What was Vistula's action? Who should be liable for the harm done to Ukrainians in 1947? Should Ukraine respond “symmetrically” to the political decisions of the current Polish authorities, recognising the genocide of the actions of the communist Polish authorities towards the inhabitants of Ukrainian cultural territories which were handed over to the Republic of Poland after planet War II? Let us effort to qualify events of the “Wisła” action not on the basis of emotion and political situation, but on the basis of standards of global law.
On 28 April 1947, at 4 o'clock in the morning, six Polish divisions and branches of the Public safety Corps surrounded the areas where the Ukrainian population was densely inhabited. At the same time, NKVD troops and Czechoslovakian troops blocked the east and confederate border of Poland from Brest to Nowy Sącz.
On that day, the actual beginning of the forced resettlement of Ukrainians, which went into past under the name of Action “Wisła”, began at the end of March of the same year by a resolution of the Political Office of the KC of the Polish Workers' organization (PRP).
What is the meaning of the “Wisła” operation in Poland and Ukraine
Since 1990 respective attempts have been made in Poland and Ukraine to measure the events of the Polish-Ukrainian conflict in the 1930s. The consequence was respective joint statements by the presidents and parliaments of both countries.
The prolonged discussion in the Polish Parliament led in 2016 to the adoption of resolutions recognising anti-Polish actions in Volyn and Galicia as genocide. 2 years later, the Polish Parliament revised the IPN Act, introducing criminal liability for denying “the crimes of Ukrainian nationalists”. These include participation in the “population of citizens of the Second Republic in Volyn and east Małopolska”.
However, in the course of the year the Constitutional Tribunal considered the terms utilized in the Act "criminalities of Ukrainian nationalists" and "Małopolska East" as unconstitutional. On the Ukrainian side, attempts were besides made to "symmetric" the answer, but failed.
Attempts were besides made for the political and legal qualification of the shares on the Vistula River. In August 1990, the Polish legislature denounced with a peculiar resolution "the action of the Vistula", during which the rule of collective work in totalitarian systems was applied".
In response, the ultimate Council concluded that "The Vistula Action" destroyed the cultural integrity of Ukrainians in the PRL. The Ukrainians suffered massive human, material, and spiritual losses. They have been forcibly displaced, scattered, deprived of their household homes, their wealth, cultural and educational institutions and churches, have lost the anticipation of full national life and are inactive suffering the consequences of this tragedy."
In 1997 the presidents of Ukraine and Poland in a joint message noted that "a separate, tragic card in the past of our relations was the action "Wisła", which struck the full Ukrainian community in Poland".
Ten years later, in another message by the head of state, the action “Wisła” was an example of injustice in the past of modern Poland, which was a consequence of the totalitarian activities of communist authorities. In 1947, he led to the deportation of many thousands of Polish Ukrainian citizens from south-eastern Poland, leading to the dispersal of the Ukrainian community in Poland, thus becoming another link of the tragic conflict chain. This event, contrary to fundamental human rights, was condemned in 1990 by a peculiar resolution of the Polish Senate." However, they did not contain a clear legal qualification for what happened in 1947.
In the draft resolution of the ultimate Council on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the beginning of the deportation of Ukrainians by the Polish People's Republic of Poland from 1944 to 1951, the Nadwiślański run was interpreted exclusively as part of a more global process of deportation of Ukrainians' population on Polish lands, which was proposed to be cultural cleansings with symptoms of genocide in Ukrainians.
The next draft resolution besides recognises the action as a component of the Polish State's policy towards Ukrainians in the first half of the 20th century, which was proposed "qualify as genocide".
However, both projects were never approved.
People's MP VII Oleg Pankiewicz called in a speech on the 66th anniversary of the launch of the “Wisła” action proposed to recognise it as ethnocycide. Instead, according to another erstwhile associate of the ultimate Council, Jarosław Jojyk, it was an act of "genocide of the Ukrainian people, planned by the peculiar services of communist Poland and USSR".
Another erstwhile MP, Mikołaj Lyushniak, believed that the action “Wisła” was "a kind of genocide, erstwhile not the body was killed, but the spirit of the Ukrainians."
