OTHER past OF THE VOLYNIAN CRITERIA
IN THE LIGHT OF THE “RELEVANT WRITERS”
Witold Szabłowski – Author of the “True Traitors” with 1 of the protagonists of his book.
– In this story, if a Pole is killed, they usually die at the hands of the Ukrainian. If a Ukrainian dies, they are usually killed by a Ukrainian.
The past of 1943 in Ukraine is besides unknown, that about 40 1000 Ukrainians died at the hands of UPA – mainly due to the fact that they did not want to aid them.
These people died in torment, too. And I'm not moving distant from all this. I am not writing that there has been an invasion of aliens who have slaughtered Poles with axes – says reporter Witold Szabłowski in the second part of the conversation with Grzegorz Wysocki (WP Reviews).
The author of the “Sprayed Traitors” tells about Ukrainians who rescued Poles, passed the Polish Sejm on Volyn genocide and Polish-Ukrainian relations.
Grzegorz Wysocki: You are writing in the Righteous Traitors,” that the Volyn massacre is 1 of the cruelest and at the same time 1 of the least known episodes of planet War II.
Both in Poland and Ukraine. Before our meeting, I asked about Volyn friends. I heard in my reply, "I know there was slaughter and small more."
Or, “I have mediocre cognition of this, of school.” What do you think this ignorance of Volyn is about?
Witold Szabłowski: Volyn was a bloody but inactive episode of planet War II.
They slaughtered us in this war. They slaughtered almost all of us Jews.
They ran over us too. Secondly, the subject of Volyn was first silenced for the communes, and later, after the Ukraine had claimed independence, poured lime in the name of the alleged good neighbourly relations with the young Ukrainian state.
Our abroad policy makers assumed that we are giving Ukraine a "carte blanche" on Volyn, and they will yet come to the conclusion that it is worth a good examination and talk about it.
Is it akin in Ukraine about this ignorance?
The Ukrainian counterpart of the IPN conducts specified a policy that he tries the things that Ukrainians and Poles did during the war to equalize with each other.
They make it a broader context. That it is not only about 1943, that they killed 1 and the other, that the context of the Polish business of Ukrainian lands, etc., is important.
I moderated a discussion with a young Ukrainian historian, just from this Ukrainian IPN, and they talk about Volyn in specified a way that they express regret that people were killed. They say, "We're very sorry. And Poles were immediately satisfied that Ukrainians were sorry. And they say they're very sorry people died, but on 1 side and on the another side. Ukrainians are much better, due to the fact that more effectively, they practice their historical policy.
You mean they're better at manipulating history?
They sale their communicative better. The question of where it leads them, but this question must be asked by the Ukrainians themselves. And the PiS on Volyn has already mixed up as well as all the erstwhile teams.
due to the fact that the parliamentary resolutions on genocide are no solution?
They're a simple, classical shortcut. due to the fact that you should work with the Ukrainians and this work should be written for years. Even books like mine should be made in cooperation with Ukrainians. First of all, we must tell the Ukrainians what this Volyn is all about.
What do we mean?
That we were brutally slaughtered. For this we have diplomacy and media, art, culture, books, to at least scope intelligence in different ways, not only through their authoritative channels, but besides to be able to tell them our version.
Parliamentary resolution actually says that. That we were brutally slaughtered.
There's no cost to a council resolution. ft up, button pressed, we're on the next topic. And I urge us to take relations with the Ukrainians seriously and start talking to them about Volyn seriously. but it takes time.
We were in Plain and there 1 of the main streets is Kłyma Sawura Street, who was just a psychopathic criminal. He personally murdered people in cold blood and made the impression of a man who enjoyed it. And now I'm going down this equal street in Sawura, where thousands of people died in cruel torment. And I'm just sorry. And I want my Ukrainian friends to know how I feel about it.
Don't you want politicians from Poland and Ukraine to get along and change street names from the top?
Yeah, but I want the people who live there to know why. Not that the Polish ambassador will compose to the Mayor of Equals, and the mayor will bend due to the fact that something. due to the fact that Poland helps Ukraine... It's not the elite who should be doing things in there, it's the people who should know why this Sawur Flock is to be exchanged.
Why don't you start your shift from the top, and people will start to care? For example, why did they change the street name for us and exchange IDs now?
