22 July 2016 The Sejm of the Republic of Poland adopted a resolution bringing into circulation at political level the notion of "genocide" in relation to the crimes of Ukrainian nationalists on the civilian population in the east border of the Second Republic [1].
Even earlier, the investigation of the crime of genocide was carried out by the Polish judiciary conducting investigations after the crimes of Ukrainian nationalists from Article 118 § 1-3 of the Criminal Code. Qualified acts as genocide consisted of killing or causing permanent injury to the wellness of a group of people defined by the criterion of nationality, race, religion, belief, belief, cultural ties or political beliefs. The genocidal activities have been planned and the essential means and information have been provided to carry them out. All behaviour has been undertaken to destruct all or part of the members of the listed groups [2].
Due to the particular, uncommon cruelty in carrying out genocide practices in Polish literature, the concept was introduced genocidium atrox, utilizing the Latin word for cruel, savage, terrible action. It's the first time he always utilized that term. Prof. Ryszard Szawłowski, emphasizing that Ukrainian genocide was distinguished from German and russian crimes by inflicting sadistic torture on the body, intellectual and moral [3]. This crime was characterized by:
- The extermination of the full Polish population took place immediately, during a given time and in a given village and afraid the full population of Poles from infants to old people. This did not leave a chance to save the victims.
- Genocide was linked to the most cruel torture, referring to the tradition of the 17th and 18th centuries Cossacks and Hajdamaks. It was then utilized to chop the victims with ax, to throw the wounded into wells, to train the horse, to choice out eyes, to rip out tongues, etc. specified barbarous deeds were not done by Germany, even by Soviets (as a rule).
- While German and russian genocides were carried out exclusively by “specialised” criminal uniform formations, the Ukrainian genocide was not the case.. In this case, tens of thousands of local Ukrainian peasants, neighbors, gangs armed with axes, forklifts, etc. were besides present alongside the leading Ukrainian insurgent army, especially in larger genocidal actions. They were sometimes accompanied by women, appendixes and even Ukrainian children, dealing with mass robbery of property, arson and killing wounded Poles.
- The murders active mixed marriages., Ukrainian household members were forced to execution a Polish spouse themselves.
- The killings were carried out not by the occupiers from outside, but by fellow citizens of the same country, residents of the Second Republic of Poland.
- Ukrainian state and society have never settled criminals, did not condemn the crime. The Ukrainian side, with respect to the genocide committed by the Ukrainian Nationalist-Ukrainian Insurgency Army Organisation, demonstrates the tactics of silence or misdirection of facts, sometimes even falsifying them [4].
Objectives
In committing the crimes of genocide, its initiators implemented the programme of Organizations of Ukrainian Nationalists of extermination of Polish residents from areas which they considered Ukrainian. erstwhile planning to build a future Ukrainian state, they wanted to get free of all Polish traces on the lands belonging to the Polish state since the 14th-XVI century. Lviv was incorporated into the Polish Crown almost 200 years earlier than Warsaw (the capital of the independent Duchy of Mazowiecki until 1526). Without tradition of independency and affirmative patterns of state creation, Ukrainian nationalists exploited the slogans of blaming for not having their own state of state nations: Poles and Russians.
In Volyn and Malopolska east (former east Galicia) the blade of hatred was directed at Poles, and determination in the anti-Polish attitude added bitterness to the failure in the Polish-Ukrainian war. By referring to the group of historical enemies of Moscow (the political word of Russia), Jews and Poles, Ukrainian nationalists treated the second with peculiar hatred. Apart from national hostility, there was besides a civilization gap. Latin urban culture in the option of nationalist ideologists was the way of an “foreign occupation” on the “Ukrainian lands”. While Russians as members of the same civilisational ellipse had to be "let alone", all Poles had to be disembarked due to public opinion in Western countries. “Those who do not want to leave – murder” he wrote Mikhail Kołodziński, ideologist of Ukrainian nationalism. He realized that murdering 3.5 million Jews and 1 million Poles was a hard task. It so recommended maintaining the atmosphere of panic and constant horror [5].
Theoretical assumptions of ideologists of nationalism began to be disseminated to the Ukrainian population, convincing it that it was essential to get free of Poles. The erstwhile neighbors widely sang the song "Death, Death, Lachom (a pejorative word for Poles) death". In February 1943, at the 3rd legislature of the Organizations of Ukrainian Nationalists, it was decided to remove all "offenders", civilians of non-Ukrainian origin. Starting with individual murders on Polish families, Ukrainian nationalists went to “well organized” actions in 1943, attacking individual districts in Volyn. In total, Volyn nationalists murdered about 60,000 Poles in at least 1819 localities. The equivalent of Volyn in east Małopolska was 1944. At least 35 290 Poles were murdered in this region [6].
