Kuleba on Campus
At the Campus Poland event, Dmytro Kuleba, the head of the Ministry of abroad Affairs of Ukraine, was besides among the invited people. Participants of the event decided to address hard historical issues between Poland and Ukraine. 1 of the participants asked the diplomat erstwhile Poland would be able to exhume victims of the Volynsk crime, while stressing the crucial support that Poland has given Ukraine in the war with Russia for more than 2 years.
The Ukrainian politician moved the debate on the 1947 “Wisła” action organised by the PRL authorities. This action consisted of the displacement of Ukrainian population from south-eastern Poland to western areas of the country. The intent of this operation was to cut off UPA troops from support, and deportation affected peculiarly the Lemko population. This event was condemned by Polish institutions, including presidents Alexander Kwasniewski and Lech Kaczyński.
Kułęba pointed out that if relations between Poland and Ukraine were dominated by emotions, it could favour Russia, which uses historical provocations. He urged that historical issues be left to historians and focus on building a common future.
He besides added that Ukraine has no problem with continuing the exhumation, but asks the Polish government to ask for commemoration of Ukrainian victims as well, so that actions are bilateral.
Persona non grata
The reactions of public opinion, politicians and another media figures did not take long. Janusz Kowalski commented that Kuleba should be considered a individual non grata in Poland and immediately called to leave the country.
It is about time that the issue of the exhumation of Poles murdered in Volyn by Ukrainians was put on the blade of the knife by Poland – wrote Kowalski on platform X. – The Polish Nation has its honour and there is no agreement to specified treatment of victims of genocide made by Ukrainians on Poles in Volyn and on historical revisionism.
Michał Wójcik, associate of the Sovereign Poland, besides spoke on:
No, Minister Kuleba! It's not about digging through history, it's about giving due respect to our countrymen who have been brutally murdered. The future cannot be built without remembering the past. We know what to do and we're not expected to be taught.
Prohibition of exhumation
In April 2017, in consequence to the demolition of an illegal crime monument of the UPA organization in Hruszowice close Przemyśl, the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory announced the suspension of permits for search and exhumation work for Polish IPN in Ukraine.
This blockade afraid not only the search and exhumation of victims of Ukrainian nationalists, but besides all victims of war, including Polish soldiers who died in both planet wars.
In 2023 a collective grave was discovered in Puźniki, Volyn, but since then Polish researchers have no access to Ukraine for further research. This substance has not been settled in any way to this day, which only exacerbates tensions between the 2 nations.
Actually, since Ukraine gained independency in 1991, Poland has never received approval to carry out large scale exhumations. Since that year, only a fewer 100 victims of genocide from villages specified as Wola Ostrowiecka, Ostrówek, Pawlice and Radowicze have been found and examined.
