The Massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia (; ) were carried out in

German-occupied Poland German-occupied Poland can refer to: * General Government * Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany * Occupation of Poland (1939–1945) * Prussian Partition The Prussian Partition (), or Prussian Poland, is the former territories of the Polish� ...

by the

Ukrainian Insurgent Army The Ukrainian Insurgent Army (, abbreviated UPA) was a Ukrainian nationalist partisan formation founded by the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) on 14 October 1942. The UPA launched guerrilla warfare against Nazi Germany, the S ...

(UPA), with the support of parts of the local Ukrainian population, against the

Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Polish people, people from Poland or of Polish descent * Polish chicken * Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin ...

minority in

Volhynia Volhynia or Volynia ( ; see #Names and etymology, below) is a historic region in Central and Eastern Europe, between southeastern Poland, southwestern Belarus, and northwestern Ukraine. The borders of the region are not clearly defined, but in ...

Eastern Galicia Eastern Galicia (; ; ) is a geographical region in Western Ukraine (present day oblasts of Lviv Oblast, Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast, Ivano-Frankivsk and Ternopil Oblast, Ternopil), having also essential historic importance in Poland. Galicia ( ...

, parts of

Polesia Polesia, also called Polissia, Polesie, or Polesye, is a natural (geographic) and historical region in Eastern Europe within the East European Plain, including the Belarus–Ukraine border region and part of eastern Poland. This region shou ...

, and the Lublin region from 1943 to 1945. The UPA's actions resulted in up to 100,000 Polish deaths. The peak of the massacres took place in July and August 1943. These killings were exceptionally brutal, and most of the victims were women and children. Other victims of the massacres included several hundred Armenians, Jews, Russians, Czechs, Georgians, and Ukrainians who were part of Polish families or opposed the UPA and impeded the massacres by hiding Polish escapees. The ethnic cleansing was a Ukrainian attempt to prevent the post-war Polish state from asserting its sovereignty over Ukrainian-majority areas that had been part of the pre-war Polish state. The decision to force the Polish population to leave areas that the

Banderite A Banderite or Banderovite (; ; ; ) is a name for the members of the OUN-B, a faction of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists. The term, used from late 1940 onward, derives from the name of Stepan Bandera (1909–1959), the ultranation ...

faction of the

Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists The Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN; ) was a Ukrainian nationalist organization established on February 2, 1929 in Vienna, uniting the Ukrainian Military Organization with smaller, mainly youth, radical nationalist right-wing groups. ...

(OUN-B) considered to be Ukrainian took place at a meeting of military referents in the autumn of 1942, and plans were made to liquidate Polish-community leaders and any of the Polish community who resisted. Local UPA commanders in Volhynia began attacking the Polish population, committing massacres in numerous villages. Encountering resistance, the UPA commander in Volhynia,

Dmytro Klyachkivsky Dmytro Semenovych Klyachkivsky (; 4 November 1911 – 12 February 1945), also known by the pseudonyms of Klym Savur, Okhrim, and Bilash, was a commander of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) and the first head-commander of UPA-North. He was ...

("Klym Savur"), issued an order in June 1943 for the "general physical liquidation of the entire Polish population". The largest wave of attacks took place in July and August 1943, the assaults in Volhynia continuing until the spring of 1944, when the Red Army arrived in Volhynia and the Polish underground, which had organized Polish self-defense, formed the 27th AK Infantry Division. Approximately 50,000–60,000 Poles died as a result of the massacres in Volhynia, while up to 2,000–3,000 Ukrainians died as a result of Polish retaliatory actions. At the 3rd OUN Congress in August 1943,

Mykola Lebed Mykola Kyrylovych Lebed (January 11, 1909 – July 18, 1998, also spelled Lebid;; also known as Maksym Ruban, Marko, and Yevhen Skyrba) was a Ukrainian nationalist political activist and guerrilla fighter. Lebed was described as a "Ukrainian fa ...

criticized the Ukrainian Insurgent Army's actions in Volhynia as "banditry". The majority of delegates disagreed with his assessment, and the congress decided to extend the anti-Polish operation into Galicia. However, it took a different course: by the end of 1943, it was limited to killing leaders of the Polish community and exhorting Poles to flee to the west under threat of looming genocide. In March 1944, the UPA command, headed by Roman Shuchevych, issued an order to drive Poles out of Eastern Galicia, first with warnings and then by raiding villages, murdering men, and burning buildings. A similar order was issued by the UPA commander in Eastern Galicia,

Vasyl Sydor Vasyl Sydor (; 24 February 1910 – 14 April 1949) was a colonel of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), political activist, soldier of the Nachtigall Battalion, commandant of Schutzmannschaft Battalion 201, vice-commander of UPA and leader of ...

("Shelest"). This order was often disobeyed and entire villages were slaughtered. In Eastern Galicia between 1943 and 1946, OUN-B and UPA killed 20,000–25,000 Poles. 1,000–2,000 Ukrainians were killed by the Polish underground. Some Ukrainian religious authorities, institutions, and leaders protested the slayings of Polish civilians, but to little effect. In 2008 Poland's Parliament adopted a resolution calling UPA's crimes against Poles "crimes bearing the hallmarks of genocide". In 2013 it adopted a resolution calling them "ethnic cleansing with the hallmarks of genocide". On 22 July 2016, Poland's

Sejm The Sejm (), officially known as the Sejm of the Republic of Poland (), is the lower house of the bicameralism, bicameral parliament of Poland. The Sejm has been the highest governing body of the Third Polish Republic since the Polish People' ...

established 11 July as a National Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Genocide committed by Ukrainian nationalists against citizens of the Second Polish Republic. This characterization is disputed by Ukraine and by some non-Polish historians, who characterize it instead as

ethnic cleansing Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial, or religious groups from a given area, with the intent of making the society ethnically homogeneous. Along with direct removal such as deportation or population transfer, it ...

Background

Interwar period in Second Polish Republic

The recreated Polish state covered large territories inhabited by Ukrainians, while the Ukrainian movement failed to achieve independence. According to the Polish census of 1931, in Eastern Galicia, the Ukrainian language was spoken by 52% of the inhabitants, Polish by 40% and Yiddish by 7%. In Wołyn (Volhynia), Ukrainian was spoken by 68% of the inhabitants, Polish by 17%, Yiddish by 10%, German by 2%, Czech by 2% and Russian by 1%.

Ukrainian radical nationalism

In 1920, exiled Ukrainian officers, mostly former

Sich Riflemen The Sich Riflemen Halych-Bukovyna Kurin () was one of the first regular military units of the Ukrainian People's Army. The unit operated from 1917 to 1919 and was formed from Ukrainian soldiers of the Austro-Hungarian army (Ukrainian Sich Riflem ...

and veterans of

Polish–Ukrainian War The Polish–Ukrainian War, from November 1918 to July 1919, was a conflict between the Second Polish Republic and Ukrainian forces (both the West Ukrainian People's Republic and the Ukrainian People's Republic). The conflict had its roots in ...

, founded the

Ukrainian Military Organization The Ukrainian Military Organization (), was a Ukrainian paramilitary body, engaged in terrorism (especially in Poland) during the interwar period. It was formed after the occupation of Ukraine by Soviet Russia following the Ukrainian–Soviet ...

(UVO), an underground military organization with the goal of continuing the armed struggle for independent Ukraine. As soon as the second half of 1922, UVO organized a wave of sabotage actions and assassination attempts on Polish officials and moderate Ukrainian activists. In 1929, the

(OUN) was formed in

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

, and was the result of a union between several radical nationalist and extreme right-wing organisations with UVO. Members of the organization carried out several acts of terror and assassinations in Poland, but it was still rather fringe movement, condemned for its violence by figures from mainstream Ukrainian society such as the head of the

Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC) is a Major archiepiscopal church, major archiepiscopal ''sui iuris'' ("autonomous") Eastern Catholic Churches, Eastern Catholic church that is based in Ukraine. As a particular church of the Cathol ...

Andriy Sheptytsky Andrey Sheptytsky, OSBM (; ; 29 July 1865 – 1 November 1944) was the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Metropolitan of Galicia and Archbishop of Lviv from 1901 until his death in 1944. His tenure in office spanned two world wars and six political reg ...

. The most popular political party among Ukrainians was in fact the

Ukrainian National Democratic Alliance The Ukrainian National Democratic Alliance (UNDO) (, ) was the largest Ukrainian political party in the Second Polish Republic, active in Western Ukraine. It dominated the mainstream political life of the Ukrainian minority in Poland,exacting a policy of collective responsibility on local Ukrainians in an effort to "pacify" the region. Ukrainian parliamentarians were placed under house arrest to prevent them from participating in elections, with their constituents terrorized into voting for Polish candidates. Beginning in 1937, the Polish government in Volhynia initiated an active campaign to use religion as a tool for

Polonization Polonization or Polonisation ()In Polish historiography, particularly pre-WWII (e.g., L. Wasilewski. As noted in Смалянчук А. Ф. (Smalyanchuk 2001) Паміж краёвасцю і нацыянальнай ідэяй. Польскі ...

and to convert the Orthodox population to Roman Catholicism. Over 190 Orthodox churches were destroyed and 150 converted to Roman Catholic churches. On the other hand just before the

war War is an armed conflict between the armed forces of states, or between governmental forces and armed groups that are organized under a certain command structure and have the capacity to sustain military operations, or between such organi ...

, Volhynia was "the site of one of eastern Europe's most ambitious policies of toleration". Through supporting

Ukrainian culture The culture of Ukraine is composed of the material and spiritual values of the Ukrainian people that has formed throughout the history of Ukraine. Strong family values and religion, alongside the traditions of Ukrainian embroidery and Ukrainian ...

and religious autonomy and the Ukrainization of the Orthodox Church, the

Sanacja Sanation (, ) was a Polish political movement that emerged in the interwar period, prior to Józef Piłsudski's May Coup (Poland), May 1926 ''Coup d'État'', and gained influence following the coup. In 1928, its political activists went on to fo ...

regime wanted to achieve Ukrainian loyalty to the Polish state and to minimise Soviet influences in the borderline region. That approach was gradually abandoned after

Józef Piłsudski Józef Klemens Piłsudski (; 5 December 1867 – 12 May 1935) was a Polish statesman who served as the Chief of State (Poland), Chief of State (1918–1922) and first Marshal of Poland (from 1920). In the aftermath of World War I, he beca ...