According to the torturers, all traces of Polish presence were to be removed in areas that were to enter the composition of the future Ukrainian state. The architectural, sacral, etc. monuments were to be destroyed to the maximum, proving “the property of the enemy and strengthening its strength” [7]. First of all, the Catholic churches were destroyed, nationalists led to the liquidation of about 70% of parishes, destroyed or devastated all agrarian temples, equipment and liturgical robes, archival thugs, etc. [8]. The way of Poles was erased forever...
Irrational Beastship
Witnesses and all researchers point to a particular, unparalleled cruelty in Europe in the 20th century, sadistic pleasance in inflicting pain on their victims. Thousands of testimonies have been collected from the massacre, which mention frightening images of killing people utilizing brutal methods of murder. Situated in any criminal logic of cultural cleansing, designed to guarantee the safety of the totalitarian state in the future, they turned into satanic rites of celebrating evil. Having learned the details of the Volhynia Rzeża – this is the word that went into circulation due to commonly utilized methods of killing – the contemporary man inactive asks the same question: why? "The mystery of the Volyn-Galic slaughter is why Ukrainians did not "murder normally". Couldn't they just kill? Did they gotta exhaust their victim? possibly sadistic desires have just unleashed the shapes of these tools. The bow of the scythe, the curved tooth fork, the long row of plain saw teeth may have led to the imagination of an endless string of possibilities. Death from the sphere is like mass production, death from the bandiers was a hand job, unlike 1 to the other," he considers Catherine Surmiak-Domanska describing the destiny of his household during the war [9]. On the basis of documented evidence of tortures placed in various investigation papers, 136 methods of killing men, women, children of Polish nationality, as well as Ukrainians who disagree with nationalist policies [10] have been established.
Prof. Włodzimierz Osadcza in Vienna
Behind the laconic entries in the preserved chronicles of genocide: “in a brutal way killed...”, “the attackers were peculiarly harassed...” were frequently hidden by gruesome crimes, among which it was hard to identify the most vicious and repugnant. The destiny of a 30 - year - old female from Antonówka, who returned from church, is mentioned. "She was pregnant. The Banders attacked her in the road. They took all day, took their time. They were checking how long agony could be prolonged. First they cut off women's fingers. Both hands, then legs. Then the breasts, then the tongue. Before the victim choked on her own blood, they peeled her from her skin. The scream was heard within a kilometre radius” [11].
A wonderful survivor of your slaughter. Janina Kalinowska – which I was fortunate to know – during the execution on her household she lost consciousness and was declared dead by Ukrainians, thanking God for her parents and brother being shot. He says it was at least a fast death. another Poles from Volyn were not so lucky. Ukrainian nationalists abused them with agricultural tools, screwed them with axes... They plagued them before dying terribly [12].
In the memory of the survivors remained a image of the irrational savagery of the torturers, for whom the murders in the name of independent Ukraine were a origin of perverted sadistic delight derived from inflicting pain and death. "These band Ukrainians had 1 thing ... they didn't just mean to kill but to torment. They wanted the another man not only to die, but to hurt him terribly before he died. This was something unusual in them”13.
Sources
Sources of this attitude should be sought in ideological and cultural conditions. The ideology of Ukrainian nationalism was based on totalitarian patterns of the first half of the 20th century. It was referred to as a primitive form of Fascism or Nazism. This ideology was aimed at emancipating peasantry, creating a fantastic imagination of a state that never existed. The deficiency of statehood was explained by the alleged abroad occupation, hence the creation of the state was to be the demolition of the "occupants". Having a model of Polish independency struggles, the revival of a country with an uninterrupted – but for 123 years of partitions – the past of statehood felt immense complexes. Therefore, the demolition of Polishness in the Kresach was charged with specified terrible emotions, with fierceness rooted in deep complexes of intellectual nature. It referred to centuries-old social injuries of the peasant mass seeing in Poles the personalization of those state-civilization values which they never possessed.
For many centuries, the loosening of discipline caused by the weakening of the Polish state caused chaotic peasant and Cossack revolts, scenes from which there were preludes to the genocide of planet War II. The ideology offered to nationalist gangs was profoundly anti-Christian, as was communism or Nazism. Organized in the spirit of the neo-Paganic Decalogue of the Ukrainian Nationalist, among others, he urged to commit the worst crime in the name of the good of the national case. A kind of ideological strategy has been created justifying beastry for a "higher purpose". Ukrainian Greek Catholic Bishop Grzegorz Chomyszyn He described this ideology as the worst heresy that touched his nation. He saw Satanistic qualities in it.
Social dehumanisation
Like Nazism and communism, Ukrainian nationalism has led to a profound ruin of civilization on lands that have developed under the influence of Christianity of the East and the West. A centuries-old tradition of peaceful coexistence between different nations and religions has been ruined, an different harmony which has been created on the east borders of the Republic of Poland.