In 2007, 1 Ukrainian organization addressed the Polish Institute of National Memory with a question about legal qualification of the “Wisła” campaign. The Department of the interior safety Service, which examined the appeal, concluded that since the action was carried out solely on the basis of decisions of the highest state authorities and institutions, and the displacement of the Ukrainian population was to be ‘only ancillary action’, ‘Wisła’ cannot be regarded as having the effect of ‘genocide crime’ .
The Vistula action in the Sanoka area. Soldiers of the Polish Army escort detainees of UPA
Polish researchers Ewa Szupaszko and Zbigniew Palski noted that “ Resettlements were inevitable, they were carried out under humanitarian conditions, and Ukrainians were displaced to lands with a higher level of civilization. ”
On the another hand, Tadeusz Olszański, Bohdan Skaradyński and Grzegorz Motyka believed that "residence could not be regarded as justified, but should be interpreted as a component of the communist "ordering" in Central Europe".
Motyka called this action “at least a typical Communist crime” and suggested that "we are dealing with an effort by members of the PPR to commit alleged ethnocycide".
Ukrainian investigator Andrij Lipkan characterized the action as deportation, but did not give it specified legal qualifications from the point of view of global law standards. Jarosław Daszkiewicz qualified the “Wisła” action events as cultural cleansing, and Volodymyr Nakoneczny as an act of ethnocycide. Instead, according to Volodymyr Serhijczuk and Askold Łoszyński, they should be considered as genocide of the Ukrainian people.
Furthermore, the usage of certain legal terms to describe the stock was not the consequence of a thorough examination.
What standards of global law we apply
It is not easy to measure legal conflicts with the past. Especially if specified conflicts occurred in another country's territory.
The first problem we face is what kind of government should be applied to measure this or any another historical event? After all, we are talking about forced displacement of full population groups in east European countries after the Second planet War, which at the time national government did not consider either a crime or even illegal.
Moreover, in any cases specified actions were justified by inter-state or global agreements, and even by the motives of ‘revenge’, the restoration of ‘justice’ towards national groups that allegedly ‘massively’ supported the Nazi government from 1938 to 1945, and so had to bear collective responsibility.
At that time, too, a database of global acts on global humanitarian law was only created. Finally, the general regulation of criminal law considers a circumstantial act to be an offence only if, at the time of the act, it was deemed to be specified by the applicable law.
However, the later government imposing criminal sanctions usually does not retroactively apply to earlier acts. so , the anticipation of their retrospective application to punish perpetrators remains questionable .
So here we will only talk about the legal qualification of the Vistula action as specified from the point of view of modern standards of global humanitarian law. To this end, we will benefit from the provisions of the Rome Statute of the global Criminal Court on the most serious offences under the jurisdiction of that court, as well as another global acts relating to specified offences.
According to the first part of Article 5 of the Rome Statute, the most serious crimes of concern to the full planet community are genocide, crimes against humanity, crimes of aggression and war crimes.
So was the Vistula action genocide or a crime against humanity? And is there any reason to talk about it as a war crime?
What events are we talking about?
The decision to carry out the action was taken at an extraordinary gathering of the Political Office of the Polish People's Republic on 29 March 1947. Its nonsubjective is as follows: "As part of a repressive action against the Ukrainian population ... the displacement of Ukrainians and families mixed at a fast pace into the returned areas (mainly North Prussia), without creating continuous groups and no closer than 100 km from the border".
In order to implement this decision, in early April the peculiar services of the Republic of Poland prepared a task of the operation, which was then codenamed “East”. Its task was defined as "the final solution to the Ukrainian problem in Poland".
For this purpose, it was proposed that all cultural Ukrainians, as well as mixed Polish-Ukrainian families from the south-eastern border to the north-western lands of Poland, be displaced there on the basis of the top possible dispersal.
In parallel with the eviction action, "the active elimination of the UPA band which had to be ruthlessly destroyed after the evacuation" . A peculiar operational group from military, safety and police units was set up to carry out the action, involving representatives of civilian administration. It is intended to be implemented ‘shortest word (if possible within 4 weeks)’.
UPA fighters detained by the Polish Army in Sanok County, 1947.
