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Massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia

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The Massacres of Poles in Volhynia (Template:Lang-pl, literally: Volhynian slaughter) were a massive ethnic cleansing operation in the German occupied territory of Volhynia and its environs (now part of western Ukraine) that took place between late March 1943 and August 1947 during World War II. The actions, orchestrated and conducted mainly by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) together with other Ukrainian groups and local Ukrainian peasants, resulted in 80,000 or more Polish civilians, being brutally murdered, with many more fleeing the area. The peak of the massacres took place in July and August 1943 when a senior UPA commander, Dmytro Klyachkivsky, ordered the extermination of the entire Polish population between 16 and 60 years of age. The number of casualties is being actively researched and continues to be the subject of scholarly as well as political deliberation. The slaughter was directly linked with the policies of the Banderist faction of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, whose goal, specified at the Second Conference of the OUN-B, was to purge all non-Ukrainians from the future Ukrainian state. Historians Ewa and Władysław Siemaszko identified by name well over 20,000 victims in only half of one administrative district, with the true losses exceeding 60,000 civilian Poles in the Volhynian Voivodeship alone. Niall Ferguson estimated that number to be as high as 80,000.

The historical records of both Polish and Ukrainian sources are often based on historical stereotypes making it difficult to determine an accurate picture of what happened.

The tensions between ethnic Poles and Ukrainians had their origins in the period when both nations strove for independence following the First World War. Both claimed the territories of Volhynia and Eastern Galicia. The political conflicts escalated in the Second Polish Republic during the interwar period, particularly in the 1930s as a result of a cycle of terrorist actions by the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, formed in Poland and the ensuing state repressions. At the onset of World War II, and soon after the Soviet annexation of that area in 1939–1941 (see: Polish September Campaign), new doors of opportunity for Ukrainian nationalists began to open. Killings in German-occupied Volhynia and Galicia started soon after the German attack on the Soviet Union, with Nazis encouraging inter-ethnic violence in the territories they controlled. The mass murder of Poles did not end when the Red Army pushed the Wehrmacht out from the current territory of Western Ukraine. The massacres lasted well into 1945.

Polish civilian victims of March 26, 1943 massacre committed by Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) in the village of Lipniki (Kostopol County), Volhynia

Background

Polish-Ukrainian relations after World War I

As the Austro-Hungarian government collapsed following World War I, Poles and Ukrainians struggled for the control over the city of Lemberg (today Lviv), populated mostly by Poles, but surrounded by Ukrainian majority. Until 1795 the area belonged to the Kingdom of Poland, but later, with the Partitions of Poland, was annexed to Austria. The conflict, known as the Polish–Ukrainian War, spilled over to Volhynia with the Ukrainian leader Symon Petlura attempting to expand Ukrainian claims westward. The war was conducted by professional forces on both sides resulting in relatively minimal civilian deaths. On July 17, 1919, a ceasefire was signed. On November 21, 1919, the Paris Peace Conference granted Eastern Galicia to Poland. The lost war left a generation of frustrated western Ukrainian veterans convinced that Poland was Ukraine's principal enemy.

Even though Polish statehood had just been re-established by the Treaty of Versailles after a century of Partitions, the frontiers between Poland and Soviet Russia had not been defined by the Treaty. As a result the Polish-Soviet war of 1920 broke out with the Soviets claiming both Ukraine and Belarus, which they viewed as a part of the Russian Empire currently under Civil War. The Soviets caused Ukrainian forces to retreat to Podolia, and in effect the Ukrainian leader Symon Petlura decided to ally with Poland's Józef Piłsudski. On April 21, 1920, Piłsudski and Petlura signed a military alliance accepting the Polish-Ukrainian border on the river Zbrucz. Following this agreement, the government of the West Ukrainian National Republic went into exile in Vienna, viewing it as betrayal. At the end of the Polish-Ukrainian war with the Soviets, in 1921 Peace of Riga signed with Vladimir Lenin, Volynia and Eastern Galicia were eventually adjoined to the Second Polish Republic, whilst the rest of contemporary Ukraine, known as the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic became part of the USSR. Meanwhile, the exiled Ukrainian government was disbanded on March 14, 1923, by the Council of Ambassadors at the League of Nations. After a long series of negotiations, on March 14, 1923, the League of Nations decided that eastern Galicia would be incorporated into Poland, thus "taking into consideration that Poland has recognized that in regard to the eastern part of Galicia ethnographic conditions fully deserve its autonomous status." Their promise was not fulfilled by the Polish government.

Radicalization of Ukrainian Society and the Rise of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists

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Further information: Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists

Decisions leading to the massacre of Poles in Volyn, and their implementation, were primarily attributable to the extremist Bandera faction of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN-B) and not by other Ukrainian political or military groups. The OUN-B's ideology involved the following ideas: Integral nationalism, that a pure national state and language were desired goals; glorification of violence and armed struggle of nation versus nation; totalitarianism, in which the nation must be ruled by one person and one political party. While the moderate Melnyk faction of the OUN admired aspects of Mussolini's fascism, the more extreme Bandera faction of the OUN admired aspects of Nazism.

At the time of its founding, the most popular political party among Ukrainians was the Ukrainian National Democratic Alliance, which while opposed to Polish rule called for peaceful and democratic means to achieve independence from Poland. The OUN, on the other hand, was originally a fringe movement within western Ukraine, condemned for its violence by figures from mainstream Ukrainian society such as head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, Metropolitan Andriy Sheptytsky who wrote of the OUN's leadership that "whoever demoralizes our youth is a criminal and an enemy of our people." Several factors contributed to the OUN-B's increase in popularity and, ultimately, monopoly of power within Ukrainian society, conditions necessary for the massacrs to occur.

