The funeral of victims of the Volhynia massacre exhumed in Puźniki, western Ukraine, will take place on Saturday. During this year’s work, the remains of at least 42 people – women, men, and children – were found. Those responsible for the crimes were never punished.
Puźniki was a former village in today’s Ternopil region, where on the night of February 12-13, 1945, Ukrainian nationalists murdered – according to various sources – between 50 and 120 Poles. The main perpetrator of this crime was Petro Chamczuk, who commanded a The Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) unit Siry Wowky (Grey Wolves). At 3 a.m. on February 13, Chamczuk’s battalion-sized formation made up of two companies attacked the inhabitants of Puźniki. Only a dozen or so people capable of defending themselves were present.
The massacre in Puźniki was one of the last operations of the Grey Wolves. Neither Chamczuk nor his subordinates were ever punished.
Maciej Dancewicz, Vice President of the Freedom and Democracy Foundation (WiD), pointed out that the Volhynia massacre is usually associated with the summer of 1943. “In reality, however, this operation extended into the first months of 1945 in Volhynia as well as in the former southeastern voivodeships,“he explained. “Puźniki no longer exists, it is gone from the map, erased from memory. A forest has grown where the village once stood. What we want to do is restore the memory of the people who lived there,” he emphasized.
Exhumations in Puźniki took place from April 23 to May 10. The remains of at least 42 people – women, men, and children – were found. These were the first works of this kind since November 2024, when the Ukrainian side lifted the ban on searches and exhumations of Polish victims of wars and conflicts on its territory.
Saturday’s funeral ceremonies will be attended, among others, by Minister of Culture and National Heritage Marta Cienkowska. As she emphasized during Wednesday’s press conference, this is a very important and groundbreaking event. “With great pride, I will represent the Polish government,” she said. She added that the first exhumations in Ukraine were completed “thanks to our determination and very good relations with the Ukrainian side.”
“Genetic testing and the preparation of the report are now underway,” Cienkowska said. The ceremonies will also be attended by Deputy President of the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), Dr. habil. Karol Polejowski.
The exhumations in Puźniki continued the work carried out by the Freedom and Democracy Foundation from May to August 2023, when a grave containing the remains of victims of the February 1945 massacre was discovered. In January 2025, the Ukrainian authorities granted permission for their exhumation.
“The grave was very shallow“
Prof. Andrzej Ossowski, a geneticist from the Pomeranian Medical University, said that the grave was very shallow. “This cannot be called a grave. It is more of a place where the bodies were hidden,” he said.
“We assigned 42 numbers to the skeletons that were exhumed and 172 numbers to objects found with the remains. Based on anthropological analysis, we determined that among the exhumed remains were those of at least 11 minors under the age of 18, at least 16 women, and 10 men,” Prof. Ossowski said.
On August 30, exhumations were also completed in Lviv-Zboiska, where in September 1939, in defense of Lviv, soldiers of the Polish Army were killed. During the work, two mass graves were found containing the remains of 31 people, as well as many loose remains probably belonging to several dozen more victims. “The final number of victims whose remains have been exhumed will be determined through further anthropological and genetic studies,” the IPN wrote in a statement.