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Massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia

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Volhynian massacre
Monument in memory of Polish citizens of Janowa Dolina, Volyn
LocationVolhynia
Eastern Galicia
DateMarch 1943 – 1945
TargetPoles
Deaths50,000-100,000 [1][2][3]
PerpetratorsUkrainian Insurgent Army

The massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia (Polish language: rzeź wołyńska , literally: Volhynian slaughter; Ukrainian language: Волинська трагедія , Volyn tragedy) were part of an ethnic cleansing operation carried out in Nazi Germany–occupied Poland by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA)’s North Command in the regions of Volhynia (Reichskommissariat Ukraine) and their South Command in Eastern Galicia (General Government) beginning in March 1943 and lasting until the end of 1944.[4][5][6] The peak of the massacres took place in July and August 1943 when a senior UPA commander, Dmytro Klyachkivsky, ordered the liquidation of the entire male Polish population between 16 and 60 years of age.[7][8][9] Despite this, most of the victims were women and children.[4] The actions of the UPA resulted in 40,000-60,000 Polish civilian deaths in Volhynia,[3] and from 25,000[10] to 30,000-40,000 in Eastern Galicia.[3]

The killings were directly linked with the policies of the Bandera faction of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and its military arm – Ukrainian Insurgent Army, whose goal specified at the Second Conference of the Stepan Bandera faction of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN-B) during 17–23 February 1943, or at least in March 1943 was to purge all non-Ukrainians from the future Ukrainian state. Not limiting their activities to the purging of Polish civilians, the UPA also wanted to erase all traces of sustained Polish presence in the area.[11]

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Background

Map of Volhynia (blue) and Eastern Galicia (orange) in 1939

Polish-Ukrainian tensions dated back several hundred years, with territorial, religious, and social dimensions,[12] especially the Khmelnytsky Uprising of the 17th century, persisting in the national memories of both groups.[12] While relations were not always harmonious, Poles and Ukrainians interacted with each other on every civic, economic, and political level throughout hundreds of years. With the rise of nationalism in the 19th century, the ethnicity of citizens became an issue, and the conflicts erupted anew after the First World War. Both Poles and Ukrainians 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 paramilitary activity by the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, formed in Poland, and the ensuing state repressions.[13] Collective punishment meted out to thousands of mostly innocent peasants exacerbated animosity between the Polish state and the Ukrainian population.[14]

At the onset of World War II, with Soviet invasion and annexation of the area in 1939–1941 (see Polish September Campaign), militant Ukrainian nationalist extremists, distrustful of Polish territorial ambitions, saw an opportunity to cleanse Polish people from territory historically considered to be Ukrainian and to exact retribution for the Polonization which the re-established Polish state had inflicted upon the Ukrainians. Killings of Poles in Volhynia and Galicia started soon after the Soviet annexation of the territory, climaxed during the German occupation, and continued after the Soviets re-occupied the Western Ukraine into the last year of the war.

Polish-Ukrainian relations after World War I

See also: Pacification of Ukrainians in Eastern Galicia (1930)

As the Austro-Hungarian government collapsed following World War I, Poles and Ukrainians struggled for control over the city known as Lwów in Polish, Lviv in Ukrainian and Lemberg in German, populated mostly by Poles,[15] but surrounded by a Ukrainian majority in the villages and countryside.[16] Until 1772 the area belonged to the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, but later, with the Partitions of Poland, was annexed to the Austrian empire. The conflict, known as the Polish–Ukrainian War, spilled over to Volhynia with the Ukrainian leader Symon Petliura attempting to expand Ukrainian claims westward. The war was conducted by professional forces on both sides, resulting in a relatively minimal number of 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.[17]

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.[18] The Soviets forced Ukrainian forces to retreat to Podolia, and 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 Zbruch.[18] Following this agreement, the government of the West Ukrainian National Republic went into exile in Vienna,[19] viewing it as a betrayal. At the end of the Polish-Ukrainian war with the Soviets, the Peace of Riga was signed with Vladimir Lenin in 1921. Volhynia and Eastern Galicia were eventually joined 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 that date 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.”[20]

Their promise was not fulfilled by the Polish government. In the following years, the historical discourse between Polish and Ukrainian researchers has often been based on historical stereotypes stemming from ethnic conflicts during the First World War and the interwar period, making it difficult to draw an objective account of bilateral Polish-Ukrainian relations during World War II.[21][not in citation given]

The rise of the OUN

OUN-B

Decisions leading to the massacre of Poles in Volhynia and their implementation were primarily attributable to the extremist Bandera faction of the OUN (OUN-B) and not by other Ukrainian political or military groups.[22] The OUN-B’s ideology involved the following ideas: integral nationalism, that a pure national state and language were desired goals;[23] glorification of violence and armed struggle of nation versus nation;[24] and 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.[1][25]

At the time of the OUN’s 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 the 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.” [26] Several factors contributed to the OUN-B’s increase in popularity and, ultimately, monopoly of power within Ukrainian society, conditions necessary for the massacres to occur.

Events during the times of the Second Polish Republic

Mother tongue in Poland, based on 1931 census
Linguistic map of Poland, based on 1937 census

Just before the Soviet invasion of 1939, Volhynia was part of the Second Polish Republic. According to Yale historian Timothy Snyder, between 1928 and 1938, Volhynia was “the site of one of eastern Europe’s most ambitious policies of toleration”.[27] Through supporting Ukrainian culture, religious autonomy, and Ukrainization of the Orthodox church, Piłsudski and his allies wanted to achieve Ukrainian loyalty to the Polish state and to minimize Soviet influences in the borderline region. This approach was gradually abandoned after Piłsudski’s death in 1935.[27][28]

Civil unrest in the Galician countryside resulted in Polish police exacting a policy of collective responsibility on local Ukrainians in an effort to “pacify” the region; demolishing Ukrainian community centers and libraries, confiscating property and produce, and beating protesters.[29] Ukrainian parliamentarians were placed under house arrest to prevent them from participating in elections, with their constituents terrorized into voting for Polish candidates.[29] The Ukrainian plight, protests, and pacification received the attention of the League of Nations as ‘an international cause célèbre’; with Poland receiving condemnation from European politicians. The ongoing policies of the Polish state led to the deepening of ethnic cleavages in the area.[29]

In the 1930s the OUN, 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.

Beginning in 1937, the Polish government in Volhynia initiated an active campaign to use religion as a tool for Polonization and to forcibly convert the Orthodox population to Roman Catholicism.[30] Over 190 Orthodox churches were destroyed and 150 converted to Roman Catholic cathedrals.[31] 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 cathedral by decree of the Polish government.[30]

In response to an influx of Polish colonists to Volhynia in 1937, Ukrainian peasants refused to bring food to the towns and Ukrainian workers went on strike in solidarity with the peasants. The Polish government crushed the strike, killing at least 42 Ukrainian strikers.[32] By 1938, thousands of Polish colonists and war veterans were encouraged to settle in Volhynia and Galicia. This number is estimated at 17,700 in Volhynia alone.[33][full citation needed] Ukrainian sources estimated the total number of Polish inhabitants in both Galicia and Volhynia at 300,000 including the 1930s settlers.[34] The short presence of the settlers, as all were forcibly expelled by the Soviets to Siberia, ignited further anti-Polish sentiment among the locals.[34][35]

Harsh policies implemented by the Second Polish Republic, while often provoked by the OUN-B violence,[36][37] contributed to a further deterioration of relations between the two ethnic groups. Between 1934 and 1938, a series of violent and sometimes deadly[38] attacks against Ukrainians were conducted in other parts of Poland.[39]

Also in Wołyń Voivodeship some of the new policies were implemented, resulting in suppressing the Ukrainian language, culture and religion,[40] and the antagonism escalated.[41] Although around 68% of the voivodeship’s population spoke Ukrainian as their first language (see table), practically all government and administrative positions, including the police, were assigned to Poles.[42]

Jeffrey Burds of Northeastern University believes that the build up towards the ethnic cleansing of Poles that erupted during the Second World War in Galicia and Volhynia had its roots in this period.[39]

The Ukrainian population was outraged by the Polish government policies. A Polish report about the popular mood in Volhynia recorded a comment of a young Ukrainian from October 1938 as “we will decorate our pillars with you and our trees with your wives.”[30] 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.[43]