Events Occurring During the Rule of the Second Polish Republic

Mother tongue in Poland, based on 1931 census

Jeffrey Burds of Northeastern University believes that the build up towards the ethnic cleansing of Poles that erupted during the Second World War Two in Galicia and Volyn had its roots in the interwar period when the provinces were ruled by Poland.

In the 1930s the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, formed in Vienna, Austria, conducted a terrorist campaign in Poland, which included the assassination of prominent Polish politicians such as Interior Minister Bronisław Pieracki, and Polish and Ukrainian moderates such as Tadeusz Hołówko. Conversely, policies implemented by the Second Polish Republic, often provoked by the OUN-B violence, contributed to a further deterioration of relations between the two ethnic groups. Between 1934 and 1938, a series of violent and sometimes deadly attacks against Ukrainians were conducted throughout Poland. In Wołyń Voivodeship some policies resulted in suppressing the Ukrainian language, culture and religion, and the antagonism escalated. Although around 68% of the voivodeship's population spoke Ukrainian as their first language (see table), nevertheless practically all government and administrative positions, including the police, were assigned to Poles. Beginning in 1937, the Polish government in Volyn initiated an active campaign to use religion as a tool for Polonization and to forcibly convert the Orthodox population to Roman Catholicism. Over 190 Orthodox Churches were destroyed and 150 converted to Roman Catholic ones. Remaining Orthodox Churches were forced to use the Polish language in their sermons. In August 1939, the last remaining Orthodox Church in the Volhynian capital of Lutsk was converted to a Roman Catholic one by decree of the Polish government.

By 1938, thousands of Polish colonists and war veterans were encouraged to settle in Volyn and Galicia. This number is estimated at 17,700 in Volhynia (not including Galicia) by Polish historians. Ukrainian sources estimated the total number of Polish inhabitants in both Galicia and Volhynia at 300,000, including the 1930s settlers. The short presence of the settlers, as almost all were forcibly expelled by the Soviets to Siberia, ignited further anti-Polish sentiment among the locals.

The Ukrainian population was outraged by the Polish government polices. In a Polish report about the popular mood in Volhynia, a comment of a young Ukrainian from October 1938 was recorded as "we will decorate our pillars with you and our trees with your wives." By the beginning of World War II, the membership of the OUN had risen to 20,000 active members and there were many times that number of supporters.

Policies conducted by the Soviet Union (1939–1941)

Further information: Soviet annexation of Western Ukraine, 1939–1940

In September 1939, at the outbreak of World War II and in accordance with the secret protocol the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, Poland was invaded from the west by Nazi Germany and from the east by the Soviet Union. Volynia was split by the Soviets into two oblasts, Rovno and Volyn of the Ukrainian SSR. Upon the annexation, the Soviet Secret Police started to eliminate the predominantly Polish middle and upper classes, including social activists and military leaders. Several hundred thousand Poles died at the hands of the Soviets, including intellectuals and Polish officers murdered by the NKVD in the Katyn massacre, among other places. Between 1939–1941, 1.45 million inhabitants were deported to Siberia by the Soviet authorities, of whom 63.1% were Poles, and 7.4% were Jews. Others escaped from the Soviet-occupied zone to the areas controlled by the Germans. These deportations and murders deprived the Poles of their community leaders.

During the Soviet occupation, Polish members of the local administration were replaced by Ukrainians and Jews, and the Soviet NKVD subverted the Ukrainian independence movement. All local Ukrainian political parties were abolished. Between 20,000 to 30,000 Ukrainian activists fled to German-occupied territory; most of those who did not escape were arrested. For example, Dr. Dmytro Levitsky, the head of the moderate, left-leaning democratic party Ukrainian National Democratic Alliance, and chief of the Ukrainian delegation in the pre-war Polish parliament, as well as many of his colleagues, were arrested, deported to Moscow, and never heard from again. The elimination by the Soviets of the individuals, organizations, and parties that represented moderate or liberal political tendencies within Ukrainian society left the extremist Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, which operated in the underground, as the only political party with a significant organizational presence among western Ukrainians.

Policies conducted by Nazi Germany (1941–1943)

The areas of eastern Poland occupied by the Soviet Union were attacked by German, Slovak, and Hungarian forces on June 22, 1941. Soviet forces in Volhynia were better armed and prepared than in more northerly areas and were able to resist, but only for a couple of days. On June 30 the Soviets withdrew eastwards and Volhynia was overrun by the Nazis, with support from the Ukrainian nationalists, carrying out acts of sabotage. The Ukrainian pro-Nazi militia also staged pogroms and assisted the Nazis in executions of Poles and Jews. Some wartime actions by the Poles presumably contributed to the deepening tensions between the Polish and Ukrainian communities and politicians. In 1941, two brothers of Ukrainian leader Stepan Bandera were murdered while imprisoned in Auschwitz by Polish kapos. In the Chelm region, 394 Ukrainian community leaders were killed by the Poles on the grounds of collaboration with the German authorities.

Perhaps the largest practical effect of German rule on the Volhynia massacres was participation of Ukrainian nationalists with the German police forces. During the first year of German occupation, the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists pursued a policy of infiltrating the German police units with its members. In this role they obtained training in the use of weapons, and would also assist the German SS in murdering approximately 200,000 Volhynian Jews. While the Ukrainian police's share in the actual killings of Jews was small (they primarily played a supporting role), the Ukrainian police learned from the Germans the techniques necessary to kill large numbers of people: detailed advanced planning and careful site selection; assurances to the local population prior to the massacres in order for them to let down their guard; sudden encirclement; and then mass killing. This training obtained in 1942 explains the UPA's efficiency in the killing of Poles in 1943.

