The Cost of the War

The Second World War had brought a lot of suffering to Ukraine and its inhabitants. About 5.5 million, or one of six inhabitants of Ukraine,[14] perished in the conflict. An additional 2.3 million had been shipped to Germany to work as slaves. Over 700 cities and towns (40% of all Soviet cities and towns destroyed in the war) and 28,000 villages were destroyed. The inhabitants of 250 Ukrainian villages were totally executed as hostages. That was the result of collective responsibility tactics used by Germans to punish Soviet partisans and their helpers. For comparison, only one village with its inhabitants was destroyed in France and one in Czechoslovakia.[15]

Ukraine suffered more than any other nation in WWII. According to official statistics Ukraine lost 5.5 million of civil population (according to different data, from 850,000 to 2,25 million of them were Jews[16]), meanwhile as Belorussia lost 2.2 million, Russia – 1.8 million, Lithuania – 666,000, Latvia – 644,000, Estonia – 125,000. Ukraine’s military losses (2.5 million) were less than those of Russia (3-4 million). But if we count the total number of Ukrainians perished in the war, the number will amount to approximately 8 million. That is by 2-3 million more than Russia and by 2.5 million more than Germany.

[1] One fifth (20%) of the deported from Western Ukraine were ethnic Ukrainians, the predominant majority were Poles.

[2] For comparison, in the Stalingrad battle of over 300, 000 German army 91 000 were taken prisoner.

[3] These units consisted of former members of the Carpathian Sich, who were taken prisoner by Hungarians but then released.

[4] Protectorate means a country that is controlled and protected by a more powerful country

[5] They were reorganized into a single battalion and served in Belarus until the end of 1942, when the unit was dissolved and most of its Ukrainian officers were arrested.

[6] Some Jewish historians say that about 1.4 of 2.4 million of Ukrainian Jews were killed.

[7] German Einsatzgruppen, Ukrainian Cossacks of the Bukovynshyi Kurin’ and units of Ukrainian auxiliary police took part in the executions in Babyn Iar.

[8] According to different data, 200 000 or 300 000 of them decided not to return to the USSR after the war because they feared repressions. They settled in Western Europe and North America.

[9] The aim of this limited literacy was dictated by necessity to understand announcements posted on walls.

[10]For political reasons Soviet historians gave exaggerated numbers: 200,000 or even 500,000.

[11] Some patriotic historians give other numbers such as 100,000 or even 300,000. The majority of historians consider these numbers highly exaggerated and politically motivated.

[12] Roman Shukhevych (Taras Chuprynka) was the former commander of Nachtigall.

[13] Some Polish historians give extremely politicized and unrealistic data such as 200,000 or even 600,000. Ukrainian historians usually write about 35.000 killed.

[14] The equivalents for Germany, France and Britain were one in fifteen, one in seventy-seven and one in a hundred and twenty-five.

[15] Only Belarusian villages suffered more: 686 Belarusian villages were burned with their inhabitants as punishment for Soviet partisan activities.

[16] Jewish historians usually tend to exaggerate the number (over 2 million), to show the extent of the Holocaust and to justify the restoration of Israel in 1947. Independent historians calculated that from 850,000 to 1 million Jews perished in Ukraine in WW II. Jews made up a quarter of Soviet Ukraine’s city population in 1926; in the 1960-70s – 3-4 percent. Western Ukraine lost almost all her Jewish people as a result of the war.

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