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 of. the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, Poland was invaded from the west by Nazi Germany and from the east by the Soviet Union. Volhynia was split by the Soviets into two oblasts, Rovno and Volyn of the Ukrainian SSR. Upon the annexation, the Soviet NKVD started to eliminate the predominantly Polish middle and upper classes, including social activists and military leaders. Between 1939–1941, 200,000 Poles were deported to Siberia by the Soviet authorities.[2] Many Polish prisoners of war were deported to the East Ukraine where most of them were executed in basements of the Kharkiv NKVD offices.[44] Estimates of the number of Polish citizens transferred to the Eastern European part of the USSR, the Urals, and Siberia range from 1.2 to 1.7 million.[45] Tens of thousands of Poles fled from the Soviet-occupied zone to areas controlled by the Germans.[2] The 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,[46] and the Soviet NKVD subverted the Ukrainian independence movement. All local Ukrainian political parties were abolished. Between 20,000 and 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.[47] 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.[48]

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 eastward and Volhynia was overrun by the Nazis, with support from Ukrainian nationalists carrying out acts of sabotage. The Ukrainian pro-Nazi militia staged pogroms and assisted the Nazis in executions of Poles and Jews.[46] In 1941, two brothers of Ukrainian leader Stepan Bandera were murdered while imprisoned in Auschwitz by Volksdeutsche kapos.[49] In the Chełm region, 394 Ukrainian community leaders were killed by the Poles on the grounds of collaboration with the German authorities.[50]

During the first year of German occupation, the OUN urged its members to join German police units. As police, they were trained in the use of weapons and as a result they could 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 genocidal techniques from the Germans i.e., detailed advanced planning and careful site selection; the use of phony assurances to the local populace prior to annihilation; sudden encirclement; and mass killing. This training from 1942 explains the UPA’s efficiency in the killing of Poles in 1943.[51]

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Ethnic cleansing

Prelude

Only one group of Ukrainian nationalists, OUN-B under Mykola Lebed and then Roman Shukhevych, intended to ethnically cleanse Volhynia of Poles. Taras Bulba-Borovets, the founder of the Ukrainian People’s Revolutionary Army, rejected this idea and condemned the anti-Polish massacres when they started.[52][53]

After Hitler’s attack on the Soviet Union, both the Polish Government in Exile and the Ukrainian OUN-B considered the possibility that in the event of mutually exhaustive attrition warfare between 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.[54] This view was compounded by the OUN’s prior collaboration with the Nazis, that by 1943 no understanding between the Polish government’s Home Army and OUN was possible. 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 Volhynia 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.[55] 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.[citation needed]

According to OUN reports, from April to May 1942, Polish underground paramilitary groups were already being formed. The formation of such groups was corroborated by German sources. At the same time, other Poles attempted to enter German service and in those roles, OUN report claimed, they tried to sow distrust towards Ukrainians by the Germans in order to provoke the German repression of ethnic Ukrainians.[56] However, as evidenced both by Polish and Ukrainian underground reports, the only major concern of Ukrainian nationalists was that of strong Soviet partisan groups operating in the area. The groups consisted mostly of Soviet POWs and initially specialized in raiding local settlements, which disturbed both the OUN and the AK, who expected it to result in an increase in German terror.[citation needed] These concerns soon materialized as Germans began “pacifying” entire villages in Volhynia in retaliation for real or alleged support for the Soviet partisans. Polish historiography attributed most of these actions to Ukrainian nationalists, while in reality they were conducted by Ukrainian auxiliary police units under the direct supervision of Germans.[citation needed] 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.[57][58]

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 in autumn 1942 with the goal of subduing the other independent groups. By February 1943 the OUN had initiated a policy of murdering civilian Poles as a way of resolving the Polish question in Ukraine. 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.[2] 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 undertook steps to liquidate “foreign elements”, with posters and leaflets urging Ukrainians to murder Poles.[46] Its dominance secured (in spring 1943, the UPA gained control over the Volhynian countryside from the Germans), the UPA began large-scale UPA operations against the Polish population.[2][59]

Volhynia

Victims of a massacre committed by the UPA in the village of Lipniki, Poland, 1943

Events

Between 1939 and 1943, Volhynian Poles had been already reduced to some 8% of the region’s population (around 200,000 people). They were dispersed around the countryside, deprived of their elites by Soviet deportations, with neither local partisan army of their own nor state authority (except the Germans) to protect them.[60]

On February 9, 1943, a UPA group commanded by Hryhory Perehyniak, pretending to be Soviet partisans assaulted the Paroślesettlement in Sarny county.[61][62][63] It is considered a prelude[64] to the massacres, and is recognized as the first[64] mass murder committed by the UPA in the area. Estimates of the number of victims range from 149[65] to 173.[66]

In 1943 the massacres were organized westwards, starting in March in Kostopol and Sarny counties. In April they moved to the area of Krzemieniec, Rivne, Dubno and Lutsk.[67] Between late March and early April 1943, killing approximately 7,000 unarmed men, women, and children in its first days.[68]

On the night of April 22–23, Ukrainian groups, commanded by Ivan Lytwynchuk (aka Dubovy), attacked the settlement of Janowa Dolina, killing 600 people and burning down the entire village.[69] Those few who survived were mostly people that found refuge with friendly Ukrainian families.[70][better source needed] In one of the massacres, in the village of Lipniki, almost the entire family of Mirosław Hermaszewski (Poland’s only astronaut) was murdered[71] along with about 180 inhabitants.[72] The attackers murdered the grandparents of composer Krzesimir Dębski, whose parents met each other during the Ukrainian attack on Kisielin.[citation needed] Debski’s parents survived, taking refuge with a friendly Ukrainian family.

In another massacre, according to UPA reports, the Polish colonies of Kuty, in the Szumski region, and Nowa Nowica, in the Webski region, were liquidated for cooperation with the Gestapo and German authorities.”[73] According to Polish sources, the Kuty self-defense unit managed to repel the UPA assault, though at least 53 Poles were murdered. The rest of the inhabitants decided to abandon the village and were escorted by the Germans who arrived at Kuty, alerted by the glow of fire and the sound of gunfire.[74] Maksym Skorupskyi, one of UPA commanders, wrote in his diary: Starting from our action on Kuty, day by day after sunset, the sky was batching in the glow of conflagration. Polish villages were burning.[74]

By June 1943, the attacks had spread to the counties of Kowel, Włodzimierz Wołyński, and Horochów, and in August to Luboml county.[67] The decisive Soviet victory at Kursk acted as a stimulus for escalation of massacres in June and August 1943, when ethnic cleansing reached its peak.[46] In June 1943, Dmytro Klyachkivsky head-commander of the UPA-North made a general decision to exterminate Poles in Volhynia. His secret directive stated: “We should make a large action of the liquidation of the Polish element. As the German armies withdraw, we should take advantage of this convenient moment for liquidating the entire male population in the age from 16 up to 60 years. We cannot lose this fight, and it is necessary at all costs to weaken Polish forces. Villages and settlements lying next to the massive forests, should disappear from the face of the earth”.[75]

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 and AK,[76] Zygmunt Rumel and Krzysztof Markiewicz attempted to negotiate with UPA leaders, but were captured and murdered on July 10, 1943, in the village of Kustycze.[77] Some sources claim they were tortured before the death.[78]

The following day, July 11, 1943, is regarded as the bloodiest day of the massacres,[by whom?] with many reports of UPA units marching from village to village, killing Polish civilians.[79] On that day, UPA units surrounded and attacked Polish villages and settlements located in three counties – Kowel, Horochow, and Włodzimierz Wołyński. Events began at 3:00 am, leaving the Poles with little 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.[79] 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 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.[79] Altogether, on July 11, 1943, the Ukrainians attacked 167 towns and villages.[80] 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, and were well-coordinated and thoroughly planned.[46]

The mass grave discovered during the second exhumation in Wola Ostrowiecka (August 2011)[81]

In August 1943 the UPA placed notices in every Polish village stating “in 48 hours leave beyond the Bug River or the San river- otherwise Death.”[82] Ukrainian attackers limited their actions to villages and settlements, and did not strike towns or cities.

Polish historian Władysław Filar, who witnessed the massacres, cites numerous statements made by Ukrainian officers when reporting their actions to the leaders of UPA-OUN. For example, in late September 1943, the commandant “Lysyi” 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 Ostrivky (see Massacre of Ostrówki). I have liquidated all Poles, starting from the youngest ones. Afterwards, all buildings were burned and all goods were confiscated”.[83] 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).[84]

Methods

The atrocities were carried out indiscriminately and without restraint. 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.