's death in 1935. Practically all government and administrative positions, including the police, were assigned to Poles. Harsh policies implemented by the Second Polish Republic were often a response to OUN-B violence, but contributed to a further deterioration of relations between the two ethnic groups. Between 1921 and 1938, Polish colonists and war veterans were encouraged to settle in the Volhynian and Galician countryside; their number reached 17,700 in Volhynia in 3,500 new settlements by 1939.Lidia Głowacka, Andrzej Czesław Żak
Osadnictwo wojskowe na Wolyniu w latach 1921–1939 w swietle dokumentów centralnego archiwum wojskowego
(Military Settlers in Volhynia in the years 1921–1939), PDF, pp. 143 (4 / 25 in PDF), 153 (14 / 25 in PDF). ''"Mimo ogromnych trudności, kryzysu gospodarczego na początku lat 30. i złożonej sytuacji politycznej na tym terenie, osadnicy zdołali zagospodarować znaczne obszary ziemi i stworzyć od podstaw wiele osad z nowoczesną – jak na owe czasy –infrastrukturą. W 1939 r. na Wołyniu mieszkało około 17,7 tys. osadników wojskowych i cywilnych w ponad 3,500 osad."'' Between 1934 and 1938, a series of violent and sometimes-deadly attacks against Ukrainians were carried out in other parts of Poland. Volhynia was a place of increasingly violent conflict, with Polish police on one side and Western Ukrainian communists supported by many dissatisfied Ukrainian peasants on the other. The communists organized strikes, killed at least 31 suspected police informers in 1935–1936, and assassinated local Ukrainian officials for "collaboration" with the Polish government. The police conducted mass arrests, reported the killing of 18 communists in 1935, and killed at least 31 people in gunfights and during arrest attempts in 1936.

Second World War

Ukrainian diversion in September 1939

After the first Polish setbacks in the defensive war against Germany, there were acts of diversion, attacks on Polish troops and inhabitants mainly in the areas of Eastern Galicia. The first attacks took place on the night of 12-13 September 1939 in Stryj, and then in every district of mixed ethnicity. This first wave of diversions was not massive and was quickly, often brutally, suppressed by Polish forces. It was only after 17 September that there were anti-Polish incidents on a much larger scale, organized by the OUN and communists, in which some 2,000 Poles were killed in Eastern Galicia and 1,000 in Volhynia. The largest massacres took place in the villages of , Koniuchy and Potutory. According to the OUN, they attacked 183 villages throughout September. In total, several thousand people took part in anti-Polish actions. The Polish side responded with pacifications, in which probably several hundred people were killed.

Soviet occupation of Volhynia and Eastern Galicia

In September 1939, Poland was invaded by

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...

and the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

. The eastern part of Poland was annexed by the Soviet Union;

and

were attached to the

Ukrainian SSR The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, abbreviated as the Ukrainian SSR, UkrSSR, and also known as Soviet Ukraine or just Ukraine, was one of the Republics of the Soviet Union, constituent republics of the Soviet Union from 1922 until 1991. ...

. After the annexation, the Soviet

NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (, ), abbreviated as NKVD (; ), was the interior ministry and secret police of the Soviet Union from 1934 to 1946. The agency was formed to succeed the Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU) se ...

started eliminating the predominantly Polish middle and upper classes, including social activists and military leaders. Between 1939 and 1941, 200,000 Poles were

deported to Siberia From 1930 to 1952, the government of the Soviet Union, on the orders of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and under the direction of the NKVD official Lavrentiy Beria, forcibly Population transfer, transferred populations of various groups. These act ...

. The deportations and murders deprived the Poles of their community leaders. During the wartime Soviet occupation, Polish members of the local administration were replaced by Ukrainians and Jews, and the Soviet NKVD subverted the Ukrainian independence movement. All local Ukrainian political parties were abolished. Between 20,000 and 30,000 Ukrainian activists fled to German-occupied territory; most of those who did not escape were arrested. For example,

Dmytro Levytsky Dmytro Levytsky (, ) (1877–1942) was a lawyer and major political figure in western Ukraine between the two world wars. Between 1925 and 1935 he headed the Ukrainian National Democratic Alliance, the largest Ukrainian political party in weste ...

, head of the

UNDO Undo is an interaction technique which is implemented in many computer programs. It erases the last change done to the document, reverting it to an older state. In some more advanced programs, such as graphic processing, undo will negate the las ...

, was arrested along with many of his colleagues, and never heard from again. The elimination by the Soviets of the moderate or liberal political leaders within Ukrainian society allowed the extremist underground OUN to remain the only surviving group with a significant organizational presence among western Ukrainians.

OUN activities 1939–1941

In Kraków on 10 February 1940, a revolutionary faction of the OUN emerged, called the OUN-R or, after its leader

Stepan Bandera Stepan Andriyovych Bandera (, ; ; 1 January 1909 – 15 October 1959) was a Ukrainian far-right leader of the radical militant wing of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, the OUN-B. Bandera was born in Austria-Hungary, in Galicia (Eas ...

, the OUN-B (

Banderites A Banderite or Banderovite (; ; ; ) is a name for the members of the OUN-B, a faction of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists. The term, used from late 1940 onward, derives from the name of Stepan Bandera (1909–1959), the ultranational ...

). This was opposed by the current leadership of the organization, so it split, and the old group was called OUN-M after the leader Andriy Melnyk (Melnykites). On 22 June 1941, the Soviet Union was attacked by Germany; the Soviets quickly withdrew eastward and left Volhynia. The OUN supported Germans, seized about 213 villages and organized diversion in the rear of the Red Army. The OUN-B formed Ukrainian militias that, displaying exceptional cruelty, carried out antisemitic

pogrom A pogrom is a violent riot incited with the aim of Massacre, massacring or expelling an ethnic or religious group, particularly Jews. The term entered the English language from Russian to describe late 19th- and early 20th-century Anti-Jewis ...

s and massacres of Jews. The biggest pogroms carried out by the Ukrainian nationalists took place in Lviv, resulting in the massacre of 6,000

Polish Jews The history of the Jews in Poland dates back at least 1,000 years. For centuries, Poland was home to the largest and most significant Jews, Jewish community in the world. Poland was a principal center of Jewish culture, because of the long pe ...

. The involvement of OUN-B is unclear, but at the very least OUN-B propaganda fuelled antisemitism. The vast majority of pogroms carried out by the

occurred in Eastern Galicia and

. Several hundred Poles were also killed at the hands of Ukrainian nationalists at the time, and a group of about a hundred Polish students were murdered in Lviv. On 30 June 1941, the OUN-B proclaimed the establishment of Ukrainian State in

Lviv Lviv ( or ; ; ; see #Names and symbols, below for other names) is the largest city in western Ukraine, as well as the List of cities in Ukraine, fifth-largest city in Ukraine, with a population of It serves as the administrative centre of ...

. In response to the declaration, OUN-B leaders and associates were arrested and imprisoned by the

Gestapo The (, ), Syllabic abbreviation, abbreviated Gestapo (), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of F ...

(ca. 1500 persons). The OUN-M continued to operate openly, collaborating with the Germans and taking over local administration, but its leaders also began to be arrested and the organisation's influence was curtailed by the Germans in early 1942. Meanwhile, the OUN-B, unwilling and unable to openly resist the Germans, began methodically creating a clandestine organization, engaging in propaganda work, and building weapons stockpiles. It set out to infiltrate the local collaborationist police, from which it received training and weapons. The auxiliary police assisted the German SS in the murder by shooting of approximately 200,000 Volhynian Jews, and their experience both led them to believe the Germans would turn on them next and taught them how to make use of genocidal techniques. In the

Chełm Chełm (; ; ) is a city in eastern Poland in the Lublin Voivodeship with 60,231 inhabitants as of December 2021. It is located to the south-east of Lublin, north of Zamość and south of Biała Podlaska, some from the border with Ukraine. The ...

region, 394 Ukrainian community leaders were killed by the Poles on the grounds of collaboration with German authorities.

Polish underground in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia

During the Soviet occupation, the Polish underground in the eastern territories collapsed. However, after the Germans took control of the area, the structures of the

Home Army The Home Army (, ; abbreviated AK) was the dominant resistance movement in German-occupied Poland during World War II. The Home Army was formed in February 1942 from the earlier Związek Walki Zbrojnej (Armed Resistance) established in the ...

(AK) were rebuilt. In Volhynia, an Independent District of the Home Army was established, while in Eastern Galicia the Lwów Area of the Home Army was created. The former numbered around 8,000 sworn soldiers at the end of 1943, while the latter numbered around 27,000 at the beginning of 1944. The Polish forces were preparing to launch an anti-German uprising once the German army disintegrated. From 1943 onwards, the plan was to focus on capturing Lwów and western Volhynia once the Red Army arrived, and a fight against Ukrainian forces was also anticipated. Due to OUN's collaboration with the Nazis, local Poles generally thought there is no possibility for reconciliation and that Ukrainians ought to be deported to Soviet Ukraine after the war. Such view was shared by the local Home Army command, but the Polish authorities in Warsaw and

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

took a more moderate stance, discussing the possibility of limited Ukrainian autonomy.

Polish-Ukrainian antagonism

Both the

Polish government-in-exile The Polish government-in-exile, officially known as the Government of the Republic of Poland in exile (), was the government in exile of Poland formed in the aftermath of the Invasion of Poland of September 1939, and the subsequent Occupation ...

and the underground state on one side, and the Ukrainian OUN-B on the other, considered the possibility that in the event of mutually exhaustive

attrition warfare Attrition warfare is a form of military strategy in which one side attempts to gradually wear down its opponent to the point of collapse by inflicting continuous losses in personnel, materiel, and morale. The term ''attrition'' is derived fro ...

between Germany and the Soviet Union, the region would become a scene of conflict between Poles and Ukrainians. In early 1943, the Polish underground considered the possibility of rapprochement with Ukrainians, which proved fruitless since neither side was willing to sacrifice their claims. The field of competition was the occupation administration. As a rule, the Germans preferred Ukrainians and filled administrative positions with them. However, a shortage of suitably qualified people forced the Germans to reach out to Poles, who began to gain the upper hand in lower-level administration during 1942. This process caused unrest in the Ukrainian underground. Even in the interwar period, the OUN adhered to concepts of integral nationalism in its totalitarian form, which stipulated that a Ukrainian state must be ethnically homogeneous and the only way to defeat the Polish enemy was through the elimination of Poles from Ukrainian territories. From the OUN-B perspective, the Jews had already been annihilated, and the Russians and Germans were only temporarily in Ukraine, but Poles had to be forcefully removed. The OUN-B came to believe that it had to move fast while the Germans still controlled the area in order to pre-empt future Polish efforts to re-establish Poland's prewar borders. The result was that the local OUN-B commanders in Volhynia and Galicia, if not the OUN-B leadership itself, decided that ethnic cleansing of Poles from the area through terror and murder to be necessary. Only one faction of Ukrainian nationalists, OUN-B under

and then

Roman Shukhevych Roman-Taras Osypovych Shukhevych (, also known by his pseudonym, Tur and Taras Chuprynka; 30 June 1907 – 5 March 1950) was a Ukrainian nationalism, Ukrainian nationalist and a military leader of the nationalist Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) ...