I don't truly believe in top-down changes at elite level. Of course, I appreciate the motion of Petro Poroshenko, who knelt before the Volyn monument in Poland, but I don't truly request another motion of the President, due to the fact that I already feel reconciled with Ukrainians. Those words that were expected to fall from the elite's side have already died. large things have already happened. Now it's time for people. It's time for the elite to get to society. We don't have that all the time.
How do you imagine that?
What is different is what Leon Popek does, 1 of the protagonists of the book, who does exhumations, but later, erstwhile he does exhumations, he is very keen to see Poles and Ukrainians present at the funeral. And he celebrates with Poles and Ukrainians, with descendants of people who lived in Volyn. And he is very keen to guarantee that Ukrainians are active in everything he does in Volyn. So it doesn't happen above their heads.
And that works?
It's a hard job. It works, it works. erstwhile they first went to Wola Ostrowiecka and Ostrówków Wołyński, half of the collective farm helped him. And that's large stuff! This is actual reconciliation! We have 1 Leon Popek, and we should have thousands of them. But actually, any Pole who goes to Volyn could be a small like Leon Popk. We do not request the reconciliation of the presidents now, but we request to thin on graves together, pray together and have a meaningful conversation.
Have you always thought that your book could be perceived as relativizing history?
Relating? In what way?
specified accusations are made by any of the righteous Jews – that they are made a museum of the righteous, that they are spoken and written about the righteous, and little talk about the moneymakers, denunciators, informers. Those who talk only or above all of the righteous hide the facts in this way about the wicked. You besides compose first of all about the righteous. You say a small like this: let's halt talking about torturers with axes and pitchforks, just talk about those who saved us. Not bad, but good Ukrainians. In that sense, individual might blame you for relativizing history.
The worst thing that can happen is erstwhile stories like this get mixed up in the planet of politics. For example, with just Poles, it would be all right if it wasn't for the fact that after Jews were expelled from Poland in 1968, and Poland began to have a bad press in the West, Moczar thought he would show how many we had righteous and thus prove that we are not anti-Semites. We just threw out the bad Jews and the good ones we saved.
Besides, paradoxically, it is this action of Moczar that I owe that I have the evidence of Alojze Ludwikowski, 1 of the protagonists of the book. due to the fact that abruptly judges or prosecutors began to search these people and do not even interviews to them, but interrogations ("how did you save the Jews?" etc.).
Anyway, are you not afraid of relativizing?
No, due to the fact that in this case it will be completely unfounded. If individual says I'm relativizing, I can show him circumstantial moments in a book that proves I'm not.
The stories of “my” righteous happen in a circumstantial context. I don't manipulate them at all due to the fact that I don't run distant from these contexts. If I were to compose that we have large Ukrainians who are just saving us, and there's a mess going on around here, but we don't truly know what this mess is and what it is, it would be manipulation.
But in this story, if a Pole is killed, he usually dies at the hands of a Ukrainian. If a Ukrainian dies, they are usually killed by a Ukrainian. The past of 1943, which is besides unknown in Ukraine, is that around 40 1000 Ukrainians died at the hands of UPA, mainly for not wanting to aid them. This is simply a immense number, too. These people died in torment, too. And I'm not moving distant from all this. I'm not writing that there was any invasion of aliens who slaughtered Poles with axes.
Yes, but even on the cover, you have a strong conviction from the book: “When any murder, others throw themselves to save.”
And that makes it seem like a fiftieth?
The book doesn't say that, but it can.
Okay, but don't justice the book by its cover. On the back of the cover you besides have a fewer words of encouragement from Mrs. Hanna Krall, and there you already have about the bullet, and about the orb, and about how large evil can be. You know, we're glad we had Father Kolbe, who behaved so beautifully. That while in the concentration camp he sacrificed his life to save Franciszek Gajownik. And here's a fewer 1000 of those dads, Kolbe! People who hazard their lives knowing that they can lose their lives, not only their own, but besides their children, grandchildren, parents... As Mrs. Irina says, who cleans present in Lublin, and whose grandpa saved 2 Polish boys from the barn. What her grandpa did was heroic, but it wasn't smart. I mean, if the banders found out about this, Grandpa and Grandma and everyone else would be dead.
I think it'd be hard to ask about the stories that touched you the most, but I'd definitely call Mrs. Shura on stage.
