In examining and understanding the racial and ideological motives behind GG population and welfare policy, it is necessary to turn to the legal and practical aspects of it to understand how and on what basis the Ukrainian Central Committee functioned. Frank’s background as a lawyer and his experiences and training in government prepared him to establish from scratch a state apparatus and legal system in the GG. He was filled with a zest
571 Max du Prel, Podręcznik dla Generalnego Gubernatorstwa w Polsce (Krakau: Buchverlag Ost, 1941), 91.
572 Kedryn, Zhyttia-podiї-liudy..., 363-364; Torzecki, Polacy i Ukraińcy…, 56.
573 PISM, MIiD, folder A.10.3/12, Wyciag z komunikatu nr. 8 Sztabu Naczelnego Wodza Oddzial II, February 15, 1941.
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to turn ideas and ideologies into practical laws.574 Racially dividing Poland’s prewar inhabitants into racial tribes resonated in GG laws; ones for “former Polish state citizens” and Jews.575
In a similar fashion as their Ukrainian counterparts, Poles also organized ad hoc welfare and aid organizations or continued worn in prewar ones immediately following the eruption of war in 1939.576 The amount of uncontrolled Polish and Ukrainian committees raised alarm among the Germans as they were yet under the control of the occupation apparatus. According to Arlt, the destruction of Poland called for an overhaul and the legal revision of state-sponsored welfare. He claimed the prewar system was a subsequent tool of state-sponsored polonization aimed at ethnic minorities (especially Germans and Ukrainians).
In turn, he associated this as a subsequent example of “the tragic racial-ethnic Polnische Wirtschaft.”577 In Arlt’s eyes, GG state-sponsored welfare would be more representative, including the various prewar ethnicities previously marginalized.
Aside from political and racial motives, a subsequent factor which prompted the German occupier toward revising the welfare system was the interest of Americans in sending aid to occupied Poland. Following German-American negotiations, the first American mission – consisting of representatives of the American Red Cross and the Polish Food Commission (commonly referred to as the Hoover Commission) – arrived in November 1939 to assess welfare needs and to make contacts with officials. In talks with Adam Ronikier, Polish GG welfare representative, the Americans discussed the terms of for an institution to distribute aid throughout the GG: solely Polish in character, directly under the control of the Americans and possessing a monopoly over distributing goods to all other welfare and aid organizations. However, any organization had to be approved by the Germans who had no intention of allowing it to continue the work of prewar welfare institutions or be directly subservient to outside bodies such as the International Red Cross.578
The occupier was also directly interested in the issue of American aid on their territory. Frank learned of the American propositions from SS-Standartenführer Wilhelm von Janowsky of the NSDAP People’s Welfare (Nationalsozialistische Volkswohlfahrt – NSV) in early November 1939. The general governor opposed any idea of uncontrolled American-Polish contacts. However, he agreed to American aid to be distributed through a
574 Housaden, Hans Frank, Lebensraum and the Holocaust, 76; 88. An important figure and close collaborator of Frank’s who coordinated the legislative process in the GG was Dr. Albert Weh. Andrzej Wrzyszcz,
“Hierarchia aktów prawnych wprowadzonych przez okupanta niemieckiego w Generalnym Gubernatorstwie w latach 1939-1945,” Studia Iuridica Lublinensia nr. 22 (2014), 701-707.
575 Mitera, Zwyczajny faszyzm..., 82.
576 Bogdan Kroll, Rada Główna Opiekuńcza (Warszawa: Książka i Wiedza, 1985), 27-49.
577 Arlt, Die Ordnung der Fürsorge und Wohlfahrt im Generalgouvernement, 5.
578 Kroll, Rada Główna Opiekuńcza, 50- 53; Ronikier, Pamiętniki 1939-1945, 24. Columbia P. Murphy headed the American Red Cross group while MacDonald, a Quaker, represented the Hoover Commission. As Ronikier recalled in his memoirs, his role in organizing and distributing American aid sent to Poland by Herbert Hoover contributed to their amicable relations.
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organized, GG controlled institution.579 Before year's end, Arlt was tasked with entering into talks with Poles toward creating a welfare organization. He attempted to revise the existing Polish Red Cross to meet new German terms and become the agent of aid in the GG but to no avail. At the same time, von Janowsky entered into talks with Warsaw Poles. He envisioned revising the prewar capital's social aid committee to encompass the entire GG; going so far as presenting the men with a drawn-up statute and call to the Polish people. While central welfare issued remained unclear, the NSV provided some aid to German-occupied Poland.
