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Ivano-Frankivsk (, translit. Ivano-Frankivs'k, ; also referred to as Ivano-Frankovsk) is a historic city located in western Ukraine. It is the administrative center of the Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast (province), and is designated as its own separate raion (district) within the oblast. Prior to 1962, the city was known as Stanyslaviv (, Polish: Stanisławów, German: Stanislau, Yiddish: סטאַניסלעוו, translit. Stanislev). The current estimated population is around 204,200 (as of 2004).
History The city was erected as a fortress to protect the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth from Tatar invasions. The city was firstly mentioned in 1662 in connection with it being granted the Magdeburg rights. Later, the fortress also successfully withstood attacks by Turkish and Russian forces. Extensively rebuilt during the Renaissance, it was sometimes called Little Leopolis. The city was also an important center of Armenian culture in Poland. After the Partitions of Poland it became a part of Austrian Empire, and successively of the autonomous Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria. In 1919 it was a subject of Polish–Ukrainian skirmishes and eventually became a part of the Second Polish Republic as the capital of the Stanisławów Voivodship. In 1939 invasion of Poland by German and Soviet forces the territory was captured by the Soviets and attached to the Ukrainian SSR. Nazi occupation During the Nazi occupation (1941-1944) more than 600 educated Poles and most of the city's Jewish population was murdered *. On August 1, 1941, Galicia became the fifth district of the General Government. On October 12, 1941, later called “Blutsonntag” (“Bloody Sunday"), thousands of Jews were gathered on the market square; then the German forces escorted them to the Jewish cemetery, where mass graves had already been prepared. On the way the German and Ukrainian escorts beat and tortured the Jews. At the cemetery the Jews were compelled to give away their valuables and show their papers. The men of the Security Police (Sipo) then started mass shootings, assisted by members of the German Order Police (Ordnungspolizei) and the railroad police. The Germans ordered the Jews to undress in groups and then proceed to the graves where they were shot. They fell into the grave or were ordered to jump in before being shot. The German forces shot between 8,000 and 12,000 Jews on that day. Up to July 1942 most killings were carried out in Rudolf’s Mill, and from August onward, in the courtyard of the Sipo headquarters. On August 22, 1942 the Germans held a “reprisal Aktion” for the murder of a Ukrainian, which they blamed on a Jew. More than 1,000 Jews were shot. German policemen raped Jewish girls and women before taking them to the courtyard of the Sipo headquarters. About 11,000 Jews were still living in Stanislawów when the next Aktion took place. On February 22 or 23, 1943, Brandt, who had succeeded Krüger, ordered the police forces to surround the ghetto -- initiating the final liquidation. Four days after the beginning of the Aktion, the Germans put up posters announcing that Stanislawów was “free of Jews.” When the Soviet army reached Stanislawów on July 27, 1944, there were about 100 Jews in the city who had survived in hiding. In total about 1,500 Jews from Stanislawów survived the war. A formal indictment against Hans Krüger was issued in October 1965, after six years of investigations by the Dortmund State Prosecuter’s Office. On May 6, 1968 the Münster State Court sentenced him to life imprisonment. He was released in 1986. In Vienna and Salzburg there were other trial proceedings against members of the Schupo and the Gestapo in Stanislawów in 1966. Recent history In 1962 the name changed to honor the famous Ukrainian writer Ivan Franko. In the early 1990s the city was a strong center of the Ukrainian independence movement. 1931 census
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