29 Jun, 1941 - Germany invaded and occupied Lvov, in eastern Galicia, in the Ukraine. Thousands of people were slaughtered.
29 Jun, 1941 - Germany invaded and occupied Lvov, in eastern Galicia, in the Ukraine. Thousands of people were slaughtered. At the start of World War II, Lvov changed hands, this time falling under the control of the Soviets, who entered the city on September 22, 1939 and immediately annexed it together with the rest of Eastern Galicia. Refugees poured into the city from German-occupied western Poland, and the Jewish population ballooned to more than 200,000. In the summer of 1940, many of them were expelled to the remote regions of the Soviet Union. Under the Soviets, Lvov underwent a process of “Ukrainization,” whereby Jewish shopkeepers were forced to sell their stocks, and later liquidate their businesses, and synagogues were forced to close down. Schools were instructed to adopt Soviet curriculums, and the Ukrainian language was gradually introduced at the expense of Yiddish. However, about 100,000 Jewish refugees from western Poland gathered in Lvov during this time, which l...