Huta Pieniacka ( uk, Гута Пеняцька, ) – was an ethnic

Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Poles Poles,, ; singular masculine: ''Polak'', singular feminine: ''Polka'' or Polish people, are a West Slavic nation and ethnic group, w ...

village of about 1,000 inhabitants until 1939, located in

Tarnopol Voivodeship Tarnopol Voivodeship ( pl, Województwo tarnopolskie) was an administrative region of interwar Poland (1918–1939), created on 23 December 1920, with an area of 16,500 km² and provincial capital in Tarnopol (now ''Ternopil'', Ukraine). The voi ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

(modern-day Zolochiv Raion,

Lviv Oblast Lviv Oblast ( uk, Льві́вська о́бласть, translit=Lvivska oblast, ), also referred to as Lvivshchyna ( uk, Льві́вщина, ), ). The name of each oblast is a relational adjective—in English translating to a noun adjunct w ...

, Ukraine). The site of what was once the village is currently located some 50 km from

Ternopil Ternópil ( uk, Тернопіль, Ternopil' ; pl, Tarnopol; yi, טאַרנאָפּל, Tarnopl, or ; he, טארנופול (טַרְנוֹפּוֹל), Tarnopol; german: Tarnopol) is a city in the west of Ukraine. Administratively, Ternopi ...

, beside the village of

Holubytsia Holubytsia ( ua, Голубиця) is a village (''selo'') in Zolochiv Raion, Lviv Oblast, in western Ukraine. It belongs to Pidkamin settlement hromada, one of the hromadas of Ukraine. From 1918 to 1939 the village was in Tarnopol Voivodeship ...

( uk, Голубиця) and Peniaky in Zolochiv Raion.

History

During the

German-Soviet War The Eastern Front of World War II was a theatre of conflict between the European Axis powers against the Soviet Union (USSR), Poland and other Allies, which encompassed Central Europe, Eastern Europe, Northeast Europe (Baltics), and Sout ...

the village was the location of the Soviet partisan detachment under the command of

NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union. ...

colonel Dmitry Medvedev. On February 28, 1944 almost all the villagers of Polish ethnic background were murdered, and the village razed during the Huta Pieniacka massacre in a pre-planned pacification action, by the 4th police regiment, which was later adjoined to the SS Galizien (the conclusion of both Polish and Ukrainian historical commissions). The village of Huta Pieniacka no longer exists. Most of the houses were burned during the massacre and only the school and a Roman Catholic church remained. Both of these buildings were demolished after the war, and in the area of the village there is a pasture for cattle. There is a post with a Ukrainian inscription Center of the former village, but it does not mention the name of the village.

Recent events

In 2009, the then presidents of the two countries,

Lech Kaczyński Lech Aleksander Kaczyński (; 18 June 194910 April 2010) was a Polish politician who served as the city mayor of Warsaw from 2002 until 2005, and as President of Poland from 2005 until his death in 2010. Before his tenure as president, he pre ...

and

Viktor Yushchenko Viktor Andriyovych Yushchenko ( uk, Віктор Андрійович Ющенко, ; born 23 February 1954) is a Ukrainian politician who was the third president of Ukraine from 23 January 2005 to 25 February 2010. As an informal leader of th ...

respectively, visited the site to pay tribute to the victims. The monument in the now non-existent village of Huta Pieniacka in Lviv region in western Ukraine was erected in memory of the hundreds of people who lived in the then Polish village and were brutally killed in 1944 by a police regiment. On the 9th of January 2017 the Monument to Polish Victims of World War II Massacre was vandalized. A stone cross was blown up, while two stone tables with the names of the Poles killed during the 1944 massacre were damaged. The memorial was restored in a month. Ambassador of Poland in Ukraine Jan Pieklo visited memorial on 28 February 2017 during remembrance ceremony and called it "a huge surprise". "This was a miracle of sorts. First, there was information that a cross returned to its place. A consulate employee went to Huta Pieniacka and returned with photos confirming the news. It is a replica of the original cross and it is made of granite", said Jan Pieklo.

References

{{Massacres of Poles Poland in World War II Former populated places in Ukraine History of Lviv Oblast