Yes, Mrs Szura is simply a individual who cares very much about Polish graves, prays regular for Poles, always hangs a fresh recluse, specified a decorative napkin on the Polish cross, whose father saved Poles. Good woman, just fair. And 1 time we met her neighbour from the village next door, who says there is no specified second grandmother, so – she says – she should get a tv from the Polish embassy! He made that half a joke, half a joke. And Mrs. Szura was gathering for 2 days to tell me:
“I ask you, you don’t compose to any ambassador, I don’t want any TV, I don’t do it at all for TVs...”. I had to reassure Mrs. Shura with the words that in our past they only murdered us and there is no place in her for those who saved us or for those who prayed for us and hanged us monks.
You compose at the end, possibly in the most publicist passage of the book: “We don’t give fair medals, we don’t plant trees for them. We don't give them TVs either. Honestly, we don't remember them at all. You can sleep quietly.”
Oh, yeah, 'cause that's my individual piss-off for this situation. erstwhile I think that pastor Jan Jelinek has no street in Poland... erstwhile I think that Petro Parfeniak, who saved respective twelve people, who were shot by his brother, his sister-in-law, his parents, besides has nothing... erstwhile I think of that Mrs. Shura, who might not be fucking TV, but at least a medal would belong! At least to show that we care! And she's walking around in that gap coat of hers, she's got these old shoes even outside the russian Union bought, she's a very mediocre woman, like most of them out there, they've got colloquial pensions, 150 zlotys a month, and they gotta survive...
So what do you suggest?
I'm not saying to give them money, but anything, a letter could at least get them! That would be something. After all, I can see with what anointing the Louisov household keeps in the home a letter with Yad Vashem, in which Alojzy Louisovski's grandpa has written in a beautiful font that he became the Righteous Among the Nations. Why can't we just give these people these letters?! due to the fact that they only murdered us, raped us, invaded us, and we were always mediocre and unhappy and nobody always helped us?!
Speaking of reverse perspective. Do we really know the accounts of the executioners and torturers of Volyn?
Not honest. At least I've never met one. There were many memories of the upsellers, even any collections were coming out, but there was no specified thing as the “Executor” of Dębski that you had a young boy who truly confessed to what he was doing. There's a ward of UPA veterans' association in Lutsk. I was even reasoning about going there at any point...
But you're not?
Well, no, due to the fact that these are very predictable things. And my stories are unpredictable. Hanna Krall erstwhile said that reporting makes sense erstwhile it has the power of ancient conflict. And here's the fucking Antigones. You have Antigone behind Antigone! And you're looking at whether she chose to hide her brother, or whether we're listening to the king.
So, Szabłowski like Sophocles?
The difference between my work and Sophocles is that I was just in situations where Antigona sat other me, on the table of cucumbers, fat, samogon, and I with that Antigona drink half a glass of samogon and ask why she decided to bury her brother. Or I was in a situation where a kid rescued by Antigone, 75 today, sat in front of me and cried... And it's much more interesting than that individual took a hoe or an orb, and went to see Poles due to the fact that they had a good fucking cupboard, and he needed a cupboard.
But that's not interesting? Why did he do what he thought he was doing? Have you tried this conversation?
I went to the advanced once. He spoke to me politely, but then he locked himself in a compartment and that was it. I easy knew who had something behind my ears, due to the fact that most frequently they were people who, as they learned that “a Pole had arrived”, did not even open the door, they talked through the repealed one. I'm not saying it's completely uninteresting, but where are these stories to the stories of the righteous... After all, erstwhile you learn how to murder, killing is beautiful simple.
How were you there, as a Pole, as a reporter from Poland, accepted? You didn't always know who you were talking to, or the descendants of the righteous, or the descendants of the oppressors...
Let me give you an example. I was looking for individual who helped Mirosław Hermaszewski's family. And they tell me – look, we have this oldest mix of our village, they call it Hermasha, possibly there's something about it, possibly it had something to do with those Hermaszewskis? And I'm going, and there's just a classic.
Classic?
Locked doors, I don't know anything, I don't remember anything, I'm old. And all she cares about is how I crossed the border – they let you go? truly Poles let go so easily? – and did I come to reclaim the land. Then you can see that any property after these Poles is and 70 years old are sitting in a swindle, that any Pole will come and take it from them. And they'd want to, now that they have it, to keep it for them.
And you described this situation due to the fact that it's typical?