The massacres

The prelude

After Hitler's attack on the Soviet Union, both the Polish government in Exile and the Ukrainian Nationalists of the OUN-B considered the possibility that in the event of the mutual military exhaustion of Germany and the Soviet Union, the region would become a scene of conflict between Poles and Ukrainians. The Polish Government in Exile, which wanted the region returned to Poland, planned for a swift armed takeover of the territory as part of its overall plan for a future anti-Nazi uprising. This view was strengthened by some Ukrainian nationalists' collaboration with the Nazis, so that by 1943 no understanding between the Polish government's Home Army and OUN was possible. On the other hand, the OUN-B came to believe that it had to move fast while the Germans still controlled the area in order to preempt future Polish efforts at re-establishing Poland's pre-war borders. The result was that the local OUN-B commanders in Volyn and Galicia (if not the OUN-B leadership itself) decided that an ethnic cleansing of Poles from the area, through terror and murder, was necessary. Nevertheless, throughout 1942 both Poles and Ukrainians considered Volhynia to be a relatively peaceful area, and there was no significant rise in ethnic tensions between the two peoples. As evidenced both by Polish and Ukrainian underground reports, the only major concern was that of strong Soviet partisan groups operating in the area. The groups, consisting mostly of Soviet POWs, initially specialized in raiding local settlements, which disturbed both the OUN and the AK, who expected it to result in the increase of German terror. Indeed these concerns soon materialized, as Germans started the "pacifications" of entire villages in Volhynia in retaliation for real or alleged support for the Soviet partisans. Polish historiography wrongly attributed most of these actions to Ukrainian nationalists, while in reality they were conducted by Ukrainian occupational police units under the direct supervision of Germans. One of the best-known examples was the pacification of Obórki village in Lutsk county on November 13–14, 1942. While most of the actions were carried out by the Ukrainian occupational police, the murder of 53 Polish villagers was perpetrated personally by the Germans, who supervised the operation.

For many months in 1942, the OUN-B was not able to control the situation in Volhynia, where in addition to Soviet partisans, many independent Ukrainian self-defense groups started to form in response to the growth of German terror. The first OUN-B military groups were created in Volhynia only in autumn 1942 with the goal of subduing the other independent groups. In spring 1943 the OUN-B partisans started to call themselves the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), using the former name of the Ukrainian People's Revolutionary Army, another Ukrainian group operating in the area in 1942. In March 1943 approximately 5,000 Ukrainian policemen defected with their weapons and joined the UPA. Well-trained and well-armed, this group contributed to the UPA achieving dominance over other Ukrainian groups active in Volhynia. Soon, the newly created OUN-B forces managed to either destroy or absorb other Ukrainian groups in Volhynia, including four OUN-M units and the Ukrainian People's Revolutionary Army. It also soon undertook steps to liquidate foreign elements, with posters and leaflets urging Ukrainians to murder Poles . Its dominance secured, the UPA soon began the large-scale UPA operations against the Polish population.. Nevertheless, there is no documentation proving that UPA-OUN made a general decision to exterminate Poles in Volyn .

Volyn

On February 9, 1943, a group pretending to be Soviet partisans murdered 173 Poles in the Parośle settlement in Sarny county. According to Polish historiography, the perpetrators were a unit of UPA, commanded by Hryhory Perehyniak. The assault on Polish settlements began between late March and early April 1943, killing approximately 7,000 unarmed men, women, and children in its first days. On the night of April 22–23, Ukrainian groups, commanded by Ivan Lytwynchuk (aka Dubowy), attacked the settlement of Janowa Dolina, killing 600 people and burning down the entire village. Those few who survived were mostly people that found refuge with friendly Ukrainian families, . In one of the massacres, in the village of Lipniki, almost the entire family of Miroslaw Hermaszewski (Poland's only astronaut) was murdered. Also, the nationalists murdered the grandparents of composer Krzesimir Debski, whose parents met each other during the Ukrainian attack on Kisielin (see Kisielin massacre). Debski's parents survived, taking refuge with a friendly Ukrainian family.

In mid-1943, after a wave of killings of Polish civilians, the Poles tried to initiate negotiations with the UPA. Two delegates of the Polish government in Exile, Zygmunt Rumel and Krzysztof Markiewicz, together with a group of representatives from the Polish Home Army, attempted to negotiate with UPA leaders, but instead, they were captured, tortured and murdered on July 10, 1943, in the village of Kustycze.

The following day, July 11, 1943, is regarded as one of the bloodiest days of the massacres, with many reports of UPA units marching from village to village, killing Polish civilians. On that day, UPA units surrounded and attacked Polish villages and settlements located in three counties – Kowel, Horochow, and Włodzimierz Wołyński. The events began at 3:00am, with the Poles having no chance to escape. After the massacres, the Polish villages were burned to the ground. According to those few who survived, the action had been carefully prepared; a few days before the massacres there had been several meetings in Ukrainian villages, during which UPA members told the villagers that the slaughter of all Poles was necessary. Within a few days an unspecified number of Polish villages were completely destroyed and their populations murdered. In the Polish village of Gurow, out of 480 inhabitants, only 70 survived; in the settlement of Orzeszyn, the UPA killed 306 out of 340 Poles; in the village of Sadowa out of 600 Polish inhabitants only 20 survived; in Zagaje out of 350 Poles only a few survived. In August 1943, the Polish village of Gaj (near Kovel) was burned and some 600 people massacred. In September in the village of Wola Ostrowiecka 529 people were killed, including 220 children under 14, and 438 people were killed, including 246 children, in Ostrowki. In September 1992 exhumations were carried out in these villages, confirming the number of dead.

