Ukrainische Hilfspolizei The Ukrainische Hilfspolizei ( , ) was an official designation of the Ukrainian police in the Nazi occupied Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic during World War II . It operated from the mid - August 1941 under the control of German " Ordnungspolizei " . The Ukrainian Auxiliary Police consisted to two distinct categories of German - controlled armed policing forces in the occupied East . The first comprised mobile police units most often called " Schutzmannschaften " , or " Schuma " , organized into battalion - formations and deployed to anti - Jewish and anti - partisan operations in most areas of the East . – These units were subordinated directly to the German Commander of Order Police for an area . The second category was the local police force ( approximately , a constabulary ) , called simply the Ukrainian Police ( or UP ) but also stationary " Schutzmannschaften " by the German administration , which the " SS " raised most successfully in the District of Galicia ( formed August 1 , 1941 ) extending south - east from the General Government . The UP formations appeared as well in significant towns and cities such as Kyiv further east in German occupied Ukraine . The urban based forces were subordinated to the city ' s German Commander of Municipal Police ( " Schutzpolizei " or Schupo ) ; the rural police posts were subordinated to the area German Commander of Gendarmerie . The Schupo and Gendarmerie structures were themselves subordinated to the area Commander of Order Police . The UP in the occupied Ukrainian SSR came into existence as the result of an order issued by the German commander in chief of Order Police ( Kraków ) on July 27 , 1941 after the commencement of Operation Barbarossa . The total number enlisted numbered slightly more than 35 , 000 . Some 6 , 000 of them - including 120 low - level officers - served in the politically separate District of Galicia . In " Reichskommissariat Ukraine " auxiliary police were named " Schutzmannschaft " . The name of the unit reflected its geographic jurisdiction rather than the ethnic makeup of recruits . The makeup of the officer corps were often representative of various nationalities . Professor Wendy Lower from Towson University writes that as the largest population under German occupation rule , Ukrainians outnumbered other non - Germans in the auxiliary police forces ; the " Volksdeutsche " Germans from Ukraine meanwhile were given leadership roles . Many of those who joined the ranks of the police had served as militiamen under Soviet rule since 1939 . Tadeusz Piotrowski claims the majority of the police was made from members of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists - B , while Ivan Patryljak claims that the German authorities expressly forbade drafting known nationalists . Nonetheless , the ethnic composition of Auxiliary Police reflected the demographics of the land and included Russians , Poles , and German " Volksdeutsche " drafted from the local population and from Soviet POWs wrote Gregorovich ( " Ukrainian Review " ) . Most however were ethnic Ukrainians , hence the name according to Prusin . The auxiliary police were directly under the command of the Germanic - SS , " Einsatzgruppen " , and military administration . The units were used primarily to keep order among the civilian population and carry out normal constabulary duties . Their actions were restricted by other police groups such as the " Sonderdienst " , made up of " Volksdeutsche " ; the " Kripo " ( Criminal police ) ; " Bahnschutz " ( railroad and transport police ) ; and the " Werkschutz " , who kept order and guarded industrial plants . They were supported by the Ukrainian Protection Police and the Ukrainian Order Police . In " Distrikt Galizien " , the Ukrainian auxiliary police forces were under the command of the German office in Kraków . A Ukrainian command centre for the auxiliary police did not exist . The highest ranked Ukrainian auxiliary police officer only rose to the rank of major - V . Pituley , who became a district commandant ( " Major der Ukrainische Polizei und Kommandeur " ) in Lemberg ( now Lviv ) . A police school was established in Lviv by the district SS - and - Police leader in order to meet plans for growth . The school director was Ivan Kozak . Participation in Holocaust and Nazi atrocities . Professor Alexander Statiev of the Canadian University of Waterloo writes that Ukrainian Auxiliary Police were the major perpetrator of the Holocaust on Soviet territories based on native origins , and those police units participated in the extermination of 150 , 000 Jews in the area of Volhynia alone . German historian in " The Shoah in Ukraine " writes that the auxiliary police was active during killing operations by the Germans already in the first phases of the German occupation . The auxiliary police registered the Jews , conducted raids and guarded ghettos , loaded convoys to execution sites and cordoned them off . Some 300 auxiliary policemen from Kiev helped organize the massacre in Babi Yar . They also took part in the massacre in Dnipropetrovsk , where the field command noted that the cooperation ran " smoothly in every way " . Cases where local commandants ordered murder of Jews using police force are known . In killings of Jews in Kryvy Rih the " entire Ukrainian auxiliary police " was put to use . Persecution of Poles . Defining nationality of Ukrainian policemen using present - day classifications is problematic , because in German occupied eastern Poland ( see : District of Galicia ) there was no perception of de jure Ukrainian independent statehood . Some Ukrainian " Hilfspolizei " who harbored a pathological hatred for Poles and Jews – resulting in acts of mass murder – remained formally and legally Polish from the time before the invasion until much later . Thirty years after the war ended , one former Ukrainian policeman , Jan Masłowski ( a . k . a . Ivan Maslij ) , was recognized in Rakłowice near Wrocław by Polish survivors of massacres committed by " Ukrainische Hilfspolizei " in the towns of Szczepiatyn , Dyniska , Tarnoszyn , Niemstów , and Korczów . He was sentenced to death in Poland in 1978 . On November 13 , 1942 , members of the " Ukrainische Hilfspolizei " robbed and executed 32 Poles and 1 Jew in the village of Obórki ( ) , located in prewar Wołyń Voivodeship . After the crime the village was burned down . On December 16 , 1942 , the Ukrainian policemen , led by Germans , killed 360 Poles in Jezierce ( former powiat Rivne ) . In Lviv , in late February and March 1944 , the " Ukrainische Hilfspolizei " arrested a number of young men of Polish nationality . Many of them were later found dead and their Identity document s stolen . The Government Delegation for Poland started negotiations with the OUN - B . When they failed , Kedyw began an action called " Nieszpory " ( " Vespers " ) where 11 policemen were shot in retaliation and the murders of young Poles in Lviv stopped . Role in the Ukrainian Insurgent Army formation . For many who joined the police force , enlistment served as an opportunity to receive military training and direct access to weapons . Bandera ' s OUN leadership on March 20 , 1943 issued secret instructions ordering their members who had joined the German auxiliary police to desert with their weapons and join with the " military detachment " of OUN ( SD ) units in Volyn . The number of trained and armed policemen who in spring 1943 joined the ranks of the future Ukrainian Insurgent Army were estimated to be 10 , 000 . This process in some places involved engaging in armed conflict with German forces as they tried to prevent desertion .