Our story began in 2011 when a friend and I discussed organizing Holocaust education trips to Poland and Ukraine. I already knew about Stolpersteine (stumbling stones), as there were more than 300 in Rome where I lived at the time.
When I was a student in London I read Primo Levi and bought a VHS video about Majdanek (Lublin, Poland). I'd watched Shoah by Claude Lanzmann on television.
Were the perpetrators ever brought to justice? Where did all of this happen? My move to Lviv on 25/12/13 answered some of those questions, and here we are.
Early impressions of Lviv included a kind of anti-semitic "humour" present in everyday conversation. Aggressive opinions about Holodomor were aired, "more people were murdered, and they were our people".
It was Stalin's engineered famine. The Industrialization of Agriculture. People were not stripped, thrown into a pit with their children and shot en masse. There's a difference.
However, here in Ukraine, Holodomor is de facto genocide. Embedded in education. It has come to define the very essence of modern Ukraine, fundamental to how Ukrainians view themselves and their fractured relationship with Russia.
Indeed, Holodomor as genocide validates Ukraine as victim, and, bizarrely, has been used by some to exonerate Ukraine of the many heinous Holocaust atrocities in which Ukrainians were complicit.
What do we think? Yes, genocide. Academics outside Ukraine invariably describe it as a crime against humanity, and that difficult debate will surely rage longer than forever. Have you read about The Hunger Plan? (only partially implemented).
Black-clad militiamen still run around Lviv, students and youngsters have been spotted wearing swastika pins, and almost all our football pubs parade "88" and "white power aryan nation" stickers.
Nazi salutes in Lviv bars are not uncommon, they call it "Roman salute" but Lviv is not Rome. Passing acquaintances who defended Ukraine have returned to Lviv with Neo-Nazi "Schutzstaffel" SS patches sewn on to their black rucksacks.
LHRF was founded in September, 2020. Since then, several eminent Holocaust historians have contributed their considerable knowledge to the project.
We publish new information about two mass execution sites (Janowska camp environs and Lysynychi forest), the Lviv ghetto, and the Lviv pogroms in 1941. There is a news page and our manifesto is clear.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine is in it's fourth year and no one expects war to end. The concept of "perpetual war" has become a new reality.
Despite this, it is our duty to develop LHRF and ensure that our Lviv Holocaust tour endures, war or no war. Parallels between the geopolitics of Lviv in 1941 and since I moved here in 2013 are reason enough to push on.
War has led to a surge in ultra-nationalism and ethnocentrism. The Rise of the Right. Everyone knows the risks. Ukraine could quite easily lurch back to the bad old days.
Ukrainians must accept that The Holocaust began on their land, albeit occupied, and was abetted by their compatriots. Simple enough.
Acceptance of complicity, however, is extremely unlikely. Until, or if it ever happens, Ukraine will remain a pariah nation and Ukrainians pariah people in the context of Holocaust history.
Jewish ghetto history was hidden in Soviet times. Today, parts of the former ghetto area share space with modern developments, but most of the buildings have not changed since November 6th, 1941 when the ghetto was established.
Between November 16th and approximately December 15th that year, Jewish people in Lviv ("Lemberg") were forcibly resettled to the run-down district of Zamarstyniv from their homes elsewhere.
This took significantly longer than expected, twelve months instead of one month. Many resisted with incredible bravery, but the end was near.
Ukrainian collaborators and Poles lived on in the relative safety of "Aryan" Lviv, while Jewish people moved into the ghetto area on foot with a handful of belongings in sacks, handcarts and wheelbarrows. Zamarstyniv, their new "home", was the poorest district of Lviv and perhaps still is today.
Approximately 138,000 Jewish people existed at one time or another in the ghetto. It was not uncommon for two families to share a "double room", or two dozen people to occupy a cramped two room apartment
Hidden Lviv where at least 90,000+ Jewish people and 10,000+ POWs were murdered. This mass shooting site has been forgotten and will become a recreation area given time, as is common in Western Ukraine.
Soviet liberators claimed over 200,000 dead, an overestimation to be used as propaganda. The reality was closer to half that number, still a terrifying statistic. Ukrainians live well nearby and a colourful children's playground has been inserted by Lviv City Council, as is tradition.
People were brought to Lysynychi and Kryvchytsi by truck and possibly by rail. Some may have had to walk. Lychakivska Street was the uphill route used between 1941-1944 and it has not changed since then.
There was no camp or "facility" per se. Eyewitnesses reported that people were moved by truck to a "ravine" close to the baker's yeast factory (Enzym Biotech today), c. 50 metres from the railway line adjacent to Lychakivska.
Ukrainian auxiliary police led them to an "out of sight" area where they were shot
Janowska today is a dilapidated prison with 600 inmates. Between 1941-1943 it was a hybrid camp controlled by German security police, Sicherheitsdienst (SD) and Hiwis (indigenous collaborators known as Trawniki men).
The Hiwis were from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Latvia, Lithuania, Russia, Crimea and Ukraine.