The atrocities were perpetrated with utmost cruelty. The victims, regardless of their age or gender, were routinely tortured to death. Norman Davies in No Simple Victory gives a short, but shocking description of the massacres. He writes: "Villages were torched. Roman Catholic priests were axed or crucified. Churches were burned with all their parishioners. Isolated farms were attacked by gangs carrying pitchforks and kitchen knives. Throats were cut. Pregnant women were bayoneted. Children were cut in two. Men were ambushed in the field and led away. The perpetrators could not determine the province's future. But at least they could determine that it would be a future without Poles." Timothy Snyder describes the murders in the following way: "Ukrainian partisans burned homes, shot or forced back inside those who tried to flee, and used sickles and pitchforks to kill those they captured outside. In some cases, beheaded, crucified, dismembered, or disembowelled bodies were displayed, in order to encourage remaining Poles to flee". Similar account has been presented by Niall Ferguson, who wrote: Whole villages were wiped out, men beaten to death, women raped and mutilated, babies bayoneted. Ukrainian historian Yuryi Kirichuk from Lviv described the conflict as similar to the medieval rebellions.

Altogether, in July 1943 the Ukrainians attacked 167 towns and villages. This wave of massacres lasted 5 days, until July 16. The UPA continued the ethnic cleansing, particularly in rural areas, until most Poles had been deported, killed or expelled. These actions were conducted by many units, were well-coordinated and thoroughly planned. Also, even though it may be an exaggeration to say that the massacres enjoyed general support of the Ukrainians, it has been suggested that without wide support from local Ukrainians they would have been impossible. Those Ukrainian peasants who took part in the massacres, created their own units, called Samoboronni Kushtchovi Viddily (Kushtchov Self-Defence Units). People who did not speak Polish, but were considered Poles by the perpetrators were also murdered.

Władysław Filar from the Polish Institute of National Remembrance, a witness of the massacres, cites numerous statements of the Ukrainian officers, who reported their actions to the leaders of UPA-OUN. For example, in late September 1943, the commandant of the Lysoho group wrote to the OUN headquarters: "On September 29, 1943, I carried out the action in the villages of Wola Ostrowiecka (see Massacre of Wola Ostrowiecka), and Ostrówki (see Massacre of Ostrowki). I have liquidated all Poles, starting from the youngest ones. Afterwards, all buildings were burned and all goods were confiscated". On that day in Wola Ostrowiecka 529 Poles were murdered (including 220 children under 14), and in Ostrówki, the Ukrainians killed 438 persons (including 246 children) .

In August 1943 the UPA placed notices in every Polish village stating in 48 hours leave beyond the Buh or the Sian river - otherwise Death. Ukrainian nationalists limited their actions to villages and settlements, and did not attack towns or cities. According to a journalist Adam Kruczek, a historian from the Lublin's branch of the Institute of National Remembrance stated that in 1943 the massacres were organized westwards, starting in March in Kostopol and Sarny counties, in April they moved to the area of Kremianets, Rivne, Dubno and Lutsk. In July massacres took place in such counties as Kowel, Horochow and Włodzimierz Wołyński, and in August - in Luboml. The slaughter did not stop after the Red Army entered the areas, with massacres taking place in 1945 in such places as Czerwonogrod (Ukrainian: Irkiv), where 60 Poles were murdered on February 2, 1945,, the day before their departure to the Recovered Territories.

According to Polish historian Piotr Łossowski, the method used in most of the attacks was the same. At first, local Poles were assured that nothing would happen to them. Then, at dawn, a village was surrounded by armed members of the UPA, behind whom were peasants with axes, hammers, knives, and saws. All the Poles encountered were murdered; sometimes they were herded into one spot, to make it easier. After a massacre, all goods were looted, including clothes, grain, and furniture. The final part of an attack was setting fire to the village.. In many cases, victims were tortured and their bodies mutilated, with all vestiges of Polish existence eradicated. Even abandoned Polish settlements were still burned to the ground.

Eastern Galicia

Tablet with names of Poles mourdered by UPA in Berezowica Mala, Eastern Lesser Poland, in present Ukraine
Cross with tablets of the names of Poles murdered by UPA and SS-Galizien in Huta Pieniacka, Eastern Lesser Poland, in present-day Ukraine
Bullet marks on the tower of the Podkamień Abbey, stormed by UPA on 12 March 1944, Eastern Lesser Poland, in present-day Ukraine

In late 1943 and early 1944, after most Poles of Volhynia had either been murdered or had fled the area, the conflict spread to the neighboring province of Galicia, where the majority of the population was still Ukrainian, but where the Polish presence was stronger. Unlike in the case of Volhynia, where Polish villages were usually destroyed and their inhabitants murdered without warning, in east Galicia Poles were sometimes given the choice of fleeing or being killed (an order by an UPA commander in Galicia stated, "Once more I remind you: first call upon Poles to abandon their land and only later liquidate them, not the other way around"). This change in tactic, combined with better Polish self-defence and a demographic balance more favorable to Poles, resulted in a significantly lower death toll among Poles in Galicia than in Volhynia. The methods used by Ukrainian nationalists in this area, however, were the same, and consisted of killing all of the Polish residents of the villages, then pillaging the villages and burning them to the ground. In the night of February 5-6, 1944, Ukrainian groups attacked the Polish village of Barycz, near Buchach. 126 Poles were massacred, including women and children. A few days later on February 12–13, a local group of OUN under Petro Chamchuk attacked the Polish settlement of Puźniki, killing around 100 people and burning houses. Those who survived moved mostly to Prudnik. Then, in the village of Korosciatyn, 78 Poles were murdered; the victims were later counted by a local Roman Catholic priest, Rev. Mieczysław Kamiński. Father Kamiński claimed that in Koropiec, where no Poles were actually murdered, a local Greek Catholic priest, in reference to mixed Polish-Ukrainian families, proclaimed from the pulpit: Mother, you're suckling an enemy - strangle it. Among scores of Polish villages, whose inhabitants were murdered and all buildings burned, there are such places as Berezowica near Zbaraz, Ihrowica near Ternopil, Plotych near Ternopil, Podkamien near Brody, Hanachiv and Hanachivka near Przemyslany

