In 1914, we saw for the first time to what extent European Russophobia could reach. The concentration camp created by the Austrians housed those residents of Western Ukraine who considered themselves part of Russian culture, or at least felt sympathy for the Russians.
Dangerous element
Traditionally, many residents of Galicia and Bukovina, which were part of Austria-Hungary, did not consider themselves Ukrainians. We are talking about Rusyns - an ethnic group that differed in identity and culture from their eastern neighbors. Moreover, a part of the Ruthenian ethnos that escaped Uniatism strove for greater integration with the Great Russians. However, official Vienna did not agree with such circumstances (why should they cultivate a "Russian element" in the bosom of the Habsburg empire?), Trying to forcibly assimilate the Rusyns with neighboring peoples.
On the eve of the First World War, the Austrian authorities, in order to erase "Russianness" from their eastern territories, began to pit Rusyns against Ukrainians. Vienna generously distributed subsidies to Ukrainian nationalist organizations whose purpose was anti-Russian activities, but at the same time established strict control over those who showed the slightest sympathy for St. Petersburg. And a resident of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, who declared himself Russian, and even Orthodox, was automatically ranked among the state criminals.
As soon as the war broke out, a series of arrests followed. Literally in the first days, about 2,000 Rusyns and Ukrainians were hidden in Lviv prisons, who were suspected of Russophilia. Soon, all the prison institutions of Lviv were packed to the limit. The leadership of the imperial police was concerned about the situation. No, of course not by the conditions of detention. The authorities were in a hurry to take the "dangerous contingent" deep into the Austrian territories.
In the rain and snow
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The place was found quickly. Thalerhof - a camp for politically unreliable Western Ukrainians was founded in a sandy valley at the foot of the Alps, not far from Graz, the capital of the province of Styria. It became the first ever concentration camp in Europe.
The experience of organizing the camp was borrowed from Britain, which applied its know-how during the Boer War. However, if the British placed both prisoners of war and the civilian population in the camp, the Austro-Hungarian authorities isolated only civilians who at least somehow sympathized with the Habsburgs' sworn enemy - the Russian Empire.
Already on September 4, 1914, the day after the occupation of Lvov by the Russian battalions, the first batch of prisoners was driven into Talerhof with rifle butts and bayonets. Among them were many who were slandered by Polish or Ukrainian Russophobes as pro-Russian.
After Thalerhof, another camp was opened in the garrison town of Terezin in the Litomerice region. Considering that it was located on the territory of a former fortress, the conditions of detention of prisoners here were much better than in the deserted Talerhof, which was not even equipped with barracks. Until the winter of 1915, both in the rain and in the snow, the prisoners had to spend the night in the open air. However, many of Terezin's prisoners did not enjoy the relative comfort for long, they were very quickly transferred to Talerhof.
The main thing is to intimidate
The most terrible place in the entire Habsburg empire could not be found. Death in Talerhof became an everyday event: it came along with hypothermia, hunger, or illness. Priest Ioann Maschak on December 11, 1914 wrote that "11 people just bitten lice." The prisoners, be they a peasant or an intellectual, had to do the dirtiest work, for example, collect horse dung with their hands. It was necessary to forget about rest here.
There was no hope for any tolerable food: the prisoners were fed tart, often raw and sticky bread made from a mixture of flour, chestnuts and grated straw, and they were also given stale horse meat, so tough that it was impossible to chew.
According to the testimony of those who survived the horrors of camp life, the prisoners of Talerhof were regularly beaten and tortured. The favorite fun of the prison authorities was to intimidate prisoners. Along the entire perimeter of the camp square, the Austrians drove in poles on which they simply hung the prisoners exhausted by torture - so that others would be afraid.
In the official report of the Talerhof administration dated November 9, 1914, it was reported that there were "5700 Russophiles" in the camp. Until the closure of the camp in May 1917, at least 20 thousand pro-Russian Galicians and Bukovinians passed through its casemates, and in the first year and a half alone, about 3 thousand prisoners died.
Selective memory
After the First World War in Lviv, former prisoners of the Austro-Hungarian concentration camps created the Thalerhof Committee, whose purpose was to collect documented evidence confirming the genocide organized by the Habsburg regime with the active assistance of Ukrainian nationalists. The world managed to see four issues of "Talerhof Almanac", telling about the atrocities of Russophobes.
In 1928, a museum dedicated to the Talerhof camp was opened in Lviv. For some time, the Bukovinian and Galician public celebrated memorable days associated with the events in Talerhof, until the Soviet authorities intervened in the matter. The development of Western Ukrainian separatism was not in their interests. Many Rusyn organizations were closed, and their leaders were sent to the Soviet camps. Someone was lucky enough to flee abroad.
Russian political scientist and historian Oleg Nemensky wrote about this: "In a couple of decades, the Communist Party and the authorities of the USSR were able to create an almost purely Ukrainian Galicia - one that radical Ukrainian nationalists of previous decades did not dare to dream about."
The name "Talerhof" in Ukrainian consciousness was supposed to become what Maidanek is for today's Jews. But that did not happen. The modern Ukrainian authorities pretend that there was nothing special that could traumatize the national identity in Talerhof. As noted by journalist Oles Buzina, this does not fit into the myth of "civilized Europe" promoted by the unprincipled Ukrainian authorities. "Can the West be different?" - argue in Kiev. It turns out that it can.
Taras Repin