[85]

An OUN order from early 1944 stated:

Liquidate all Polish traces. Destroy all walls in the Catholic Church and other Polish prayer houses. Destroy orchards and trees in the courtyards so that there will be no trace that someone lived there… Pay attention to the fact that when something remains that is Polish, then the Poles will have pretensions to our land”.[11]

Timothy Snyder describes the murders: “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”.[86] A 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.”[87] Ukrainian historian Yuryi Kirichuk described the conflict as similar to medieval rebellions.[88]

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.[89] In many cases, victims were tortured and their bodies mutilated. All vestiges of Polish existence eradicated with even abandoned Polish settlements burned to the ground.[46]

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.[2] Those Ukrainian peasants who took part in the massacres created their own units,[46] called Samoboronni Kushtchovi Viddily (Kushtchov Self-Defence Units). People who did not speak Polish but were considered Poles by the perpetrators were also murdered.[citation needed]

Ukrainians in ethnically mixed settlements were offered material incentives to join in the slaughter of their neighbours, or warned by the UPA’s security service (Sluzhba Bezbeky) to flee by night, while all remaining inhabitants were murdered at dawn. Many Ukrainians risked, and in some cases, lost their lives trying to shelter or warn Poles[86][90] – such activities were treated by the UPA as collaboration with the enemy and severely punished.[91] In 2007, the Polish Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) published a document Kresowa Ksiega Sprawiedliwych 1939 – 1945. O Ukraincach ratujacych Polakow poddanych eksterminacji przez OUN i UPA (“Eastern Borderland’s Book of the Righteous. About Ukrainians saving Poles from extermination of OUN and UIA”). The author of the book, IPN’s historian Romuald Niedzielko, documented 1341 cases in which Ukrainian civilians helped their Polish neighbors. For this, 384 Ukrainians were executed by the UIA.[92] In case of Polish-Ukrainian families, one common UPA instruction was to kill one’s Polish spouse and children born of that marriage. People who refused to carry such order were often murdered together with their entire family.[35][93]

Self-defence organizations

The massacres prompted Poles, starting in April 1943, to organize self-defence organizations, 100 of which were formed in Volhynia in 1943. Sometimes these self-defence organization obtained arms from the Germans; other times the Germans confiscated their weapons and arrested the leaders. Many of these organizations could not withstand the pressure of the UPA and were destroyed. Only the largest self-defence organizations who were able to obtain help from the AK or from Soviet partisans were able to survive.[94]

The AK on 20 July 1943 called upon Polish self-defence units to place themselves under its command. Ten days later, it declared itself in favor of Ukrainian independence on territories without Polish populations, and called for an end to the killings of civilians.[95] Polish self-defence organizations took part in revenge massacres of Ukrainian civilians starting in the summer of 1943, when Ukrainian villagers who had nothing to do with the massacres suffered at the hands of Polish partisan forces. Evidence includes a letter dated August 26, 1943 to local Polish self-defence where AK commander Kazimierz Bąbiński criticized the burning of neighboring Ukrainian villages, killing any Ukrainian that crosses their path, and robbing Ukrainians of their material possessions.[96] The total number of Ukrainian civilians murdered in Volyn in retaliatory acts by Poles is estimated at 2,000-3,000.[97] The 27th Home Army Infantry Division was formed in January 1944, and tasked to fight the UPA and then the Wehrmacht.[95]

Death toll

According to the Volhynian delegation to the Polish government, by October 1943 the number of Polish casualties exceeded 15,000 people.[98] Timothy Snyder estimates that in spring and summer 1943 the UPA actions resulted in deaths of 40,000 Polish civilians.[2]

Eastern Galicia

Tablet with names of Poles killed in Berezowica Mala, Eastern Lesser Poland, in present-day Ukraine
Cross with tablets of the names of Poles killed 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 in 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 strong. 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 tactics, combined with better Polish self-defense and a demographic balance more favorable to Poles, resulted in a significantly lower death toll among Poles in Galicia than in Volhynia.[99] The methods used by Ukrainian nationalists in this area were the same, and consisted of rounding up and killing all the Polish residents of the villages, then looting the villages and burning them to the ground.[46] On February 28, 1944, in the village of Korosciatyn 135 Poles were murdered;[100] the victims were later counted by a local Roman Catholic priest, Rev. Mieczysław Kamiński.[101] Jan Zaleski (father of Fr. Tadeusz Isakowicz-Zaleski) who witnessed the massacre, wrote in his diary: “The slaughter lasted almost all night. We heard terrible cries, the roar of cattle burning alive, shooting. It seemed that Antichrist himself began his activity!”[102] 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.” [103] Among the 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, and Hanachiv and Hanachivka near Przemyślany.[104]

Roman Shukhevych, the UPA commander, stated in his order from 25 February 1944: “In view of the success of the Soviet forces it is necessary to speed up the liquidation of the Poles, they must be totally wiped out, their villages burned … only the Polish population must be destroyed.”[35]

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,[105] as well as a recuperation base for Polish and Communist partisans. One AK unit was active there. In the winter of 1944 a Soviet partisan unit numbering 1,000 was stationed in the village for two weeks.[105][106][106] Huta Pieniacka’s villagers, although poor, organized a well-fortified and armed self-defense unit that fought off a Ukrainian and German reconnaissance attack on February 23, 1944.[107] Two soldiers of the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS Galicia (1st Ukrainian) Division of the Waffen-SS were killed and one wounded by the villagers. On February 28, elements of the Ukrainian 14th SS Division from Brody returned with 500-600 men, assisted by a group of civilian nationalists. 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 utterly destroyed and all of its occupants killed.[106] The civilians, mostly women and children, were rounded up at a church, divided and locked in barns which were set on fire.[108] Estimates of casualties in the Huta Pieniacka massacre vary, and include 500 (Ukrainian archives),[109] over 1,000 (Tadeusz Piotrowski),[110] and 1,200 (Sol Littman).[111] According to IPN investigation, the crime was committed by the 4th battalion of the Ukrainian 14th SS Division[108] supported by UPA units and local Ukrainian civilians.[112]

A military journal of the Ukrainian 14th SS Division condemned the killing 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.”[105] Some historians deny the role of the Ukrainian 14th SS Division in the killings, and attribute them entirely to German units, while others disagree.[105][verification needed] According to Yale historian Timothy Snyder, the Ukrainian 14th SS Division’s role in the ethnic cleansing of Poles from western Ukraine was marginal.[113]

The village of Pidkamen near Brody was a shelter for Poles, who hid in the monastery of the Dominicans there. Some 2,000 persons, the majority of them women and children, were living there when the monastery was attacked in mid-March 1944 by UPA units, which according to Polish Home Army accounts were cooperating with the Ukrainian SS. Over 250 Poles were killed.[105] 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 was the painting of Mary of Pidkamen, which now is kept in St. Wojciech Church in Wrocław. 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 Volhynia. In retaliation, Poles killed important Ukrainians, including the Ukrainian doctor Lastowiecky from Lviv and a popular football player from Przemyśl, Wowczyszyn.

By the end of the 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”. Snyder estimates that 25,000 Poles were killed in Galicia alone,[114] Motyka estimated the number of victims at 30,000-40,000.[3]

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,[115][116] the day before they were scheduled to depart for the Recovered Territories.

By Autumn 1944 anti-Polish actions stopped and terror was used only against those who co-operated with the NKVD, but in late 1944 and in the beginning of 1945 UPA performed a last massive anti-Polish action in Ternopil region.[117] On the night of February 5–6, 1945, Ukrainian groups attacked the Polish village of Barysz, 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 Khamchuk attacked the Polish settlement of Puźniki, killing around 100 people and burning houses. Those who survived moved mostly to Prudnik.[118]

Approximately 150[119]-366 Ukrainian and a few Polish inhabitants of Pawłokoma were killed on March 3, 1945 by a former Polish Home Army unit aided by Polish self-defense groups from nearby villages. The massacre is believed to be an act of retaliation for earlier alleged murders by Ukrainian Insurgent Army of nine (or 11) Poles [120] in Pawłokoma and unspecified number of Poles killed by UPA in neighboring villages.

German and Soviet involvement

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

According to Yuriy Kirichuk the Germans were actively prodding both sides of the conflict against each other.[121] 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”.[121]

The Nazis replaced Ukrainian policemen who deserted from German service with Polish policemen. Polish motives for joining were local and personal: to defend themselves or avenge UPA atrocities.[122] German policy called for the murder of the family of every Ukrainian police officer who deserted and the destruction of the village of any Ukrainian police officer deserting with his weapons. These retaliations were carried out using newly recruited Polish policemen. Though Volhynian Polish participation in the German Police followed UPA attacks on Polish settlements, it provided the Ukrainian Nationalists with useful sources of propaganda and was used as a justification for the cleansing action. OUN-B leader summarized the situation in August 1943 by saying that the German administration “uses Polaks in its destructive actions. In response we destroy them unmercifully.”[123] Despite the desertions in March and April 1943, the auxiliary Police remained heavily Ukrainian, and Ukrainians serving the Nazis continued pacifications of Polish and other villages.[124]

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

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 stressed in his report to the headquarters that Ukrainian nationalists did not shoot the Poles but cut them dead with knives and axes, with no consideration for age or gender.[125]

Number of victims

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

Polish casualties

The death toll among civilians murdered during the Volhynia Massacre is still being researched. At least 10% of ethnic Poles in Volhynia were killed during this time by the UPA. Accordingly, “Polish casualties comprised about 1% of the prewar population of Poles on territories where the UPA was active and 0.2% of the entire ethnically Polish population in Ukraine and Poland.”[126] Łossowski emphasizes that documentation is far from conclusive, as in numerous cases there were no survivors who would later be able to testify.[citation needed]

The Soviet and Nazi invasions of pre-war eastern Poland, the UPA massacres, and postwar Soviet expulsions of Poles all contributed to the virtual elimination of a Polish presence in the region. Those who remained left Volhynia mostly for the neighbouring province of Lublin. After the war, the survivors moved further west to the territories of Lower Silesia. Polish orphans from Volhynia 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 those that remain are in ruins.

