[5] During the 1939 invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, the province was captured by the Red Army in September 1939.

The Soviet NKVD crimes committed against the local population included the last minute massacre of 2,500 political prisoners in the city,[6] Ukrainian, Polish, and Jewish alike,[7] just before the Nazi occupation of Stanislavov.

[8][9] Women with dozens of children were shot by the Soviets at the secluded Dem'ianiv Laz ravine outside the city, among at least 524 victims forced to dig their own mass grave.

[3] Under his command, on 8–9 August 1941 more Poles and Jews in Stanisławów were arrested, including teachers, civil servants and professors.

[17] On 15 August, the prisoners were transported in covered lorries to a place near the city, named the Black Forest (Czarny Las) and executed.

[13][18] On 12 October 1941 at the orders of Hans Krueger thousands of Jews gathered at the Ringplatz market square for a "selection".

There were picnic tables set up on the side with bottles of vodka and sandwiches for those of them who needed to rest from the deafening noise of gunfire; separate for Germans and Ukrainians.

The Aktion, unprecedented in terms of scale in Holocaust history until that date in occupied Poland,[3] was known as the Blutsonntag (Bloody Sunday [de; uk]).

Rationing was enforced, with insufficient food, and workshops set up to support the German war effort.

[1] The Ghetto was reduced in size after the German and Ukrainian raid of 31 March 1942, and the burning of homes, in punishment for the council's noncompliance with the first deportation action.

[1] In April, September and November 1942 regular transports of Jews were sent in Holocaust trains to the Bełżec extermination camp north of the city.

[3] On 22/23 February 1943, Brandt, who had succeeded Hans Krüger as SS-Hauptsturmführer, ordered the police forces to surround the ghetto in preparation for its final liquidation.

Soon later, the Germans put up announcements that Stanisławów was Judenfrei or free of Jews,[1] nevertheless, the police continued searching the ghetto area for more victims until April.

The two commanders were young Anda Luft pregnant with her daughter Pantelaria (born in the forest),[27] and Oskar Friedlender.

[28] Among the Christian Poles bestowed with the honour of Righteous Among the Nations were members of the Ciszewski family who hid in their home eleven Jews escaping deportation to Belzec extermination camp in September 1942.

[1] The commander of Stanisławów during the Bloody Sunday massacre German: SS-Hauptsturmführer Hans Krueger embarked on a successful career in West Germany after the war ended.

[3] He was a chairman of the Association of Germans from Berlin and Brandenburg, and lobbied on behalf of the League of Eastern Expellees representing the interests of former Nazis among others.

Six years later, in October 1965 a formal indictment against Krueger was issued by the Dortmund State Prosecutor's Office.

[32] Meanwhile, in 1966 there were other trial proceedings held in Vienna and Salzburg against members of the Schupo and the Gestapo police serving in Stanisławów during the war.