One of the most infamous massacres took place on February 28, 1944, in the Polish village of Huta Pieniacka with over 1,000 inhabitants. The village served as a shelter for refugees including Polish Jews, as well as a recuperation base for Polish and Communist partisans. One AK unit was active there. In winter of 1944 a Soviet partisan unit numbering 1,000 stationed in the village for two weeks. Huta Pienicka's villagers, althoug poor, organized a well-fortified and armed self-defense unit that fought off a Ukrainian and German reconnaissance attack on February 23, 1944. Two soldiers of the Galician Division of the Waffen-SS were killed and one wounded by the villagers. Five days later, on February 28 elements of the Ukrainian Division from Brody returned with 500-600 men assisted by a group of civilian nationalist. The killing spree lasted all day. Kazimierz Wojciechowski, the commander of the Polish self-defense unit was drenched with gasoline and burned alive at the main square. The village was uterly destroyed and all of its occupants killed, many with utmost cruelty. Estimates of casualties in the Huta Pieniacka massacre vary, and include 500 (Ukrainian archives),, over 1,000 (Tadeusz Piotrowski), and 1,200 (Sol Littman). Many of the dead were children, and Poles claim they were burned alive. Some historians deny the role of the Ukrainian Galician Division in the killings, and attribute them entirely to German units, while others disagree. A military journal of the Ukrainian Galician Division condemned killings of Poles. In a March 2, 1944 article directed to the Ukrainian youth, written by military leaders, Soviet partisans were blamed for the murders of Poles and Ukrainians, and the authors stated that "If God forbid, among those who committed such inhuman acts, a Ukrainian hand was found, it will be forever excluded from the Ukrainian national community."

The village of Pidkamen near Brody was a shelter for Poles, who escaped there, to hide in the monastery of the Dominicans. Some 2000 persons, majority of them women and children, were living there when the monastery was attacked in mid-March 1944, by the UPA units, which according to AK accounts were cooperating with Ukrainian SS. Over 250 Poles were killed. In the nearby village of Palikrovy, 300 Poles were killed, 20 in Maliniska and 16 in Chernytsia. Armed Ukrainian groups destroyed the monastery, stealing all valuables. What remained is the painting of Mary of Pidkamen, which now is kept in Saint Wojciech church in Wrocław.Authors of a monograph "Zycie religijne w Polsce pod okupacja 1939-1945" state that Roman Catholic priests were among those killed with most cruelty. Father Ludwik Wrodarczyk from the village of Okop was crucified by the Ukrainians, father Stanislaw Dobrzanski from the village of Ostrowka beheaded (with him 967 local Poles were killed) and father Karol Baran from the village of Korytnica was cut in half by a saw. According to Kirichuk, the first attacks on the Poles took place there in August, 1943 and they were probably the work of UPA units from Volyn. In return, Poles killed important Ukrainians, including the Ukrainian doctor Lastowiecky from Lviv and a popular football player from Przemysl, Wowczyszyn.

By the end of summer, mass acts of terror aimed at Poles were taking place in Eastern Galicia with the purpose of forcing Poles to settle on the western bank of the San river, under the slogan "Poles behind the San". The number of victims is unknown. Kirichuk estimates that 10-12,000 Poles were murdered in Galicia alone. According to Grzegorz Motyka about 40-60 thousands Poles were mourdered.

Approximately 366 Ukrainian and a few Polish inhabitants of Pawłokoma were massacred by a former Armia Krajowa unit aided by Polish self-defence groups from nearby villages. The massacre is believed to be an act of retaliation for earlier alleged murders by Ukrainian Insurgent Army of 9 (or 11) Poles in Pawłokoma and unspecified number of Poles killed by UPA in neighbouring villages.

German involvement

While Germans actively encouraged the conflict, for most of the time they attempted to remain not directly involved. However, there are reports of Germans supplying weapons to both Ukrainians and Poles. Special German units formed from collaborationist Ukrainian or Polish police were deployed in pacification actions in Volhynia, and some of their crimes had been attributed to either the Polish Home Army or the Ukrainian UPA.

According to Yuryi Kirichuk the Germans were actively prodding both sides of the conflict against each other. Erich Koch once said: "We have to do everything possible so that a Pole meeting a Ukrainian, would be willing to kill him and conversely, a Ukrainian would be willing to kill a Pole". Kirichuk quotes a German commissioner from Sarny whose response to Polish complaints was: "You want Sikorski, the Ukrainians want Bandera. Fight each other".

On August 25, 1943, the German authorities ordered all Poles to leave the villages and settlements and move to larger towns.

Also the Soviet partisan units present in the area were aware of the massacres. On May 25, 1943, the commander of the Soviet partisan forces of the Rivne area in his report to the headquarters stressed that Ukrainian nationalists did not shoot the Poles but cut them dead with knives and axes, with no consideration of age or gender.

Number of victims

Plaque for victims of Volhynia massacres at Church of St. Bridget in Gdańsk

The actual death-toll among civilians murdered during the Volyn Massacre is still being researched. Recent estimates place the number of Polish victims at around 60,000 in Volyn alone, while estimates of all Polish victims of the ethnic cleansing in former eastern Poland run as high as 300,000. UPA did not spare members of mixed families, including Ukrainians. Historian Tadeusz Piotrowski writes that OUN-UPA nationalists also murdered local Ukrainians who did not want to participate in the massacres of Poles. The ethnic cleansing was focused on unarmed persons in the country side as UIA partisans were not present in cities. Piotr Łossowski estimates that in the massacres, around one-third of Poles living in Volyn (50,000-60,000) perished, and those who survived, were mostly inhabitants of towns and cities . Władysław Siemaszko created a list consisting of 33,454 names of Polish victims, however, Łossowski emphasizes that the document is far from complete, as in numerous cases there were no survivors, who would later be able to testify.

