WThe massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia, were carried out in German-occupied Poland by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, or the UPA, with the support of parts of the local Ukrainian population against the Polish minority in Volhynia, Eastern Galicia, parts of Polesia and Lublin region from 1943 to 1945. The peak of the massacres took place in July and August 1943. Most of the victims were women and children. Many of the Polish victims regardless of age or gender were tortured before being killed; some of the methods included rape, dismemberment or immolation, among others. The UPA's actions resulted in between 50,000 and 100,000 deaths.
WAdamy village was burned to the ground during the Massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia, and no longer exists. It was destroyed by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army aided by the Ukrainian peasants who set ablaze 200 Polish farms and murdered whomever they could find. Adamy used to be located in powiat Kamionka Strumiłowa (county) near Busk in the Tarnopol Voivodeship of the Second Polish Republic before the Nazi-Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939.
WBortnytsia is a village in Rivne oblast, near the town of Dubno, in Dubno Raion, Ukraine. The village currently has a population of 365.
WBudki Borovskiye is a village in Rivne Oblast, Ukraine.
WBudy Ossowskie massacre was a mass murder of ethnic Poles carried out on 29–30 August 1943 by a death squad of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army aided by the Ukrainian peasants during the Massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia. About 290 people were killed, including women and children, all of them, Polish inhabitants of the Budy Ossowskie village, located in the Kowel County of the Wołyń Voivodeship in the Second Polish Republic. Budy Ossowskie village does not exist anymore. It was burned to the ground by the OUN-UPA. The charred remnants of the village were cleared in Soviet Ukraine for grazing cattle. Overall, in the Kowel County some 7,300 ethnic Poles were murdered.
WByło sobie miasteczko... is a 2009 Polish historical documentary film about the 1943 Kisielin massacre in the village of Kisielin, located in the Wołyń Voivodeship in Poland before World War II,. The film, directed by Tadeusz Arciuch and Maciej Wojciechowski, was produced by Adam Kruk for Telewizja Polska.
WChełm is a city in southeastern Poland with 63,949 inhabitants (2015). It is located to the south-east of Lublin, north of Zamość and south of Biała Podlaska, some 25 kilometres from the border with Ukraine. Chełm used to be the capital of the Chełm Voivodeship until it became part of the Lublin Voivodeship in 1999.
WChrynów massacre was a massacre of Polish worshipers which took place in the Volhynian village of Chrynów, Gmina Grzybowica, Powiat Włodzimierz, Wołyń Voivodeship of the Second Polish Republic. It took place on Sunday, July 11, 1943, when the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) as well as armed deserters from the Ukrainian Auxiliary Police, supported by local Ukrainian peasants, surrounded the local Roman-Catholic church where the Poles had gathered for a religious ceremony. The parish priest Jan Kotwicki was shot along with a group of women, when attempting to escape through the vestry. During the attack on the village Ukrainians murdered some 150 Poles. A week after these events all buildings in the village and the church were burned down to the ground, and the village ceased to exist.
WDominopol no longer exists. On July 11, 1943, at the height of the Massacres of Poles in Volhynia, the village was attacked by a death squad of Ukrainian Insurgent Army aided by the Ukrainian peasants, and all ethnic Poles regardless of age and gender were tortured and murdered. Before World War II, Dominopol was a village in the Eastern regions of the Second Polish Republic, located in the Gmina Werba, Powiat Włodzimierz of the Wołyń Voivodeship. The area was invaded by the Soviet Union in 1939 and during Operation Barbarossa annexed by Nazi Germany into Reichskommissariat Ukraine in 1941. The Dominopol location is now in the area of Volodymyr-Volynskyi Raion of the Volyn Oblast in sovereign Ukraine.
WGaj massacre was a wartime massacre of the Polish population of Gaj, committed on 30 August 1943 by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army death squad aided by the Ukrainian peasants, in which 600 civilian Poles were killed, including a large number of children. The mass murder operation in Gaj was carried out during the province-wide Massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia. The settlement founded in the 1920s was burned to the ground by OUN-UPA and no longer exists. When the Polish self-defence unit from nearby Rożyszcze arrived at the Gaj colony a few days later the bodies of victims were strewn everywhere. They identified and shot several Ukrainian collaborators and set their houses of fire in retaliation. The Gaj colony was located in the Kowel County of the Wołyń Voivodeship in the Second Polish Republic.