, was committed to the ethnic cleansing of Volhynia.

Taras Bulba-Borovets Taras Dmytrovych Borovets (; March 9, 1908 – May 15, 1981) was a Ukrainian leader and Nazi collaborator of the Ukrainian National Army during World War II. He is better known as Taras Bulba-Borovets after his ''nom de guerre'' ''Taras Bulba'' ...

, the founder of the

Ukrainian People's Revolutionary Army Ukrainian People's Revolutionary Army (), also known as the Polissian Sich () or the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, was a paramilitary formation of Ukrainian nationalists, nominally proclaimed in Olevsk region in December 1941 by Taras Bulba-Borove ...

, rejected the idea and condemned the anti-Polish massacres when they started. The OUN-M leadership did not believe that such an operation was advantageous in 1943.

Massacres

Volhynia

Creation of UPA

By late 1942, the OUN-B in Volhynia was avoiding conflict with the German authorities and working with them; anti-German resistance was limited to Soviet partisans on the extreme northern edge of Volhynia, small bands of OUN-M fighters, and to a group of guerillas knowns as the UPA or the Polessian Sich, unaffiliated with the OUN-B and led by

of the exiled

Ukrainian People's Republic The Ukrainian People's Republic (UPR) was a short-lived state in Eastern Europe. Prior to its proclamation, the Central Council of Ukraine was elected in March 1917 Ukraine after the Russian Revolution, as a result of the February Revolution, ...

. Soviet partisans raided local settlements in search of supplies. Soon Germans began "pacifying" entire villages in Volhynia in retaliation for real or alleged support of Soviet partisans; the raids were often conducted by

Ukrainian auxiliary police The Ukrainian Auxiliary Police (; ) was the official title of the local police formation (a type of hilfspolizei) set up by Nazi Germany during World War II in Eastern Galicia and '' Reichskommissariat Ukraine'', shortly after the German occupati ...

units under the direct supervision of Germans. One of the best-known examples was the pacification of Obórki, a village in

Lutsk Lutsk (, ; see #Names and etymology, below for other names) is a city on the Styr River in northwestern Ukraine. It is the administrative center of Volyn Oblast and the administrative center of Lutsk Raion within the oblast. Lutsk has a populati ...

County, on 13–14 November 1942.Sowa, ''"Stosunki ..."'', p. 171 In October 1942, OUN-B decided to form its own partisans, called OUN Military Detachments. Individual units entered active combat in February 1943 (first came the sotnia of Hryhoriy Perehinyak attack on German police station in Volodymyrets on 7 February). At the third OUN-B conference (17–23 February 1943), the decision was made to launch an anti-German uprising in order to liberate as much territory as possible before the arrival of the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...

. The uprising was to break out first in Volhynia; therefore, the formation of a partisan army called the Ukrainian Liberation Army began there. The uprising broke out in mid-March, with

and Vasyl Ivakhiv leading it, then Klyachkivsky alone after Ivakhiv's death in May that year. It was also at that time that the name Ukrainian Liberation Army was abandoned and the name Ukrainian Insurgent Army, hijacked from Bulba-Borovets, began to be used, thus impersonating it. The base of the new army was made up of Ukrainian policemen, approximately 5,000 of whom deserted en masse between March and April 1943, and men absorbed from Bulba-Borovets and OUN-M units. By July 1943, the UPA had twenty thousand soldiers. According to Timothy Snyder, in their struggle for dominance, OUN-B forces would kill tens of thousands of Ukrainians for supposed links to Melnyk or Bulba-Borovets. Even before the anti-German uprising began, OUN-B units started attacking Polish villages and murdering Poles. The attacks soon turned into a full-scale extermination campaign, aimed at killing off or driving out the Polish population from areas considered by OUN-B to be Ukrainian. With dominance secured in spring 1943, when the UPA had gained control over the Volhynian countryside from the Germans, the UPA began large-scale operations against the Polish population.

First massacres

Between 1939 and 1943, the share of Polish population in Volhynia had dropped to about 8% (approximately 200,000 inhabitants). Volhynian Poles were dispersed across rural areas, Soviet deportations stripped them of their community leaders, and they had neither own local partisan army nor state power (with exception of the German occupants) to turn to for protection. On 9 February 1943, a UPA group, commanded by Hryhory Perehyniak, pretended to be Soviet partisans and assaulted the Parośle settlement in

Sarny Sarny (, ) is a small city in Rivne Oblast, western Ukraine. It is the administrative center of Sarny Raion within the oblast and is a major railway node on the Sluch River. Population: Etymology The city is named after the roe deer and can ...

county. It is considered a prelude to the massacres and is recognized as the first mass murder committed by the UPA in the area. Estimates of the number of victims range from 149 to 173. Throughout Volhynia, individuals, often with their families, began to be killed, while in the Kostopol and

counties in the northeastern part of Volhynia, where "Dubovy" was in command, the UPA proceeded to systematically murder Poles. They attacked dozens of villages, the largest massacre of which took place in Lipniki, where one of the first Polish self-defences was established, but despite resistance during the attack on the night of 26–27 March, the "Dubovy" unit murdered 184 people. About 130 people were murdered in Brzezina on 8 April 1943. Then the massacres began to be carried out in the westward located counties, mainly in the Lutsk county. According to Timothy Snyder, in late March and early April 1943, the UPA forces killed 7,000 Polish civilians.

Wave of massacres during Holy Week of 1943

The OUN-B and UPA leadership chose

Holy Week Holy Week () commemorates the seven days leading up to Easter. It begins with the commemoration of Triumphal entry into Jerusalem, Christ's triumphal entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, marks the betrayal of Jesus on Spy Wednesday (Holy Wednes ...

(18–26 April) as the period for an organised attack on the Polish population, which was to include the western counties of Równo and

Krzemieniec Kremenets (, ; ; ) is a city in Ternopil Oblast, western Ukraine. It is the administrative center of the Kremenets Raion, and lies north-east of the Pochaiv Lavra. The city is situated in the historic region of Volhynia and features the 12th-ce ...

, where "Eney" was in command. Several villages was attacked, but the most bloody was the massacre of the night of 22–23 April in

Janowa Dolina The Janowa Dolina massacre took place on 23 April 1943 in the village of Janowa Dolina, (now Bazaltove, Ukraine) during the occupation of Poland in World War II. Before the Nazi invasion of the Polish Second Republic, Janowa Dolina was a model ...

, where UPA unit commanded by Ivan Lytvynchuk "Dubovy" killed 600 people and burned down the entire village. In another massacre, according to the UPA reports, the Polish colonies of

Kuty KUTY (1470 AM, "Hermosa 1470") is a commercial radio station that is licensed to Palmdale, California, United States and serves the Antelope Valley area. The station is owned by High Desert Broadcasting LLC and broadcasts a regional Mexican fo ...

, in the Szumski region, and

Nowa Nowica Nowa is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Bolesławiec, within Bolesławiec County, Lower Silesian Voivodeship Lower Silesian Voivodeship (, ) in southwestern Poland, is one of the 16 Voivodeships of Poland, voivodeships (pro ...

, in the Webski region, were liquidated for co-operation with the Gestapo and the other German authorities. According to Polish sources, the Kuty self-defense unit managed to repel a UPA assault, but 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. The assaults spread throughout the eastern Volhynia, and in some localities Poles managed to organise self-defence units that were able to repel attacks by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, but in most cases the UPA slaughtered and burned Polish villages. In May and June, the purge extended to Petro Olijnyk's subordinate areas of the

Rivne Rivne ( ; , ) is a city in western Ukraine. The city is the administrative center of Rivne Oblast (province), as well as the Rivne Raion (district) within the oblast.

and

Kremenets Kremenets (, ; ; ) is a city in Ternopil Oblast, western Ukraine. It is the administrative center of the Kremenets Raion, and lies north-east of the Pochaiv Lavra. The city is situated in the historic region of Volhynia and features the 12th-c ...

districts. Maksym Skorupskyi, one of the UPA commanders, wrote in his diary: "Starting from our action on Kuty, day by day after sunset, the sky was bathing in the glow of conflagration. Polish villages were burning".

Polish proposals for a truce

The local Home Army command, under Col. "Luboń", responded to the attacks by organising local self-defences, of which about 100 were formed by July 1943, in a bid to protect the population and prevent them from fleeing to the cities. It was determined to fight the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), not believing there was any possibility of an agreement, but at the same time it was obliged to carry out the plan of an anti-German general uprising, which ordered it to spare its forces until the Soviet-German front arrived. On the opposite side was the local Government Delegate, "Jan Linowski", who still believed in the plan agreed with headquarters and Home Army commander General Rowecki to reach an agreement with the Ukrainians, which he had been trying to implement since 1942. Among local Home Army soldiers, Banach had a reputation as a traitor. Banach attempted to hold talks with the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) through the local OUN SB commander Shabatura. Preliminary talks took place on 7 July. For the second round on 10 July, the plenipotentiary of the District Delegation,

Zygmunt Rumel Zygmunt Jan Rumel (22 February 1915 – 10 July 1943) was a Polish poet and, during World War II, underground officer of the Bataliony Chłopskie partisans in the Wolhynia Region of the Second Polish Republic. Rumel's poetic talent was acknowle ...

"Krzysztof Poręba", and the representative of the Volhynia District of the AK

Krzysztof Markiewicz Krzysztof Markiewicz ''nom de guerre'' Czort, was an officer of Polish underground resistance movement during World War II in the rank of ''podporucznik'' (Second Lieutenant) of the AK Okręg Wołyń cooperating with the Polish Bataliony Chłopsk ...

"Czart", together with the coachman Witold Dobrowolski, went. All three were brutally murdered on 10 July 1943 in the village of Kustycze. This event ultimately discredited the stance taken by Banach. A plan was drawn up in the Home Army command to organise a military operation against the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) to thwart the next wave of genocidal attacks, which, according to intelligence information, was planned for 20 July.

