Prof. Dariusz Stola, manager of POLIN Museum, 10 August 2026 at Polsat News said that Poles "had akin people" to UPA, pointing to the National Armed Forces and ONR. This is not a insignificant awkwardness: specified a shortcut hits Polish memory and blurs work for Volyn.
Words that shouldn't fall so lightly
Prof. Dariusz Stola, manager of the POLIN Museum of the past of Polish Jews, was a guest of the Polsat News program. According to the station, the conversation concerned, among another things, the relation between modern Ukraine and the Ukrainian Insurgency Army heritage. Stola estimated that it was unrealistic to anticipate that Ukrainians would now seriously account for the legacy of UPA. Then, building a hypothetical message to the Ukrainian side, he pointed out that Poles besides had akin people: National Armed Forces and ONR.
Reported Polsat NewsStola besides said that these Polish formations were to have a "very akin programme" to UPA and that they were enemies of democracy and national minorities. This is where simple historical journalism ends, and the problem begins more serious. due to the fact that the comparison, even if packed in the language of academic caution, works in public debate like a stamp.
National Armed Forces is part of the Polish conflict for independence
National Armed Forces were not Ukrainian UPA in the Polish edition. They were 1 of the largest formations of the Polish underground of independence, grown from the national camp and operating under German and russian business conditions. Historians can and should argue over commanders' decisions, political program, relations with another currents of conspiracy and dramatic episodes of war. However, the historical dispute does not give the right to simply set up NSZ in 1 line with an organization charged with genocide in Poles.
This combination has a concrete effect. It deprives Poles of the right to their own memory and carries the burden of debate from the fact of the crime on convenient symmetry. And symmetry is the cheapest way to blur work today. If each page “had its radicals”, Volyn ceases to be the name of the Polish tragedy, and becomes only a sad episode in the catalogue of common claims.
Volyn does not fit in comfortable symmetry
Institute of National Memory describes the Volyn crime as an anti-Polish cultural cleansing of the character of genocide, including Volyn, east Galicia and part of the border areas with Volyn. The IPN points to 1943-1945 as the duration of this crime. These are facts that cannot be dissolved in a publicist summary.
You can tell Ukraine the fact without denying her right to defend herself against Russian aggression. You can support hard state realism and at the same time request a fair memory of murdered Poles. This is simply a mature national policy. False delicacy, which in the name of good relations makes us weaken Polish historical right, is actually a surrender of language.
POLIN has a peculiar responsibility
Prof. Stola is not a private commentator from an academic seminar. He is the manager of a large public institution. Ministry of Culture and National Heritage reported that his five-year word at POLIN began on 1 March 2026.. Therefore, each specified comparison weighs more than a specified opinion in a tv studio.
The Memorial Museum has a work of precision. Especially in Poland, where past is not a decoration for current politics, but an experience of families, towns and graves. In the case of Volyn, we are talking about wounds that have been pushed beyond authoritative circulation for decades. In case of National movement in Poland We are talking about a political tradition that can be criticized, but must not be brought into a comfortable caricature.
The stakes for Poland: fact and respect for their own history
Polish historical policy must not trust on apologizing for others' faults or setting up Polish independency formations as the moral equivalent of UPA. This is the real stake: the language of the elite affects textbooks, debates, diplomacy and memory of young Poles. If we let words lose meaning, in a fewer years, individual will say that everyone had their faults, so there's nothing to talk about.
There's something to talk about. About the murdered Poles in Volyn. The work to bury and exhume. The right of the nation to defend its own memory. And the fact that the Polish public elite should first weigh the words, and only then teach Poles how to talk to their neighbours.
Source: Magna Polonia, Polsat News, IPN, MKiDN
Source: Magna Polonia