There is a general consensus among Western and Polish historians that Polish civilian casualties from the UPA in Volhynia range from 35,000 to 60,000.[126] According to Ivan Katchanovski, “the lower bound of these estimates [35,000] is more reliable than higher estimates which are based on an assumption that the Polish population in the region was several times less likely to perish as a result of Nazi genocidal policies compared to other regions of Poland and compared to the Ukrainian population of Volhynia.”[126] Władysław Siemaszko and his daughter Ewa have documented 33,454 Polish victims, 18,208 of which are known by surname.[127] (in July 2010 Ewa Siemaszko increased the accounts to 38,600 documented victims, 22,113 of which are known by surname[128]). At the first ever joint Polish-Ukrainian conference in Podkowa Leśna organized on June 7–9, 1994 by Karta Centre, with almost 50 Polish and Ukrainian participants, an estimate of 50,000 Polish deaths in Volhynia was agreed upon, which they considered to be moderate.[129] According to the sociologist Piotrowski, the UPA actions resulted in an estimated number of 68,700 deaths in Wołyń Voivodeship.[130] Per Anders Rudling states that UPA killed 40,000-70,000 Poles in this area.[35]

The number of Polish civilians killed in Galicia is believed to be between 20,000-25,000,[131] 25,000[16] and 30,000-40,000.[3] Niall Ferguson estimated the total number of Polish victims in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia to be between 60,000 and 80,000,[132] G. Rossolinski-Liebe: 70,000-100,000,[133] John P. Himka: 100,000.[6] According to Grzegorz Motyka, from 1943 to 1947 in all territories that were covered by the conflict, approximately 80,000-100,000 Poles were killed.[97]

Some extreme estimates place the number of Polish victims as high as 300,000.[134][verification needed]

Ukrainian casualties

Ukrainian casualties at the hands of Poles are estimated at 2,000-20,000 in Volhynia [35][135] and 1,000-20,000 for Eastern Galicia.[135][136] For all areas affected by conflict, the Ukrainian casualties are estimated as from 10,000 to 30,000 between 1943 and 1947.[135][137] However, according to G.Motyka, the estimation of 30,000 Ukrainian casualties is baseless.[135] Ukrainian deaths also include those which occurred during Operation Vistula.[135] Timothy Snyder states that it is likely the UPA killed as many Ukrainians as it did Poles, as local Ukrainians who did not adhere to the OUN’s form of nationalism were regarded as traitors.[4] Within a month of the beginning of the massacres, Polish self-defense units responded in kind; all conflicts resulted in Poles taking revenge on Ukrainian civilians.[4] According to Grzegorz Motyka, the number of Ukrainian victims is between 2,000-3,000 in Volhynia and between 10,000-15,000 in all territories covered by the conflict.[135] There were also atrocities committed by Soviet Partisans and German policemen as part of the conflict of World War II, compounding casualties. G. Rossolinski-Liebe puts the number of Ukrainians (both OUN-UPA members and civilians) killed by Poles during and after the World War at 10,000-20,000.[133]

Disputes

According to Gregorz Motyka, author of a fundamental monograph about the UPA,[138] estimations of 30,000 Ukrainian casualties are unsupported.[135]

Table

= Historian= Poli Sci= Research
AuthorNatVolhyniaGaliciaVOL+GALV+G+PE. POLSourceNotes
Timothy Snyder50k–––In Past and Present
“” “”>40k10k––Memory and Power, 200210k is in March ’44, >40k in July ’43
“” “”40-60k in ’4325k–5kThe Reconstruction of Nations, 20045k is Lublin and Rzeszów; “killed by UPA”
Grzegorz Motyka40-60k––80-100k6-8kW kręgu Łun w Bieszczadach, 2009, page 13net is from ’43 to ’47
“” “”40-60k30-40k–100kOd rzezi wołyńskiej do akcji “Wisła”, 2011, pages 447-448
Ivan Katchanovski35-60k–––Terrorists or National Heroes? Politics of the OUN and the UPA in UkraineKatchanovski considers the lower bound 35k to be more likely; cited Snyder, Hrytsiuk
Grzegorz Hryciuk35-60k–––“Vtraty naselennia na Volyni u 1941-1944rr.” Ukraina-Polshcha: Vazhki Pytannia, Vol. 5. Warsaw: Tyrsa, 2001Cited by Katchanovski
“” “”35.7-60k–––Hryciuk G. Przemiany narodowosciowe i ludnosciowe w Galicji Wschodniej i na Wolyniu w latach 1931–1948 / G. Hryciuk. – Torun, 2005. – S. 279.Cited by Kalischuk
“” “”–20-24––Straty ludnosci w Galicji Wschodniej w latach 1941–1945 / G. Hryciuk // Polska–Ukraina: trudne pytania. – Warszawa, 2000. – T. 6. – S. 279, 290, 294.Cited by Kalischuk; from 43-46; 8820 in ’43-mid’44; “according to relevant contemporary Polish sources”
“” “”35.7-60k20-25k–G.Hryciuk, Przemiany narodowosciowe i ludnosciowe w Galicji Wschodniej i na Wolyniu w latach 1931–1948, Toruń 2005, pp.279,315for Galicia “primary balance” relied on “fragmentary and often incomplete documentation” and witnesses’ testimonies
P.R. Magocsi–––50kMagocsi; A History of Ukraine, p 681“among the more reasonable estimates”
Niall Fergusson––60-80k–The war of the world, 2007[citation needed]Fergusson is citing other authors (which ones?)
John Paul Himka[3]––100k–Interventions: Challenging the Myths of Twentieth-Century Ukrainian history, 2001
Per Anders Rudling40-70k––7kTheory and Practice, 2006Problems with Rudling noted below
Rossolinski-Liebe––70-100k–The Ukrainian national revolution (2011), Celebrating Fascism… (2010)I’m having trouble finding the actual source – it may be referred to here.
Ewa Siemaszko60k70k130k133kBilans zbrodni, 2010 [4]According Rudling it is most extensive study of the Polish casualties (Rudling, “The OUN, the UPA and the Holocaust…”, p. 50)
Marek Jasiak–––60-70kRedrawing Nations, p174“In Podole, Volhynia, and Lublin”
Terles50k60-70k–100-200kIn Ethnic Cleansing p61
Karta35k29.8k––6.5k“Polska-Ukraina”, t.7, 2000, p. 159, cited by Kalishchuk: hereKarta based mostly on: Siemaszko for Volhynia (documented number) and Cz.Blicharski for Tarnopol voivodsh.
Katarina Wolczuk–––60-100k“The Difficulties of Polish–Ukrainian Historical Reconciliation,” paper published by the Royal Institute of International Affairs, London, 2002, cited by Marples
Alexander Gogun25k+––Деятельность вооружённых националистических формирований на террито-рии западных областей УССР (1943–1949), 2005Historian @ Postdam, Research fellow @ Harvard
Common communicate of PL and UKR historians50-60k20-25k–5-6k“Polska-Ukraina: trudne pytania”, 2000, t. 9, p. 403.“Polish caualties acc. to Polish sources”
Ryszard Torzecki30-40k30-40k80-100k10-20k (Polesie i Lublin)R. Torzecki, Polacy i Ukraińcy. Sprawa ukraińska podczas II wojny światowej na terenie II Rzeczypospolitej, 1993, p. 267
IPN60-80k–––Oddziałowa Komisja w Lublinie, January 2012killed by Ukrainian nationalists, 1939-1945?
Norman Davies–––hundreds of thousands‘God’s playground. A history of Poland’, Oxford University Press, 2005, p. 350ethnic cleansing
Czesław Partacz–––134-200kPrzemilczane w ukraińskiej historiografii przyczyny ludobójstwa popełnionego przez OUN-UPA na ludności polskiej [in:] Prawda historyczna na prawda polityczna w badaniach naukowych. Przykład ludobójstwa na Kresach Południowo-Wschodniej Polski w latach 1939-1946, Bogusław Paź (edition), Wrocław 2011
Lucyna Kulińska–––150-200k“Dzieci Kresów III”, Kraków 2009, p. 467
Anna M. Cienciala––40-60kThe Rebirth of Poland. University of Kansas, lecture notes by professor Anna M. Cienciala, 2004During WWII, the Bandera faction of the Ukrainian Insurrectionary Army (UPA) murdered 40,000-60,000 Poles living in the villages of former Volhynia and former East Galicia
Pertti Ahonen et al.––100,000Pertti Ahonen, Gustavo Corni, Jerzy Kochanowski, Rainer Schulze, Tamás Stark, Barbara Stelzl-Marx, People on the Move: Population Transfers and Ethnic Cleansing Policies During World War II and Its Aftermath. Berg Publishers. 2008. p. 99.100,000 killed+300,000 refugees (in ethnic cleansing conducted by Ukrainian nationalists)
AuthorNatVolhyniaGaliciaVOL+GALV+G+PE. POLSourceNotes
Grzegorz Motyka2-3k––10-20k8-12kW kregu łun w Bieszczadach, Rytm 2009, page 131943-1947, The number for total includes those killed in Volhynia, Galicia, territories of present day (eastern) Poland
“” “”2-3k1-2k–10/11-15k8-10kOd rzezi wołyńskiej do akcji “Wisła”, 2011, page 4481943-1947; According to Motyka, numbers of Ukrainian casualties from hands of Poles >= 30k are “simply pulled out of thin air”.
“” “”––8.3k15-20k10-12k“Polish reaction to the actions of the UPA: the scope and course of punitive” p28 2003[verification needed]Cited by Kalishchuk; period 1943-1948
P.A. Rudling20k–+11kin “Historical Representation of the Wartime Accounts of the Activities of the OUN…”Cites Maksymiuk “Ukraine, Poland Seek ReconciliationOver Grisly History.”[citation needed]
P. R. Magocsi––20kMagocsi; A History of Ukraine, p 681“among the more reasonable estimates”
T. Snyder10k––Past and Present[citation needed]“Over the course of 1943, perhabs ten thousand Ukrainian civilians were killed by Polish self-defence units, Soviet partisans, Nazi policemen”.
“” “”–––+5kThe reconstruction of nations[citation needed]in Lublin and Rzeszów
Rossolinski-Liebe––10-20kCelebrating Fascism…[citation needed]both UPA members and civilians, during and after the war. Rossolinski cites Motyka’s estimation of 2006.
Katarina Wolczuk––15-30kUK scholar. Cited by Marples.
Katrina Witt––15-30kUkrainian Memory and Victimhood, p101Cited Marples, who cites Wolczuk.
Kartaunknownunknown–7.5k“Polska-Ukraina”, t.7, 2000, p. 159, cited by Kalishchuk: here
Zashkilniak L. and M. Krykun?––35kZashkilniak L., M. Krykun History of Poland: from ancient times to the present day / L. Over- Shkilnyak – Lviv, 2002. – p. 527Cited by Kalishchuk.
Alexander Gogun10k+––Деятельность вооружённых националистических формирований на террито-рии западных областей УССР (1943–1949), 2005Historian @ Postdam, Research fellow @ Harvard
Anna M. Cienciala–––20k–The Rebirth of Poland. University of Kansas, lecture notes by professor Anna M. Cienciala, 2004…the Poles killed some 20,000 Ukrainians, mostly in former East Galicia in reprisal.