July wave of massacres

The Soviet victories acted as a stimulus for the escalation of massacres in July 1943, when the ethnic cleansing reached its peak. In the 1990s, a citation from an alleged "secret directive" by

(head-commander of the UPA-North) was published by Polish historian Władysław Filar:

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.

Full text of the "secret order" was never published and its authenticity is questioned. The UPA command decided to extend the genocidal action to the western areas of Volhynia, the districts of Horochów, Kowel and Vladimir, an area more densely populated by Poles. The action was to be coordinated to exploit the element of surprise to the maximum. The day after murder of Polish emissaries, 11 July 1943, was the start of the operation and is regarded as the bloodiest day of the massacres, with many reports of UPA units marching from village to village and killing Polish civilians.www.lwow.home.pl
www.lwow.home.pl. Retrieved on 11 July 2011. On that day, UPA units surrounded and attacked 96 Polish villages and settlements located in counties

Horochów Horokhiv (, ; ; ) is a small city in Volyn Oblast, in north-western Ukraine. Population: History The first written mention of it was in 1240 in the Hypatian Codex. It was a private town, administratively located in the Volhynian Voivodeship i ...

, and

Włodzimierz Wołyński Volodymyr (, ), previously known as Volodymyr-Volynskyi () from 1944 to 2021, is a small city in Volyn Oblast, northwestern Ukraine. It serves as the administrative centre of Volodymyr Raion and the center of Volodymyr urban hromada. It is one ...

, and 3 in

Kowel Kovel (, ; ; ) is a city in Volyn Oblast, northwestern Ukraine. It serves as the administrative center of Kovel Raion within the oblast. Population: Kovel gives its name to one of the oldest runic inscriptions which were lost during World War II ...

county. Fifty villages in the first two counties were attacked the following day. In the Polish village of Gurów, 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 260 Poles was killed. The wave of massacres lasted five days until July 16. The UPA continued the ethnic cleansing, particularly in rural areas, until most Poles had been deported, killed or expelled. The thoroughly-planned actions were conducted by many units and were well-coordinated. In August 1943, the Polish village of Gaj, near

Kovel Kovel (, ; ; ) is a city in Volyn Oblast, northwestern Ukraine. It serves as the administrative center of Kovel Raion within the oblast. Population: Kovel gives its name to one of the oldest runic inscriptions which were lost during World War I ...

, was burned and some 600 people were massacred, and 438 people were killed, including 246 children, in Ostrówki. In July 1943, a total of 520 Polish villages were attacked, killing 10,000–11,000 Poles. At the same time, the killings in the eastern part of the county continued.

August wave of massacres

Another large wave of slaughter of the Polish population took place on 29 and 30 August 1943, this time also covering the Luboml district. The killings continued until mid-September. During the night of August 30 "Lysiy" unit surrounded the village of Kąty, where Poles were murdered farm by farm, killing 180–213 people. Then, on August 31, the unit killed 86–87 people in the village of Jankowce. On the same day they surrounded the village of Ostrówek. The population was gathered in the school and church, valuables were taken away. Then the men were killed with blunt tools in three different places. The rest of the population was shot in the cemetery. A total of 476 to 520 people were killed. Another unit entered the village of Wola Ostrowiecka on the morning of 30 August. Children were treated with candy, and a speech was made to the population calling for a joint fight against the Germans, then the entire population was gathered in the school. Men were led outside and killed with axes and blunt tools, then the school, with women and children inside, was set on fire and pelted with grenades. Overall 572–520 people were killed. In total, several hundred Polish villages were attacked in August 1943. In the eastern part of Volhynia the slaughter of the Polish population continued, the attacks were generally not coordinated, the UPA units attacking those Polish villages that still survived. Many of them had been turned into self-defence points, so the massacres were often preceded by fights, sometimes the defenders managed to repel the UPA units. In the summer of 1943, in Volhynia, every Pole and every person with Polish roots was facing death at the hands of Ukrainian nationalists. Ukrainians with Polish roots were also killed, as were people from mixed families. Poles could only feel relatively safe in self-defence bases and larger towns. One Polish refugee from Volhynia wrote at the time: "All around dead bodies and potential victims. It smells of corpses from every Pole now. There are living corpses walking around."

Polish self-defence and reprisal

After unsuccessful attempts to conclude a truce with the UPA, the Polish underground moved to active defence and offensive actions. On 20 July 1943, decisions were made to form nine partisan units, totalling around a thousand men. Their task was to support Polish self-defences and to attack UPA bases. There was a growing desire among the Polish population to retaliate against the Ukrainians. It is estimated that around 2,000 people were killed in Polish attacks on Ukrainian villages.

The last wave of massacres in Volhynia in the winter of 1943–1944

The UPA's command decided to take advantage of the coming Soviet offensive to launch a final liquidation action against the Polish population. It was decided to attack those villages from which German or Hungarian units had already withdrawn and the Soviets had not yet entered. Many partisan units also undertook offensive actions against the Germans, making it impossible for them to protect the civilian population. The attacks began on 7 December with assaults on the villages of Budki Borowskie, Dołhań and Okopy. Most assaults took place right before Christmas. The attacks continued until March. One of the bloodiest massacres took place in Wiśniowiec, in February 1944, when the OUN SB units managed to capture the Monastery of the Discalced Carmelites, which had been attacked several times during 1943. Almost all of the 300–400 Poles hiding there, including monks, were killed, as well as 138 people in neighbouring Wiśniowiec Stary.

Operations of the 27th Volhynian Infantry Division of the Home Army

In January 1944, at the same time as the UPA was carrying out its last wave of massacres of the Polish population, the units of the Home Army in Volhynia embarked on the implementation of

Operation Tempest file:Akcja_burza_1944.png, 210px, right Operation Tempest or Operation Burza (, sometimes referred to in English as "Operation Storm") was a series of uprisings conducted during World War II against occupying German forces by the Polish Home Arm ...

, i.e. an anti-German uprising. To this end, AK units from across Volhynia were to assemble in western Volhynia to form the 27th Volhynian Infantry Division. However, some units, mainly those forming part of self-defences, refused to carry out the order, not wanting to leave the civilian population at the mercy of the UPA. Despite this, the division was formed and managed to capture a part of Volhynia between

and

Volodymyr-Volynskyi Volodymyr (, ), previously known as Volodymyr-Volynskyi () from 1944 to 2021, is a small city in Volyn Oblast, northwestern Ukraine. It serves as the administrative centre of Volodymyr Raion and the center of Volodymyr urban hromada. It is one ...

. Fearful of being surrounded by UPA units, the division began fighting them. From 11 January to 18 March 1944, the division fought sixteen major clashes with the Ukrainians, coming out mostly successful. The Ukrainian population was expelled from the captured villages in the area of Svynaryn forest and its surroundings. Ukrainian sources state that the division's soldiers committed atrocities in some Ukrainian villages, the greatest of which would be the crime in Ochniwka, where, according to Yaroslav Tsaruk (), 166 people were allegedly killed. After the battles with the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, the division fought almost exclusively against the Germans, soon withdrawing from Volhynia to the Lublin region.

Reactions of other Ukrainian organisations

The killings were opposed by the Ukrainian Central Committee under

Volodymyr Kubiyovych Volodymyr (, ; ) is a Ukrainian given name of Old East Slavic origin. The related Ancient Slavic, such as Czech, Russian, Serbian, Croatian, etc. form of the name is Володимѣръ ''Volodiměr'', which in other Slavic languages became Vladim ...

. In response, UPA units murdered Ukrainian Central Committee representatives and a Ukrainian Catholic priest who had read an appeal by the Ukrainian Central Committee from his pulpit.

Eastern Galicia

Polish-Ukrainian tension in Eastern Galicia

The Polish underground stood firm on the integrity of the pre-war borders, but was prepared to make certain concessions to the Ukrainians. At the same time, it was convinced that the OUN, faced with a choice between western Ukraine belonging to the USSR or Poland, would ultimately opt for Poland. However, the OUN rejected these proposals, issuing statements accusing the Polish population of collaboration with the Germans and Soviets. In this atmosphere, and against the backdrop of the ongoing ethnic cleansing of the Polish population in Volhynia, talks between the Polish underground and the OUN Central Provision had been taking place since the summer of 1943 on a possible agreement. The last meeting took place on 8 March 1944.

Decision to carry out anti-Polish action in Eastern Galicia

At the 3rd OUN Congress in August 1943,

and criticised the UPA's actions in Volhynia as "bandit". The majority of delegates, however, opposed his assessment and opted for transferring the Volhynian actions against Poles into Galicia. It is not clear when the final decision was made, it was probably made by Shuchevych, at that time already the commander of the OUN-B and UPA, after inspecting Volhynia and seeing the effects of the action in the region.

Ethnic cleansing

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 most of the population was still Ukrainian, but the Polish presence was strong. Unlike in the case of Volhynia, where Polish villages were usually destroyed and their inhabitants murdered without warning, in eastern Galicia, Poles were sometimes given the choice of fleeing or being killed. An order by a 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". The choice of other tactics, combined with better Polish self-defence and a demographic balance more favorable to Poles, resulted in a significantly lower death toll among Poles in Galicia than in Volhynia. The methods used by Ukrainian nationalists in this area were the same: rounding up and killing all the Polish residents of the villages and then looting the villages and burning them to the ground. On 28 February 1944, in the village of Korosciatyn 135 Poles were murdered; the victims were later counted by a local Roman Catholic priest, Mieczysław Kamiński.Norman Davies – Teksty – EUROPA
Davies.pl. Retrieved on 11 July 2011. Jan Zaleski (father of

Tadeusz Isakowicz-Zaleski Tadeusz Bohdan Isakowicz-Zaleski (; 7 September 1956 – 9 January 2024) was a Polish Roman Catholic Church, Roman Catholic and Armenian Catholic priest, author and activist. He was a leader of the anticommunist student opposition in Kraków in ...

) 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 In Christian eschatology, Antichrist (or in broader eschatology, Anti-Messiah) refers to a kind of entity prophesied by the Bible to oppose Jesus in Christianity, Jesus Christ and falsely substitute themselves as a savior in Christ's place before ...

himself began his activity!" Kamiński claimed that in

Koropiec Koropets (; ) is a rural settlement in Chortkiv Raion, Ternopil Oblast, western Ukraine. Koropets was first founded in 1421, and it acquired the status of an urban-type settlement in 1984. Koropets hosts the administration of Koropets settlement h ...