WGłęboczyca massacre was a mass murder of ethnic Poles carried out on 29 August 1943 by the troops of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army aided by the Ukrainian peasants. It exclusively targeted Polish inhabitants of the Głęboczyca colony, located in the Włodzimierz County of the Wołyń Voivodeship in the Second Polish Republic. About 250 Poles were killed, including 199 known by name including women and children. Głęboczyce does not exist anymore. It was swept from existence during the Massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia, along with the neighbouring settlement of Ostrówek in powiat Luboml.
WGurów massacre was a wartime massacre of the Polish population of Gurów, committed on 11 July 1943 by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army death squad from Group "Piwnicz" and Ukrainian peasants, during the Massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia. The crime scene was the prewar village of Gurów located in Gmina Grzybowica, Powiat Włodzimierz in the Wołyń Voivodeship of the Second Polish Republic. Gurów village no longer exists.
WHurby massacre was a mass murder of the Polish population of the Hurby village, perpetrated on June 2, 1943, by a death squad of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) and so-called brushwood self defence commando made up of Ukrainian peasants, during the province-wide Massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia in World War II. Hurby belonged to the Second Polish Republic before the war began. It used to be located in the powiat Zdobłunowski of the Wołyń Voivodeship. It is now a valley by the same name in western Ukraine. About 250 Poles were murdered in the attack, which was confirmed by the UPA commander for Volyn, Dmytro Klyachkivsky, who said in his communique of June 1943 that Hurby "went up in smoke".
WHuta Stepańska was an ethnic Polish village, located in prewar Kostopol county, Wołyń Voivodeship, in the Second Polish Republic. In 1943, during the Massacres of Poles in Volhynia, it became an important Polish self-defence centre, captured by the UPA between 16 and 18 July 1943. Some 2,000 UIA soldiers, supported by 3,000 local Ukrainian peasants, killed 300 Poles, as they were trying to break out of the encirclement.
WThe Janowa Dolina massacre took place on 23 April 1943 in the village of Janowa Dolina, during the occupation of Poland in World War II. Before the Nazi-Soviet invasion of the Polish Second Republic, Janowa Dolina was a model settlement built in the Kostopol County of the Wołyń Voivodeship by workers of the Polish State Basalt Quarry. The town was inhabited by 2,500 people. Its name, which translates as the "Jan's Valley" in Polish, came from the Polish king Jan Kazimierz, who reportedly hunted in the Volhynian forests, and after hunting — rested on the shore of the Horyń (Horyn) River. The town was destroyed during World War II by Ukrainian nationalists who murdered most of its Polish population including women and children.
WKuty (Kąty) defence – was a skirmish between Polish self-defense units and Ukrainian Insurgent Army unit under commander Ivan Klymshyn and Andriy Melnyk's supporters in the village of Kuty located in Volhynia, Krzemieniec (Kremenets) county, Shumsk commune 3 or 4 May 1943. During the fight no less than 53 Poles were killed, although the assault was repelled by self-defense forces. After the battle Poles abandoned the village, and escorted by Germans went to Shumsk and later to Kremenets.
WKisielin massacre was a massacre of Polish worshipers which took place in the Volhynian village of Kisielin, now Kysylyn, located in the Volyn Oblast, Ukraine. It took place on Sunday, July 11, 1943, when units of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), supported by local Ukrainian peasants, surrounded Poles who had gathered for a ceremony at a local Roman-Catholic church. Around 60 to 90 persons or more, men, women and children – were ordered to take off their clothes and were then massacred by machine gun. The wounded were killed with weapons such as axes and knives. Those who survived escaped to the presbytery and barricaded themselves for eleven hours.
WDmytro Klyachkivsky, also known by his pseudonyms Klym Savur, Okhrim, and Bilash, was a commander of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), first head-commander of the UPA-North. He was responsible for the ethnic cleansing of Poles from Volhynia.
