As a result of the Volhynia Massacre carried out by the OUN-UPA, 1,500 out of more than 2,500 Polish localities in Volhynia were completely destroyed. Between 1943 and 1946, as many as 100,000 Poles were murdered in Volhynia, Eastern Lesser Poland (Eastern Galicia), and the Lublin region, across nearly 4,000 localities.
In Volhynia alone, approximately 60,000 Poles were killed. As historian Dr. Leon Popek notes in his article “Memory of Volhynia and Eastern Lesser Poland”, published in the Institute of National Remembrance Bulletin (No. 4/2017), fewer than 3,000 of them received a religious burial. The victims of the Volhynia Massacre often remain in anonymous, unmarked, and forgotten graves.
The researcher also pointed out that “some memorials were erected by the Soviet authorities, who marked them in a perversely misleading way: ‘To Soviet citizens of Polish nationality who perished at the hands of Ukrainian bourgeois nationalists.’”
“After 1989, Poles (the Council for the Protection of Struggle and Martyrdom Sites, various associations, survivors and their families) managed to erect only several dozen crosses, monuments and memorial markers in Poryck, Janowa Dolina, Borszczówka, Lidawka and Ludwikówka,” the article states.
Below are selected places of remembrance.
Volhynia (Volhynian Voivodeship)
Parośla
The first mass murder of the Polish population in Volhynia was committed on February 9, 1943, in the village of Parośla I, Sarny County. A UPA company commanded by Hryhoriy Perehijniak (“Dowbeshka-Korobka”) massacred the inhabitants, killing more than 150 people.
The victims were buried in a mass grave. In 1974, a local Ukrainian, Anton Dorofiyevych Kovalchuk, erected a commemorative cross on the burial mound, stating that the crime had been committed by his fellow countrymen. After Ukraine regained independence, a plaque listing the names of the murdered families was placed beside the cross. It bears the inscription: “Behind them hardship, behind them suffering… Sacred Memory to Those Who Have Gone Forever.”
Huta Stepańska
On the night of February 10-11, the first attack by OUN militants against the Polish population took place, during which four Poles were killed. The villagers organized a self-defense unit led by local school principal Władysław Kurkowski. After fierce fighting on July 17-19, Ukrainian forces captured the settlement and destroyed 37 nearby localities, murdering their inhabitants.
The victims of Huta Stepańska are commemorated in the local cemetery, where a cross-monument bearing the inscription “Jesus, Save Us” stands at its center.
Borszczówka
Between March 3 and 19, the Ukrainian police, acting independently and together with the German gendarmerie, pacified Polish villages. They killed several hundred Poles, including more than 200 people in Borszczówka, and burned down farms.
The Polish cemetery in Borszczówka was inaugurated in 2003. The ceremony was attended by Jolanta Kwaśniewska, wife of the then-President of Poland, whose father survived the attack by SS troops and Ukrainian policemen.
Lipniki
On the night of March 26-27, a UPA company under Ivan Łytwynchuk (“Dubovy”) attacked the village, killing 184 Poles.
In 1975, Soviet authorities exhumed the victims’ remains and reburied them in the Orthodox cemetery in Białka. A gravestone monument also commemorates the victims.
Małe Hołoby
On April 5, Father Józef Szostak and Brother Piotr Mojsijonek were murdered by Ukrainian police serving under German command. Father Szostak was killed on the road between Pniewno and Skomorochy while returning from Lubieszów, where he had assisted in hearing confessions. Later that year, the UPA burned down the church. Their grave is located on the site of the former church.
Janowa Dolina
One of the largest massacres committed by Ukrainian nationalists took place on Holy Thursday, the night of April 22-23, 1943. The UPA burned Janowa Dolina to the ground and murdered approximately 600 Poles.
Today’s village of Bazaltove occupies only slightly more than half the area of Janowa Dolina. The former street layout and foundations of several houses are still visible beneath overgrown vegetation. The remains of the Roman Catholic cemetery can also be found behind the village. In 1998, families of the victims erected a cross and monument on the mass grave. The Ukrainian contractor removed the date “23 April 1943” from the monument without authorization. Only the inscription “In Memory of the Poles of Janowa Dolina” remains. The monument was never consecrated because nationalists from the Rukh organization prevented both visiting Poles and local Ukrainians from attending the ceremony. A Holy Mass and a panakhyda (memorial service) were eventually celebrated there in 2011.
Ugły
On May 12, a UPA company commanded by Nikon Semeniuk (“Jarema”) murdered more than 100 Poles. The name of the village is listed on the monument to the Volhynia Massacre in Warsaw.
Niemilia
During an attack at dawn on May 26 or 27 (according to other accounts, during the night of May 24-25), between 126 and 128 Poles were killed, including six unidentified individuals who had likely sought refuge in Niemilia from the nearby Ukrainian village of Komarnia (or Jackowicze). In 1964, Soviet authorities erected an obelisk over the mass grave. The monument no longer exists.
Przebraże
On July 4-5, UPA units attacked 24 Polish localities around Przebraże, killing approximately 550 Poles. After the fall of communism, Polish organizations initiated efforts to rebuild the Polish cemetery. Reconstruction was completed in November 2001. The cemetery stands on the edge of a forest.
Kisielin
On July 11, approximately 90 Poles from Kisielin and nearby villages were murdered inside the church. A monument erected by the local Ukrainian authorities stands over the victims’ mass grave. Crosses were added to the monument in 1993.
Poryck (now Pavlivka)
Between July 11 and 12, 200-220 Poles were murdered, some inside the church. On July 11, 2003, Presidents Aleksander Kwaśniewski and Leonid Kuchma unveiled a Polish-Ukrainian reconciliation monument in Pavlivka bearing the inscription “Memory. Mourning. Unity.” It was the first monument to victims of Ukrainian nationalists approved by the Ukrainian authorities.
Kołodno
On July 14, UPA units murdered five or six families and several individual villagers in Kołodno-Lisowszczyzna or Kołodno-Siedlisko. In 1996, the victims’ families located one of the mass graves in the nearby forest and erected a wooden cross. They also built a symbolic grave monument in the Kołodno cemetery.
Ostrówki and Wola Ostrowiecka
The largest massacres were carried out in Wola Ostrowiecka, where 628 Poles were murdered on August 30, as well as in the Gaj colony (600 victims), Ostrówki (521 victims), and Kołodno (516 victims).
Today, the sites of Ostrówki and Wola Ostrowiecka consist mainly of former collective farm fields, pastures, forests, and meadows. Some mass graves still bear traces of cattle grazing. The only remnants are the devastated and overgrown parish cemetery in Ostrówki, along with scattered individual and mass graves.
During exhumations conducted under the supervision of Dr. Leon Popek in 1992, 2011, and 2015, the remains of nearly 670 victims were recovered from execution pits located in the former villages. All recovered victims were reburied in the parish cemetery in Ostrówki. This cemetery, together with the partially destroyed statue of the Virgin Mary—which once stood before the village church—remains the only visible trace of the former settlement, once a parish more than 200 years old. Exhumation work has not been completed. More than 400 victims still await dignified burial and commemoration.
A cross at the so-called “Field of Corpses” also commemorates approximately 300 Poles murdered on August 30, where the bodies of women and children lay unburied for several days. Additional memorials include the mission cross in front of the former church, the cross at the grave known as “Strażyc’s Barn,” from which the remains of 243 residents of Wola Ostrowiecka were exhumed in 1992, as well as memorial sites at the Jan Trusiuk farm and the Suszek homestead.
Gaj
Approximately 600 Poles were murdered on August 30. On October 20, 2013, the victims exhumed from Gaj were buried at the parish cemetery.
Eastern Galicia (Lviv, Stanisławów and Tarnopol Voivodeships)
Mosty Wielkie
On the night of January 27-28, 1944, Ukrainians killed 17 Poles in Mosty Wielkie. Altogether, 73 residents of the town were murdered by Ukrainian nationalists between 1943 and 1944. A monument to the victims was unveiled at the local cemetery in 1996.