, where no Poles were actually murdered, a local Greek Catholic priest, in reference to mixed Polish-Ukrainian families, proclaimed from the pulpit: "Mother, you're suckling an enemy – strangle it." Among the scores of Polish villages whose inhabitants were murdered and all buildings burned are places like Berezowica, near

Zbaraz Zbarazh (, ; ; ) is a small city in Ternopil Raion, Ternopil Oblast, western Ukraine. It is located in the historic region of Galicia. Zbarazh hosts the administration of Zbarazh urban hromada, one of the hromadas of Ukraine. Population: Zbar ...

; Ihrowica, near

Ternopil Ternopil, known until 1944 mostly as Tarnopol, is a city in western Ukraine, located on the banks of the Seret River. Ternopil is one of the major cities of Western Ukraine and the historical regions of Galicia and Podolia. The populatio ...

; Plotych, near

; Podkamien, near

Brody Brody (, ; ; ; ) is a city in Zolochiv Raion, Lviv Oblast, Zolochiv Raion, Lviv Oblast, western Ukraine. It is located in the valley of the upper Styr, Styr River, approximately northeast of the oblast capital, Lviv. Brody hosts the administrati ...

; and Hanachiv and Hanachivka, near Przemyślany.

, a 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". Podkamien

One of the most infamous massacres took place on 28 February 1944 in the Polish village of

Huta Pieniacka Huta Pieniacka (, ) – was an ethnic Polish people, Polish village of about 1,000 inhabitants until 1939, located in Tarnopol Voivodeship, Second Polish Republic, Poland (modern-day Zolochiv Raion, Lviv Oblast, Zolochiv Raion, Lviv Oblast, Ukrai ...

, with over 1,000 inhabitants. The village had served as a shelter for refugees including Polish Jews as well as a recuperation base for Polish and communist partisans. One AK unit was active there. In the winter of 1944, a Soviet partisan unit numbering 1,000 was stationed in the village for two weeks.Institute of Ukrainian History, Academy of Sciences of Ukraine
''Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army'', Chapter 5, p. 283
/ref>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.
/ref> Huta Pieniacka's villagers, although poor, organized a well-fortified and armed self-defense unit, which fought off a Ukrainian and German

reconnaissance In military operations, military reconnaissance () or scouting is the exploration of an area by military forces to obtain information about enemy forces, the terrain, and civil activities in the area of operations. In military jargon, reconnai ...

attack on 23 February 1944. Two soldiers of the

14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS Galicia (1st Ukrainian) The 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (1st Galician) (; ), commonly referred to as the Galicia Division, was a World War II infantry division (military), division of the Waffen-SS, the military wing of the German Nazi Party, made up predom ...

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. The civilians, mostly women and children, were rounded up at a church, divided and locked into barns, which were set on fire. Estimates of casualties in the

Huta Pieniacka massacre The Huta Pieniacka massacre was a mass murder of the Polish inhabitants of the village Huta Pieniacka, located in modern-day Ukraine, which took place on February 28, 1944. Estimates of the number of victims range from 500 (Timothy Snyder) to ...

vary and include 500 (Ukrainian archives), over 1,000 ( Tadeusz Piotrowski), and 1,200 (Sol Littman). According to IPN investigation, the crime was committed by the 4th battalion of the Ukrainian 14th SS Division supported by UPA units and local Ukrainian civilians. A military journal of the Ukrainian 14th SS Division condemned the killing of Poles. In a 2 March 1944 article addressed to the Ukrainian youth, which was written by military leaders, Soviet partisans were blamed for the murders of Poles and Ukrainians, and the authors stated, "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".''Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army'', Chapter 5, p. 285. Kiev, Ukraine: Institute of Ukrainian History, Academy of Sciences of Ukrain

/ref> Some historians deny the role of the Ukrainian 14th SS Division in the killings and attribute them entirely to German units, but others disagree.Institute of Ukrainian History, Academy of Sciences of Ukraine
''Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army''
Chapter 5, p. 284 According to Yale historian

Timothy Snyder Timothy David Snyder (born August 18, 1969) is an American historian specializing in the history of Central Europe, Central and Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, and the Holocaust. He is on leave from his position as the Richard C. Levin, Richar ...

, the Ukrainian 14th SS Division's role in the ethnic cleansing of Poles from western Ukraine was marginal. The village of

Pidkamin Pidkamin (; ) is a Populated places in Ukraine#Rural settlements, rural settlement in Zolochiv Raion, Lviv Oblast, western Ukraine, near the administrative border of three oblasts, Lviv Oblast, Lviv, Rivne Oblast, Rivne, and Ternopil Oblast, Tern ...

(Podkamień), near Brody, was a shelter for Poles, who hid in the monastery of the Dominicans there. Some 2,000 persons, mostly women and children, were living there when the monastery was attacked in mid-March 1944 by the UPA units, which Polish Home Army accounts accused of co-operating with the Ukrainian SS. Over 250 Poles were killed. In the nearby village of Palikrovy, 300 Poles were killed, 20 in Maliniska and 16 in Chernytsia. Armed Ukrainian groups destroyed the monastery and stole all valuables. What remained was the painting of Mary of

, which now is kept in St. Wojciech Church in

Wrocław Wrocław is a city in southwestern Poland, and the capital of the Lower Silesian Voivodeship. It is the largest city and historical capital of the region of Silesia. It lies on the banks of the Oder River in the Silesian Lowlands of Central Eu ...

. According to Kirichuk, the first attacks on the Poles took place there in August 1943 and were probably the work of the UPA units from Volhynia. In retaliation, Poles killed important Ukrainians, including a Ukrainian doctor from Lviv, called Lastowiecky and a popular football player from

Przemyśl Przemyśl () is a city in southeastern Poland with 56,466 inhabitants, as of December 2023. Data for territorial unit 1862000. In 1999, it became part of the Podkarpackie Voivodeship, Subcarpathian Voivodeship. It was previously the capital of Prz ...

, called Wowczyszyn. By the end of the summer, mass acts of terror aimed at Poles were taking place in Eastern Galicia to force Poles to settle on the western bank of the

San River The San (; ''Sian''; ) is a river in southeastern Poland and western Ukraine. It is a tributary of the river Vistula. With a length of , the San is the 6th-longest Polish river. It has a basin area of 16,877 km2, of which 14,426 k ...

under the slogan "Poles behind the San". Snyder estimates that 25,000 Poles were killed in Galicia alone, and

Grzegorz Motyka Grzegorz Motyka (born 1967) is a Polish historian and author specializing in the history of Poland–Ukraine relations. Since 1992 he served at the Institute of Political Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences and at the Institute of National ...

estimated the number of victims at 30,000–40,000. The slaughter did not stop after the

entered the areas, with massacres taking place in 1945 in such places as Czerwonogrod (Ukrainian: Irkiv), where 60 Poles were murdered on February 2, 1945, the day before they were scheduled to depart for the

Recovered Territories The Recovered Territories or Regained Lands () are the lands east of the Oder–Neisse line, Oder-Neisse line that over the centuries were gradually lost by Poland and colonized by the Germans, and that returned to Poland after World War II. T ...

. By Autumn 1944, anti-Polish actions stopped, and terror was used only against those who co-operated with the NKVD, but in late 1944-early 1945, the UPA performed a last massive anti-Polish action in the Ternopil region. On the night of 5–6 February 1945, Ukrainian groups attacked the Polish village of Barysz, near

Buchach Buchach (, ; ; or ; ; ; ) is a List of cities in Ukraine, city located on the Strypa River (a tributary of the Dniester) in Chortkiv Raion of Ternopil Oblast (Oblast, province) of Western Ukraine. It hosts the administration of Buchach urban h ...

; 126 Poles were massacred, including women and children. A few days later, on 12–13 February, a local group of OUN under Petro Khamchuk attacked the Polish settlement of Puźniki, killed around 100 people and burned houses. Most of those who survived moved to

Niemysłowice Niemysłowice is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Prudnik, within Prudnik County, Opole Voivodeship, in south-western Poland, close to the Czech border. It lies approximately north-west of Prudnik and south-west of the regional ...

near

Prudnik Prudnik (, , , ) is a town in southern Poland, located in the southern part of Opole Voivodeship near the border with the Czech Republic. It is the administrative seat of Prudnik County and Gmina Prudnik. Its population numbers 21,368 inhabitant ...

Silesia Silesia (see names #Etymology, below) is a historical region of Central Europe that lies mostly within Poland, with small parts in the Czech Silesia, Czech Republic and Germany. Its area is approximately , and the population is estimated at 8, ...

. Approximately 150–366 Ukrainian and a few Polish inhabitants of Pawłokoma were killed on 3 March 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 UPA of 9 or 11 Poles in Pawłokoma and unspecified number of Poles killed by the UPA in the neighboring villages.

Atrocities

Attacks on Poles during the massacres in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia were marked with extreme sadism and brutality. Rape, torture and mutilation were commonplace, with entire villages wiped out as a result. Poles were burned alive, flayed, impaled, crucified, disembowelled, dismembered and beheaded. Women were gang raped and had their breasts sliced off, children were hacked to pieces with axes, babies were impaled on bayonets and pitchforks or bashed against trees. According to a document by the Polish underground, the crimes were atrocious:According to eyewitness Tadeusz Piotrowski about the fate of his friend's family:The atrocities were carried out indiscriminately and without restraint. The victims, regardless of their age or gender, were routinely tortured to death.

Norman Davies Ivor Norman Richard Davies (born 8 June 1939) is a British and Polish historian, known for his publications on the history of Europe, Poland and the United Kingdom. He has a special interest in Central and Eastern Europe and is UNESCO Profes ...

in ''No Simple Victory'' gives a short but shocking description of the massacres: An OUN order from early 1944 stated: UPA commander's order of 6 April 1944 stated: "Fight them he Polesunmercifully. No one is to be spared, even in case of mixed marriages".

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 disemboweled bodies were displayed, in order to encourage remaining Poles to flee". The Ukrainian historian Yuryi Kirichuk described the conflict as similar to medieval peasant uprisings.Gazeta Wyborcza 23.04.2003
Ji-magazine.lviv.ua. Retrieved on 11 July 2011. According to the Polish historian

Piotr Łossowski Piotr Łossowski (born 25 February 1925) is a Polish historian and professor. Lecturer at Collegium Civitas. Member of the Historical Committee of Polish Academy of Sciences. He specializes in the areas of foreign politics and diplomacy and histor ...