The action began on 28 April 1947. It included large areas of Lemkovszczyzna, Nadsiana, Podlasie and Chełmszczyzna. Polish military units surrounded the villages and the population was informed of the immediate resettlement and only a fewer hours (from half an hr to four) were given to collect the most needed things. As reported in the reports of public safety authorities of Poland, the action was found "population displaced, unprepared. [...] thanks to the well-kept military secret, the population was mostly confused and until late worked in the field."
The population was then directed under military escort to the alleged congregational points. There, state safety officers identified “unreliable” elements, compiled registers of deportees and their property.
Families suspected of sympathizing with the Ukrainian underground were immediately arrested or displaced in the number not more than 1 per settlement.
The remainder of Ukrainians were moved from the state border and displaced in groups not exceeding 10% of the local Polish population for fast assimilation.
The displaced by order of the OG’s “Wisła” command were restricted in free movement, and those who tried to return home themselves were detained and placed in so-called. ‘transitional camp’ in Jaworzno, where they were interviewed and tortured by state safety officers. In full , over 140 000 people were deported as a consequence of the “Wisła” action .
The Ukrainian underground papers besides show that in April 1947 during the run Polish military troops burned down at least 13 Ukrainian villages and 1 in part.
Was the Vistula action genocide?
After the Polish Parliament passed a resolution on “genocide” of the Polish population in Volyn, among any Ukrainian political forces and public opinion, the position that Operation “Wisła” should be classified as “genocide of the Ukrainian population” is gaining popularity.
Article II of the Convention on the Prevention and punishment of Genocide Crimes and Article 6 of the Statute of Rome specify the substance of the genocide crime as "works committed to destruct in full or in part any national, cultural racial or spiritual group as such".
This means that it is essential to prove not only the existence of a peculiar intent to destruct specified a peculiar group, but besides that the intention afraid this group as such. In order to prove specified an intention, there are besides issues of causes, motives, time and place of the act, as well as the alleged quantitative threshold – the number of victims of the crime.
Those Articles of the Convention and the Statute of Rome besides establish a comprehensive list of genocides directed against a given group, including: killings of members of specified a group; causing severe harm to the wellness or intellectual disorder of members of specified a group; intentional creation of surviving conditions for specified a group which are intended for its full or partial physical destruction; measures aimed at preventing birth in the environment of specified a group; forced transfer of children from 1 human group to another.
Thus, summarizing the differences between genocide and another crimes, genocide is characterised by the extermination of members of any of the 4 circumstantial groups precisely due to the fact that they belong to specified a group, and the intent of their elimination is to completely or partially destruct the group as such.
Documentary sources and the very course of the “Wisła” action indicate that the aim of the action was not to completely or partially destruct the Ukrainian national group in Poland as such.
It was about forced displacement of members of this group from a peculiar territory and displacement – “dispersing” them in the northern and western lands of Poland to accelerate their assimilation, as well as creating conditions preventing their return.
The secondary nonsubjective was to destruct the remains of the Ukrainian underground as the CNS and UPA were based on the local Ukrainian population. The deportation so deprived further sense of conspiracy conflict in Zakozonna. So the key feature of genocide is missing – the intention to destruct a given national group.
If we take into account the genocidal actions defined by the Convention and the Statute of Rome, then during the action “Wisula” it was clearly not about the compulsory transfer of Ukrainian children to another national groups or the prevention of births among Ukrainians.
As a consequence of the deportation, the Ukrainian population from Zakorzonny was resettled to the northern and western regions of Poland, from where Germany was displaced. Previously these areas belonged to Germany and in the final phase of planet War II suffered during the war, as did another parts of Poland.
After the war, the best assets were taken over by local Poles or visitors, and farms given to immigrants in western Poland “were most frequently destroyed and neglected, and fields not sown. Many premises required a thorough renovation. allocation of 1 farm to respective families" .
Therefore, deported Ukrainians were frequently forced, especially at first, to settle in damaged or useless housing. At the same time, these areas differed to any degree from Zakerzonny, but were suitable for farming and another activities.
As any exiles mentioned, it was hard to have a permanent job, so only agriculture was open to the Ukrainians. For example, during the harvest, they helped with the harvest, grazed cattle, etc., in exchange for food.
Therefore, the available sources do not give a clear basis for claiming that as a consequence of the deportation, specified surviving conditions were created for the Ukrainian national group in Poland as were calculated for its full or partial physical destruction.
Rather, it should be stated that these conditions helped to accelerate the assimilation of Ukrainians and created obstacles to opposition to the Polish communist government and to effectively defend their rights.
The transport conditions of the deportees were rather severe, as a consequence of which, according to various estimates, respective 100 people did not scope their destination. Another 162 people died or died as a consequence of torture and illness in the concentration camp in Jaworzno.
However, the analysis of sources does not give emergence to a clear message that the intention to kill these people was precisely within the Ukrainian national group. The same applies to causing serious harm to the wellness or intellectual wellness of members of specified a group.
We have data that about 4000 Ukrainians were sent to the concentration camp in Jaworzno. At least any of them were subjected to abuse, torture and torture, with which investigators tried to get the essential evidence from prisoners.
However, even in this case, we are dealing with the facts of causing serious or another harm to the wellness of individual representatives of the Ukrainian national group who were or were considered dangerous by the Polish authorities – members of families or sympathizers of the Ukrainian underground, people who tried to return to places of exile, etc.
Therefore, not only is the key feature of genocide missing – the intention to destruct a given national group – but besides the acts of genocide, whose exhaustive list is included in the Convention and the Rome Statute.
So now, according to global law, there are no grounds for qualifying shares It was a crime of genocide.
Was the Vistula action a crime against humanity?
The first part of Article 7 of the Rome Statute sets out a list of acts committed as part of large-scale or systematic attacks on any civilian population and considered crimes against humanity.
Such acts shall include, inter alia, ‘deportation or forced displacement of the population’, ‘torture’, ‘persecution of any identifiable group or political community, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious, sexual, as defined in paragraph 3, or of any another motives commonly declared inadmissible in global law, in connection with any of the acts referred to in this paragraph’, as well as ‘other inhuman acts of a akin nature which consist in the deliberate task of large suffering or severe injury to wellness or serious harm to intellectual or physical health’.
The definition of these activities is given below in the document. The removal or forced displacement of the population shall be considered to be "the forced displacement of persons who are evicted or otherwise forced from the area in which they legally reside, in the absence of the grounds permitted by global law" . "Tortures" means "the deliberate infliction of strong pain or suffering, physical or mental, to a individual who is under the care of or under the control of the accused."
Persecution means "intended and serious deprivation of fundamental rights contrary to global law due to belonging to 1 or another group or community" .
The main nonsubjective of the “Wisła” operation was the forced displacement of Ukrainian population from the south-eastern border areas of Poland to another areas. Ukrainians lived on these lands long and legal. Neither the existing government nor global government in force in 1947 described specified forced displacement as legal and admissible.
Ukrainian deportation as part of the “Wisła” action, April 1947.
So the movement of the Ukrainian population during Operation Vistula:
(a) has been repressive (generally against the will of the population itself and utilizing military troops);
(b) related to the relocation of population groups that due to their national identity (ethnic Ukrainians or members of mixed Ukrainian-Polish families);
(c) it afraid the displacement of the Ukrainian population from the circuits in which it was legally resident during the action;
(d) has been carried out without the grounds permitted by global law.
The Vistula action can so be defined as ‘deportation or forced displacement of the population’. Which, according to the principles of the Rome Statute, is considered a crime against humanity.
In addition, during the course of the action, the so-called ‘selection’ deportees to cooperate with the Ukrainian underground. Suspects of specified cooperation, as well as persons who voluntarily returned to their displaced places, were sent to the concentration camp in Jaworzno.
There, state safety officials interrogated them and “at the hearings tortured prisoners. Torture consisted of beating, kicking, electroshocking, pouring cold water, pouring it into the mouth and nose, sticking pins in the body, sitting on the leg of a reversed chair.”
Therefore, these actions under the Vistula action can be described as "tortures".
During the “Wisła” action, forced displaced Ukrainians were banned from voluntary return to the area from which they were displaced. These actions were authorized straight by OG commander "Wisła", Gen. Stefan Mossor.
Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights guarantees that all individual is entitled to “free movement and choice of residence within each country”.
This regulation deprived Ukrainians of 1 of the fundamental human rights guaranteed by global law. Here. “ Persecution of an identifiable group against a national background in connection with the deportation and forced resettlement of this group ” .
