On Sunday, 11 July 1943, OUN-UPA death squads, aided by local Ukrainian peasants, simultaneously attacked at least 99 Polish settlements within Wołyń Province of the German-occupied prewar Second Polish Republic.[1] It was a well-orchestrated attack on people gathered at Catholic churches for Sunday mass. The towns affected included Kisielin (the Kisielin massacre), Poryck (the Poryck Massacre), Chrynów (the Chrynów massacre), Zabłoćce, and Krymn, while dozens of other towns were attacked on other dates; tens of churches and chapels were burned to the ground.
The Volhynian massacres spread over four prewar provinces, including Wołyń with 40,000–60,000 victims, as well as Lwów, Stanisławów and Tarnopol provinces in Lesser Poland with 30,000-40,000 Poles murdered, for a total of 100,000 Polish victims of the UPA terror.[2]