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The history of research on ground squirrels as pests is described in detail in the light of reconstruction of the history and specifics of zoological institutions of Kyiv in 1941-1944, including the Institute of Plant Protection and its Zoological Museum. Data from five different groups of sources were analyzed such as publications, collections, personal files (including KGB) and interviews of participants in those events. It is shown that ground squirrels were one of the main research objects at the Institute of Plant Protection, which was established by the occupation regime in 1942-1943 on the basis of the Institute of Zoology and the Zoological Museum of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR. Based on studies of the distribution and variability of ground squirrels of the group Spermophilus "suslicus", two articles were published after the war describing new forms, including the Volyn subspecies, published by E. Reshetnyk in the USSR (1946) and by E. Scharlemann in Germany (1952). The history of (probable) transfers of the ground squirrel collection is analyzed and the measures that had been taken to prevent their export to Poznan and further to Germany in the autumn of 1943 are clarified. It is shown that part of the ground squirrel type series described in various publications is identical, but it was most likely either not exported or returned quickly. Various facts about the movements of collections based on memories of the participants of those events are analyzed.
Ігор Загороднюк (Sat,) studied this question.