Massacre of Lwów professors

In July 1941, 25 Polish academics from the city of Lwów (modern-day Lviv, Ukraine) were killed by Nazi German occupation forces along with their families. By targeting prominent citizens and intellectuals for elimination, the Nazis hoped to prevent anti-Nazi activity and to weaken the resolve of the Polish resistance movement. According to an eyewitness the executions were carried out by an Einsatzgruppe unit (Einsatzkommando zur besonderen Verwendung) under the command of SS-Brigadeführer Karl Eberhard Schöngarth with the participation of Ukrainian translators, who were dressed in German uniforms.

Before September 1939 and the Nazi invasion of Poland, Lwów, then in the Second Polish Republic, had 318,000 inhabitants of different ethnic groups and religions, 60% of whom were Poles, 30% Jews and about 10% Ukrainians and Germans. The city was one of the most important cultural centers of interwar Poland, housing five tertiary educational facilities including Lwów University and Lwów Polytechnic. It was the home for many Polish and Polish Jewish intellectuals, political and cultural activists, scientists and members of Poland's interwar intelligentsia.

After Lwów was occupied by the Soviets in September 1939, Lwów University was renamed in honor of Ivan Franko, a major Ukrainian literary figure who lived in Lwów, and the language of instruction was changed from Polish to Ukrainian. Lwów was then captured by German forces on 30 June 1941 after the German invasion of the Soviet Union. Along with German Wehrmacht units, a number of Abwehr and SS formations entered the city. During the Nazi occupation, almost all of the 120,000 Jewish inhabitants of the city were killed, within the city's ghetto or in Bełżec extermination camp. By the end of the war, only 200–800 Jews survived.

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