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.[139]

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”.[140]

The decision to ethnically cleanse the area East of Bug River was taken by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army early in 1943. In March 1943, OUN(B) (specifically Mykola Lebed[141]) 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.[142] 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.[143]

Ethnic violence was exacerbated with the circulation of posters and leaflets inciting the Ukrainian population to murder Poles and “Judeo-Muscovites” alike.[144][145][146]

According to prosecutor Piotr Zając, Polish Institute of National Remembrance in 2003 considered three different versions of the events in its investigation:[147]

  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.[citation needed]

Reconciliation

The question of official acknowledgment of the ethnic cleansing remains a matter of a discussion between Polish and Ukrainian historians and political leaders. Efforts are ongoing to bring about reconciliation between Poles and Ukrainians regarding these tragic events. The Polish side has made steps 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.” He states that the argument that “Operation Vistula was the revenge for the slaughter of Poles by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army” in 1943-1944, was “fallacious and ethically inadmissible,” as it invoked “the principle of collective guilt.” [148] The Ukrainian government has not yet issued an apology.[149][150] On July 11, 2003, presidents Aleksander Kwaśniewski and Leonid Kuchma attended a ceremony held in the Volhynian village of Pavlivka (previously known as Poryck),[151] where they unveiled a monument to the reconciliation. The Polish President said 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”.[152]

Question of genocide

OUN-UPA Genocide Victims’ Avenue in Legnica, Poland

The Institute of National Remembrance investigated the crimes committed by the UPA against the Poles in Volhynia, Galicia, and prewar Lublin Voivodeship; collecting over 10,000 pages of documents and protocols. The massacres are classified by the Commission prosecutor Piotr Zając as having character of genocide. According to Zając, “there is no doubt that the crimes committed against the people of Polish nationality have the character of (…) genocide”.[153]

On 15 July 2009 the Sejm of the Republic of Poland unanimously adopted a resolution regarding “the tragic fate of Poles in Eastern Borderlands”. 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.”[154]

However, according to Katchanovski, the actions which occurred in Volhynia cannot be classified as genocide “because there is no evidence of an intent to eliminate entire or a significant party of the Polish population, and the anti-Polish action was mostly limited to a relatively small region.”[126]