For example, the large Ukrainian internment camp in Kraków benefited from NSV foodstuffs.580
Needless to say, the idea of Berlin dictating and organizing welfare work in Frank’s GG did not sit well with him. As an administrator who answered only to Hitler, he opposed Reich authority extending its grip into his territory. To prevent this, Frank subordinated von Janowsky to the GG internal affairs department. The latter proposed reorganizing Polish welfare to prevent Poles from finding any pretexts for non-charitable aims. Frank approved of this approach but ordered GG officials to be vigilant.581
Whereas Poles, like Ukrainians, prepared organizational statutes, the occupier was not ready to allow a Polish central institution – envisioning to provide welfare to Poles and Polish Jews – to monopolize aid over all GG ethnic groups. The Ukrainians initially proposed creating a counter institute of their own to oversee their welfare matters. This proved unacceptable as the occupier envisioned one central ethnic welfare institution for the GG.
Ukrainians later requested to be included in the Polish council on the grounds of being a prewar Polish national group. Some civil administrators urged for a separate welfare body for Polish Jews.582
German visions of Polish monopolization of welfare correlated with a dangerous possibility – exploiting charitable welfare by the Poles for anti-German activity and international contacts. To solve the matter, the authorities called to life a central welfare council for the GG (Haupthilfausschuss für die Generalgouvernement) to coordinate the three newly-created, ethnically distinct welfare organizations: the Polish Main Welfare Council
579 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/1, Tagebuch des Herrn Generalgouverneurs für die besetzen polnische Gebiete vom 25.
Oktober bis 15. Dezember 1939, p. 61. The NSDAP People’s Welfare was created in 1933 as the only state-sponsored charitable aid organization in the Reich. By 1939, some 27 million Germans were receiving various types of NSV-sponsored social welfare: old-age insurance, rent supplements, unemployment and disability benefits, nursing home care, interest-free loans for newlyweds and healthcare insurance. It operated daycare nurseries, holiday homes for mothers and distributed additional food to large families. Götz Aly, Hitlers Volksstaat: Raub, Rassenkrieg und nationaler Sozialismus (Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer, 2005),
580 Kroll, Rada Główna Opiekuńcza, 55-56; Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Heneral’nii Hubernii, 47. Arlt envisioned moving Polish Red Cross headquarters from Warsaw to the new GG capital Kraków with the Germans being the authority choosing its head; moves intending to make it directly dependent to the GG authorities while maintaining its international status. The Poles explained that any changes to the statute would force them to inform the International Red Cross in Geneva; something which would propel revisions to Polish welfare and relief work onto an international stage.
581 AIPN, DHF, GK 95/1, Tagebuch des Herrn Generalgouverneurs für die besetzen polnische Gebiete vom 25.
Oktober bis 15. Dezember 1939, pp. 108; 113-114.
582 AAN, Rada Główna Opiekuńcza (RGO), sygn. 6, Arlt letter to Ronikier, 1940.
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(Rada Główna Opiekuńcza – RGO), a Jewish Self-Help Society (Jüdische Soziale Selbsthilfe), and the Ukrainian Central Committee. The central welfare councils' executive board consisted on 7 members – 5 Poles, 1 Jew and 1 Ukrainian. Following the expansion of GG borders in 1941, the board was restructured to meet the influx of Ukrainians: 4 Poles, 2 Ukrainians and 1 Jew.583 Arlt originally proposed Vasyl’ Mudryi for the Ukrainian position before Kubiiovych was named UTsK head.584
Adam Ronikier, head of the Polish RGO and central welfare council, described his first meeting with Kubiiovych over talks concerning aid distribution to GG Ukrainians. He recalled the difficulty in coming to terms with him as Kubiiovych was “currently such a zealous Ukrainian nationalist that for him, the principles of fairness concerning Ukrainian interests did not exist.” During their talks, Kubiiovych claimed Ukrainians comprised 15 percent of the GG population. Ronikier claimed this figure included Ukrainians from Eastern Galicia and was not representative of the current situation. To this, Kubiiovych cut the talks short and abruptly left.585 After the Lemko region was included into the understanding of ethnic Ukrainians in the GG, they comprised 7 percent of the population. As such, the UTsK received 7 percent of America welfare. After the attachment of Eastern Galicia to the GG, this number increased.
This solution fit into the German vision of welfare in the GG as it aimed to alleviate the central administration from these matters by instead placing responsibility on the respective ethnic welfare councils. In essence, the occupier created an arena for further ethnic antagonism as they envisioned the committees to remain in a constant state of hostility among one another at the local levels over pressing supplies (such as medicine, foodstuffs, clothing, etc.) or medical and social care. Arlt contextualized this aspect of divide et impera, writing:
Our assumptions over matters of social welfare and aid are then political in nature. All questions associated with aid and social welfare are solved according to German racial and ethnic policies… In order to exert indirect influence on ethnic groups, our social welfare is assigned the task of deciding who aid is given to, the amounts given and observing the ethnic groups to ensure that no low-level socially-inspired political movements are being born.586
The role of the central welfare council was relegated to dispersing material aid received by the GG authorities via the German Red Cross along with dealing with the GG
583 Czesław Łuczak, Polityka ludnościowa i ekonomiczna hitlerowskich niemiec w okupowanej Polsce (Poznań:
Wydawnictwo Poznańskie, 1979), 573; Arlt, Die Ordnung der Fürsorge und Wohlfahrt im Generalgouvernement, 110; Kroll, Rada Główna Opiekuńcza, 63. Prior to the change of the official GG title, the central welfare council was called the Hauptausschuss für die besetzen polnischen Gebiete.
