Taylor Jackson

Dr. Hickman

Genocide and War Crimes

10/10/2008

The Role of Conceptions and Indigenous Actions in Ukraine’s Holocaust

From their first world history class, many western students are lead to believe that the

Holocaust was begun by an evil man, in the person of Adolf Hitler, who rallied a people around

the destruction of the arbitrarily chosen and defenseless Jewish population. This massive

oversimplification of the reasons behind the holocaust proves to be misleading. Many fail to

realize the complex reasons behind the many atrocities that were committed during this horrific

chapter of world history. Nowhere is this more evident than in the Holocaust in the Ukraine. First

of all, Germany had a very specific reason for expanding beyond its borders and destroying the

Jewish population of the Ukraine. Also, the actions of many people, including occupying

Germans and ethnic German residents of the Ukraine, aided in the success and progression of the

genocide.

When attempting to understand the Holocaust in the Ukraine, one must examine the

thinking behind the Nazi’s colonial ambitions. As mentioned in Wendy Lower’s book Nazi

Empire-Building and the Holocaust in Ukraine, Nazi colonial ideas center on the concepts of

“race and space.” Hitler held a strong belief that ethnic Germans, and more specifically Aryans,

were the superior races. Additionally, he labeled the Jewish race as the most inferior. Hitler also

adhered to a very strong belief that wherever ethnic Germans resided in the world, the German

state had a legitimate claim on the people and the land (Lower 2002). This even included moving

Germans into certain areas to legitimize their colonization.

 In the mindset of Adolf Hitler, the selection of the Jews to be the inferior race would be

perfectly logical. The Jewish race had a long history of isolating themselves from the rest of

society to maintain their strict lifestyle, which was deeply rooted in the Jewish faith. This devout

adherence to Jewish law caused an extraordinarily strong sense of community among the

population. Additionally, laws required the education of all young men in order to take part in

religious rituals. These two factors alarmed many gentiles that lived around the various Jewish

diasporas across Europe and the Middle East. In many cases, the societies at large would view

the Jewish population as threatening as Jews often retained high positions yet still reserved a

great amount of mysteriousness. The seeds of these anti-Semitist notions were planted after the

expulsion of the Jews from their homeland and their subsequent scattering to various parts of the

world. They continued to intensify up until the beginning of the Holocaust (Black).

Before the beginning of the Holocaust, Germans had an intense desire to expand their

boundaries. While great debate was undertaken within Germany about whether to meet this end

by forming colonies oversees or locally, one thing was certain: additional living space, or

lebensraum, was needed. Under the Nazis, it was determined that local expansion would be

beneficial. According to Lower, “Hitler looked to Germany’s eastern frontier as the natural place

to expand” (2002). This could likely be due to the Ukraine’s abundance of natural resources and

population of inferior Slavic peoples (Lower 2005). Hitler envisioned this area as a “Garden of

Eden” where the settled German farmer would “till the land with a weapon at his side” (Lower

2002).

While Hitler’s aim was to create a “Garden of Eden” for his preferred Aryans, it would

result in being a land of misery for many of the inferior races. In order to purify the Ukraine of

its inferior residents, Nazi Germany undertook a campaign of genocide on a massive proportion.
The scale was so massive, in fact, that a certain level of assistance from those being persecuted

would have been necessary. One of the means in which the Nazis began to control Ukraine was

by placing ethnic German and Ukrainian residents of the colonized territory in leadership

positions. While these people appeared to be more inferior Eastern in appearance and action

rather than Aryan, they were nonetheless utilized to by the Nazis to administer the occupied

Ukraine (Lower 2002). The Nazis were seemingly able to motivate these inferior people to use

their positions of leadership to purify Ukraine of its most inferior inhabitants: the Jews. This

process turned countrymen against their fellow citizens and neighbors against one another,

resulting in one of the most horrific instances of genocide during the Holocaust (Browder).

The Holocaust in Ukraine is arguably among one of the most interesting to study, and

unfortunately is one that is not studied near enough. Within its history, one can easily detect the

complex colonial aspirations of the Germans. It can also be easily noted that there was not only

an aggressive force of Germans taking part in hostilities, but also a large component of “inferior”

races that were either willing participants or complacent figures in the face of these atrocities.

The Holocaust in Ukraine certainly disproves many of the commonly held notions about the

Holocaust, especially the idea that there was not any level complacency or willingness among

those being persecuted. However, in order for this genocide to have been so horrific, a certain

level of this complacency or willingness had to occur.

 Works Cited

Black, Tim. "Why are the Jews the 'Chosen' Victims?" History Review (Mar 2004): 34-35.

Browder, George C. "Collaboration in the Holocaust: Crimes of the Local Police in Belorussia
and Ukraine, 1941-44 - Martin Dean." Holocaust and Genocide Studies (Fall 2002): 293.

Lower, Wendy. "A New Ordering of Space and Race: Nazi Colonial Dreams in Zhytomyr,
Ukraine ." German Studies Review (May 2002): 227-254.

Lower, Wendy. Nazi Empire Building and the Holocaust in Ukraine. Chapel Hill, NC: The
University of North Carolina Press, 2005.