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Jump up to:1.0 1.1 Paul Robert Magocsi. (1996). A History of Ukraine. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, pg. 621
  2. ↑ Jump up to:2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 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
  3. ↑ Jump up to:3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 Grzegorz Motyka, Od rzezi wołyńskiej do akcji “Wisła”. Konflikt polsko-ukraiński 1943- 1947. Kraków 2011, p.447
  4. ↑ Jump up to:4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 Timothy Snyder. A fascist hero in democratic Kiev. NewYork Reviev of Books. February 24, 2010
  5. ↑ Keith Darden. Resisting Occupation: Lessons from a Natural Experiment in Carpathian Ukraine. Yale University. October 2, 2008. p. 5
  6. ↑ Jump up to:6.0 6.1 J. P. Himka. Interventions: Challenging the Myths of Twentieth-Century Ukrainian history. University of Alberta. 28 March 2011. p. 4
  7. ↑ Tadeusz Piotrowski, Poland’s holocaust. Published by McFarland. Page 247
  8. ↑ Władysław Filar, Wydarzenia wołyńskie 1939-1944. Wydawnictwo Adam Marszałek. Toruń 2008 ISBN 978-83-7441-884-3
  9. ↑ Filar 1999, pp. 71–2. “Fight them [the Poles] unmercifully. No one is to be spared, even in case of mixed marriages”. The quote is from a UPA commander’s order of 6 April 1944.
  10. ↑ Timothy Snyder, Rekonstrukcja narodów. Polska, Ukraina, Litwa, Białoruś 1569-1999, Sejny 2009, p.196
  11. ↑ Jump up to:11.0 11.1 Mark Mazower, Hitler’s Empire, pages 506-507. Penguin Books 2008. ISBN 978-0-14-311610-3
  12. ↑ Jump up to:12.0 12.1 Peter J. Potichnyj (1980). Poland and Ukraine, past and present. CIUS Press (University of Alberta). pp. 59, 60. ISBN 978-0-920862-07-0.
  13. ↑ Grzegorz Motyka, Ukraińska partyzantka 1942-1960, Warszawa 2006
  14. ↑ Orest Subtelny. Ukraine. A history. University of Toronto press. 1994. ISBN 0-8020-0591-8. pp 430-431
  15. ↑ Orest Subtelny, Ukraine: a history, pp. 367-368, University of Toronto Press, 2000, ISBN 0-8020-8390-0
  16. ↑ Jump up to:16.0 16.1 Timothy Snyder. The Reconstructions of Nations. Yale University Press. 2003. p. 176
  17. ↑ Timothy Snyder. (2003) The Reconstruction of Nations. New Haven: Yale University Press. pp.138-139
  18. ↑ Jump up to:18.0 18.1 The Unknown Lenin, ed. Richard Pipes, Yale University Press, ISBN 0-300-06919-7 Document 59, Google Print, p. 106.
  19. ↑ Paul Robert Magocsi, A History of Ukraine, University of Toronto Press: Toronto 1996, ISBN 0-8020-0830-5
  20. ↑ Kubijovic, V. (1963). Ukraine: A Concise Encyclopedia. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
  21. ↑ Danylo Shumuk – Life Sentence (Intro XVIII-XIX)
  22. ↑ Timothy Snyder. (2003). The Reconstruction of Nations. New Haven: Yale University Press, pp. 165,166,168
  23. ↑ John Armstrong (1963). Ukrainian Nationalism. New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 21-22
  24. ↑ Wilson, A. (2000). The Ukrainians: Unexpected Nation. New Haven: Yale University Press.
  25. ↑ The theory and teachings of the Ukrainian nationalists were very close to Fascism, and in some respects such as the insistence on ‘racial purity’, even went beyond the original fascist doctrines. John A. Armstrong. Ukrainian nationalism (1980). Ukrainian Academic Press. p. 280.
  26. ↑ 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.
  27. ↑ Jump up to:27.0 27.1 Timothy Snyder. (2003)The Causes of Ukrainian-Polish Ethnic Cleansing 1943, The Past and Present Society: Oxford University Press. p. 202
  28. ↑ Timothy Snyder. (2005). Sketches from a Secret War: A Polish Artist’s Mission to Liberate Soviet Ukraine. New Haven: Yale University Press. pp. 32-33, 152-162
  29. ↑ Jump up to:29.0 29.1 29.2 Subtelny, Orest (2000). Ukraine, A History. University of Toronto Press. pp. 430.
  30. ↑ Jump up to:30.0 30.1 30.2 Timothy Snyder. (2005). Sketches from a Secret War: A Polish Artist’s Mission to Liberate Soviet Ukraine. New Haven: Yale University Press. pp.167
  31. ↑ Subtelny, Orest. (1988). Ukraine: A History. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, pg. 432.
  32. ↑ Suzanne Elizabeth Scott. (2009). The Failure of the Entente: Protection of Poland’s Volhynian Ukrainian Minority, 1921-1939. Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations (ETDs). pg. 54 The author notes that this was the official government figure and that the number of victims may have been higher
  33. ↑ Lidia Głowacka, Andrzej Czesław Żak, Military Settlers in Volhynia in the years 1921-1939
  34. ↑ Jump up to:34.0 34.1 Subtelny, O. (1988). Ukraine: a History. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, pg. 429. ISBN 0-8020-5808-6
  35. ↑ Jump up to:35.0 35.1 35.2 35.3 35.4 A. Rudling. Theory and Practice. Historical representation of the wartime accounts of the activities of the OUN-UPA (Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists-Ukrainian Insurgent Army). East European Jewish Affairs. Vol. 36. No.2. December 2006. pp. 163-179.
  36. ↑ Motyka, Ukraińska partyzantka …, p. 58
  37. ↑ The assassinations of foreign affairs minister Bronisław Pieracki or of a supporter of peaceful Polish-Ukrainian cooperation, Tadeusz Hołówko, are two examples of the OUN-B terrorist campaign.
  38. ↑ 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 religious 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).
  39. ↑ Jump up to:39.0 39.1 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).
  40. ↑ (Ukrainian) Oleksandr Derhachov (editor), “Ukrainian Statehood in the Twentieth Century: Historical and Political Analysis”, 1996, Kiev ISBN 966-543-040-8. section 2, subsection 2
  41. ↑ Snyder, The Reconstruction of Nations …, p. 144
  42. ↑ Сивицький, М. Записки сірого волиняка Львів 1996 с.184
  43. ↑ Orest Subtelny. (1988). Ukraine: A History. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. pp.444.
  44. ↑ Ludowik Domon Oleksandr Zinchenko, Ukrainian Pravda, 12 December 2010]
  45. ↑ Poland’s Holocaust, Tadeusz Piotrowski, 1998 ISBN 0-7864-0371-3 p. 13
  46. ↑ Jump up to:46.0 46.1 46.2 46.3 46.4 46.5 46.6 46.7 Matthew J. Gibney, Randall Hansen, Immigration and Asylum, page 204. Books.google.com. Retrieved on 11 July 2011.
  47. ↑ John Armstrong (1963). Ukrainian Nationalism. New York: Columbia University Press, pg. 65
  48. ↑ Orest Subtelny. (1988). Ukraine: A History. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, pp. 455-457.
  49. ↑ Timothy Snyder. (2003). The Causes of Ukrainian-Polish Ethnic Cleansing 1943, The Past and Present Society: Oxford University Press. pg. 207
  50. ↑ Timothy Snyder. (2004) The Reconstruction of Nations. New Haven: Yale University Press: pg. 163
  51. ↑ Timothy Snyder. (2004) The Reconstruction of Nations. New Haven: Yale University Press: p. 162
  52. ↑ Timothy Snyder. The Reconstruction of Nations. Yale University Press. 2003. pp. 164-165
  53. ↑ Taras Bulba-Borovets wrote: The axe and the flail have gone into motion. Whole families are butchered and hanged, and Polish settlements are set on fire. The ‘hatchet men’, to their shame, butcher and hang defenseless women and children….By such work Ukrainians not only do a favor for the SD [German security service], but also present themselves in the eyes of the world as barbarians. We must take into account that England will surely win this war, and it will treat these ‘hatchet men’ and lynchers and incendiaries as agents in the service of Hitlerite cannibalism, not as honest fighters for their freedom, not as state-builders. John Paul Himka. Ukrainian past and future. September 20, 2010, Retrieved January 19, 2013.
  54. ↑ Timothy Snyder. (2001) Resolve the Ukrainian Question Once and For All”: The Ethnic Cleansing of Ukrainians in Poland, 1943-1947 “From a Polish point of view, the defeat of both Germany and Russia would open the field in the east. As early as 1941, it was understood that a future rising against German power would involve a war against Ukrainians for Eastern Galicia and probably Volhynia as well, to be prosecuted if possible as a quick “armed occupation.”[15] The AK’s plans for a rising, as formulated in 1942, anticipated a war with Ukrainians for the ethnographically Ukrainian territories that fell within Poland’s prewar boundaries. By 1942 the formation of sizable Polish partisan units in the east could not but remind Ukrainians of Polish territorial claims.”
  55. ↑ Timothy Snyder. (2003). The Reconstruction of Nations. New Haven: Yale University Press. pg. 168
  56. ↑ Institute of Ukrainian History, Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, Chapter 5, pp. 239-240. Written by Ihor Ilyushin. Accessed 2009-09-09.
  57. ↑ Sowa, “Stosunki …”, p. 171
  58. ↑ 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
  59. ↑ Timothy Snyder. The Reconstruction of Nations. Yale University Press. 2003. p. 168.
  60. ↑ Timothy Snyder. The Reconstruction of Nations. Yale University Press. 2003. p. 169.
  61. ↑ Sowa, “Stosunki …”, p. 176
  62. ↑ Motyka, “Ukraińska partyzantka…”, p. 190
  63. ↑ Od walk do ludobójstwa, Ewa Siemaszko, Rzeczpospolita, 10.07.2008
  64. ↑ Jump up to:64.0 64.1 Władysław Filar, Wydarzenia Wołyńskie 1942-1944
  65. ↑ Wołyńskie inferno (in Polish)
  66. ↑ (English) Tadeusz Piotrowski: Genocide and Rescue in Wolyn: Recollections of the Ukrainian Nationalist Ethnic Cleansing Campaign Against the Poles During World War II, McFarland & Company, 2000, ISBN 0-7864-0773-5.
  67. ↑ Jump up to:67.0 67.1 Piotr Zając, Polish Institute of National Remembrance,Referat dotyczący ustaleń śledztwa w sprawie zbrodni popełnionych przez nacjonalistów ukraińskich na Wołyniu na ludności narodowości polskiej w latach 1939-1945(Polish)
  68. ↑ Timothy Snyder, The Causes of Ukrainian-Polish Ethnic Cleansing 1943, pg. 220
  69. ↑ G. Motyka, “Ukraińska partyzantka…”, p.316-317
  70. ↑ Wołyń – Janowa Dolina. Wolyn.ovh.org. Retrieved on 11 July 2011.
  71. ↑ Bogusław Paź, Słowo wstępne [in:] Prawda historyczna a prawda polityczna w badaniach naukowych. Ludobójstwo na Kresach południowo-wschodniej Polski w latach 1939-1946, Bogusław Paź (red.), Wrocław 2011, p.12
  72. ↑ G. Motyka, “Ukraińska partyzantka…”, p.315
  73. ↑ Timothy Snyder. (2003). Reconsruction of Nations. New Haven: Yale University Press. pp. 172-173.
  74. ↑ Jump up to:74.0 74.1 G. Motyka, “Ukraińska partyzantka…”, p.321
  75. ↑ Władysław Filar, Antypolskie akcje nacjonalistów ukraińskich from Przed Akcją Wisła był Wołyń, Warsaw, 1997
  76. ↑ Feliks Budzisz, The Day of Mourning in Kresy, Przeglad Weekly, number 28/2008[dead link]
  77. ↑ G. Motyka, “Ukraińska partyzantka…”, p.327
  78. ↑ Bożena Gorska, “Krzemieńczanin”, Warsaw 2008, p.121
  79. ↑ Jump up to:79.0 79.1 79.2 www.lwow.home.pl. www.lwow.home.pl. Retrieved on 11 July 2011.
  80. ↑ Foreign Policy Association: Central and Eastern Europe|CE Europe. Fpa.org. Retrieved on 11 July 2011.
