Zamojski Girls from Volyn

On Sunday, June 11, at the initiative of the Association of Commemoration of Poles Murdered in Volyn, in the garrison church in Zamość, St. John of God, a solemn Mass was celebrated on the 80th anniversary of the Volyn genocide.

For more than 20 years now, on the second Sunday of June, Volyniacs from Chełm, Lublin, Puławy, Hrubieszów, Tomaszów Lubelski, Włodawa, Łęczna and Janów Lubelski have been arriving in the Zamość Castle. After the mass, there is an environmental gathering and an end-release fair. It is simply a kind of ‘end-vołyńsk exit’ of the Lublin region.

He's been coming all year for respective years. Fr Tadeusz Isakowicz-Zaleski from Radwanowice close Krakow, the informal “soul of the pastor Kresowian”. He besides arrived this year, despite severe cancer, driving the car himself, signing off at his own request from the hospital. Fr Tadeusz has been calling for years to condemn executioners from the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists – Ukrainian Insurgency Army and to commemorate innocent victims. During the sermon, he pointed to the fact of the peasant origin of the murdered, talking about the roots of his household from his father's side, who had worked in a field in the village of Koroszaatyn, in the territory of Buchacz, in Tarnopolskie Voivodeship, in east Małopolska for centuries. On 28 February 1944, a band of UPA along with Ukrainian neighbors destroyed the village, killing over 150 Poles, including many members of the Zaleski family. In his homily, the priest besides compared Polish-Ukrainian relations with Polish-German ones. He noted a crucial difference, Germany, unlike the Ukrainians, condemns the executioners and made a settlement with the past. On the Ukrainian side, however, there is no "pain for sins" and "reparation in truth".

He came to the Zamoc celebrations Witold Listowski, president of the Kresovian Association in Kędzierzyn Kozl. As the head of the nationwide Patriotic Union of Kresowe and Kombatancki Organizations, he annually organizes social celebrations in Warsaw in July. Mr. Witold, is now the undisputed leader of Kresowians, and despite his 77 years of large commitment he fights for commemorative Poles murdered by UPA bands.

The most honourable guest was the bravest self-government in Poland, the mayor of Jarocina close Niska, Zbigniew Walczak, at the same time the president of the Social Construction Committee of the Monument to the Victims of the Volyn massacre. A immense 14-metre obelisk, shaped like an eagle with a cross cut in the middle, will stand in the village of Domostawa, on the S19 route. The monument is by a sculptor artist Andrzej PityńskiIt was founded by the Polish Army Veterans Association in America.

During the ceremony on the church wall, a plaque commemorating Polish children murdered by Ukrainian nationalists was unveiled and dedicated. It contained the words of Father Tadeusz – Jan Zaleski "Before dawn they had already been with God", and the inscription "For the eternal memory of tens of thousands of Polish children from the Southeast Borders of the Second Republic of Poland murdered with the worst cruelty by OUN-UPA from 1939 to 1947". On the board are flowers of flax, a symbol of the memory of Volyn genocide. Polish families were mostly multi-children in Volyn and east Małopolska. As the historians estimation – UPA gangs, agrarian Ukrainian militants and Nazis from SS-Galizen murdered about 50,000 Polish children until the age of 14. Ukrainian children's rezums were damaged by bullets, most frequently killed with forks, cleavers and axe. curious I urge 4 volumes of book Prof. Lucyna Kulinska from Krakow – “Children of the Edges”.

The Zamojski Association of Memory of Poles Murdered in Volyn has been fighting for the fact and Memory for the victims of the German genocide for over 30 years. respective 100 eyewitness accounts were collected, dozens of writings were sent to state institutions. The association has contributed to 33 large metallic crosses in Volyn, in places where 80 years ago there were Polish villages, settlements and sills, and now there is no trace of them, cereals or meadows are growing, and the erstwhile Polish village is only reminded of chaotic fruit trees.

The Volyn Crypt was opened at the Zamość Rotunda, and the association itself received the title of curator of the National Memory granted by the Institute of National Memory in 2013. Our president was, for many years, dead a fewer years ago – Janina Kalinowska. She came from the village of Funduma in Nadbujan, survived with her mother's blood on her body. For a long time, she didn't know what year she was born and what maiden name she had. Mrs.Janina, without any exaggeration, could be called the unbreakable woman, uncompromisingly fought for the truth, she could point out straight to local policy makers the betrayal of Polish national interests.