Although the exact number of Ukrainian victims is not documented, according to Ukrainian estimates the Polish Home Army acted in retaliation, resulting in the deaths of an estimated 20,000 Ukrainians. Research continues on arriving at the number of victims on both sides.

The Soviet and Nazi invasions of pre-war eastern Poland, the UPA massacres of Poles, and postwar Soviet expulsions all contributed to the virtual elimination of a Polish presence in the region. Those who survived left Volyn mostly for the neighbouring province of Lublin. After the war, the survivors moved further west to the territories of Lower Silesia. Polish orphans from Volyn were kept in several orphanages, with the largest of them around Kraków. Several former Polish villages in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia do not exist any more and what remains are ruins.

Responsibility

The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, (OUN) of which the Ukrainian Insurgent Army would have become the armed wing, promoted removal, by force if necessary, of non-Ukrainians from the social and economic spheres of a future Ukrainian state. The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists adopted in 1929 the Ten Commandments of the Ukrainian Nationalists, which all members of the Organization were expected to adhere to. This Decalogue stated "Do not hesitate to carry out the most dangerous deeds" and "Treat the enemies of your nation with hatred and ruthlessness".

It is suggested that the decision to ethnically cleanse the area East of Western Bug river was taken by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army early in 1943. In March 1943, OUN(B) (specifically Mykola Lebed) imposed a collective death sentence of all Poles living in the former eastern part of the Second Polish Republic and a few months later local units of the UPA were instructed to complete the operation with haste. The decision to cleanse the territory of its Polish population determined the course of events in the future. According to Timothy Snyder, the ethnic cleansing of the Poles was exclusively the work of the extreme Bandera faction of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, rather than the Melnyk faction of that organization or other Ukrainian political or religious organizations. Polish investigators claim that the OUN-B central leadership decided in February 1943 to drive all Poles out of Volhynia, to obtain an ethnically pure territory in the postwar period. Among those who were behind the decision, Polish investigators see Dmytro Klyachkivsky, Vasyl Ivakhov, Ivan Lytvynchuk, and Petro Oliynyk.

According to prosecutor Piotr Zając, Polish Institute of National Remembrance in 2003 considered three different versions of the events in its investigation:

  1. the Ukrainians at first planned to chase the Poles out but the events got out of hand in the course of time.
  2. the decision to exterminate the Poles was taken by the OUN-UPA headquarters.
  3. the decision to exterminate the Poles was taken by some of the leaders of OUN-UPA in the course of an internal conflict within the organisation.

IPN concluded that the second version was the most likely one.

Reconciliation

The question of official acknowledgement of the ethnic cleansing remains a matter of a discussion between Polish and Ukrainian historians and leaders. Efforts are ongoing to bring about reconciliation between Poles and Ukrainians regarding these tragic events. The Polish Institute of National Remembrance which is conducting an extensive investigation has collected over 10,000 pages of documents and protocols. The Polish side has made the first step towards reconciliation. In 2002 president Aleksander Kwaśniewski expressed regret over the resettlement program, known as Operation Vistula, stating that “The infamous Operation Vistula is a symbol of the abominable deeds perpetrated by the communist authorities against Polish citizens of Ukrainian origin.” and that "Operation Vistula was the revenge for the slaughter of Poles by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army" in 1943-1944, “fallacious and ethically inadmissible,” as it invoked “the principle of collective guilt.”

The Ukrainian government however has not issued an apology.

On July 11, 2003, presidents Aleksander Kwaśniewski and Leonid Kuchma attended a ceremony held in the Volynian village of Pavlivka (previously known as Poryck). They unveiled a monument to the reconciliation. President Kuchma however, did not offer an apology. The Ukrainians unexpectedly changed the inscription on the monument, even though it had been previously agreed upon with Poles. Later, the Ukrainians issued an apology for what they stated was a mistranslation, and promised to correct the inscription. Former chairman of Verkhovna Rada Volodymyr Lytvyn however, rejected calls for the Ukrainian state to apologize for the 1943 Volyn massacres. The Polish President stressed that it is unjust to blame the entire Ukrainian nation for these acts of terror, saying "The Ukrainian nation cannot be blamed for the massacre perpetrated on the Polish population. There are no nations that are guilty... It is always specific people who bear the responsibility for crimes".

On 15 July 2009 the Sejm of the Republic of Poland unanimously adopted a resolution regarding the tragic fate of Poles in Volhynia. The text of the resolution states that July 2009 marks the 66th anniversary "of the beginning of anti-Polish actions by the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army on Polish Eastern territories - mass murders characterised by ethnic cleansing with marks of genocide".