I described it due to the fact that it happened. But much more was the situation, that erstwhile a guest from Poland arrived, what they had at hand, it was entering the table. Salad, eggs, sausage, sick... You know, these are hard subjects. It’s not like you drive individual into a home and say, “Well, how about this slaughter?! That you ordered these Poles, or that you didn't? Did you help?” Well, then the question is, what did your ancestors do specifically during the slaughter...
You weren't allowed to ask?
most likely slow, but I know I didn't dare. I wasn't afraid I'd get hit in the ass or anything, it just seemed so intimate... I'm guessing that if anyone wants to, they'll tell me themselves, and if they don't, we'll skip the subject, and I won't force them to testify. But, as I say, mostly these people are incredibly hospitable, enjoying being visited. They live poor, but live the life of an old pre-war village, where the guest in the home is God in the house. And yet you're going to Volyn, you're talking about this hay, and you've got this icy, beautiful villages, beautiful views, in almost all home a horse, you're coming, they're pulling any pig out of a jar of pickled, any elephant, any booze... And you're just sitting there and talking about this Rwanda that runs 5 hours by car from Warsaw...
Yes, and this overlapping analogy with Tutsi and Hutu – do you think it is adequate? We have neighbors here, a regular slaughter. Poles and Ukrainians as Tutsi and Hutu?
Yes, they lived together, married each other, and abruptly they took 1 ax and went on another.
Will your book be published in Ukraine? Is that where you think she should be?
We are already talking to any publishers, but before that happens, I would first like to see where the possible debate will take place. I spoke for the first time about “The Righteous Traitors” at the book fair in Lviv.
And I said that terrible word for "L." I said yes, it was genocide. But I said it with respect, without shouting, knowing that the 20th century was not easy for them either. And then I got a large circular of applause.
And do you think that “True traitors” is simply a book omitting Polish-Polish divisions? Can you reconcile the right, left, “Gazeta Wyborcza”, Kaczyński, Ziemkiewicz and Michnik?
The first reactions I get are equally enthusiastic on 1 side and the another side. Volynians, many of them, are people with right-wing views. I've received quite a few signals that they're moved by it, that they were afraid that I could lie and manipulate, but it's not like they didn't feel cheated at any point.
specified a first reviewer was the parent of Krzesimir Dębski, Mrs.Aniela Dębska, the individual who listened to Radio Maryja, who agreed to talk to the guy from Wyborcza, just due to the fact that her boy asked her to. And on the phone, Mrs. Aniel thanked me, said I wrote honestly and that it was better than she expected not to anticipate besides much from me... And beyond the divisions, I think that's what this means – the man from the “Election” talks to the woman who listens to Radio Maryja, and both of them think that something crucial has been learned from this conversation.
And why is there not a single photograph of the victims of the slaughter, if I am not mistaken, in the “True Traitors”, although virtually all text and book on Volynski is illustrated with dead bodies? Was it your decision to depart from this “ordinary”?
Yeah. If individual wants to watch brutally killed people, compose “Volyn” on Google. Or let him go to Smarzowski's movie.
We talked earlier about the atrocities and the horrifying crimes that took place in Volyn. Did you effort not to over-report here, too? Were you afraid of allegations of, let's call it, pornography of violence, pornography of suffering?
Yeah, due to the fact that people halt reading, they flood their hearts with impregnating. Therefore, the strongest scene in my book is the minute erstwhile Leon Popek and his crew open a grave on the Dead Pole – and it is simply a collective grave of women and children. And it turns out that these tiny children after 70 years are just a drawing on the sand. It's like individual drew a feather. The spines are broken down, there's just a sketch of the skeleton. In addition, it begins to rain, which these glasses wash. There's not a single ankle left. I'm a lot more afraid about this than the description of a saw fucking.
He spoke: Grzegorz Wysocki, WP Reviews, 17.10.2016.
Read besides the first part of the conversation: Volyn in 1943 was hell. But people, not nations, do genocide
“You can’t blame anyone for not saving Poles due to the fact that there was a bullet in the head. Worse – a bullet to the head was a luxury. It's gone from the orb, from the hoe, from the fork, from the ax, it's gone missing with its hands cut off... Ukrainians had the right not to like Poles and had the right to blame them for a 100 1000 things, but I absolutely do not realize the extraordinary, thoughtless cruelty of this crime. There was no age in Volyn that he saved. Babies went under the knife. Everyone. No difference – says reporter Witold Szabłowski in an interview with Grzegorz Wysocki (WP Reviews).