Finally, although in July 1947 the peculiar order of the commander of the OG “Wisła” was formed by the control groups to guarantee careful safety of property remaining after the displacement of Ukrainians and to pass it on to the safety forces, we know that at least a twelve Polish soldiers burned down sat down In any cases, this happened in front of the displaced Ukrainians.
However, in order to get a clear answer, whether specified acts under the “Wisła” action can be described as “other inhuman acts of a akin nature, which consist in the deliberate task of large suffering or severe injury to wellness or severe injury to health”. intellectual or physical health", evidence is needed that all this has been done intentionally.
But generally, the “Wisla” action can be classified as a crime against humanity according to global law standards.
Ukrainian deportation as part of the “Wisła” action, April 1947.
Can the Vistula action be considered a war crime?
Article 8 of the Statute of Rome defines as war crimes serious infringements of the Geneva Convention of 12 August 1949, in peculiar the Convention on the Protection of civilian Civil Population during the War, in the form of an appropriate act against persons or their property (point ‘a’), another serious infringements of the rights and customs applicable to global armed conflicts (point ‘b’) or non-international armed conflicts within the limits laid down by global law (point (e) ), as well as serious infringements of Article 3 of the Geneva Convention (point (c). The question so arises as to whether Operation Wisla can be classified as a war crime?
According to Article 2 of the civilian Civil Protection Convention during the war, its standards “apply to all cases of declaration of war or another armed conflict that may arise between 2 or more advanced Contracting Parties, even if 1 of them does not admit the state of war. ”
Article 3 of that Convention lays down the work to comply with certain provisions “in the event of an armed conflict which is not of an global nature and takes place in the territory of 1 of the advanced Contracting Parties ”
There are presently respective definitions of the word "war" and "armistic conflict". The war is considered to be "armistic actions between states, as well as between states and national-library movements, accompanied by the complete break-up of all peaceful relations between them", "armistic conflict between 2 or more parties, which usually takes place for political purposes" as well as "any prolonged conflict between the armed forces of 2 or more governments (interstate war) or between a regular army and another (at least one) armed group (internal state war)".
The armed conflict is defined as a conflict occurring “in the territory of any advanced The Agreement between the Parties between its armed forces or another organised armed groups which, under appropriate command, control part of its territory which enables them to carry out continuous and agreed war activities, or "arms incident, military action, limited-scale armed clashes which may be the consequence of an effort to resolve national, ethnic, spiritual or another contradictions through armed combat. [. .] It may be global (with the participation of 2 or more countries) or non-international, interior (with the holding of an armed confrontation in the territory of 1 country".
Therefore, according to global law standards, the following signs of war crimes can be identified:
(a) the act was committed only during a war or armed conflict of an global or non-international nature and must be associated with it;
(b) the act constitutes a serious violation of global humanitarian law standards;
(c) the act is usually committed by the combatants;
(d) the act enters persons protected by global humanitarian law or their rights.
In April 1947 the events of planet War II in the areas where the Vistula action was carried out were already over. Similarly, there was no armed conflict between Poland and the USSR at that time, and even more so Ukraine.
These events cannot so be considered to be an global or interstate armed conflict or war. Consequently, Operation Vistula cannot be qualified as a war crime as defined in points ‘a’ or ‘b’ of Article 8 of the Rome Statute.
The events of the "Wisła" stock took place in the territory of only 1 state (Polish) within its internationally defined borders, established by a bilateral agreement with the USSR of 16 August 1945, which entered into force in 1946.
The population surviving in these areas after the completion of bilateral resettlements between Poland and the USSR (ZSRR) was considered citizens of the Republic of Poland. The decision to carry out the “Wisła” operation was taken by the highest state and organization authorities of Poland, and its execution was primarily ensured by the Armed Forces units, the safety authorities of the state, which, according to global law standards, were combatants.
At the same time in this area (so-called CNS and UPA units.
Although the CNS and UPA did not set themselves the goal of a nationwide uprising of the anti-communist Ukrainian population in this area, they defined the main task of protecting the Ukrainian population against forced displacement, in late 1945 - in the first half of 1946 UPA troops carried out periodic robberies on military garrisons, tiny settlements, resettlement commissions, destroyed communications and burned evicted Ukrainian villages.
