course, the Jews who tried to avoid persecution by the German authorities, or were hiding from them, tried to get the documents that proved their `Aryan' origin. One of the ways of saving those people was their conversion to the Orthodox faith and obtaining the status of Ukrainians on that reason. However, very quickly, such procedures were officially banned by the German authorities, and those people were considered the Jews anyway. There are official appeals of people who had adopted the Orthodox faith to the local authorities to provide them with `Ukrainian passports'. For instance, in October 1942, L. Dubchak appealed to the city authorities of Lutsk, reporting that in September 1941 she adopted the Orthodox faith and got the relevant documents from the local authorities. And already in October of the same year, she appealed to the Head of the city administration, asking him to appeal to the German

authorities, convince them she and her family were Ukrainians, and issue them the necessary documents. On this appeal, there are no resolutions, which means leaving it out of consideration38. In fact, at that time, the city authorities could no longer issue such documents, although sometime earlier, they could do that, recognizing such people as Ukrainians. However, we can assume that a certain number of the Jews, having adopted the Orthodox faith and having got the necessary documents from the local authorities, had succeeded in saving themselves.

Some people who had minor children, and one parent was a Jew, acted similarly. It should be noted that for a certain time, such children were not subject to extermination, but over time, they did come into view of the German authorities. Therefore, to save the children, their parents appealed to local judicial institutions with written requests regarding their recognition as Ukrainians. In such a way, the petitioner applied to the court in Poltava, asking to divorce her from her ex-husband, who was a Jew by nationality and to change the surname, first name, and patronymic of her two minor daughters. We do not have information about the results of the hearing of that case, but we can assume that the mother did not manage to save the children, because, according to the practice at the time, the court decision had to be approved by the Gebietskommissar, and those officials did not allow such a scenario39.

As we can see, the German administration, controlling the local population flow and fixing its place of permanent residence, had quite pragmatic interests and intentions. Having such lists at its disposal, the German administration could at any time organize campaigns to exterminate the Jews.

Thus, the problems of registration were directly related to the future of the Jews. Let's give consideration to one such case that happened in the occupied Kyiv region. At the end of 1941, the local administration of Baryshivka raion received an order from the German administration to register the entire existing Jewish population. Registration was subject to both local Jews and those who came to the town from other regions of the country during the first months of hostilities. The order came from the local police, whose leadership received it in turn from the military commandant's office. The former Chief of the local police told during the investigation: “With the receiving of this order, the entire Jewish population was registered with the help of the starostas. Up to 90 Jews were registered in Baryshivka. All the apartments of Russians and Ukrainians had a cross on the door, but there was nothing on the doors of the Jewish apartments. Persons of Jewish nationality had yellow patches of material sewn on the fronts and backs of their clothes. For not-following this rule, persons of Jewish nationality who appeared on the street were liable to extermination. All the Jews were resettled in one block and even several families in one apartment”40. Over some time, all those people were shot.

The successful completion of the tasks of the local Jewish population registration played a decisive role during the extermination actions. The initiative to run such actions belonged to the German penal bodies, but the role of local collaborators in them could be interpreted unambiguously. It consisted in the technical support and preparation of the `Final Solution to the Jewish Question' (Die Endlцsung der Judenfrage), but nevertheless, without that preliminary work of the local administration, the German services would not have been able to organize and conduct extermination actions so quickly. Particularly, taking into account the fact that the heads of local authorities had information about the purpose of the preparatory measures of the German services. The former Head of Stavyshche raion administration testified that “on August 22, 1941, the Gestapo arrived at the village of Stavyshche. On August 25, 1941, two Gestapo officers came to me to the raion administration and, through the interpreter, proposed I dig a pit in the forest… I was informed about the preparations for the execution by the Chief of the police [N], but I did not know when the Jews would be executed”.

Telling about the next action for exterminating the Jewish population, which were conducted in the winter of 1941, he told: “In the second half of December 1941, the raion agricultural commandant of the village Stavyshche [N] invited me to the commandant's office, where there was a Gestapo officer. The Gestapo officer told me that tomorrow all the Jews will be shot and it is necessary to bring them together and prepare a pit for them. After that, I went to [N]'s apartment and informed him about it.

[N] together with [N] sent policemen to the villages and the next day the entire Jewish population was brought to the village Stavyshche accompanied by village starostas and policemen of the villages of Hostra Mohyla, Yanyshivka, Kryvets, and Bohatyrka. The verification of the Jewish population was carried out by the raion administration and the police. In order not to miss unregistered Jews, the lists were checked in the raion administration even before the first execution of the group of men”41. As we can see, the double registration of the Jewish population, performed both by the local authorities and the police, from the first days of the occupation, did its work. With no particular technical difficulties associated with the identification of people, the German penal body managed to do its work quickly and efficiently.

So, the employees of the local administration bodies, partially, but still had information about preparing the extermination actions. Without them, the German administration could not so quickly find the places for future burials, set the convoy routes, prepare the places for shooting themselves, and the premises for storing the belongings of the killed people. For the sake of justice, we should note that it was this information that allowed some of the Jews to escape, having received a warning from their acquaintances who were the employees of local administration bodies.