UOP / Ukrainian Protection Police (Ukrainska Okhoronna Politsiia), or Schutzmannschaft des Einzeldienst (German language) were the patrolling enforcers.
40,000+ Jewish people were murdered in and behind the facility, 65,000+ more deported to die in Bełżec, Auschwitz and Sobibór.
A few camp buildings and all the perimeter walls from 1941 remain. Modern usage has delivered a degree of preservation but no one has access, including historians. The likelihood of destruction of evidence is singularly high.
This is a complex topic and required reading so without further ado, Read more
Photo credit (end of the line tram stop, former Gate to Janowska), thanks to Heritage & Memory at the University of Amsterdam, Jelmer Peter & Bram de Jong.
There are videos of the Lviv pogroms in 1941. They show us how The Holocaust genocide began when elements of Ukrainian society took to beating and murdering their Jewish colleagues and neighbours, beginning on July 1st and continuing for several days then weeks thereafter.
Absolute evidence of willingness on the part of Ukrainians to collaborate, the Seed of the Holocaust sown on the Streets of Lviv, Ukraine.
A deliberately vague memorial about crimes and violence by regimes against Ukrainians dominates the street where Jewish people were attacked by Ukrainians, militiamen, and organized Ukrainian nationalists. Many were killed, including women.
When Einsatzgruppe C arrived on July 2nd, torture was carried out in a stadium near Citadel. Survivors were taken outside the city and shot. Today, Citadel Lviv (Stalag 328) is a grotesque "Gastro Boutique Hotel".
The Lviv pogroms have become increasingly problematic as war with Russia drags on. Brazen revisionists in Lviv are still trying to rewrite history, labelling clear evidence of obvious Ukrainian complicity in the pogroms, roundups, deportations, ghetto aktions and mass shootings as Russian propaganda.
It is dangerous, it is irresponsible, it sinks to the level of the evil we are all trying to overcome. Learn from the past instead of attempting to erase it
Overbuilding the former Jewish ghetto area guarantees a post on the LHRF Lviv news page, as does state-sanctioned revisionism.
We investigate the influencers who work for independent institutions in Lviv that pretend to educate. Their real purpose is propagation of revisionist agendas.
We record defaced or neglected memorials. The tradition of anti-semitic graffiti where synagogues once stood and the profusion of playgrounds where people perished is noted.
The full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 is discussed as it impacts on daily routines and limits economic opportunities. A near-fatal second death knell for tourism in Lviv after two years of enforced socio-economic reset control. "COVID".
When war criminal Putin spewed forth his "denazification" diatribe, everyone checked the calendar (not yet New Julian). Yes, it was 2022. Not 1942. Then his compatriots entered Ukraine to kill Ukrainians.
Propaganda about Ukraine being overrun by Banderites has flowed fom the Kremlin ever since. It's a stretch, 1942 was a long time ago.
In the case of Western Ukraine, however, there is real historical precedent, but no justification to risk WWIII
We examine why so many West Ukrainians collaborated with Nazis and facilitated mass murder in The Holocaust of Bullets.
Organized Ukrainian nationalists today defend their country from Russian hybrid fascism and that must be commended, as much as severance from flags, other emblems and colours that represented OUN-B and UPA in the 1940s must be made mandatory.
The photograph shows naked women and children in Mizoch (Ukrainian: Мізоч) waiting to be shot dead on October 14th, 1942. We can see that the perpetrators led them to death in groups of 25.
The two "men" wear a white armband. Where have we seen that before? On Ukrainian "men" beating and raping women during the first Lviv pogrom.
Ukrainian "People's Militsiya" (Народна Міліція). Proof. Evidence. Read more about genocide in the same area (Rivne). By joining us on our authentic Lviv Holocaust tour, you acknowledge the many challenges we face
The only relevant Holocaust tour in Lviv. It has been curated to deliver the facts about how Ukrainian collaborators registered Jews, conducted raids, guarded ghettos, loaded civilians on to death convoys to mass execution sites, and cordoned such sites off.
Most collaborators were former OUN-B and UPA militiamen, many of whom fought for Stalin's Soviet Army between 1939-1940.
We assemble the facts about how Ukrainian Schutzmannschaft rounded up then killed Jewish people, and, critically, how "security services" made up of the ethnic population made The Holocaust of Bullets happen.
The photograph was taken in 2021 and it shows the railway line in Briukhovychi, a settlement near Lviv. Deportation trains from Klepariv station in Lviv passed through Briukhovychi, destination death camp Bełżec.
Many people died by jumping from wagons, suicide or doomed attempts to escape.
Our private Lviv Holocaust Tour is a sobering experience. Mass shooting sites, assembly points and Jewish ghetto buildings are largely unchanged since 1941 at time of writing, May 1st, 2025.
Send us a message on WhatsApp to book. The tour is led by an independent expert on Lviv Holocaust history. Per person cost is £89, less if more people book. Student groups welcome. WhatsApp: Message LHRF
To learn more about Lviv visit In Lviv Tours, local experts and all round wonderful people with incredible guides.