In July 1943, mass ethnic cleansing and brutal killings of civilians, including women and children, reached their climax in Western Ukraine. The events that took place 75 years ago have forever gone down in history as the Volyn massacre or the Volyn tragedy. On the night of July 11, 1943, the militants of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (OUN-UPA) * immediately broke into 150 Polish settlements on the territory of Western Ukraine. In just one day, more than ten thousand civilians, mainly ethnic Poles, were killed.
Ukrainian nationalists felt the power as soon as the Nazi troops entered the territory of Ukraine. Already in 1941, they took part in the murders of not only Komsomol workers, party functionaries and Red Army men, but also representatives of national minorities - Jews and Poles. The notorious Lviv pogrom went down in history, which was well documented. German troops entered Lviv on the morning of June 30, 1941, on the same day, local pogroms began in the city, which on July 1 turned into a large-scale Jewish pogrom. At the same time, the bullying, murder and torture of the mainly Jewish population of Lviv continued for several days. During this time, members of the newly formed "Ukrainian people's militia", nationalists and volunteers from among the city's residents managed to exterminate about four thousand Jews in Lvov.
From the internal documents of the OUN-UPA * published already in the post-war years, it follows that not only Jews and Russians, but also Poles were considered enemies of the Ukrainian statehood. At the same time, ethnic cleansing of the Polish population was planned even before the start of World War II. For example, the military doctrine of Ukrainian nationalists, which was developed in the spring of 1938, contains theses about the need to "cleanse the foreign Polish element from Western Ukrainian lands" down to the last person. So Ukrainian nationalists wanted to put an end to Polish claims to these territories, which for centuries were part of different states. At the same time, the Red Army, which occupied the territory of Western Ukraine in 1939, prevented the Ukrainian nationalists from starting to implement their plans. However, the reprieve for the Poles did not last long.
In 1941, the OUN-UPA * publishes another instruction on its activities and struggle. This document attributed to the “People's Militia” the “neutralization” of the Poles, who did not renounce their dream of creating a Greater Poland, which would include in its composition the lands located in the north-west of Ukraine. Including the historical region - Volyn.
Lvov pogrom, 1941
It should be noted that Volyn is an ancient region, which in the X century was part of Kievan Rus (Volyn, and then Vladimir-Volyn principality). Later, these lands were transferred to the principality of Lithuania, and then to Poland. After several partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, this region became part of the Russian Empire. In 1921, the western part of Volhynia was ceded to Poland, and the eastern part to the Ukrainian SSR. In 1939, Western Volyn was also annexed to the Ukrainian SSR. During the Great Patriotic War, this geographical area was occupied by Nazi troops.
The historical background accumulated over many centuries, the ethnic disunity of the region and numerous old grievances against each other may have become a kind of fuse that set fire to a powder keg and led the entire region, primarily its civilian population, to a real disaster. By the end of the first third of the 20th century, a persistent Polish-Ukrainian territorial and ideological confrontation had developed. Over the centuries, both sides managed to repeatedly commit numerous atrocities against each other, which, however, did not go beyond the usual practice of that time period. At the same time, the events that took place in Volyn during the Second World War, in their bloodiness and cruelty, overshadowed the medieval history.
Directly UPA - Ukrainian Insurgent Army, as a wing of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (Bandera movement) *, was formed in 1942. The impetus for her education was the victory of the Red Army at Stalingrad. After this victory, the Soviet troops began to liberate the lands occupied by the Germans and their allies and were getting closer and closer to the Reichkommissariat "Ukraine", which was created in 1941 by the German occupation forces on the territory of the Ukrainian SSR. At the same time, practically from the very first days of the formation of the UPA *, the destruction of the ethnic Polish population began.
Ukrainian nationalists took full advantage of their own impunity. After the retreat of the Red Army, there was practically no one to resist the OUN-UPA * gangs. The Soviet partisan movement was the most massive on the territory of Belarus, and the Poles themselves did not have a sufficient number of well-armed detachments that could provide decent resistance to the Ukrainian nationalists.
UPA fighters
The Volyn massacre (mass extermination of the Polish population), which has gone down in history, began in the winter of 1943. The starting point for this tragedy is called February 9, 1943. On this day, the OUN-UPA * militants entered the Polish settlement of Paroslya under the guise of Soviet partisans. In the period between the First and Second World Wars, Paroslya was a small village of 26 houses, located near the city of Sarny, which is currently located on the territory of the Rivne region of Ukraine. By the time the massacre began, the ethnic Polish population was, according to various estimates, from 15 to 30 percent of all residents of Volyn. After resting and eating in the houses of local residents of Parosli, the Bandera members began to reprisal. They did not spare anyone: they killed men and women, old people and babies. Only because the locals were Poles. According to various estimates, from 149 to 179 local residents were killed in the village, including several dozen children. At the same time, Ukrainian nationalists showed bestial cruelty, most were simply hacked to death with axes. Knives and bayonets were also used. Only a few managed to survive.
The Polish population was exterminated by Ukrainian nationalists throughout Western Ukraine according to one scenario: several armed bands surrounded Polish settlements, all residents were gathered in one place and systematically destroyed. American historian Timothy Snyder noted that Ukrainian nationalists learned the technology of mass destruction from the Germans. That is why all the ethnic cleansing carried out by the UPA * forces were so horrible. And that is why in 1943 the Volyn Poles were almost as helpless as the Volyn Jews in 1942, the historian notes.