  81. ↑ Leon Popek, “Zagłada Ostrówek i Woli Ostrowieckiej 30 sierpnia 1943 roku”, in: Biuletyn Informacyjny, Miesięcznik Światowego Związku Żołnierzy Armii Krajowej, No. 9 (257), Warsaw 2011, p.63
  82. ↑ Institute of Ukrainian History, Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, Chapter 11, pg. 24
  83. ↑ Antypolskie akcje nacjonalistów ukraińskich. Lwow.home.pl. Retrieved on 11 July 2011.
  84. ↑ Tadeusz Piotrowski. (1998). Poland’s Holocaust. pg. 247
  85. ↑ Norman Davies, Europe at War 1939-1945: No Simple Victory Publisher: Pan Books, November 2007,544 pages, ISBN 978-0-330-35212-3
  86. ↑ Jump up to:86.0 86.1 Timothy Snyder, “To Resolve the Ukrainian Question Once and For All”: The Ethnic Cleansing of Ukrainians in Poland (November 2001)
  87. ↑ Niall Ferguson, The War of the World, Penguin Press, New York, 2006, page 455.
  88. ↑ Gazeta Wyborcza 23.04.2003. Ji-magazine.lviv.ua. Retrieved on 11 July 2011.
  89. ↑ “Nie tylko Wołyń”, Piotr Łossowski, Przegląd, 28/2003
  90. ↑ Timothy Snyder. (2003). The Causes of Ukrainian-Polish Ethnic Cleansing 1943, The Past and Present Society: Oxford University Press, pg. 221
  91. ↑ Romuald Niedzielko, IPN, Sprawiedliwi Ukraińcy. Na ratunek polskim sąsiadom skazanym na zagładę przez OUN-UPA
  92. ↑ Gorny, Grzegorz (17 October 2009). “Ukrainian problem with Bandera”, Rzeczpospolita Daily. Retrieved on 11 July 2011. (Polish)
  93. ↑ In February 1945, in the village of Zalesie, Buczacz County, a Ukrainian man was tortured to death by members of the Bandera for refusing to kill his Polish mother—see Komański et al. 1995, p. 25.
  94. ↑ Institute of Ukrainian History, Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, Chapter 5, p. 264 Written by Ihor Ilyushin.
  95. ↑ Jump up to:95.0 95.1 Timothy Snyder. The Reconstruction of Nations. Yale University Press. 2003. pp. 173-174.
  96. ↑ Institute of Ukrainian History, Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, Chapter 5, p. 266 Written by Ihor Ilyushin.
  97. ↑ Jump up to:97.0 97.1 Grzegorz Motyka, Zapomnijcie o Giedroyciu: Polacy, Ukraińcy, IPN
  98. ↑ Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, Chapter 5 pg. 241 Kiev, Ukraine: Institute of History of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. Chapter written by I. Ilyushin
  99. ↑ Timothy Snyder. (2003). The Reconstruction of Nations. New Haven: Yale University Press. pg. 176
  100. ↑ Grzegorz Motyka, Ukraińska partyzantka 1942-1960, p.383
  101. ↑ Norman Davies – Teksty – EUROPA. Davies.pl. Retrieved on 11 July 2011.
  102. ↑ Jan Zaleski, Kronika życia, Cracov 1999, p.29, cited in: Tadeusz Isakowicz-Zaleski, Przemilczane ludobójstwo na Kresach, Cracov 2008, p.88
  103. ↑ History of Buczacz during World War II quoted from Norman Davies (1996), Europe: A History. Shtetlinks.jewishgen.org. Retrieved on 11 July 2011.
  104. ↑ (Polish) Po Polakach pozostały mogiły… – Rzeczpospolita. Rp.pl. Retrieved on 11 July 2011.
  105. ↑ Jump up to:105.0 105.1 105.2 105.3 105.4 Institute of Ukrainian History, Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, Chapter 5, p. 283 Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; name “autogenerated1” defined multiple times with different content Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; name “autogenerated1” defined multiple times with different content
  106. ↑ Jump up to:106.0 106.1 106.2 (Polish)Bogusława 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. Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; name “IPN2” defined multiple times with different content
  107. ↑ 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.
  108. ↑ Jump up to:108.0 108.1 Investigation of the Crime Committed at the Village of Huta Pieniacka, http://www.ipn.gov.pl/portal.php?serwis=en&dzial=19&id=188&search=4746
  109. ↑ Ukrainian State Archives. Archives.gov.ua. Retrieved on 11 July 2011.
  110. ↑ Tadeusz Piotrowski, Poland’s holocaust. Published by McFarland. Page 229
  111. ↑ (English) [1]
  112. ↑ Waldemar Szwiec, Informacja o śledztwie w sprawie ludobójstwa dokonanego przez nacjonalistów ukraińskich w latach 1939-1945 na terenie Huty Pieniackiej [in:] Prawda historyczna a prawda polityczna w badaniach naukowych. Ludobójstwo na Kresach południowo-wschodniej Polski w latach 1939-1946, Bogusław Paź (ed.), Wrocław 2011, pp.117-128
  113. ↑ Timothy Snyder. (2003). The Reconstruction of Nations. New Haven: Yale University Press. pg. 166
  114. ↑ Timothy Snyder, Rekonstrukcja…, p.196
  115. ↑ Wiktoria Śliwowska, Jakub Gutenbaum, The Last Eyewitnesses, page 187. Books.google.com (13 May 1998). Retrieved on 11 July 2011.
  116. ↑ Tluste/Tovste, Ukraine – Czerwonogrod. Tovste.info (3 February 1945). Retrieved on 11 July 2011.
  117. ↑ Grzegorz Motyka, Ukraińska partyzantka 1942-1960, p.401-402
  118. ↑ (Polish) Zagłada Puźnik – Rzeczpospolita. Rp.pl. Retrieved on 11 July 2011.
  119. ↑ Zdzisław Konieczny, Był taki czas. U źródeł akcji odwetowej w Pawłokomie, Przemyśl 2005, p.62
  120. ↑ 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)
  121. ↑ Jump up to:121.0 121.1 Jak za Jaremy i Krzywonosa, Jurij Kiriczuk, Gazeta Wyborcza 23.04.2003
  122. ↑ Timothy Snyder, The causes of Polish and Ukrainian Ethnic Cleansing, Past&Present, A Journal of Historical Studies, nr 179, 2003, pg. 223.
  123. ↑ Timothy Snyder. (2003). Reconstruction of Nations. New Haven: Yale University Press. p.160
  124. ↑ Timothy Snyder,The causes of Polish and Ukrainian Ethnic Cleansing, Past&Present, A Journal of Historical Studies, nr 179, pg. 224
  125. ↑ Prof. Władysław Filar, Polish Institute of National Remembrance, “Antypolskie akcje nacjonalistów ukraińskich”
  126. ↑ Jump up to:126.0 126.1 126.2 126.3 Katchanovski, Ph.D., Ivan. “Terrorists or National Heroes? Politics of the OUN and UPA in Ukraine”. p. 7.
  127. ↑ Władysław Siemaszko, Ewa Siemaszko, Ludobójstwo dokonane przez nacjonalistów ukraińskich na ludności polskiej Wołynia 1939-1945, Warsaw 2000, p. 1050.
  128. ↑ Biuletyn Instytutu Pamięci Narodowej nr 7-8/2010 (116–117), July–August 2010; KOMENTARZE HISTORYCZNE: Ewa Siemaszko, “Bilans zbrodni.” (PDF – 1,14 MB).
  129. ↑ (Polish)Krzysztof Bulzacki, “Nasza Polska”, July 22, 2008, from letter–to–editor quoted by Stanisław Żurek in soon to be published Zagłada Kresów Południowo-Wschodnich
  130. ↑ Tadeusz Piotrowski, Poland’s holocaust: ethnic strife, collaboration with occupying forces and genocide in the Second Republic. Page 251. Published by McFarland, 1998. 437 pages. ISBN 0-7864-0371-3
  131. ↑ Jan Kęsik. Ogólny bilans strat ludności w wyniku ukraińsko-polskiego konfliktu narodowościowego w latach II wojny światowej [in:] Polska-Ukraina. Trudne pytania. Vol. 9. Warszawa 2002. p. 41
  132. ↑ Niall Ferguson, The War of the World, Penguin Press, New York 2006, page 455.
  133. ↑ Jump up to:133.0 133.1 G. Rossolinski-Liebe. Celebrating Fascism and War Criminality in Edmonton. The Political Myth and Cult of Stepan Bandera in Multicultural Canada. Kakanien Revisited. 29 December 2010.
  134. ↑ (Polish) 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, (English: Crimes Perpetrated Against the Polish Population of Volhynia by the Ukrainian Nationalists, 1939–1945, published by Main Commission for the Investigation of Nazi Crimes in Poland – Institute of National Remembrance with Association of Soldiers of the 27th Volhynian Division of the AK), Warsaw, 1990
  135. ↑ Jump up to:135.0 135.1 135.2 135.3 135.4 135.5 135.6 Grzegorz Motyka, Od rzezi wołyńskiej do akcji “Wisła”. Konflikt polsko-ukraiński 1943- 1947. Kraków 2011, p.448
  136. ↑ THE REBIRTH OF POLAND. University of Kansas, lecture notes by professor Anna M. Cienciala, 2004. Last accessed on 2 June 2006.
  137. ↑ Kataryna Wolczuk, “The Difficulties of Polish-Ukrainian Historical Reconciliation,” Royal Institute of International Affairs, London, 2002.
  138. ↑ Timothy Snyder, Bloodlands, p.500
  139. ↑ Matthew J. Gibney, Randall Hansen Immigration and Asylum. From 1900 to the Present[dead link]
  140. ↑ Vic Satzevich, The Ukrainian Diaspora. Books.google.com. Retrieved on 11 July 2011.
  141. ↑ Viktor Polishchuk ”Gorkaya Pravda. Prestuplenya OUN-UPA.” (in Russian). Sevdig.sevastopol.ws. Retrieved on 11 July 2011.
  142. ↑ Karel Cornelis Berkhoff, “Harvest of Despair: Life and Death in Ukraine Under Nazi Rule”, Harvard University Press, 2004, ISBN 0-674-01313-1 p. 291
  143. ↑ Polish report on the massacres, article from Ukrainian webpage[dead link]
  144. ↑ “Its main goal was to […] remove – by force, if necessary – non-Ukrainians from the social and economic spheres of a future Ukrainian state.” & Simultaneously, steps were undertaken to eliminate “foreign elements” in Ukraine. OUN-B posters and leaflets incited the Ukrainian population to murder Poles and “Judeo-Muscovites”. (…) the Third Conference of the OUN-B finalized its plans.[in:] Matthew J. Gibney, Randall Hansen, Immigration and Asylum, page 204-205. [2] Books.google.com. Retrieved on 11 July 2011.
  145. ↑ Timothy Snyder, Rekonstrukcja narodów. Polska, Ukraina, Litwa, Białoruś 1569-1999, Sejny 2009, p.187
  146. ↑ Documentation of the UPA’s plans for and actions toward Poles can be found in TsDAVO 3833/1/86/6a; 3833/1/131/13-14; 3833/1/86/19-20; and 3933/3/1/60. Of related interest are DAR 30/1/16=USMM RG-31.017M-1; DAR 301/1/5-USHMM RG-31/017M-1; and DAR 30/1/4=USHMM RG-31.017M-1. These OUN-B and UPA wartime declarations coincide with post-war interrogations (see GARF. R-9478/1/398) and recollections of Polish survivors (on the massacre of 12–13 July 1943, for example see OKAW, II/737, II/1144, II/2099, II/2650, II/953, and II/755) and Jewish survivors (for example ŻIH 301/2519, and Adini, Dubno:sefer zikarom, 717-118). Timothy Snyder. Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin. (2010). Basic Books. p. 500
  147. ↑ www.ipn.gov.pl
  148. ↑ Volhynia: The Reckoning Begins. Tol.cz. Retrieved on 11 July 2011.
  149. ↑ Ukraine, Poland Seek Reconciliation Over Grisly History, Jan Maksymiuk, RFE/RL, May 12, 2006
  150. ↑ RFE/RL Newsline, 03-02-13. Hri.org. Retrieved on 11 July 2011.
  151. ↑ World Briefing | Europe: Ukraine: Joint Memorial To Massacre. New York Times (12 July 2003). Retrieved on 11 July 2011.
  152. ↑ RFE/RL Newsline, 03-07-14. Hri.org. Retrieved on 11 July 2011.
  153. ↑ W świetle przedstawionych wyżej ustaleń nie ulega wątpliwości, że zbrodnie, których dopuszczono się wobec ludności narodowości polskiej, noszą charakter niepodlegających przedawnieniu zbrodni ludobójstwa. – Piotr Zając, Prześladowania ludności narodowości polskiej na terenie Wołynia w latach 1939–1945 – ocena karnoprawna zdarzeń w oparciu o ustalenia śledztwa OKŚZpNP w Lublinie, [in:] Zbrodnie przeszłości. Opracowania i materiały prokuratorów IPN, t. 2: Ludobójstwo, red. Radosław Ignatiew, Antoni Kura, Warszawa 2008, p.34-49
  154. ↑ “Uchwala Sejmu Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej z dnia 15 lipca 2009 r. w sprawie tragicznego losu Polakow na Kresach Wschodnich”. Biuro Prasowe Kancelarii Sejmu. Retrieved 17 August 2011.

