Under the influence of the German model, Ukrainian nationalists were also preparing a confrontation with the Jewish population. In April 1941, the second congress of Stepan Bandera’s OUN-b did not call for pogroms directly,but declared in its new program that “the OUN shall combat the Jews as supporters of the Muscovite-Bolshevik regime”. Even more radical in their antisemitic designs was the Central Ukrainian Committee of Volodymyr Kubiyovych, associated with the OUN-m (Melnykites).10At the same time, a similar process of radicalisation of anti-Jewish attitudes occurred in the Lithuanian Activist Front.
The German attack on 22 June 1941 surprised all ethnic groups equally. The Soviet propaganda was completely silent regarding both the Germanpreparations and the anti-Jewish decrees in the conquered European countries. Nevertheless, the Jews were seized with panic and joined the crowds ofthousands of refugees, which moved to the east. Only a few managed to escape the German tanks – in areas near the border, these were officials and activists who had rendered particularly meritorious services for the new government and were thus allowed to evacuate. On the northern and central front, the attack came extremely fast; only on the Ukrainian front did the Russians defend their new territorial acquisitions until 8 July. Fugitives, if not captured by German troops, were stopped at the former Polish–Soviet border by the NKVD units fighting until the end.
About one million Borderlands Jews found themselves trapped. The regular army was followed by special forces, referred to as death squadrons, four Einsatzgruppen trained for special tasks from March 1941, three of which (A, B, and C) operated on former Polish territory. Their objective was a swift elimination of any potential enemy: government officials, hiding Red Army officers, party activists, and male Jews, especially representatives of the intelligentsia, collectively identified as supporters of the Soviet system. After these formations followed the Wehrmacht further to the east, Reinhard Heydrich entrusted the task of “cleansing” the occupied territories of the Jews to SS-Oberführer and Oberst der Polizei Eberhard Schöngarth, Commander of the Security Police in the General Government (Befehlshaber der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD). He led the special security police commandos in Brześć, Białystok,