It often happened that their neighbors, ordinary Ukrainians, often fellow villagers, also took part in actions against the Polish population. The houses of the murdered Polish families were burned, and all valuable property was simply plundered. At the same time, a distinctive feature was that they killed mainly with melee weapons and improvised means, agricultural implements, and not with firearms. Shooting in such a situation was an easy death. Wielding axes, saws, knives, bayonets, stakes, supporters of independent Ukraine exterminated tens of thousands of innocent civilians.
The atrocities of Ukrainian nationalists in Volyn are confirmed by numerous documentary evidence, photographs, testimonies by miraculous survivors and interrogations of the performers themselves, a large layer of information is stored in the archives of the special services. For example, the commander of one of the UPA * platoons Stepan Redesha testified during interrogations that in some cases Poles were thrown into wells alive and then finished off with firearms. Many were beaten to death with clubs and axes. The transcript of the interrogation of the criminal says that he personally participated in one operation against the Polish population, it took place in August 1943. According to Redesh, more than two kurens of 500 people with weapons and more than a thousand people from the OUN * underground, who were armed with axes and other improvised means, participated in the operation. “We surrounded five Polish villages and in one night and the next day we burned them down, while the entire population, from babies to old people, was massacred, in total, more than two thousand people were killed. My platoon took part in the burning down of a large Polish village and the liquidation of farmsteads close to it, we massacred about a thousand Poles,”said a Ukrainian nationalist during interrogation.
Poles - victims of the OUN (b) action on March 26, 1943 in the now defunct village of Lipniki
In the units of Ukrainian nationalists who participated in the massacres of the Polish population, there were so-called "rezuny" - militants who specialized in brutal executions and used for murder mainly cold weapons - axes, knives, two-handed saws. They literally massacred the peaceful population of Volyn. At the same time, Polish historians who worked on the study of the "Volyn massacre" counted about 125 methods of killing, which the "rezuns" used in their massacres. The mere description of these methods of murder literally freezes the blood of a normal person.
Especially massive and bloody events took place in Volhynia on the night of July 11, 1943, when numerous units of the UPA * attacked 150 Polish villages, villages and farms at the same time. In just one day, more than ten thousand people died. For example, on July 11, 1943, 90 people were killed at once in Kiselino, who gathered for mass in a local church, including the priest Aleksey Shavlevsky was killed. In total, according to various estimates, up to 60 thousand Poles died in the Volyn massacre (directly on the territory of Volyn), and the total number of killed Poles throughout Western Ukraine is estimated at about 100 thousand people. During the Volyn massacre, almost the entire Polish population of the region was destroyed.
The atrocities on the part of the OUN-UPA * nationalists could not fail to receive a response from the Poles. For example, units of the Home Army also carried out raids on Ukrainian villages, including carrying out their own retaliation actions. It is believed that they killed several thousand Ukrainians (up to 2-3 thousand civilians). The total number of killed Ukrainians can reach 30 thousand. It should be borne in mind that a significant part of them could have been killed by their compatriots - Ukrainian nationalists. UPA fighters * killed Ukrainians who were trying to help the Poles and save them, they also demanded that Ukrainians with a mixed family commit murders of their closest relatives, Poles. In case of refusal, everyone was killed.
The massacres of Poles and Ukrainians were stopped only after the entire territory of Ukraine was liberated by the soldiers of the Red Army. At the same time, even then, it was no longer possible to reconcile the two peoples with each other. That is why, in July 1945, the USSR and Poland entered into a joint agreement on population exchange. Poles who lived in the territories that became part of the Soviet Union moved to Poland, and Ukrainians who lived in Polish lands went to the territory of the Ukrainian SSR. The resettlement operation was codenamed "Vistula" and lasted almost two years. During this time, more than 1.5 million people were resettled. This "resettlement of peoples" helped to reduce the degree of tension between Poles and Ukrainians. At the same time, throughout Soviet history, they tried not to remember or touch this sore subject once again. The Volyn massacre was not widely publicized in the USSR, and in the Polish People's Republic in those years, only a few works devoted to this tragedy were published. Historians and the general public returned to these events only in 1992, after the collapse of the USSR.
Monument to the victims of the Volyn massacre in Krakow
The policy of the new Kiev leadership in recent years has exacerbated many historical issues between Poland and Ukraine. Thus, Warsaw has consistently condemned Kiev for the glorification of members of the OUN-UPA *, as well as regular acts of vandalism, which are carried out against Polish places of memory. In July 2016, the Polish Sejm recognized July 11 as the National Day of Remembrance for the Victims of the Genocide of the Citizens of the Republic of Poland, committed by Ukrainian nationalists. At the same time, the Prime Minister of Poland recently announced that the final reconciliation between the Polish and Ukrainian people will be possible only when the truth about the Volyn massacre is recognized.
At the same time, according to RIA Novosti, the Ukrainian authorities insist on revising the provisions of the Polish law on the Institute of National Remembrance, which concerns Ukrainians. This law, which came into force in the spring of 2018, provides for criminal liability for the propaganda of "Bandera ideology" and denial of the Volyn massacre.
