Massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia

Massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia
Part of the Eastern Front of World War II
Polish victims of a massacre committed by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army in the village of Lipniki, Wołyń (Volhynia), 1943
LocationVolhynia
Eastern Galicia
Polesie
Lublin region
Date1943–1945
TargetPoles
Attack type
Massacre, ethnic cleansing, considered a genocide in Poland
Deaths60,000[1]–120,000 Poles[2]
340 Czechs[3]
PerpetratorsOrganization of Ukrainian Nationalists, Ukrainian Insurgent Army, Mykola Lebed, Roman Shukhevych
MotiveAnti-Polonism,[4] Anti-Catholicism,[5] Ukrainisation[3]

The Massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia (Polish: rzeź wołyńsko-galicyjska, lit. 'Volhynian-Galician slaughter'; Ukrainian: Волинсько-Галицька трагедія, romanized: Volynsʹko-Halytsʹka trahediya, lit. 'Volhynian-Galician tragedy')[a] were carried out in German-occupied Poland by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), with the support of parts of the local Ukrainian population, against the Polish minority in Volhynia, Eastern Galicia, parts of Polesia, and the Lublin region from 1943 to 1945.[6]

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.[7][3] The UPA's actions resulted in up to 100,000 Polish deaths.[8][9][10] Estimates of the death toll range from 60,000[11] to 120,000.[2] 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.[3]

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.[12][13][3] The decision to force the Polish population to leave areas that the Banderite faction of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN-B) considered to be Ukrainian took place at a meeting of military referents[definition needed] in the autumn of 1942, and plans were made to liquidate Polish-community leaders and any of the Polish community who resisted.[14] Local UPA commanders in Volhynia began attacking the Polish population, committing massacres in numerous villages.[15]

Encountering resistance, the UPA commander in Volhynia, Dmytro Klyachkivsky ("Klym Savur"), issued an order in June 1943 for the "general physical liquidation of the entire Polish population".[16] 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.[17] 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.[18][19][20]

At the 3rd OUN Congress in August 1943, Mykola Lebed 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 eastern Galicia.[21] 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.[22]

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.[23] A similar order was issued by the UPA commander in Eastern Galicia, Vasyl Sydor ("Shelest").[24] This order was often disobeyed and entire villages were slaughtered.[25] In Eastern Galicia between 1943 and 1946, OUN-B and UPA killed 20,000–25,000 Poles.[26] 1,000–2,000 Ukrainians were killed by the Polish underground.[27]

Some Ukrainian religious authorities, institutions, and leaders protested [when?] the slayings of Polish civilians, but to little effect.[28]

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 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.[29] This characterization is disputed by Ukraine and by some non-Polish historians, who characterize it instead as ethnic cleansing.[30]

  1. ^ Ferguson, Niall (2006). The War of the World: Twentieth-Century Conflict and the Descent of the West. Penguin Publishing. p. 455. ISBN 1-59420-100-5.
  2. ^ a b Hryciuk & Palski 2010.
  3. ^ a b c d e Kulińska 2010, p. 27–30.
  4. ^ Andrii Portnov (16 November 2016). "Clash of victimhoods: The Volhynia Massacre in Polish and Ukrainian memory".
  5. ^ "OUN i UPA od walk do ludobójstwa". Rzeczpospolita (in Polish). Ogromne straty ze strony OUN-UPA poniósł Kościół rzymskokatolicki, naturalny u wierzących chrześcijan szacunek dla duchownych, świątyń, cmentarzy i religijnych praktyk został bowiem w duszach nacjonalistów ukraińskich zrujnowany. [The Roman Catholic Church suffered huge losses from the OUN-UPA; the natural respect among Christian believers for clergy, temples, cemeteries and religious practices was ruined in the souls of Ukrainian nationalists.]
  6. ^ Institute of National Remembrance. "What were the Volhynian Massacres?". Volhynia Massacre. Retrieved 10 March 2018.
  7. ^ Timothy Snyder (24 February 2010). "A Fascist Hero in Democratic Kiev". The New York Review of Books. NYR Daily. Bandera aimed to make of Ukraine a one-party fascist dictatorship without national minorities.... UPA partisans murdered tens of thousands of Poles, most of them women and children. Some Jews who had taken shelter with Polish families were also killed.
  8. ^ Cite error: The named reference Himka2 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  9. ^ Ahonen, Pertti (2008). Peoples on the Move: Population Transfers and Ethnic Cleansing Policies During World War II and Its Aftermath. Bloomsbury Academic. p. 99.
  10. ^ Motyka 2011, p. 447.
  11. ^ Ferguson, Niall (2006). The War of the World: Twentieth-Century Conflict and the Descent of the West. Penguin Publishing. p. 455. ISBN 1-59420-100-5.
  12. ^ Snyder 2003b, p. 197–234.
  13. ^ Komański & Siekierka 2006, p. 203.
  14. ^ Motyka 2006, p. 305-306.
  15. ^ Motyka 2006, p. 306-307.
  16. ^ Motyka 2006, p. 307-308.
  17. ^ Motyka 2006, p. 327-360.
  18. ^ Motyka 2006, p. 412.
  19. ^ Snyder 2003a, p. 175.
  20. ^ Burds, Jeffrey (1999). "Comments on Timothy Snyder's article, "To Resolve the Ukrainian Question once and for All: The Ethnic Cleansing of Ukrainians in Poland, 1943–1947"". Journal of Cold War Studies. 1 (2). (1) Chronology. The more I study Galicia, the more I come to the conclusion that *the defining issue was not Soviet or German occupation and war, but rather the civil war between ethnic Ukrainians and ethnic Poles.
  21. ^ Motyka 2006, p. 366-367.
  22. ^ Motyka 2006, p. 369-376.
  23. ^ Motyka 2006, p. 377.
  24. ^ Motyka 2006, p. 378.
  25. ^ Motyka 2006, p. 377-378.
  26. ^ Motyka 2006, p. 410-411.
  27. ^ Motyka 2011, p. 448.
  28. ^ McBride 2016a, p. 641.
  29. ^ "Sejm przyjął uchwałę dotyczącą Wołynia ze stwierdzeniem o ludobójstwie". Rzeczpospolita (in Polish). Retrieved 26 May 2023.
  30. ^ McBride 2016a, p. 631-632.


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