WThe Korosciatyn massacre took place on the night of February 28/29, 1944, during the province-wide wave of massacres of Poles in Volhynia in World War II. Korosciatyn, which now bears the name of Krynica and is located in western Ukraine, was one of the biggest ethnic Polish villages of the interwar Poland’s within Buczacz County in Tarnopol Voivodeship (pictured). Located along the railway line from Tarnopol to Stanislawów, in 1939 it had some 900 inhabitants, all of them being ethnic Poles. Korosciatyn had an elementary school, a Roman Catholic church and a railway station. It belonged to the Latin Rite Roman Catholic parish of nearby Monasterzyska, which also covered several nearby villages. Among the most famous of the citizens of this parish, are Rev. Stanislaw Padewski, professor Gabriel Turowski as well as two scientists, professor Michal Lesiow of Lublin’s Maria Curie University and doctor Jan Zaleski of Krakow’s Pedagogical College. Altogether, in 1939 the Deaconry of Buczacz had around 45 000 Polish inhabitants.
WKurdybań Warkowicki, or Kurdyban–Warkowicki, was a Polish village in Wołyń Voivodeship (1921–1939) before the joint Nazi German and Soviet invasions of Poland in 1939. It was located near the town of Warkowicze in Dubno County, in the eastern part of the Second Polish Republic. The village was eradicated during the Polish population transfers after World War II, when the Kresy macroregion was formally incorporated into the Soviet Union.
WMassacre of Ostrówki refers to the mass murder of the Polish inhabitants of the Volhynian village of Ostrówki, located during the interbellum in the gmina Hushcha, Liuboml, Volhynian Voivodeship of the Second Polish Republic, now known as Ostrowky, located in the Manevychi Raion of Volyn, Ukraine. On 30 August 1943, armed members of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UIA) murdered 438 Poles. Among the victims were 246 children under the age of 14.
WPańska Dolina no longer exists. The village was liquidated during the Polish population transfers after World War II, when the Kresy macroregion was formally incorporated into the Soviet Union. Pańska Dolina used to be located in Gmina Młynów, Powiat Dubno (county), of the Wołyń Voivodeship, before the Nazi German and Soviet invasions of Poland in September 1939. Its former location can be found near Mlyniv in Dubno Raion of present-day Ukraine.
WThe Parośla I massacre was committed during World War II by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) under the command of Hryhorij Perehijniak "Dowbeszka-Korobka" on 9 February 1943 against the ethnic Polish residents of the village of Parośla in the Nazi-controlled Reichskommissariat Ukraine. It is considered a prelude to the ethnic cleansing of Poles in the Volhynia region by the UPA, and is recognized as the first mass murder committed by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army in the area. Estimates of the number of victims range from 149 to 173.
WThe Przebraże Defence – defensive fights in the village of Przebraże belonging to the Trościaniec cluster, in Lutsk poviat, voivodeship in Volhynia between July 1943 and January 1944. In Przebraże, Polish civilians from Volhynia organized defense against the UPA. The village was never conquered by UPAs.
WZygmunt Jan Rumel 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 acknowledged by renowned Polish poet Leopold Staff and dramatist Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz. One of his poems entitled "Dwie matki" in which Rumel described his love of Poland and Ukraine, was published in a popular Płomyk magazine in 1935. He was killed by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army during the massacres of Poles in Volhynia in 1943.
WEwa Siemaszko is a Polish writer, publicist and lecturer; collector of oral accounts and historical data regarding the Massacres of Poles in Volhynia. An engineer by profession with Master's in technological studies from the Warsaw University of Life Sciences, Siemaszko worked in public health education and also as a school teacher following graduation. She is a daughter of writer Władysław Siemaszko with whom she collaborates and shares strong interest in Polish World War II history.
WVasyl Sydor ; born in Spasiv (Спасів), 24 February 1910; died 14 April 1949 in Rozhniativ Raion – colonel of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), political activist, soldier of the Nachtigall Battalion, commandant of Sotnia 201 Schutzmannschaft auxiliary police, vice-commander of UPA and leader of UPA-West for Eastern Galicia during World War II. Sydor was killed in combat with Soviet troops in the Limnytsia River Valley.
WJózef Turowski was a Polish military historian.
