“To those who speak about today’s geopolitics and the reality of war, who invoke reasons of state, I want to remind them that the death of 14-year-old Jadwiga Romanik – in terms of the pain she endured, what her parents experienced, and what she felt in her heart as she was murdered by Ukrainian nationalists – is the same kind of death that 14-year-old Ukrainians are suffering today at the hands of criminals from the Russian Federation. How are these deaths different? Is yesterday’s death somehow less severe than tomorrow’s? The tears and suffering of families, the pain, the humiliation? We must speak clearly: memory, history, and the truth about the Volhynia genocide shape the future. We are here for the past, but also for the future that stands before us – for our children,” President Karol Nawrocki said in the village of Radruż in the Subcarpathian Voivodeship.
On the anniversary of Bloody Sunday, President Karol Nawrocki took part in commemorative ceremonies in Radruż. The observances were held on the National Day of Remembrance for Poles – Victims of the Genocide Committed by the OUN and UPA. Just before he began speaking, those gathered greeted the president with chants of “Long live!”
“Thank you all for keeping this memory alive and for allowing it to shape our future. Thank you because today memory and truth prevail. Ignorance about the missing undermines the reality of the world. These are the words of the poet Zbigniew Herbert. That is precisely why we are here – so that the reality of the modern world may be heard. We do not agree to forget the 120,000 Polish civilians – women and children – who were brutally murdered by Ukrainian nationalists. This knowledge, this truth, and this memory exist so that we can think about our future. They exist so that we may draw lessons from the Volhynia genocide for the future. We are here to ensure that ignorance about the missing does not undermine the reality of the world in the 21st century,” the president told the crowd.
“On this symbolic day, we remember all the victims of the Ukrainian nationalists who were killed in Volhynia, southern Polesia, Eastern Lesser Poland, and here in the beautiful Lubaczów region,” he said.
“We remember all those who, on July 11, 1943, went to church to pray to God in their hometowns, asking for love, a better future, and blessings for their loved ones. Instead, on July 11, they met a brutal death. Ordinary household tools became instruments of murder,” he recalled.
“This is the symbolic date – ‘Bloody Sunday’ – although we are fully aware that when we speak of the Volhynia genocide, we also recall all the other crimes, including those committed in February 1943 in Parośla and those that affected the Lubaczów region and Radruż,” he said.
“How did it happen that neighbors could murder their neighbors? How did the Volhynia genocide come about? How was this possible?” he asked.
“Before the outbreak of World War II, more than five million Ukrainians lived in the Second Polish Republic as citizens of Poland. In Radruż alone, the overwhelming majority of its three thousand pre-war residents were Ukrainians. Those 5.2 million people lived together. Here in Radruż they lived side by side. They knew how to coexist. Was the Second Polish Republic a paradise for Ukrainians? No, it was not. There were many tensions, as is normal in relations involving national minorities. But no one held an axe to a child’s head. No one drove pitchforks into another person’s back. There were problems that are common to every minority. They existed then, they exist today, and they will exist in the future. Yet people still lived alongside one another and together,” he continued.
“One only has to look at 1939, when Poles defended themselves against the Soviet plague of the Soviet Union, which marched hand in hand with the German National Socialists. Among the one million soldiers of the Polish Army defending the country against Germany and the Soviet Union were more than 100,000 soldiers of Ukrainian origin – what we would today simply call Ukrainians. They wanted to defend the Second Polish Republic because they regarded it as their homeland. They were ready to fight the Soviets and the Germans in the uniform of the Polish Army. Just as they were prepared to live here in the Lubaczów region alongside Poles, seeking understanding and good neighborly relations. What happened that these same people became ordinary bandits, murderers, and barbarians? The breeding ground was the Banderite ideology of the OUN-UPA, established in 1929 through the Decalogue of the Ukrainian Nationalist. As early as 1929, this anti-Decalogue declared that crime should be a method of action, that ethnic cleansing should be carried out, and that on lands claimed by Ukrainian nationalists as Ukrainian, the field of grain should be free of chaff and weeds. Those ‘weeds’ were Poles, Hungarians, and Jews. This ideology had been growing since 1929, and it later found a teacher in Nazi Germany,” he said.
“This led to the horrific Volhynia genocide and became symbolized by the red-and-black flag. Its symbolism and aesthetics also referred to what the Germans described as ‘blood and soil.’ Red and black. I will do everything in my power to ensure that this flag has no place in Poland. I believe that the Polish Parliament will pass the appropriate legislation,” the president said.
Addressing local residents, Nawrocki concluded:
“To those who speak about today’s geopolitics and the reality of war, who invoke reasons of state, I want to remind them that the death of 14-year-old Jadwiga Romanik – in terms of the pain she endured, what her parents experienced, and what she felt in her heart as she was murdered by Ukrainian nationalists – is the same kind of death that 14-year-old Ukrainians are suffering today at the hands of criminals from the Russian Federation. How are these deaths different? Is yesterday’s death somehow less severe than tomorrow’s? The tears and suffering of families, the pain, the humiliation? We must speak clearly: memory, history, and the truth about the Volhynia genocide shape the future. We are here for the past, but also for the future that stands before us – for our children.”