Documentation from the Central State Archives of Public Organizations of Ukraine, 1941-1977

There are files in the coolection which were selected from among the 60 records groups in the Central State Archives of Public Organizations of Ukraine. Previously, the Central Archive was known as the Party Archive of the Institute for the History of the Communist Party in Ukraine (the Institute was a branch of the Tsentralny Komitet Komunisticheskoy Partiy Ukrainy [Ukrainian Institute of Marxism-Leninism of the Communist Party]). Until 1989, foreign researchers were not given access to the Archive, and access granted to Soviet researchers was limited.In 1991, an agreement was reached for cooperation between the Archive and the Yad Vashem Archives, which made it possible for Yad Vashem to photocopy the above mentioned documentation between 1991 and 1997. Among the documentation there are documents regarding the history of the Holocaust in occupied Ukraine and other areas of the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, Poland and the Buchenwald camp.The documentation includes information concerning the occupation regime, murder of Jews, Nazi crimes, crimes of collaborators, concealment of evidence of the crimes, and trials against the Nazis and collaborators conducted after the war. In the collection there is also documentation regarding the activities of nationalist groups and their military units that were active on both sides of the front. Most of the documentation pertains to the Ukrainian organizations, however there is also documentation concerning Russian, Polish, Uzbek, Lithuanian and Latvian organizations.Most of the documentation was created by the Ukrainskiy shtab partizanskogo dvizheniya (USHPD - Ukrainian Partisan Movement Headquarters), which concentrated and directed the [partisan] movement in Ukraine, cooperated with the underground and the Red Army, and provided its fighters with ammunition, weapons and medicines during World War II.In the collection there is also documentation regarding the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolshevik) of Ukraine; the Commission for the History of the Great Patriotic War [World War II] at the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine; the Central Committee of the Komsomol of Ukraine; and the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense.One of the central topics in the Record Group is the participation of the Jews in the armed struggle against the Nazis including their participation in liquidation units and enlistment in civil defense, partisan movements and undergrounds. In the collection there is also documentation regarding the evacuation of the Jews who were Polish and Romanian citizens and their repatriation after the war, displays of antisemitism during the war and afterwards, participation of Jews in the evacuation of essential factories in defense of the country, manufacturing of weapons against the Germans, and Jewish religious, cultural and nationalistic life in the early post-war period.The most prominent types of documentation in the Records Group: - Legal documentation from the trials conducted against the Nazi criminals and collaborators in Ukraine after the war;- Special survey reports prepared by the political headquarters of the NKVD People's Commissariat for Ukrainian Internal Affairs on the front, the regional committees of the Communist Party, intelligence reports by partisan units regarding the destruction of the Jewish population, nationalist activities by the Ukrainians and more; - Orders from the commander of the partisan unit (GRU RKKA: GRU - Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Red Army [RKKA]) regarding the establishment of three camps for civilians, their defense and provision of equipment, December 1941; - Letters from nationalistic Ukrainians and clergymen (especially the Metropolitan Bishop Andrei Sheptytsky) to the heads of the Third Reich;- Testimonies from Germans regarding the murder of the Jews in Babi Yar; - Memoirs, articles, songs/poems and drawings by Buchenwald inmates;- Documentation of publications issued by the Committee for State Security (KGB) regarding OUN (Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists) activity; OUN members committed crimes against Jews and collaborated with the Nazis. In the Record group there is also documentation regarding the following organizations:- AK (Armia Krajowa); - AL (Armia Ludowa);- ChGK (the Soviet Extraordinary State Commission for ascertaining and investigating crimes perpetrated by the German–Fascist invaders and their accomplices); - EAK (Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee - JAC);- EAO (Jewish Autonomous Region); - KEK (Kabinet Evreyskoy Kultury -Cabinet of Jewish Culture of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences);- KGB (Komitet Gosudarstvenoy Bezopasnost - Committee for State Security); - SmerSh (Smert Shpionam - espionage unit of the Narodny Komissariat Oborony [NKO - People's Commissariat for Defense]);- UVO (Ukrainskaya Voenaya Organizatsiya - Ukrainian Military Organization); - UNRA (Ukrainskaya Narodno-Revolutsiyna Armiya - Ukrainian National Revolutionary Army);- UPA (Ukrainskaya Povstancheskaya Armia - Ukrainian Insurgent Army); - UShPD (Ukrainsiy Shtab Partizanskogo Dvizheniya - Ukrainian Headquarters of the Partisan Movement)- GRU RKKA (Galvnoe Razvedovatelnoe Upravlenie - Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the RKKA [Red Army])- SSSR Po USSR (Upolnomocheniy Po Delam Religiy Pri Sovete Ministrov - Supervisor for Religious Matters of the SM SSSR [USSR Council of Ministers]in Ukraine); - Upolnomocheniy Po Delam Polshy (Supervisor for Polish Affairs);- ROA (Russkaya Osvoboditelnaya Armiya - Russian Liberation Army); - OUN (Organizacya Ukrainskikh Natsinalistov - Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists).