Crimes in World War II
Selenskyj and Duda commemorate Polish massacre victims
07/09/2023 12:28 p.m
Between 1943 and 1945, tens of thousands of Polish civilians were murdered by Ukrainian nationalists. The massacres continue to strain relations between the two countries to this day. Now their presidents commemorate the victims together – and emphasize the cohesion.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Poland’s head of state Andrzej Duda met in the Ukrainian city of Lutsk at an unannounced meeting of the Volhynia massacre thought 80 years ago. “Together we honor the innocent victims of Volhynia! Remembrance unites us! Together we are stronger,” Zelenskyy wrote on Twitter.
He also published photos of the joint commemoration with Duda and church officials in Lutsk, north-western Ukraine. In the massacres in Volhynia and East Galicia between 1943 and 1945 during World War II, Ukrainian nationalists from the UPA insurgent army murdered up to 100,000 Poles.
On the 80th anniversary of the Volhynia massacre in western Ukraine, church representatives from Poland and Ukraine recently called for further clarification of the crimes and called for reconciliation. With a view to the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine and the documented massacre of civilians in the Kiev suburb of Bucha, they pointed out the importance of coming to terms with the past.
Morawiecki demands clarification of the massacre
At the time, Ukrainian nationalists hoped to bolster Ukraine’s claim to the area by rebelling against the German occupiers and eliminating the Polish civilian population. Violence in what is now western Ukraine peaked in July 1943. Many victims were burned alive in the churches of their villages. It is estimated that up to 20,000 Ukrainians were killed in acts of retribution.
In Poland and Ukraine, the victims of the massacre are being remembered these days. On Friday, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki traveled to the former village of Ostrowki in western Ukraine, where Polish residents had been killed in the summer of 1943. Morawiecki said that unless the crimes were completely solved, Russia would use this card to play Ukrainians and Poles off against each other. Russia repeatedly claims without any basis that Poland wants to take back areas in western Ukraine in the course of the war that has been going on for more than 500 days.
The EU and NATO country of Poland has taken in almost 1.6 million refugees from neighboring Ukraine. Moreover, since the beginning of the Russian war of aggression, Poland has proved to be one of Ukraine’s staunchest supporters in the west.