584 AAN, RGO, sygn. 6, Arlt letter to Ronikier, 1940; Ronikier letter to Mudryi, June 26, 1940, p. 13; Ronikier letter to Kubiiovych, June 27, 1940, p. 16.
585 Ronikier, Pamiętniki 1939-1945, 39. According to Ronikier, during a meeting with Mudryi and Mykhailo Sopuliak, the former proposed mediation over the pressing issue of aid distribution. The three agreed to Stanisław Badeni (Polish aristocrat, historian and lawyer from Eastern Galicia who was familiar with Ukrainian issues) to serve as mediator over the issue as his opinions were seen as objective and fair by both sides. After some research, Badeni concluded that Ukrainians comprised 5.5 percent of the GG population.
586 Arlt, Die Ordnung der Fürsorge und Wohlfahrt im Generalgouvernement, 5.
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authorities in matters concerning welfare. The Red Cross commissioner in the GG – initially Louis Sanne; later Hugon Heller – was the intermediary between the central welfare council and the population and welfare bureau of the GG internal affairs department.587 However, as Czesław Łuczak noted, the council’s work was handicapped as each committee preferred directly negotiating with the Germans on their own with the hope of gaining more favorable outcomes in this way.588 Although administratively burdensome for the occupiers, they were surely pleased with the fact that no cohesion formed among the ethnic committees.
The first directive legalizing UTsK work in the GG was Arlt’s temporary aid committee guideline; adopted on May 4, 1940. It designated the role of aid committees at the county and city-district levels. Each committee consisted of a five-man executive. Besides the committee head, a secretary oversaw organizational questions. The other areas of welfare were: work-economic aid, youth-family aid and financial management. Their assignments concerned overseeing welfare and distributing aid, including goods and money, along with organizing or maintaining existing charitable institutions. The intermediary between the aid committees and the GG population bureau was Kubiiovych.589
Statues (Satzung) officially called to life all three ethnic welfare committees in the GG. The Ukrainian one officially declared the UTsK the organization overseeing the distribution of welfare, aid and finances among the aid committees as well as indirectly cooperating with international welfare organizations by directly working with the German Red Cross. To prevent any attempts of inter-ethnic welfare, an article clearly stipulated UTsK welfare for GG Ukrainians only. The executive was to consist of at least seven members including a chairman and deputy. Ukrainian associations or individuals were permitted to join the UTsK as associate members provided approval from the GG internal affairs department.
All three committees were subject to the internal department and mandated to keep it abreast of all activity.590
Regulations for committee work (Geschäftsordnung I und II) outlined in greater detail rules and assignments. These included procedures for conducting executive meetings, compiling reports, membership, and committee assignments.591 Subsequent guidelines
587 Hugon Heller, “Das Deutsche Rote Kreuz im Generalgouvernement” in du Prel (ed), Das Generalgouvernement, 75; 77.
588 Herbert Heinrich, “Aufbau und Organisation der freien Wohlfahrt” in Arlt, Die Ordnung der Fürsorge und Wohlfahrt im Generalgouvernement, 30; Łuczak, Polityka ludnościowa i ekonomiczna..., 573.
589 BA, R 52 III/6, Ordnung der ukrainischen Wohlfahrt, May 4, 1940, pp. 76-81. Also in Arlt, Die Ordnung der Fürsorge und Wohlfahrt im Generalgouvernement, 127-128.
590 Arlt, Die Ordnung der Fürsorge und Wohlfahrt im Generalgouvernement, 113-114. The Polish RGO and Jewish Self-Help Society's statues also contained articles defining who they worked for – Poles and Jews respectively.
591 Ibid, 120-123. Essentially, every legal step of the UTsK was to be reported to the GG authorities. Projects pertaining to the development of self-standing charitable institutions needed German approval. The internal affairs department was to be notified of all executive meetings, ones held between the 3rd and 7th of every month. German and Ukrainian language protocols were drafted with the German version sent to the authorities.
A monthly report outlined activities, details of aid received, financial statements and balance. An annual report
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(Richtlinien) were prepared to supersede the temporary one Arlt prepared for aid committees.
The updated version clearly defined their welfare and aid role. This included assisting refugees or evacuees by finding work for them, organizing orphanages and kindergartens for children, organizing specialized courses to prepare Ukrainians for agricultural or physical work, training Ukrainians in sanitary and hygienic practices, and aiding destitute families.
