On the night of February 12–13, 1945, at least 50 people were killed in Puźniki, with some sources estimating the number to be around 130. The main perpetrator of the massacre was Petro Chamczuk, who is considered a hero by some Ukrainians. In 2014, a monument was erected in his honor in Chortkiv, located in the present-day Ternopil Oblast, not far from where Puźniki once stood. While some villagers survived the massacre, most either fled or were forcibly relocated beyond the Bug River. The village itself was completely abandoned.
At the time of the massacre in Puźniki, Petro Chamczuk was 25 years old. He was born on July 26, 1919, in the village of Velyki Chornokintsi in what was then Chortkiv County, located on the fringes of Eastern Galicia. Until 1918, this area belonged to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, unlike neighboring Volhynia to the north, which had been part of the Russian Empire since the second and third partitions of Poland. Between November 1918 and mid-1919, the region was briefly governed by the West Ukrainian People’s Republic. After July 15, 1919, when troops led by General Lucjan Żeligowski entered the area, it became part of Poland, within the Ternopil Voivodeship.
Like the rest of Poland’s eastern borderlands, the Chortkiv region was annexed by the Soviet Union in the autumn of 1939. Chamczuk initially continued his education (no longer in a Polish school), and was soon conscripted into the Red Army.
Ukrainian sources describing Chamczuk’s life make no mention of Poland or Poles, and his wartime activities are presented without reference to the crimes he committed. These sources state that due to his physical fitness and education, Chamczuk was sent to officer school, where he was awarded a medal for “outstanding marksmanship.” They also claim that in 1941, “at the beginning of World War II” (in fact, referring to the outbreak of the German-Soviet war, since WWII had started two years earlier), Chamczuk was sent to the front and captured by the Germans. Until 1943, he served in the Schutzmannschaft—described euphemistically as a “military security unit”—which was deployed to Belarus to fight Soviet partisans.
Polish historians such as Prof. Grzegorz Motyka in The Ukrainian Insurgency 1942–1960 and Mieczysław Samborski in the IPN journal Independence and Memory emphasize that Schutzmannschaft units, composed mainly of residents of German-occupied Soviet territories, were not primarily used to fight partisans, but to carry out actions against civilians—including mass executions of Jews. According to Polish scholars, this was the role of the 201st Battalion, in which Chamczuk served. Reports indicate that during nine months of operations, the battalion lost only 49 men while allegedly killing 2,000–2,500 partisans—suggesting large-scale attacks on unarmed civilians. Two Ukrainian historians, Adolf Kondracki and Oleksii Martynov, have also written about atrocities committed by this unit, including the burning alive of 2,875 residents of Kortelisy.
After the 201st Battalion was disbanded by the Germans in 1943, Chamczuk and some of his comrades joined the Ukrainian insurgency. According to Damian Karol Markowski in OUN-UPA’s Anti-Polish Campaign in Eastern Galicia 1943–1945, Chamczuk proved to be “an exceptionally capable organizer and effective guerrilla leader,” becoming commander of a unit known as the “Gray Wolves” (Siry Wowky). This unit took part in the massacre of Puźniki’s residents in March 1945.
Crimes of the Gray Wolves
Markowski documents other atrocities committed by Chamczuk’s unit, which were described in UPA reports as the “elimination of Polish underground leaders” or actions against “Soviet occupiers” and “Bolshevik collaborators.” These operations were carried out in the Ternopil region, retaken by the Soviets in the summer of 1944. For example, on the night of August 9–10, Chamczuk’s men killed 13 people in the village of Taurow (including both Poles and Ukrainians), and on the night of August 15–16, they murdered 18 Poles in Panowice.
As the Eastern Front moved westward, Chamczuk’s operations intensified. The Soviet Red Army deployed poorly trained and under-equipped civilian defense units (Istrebitelniye Bataliony or “Destruction Battalions”) to secure the rear, while the UPA, including the Gray Wolves, were often former German collaborators with access to abandoned German weaponry—machine guns, grenade launchers, and even light artillery.
A Third of the Victims Were Children
Just before Christmas 1944 and during the holiday itself, Chamczuk’s unit attacked several villages near his home: Toustobaby, Zawadówka, and Korżowa. In Toustobaby, 73 people were killed—only three in direct combat. One third of the victims were children under the age of 12. Markowski emphasizes that the UPA suffered only two casualties during these operations and that, contrary to Ukrainian claims of military engagement, these actions were cold-blooded massacres.
On the night of February 2, the Gray Wolves attacked Chervonohorod, killing at least 55 people. They stormed a convent and murdered two nuns. The toll could have been higher, but some residents mounted a defense from the ruins of a medieval castle.
Four days later, they attacked the nearby village of Barysz. As with other “Gray Wolves” raids, the pretext was alleged Polish attacks on Ukrainian civilians. During this assault, around 120–130 Poles—mostly women and children—were killed, as the local self-defense unit had been relocated elsewhere. A report from a NIE (Polish underground) officer described the massacre as being carried out with “considerable brutality.”
At 3 a.m. on February 13, Chamczuk’s battalion—consisting of two sotnias (companies)—attacked Puźniki. Only a handful of people in the village were able to defend themselves. They barricaded themselves in the rectory and managed to return fire effectively.
The massacre in Puźniki was one of the final operations carried out by the Gray Wolves. By the spring of 1945, UPA activity in former Eastern Galicia had significantly declined. The fate of Chamczuk remains uncertain. Some sources claim he died in early 1947, others say a year later. He and his men were never held accountable for the atrocities committed in Puźniki or elsewhere.