, 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, knives, hatchets, hammers, pitchforks, shovels, sickles, scythes, hoes and various other farming tools. All of the Poles who were encountered were murdered; most were killed in their homes but sometimes they were herded into churches or barns which were then set on fire. Many Poles were thrown down wells or killed and then buried in shallow mass graves as well. After a massacre, all goods were looted, including clothes, grain and furniture. The final part of an attack was setting fire to the entire village.''"Nie tylko Wołyń"''
,

, Przegląd, 28/2003 All vestiges of Polish existence were eradicated, even abandoned Polish settlements were burned to the ground. Even though it may be an exaggeration to say that the massacres enjoyed the general support of the Ukrainians, it has been suggested that without wide support from local Ukrainians, they would have been impossible. The Ukrainian peasants who took part in the killings created their own groups, the SKV or ''Samoboronni Kushtchovi Viddily'' (Самооборонні Кущові Відділи, СКВ). Many of their victims who were perceived as Poles, even despite not knowing the Polish language, were murdered by СКВ along with the others. The violence reached its peak on 11 July 1943 known to many Poles as "Bloody Sunday" when the UPA carried out attacks on 100 Polish villages in Volhynia burning them to the ground and slaughtering some 8,000 Polish men, women and children including patients and nurses at a hospital. These attacks as well as others could have been stopped at anytime by the Germans who in some cases were stationed in garrisons in or near the villages that were attacked. German soldiers however were given orders not to intervene. In some cases individual German soldiers and officers made deals with the UPA to give weapons and other materials to them in exchange for a share of the loot taken from Poles. Ukrainians in ethnically mixed settlements were offered material incentives to convince them to assist in the attacks on their Polish neighbors or warned by the UPA's security service ( Sluzhba Bezbeky) to leave by night, and all remaining inhabitants were murdered at dawn. Many Ukrainians risked and in some cases lost their lives for trying to shelter or warn Poles. Such activities were treated by the UPA as collaboration with the enemy and severely punished. In 2007, the Polish

Institute of National Remembrance The Institute of National Remembrance – Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation (, abbreviated IPN) is a Polish state research institute in charge of education and archives which also includes two public prosecutio ...

(IPN) published a document, ''Kresowa Księga Sprawiedliwych 1939–1945. O Ukraińcach ratujących Polaków poddanych eksterminacji przez OUN i UPA'' ("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 neighbours, which caused 384 Ukrainians to be executed by the UPA. In 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 an order were often murdered, together with their entire family. According to Ukrainian sources, in October 1943 the Volhynian delegation of the Polish government estimated the number of Polish casualties in Sarny, Kostopol, Równe and Zdołbunów counties to exceed 15,000. Timothy Snyder estimates that in July 1943, the UPA actions resulted in the deaths of at least 40,000 Polish civilians in Volhynia (in March 1944, another 10,000 were killed in Galicia), causing additional 200,000 Poles to flee west before September 1944 and 800,000 afterward.

Self-defence organizations

The massacres prompted Poles in April 1943 to begin to organize in self-defence, 100 of such organizations being formed in Volhynia in 1943. Sometimes, self-defence organizations obtained arms from the Germans, but other times, the Germans confiscated their weapons and arrested the leaders. Many of the organizations could not withstand the pressure of the UPA and were destroyed. Only the largest self-defense organizations, which were able to obtain help from the

or Soviet partisans, were able to survive.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. Kazimierz Bąbiński, commander of the Union for Armed Struggle-Home Army Wołyń in his order to AK partisan units stated: On 20 July 1943, Polish self-defense units were ordered to subordinate themselves to the Home Army's control. Ten days later, the Home Army declared itself in support of an independent Ukrainian state that would encompass non-Polish inhabited areas, and made an appeal to end the civilian bloodshed. Polish self-defence organizations started to take part in revenge massacres of Ukrainian civilians 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 26 August 1943 to the local Polish self-defence in which the AK commander Kazimierz Bąbiński criticized the burning of neighboring Ukrainian villages, the killing of any Ukrainian who crossed its path and the robbing of Ukrainians of their material possessions.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. The total number of Ukrainian civilians murdered in Volyn in retaliatory acts by Poles is estimated at 2,000–3,000. The 27th Home Army Infantry Division was established in January 1944 with the purpose of fighting the UPA and later the German forces.

German involvement

While Germans actively encouraged the conflict, they tried not to get directly involved. Special German units formed from the collaborationist Ukrainian and later the Polish auxiliary police were deployed in pacification actions in Volhynia, and some of their crimes were attributed to the Home Army or to the UPA. According to Yuriy Kirichuk the Germans actively prodded both sides of the conflict against each other.''Jak za Jaremy i Krzywonosa''
Jurij Kiriczuk, Gazeta Wyborcza 23.04.2003

Erich Koch Erich Koch (; 19 June 1896 – 12 November 1986) was a ''Gauleiter'' of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in East Prussia from 1 October 1928 until 1945. Between 1941 and 1945 he was Chief of Civil Administration (''Chef der Zivilverwaltung'') of Bezi ...

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

who responded to the Polish complaints: "You want

Sikorski Sikorski (feminine: Sikorska, plural: Sikorscy) is a Polish-language surname. It belongs to several noble Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth families, see . Variants (via other languages) include Sikorsky, Sikorskyi, Sikorskiy, and Shikorsky. The ...

, the Ukrainians want

Bandera Bandera - from a Spanish word meaning - may refer to: Places * Bandera County, Texas, U.S. ** Bandera, Texas, its county seat *** Bandera High School ** Bandera Creek, a river, with its source near Bandera Pass ** Bandera Pass, a mountain pa ...

. Fight each other". The Germans replaced Ukrainian policemen who deserted from the German service with Polish policemen. Around 1,200 local Poles joined the police, mainly out of desire to avenge UPA atrocities and to obtain means to defend themselves.Timothy Snyder, The causes of Polish and Ukrainian Ethnic Cleansing, Past & Present, A Journal of Historical Studies, nr 179, 2003, p. 223. 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 who deserted with his weapons. Those retaliations were carried out using newly recruited Polish policemen. Polish participation in the German police followed UPA attacks on Polish settlements, but it provided Ukrainian nationalists with useful sources of propaganda and was used as a justification for the ethnic cleansing. The 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". Despite the desertions in March and April 1943, Ukrainian policemen continued to comprise a significant part of the auxiliary police forces and to pacify Polish and other villages under German orders. On 25 August 1943, the German authorities ordered all Poles to leave the villages and settlements and to move to larger towns.

Soviet partisan Soviet partisans were members of resistance movements that fought a guerrilla war against Axis forces during World War II in the Soviet Union, the previously Soviet-occupied territories of interwar Poland in 1941–45 and eastern Finland. The ac ...

units in the area were aware of the massacres. On 25 May 1943, the commander of the Soviet partisan forces of the

Rivne Rivne ( ; , ) is a city in western Ukraine. The city is the administrative center of Rivne Oblast (province), as well as the Rivne Raion (district) within the oblast.

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.Prof. Władysław Filar, Polish

"Antypolskie akcje nacjonalistów ukraińskich"
/ref>

Number of victims

According to historian George Liber,

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 by the UPA, according to

Ivan Katchanovski Ivan () is a Slavic languages, Slavic male given name, connected with the variant of the Greek language, Greek name (English: John (given name), John) from Hebrew language, Hebrew meaning 'God is gracious'. It is associated worldwide with Sla ...

, and thus "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". Łossowski emphasizes that documentation is far from conclusive, as in numerous cases, no survivors were later able to testify. The Soviet and German invasions of prewar eastern Poland, the UPA massacres, and the postwar Soviet expulsions of Poles contributed to the virtual elimination of a Polish presence in the region. Those who remained left Volhynia, mostly for the neighbouring province of

Lublin Lublin is List of cities and towns in Poland, the ninth-largest city in Poland and the second-largest city of historical Lesser Poland. It is the capital and the centre of Lublin Voivodeship with a population of 336,339 (December 2021). Lublin i ...

. After the war, the survivors moved further west to the territories of

Lower Silesia Lower Silesia ( ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ) is a historical and geographical region mostly located in Poland with small portions in the Czech Republic and Germany. It is the western part of the region of Silesia. Its largest city is Wrocław. The first ...

. 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 no longer exist, and those that remain are in ruins. The Institute of National Remembrance estimates that 100,000 Poles were killed by the Ukrainian nationalists (40,000–60,000 victims in Volhynia, 30,000–40,000 in Eastern Galicia and at least 4,000 in Lesser Poland, including up to 2,000 in the Chełm region). For Eastern Galicia, other estimates range between 20,000 and 25,000, 25,000 and 30,000–40,000. In his 2006 general history of WWII,

Niall Ferguson Sir Niall Campbell Ferguson, ( ; born 18 April 1964)Biography
Niall Ferguson

gives the total number of Polish victims in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia as between 60,000 and 80,000.

Niall Ferguson Sir Niall Campbell Ferguson, ( ; born 18 April 1964)Biography
Niall Ferguson

, ''The War of the World'', Penguin Press, New York 2006, p. 455. G. Rossolinski-Liebe estimated 70,000–100,000.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. John P. Himka says that "perhaps a hundred thousand" Poles were killed in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia.J. P. Himka
Interventions: Challenging the Myths of Twentieth-Century Ukrainian history
University of Alberta. 28 March 2011. p. 4
reproduced
in ''The Convolutions of Historical Politics'', edited by Alexei Miller and Maria Lipman, 211–238. Budapest and New York: Central European University Press, 2012, p. 214 According to Motyka, from 1943 to 1945 in all territories covered by the conflict, approximately 100,000 Poles were killed.

, a Ukrainian political scientist, writes that, according to Polish and Western estimates, 35,000–60,000 Poles were killed by the UPA in Volhynia alone; he states: "the lower bound of these estimates 5,000is 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".

Władysław Siemaszko Władysław Siemaszko (born 8 June 1919) is a Polish publicist and lawyer, former member of the Polish resistance Armia Krajowa (AK), author of numerous publications focusing on the massacres of Poles in Volhynia. He is the father of writer Ewa ...

and his daughter Ewa have documented 33,454 Polish victims, 18,208 of whom are known by surname. (in July 2010, Ewa increased the accounts to 38,600 documented victims, 22,113 of whom are known by surnameBiuletyn Instytutu Pamięci Narodowej nr 7-8/2010 (116–117)
July–August 2010; Komentarze Historyczne: Ewa Siemaszko
"Bilans zbrodni."
(PDF – 1,14 MB).). At the first-ever joint Polish-Ukrainian conference in

Podkowa Leśna Podkowa Leśna (literal meaning – "Forest Horseshoe", in full: ''Miasto-ogród Podkowa Leśna'' – "Garden-City Podkowa Leśna") is a town in Grodzisk Mazowiecki County, Masovian Voivodeship of Poland and located within the territory of the M� ...

