In western Ukraine, the search and exhumation of victims of the Volyn massacre began in the Tarnopolski region. This information was long awaited by families of Poles murdered in 1943–1945 by Ukrainian Insurgency Army. The aim of the Polish-Ukrainian investigation squad is to find the identity of the victims, find their ashes and let burial.
24.04.201025 Ukraine, Tarnopolski region. The exhumation work of Polish victims of the Volyn massacre in the area of the no longer existing village of Puźniki begins.
Researchers from Poland and Ukraine began exhumation work on the site of the no longer existing village of Puźniki in the Tarnopolski region. It was there at night from 12 to 13 February 1945 Ukrainian nationalists from UPA murdered 80 to 120 Poles (according to different sources). The victims were mostly women and children. Over 170 houses were burned. From the memories of residents and preserved documents, about 80 people may have been buried in Puźniki.
As Maciej Wróbel, State Secretary at the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, said, the identity of Polish citizens who died in Puźniki is known. He stressed that researchers would concentrate on uncovering all victims of this crime and providing them with a worthy burial. The families of the murdered are waiting for this.
Exhumation works will be conducted by the Freedom and Democracy Foundation in cooperation with scientists from the Pomeranian Medical University. “Three representatives of our institute besides went to the Deserts,” he said. Dr. Krzysztof Szwagrzyk, Deputy president of IPN, in conversation with “Polish Armed Forces”. respective members of the Ukrainian Volynsky Antiquity Foundation will besides participate in the work.
In the place where erstwhile was the village of Puźniki, present the forest grows. About 20 specialists will be working here for the next fewer weeks. The remains excavated by archaeologists will be examined by anthropologists and geneticists. A group of about 50 scientists will do genetic research. This will not be easy work, for the relation between the victims and their relatives is far distant today.
The issue of the exhumation of Polish victims of the Volyn massacre has been 1 of the most delicate topics in Polish-Ukrainian relations for years. Since 2017, there has been a moratorium on the search and exhumation of the remains of Polish victims of Volyn crime. At the end of 2024 Polish and Ukrainian abroad Ministers Radosław Sikorski and Andrij Sybiha at a joint press conference informed about his abolition. Ukrainians then agreed that Poles (in cooperation with Ukrainian institutions) would carry out search and exhumation work in their country. In the beginning of 2025, the Ukrainian side positively examined 1 of respective Polish applications.
In 1943–1945, nationalists from the Ukrainian Insurgency Army conducted genocides on Poles surviving in the territory of Volyn and east Galicia to ethnically cleanse the lands that belonged to Poland before the war, and now Western Ukraine is here. For political reasons, the full list of victims was never established. According to estimates of historians, about 100,000 Poles were murdered at the time.