The Polish nation suffered incredible trauma, suffered the worst pain during planet War II. 1 of the biggest Polish philosophers of modern times, the longtime Rector of KUL Dominican Mieczysław Albert Krąpiec He claimed that it was hard to find specified an accumulation of terrible crimes in human history14. He spoke about what he knew very well, and it was the village that was affected by Ukrainian genocide. The torturers besides suffered tremendous losses. In carrying out the beastly massacres, they brought shame on themselves and their families, dishonoring the thought of the Ukrainian state. They led to large dramas of Ukrainian families. Common practices included murders on spouses of Polish nationality. Even the acts of motherhood by sons born of Polok’s mothers in mixed families had been reported. A society experienced in specified a cruel way, charged with a massive crime sentenced to years of disability.
Worse victims
Despite the excellent evidence base of the crime of Ukrainian nationalists, they did not receive appropriate condemnation in Poland, the victims have no appropriate commemoration. Polish priest from the tradition of Polish Armenians Tadeusz Isakowicz-Zaleski He described the state as a double killing of the people of Kresa: erstwhile with an axe of nationalists, and the second with a memory. This is dictated by the misconception of geopolitical calculations, which is peculiarly powerful in the current situation.
There are no attempts in Ukraine to condemn criminal ideology and actions. Based on the ideology of nationalism, modern Ukrainian statehood is being built. Genocide is denied. Hundreds of thousands of remains of murdered Poles were not exhumed and Christian burial. Ideologists and perpetrators of genocide are presented with monuments, they are worshiped as national heroes.
How the reflection of a wonderful Polish author is presently sounding Makushinsky Cornnel written more than 100 years ago, at a time erstwhile akin scenes occurred in east Ukraine after the Bolshevik Revolution: “Perhaps there will come a time erstwhile this man besides went crazy, what sawed the man and raped the children, abruptly became unconscious of the fear of the hideous specter of the act and man would talk in it? all frenzy, greatly awakened, passes away,--then will besides pass away. The chaotic man of the Ukrainian steppe, in the misery of his spiritual and from hunger dying on the world's most fertile land, may comprehend in unheard problem that something terrible had happened due to him, that he had bloodyly killed the soul of his land, tormenting people and animals, defiling the earth, destroying trees."
Prof. Włodzimierz Embroidery
In the photo: Glorifying exhibition of UPA in Lviv
Lecture delivered on 24-25 April 2023 at a gathering at the OSCE office in Vienna (Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights). Conference: Torture and another Grave Breaches of global Humanitarian Law and Gross force of global Human Rights Law: Supplementary Human Dimension gathering II
[1] Resolution of the Sejm on tribute to victims of genocide by Ukrainian nationalists on the citizens of the Second Republic from 1943 to 1945, https://www.sejm.gov.pl/Sejm8.nsf/communication.xsp?documentId=2D76E3019FA691C3C1257FF303676
[2] P. Zając, "Information on the evaluation of criminal law events in the area of the then Volynów Voivodeship from 1939 to 1945 based on the findings of the investigation of OKŚZPNP in Lublin", in: "Historical fact and political fact in technological research. Genocide in the Borders of Southeast Poland from 1939 to 1946", ed. B. Pazia, Kraków 2013, p. 111.
[3] L. Kulińska, C. Partacz, "The Crimes of Ukrainian Nationalists on Poles in 1939-1945. Genocide Uncounted", Warsaw 2015, p. 80.
[4] R. Slawłowski, "Three Genocide", "IPN Historical Supplement. Our Journal" 3/2008 (10), p. III.
[5] A. Duukov, “Why we fight with Poles”. Anti-Polish CNS Programme in Key Documents, Warsaw 2017, p. 89
[6] E. Hi, “The genocide of Poles in Volyn and east Małopolska. OUN-UPA Crime, ‘Biuletyn Institute of National Memory’ 2009, No. 1-2(96-97), pp. 56-58.
[7] A. Duukov, “Why We Fight with Poles”, p. 50.
[8] L. Popek, “The Łutsk Diocese in the Interwar and planet War II (1918-1944)”, in: “Poles and Roman Catholic Church in Volyn from 1918 to 1997”, ed. L. Popka, Lublin 1999, p. 42.
[9] K. Surmiak-Domanska, ‘Purge’, Beef 2017, p. 120.
[10] L. Kulińska, C. Partacz, "The Crimes of Ukrainian Nationalists in Poles from 1939 to 1945", pp. 187-191.
[11] K. Surmiak-Domanska, ‘Purge’, pp. 158-159.
[12] A. Herbich, “The Girls of Volyn. actual Stories”, Kraków 2018, pp. 12-13.
[13] K. Surmiak-Domanska, ‘Purge’, p. 138.
[14] M. A. Krąpiec, "The Shadow of Unwarranted Crimes, Historical fact and Political fact in Research", p. 239.
Think Poland, No. 19-20 (7-14.05.20123)