Notes

  1. Timothy Snyder. (2003). The Causes of Ukrainian-Polish Ethnic Cleansing 1943, The Past and Present Society: Oxford University Press. pg. 220
  2. ^ Matthew J. Gibney, Randall Hansen, Immigration and Asylum, page 204
  3. Template:Pl icon Józef Turowski; Władysław Siemaszko, Zbrodnie nacjonalistów ukraińskich dokonane na ludności polskiej na Wołyniu, 1939–1945 (Template:Lang-en) Warsaw, Wydawnictwo von borowiecky Publishing, 2000. Second edition, foreword by Prof. Dr Ryszard Szawłowski. ISBN 83-87689-34-3.
  4. Niall Ferguson, The War of the World, Penguin Press, New York 2006, page 455.
  5. http://www.utoronto.ca/cius/excerpts/shumuk/introxviii-xix.pdf
  6. Дзюбан, О. Українсько-польське протистояння у вересні 1939 року у тогочасній пресі та споинах очевидців / Українсько-польський конфліцт під час Другої світової війни. Львів, 2003 (In Ukrainian); Dziuban, O. Ukrainian-Polish insurgence in October 1939 in contemporary press and witness memoirs / Ukrainian-Polish conflict during the Second World War. Lviv, 2003 p. 98
  7. Ewa and Władysław Siemaszko, Ludobójstwo, vol 2, page 1294.
  8. Orest Subtelny, Ukraine: a history, pp. 367-368, University of Toronto Press, 2000, ISBN 0-8020-8390-0
  9. Timothy Snyder. (2003). The Reconstruction of Nations. New Haven: Yale University Press. pg. 123 and pg. 145
  10. Timothy Snyder. (2003) The Reconstruction of Nations. New Haven: Yale University Press. pp.138-139
  11. ^ The Unknown Lenin, ed. Richard Pipes, Yale University Press, ISBN 0-300-06919-7 Document 59, Google Print, p. 106.
  12. Paul Robert Magocsi, A History of Ukraine, University of Toronto Press: Toronto 1996, ISBN 0-8020-0830-5
  13. Kubijovic, V. (1963). Ukraine: A Consice Encyclopedia. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
  14. Timothy Snyder. (2003). The Reconstruction of Nations. New Haven: Yale University Press, pp. 165,166,168
  15. John Armstrong (1963). Ukrainian Nationalism. New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 21-22
  16. Wilson, A. (2000). The Ukrainians: Unexpected Nation. New Haven: Yale University Press.
  17. Paul Robert Magocsi. (1996). A History of Ukraine. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, pg. 621
  18. Bohdan Budurowycz. (1989). Sheptytski and the Ukrainian National Movement after 1914 (chapter). In Paul Robert Magocsi (ed.). Morality and Reality: The Life and Times of Andrei Sheptytsky. Edmonton, Alberta: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta. pg. 57.
  19. Jeffrey Burds. Comments on Timothy Snyder's article, "To Resolve the Ukrainian Question once and for All: The Ethnic Cleansing of Ukrainians in Poland, 1943-1947" Journal of Cold War Studies, Volume 1, Number 2 (Spring 1999).
  20. In one of many such incidents, the Papal Nuncio in Warsaw reported that Polish mobs attacked Ukrainian students in their dormitory under the eyes of Polish police, a screaming Ukrainian woman was thrown into a burning Ukrainian store by Polish mobs, and a Ukrainian seminary was destroyed during which icons were desecrated and eight people were hospitalized with serious injuries and two killed. Taken from Jeffrey Burds. Comments on Timothy Snyder's article, "To Resolve the Ukrainian Question once and for All: The Ethnic Cleansing of Ukrainians in Poland, 1943-1947" Journal of Cold War Studies, Volume 1, Number 2 (Spring 1999).
  21. Oleksandr Derhachov (editor), "Ukrainian Statehood in the Twentieth Century: Historical and Political Analysis", 1996, Kiev ISBN 966-543-040-8. section 2, subsection 2
  22. Snyder, The Reconstruction of Nations ..., p. 144
  23. Сивицький, М. Записки сірого волиняка Львів 1996 с.184
  24. ^ Timothy Snyder. (2005). Sketches from a Secret War: A Polish Artist's Mission to Liberate Soviet Ukraine. New Haven: Yale University Press. pp.167
  25. Subtelny, Orest. (1988). Ukraine: A History. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, pg. 432.
  26. Lidia Głowacka, Andrzej Czesław Żak, Military Settlers in Volhynia in the years 1921-1939
  27. Subtelny, O. (1988). Ukraine: a History. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, pg. 429. ISBN 0-8020-5808-6
  28. Orest Subtelny. (1988). Ukraine: A History. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. pp.444.
  29. ^ To Resolve the Ukrainian Question Once and For All: The Ethnic Cleansing of Ukrainians in Poland, 1943-1947, Timothy Snyder, Working Paper, Yale University, 2001
  30. Poland's Holocaust, Tadeusz Piotrowski, 1998 ISBN 0-7864-0371-3 p. 14
  31. John Armstrong (1963). Ukrainian Nationalism. New York: Columbia University Press, pg. 65
  32. Orest Subtelny. (1988). Ukraine: A History. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, pp. 455-457.
  33. Timothy Snyder. (2004) The Reconstruction of Nations. New Haven: Yale University Press: pg. 163.
  34. Timothy Snyder. (2004) The Reconstruction of Nations. New Haven: Yale University Press: pg. 163
  35. Timothy Snyder. (2004) The Reconstruction of Nations. New Haven: Yale University Press: pg. 162
  36. Timothy Snyder. (2003). The Reconstruction of Nations. New Haven: Yale University Press. pg. 168
  37. Sowa, "Stosunki ...", p. 171
  38. Feliks Trusiewicz, "Zbrodnie - ludobójstwo dokonane na ludności polskiej w powiecie Łuck, woj. wołyńskie, w latach 1939-1944, cz. 1" in "Na rubieży" nr 5, 1997, pp 36-39
