74th anniversary of massacre of Polish residents in Volhynia

Seventy-four years ago a Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) unit murdered over 155 people, including children and infants, in the village of Parosla I in Volhynia, in the first mass murder of Polish people committed by UPA.

Fot. PAP/Darek Delmanowicz / Radymno (woj. podkarpackie), 20.07.2013. Aktorzy podczas rekonstrukcji historycznej "Wołyń 1943, nie o zemstę, lecz o pamięć wołają ofiary" zorganizowanej nad zalewem w Radymnie, 20 bm. Według organizatorów inscenizacja miała upamiętniać ofiary zbrodni UPA na Wołyniu i Małopolsce Wschodniej sprzed 70 lat. Na potrzeby rekonstrukcji wybudowano wioskę, która w ostatnim akcie widowiska została spalona Fot. PAP/Darek Delmanowicz

The UPA unit entered the village on February 9, 1943, introducing themselves as a Soviet insurgent unit, and persuaded the residents to lie down and let themselves be tied up, allegedly to avoid being suspected by the Germans of "willingly" helping the insurgents.

The bound people were then killed with axes, women and children included. Twelve wounded people survived the massacre.

The Ukrainian Insurgent Army perpetrated many mass murders of Polish people in Volhynia, in some cases also aided by local Ukrainians, sometimes under coercion.

The murders in Volhynia intensified on July 11-12, 1943, when Polish people were killed in 150 localities. UPA even killed people gathered in churches for Mass.

The biggest massacres took place in Janowa Dolina (ca. 600 murdered), Wola Ostrowiecka (572-620 killed) and Ostrowki (476-520 killed). In all, in 1943-1944 at least 33,000 Polish people were killed by UPA in Volhynia, according to researchers Ewa and Wladyslaw Siemaszko, though the most likely number is 50,000-60,000.

UPA also committed mass murders on the Polish population in the former Eastern Galicia (up to 1939 - Lwowskie, Tarnopolskie and Stanislawowskie provinces in Poland), in spring 1944 launching an intensive operation in which Poles were chased from their homes, villages were burned down and residents killed.

In this region, an estimated 30,000-40,000 Polish people were murdered by UPA and Ukrainians from a Nazi SS police unit, according to Grzegorz Motyka.

According to estimates by Polish historians, in 1943-1945 Ukrainian nationalists murdered about 100,000 Poles in the regions of Volhynia and Eastern Galicia, which were part of Poland before World War II. The culmination of these events came on July 11, 1943 when Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) units attacked some 150 Polish localities. (PAP)

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