July is the period in which the anniversary of the mass crimes of civilians committed during planet War II falls. In July 1941 Polish Jews died in the towns of Podlasie in pogroms. In July 1943, the inhabitants of the village in Volyn were massacred. These were tragic events, and the horror of these crimes seems unimaginable today.
On the occasion of these anniversaries, there is traditionally a large stir in how to decently commemorate the victims. The discussion of what should be written on the graves of the victims returns. There will be people who will say that where the remains of Jews are, there can be no sign that Poles did it. The same persons will surely request that the graves killed in Volyn be clearly written that the Ukrainians were the perpetrators.
In this war on inscriptions, the case of a monument in Radziłów is interesting. The inscription says: "In August 1941, fascists murdered 800 judaic people, of these 500 people burned alive in the barn". Apart from the incorrect date (July and not August) are there people who would like to see “Germany” there? Let us agree that the word fascist is correct, only refers to Poles. I like inscriptions on specified monuments, which honor the murdered, and who was their executioner, anyone can read in proven historical sources.
The pogroms of Jews in Podlasie in 1941 and pogroms of the Polish population in Volyn in 1943 are hard to compare and let the historians deal with it. It is crucial to me that in both cases citizens of the II Republic murdered another citizens of the II Republic. What was incorrect in pre-war Poland, that in the lawlessness of war, people managed to persuade to execution neighbours.
Each pogrom was accompanied by a robbery of property of murdered people. In the accounts of witnesses who survived, the robbery is frequently mentioned as the main motivation of perpetrators. The victims were buried in mass graves. The graves of the murdered Jews are marked, the graves of the killed in Volyn are frequently not. The memory of the victims requires commemoration. All mass graves in Volyn should have a cross and inscription erstwhile the people buried there were killed. For this purpose, it is worth searching for all the Volynian graves of the civilian population during the war. I don't know why the exhumation of the corpses that many people demand. Those who died in 1943 are already buried, the ceremonial ceremony of 80 years after their death will not change anything.
Unfortunately, mass and nameless graves are a constant component of our hard Polish history. There are many families in Poland whose loved ones died during planet War II, not only in Volyn and are buried in nameless graves. Let us learn to accept this, and we can keep the memory of these people in a different way.
Memorizing the victims of pogroms is very crucial to the people who live there today. They are frequently branded as alleged descendants of wartime perpetrators. This gives emergence to the reflex of denial and the desire to silence hard local history. That's a very unfair assessment. We do not know how our ancestors behaved during the occupation, so why the temptation to justice strangers on the basis of what happened 80 years ago and to delegate them any responsibilities?
After the execution of the victims, their possessions were plundered by perpetrators and persons passively looking at the crimes. These hundreds of thousands of items taken from their homes were partially destroyed, but any of them remained in the homes of the people who live there today. Both Podlasie and Volyn can be conducted a bottom-up initiative of collecting everyday items that stay after the victims of pogroms. It is not easy to carry out – the owner of the palace in east Mazowsze, who was looted during the war by the local population, asked a fewer years ago to return what people took from the palace during the occupation. She received respective plates and single spoons. I think that the fewer people who decided to return what their ancestors had taken from the palace got free of the burden of a hard household history. For today’s inhabitants of Podlasie and Volhynia, a gathering in 1 place of objects that remained in their homes after the people who died would be worthy of their remembrance. In the case of Volyn, this does not require intergovernmental arrangements and a local initiative.
At home, I have items that individual utilized 80 years ago. In the Krakow antique store I erstwhile bought glasses and metallic judaic pocket glasses. At the antique marketplace in Tykocin on Podlasie I bought salt pots and another tableware elements. I don't know who utilized them in 1939. I don't know if these people survived the war. All these objects are crumbs of memory for me about people who erstwhile lived in Poland.
On Friday [7.07.2003 – ed.] we could see pictures of Mateusz Morawiecki with a makeshift wooden cross set in 1 of the Volyn villages. I read the comments that this is unworthy of commemorating the victims. I must say that this aesthetic of a simple cross for me is appropriate and it gives me more reflection than a engraved monument. In all the places where people died in Volyn, you can place specified crosses today. It is very simple in the form of commemoration of victims, but it is more crucial than form that the commemoration speaks to today's people.