  39. Władysław Filar, Antypolskie akcje nacjonalistów ukraińskich from Przed Akcją Wisła był Wołyń, Warsaw, 1997.
  40. Sowa, "Stosunki ...", p. 176
  41. Motyka, p. 190
  42. Od walk do ludobójstwa, Ewa Siemaszako, Rzeczpospolita, 10.07.2008
  43. Timothy Snyder, The Causes of Ukrainian-Polish Ethnic Cleansing 1943, pg. 220
  44. Wołyń - Janowa Dolina
  45. Feliks Budzisz, The Day of Mourning in Kresy, Przeglad Weekly, number 28/2008
  46. ^
  47. Norman Davies, Europe at War 1939-1945: No Simple Victory Publisher: Pan Books, November, 2007,544 pages, ISBN 978-0330352123
  48. Timothy Snyder, “To Resolve the Ukrainian Question Once and For All”: The Ethnic Cleansing of Ukrainians in Poland (November 2001)
  49. Niall Ferguson, The War of the World, Penguin Press, New York, 2006, page 455.
  50. Gazeta Wyborcza 23.04.2003
  51. Foreign Policy Association: Central and Eastern Europe|CE Europe
  52. Antypolskie akcje nacjonalistów ukraińskich
  53. Institute of Ukrainian History, Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, Chapter 11, pg. 24
  54. Wiktoria Śliwowska, Jakub Gutenbaum, The Last Eyewitnesses, page 187
  56. ^ "Nie tylko Wołyń", Piotr Łossowski, Przegląd, 28/2003
  57. Timothy Snyder. (2003). The Reconstruction of Nations. New Haven: Yale University Press. pg. 176
  58. Zagłada Puźnik - Rzeczpospolita
  59. Norman Davies - Teksty - EUROPA
  60. History of Buczacz during World War II quoted from Norman Davies (1996), Europe: A History
  61. Po Polakach pozostały mogiły… - Rzeczpospolita
  62. ^ Institute of Ukrainian History, Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, Chapter 5, p. 283 Cite error: The named reference "autogenerated1" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  63. ^ Template:Pl iconBogusława Marcinkowska, Institute of National Remembrance, Ustalenia wynikające ze śledztwa w sprawie zbrodni ludobójstwa funkcjonariuszy SS "GALIZIEN" i nacjonalistów ukraińskich na Polakach w Hucie Pieniackiej 28 lutego 1944 roku. See also: automatic translation from Polish made available by Google. Cite error: The named reference "IPN2" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  64. Mieczyslaw Juchniewicz, ‘’Polacy w. radzieckim ruchu podziemnym I partyzanckim 1941-1945. Warsaw: Ministerstwo Obrony Narodowej. Cited in Michael Logusz (1997). ‘‘Galicia Division: The Waffen-SS14th grenadier Division 1943-1945’’. Pennsylvania: Schiffer Publishing Ltd. ISBN 0-7643-0081-4 pg. 459.
  65. Ukrainian State Archives See also: automatic translation from Ukrainian, made available by Google Translator
  66. Tadeusz Piotrowski, Poland's holocaust. Published by McFarland. Page 229
  67. Template:En icon
  68. ^ Jak za Jaremy i Krzywonosa, Jurij Kiriczuk, Gazeta Wyborcza 23.04.2003
  69. Grzegorz Motyka, Ukraińska partyzantka 1942-1960, Warszawa 2006
  70. According to Polish-Ukrainian historian Eugeniusz Misiło, the Poles allegedly murdered in Pawłokoma by UPA, in reality were kidnapped by Soviet NKVD, in an attempt to start a series of retaliations. (Misiło, Pawłokoma ..., p. 20)
  71. Prof. Władysław Filar, Polish Institute of National Remembrance, "Antypolskie akcje nacjonalistów ukraińskich"
  72. Template:Pl icon Józef Turowski, with Władysław Siemaszko, Zbrodnie nacjonalistów ukraińskich dokonane na ludności polskiej na Wołyniu 1939-1945, Warsaw: Główna Komisja Badania Zbrodni Hitlerowskich w Polsce – Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, Środowisko Żołnierzy 27 Wołyńskiej Dywizji Armii Krajowej w Warszawie, (Template:Lang-en – Institute of National Remembrance with Association of Soldiers of the 27th Volhynian Division of the Home Army), Warsaw, 1990
  73. Władysław Siemaszko, Ewa Siemaszko (2008) . "Ludobójstwo dokonane przez nacjonalistów ukraińskich na ludności polskiej Wołynia 1939–1945" (in Polish). Vol. volume 2 (3rd edition ed.). Warszawa: Von Borowiecky. p. 1056. ISBN 978-83-607748-01-5. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help); |volume= has extra text (help); Check |isbn= value: length (help)
  74. Subtelny, p. 475
  75. ^ Analysis: Ukraine, Poland Seek Reconciliation Over Grisly History, Jan Maksymiuk, RFE/RL, May 12, 2006
  76. Matthew J. Gibney, Randall Hansen Immigration and Asylum. From 1900 to the Present
  77. Vic Satzevich, The Ukrainian Diaspora
  78. Karel Cornelis Berkhoff, "Harvest of Despair: Life and Death in Ukraine Under Nazi Rule", Harvard University Press, 2004, ISBN 0674013131 p. 291
  79. Polish report on the massacres, article from Ukrainian webpage
  80. Volhynia: The Reckoning Begins.
  81. RFE/RL Newsline, 03-02-13
  82. World Briefing | Europe: Ukraine: Joint Memorial To Massacre - New York Times
  83. Warsaw Voice - POLITICAL PERISCOPE
  84. BBC Monitoring European - Political. London: Jul 11, 2003. pg. 1
  85. RFE/RL Newsline, 03-07-14
  86. Template:Pl icon Inaformation about resolution

See also

References

Further reading

  • Timothy Snyder. (2003). The Causes of Ukrainian-Polish Ethnic Cleansing 1943, The Past and Present Society: Oxford University Press.
  • Timothy Snyder. (2003). The Reconstruction of Nations, New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 0300095694
  • Piotrowski, Tadeusz (2000). Genocide and Rescue in Wolyn. McFarland. {{cite book}}: Text "ISBN 0786407735" ignored (help)

External links

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