Some employees of the local administration bodies also had their own motivation to unmask the Jews; in particular, they used the official status granted to them for personal enrichment and the improvement of their family members' property status. However, that was a direct violation of the instructions for the organization of the control system established by the occupiers. But the number of cases of local administrative staff members' abuse of power did not decrease. Even after the threats of physical violence, the acquisitiveness of many such individuals did not disappear. So, after the shooting of the Jews in the town of Chornobyl, the Head of the local raion administration handed over the Jewish house with all the property to his relative.

Other violations of the established control system procedures could be found in the documents of that raion administration. The Head of Chornobyl raion administration, in addition to abusing Jewish property, used those people for different kinds of work in his household. Having arrested a local Jew, he forced him to alter clothes in his house, using physical methods of punishment if the Jew did not complete the daywork. After completing the work, the Jew was shot by the punitive body42.

Despite the violation of the established control system procedures and abuse of power, the occupiers did not raise any particular difficulties for such employees. At the same time, when abuses on the part of German officials were unveiled, the corresponding punishment, at least an investigation of the discovered facts, was inevitable. For example, after the shooting of Kyiv Jews, some of their belongings were at the disposal of the SiPo and SD. One resident of the town of Skvyra, a former member of the Party, and the future editor of the occupation periodicals `Khabnivski Visti' and `Dzvin Voli' acted as an intermediary in the exchange of that stuff for food products. But, the German commission found numerous violations and illegality in exchange operations. That resident, together with the Head of the raion administration, was immediately arrested and sent to Kyiv for investigation43.

Thus, local administration officials could not fear persecution for their actions concerning the Jews, even if the actions had signs of looting. Although at the same time, the German administration in general disapproved of the mercenary interests of those employees and often punished them. But it also could not control `all and everything'. Therefore, it sometimes had to `close' the eyes to such actions. However, if the representatives of the local population plundered Jewish property, they were forced to return the looted stuff to the authorities44.

The local authorities took a special place in the looting of Jewish property and belongings. Based on German regulations, the local population was informed through announcements published, including in the press, about the prohibition of looting or appropriating the property of the Jews who had managed to evacuate, as well as of people who were shot. At the same time, the local population was informed about the cruelest punishments. Those who had already carried out those unauthorized actions had to hand over everything they had taken to the local administration bodies.

Thus, all the personal property belonging to the Jews, through the mediation of the local police, was registered and stored in the warehouses. Some of the most valuable personal property was appropriated by the Germans, and the rest was to be sold on local markets through the mediation of town/city and raion administrations. The funds received from the sale of that stuff were transferred to the accounts of the local authorities and were used to finance the work of its institutions, pay salaries, etc.

But, in fact, a significant part of that personal property was simply looted and appropriated by all the perpetrators of the Holocaust. Violation of official duties during the selling of Jewish property also occurred among German officials. In order for a local resident to get something of the mentioned personal property, acquaintances among German officials or personal relationships were needed. In the personal information record of one of the women who had Jewish personal property in her household, it is said quite succinctly: “She lived with a German”45. Telling about the activities of the translator of Pereiaslav gendarmerie, who, together with German officers, appropriated the personal property of the exterminated Jews, the witness testified that she

“appropriated the stuff in the guise of gifts from the German officers”46. The `gifts' were rather big because a car was used to transport them. It should be noted that the mentioned personal property was stored in the warehouse of the local administration.

Local authorities paid special attention to the immovable property of the Jews who had already been killed or were concentrated in the ghetto. Usually, it was also registered by local administration bodies. The burgomaster's office of Bila Tserkva reported that as of October 12, 1941, he had registered the accommodations left by “the Jews and Communists after the hasty retreat of the Bilshovyk army”. Some premises were renovated and handed over to accommodate army units. It was also reported in the local press that about a thousand families were provided with apartments because before the war they lived “in basements, dugouts, and damp premises”47.

After getting the corresponding permits, the Jewish accommodations, occupied by the representatives of the local population, came into their ownership and could be exchanged. They also used available furniture. If necessary, that furniture was confiscated by German officials48. The unusable houses of the Jews were dismantled and used to provide the occupation institutions with firewood49.

It should be admitted that some of the Jewish property was looted by the local population. The occupation authorities did not encourage such actions. In such a way, in the town of Bila Tserkva, the population was informed of the punishment for looting property belonging to the Jews. At the same time, the corresponding announcements, placed in the local newspaper, were put up there not by the police, but by the town authorities. The local police got the right to arrest those residents and impose a fine of 300 krb. on them. House custodians and janitors were personally responsible for the preservation of the Jewish property50. Within a week, an order, providing stronger sanctions, appeared: “For failure to carry out this order, the guilty will be punished according to the law of the wartime”51. The German officials of both the PMA and the RKU also interfered in such situations and ordered to return of all looted stuff to the town administrations52. At the same time, the town authorities somewhat exceeded their official powers when mentioned the death penalty using the euphemism “under the laws of wartime”. But such decisions, at the request of local administrative staff, were made by German authorities without notable moral qualms.