Polish culture minister Hanna Wróblewska has said that work on the exhumations of Polish WWII massacre victims of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) is underway.
At a press conference in Stronie Śląskie in the southwestern Polish province of Lower Silesia on Saturday Wróblewska said that a Polish-Ukrainian group is looking for a “broad solution” to the issue.
A dispute has been brewing between Warsaw and Kyiv since the spring of 2017 over the ban on the search for and exhumation of the remains of Polish victims of wars and conflicts on Ukrainian territory, which was imposed by Ukraine's National Institute of Remembrance.
The ban was lifted in late November 2024.
Between 1943-45, during World War II, the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, murdered some 100,000 Polish men, women and children in a region that is now part of western Ukraine.
Warsaw says the massacre constituted ethnic cleansing amounting to the crime of genocide. The Ukrainians argue it was the result of a symmetrical armed conflict for which both sides were equally responsible.
On Friday, Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced on Platform X that a “breakthrough” decision had been made on the first exhumations of Polish victims of the UPA.
A dispute has been brewing between Warsaw and Kyiv since the spring of 2017 over the ban on the search for and exhumation of the remains of Polish victims of wars and conflicts on Ukrainian territory, which was imposed by Ukraine's National Institute of Remembrance.
The ban was lifted in late November 2024.
Between 1943-45, during World War II, the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, murdered some 100,000 Polish men, women and children in a region that is now part of western Ukraine.
Warsaw says the massacre constituted ethnic cleansing amounting to the crime of genocide. The Ukrainians argue it was the result of a symmetrical armed conflict for which both sides were equally responsible.
On Friday, Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced on Platform X that a “breakthrough” decision had been made on the first exhumations of Polish victims of the UPA.
Right-wing presidential candidate skeptical
In response to the news, Karol Nawrocki, the head of the Polish National Institute of Remembrance (IPN) and presidential candidate running with the support of the right-wing conservative Law and Justice (PiS) opposition party, referred to the Institute's past experience, saying that the numerous previously announced “breakthroughs” that have not translated into real action.“We, in our work at the Institute of National Remembrance, have already experienced many such public breakthroughs that did not translate into reality,” the opposition presidential candidate said.
But the IPN head said that regardless of political sympathies or antipathies, the Institute’s duty is to work for the Polish state.
Tensions between Nawrocki and Tusk have been high since Thursday, after the Polish prime minister hit out at Nawrocki for comments he made about Ukraine’s accession to the EU and NATO.
Nawrocki said: “Today, I do not see Ukraine in either structure, neither in the European Union nor in NATO, until those important civilizational issues for Poles are resolved.”
Officials in Kyiv branded Nawrocki’s comments “biased and manipulative” and said that the countries are engaged in a “constructive dialogue” around the exhumation of victims.
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