Berezowica Mała
On the night of February 22-23, Ukrainian nationalists murdered between 130 and 135 residents of Berezowica Mała. In 2007, a cross and two plaques listing the victims’ names were unveiled. The inscription reads:
“In memory of approximately 130 Polish residents of Berezowica Mała murdered during the night of February 22-23, 1944. May they rest in peace. Government of the Republic of Poland, Families, 2007.”
Huta Pieniacka
According to the findings of researchers from the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), the massacre in the now-vanished Polish village of Huta Pieniacka took place on February 28. On that day, Ukrainian soldiers of the 4th Galician SS Volunteer Regiment (formed from volunteers for the SS “Galizien” Division), under German command and supported by UPA units and members of a Ukrainian nationalist paramilitary formation, carried out a brutal pacification of the Polish population—men, women and children.
According to the IPN’s investigative division, approximately 850 people were killed. The village had also become a refuge for Poles fleeing murders committed elsewhere by Ukrainian nationalists and local supporters. The monument at Huta Pieniacka commemorates around 1,000 Poles murdered by the UPA and Ukrainian SS police units.
Podkamień
On March 12, UPA units and the SS “Galizien” Division murdered approximately 800 Poles in the Dominican monastery in Podkamień and surrounding villages. A memorial monument was solemnly unveiled and consecrated in 2012.
The monument consists of six plaques bearing victims’ names (Ukrainian authorities did not allow all names to be included) and a granite cross displaying the Polish coat of arms with the inscription:
“In memory of the residents of Podkamień and surrounding villages who perished in March 1944. May they rest in peace.”
Palikrowy
On March 12, the 4th SS Police Regiment, formed from Ukrainian volunteers to the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (“Galizien”), together with local UPA and SKW militias, murdered between 365 and 367 Poles. A monument marking the number of victims stands on the site of the mass grave.
Chodaczków Wielki
On May 15-16, units of the SS “Galizien” Division murdered several hundred Poles in Chodaczków Wielki. Historical sources estimate the death toll at between 250 and 854 victims. They were buried in a mass grave.
After the war, surviving Poles from Chodaczków Wielki were resettled to Poland’s western territories. Some settled in Łąka Prudnicka and Gajków, where they created a symbolic grave topped with a cross in the Roman Catholic cemetery. An urn containing soil taken from the original burial site in Chodaczków rests at its base.
Bryńce Zagórne
On May 22, a UPA unit supported by local Ukrainian peasants murdered between 100 and 145 Poles. Bryńce Zagórne is listed on the monument to the Volhynia Massacre in Warsaw.
Puźniki
The massacre in Puźniki was carried out during the night of February 12-13, 1945, by a UPA company commanded by Petro Hamchuk (“Bystry”). According to historical accounts, 70 of the 82 victims were women and children. They were buried in a mass grave at the local cemetery.
On the 80th anniversary of the Volhynia Massacre, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki visited the cemetery in the now-nonexistent village of Puźniki, where efforts to locate the mass grave were underway.
Worochta
On New Year’s Eve, during the night of December 31, 1944, to January 1, 1945, a UPA unit commanded by Havryło Dederchuk killed 72 Poles. A gravestone commemorating the victims stands on the mass grave at the cemetery beside the Greek Catholic church.
Eighty years ago, on July 11 and 12, 1943, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army carried out a coordinated attack on approximately 150 Polish-inhabited localities in the counties of Włodzimierz, Horochów, Kowel and Łuck in the former Volhynian Voivodeship. The attackers deliberately exploited the fact that people gathered in churches on Sunday, July 11.
The events of “Bloody Sunday” are regarded as the culmination of the genocide committed by Ukrainian nationalists against the Polish population of Volhynia and Eastern Galicia between 1943 and 1945. Approximately 100,000 Poles lost their lives in these genocidal operations.
The perpetrators of the genocide were members of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists – Bandera faction (OUN-B), its subordinate Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), and local Ukrainian civilians encouraged by them—often neighbors of the Polish victims, and in many cases even related to them by blood. Direct responsibility for issuing the criminal orders rests with UPA Commander-in-Chief Roman Shukhevych. The OUN-UPA referred to its operations as an “anti-Polish action,” aimed at turning Ukraine into a territory inhabited exclusively by Ukrainians.