UPA fighters detained by the Polish Army in Sanok County, 1947.
In winter and spring 1947, the activity of Ukrainian conspiracy structures for various reasons was negligible, but in the case of forced displacement of Ukrainians by the Polish authorities, UPA and OUN troops to ‘represent maximum active resistance. In the event of specified action being initiated, mass fires as well as "launched" bridges and all kinds of communication should be launched.
The structures of the CNS and UPA in Zakozonny had their own command, insignia, their members carried arms, controlled the respective territories and were capable of conducting war activities. Thus, according to the standards of global law referred to above, their members were besides combatants.
Thus, on the basis of the facts of April 1947, the existence of an interior armed conflict between power and organized structures of the Ukrainian underground in Poland can be referred to.
Therefore, in accordance with Article 8(f) of the Rome Statute and Article 1 of Protocol II to the Geneva Convention, the requirements of Article 8(e) of the Rome Statute may apply to a peculiar conflict.
As mentioned above, during the “Wisła” operation, Poland’s top management has set itself the main nonsubjective "the final solution to the Ukrainian problem". At the same time, the secondary nonsubjective of the action was to destruct the remains of the Ukrainian underground.
However, in propaganda, and even in any authoritative documents, the Polish communist authorities called the main intent of the action an alleged necessity to clear Zakerzonny territory from the structures of the Ukrainian insurgent army, while forced displacement of Ukrainian population from these areas was presented only as a ‘secondary’ and ‘reasonable’ nonsubjective as if the request to ‘protect’ the population from UPA troops.
Point VIII ‘e’ of Article 8 of the Statute of Rome refers to war crimes in the context of an interior armed conflict ‘to order the resettlement of civilians for conflict-related reasons, unless the safety of the civilian population afraid or an urgent military request so requires’.
There are neither papers nor circumstances that would confirm as of April 1947 the necessity of forced resettlement of Ukrainians from Zakerzona that due to their safety.
Similarly, given the limitation of the active activities of the CNS and UPA structures in the Zakozonna winter and spring 1947, resettlement could not have been caused by an urgent military need.
Therefore, the decision to resettle the Ukrainian population within the framework of the operation The Vistula was connected with the ongoing armed conflict between the Polish government and Ukrainian underground structures.
UPA fighters detained by the Polish Army in Sanok District, 1947
Consequently, Operation Vistula, carried out in the framework of specified an global armed conflict, can be classified as a war crime.
Is it right to consider the action on the Vistula cultural cleansing?
Some researchers describe the Vistula action as cultural cleansing. However, it should be taken into account that the concept itself is comparatively fresh in global relations. In existing global legislation, specified as the Rome Statute, it is not used, and so cultural cleansing as specified is not counted among the most serious crimes.
For the first time, the word "ethnic purity" was utilized in the UN safety Council Resolution, which referred to the events of the war in the erstwhile Yugoslavia.
This resolution and the study drawn up for its implementation by the Committee of Experts specify cultural cleansing as "the usage of force or threats to drive persons belonging to circumstantial groups from any area to transform it into an ethnically uniform area", in accordance with Article, as well as a "target policy developed by 1 cultural or spiritual group to remove the methods of coercion and panic of civilians of another cultural or spiritual group from certain geographical areas".
Forms in which cultural cleansing can be carried out are crimes against humanity and may be linked to circumstantial war crimes and fall within the scope of the Convention on the Prevention of Genocide.
Simply put, cultural cleansing is an act that contains or may contain certain elements of a crime against humanity, war crimes or genocide crimes, or combines elements of all or any of these crimes.
The intent of cultural cleansing is always to force the population of a peculiar cultural or spiritual group out of a circumstantial area in order to transform it into a unified cultural area.
The main intent of the “Wisła” action was to force the displacement of the Ukrainian population from clearly defined territories on the south-eastern border of Poland, with the ban on voluntary return to these areas. As a consequence of the action, over 140 1000 Ukrainians were deported, and about 14 1000 Poles were resettled in their place. This actually made the territory of Zakozonni ethnically uniform.
Therefore, the Vistula action can be considered as cultural cleansing.
ps.
The text comes from the Ukrainian website ]]>www.istpravda]]> And for any errors in translation, I sincerely apologize.
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