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  • (English) Norman Davies, “No Simple Victory: World War Two in Europe”, page 352, Viking Penguin 2007. ISBN 978-0-670-01832-1
  • (English) Timothy Snyder, The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569-1999, Yale University Press, ISBN 0-300-10586-X Google Books
  • (Polish) Filar, Władysław, ed (1999). Ekusterminacja łudnosci polskiej na Wołyniu w drugiej wojnie światowej [The Extermination of the Polish Population of Volhynia During World War II]. Warsaw: n.p..
  • (Polish) Komański, H.; Buczkowski, Ludwik; Skiba, Jan et al., eds (1995). “Zbrodnie banderowskich bojówek OUN-UPA w pow. Buczacz, woj. tarnopolskie”. Crimes Committed by the Bandera OUN-UPA Fighting Squads in Buczacz County of Tarnopol Province.
  • (Polish) Andrzej L. Sowa (1998). Stosunki polsko-ukraińskie 1939-1947. Kraków. OCLC 48053561.
  • (Polish) Grzegorz Motyka (2006) (in Polish). Ukraińska partyzantka 1942-1960. Warszawa: RYTM. ISBN 83-7399-163-8.
  • (Polish) Władysław Siemaszko, Ewa Siemaszko (2000). Ludobójstwo dokonane przez nacjonalistów ukraińskich na ludności polskiej Wołynia 1939–1945. Warszawa. ISBN 83-87689-34-3.
  • (Polish) Marcin Wojciechowski, ed (2008). Wołyń 1943-2008. Pojednanie. Warszawa: Agora. ISBN 978-83-7552-195-5.
  • (Polish) Ilyushin, Ihor (2009) (in Polish). UPA i AK. Konflikt w Zachodniej Ukrainie (1939-1945). Warszawa: Związek Ukraińców w Polsce. ISBN 978-83-928483-0-1.
  • (Polish) Niedzielko, Romuald (2009). “Sprawiedliwi Ukraińcy. Na ratunek polskim sąsiadom skazanym na zagładę przez OUN-UPA” (in Polish) (PDF). Biuletyn IPN, 1-2/2009. IPN. pp. 77–85. Retrieved 23 August 2009.
  • (Polish) (Ukrainian)
 Polacy i Ukraińcy pomiędzy dwoma systemami totalitarnymi 1942-1945. Warszawa - Kyiv. 2005. ISBN 83-89078-77-5.
  • (Ukrainian)
L.Melnik, B.Yurochko, "Rozkhytane derevo myfiv" in The Lviv Newspaper, May 25, 2007.

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 0-300-09569-4
  • Piotrowski, Tadeusz (2000). Genocide and Rescue in Wolyn. McFarland. ISBN 0-7864-0773-5.
  • Niedzielko, Romuald (2007) (in Polish). Kresowa księga sprawiedliwych 1939–1945. O Ukraińcach ratujących Polaków poddanych eksterminacji przez OUN i UPA. Warszawa: IPN. ISBN 978-83-60464-61-8.

External links

/ (Polish) Volhynia and Eastern Galicia 1943–1944. Documents of State Committee on Archives of Ukraine
  • (Ukrainian)
Tragedy of Volhynia 1943–1944. Documents of State Committee on Archives of Ukraine

Volyn Discussion (a list of articles)

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