I wrote earlier about the euphoria which broke out after the gathering of Polish and Ukrainian MFA heads. In the media and social networks, the alleged breakthrough on the exhumation of victims of the Volyn massacre was announced.
Very exulted ladies and even more touched gentlemen were surpassing themselves in expressing lofty opinions: “The generations of Poles and Poles have been waiting for this moment”, “This is how effective diplomacy looks”, “We are solving a case present that has not been closed to earlier governments”, “This shows that it is not empty slogans but real actions”, “At last, we will be able to commemorate the victims of the Volyn massacre with dignity,” “We have had a breakthrough.”
On this wave of enthusiasm a bucket of cold water was poured out by the head of the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory, who declared that Ukraine would examine and find the burial sites and the circumstances of the deaths of victims of this tragedy, and then carry out exhumations. He added that, by way of exception, the Polish side may be invited to exhumation sites, but as observers.
This seemed to be the tallness of impudence, which permeates the memory and dignity of the murdered. However, the interview conducted by Witold Juras and Marcin Wybrała with the Polish ambassador in Ukraine, Piotr Łukasiewicz, beats everything. According to the ambassador, the effect of gathering Sikorski with his Ukrainian counterpart is to separate the exhumation from the commemorations. This means burying the murdered, but without plates, monuments or another forms of memory. According to the Ambassador, this is simply a fresh quality in historical dialogue, based on "policy sequencing". The fresh approach is seen in the Communication, which states that there are no formal bans on exhumation on the Ukrainian side, provided that they proceed "in accordance with Ukrainian legislation". So with the 2015 Act "On the legal position and commemoration of fighters for Ukraine's independency in the 20th century", which glorifies the criminal CNS-UPA.
The exhumations are so to consist in extracting bones of murdered Poles banging on fields, forests, wells and ditches, and then burying them – without indicating who did these crimes. But the Volynians' murderers will inactive have their monuments, streets, squares and symbols. The conclusions are clear: the current Ukrainian authorities want to erase erstwhile and for all the genocide committed in Poles from their history.
When I read the interview with Ambassador Lukasiewicz, I didn't believe my eyes. I thought this wasn't happening. It is. If Łukasiewicz's interview is an explanation of the authoritative position of the Polish authorities, and after all, the ambassador is to accurately reflect the views of his government and carefully follow its instructions – that means that officially the authorities of the Republic of Poland are soaping our eyes with firmness, while behind the scenes they are cooking a stinking contempt for thousands of Polish innocent victims of Ukrainian nationalism compromise with the heirs of the politics of Bandera and Suchewycz.
If there are no references to the perpetrators and the circumstances of their death on the graves of the victims of the Volyn massacre, why not apply a akin approach to another places of national memory? For example, at Górczewska Street in Warsaw: "Here, from August 5 to 12, 1944, for unknown reasons and reasons, 12,000 Poles died". Or Katyn: "Memoirs of over 4,400 officers of the Polish Army in the Katyn Forest, murdered in the spring of 1940 by unknown perpetrators". Or in Piaśnica: “Memoirs of 14,000 slain in the sand forests of victims murdered by anonymous torturers.”
Such absurdities show where the deficiency of firmness towards past manipulation leads. Memory of victims requires respect and truth, not compromises that relativize it.
Leszek Miller
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