, organized on June 7–9, 1994, by Karta Centre, and subsequent Polish-Ukrainian historian meetings, with almost 50 Polish and Ukrainian participants, an estimate of 50,000 Polish deaths in Volhynia was settled on, which they considered to be moderate. According to the sociologist Piotrowski, the UPA actions resulted in an estimated number of 68,700 deaths in Wołyń Voivodeship. Tadeusz Piotrowski
Poland's holocaust: ethnic strife, collaboration with occupying forces and genocide in the Second Republic. p. 251.
Published by McFarland, 1998. 437 pages.

Per Anders Rudling Per Anders Rudling (born 11 April 1974 in Karlstad)The Algemeiner Per Anders Rudling.''The Algemeiner'' Jewish & Israel News. Articles by Per Anders Rudling. Retrieved 30 May 2014. is a Swedish-American historian In response to the Canadian-Ukrain ...

states that the UPA killed 40,000–70,000 Poles in the area. Some extreme estimates place the number of Polish victims as high as 300,000. Also, the numbers include Polonized Armenians killed in the massacres, such as in

. The studies from 2011 quote 91,200 confirmed deaths, 43,987 of which are known by name.

Ukrainian casualties

After the initiation of the massacres, Polish self-defense units responded in kind. All conflicts resulted in Poles taking revenge on Ukrainian civilians. A. Rudling estimates Ukrainian casualties which were caused by Polish retribution at 2,000–3,000 in Volhynia. G. Rossolinski-Liebe puts the number of Ukrainians, both OUN-UPA members and civilians, killed by Poles during and after World War II to be 10,000–20,000. According to Kataryna Wolczuk, for all of the areas affected by conflict, the Ukrainian casualties range from 10,000 to 30,000 between 1943 and 1947. According to Motyka, the author of a fundamental monograph about the UPA, estimations of 30,000 Ukrainian casualties are unsupported; his estimates are 2,000–3,000 Ukrainians killed in Volhynia and 10,000–15,000 in all of the territories covered by the conflict in 1943–1947. He states that most of the Ukrainian casualties occurred within the post-war Polish borders (8,000–10,000, including 5,000–6,000 Ukrainians killed in 1944–1947). The historian

considers it likely that the UPA killed as many Ukrainians as it killed Poles, because local Ukrainians who did not adhere to its form of nationalism were considered traitors.

Responsibility

The

Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists The Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN; ) was a Ukrainian nationalist organization established on February 2, 1929 in Vienna, uniting the Ukrainian Military Organization with smaller, mainly youth, radical nationalist right-wing groups ...

(OUN), of which the UPA had become the armed wing, promoted the removal, by force if necessary, of non-Ukrainians from the social and economic spheres of a future Ukrainian state. The OUN adopted in 1929 the ''Ten Commandments of the Ukrainian Nationalists'' to which all of its members were expected to adhere. They stated, "Do not hesitate to carry out the most dangerous deeds" and "Treat the enemies of your nation with hatred and ruthlessness". The decision of ethnic cleansing of the area east of the

Bug River The Bug or Western Bug is a major river in Central Europe that flows through Belarus (border), Poland, and Ukraine, with a total length of .Mykola Lebed Mykola Kyrylovych Lebed (January 11, 1909 – July 18, 1998, also spelled Lebid;; also known as Maksym Ruban, Marko, and Yevhen Skyrba) was a Ukrainian nationalist political activist and guerrilla fighter. Lebed was described as a "Ukrainian fa ...

) imposed a collective death sentence of all Poles living in the former east of the Second Polish Republic, and a few months later, local units of the UPA were instructed to complete the operation soon. The decision to eliminate the territory's Poles determined the course of future events. According to

, the ethnic cleansing of the Poles was exclusively the work of the extremist Bandera faction of the OUN, rather than its Melnyk faction 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 singled out

, Vasyl Ivakhov, Ivan Lytvynchuk and Petro Oliynyk. Ethnic violence was exacerbated with the circulation of posters and leaflets inciting the Ukrainian population to murder Poles and "Judeo-Muscovites" alike.

, the founder of the UPA, criticized the attacks as soon as they began: According to prosecutor Piotr Zając, the Polish Institute of National Remembrance in 2003 considered three different versions of the events in its investigation: # The Ukrainians at first planned to chase the Poles out, but events got out of hand over time. # The decision to exterminate the Poles came directly from the OUN-UPA headquarters. # The decision to exterminate the Poles can be attributed to some of the leaders of the OUN-UPA in the course of an internal conflict in the organisation. The IPN concluded that the second version to be the most likely. In October 1943 the OUN issued a communication (in Ukrainian only) that condemned the "mutual mass murders" of Ukrainians and Poles.Berkhoff, Karel C. (2004).
Harvest of despair: life and death in Ukraine under Nazi rule
', p. 298.

President and Fellows of Harvard College The President and Fellows of Harvard College, also called the Harvard Corporation or just the Corporation, is the smaller and more powerful of Harvard University's two governing boards. It refers to itself as the oldest corporation in the Western ...

Reconciliation

In 1944–1945, the UPA and Home Army initiated a ceasefire and orders to cease any actions against civilians, and with mediation of Orthodox and Roman Catholic clergy a meeting was arranged between commanders of both formations. The agreement resulted in joint UPA-Home Army operation against NKVD prison in Hrubieszów. By 1948, both organisations largely ceased to exist with its members arrested or escaping to the West. (in Polish) The question of official acknowledgment of the ethnic cleansing remains a matter of discussion between Polish and Ukrainian historians and political leaders. Efforts are ongoing to bring about reconciliation between Poles and Ukrainians regarding the events. The Polish side has made steps towards reconciliation; in 2002 President

Aleksander Kwaśniewski Aleksander Kwaśniewski (; born 15 November 1954) is a Polish politician and journalist. He served the maximum two terms as the president of Poland from 1995 to 2005. His tenure as President was marked by modernization of Poland, rapid economi ...

expressed regret over the resettlement program, known as

Operation Vistula Operation Vistula (; ) was the codename for the 1947 forced resettlement of close to 150,000 Ukrainians in Poland, Ukrainians (including Rusyns, Boykos, and Lemkos) from the southeastern provinces of People's Republic of Poland, postwar Poland to ...

: "The infamous Operation Vistula is a symbol of the abominable deeds perpetrated by the communist authorities against Polish citizens of Ukrainian origin." He stated that the argument that "Operation Vistula was the revenge for the slaughter of Poles by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army" in 1943–1944 to be "fallacious and ethically inadmissible" by invoking "the principle of collective guilt".Volhynia: The Reckoning Begins
Tol.cz. Retrieved on 11 July 2011. The Ukrainian government has not yet issued an apology.
Jan Maksymiuk, RFE/RL, May 12, 2006
Hri.org. Retrieved on 11 July 2011. On 11 July 2003, Presidents Aleksander Kwaśniewski and

Leonid Kuchma Leonid Danylovych Kuchma (, ; born 9 August 1938) is a Ukrainian politician who was the second president of Ukraine, serving from 19 July 1994 to 23 January 2005. The only president of Ukraine to serve two terms, his presidency was marked by demo ...

attended a ceremony held in the Volhynian village of Pavlivka (previously known as

Poryck Pavlivka (, formerly Poryck, ) is a town now located in northwestern Ukraine, in Volodymyr Raion of Volyn Oblast, near Volodymyr, on the Luha river. For centuries, Poryck was property of several noble Polish families. The town is the birthplace of ...

),World Briefing , Europe: Ukraine: Joint Memorial To Massacre
''New York Times'' (12 July 2003). Retrieved on 11 July 2011. 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: "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". Between 2015 and 2018 a Forum of Polish and Ukrainian Historians was jointly researching archival documents, including new archives declassified by Ukrainian government. Another joint effort resulted in publishing multi-volume book "Poland and Ukraine in the 1930s–1940s: Unknown documents from the secret service archives" first volume of which was published in 1998 and 10th in 2020. The cooperation is led on government level by

(Poland) and Sectoral State Archive of the

Security Service of Ukraine The Security Service of Ukraine ( ; abbreviated as SBU [] or SSU) is the main Internal security, internal security agency of the Government of Ukraine, Ukrainian government. Its main duties include counter-intelligence activity and combati ...

(HDA SBU). In 2016 Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko visited Warsaw and paid tribute to the victims at the Volhynia monument. In 2017, Ukrainian politicians banned the exhumation of the remains of Polish victims in Ukraine killed by the UPA in revenge for Polish demolition of the illegal UPA monument in the village of Hruszowice. In 2018, Polish president

Andrzej Duda Andrzej Sebastian Duda (born 16 May 1972) is a Polish lawyer and politician who has served as the sixth president of Poland since 2015. Before becoming president, he served as a Member of the Sejm from 2011 to 2014 and before becoming Member of ...

refused to participate in a joint ceremony commemorating the 75th anniversary of the massacres with the Ukrainian President

Petro Poroshenko Petro Oleksiiovych Poroshenko (born 26 September 1965) is a Ukraine, Ukrainian politician and Oligarchy, oligarch who served as the fifth president of Ukraine from 2014 to 2019. He served as the Minister of Foreign Affairs (Ukraine), Minister ...

and instead travelled to Lutsk to hold a separate event. In May 2023, Ukraine's

Rada The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, also known by its abbreviation RADA (), is a drama school in London, England, which provides vocational conservatoire training for theatre, film, television, and radio. It is based in Bloomsbury, Central Lond ...

chairman

Ruslan Stefanchuk Ruslan Oleksiyovych Stefanchuk (; born 29 October 1975) is a Ukrainian politician and lawyer serving as the chairman of the Verkhovna Rada since October 2021. Stefanchuk was touted as the ideologue of Volodymyr Zelenskyy's election campaign in ...

spoke in front of the Polish

, where he expressed sympathy to the victims of the massacre, their families and descendants and called for reconciliation. Stefanchuk promised continued joint work on explaining the details of the tragedy. The speech was described as Polish minister of foreign affairs Zbigniew Rau as "promising". In June 2023 archeological excavations started in a former village of Puzhniki in Volhynia by a group of Polish scientists to identify possible mass graves of the massacre victims. In July 2023, Polish president Andrzej Duda and Ukrainian president

Volodymyr Zelensky Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelenskyy (born 25 January 1978) is a Ukrainian politician and former entertainer who has served as the sixth and current president of Ukraine since 2019. He took office five years after the start of the Russo-Ukraini ...

jointly paid tribute to the victims in

, administrative capital of the Volhynia region, attended a mass in local church on the 80th anniversary of the tragedy. A joint declaration on the need of reconciliation was also signed by heads of

Roman Catholic Church The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

in Poland, archbishop Stanisław Gądecki, and

Sviatoslav Shevchuk Sviatoslav Shevchuk (; born 5 May 1970 in Stryi, Ukrainian SSR) is a Catholic Church in Ukraine, Ukrainian Catholic prelate who has served as the Ukrainian Catholic Major Archeparchy of Kyiv–Galicia, Major Archbishop of Kyiv–Galicia and P ...

