Atrocities
Although the Waffen-SS as a whole was declared to be a criminal organization at the Nuremberg Trials, the Galizien Division has not specifically been found guilty of any war crimes by any war tribunal or commission. However, numerous accusations of impropriety have been leveled at the division, and at particular members of the division, from a variety of sources. It is difficult to determine the extent of war criminality among members of the division.[39] If prior service in Nazi police units is a measure of criminality, only a small number were recruited from established police detachments. Among those who had transferred from police detachments, some had been members of a coastal defence unit that had been stationed in France, while others came from two police battalions that had been formed in the spring of 1943, too late to have participated in the murder of Ukraine's Jews. According to Howard Margolian, there is no evidence that these units participated in anti-partisan operations or reprisals prior to their inclusion into the division. However, before their service within the police battalions, a number of recruits are alleged to have been in Ukrainian irregular formations that are alleged to have committed atrocities against Jews and Communists. Nevertheless, in their investigations of the division, both the Canadian government and the Canadian Jewish Congress failed to find hard evidence to support the notion that it was rife with criminal elements.[39]
The division did destroy several Polish communities in western Ukraine during the winter and spring of 1944.[40] Specifically, the 4th and 5th SS Police Regiments have been accused of murdering Polish civilians in the course of anti-guerilla activity. At the time of their actions, those units were not yet under Divisional command, but were under German police command.[41] Yale historian Timothy Snyder noted that the division's role in the Massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia was limited, because the murders were primarily carried out by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army.
In a speech to the soldiers of the 1st Galician division, Heinrich Himmler stated:
Your homeland has become so much more beautiful since you have lost – on our initiative, I must say – those residents who were so often a dirty blemish on Galicia's good name, namely the Jews ... I know that if I ordered you to liquidate the Poles ... I would be giving you permission to do what you are eager to do anyway.[42]
In June 2013, Associated Press published an article stating that an American, Michael Karkoc, who was alleged to be a former "deputy company commander" in the division, was implicated in war crimes committed before he joined the division in 1945. According to Associated Press, before joining the Division Karkoc had served as a "lieutenant" of the 2nd Company of the German SS Police-led Ukrainian Self Defense Legion (USDL).[43] The USDL was a paramilitary police organization in the Schutzmannschaft. Karkoc was found living in Lauderdale, Minnesota. He had arrived in the United States in 1949 and became a naturalized citizen in 1959.[44][45]
Huta Pieniacka
Main article: Huta Pieniacka massacre
One of the stone tablets of the monument which lists the names of Poles killed at Huta Pieniacka.
The Polish historian Grzegorz Motyka has stated that the Germans formed several SS police regiments (numbered from 4 to
which included "Galizien" in their name. Those police regiments joined the division in Spring 1944. On 23 February 1944, before being incorporated into the division,[12] the 4th and 5th police regiments had participated in anti-guerrilla action at Huta Pieniacka,[46] against Soviet and Polish Armia Krajowa partisans in the village of Huta Pieniacka, which had also served as a shelter for Jews and as a fortified centre for Polish and Soviet guerrillas.[41] Huta Pieniacka was a Polish self-defence outpost,[47] organized by inhabitants of the village and sheltering civilian refugees from Volhynia.[48] On 23 February 1944, two members of a detachment of the division were shot by the self-defense forces.[49] Five days later, a mixed force of Ukrainian police and German soldiers shelled the village before entering it and ordering all the civilians to gather together. In the ensuing massacre, the village of Huta Pienacka was destroyed, and between 500[50] and 1,000 of the inhabitants were killed. According to Polish accounts, civilians were locked in barns that were set on fire, while those attempting to flee were killed.[51]
Polish witness accounts state that the soldiers were accompanied by Ukrainian nationalists (paramilitary unit under Włodzimierz Czerniawski's command), which included members of the UPA, as well as inhabitants of nearby villages who took property from households.[52]
The NASU Institute of History of Ukraine of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine concluded that the 4th and 5th SS Galizien Police regiments did kill the civilians within the village, but added that the grisly reports by eyewitnesses in the Polish accounts were "hard to come up with" and that the likelihood was "difficult to believe". The institute also noted that, at the time of the massacre, the police regiments were not under 14th division command, but rather under German police command (specifically, under German Sicherheitsdienst and SS command of the General Government).[53] The Polish Institute of National Remembrance stated: "According to the witness' testimonies, and in the light of the collected documentation, there is no doubt that the 4th battalion 'Galizien' of the 14th division of SS committed the crime"[54]
Pidkamin and Palikrowy
Main articles: Pidkamin massacre and Palikrowy massacre
The village of Pidkamin was the site of a monastery where Poles sought shelter from the encroaching front. On 11 March 1944, around 2,000 people, the majority of whom were women and children, were seeking refuge there when the monastery was attacked by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (unit under Maksym Skorupsky command), allegedly cooperating with an SS-Galizien unit.[55] The next day, 12 March, the monastery was captured and civilians were murdered (at night part of the population managed to escape). From 12 to 16 March, other civilians were also killed in the town of Pidkamin.[55]
Estimates of victims range from 150, by Polish historian Grzegorz Motyka,[55] to 250, according to the researchers of the Institute of History of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences.[41]
Members of another SS-Galizien sub-unit also participated in the execution of Polish civilians in Palykorovy, located in the Lwów area (Lviv oblast) near Pidkamin (former Tarnopol Voivodeship). It is estimated that 365 ethnic Poles were murdered, including women and children.[55]
The Canadian Deschênes Commission
Memorial to SS-Galizien division in Chervone, Lviv Oblast, western Ukraine
The Canadian "Commission of Inquiry on War Crimes" of October 1986, by the Honourable Justice Jules Deschênes concluded that in relation to membership in the Galicia Division:
The Galicia Division (14. Waffen grenadier division der SS [gal. #1]) should not be indicted as a group. The members of Galicia Division were individually screened for security purposes before admission to Canada. Charges of war crimes of Galicia Division have never been substantiated, either in 1950 when they were first preferred, or in 1984 when they were renewed, or before this Commission. Further, in the absence of evidence of participation or knowledge of specific war crimes, mere membership in the Galicia Division is insufficient to justify prosecution.[56]
The commission considered the International Military Tribunal's verdict at the Nuremberg Trials, at which the entire Waffen-SS organisation was declared a "criminal organization" guilty of war crimes.[57] Also, in its conclusion, the Deschênes Commission only referred to the division as 14. Waffen-Grenadier-Division der SS (Galizische Nr.1) but rejected such a principle.