WThe Ukrainian Insurgent Army was a Ukrainian nationalist paramilitary and later partisan formation. During World War II, it was engaged in guerrilla warfare against the Soviet Union, the Polish Underground State, Communist Poland, and Nazi Germany. It was established by the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists. The insurgent army arose out of separate militant formations of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists—Bandera faction, other militant national-patriotic formations, some former defectors of the Ukrainian Auxiliary Police, mobilization of local populations and others. The political leadership of the army belonged to the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists—Bandera. It was the primary perpetrator of the ethnic cleansing of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia. Its official date of creation is 14 October 1942, day of the Intercession of the Theotokos feast. The Ukrainian People's Revolutionary Army at the period from December 1941 untl July 1943 has the same name.
WVolhynia is a 2016 Polish war drama directed by Wojciech Smarzowski. The film is set in the 1939–1943 time frame and its central theme is Ukrainian anti-Polish hatred culminating in massacres of Poles in Volhynia. The screenplay was based on the collection of short stories titled Hate by Stanisław Srokowski.
WOn Sunday July 11, 1943, the OUN-UPA death squads aided by the local Ukrainian peasants simultaneously attacked at least 99 Polish settlements within the Wołyń Voivodeship of the prewar Second Polish Republic under the German occupation. It was a well-orchestrated attack on people gathered for a Sunday mass at Catholic churches. The towns affected included Kisielin, Poryck, Chrynów, Zabłoćce, Krymn, with dozens of other towns attacked at different dates with tens of churches and chapels burned to the ground. The Volhynian massacres spread over four prewar voivodeships including Wołyń with 40,000- 60,000 victims, as well as Lwów, Stanisławów and Tarnopol in Lesser Poland with 30,000- 40,000 Poles murdered for the total of 100,000 Polish victims of UPA terror. The Bloody Sunday of July 11, 1943 is not to be confused with the Stanisławów Ghetto Bloody Sunday massacre of 10,000 to 12,000 Polish Jews on October 12, 1941, before the Stanisławów Ghetto announcement.
WWiśniowiec massacres . In the monastery of Discalced Carmelites and in the city Wiśniowiec (Vyshnivets) in February 1944 an armed group of the OUN massacred 300 Poles who had sought refuge there. Most people were hiding in the monastery and in the abandoned Vyshnivets Palace. At the same time in the village Wiśniowiec Stary took place another massacre, where 138 Poles were killed by UPA.
WMassacre of Wola Ostrowiecka was a 1943 mass murder of Polish inhabitants of the village of Wola Ostrowiecka located in the prewar gmina Huszcza in Luboml County of the Volhynian Voivodeship, within the Second Polish Republic. Wola Ostrowiecka no longer exists. It was burned to the ground during the Massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia.
WAround six million Polish citizens, are estimated to have perished during World War II. Most were civilians killed by the actions of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. At the International Military Tribunal held in Nuremberg, Germany, in 1945–46, three categories of wartime criminality were juridically established: waging a war of aggression; war crimes; and crimes against humanity. These three crimes in international law were for the first time, from the end of the war, categorized as violations of fundamental human values and norms. These crimes were committed in occupied Poland on a tremendous scale.
WZagaje massacre was a mass murder of ethnic Poles carried out on 11–12 July 1943 by the troops of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army group "Piwnicz", aided by the Ukrainian peasants, during the Massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia. Approximately 260–350 people were killed, including women and children. The village Zagaje was levelled out and does not exist anymore. It was located in the gmina Podberezie of the Horochów County in the Wołyń Voivodeship of the Second Polish Republic. Overall, in the Horochów County some 4,200 ethnic Poles were murdered, in nearly hundreds of separate locations before the end of the Polish-Ukrainian conflict. The village Zagaje is not to be confused with the Zagaje colony, located in gmina Czaruków, powiat Łuck, of the same voivodeship.
WŻeniówka, also known as Ziniówka, Ziuniuwka or Ziniejowka, was a Polish settlement in the Wołyń Voivodeship (1921–1939), gmina Warkowicze, Dubno county, on the Ikva River, in Second Polish Republic before the Nazi German and Soviet invasion of Poland in September 1939.
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