She is besides dead, her right hand in the association – Teresa Radziszewska, native of Volynská Alexandrovka, whose banners murdered parents and 3 siblings. For years, the association has been chronicled by Zofia The squire, Orzeszyna district, Włodzimierz Wołyński district. The village was surrounded by UPA bands on 11 July 1943 and then brutally murdered – over 300 people. Mrs. Zosia and her small brother saved themselves by pretending to be Ukrainian children. Even a fewer years ago, she went to Volyn in summertime and in Zamłyń close Włodzimierz she taught Polish to children who had Polish roots. She was the only survivor of Rozalia Wielusz from the Bojko house, coming from the Teresin village in Horochów County. For many months she was abused as a servant on a Ukrainian farm, after the war she lived in Nabroż in Zamość. In 2018 the book came out Anna Herbich "The Volyn girls – actual stories", in which the tragic communicative of 9 women is described, most of them related to our association.

On 11 July 1943 there was an apogee of the baner genocide, then UPA bands attacked over 90 Polish villages, about 50 days later, including respective Roman Catholic churches, where Poles were murdered during Masses specified as in Kisielina or Poryck. This bloody Sunday and in the next fewer days about 10 1000 Poles were murdered, in the districts of Włodzimierz Wołyński, Łuck, Kowel and Horochów. By the end of 1943, most Polish villages, settlements and siblings were razed to the ground, and no trace of the Polish presence was to remain. Volyn genocide by the head of UPA in Volyn Dmytro Klaczkiwski “Kły Sawur”, was subsequently approved by the UPA's chief authorities at the head of Bandera's successor — Roman Szuchewycz “Tara CzuprynkaIt’s okay. ” This individual especially hated Poles, in 1944 he ordered the subordinate structures of the CNS-UPA to carry out analogous anti-Polish genocidal actions in east Małopolska, i.e. Lviv, Tarnopolski and Stanislaw voivodships. In 2007, Ukrainian president Yushchenko declared him “the hero of Ukraine”, to which the Polish side did not respond at all.

This year's celebration of the Volyn massacre has not started yet, and there have already been incidents of provocation. The most loud was the arrogant, shoe-filled behaviour of the Ukrainian ambassador Vasyla Zrayczawho reprimanded the spokesperson for the Polish Ministry of abroad Affairs Luke Jasina, for saying that the Ukrainian side had to apologize. The behaviour of the Ukrainian diplomat must have impressed the Polish authorities since the spokesperson was sent on leave and is expected to be cancelled. A year ago, Ukrainian Ambassador to Germany Andrij Melnyk After anti-Polish statements, he was awarded the seat of Deputy Minister of abroad Affairs in Kiev. In fresh days there have been provocative statements by the head of the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory – Anton Drochniki. In 1 of the last interviews, he stated that the Ukrainian side would not agree to any exhumation in Volyn, as Poland did not renew the monument, members of UPA who died in the fight against the NKVD in March 1945, on Mount Monastyr close Verchrata (the municipality of Horyniec Zdrój, Lubaczów district, Podkarpackie province) in the confederate Roztok, according to Ukrainian demands. The fact is not different, in 2020 before the visit of president Duda in Kiev, the Polish side renewed the broken monument, only that the names and names of the fallen uppers were abandoned.

As I wrote in “Polish Thought” in 2022 (the text “UPA crime under Bełżec” – “MP” 28 August – 4 September 2022), the case has a second bottom. There is simply a very advanced probability that respective banners buried on Mount Monastyr took part, in June 1944, in a morde close the village of Zatyle, close Bełżec, on about 70 Polish passengers taking a train from Bełżec to Lviv. The Ukrainian condition is so a provocation and cannot be met. Attention should be paid to the complete deficiency of symmetry. The Polish side cannot ask for approval for years to commemorate and place crosses in places where the remains of civilian Polish victims lie in the pits of death, and Ukrainians uncompromisingly request that monuments be placed on Polish dirt for banner executioners... A twelve years ago, the Minister Andrzej Przewoźnik, who died in the Smolensk crash, in the program “It is worth talking about” Jan Szymalski, stated that on Volyn alone (and thus without east Małopolska) unmarked death pits, where the remains of murdered Poles lie there are about 3 thousand!

Unfortunately, the Ukrainian side has no courage to face the truth. In fact, it is now, during the war with Russia, the best time to yet settle Polish-Ukrainian history. Since the full planet condemned “Bukać” where Ukrainian civilians died, Ukraine should condemn “Wołyń” where Polish civilians were mass and savagely murdered. Further maintaining the Ukrainian ban on exploration, exhumation, burial and commemoration is not only a large ingratitude to Ukrainian people in relation to Poland and Poles, but it besides distances Ukraine from the civilized Christian world.

Jarosław Świderek

The author is an activist of the Association of Memory of Poles Murdered in Volyn

Think Poland, No. 27-28 (2-9.07.2023)