. Polish

adopted a resolution commemorating the victims, blaming OUN and UPA, praising rescue offered to the Poles by some Ukrainian individuals, calling for reconciliation recognizing guilt of the perpetrators and highlighting the need for exhumations. On 15 January 2025, Ukrainian president Zelensky and Polish prime minister

Donald Tusk Donald Franciszek Tusk (born 22 April 1957) is a Polish politician and historian who has served as the prime minister of Poland since 2023, previously holding the office from 2007 to 2014. Tusk served as the president of the European Council (20 ...

reached an agreement to allow exhumations, it also being noted by the Polish

deputy prime minister A deputy prime minister or vice prime minister is, in some countries, a Minister (government), government minister who can take the position of acting prime minister when the prime minister is temporarily absent. The position is often likened to th ...

that this impacted Ukraine's joining of the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...

Classification as genocide

Scholarly consensus

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school then known as the southern branch of the C ...

historian Jared McBride, an expert in the region and in the Holocaust, writing in ''

Slavic Review The ''Slavic Review'' is a major peer-reviewed academic journal publishing scholarly studies, book and film reviews, and review essays in all disciplines concerned with "Eastern Europe, Russia, the Caucasus, and Central Asia, past and present". ...

'' in 2016, said there is a "scholarly consensus that this was a case of ethnic cleansing as opposed to genocide". Writing in 2004, historian

Antony Polonsky Antony Barry Polonsky (born September 23, 1940) is Emeritus Professor of Holocaust Studies at Brandeis University. He is the author of many historical works on the Holocaust, and is an expert on Polish Jewish history. Career Antony Polonsky w ...

, an expert on the

Holocaust The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...

and Polish Jewish history, said that the " assacres'goal was not so much genocide as it was to force the local Polish population to leave." Historian

wrote in 2006 that the goal of the OUN-UPA was not the extermination of Poles but ethnic cleansing of the region to attain an ethnically homogeneous state. The goal was thus to prevent a repeat of 1918–20, when Poland crushed Ukrainian independence, as the Polish Home Army was attempting to restore the Polish Republic in its pre-1939 borders. According to a 2010 conference paper by

, the mass killings of Poles in Volhynia by the UPA cannot be classified as a genocide because there is no evidence that the UPA intended to annihilate entire or significant parts of the Polish nation, the UPA action was mostly limited to a relatively small area and the number of Poles killed was quite a small fraction of the prewar Polish population in both the territories in which the UPA operated and of the entire Polish population in Poland and Ukraine. In 2016,

Grzegorz Rossoliński-Liebe Grzegorz Rossoliński-Liebe (born 1979 in Zabrze, Poland as Grzegorz Rossoliński) is a German–Polish historian based in Berlin, associated with the Friedrich Meinecke Institute of the Free University of Berlin. He specializes in the history o ...

, author of a scholarly biography of Bandera, argued that the killings were

rather than genocide. Rossoliński-Liebe sees "genocide", in this context, as a word that is sometimes used in political attacks on Ukraine. However, historian

, an expert on Polish-Ukrainian issues, argued in 2021 that "although the anti-Polish action was an ethnic cleansing, it also meets the definition of genocide".

Polish view

The Polish

investigated the crimes committed by the UPA against the Poles in Volhynia, Galicia and prewar

Lublin Voivodeship Lublin Voivodeship ( ) is a Voivodeships of Poland, voivodeship (province) of Poland, located in the southeastern part of the country, with its capital being the city of Lublin. The region is named after its largest city and regional capital, Lu ...

and collected over 10,000 pages of documents and protocols. The massacres were described by the commission's prosecutor, Piotr Zając, as bearing the characteristics of a

genocide Genocide is violence that targets individuals because of their membership of a group and aims at the destruction of a people. Raphael Lemkin, who first coined the term, defined genocide as "the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group" by ...

: "there is no doubt that the crimes committed against the people of Polish nationality have the character of genocide".''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
pp. 34–49 The Institute of National Remembrance stated:

The Volhynian massacres have all the traits of genocide listed in the 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which defines genocide as an act "committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such".

Some participants at a conference on the massacres held in 2008 by the Institute used the word "Zagłada", originally applied to the Final Solution, to describe them. 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 UPA on Polish Eastern territories – mass murders characterised by ethnic cleansing with marks of genocide". On 8 July 2016, the Sejm passed a resolution declaring 11 July a National Day of Remembrance of the victims of the Genocide of the Citizens of the Polish Republic committed by Ukrainian Nationalists and formally called the massacres a genocide. A number of Polish authors, especially on the right, have labeled the Volhynia massacres worse than Nazi or Soviet atrocities in terms of their brutality, though not in scale, as so many of the victims were tortured and mutilated.

Ukrainian view

In Ukraine, the events are called "Volhynia tragedy". Coverage in textbooks may be brief and/or euphemistic. Some Ukrainian historians accept the genocide classification, but argue that it was a "bilateral genocide" and that the Home Army was responsible for crimes against Ukrainian civilians that were equivalent in nature. Many Ukrainians perceived the 2016 resolution as an "anti-Ukrainian gesture" in the context of

Vladimir Putin Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin (born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who has served as President of Russia since 2012, having previously served from 2000 to 2008. Putin also served as Prime Minister of Ru ...

's attempts to use the Volhynia issue to divide Poland and Ukraine in the context of the

Russian–Ukrainian war The Russo-Ukrainian War began in February 2014 and is ongoing. Following Ukraine's Revolution of Dignity, Russia Russian occupation of Crimea, occupied and Annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation, annexed Crimea from Ukraine. It then ...

. In September 2016, the parliament of Ukraine, the

Verkhovna Rada The Verkhovna Rada ( ; VR), officially the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, is the unicameralism, unicameral parliament of Ukraine. It consists of 450 Deputy (legislator), deputies presided over by a speaker. The Verkhovna Rada meets in the Verkhovn ...

, passed a resolution condemning "the one-sided political assessment of the historical events" in Poland. According to Ukrainian historian

Andrii Portnov Andrii Volodymyrovych Portnov (; born 17 May 1979) is a Ukrainian historian, essayist, and editor. He is the chair professor of entangled history of Ukraine at the European University Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder). and a director of the PRISMA UK ...

, the classification as genocide has been strongly supported by Poles who were expelled from the east and by parts of the Polish right-wing politics. Ukrainian historians called for assessing the massacres in the historical context, pointing out historical repressions against Ukrainian population and forced

polonization Polonization or Polonisation ()In Polish historiography, particularly pre-WWII (e.g., L. Wasilewski. As noted in Смалянчук А. Ф. (Smalyanchuk 2001) Паміж краёвасцю і нацыянальнай ідэяй. Польскі ...

in pre-war Poland. Ukrainian historian Yuri Shapoval openly speaks about the "Volhynia Slaughter" and calls for increased recognition of the massacre inside Ukraine, pointing out very complex ethnic composition of these territories, mutual historical resentments and incitement by external parties, Soviets, Germans and Polish government on exile.

In popular culture

In 2009, a Polish historical

documentary film A documentary film (often described simply as a documentary) is a nonfiction Film, motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". The American author and ...

'' Było sobie miasteczko...'' was produced by Adam Kruk for

Telewizja Polska Telewizja Polska S.A. (; TVP), also known in English as Polish Television, is a Public broadcasting, public service broadcaster in Poland, founded in 1952. It is the oldest and largest Polish television network. After 2015, when the right-wing po ...

which tells the story of the Kisielin massacre."BYŁO SOBIE MIASTECZKO..."
(There once was a town...),

National Film School in Łódź National may refer to: Common uses * Nation or country ** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen Places in the United States * National, Maryland, ...

(Państwowa Wyższa Szkoła Filmowa, Telewizyjna i Teatralna im. Leona Schillera),

Łódź Łódź is a city in central Poland and a former industrial centre. It is the capital of Łódź Voivodeship, and is located south-west of Warsaw. Łódź has a population of 655,279, making it the country's List of cities and towns in Polan ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

1998. The massacre of Poles in Volhynia was depicted in the 2016 movie ''

'', which was directed by the Polish screenwriter and film director

Wojciech Smarzowski Wojciech Smarzowski (born 18 January 1963 in Korczyna, Podkarpackie Voivodeship, Korczyna near Krosno) is a Polish screenwriter and director. He studied filmmaking at the Jagiellonian University and the National Film School in Łódź (1990). His ...

Notes

References

Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *Wiktor Poliszczuk "Bitter truth": The criminality of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), the testimony of a Ukrainian, * * * * * * * * * * * * *

External links

Volhynia massacre. Truth and Remembrance
–

* The Polish Institute of National Membrance, Ewa Siemaszko
Balance of the crime

* [https://web.archive.org/web/20181030173519/http://www.archives.gov.ua/Sections/Wolyn/ Volhynia and Eastern Galicia 1943–1944. Documents of State Committee on Archives of Ukraine]
Tragedy of Volhynia 1943–1944. Documents of State Committee on Archives of Ukraine
* Kost Bondarenko
''"The Volyn Tragedy: Echoes Through Decades"''
in ''Zerkalo Nedeli'' (the Mirror Weekly), February 15–21, 2003.
Volyn Discussion (a list of articles)
November 2000. {{Authority control Massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia, 1943 in Poland 1944 in Poland 1943 in Ukraine 1944 in Ukraine Mass murder in 1943 Mass murder in 1944 Mass murder in 1945 Massacres in 1943 Massacres in 1944 Massacres in 1945 World War II massacres, Poles In Volhynia World War II crimes in Poland Ukraine in World War II Anti-Polish sentiment in Europe Massacres in Poland, Poles in Eastern Galicia Massacres in Ukraine, Poles in Eastern Galicia Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists Reichskommissariat Ukraine Ukrainian Insurgent Army Poland–Ukraine relations War crimes in Ukraine People killed by the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists Sexual violence in Poland during World War II Massacres committed by Ukraine