Room 1: |NOT| FEELING THE THREAT

Following the WWI and the revolution, Ukrainian territory was divided between the Soviet Union, Romania, Czechoslovakia and Poland. The latter annexed the Western Volyn and Eastern Galicia (Halychyna).

The global military conflict became imminent in late 1930s.
The so-called Munich Betrayal resulted in Czechoslovakia split in 1938, when Nazi Germany annexed Sudetenland. Poland and Hungary also took part in this process.

However, these concessions of the territory did not satisfy the German Reichschancellor, Adolf Hitler. Following several failed attempts to turn Poland into his ally, Hitler announced his claims on Gdańsk in March 1939, but the Polish government rejected them.

Both countries started gearing themselves for war.

The first room depicts a typical apartment of a Lviv resident of the 1920s and 1930s. The room presents original photos and objects, which you can also view through the electronic terminal.

In addition, the room presents the memories of representatives of the three largest nationalities in the then Western Ukraine: the Jew Aharon Weiss, who lived in Boryslav in the Lviv region; a Pole Adam Bachynskyi and a Ukrainian Anna Rudnytska. Each of them recalls life in Western Ukraine in the 1930s, in particular interethnic relations.