This was to be done with UTsK finances and donations from local Ukrainians.592
According to Kubiiovych, the various legal guidelines, regulations and rules the GG authorities prepared were both chaotic and at times contradictory to one another. Certainly, Nazi laws were filled with vague wording open to interpretation and boundless omnibus provisions. To facilitate a clearer understanding of them, especially for aid committees, the UTsK prepared a handbook of its own (Handhabungsvorschriften); one approved by the Germans. Added to aid committee structures were delegates and trusted men. The former worked primarily in towns while the latter were in every village. These men represented aid committees and authority at the lowest levels. The executive was expanded to include oversight in cultural, organizational-personnel and food-nutritional matters.593
Complementing the GG-mandated statue and regulations for the UTsK, an internal guide was created. Kubiiovych claimed that it came out of practice, glossing over its aspects in his later memoirs.594 However, these internal guidelines gave concrete definition to the vague elasticity of the German statutes and legal regulations. As the UTsK saw it, aid and welfare for GG Ukrainians had a broader meaning:
Even though the primary assignment of the UTsK was overall aid activity, at the same time the UTsK in its work was not only a charitable organization. UTsK activity sailed a far wider stream than what was envisioned in its narrow statute because the Committee provid aspired to confer its own, broader interpretations to the narrow, uncertain yet flexible resolutions of the UTsK statute. So in relation to the terms welfare or aid to the needy, the UTsK provid understood this as not only material support (financial, food or clothing) but to also help the needy gain professional knowledge or to generally raise their cultural level, to improve their material state.595 Providing the wide-ranging understanding of welfare and aid to the Ukrainian people in the GG was mandated in the guidelines in rhetoric describing it as a national cause and responsibility to provide the “suffering, scattered” people with dedicated and committed social care. Each individual was called to give their all in this struggle for socio-cultural welfare. The non-material aspect of welfare was best visible in articles relating to youth education which pledged for a school with Ukrainian teachers for Ukrainian children in every
summarized UTsK work for a given year. The yearly budget of the Committee also relied on the approval of the authorities.
592 Ibid, 129-130.
593 Ibid, 130-132; LAC, VKF, MG 31 D 203, volume 26, folder 5, Instruktsiia v spravi dilovodstva Delegatur Ukraїns’kykh Dopomohovykh Komitetiv na tereni Heneral'-Hubernatorstva, May 1, 1940; Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Heneral’nii Hubernii, 99.
594 Kubiiovych, Ukraїntsi v Heneral’nii Hubernii, 125-126.
595 Ibid, 101-102.
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Ukrainian village. Furthermore, polonized children were to be given special attention. In addition to this, supplementary cultural indoctrination outside of formal schools aimed to
“raise the level of Ukrainian consciousness of the populace so that they, in turn, can immediately work and perform their civic responsibilities.”596
A revised guideline compiled on the eve of the German attack on the USSR, presumably in preparation to expand the Committee apparatus to Eastern Galicia, emphatically declared the UTsK to be structured on the basis of authoritarian Führerprinzip, with all responsibility vested in the providnyk. His deputy was designated as an envisioned aid committee head in Lwów; in this way maintaining a constant communication link between Kraków and Lwów.597 At its height in 1942 the UTsK apparatus in the GG contained 26 Ukrainian aid committees, 41 delegates, 965 trusted men, and 109 village branches. At the same time the Polish aid committee apparatus numbered only 61 branches throughout the GG. Whereas the overwhelming majority of these institutions were on what Ukrainians considered ethnographic territory, some fell outside of it on ethnically-mixed and ethnographically Polish territory.598 Torzecki postulated the question of the UTsK apparatus extending onto ethnically Polish territory. He suggested German approval of committees there may have also aimed to serve their occupational needs, i.e. as a means of maintaining ethnic antagonisms or to observe Polish activity and attitudes. However, it is also possible that in organizing some aid committees on non-Ukrainian ethnographic territory, the UTsK was continuing the tradition of the Petliurite central committee which had branches in such cities as Częstochowa for example.
One aspect of fremdvölkische welfare to briefly examine are the personages of Adam Ronikier and Volodymyr Kubiiovych; heads of their respective ethnic committees. Two questions to ask are: what did each man hope to achieve in his role? And how did each hope to achieve it within the legal limitations imposed by the GG authorities?
In his memoirs, Ronikier wrote that his main goal as Polish welfare committee head during the war was saving the substance of the nation.599 For him however, any efforts to cooperate with the German occupier, even if for the good of the Polish people, was met with
In his memoirs, Ronikier wrote that his main goal as Polish welfare committee head during the war was saving the substance of the nation.599 For him however, any efforts to cooperate with the German occupier, even if for the good of the Polish people, was met with