This lecture will discuss how the East Galician town of Buczacz was transformed from a site of coexistence, where Poles, Ukrainians, and Jews had lived side-by-side for centuries, into a site of genocide. Between 1941, when the Germans conquered the region, and 1944, when the Soviets liberated it, the entire Jewish population of Buczacz was murdered by the Nazis. They received ample help from local Ukrainians, who proceeded to ethnically cleanse the region of its Polish population. What were the reasons for this instance of communal violence? What were its dynamics that set it into motion? Why has it been erased from the local memory?
