Friday marks the 82nd anniversary of the 1943 Volhynia Massacre, where members of hardline Ukrainian militias attacked over 100 villages and killed thousands of Polish civilians. The Massacre was the bloodiest of a series of killings of over 100,000 Poles carried out by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) and the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) in German-occupied Poland from February 1943 to spring 1945. Disagreements over how the events should be recognized and remembered are at the heart of long-standing tensions between the two countries, who have otherwise close relations. Last month, the Polish parliament officially designated July 11 the National Day of Remembrance for the Polish Victims of Genocide by Ukrainian Nationalists. On Friday morning, top politicians gathered for a commemorative mass and wreath-laying ceremony in central Warsaw, while others are set to join events later in Chełm, a city in the eastern borderlands. ‘Murdered because they were Poles’ The Volhynia region, like much of present-day western Ukraine, was part of Poland during the interwar period. During Germany’s wartime occupation, armed Ukrainian nationalist factions fighting for political independence committed atrocities against the local Polish population. Many Polish politicians feel the Ukrainian government has been slow or unwilling to recognize what happened. In a post on X, the conservative President Andrzej Duda said that the events of July 11, 1943, were a “ruthless crime” and “one of the most tragic experiences in our history.” “At the hands of Ukrainian nationalists, our defenseless compatriots perished: ordinary people, civilians, innocent victims, often killed in churches where they were attending Sunday mass. “They were murdered because they were Poles.” Many Poles regard the events as acts of genocide, and the new law, which brought the memorial day into being, does so too. Many Ukrainians, on the other hand, see the killings as part of an armed conflict for which both sides were equally responsible. The issue remains the single most sensitive issue in Polish-Ukrainian relations, but steps have been taken recently to address the friction. Earlier this year, researchers started exhuming the remains of victims who died at the hands of Ukrainian nationalists in the village of Puzhnyky, bringing to an end a years-long moratorium on such investigations. Politicians call for ‘truth’ Duda called on Ukrainian authorities to continue this work in order to allow the families of the victims “to say a dignified farewell to [their] loved ones.” “Only on truth—even the most difficult truths—can mature and honest relations between nations, including between Poles and Ukrainians, be built,” he added. Defense Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz made the same demands during a commemoration ceremony in Warsaw: “I want to build the future on this truth, which must be shown, on respecting the past.” Kosiniak-Kamysz added that he “is not of those who could be described as trying to stoke some kind of discord between Poland and Ukraine,” referring to conservative and far-right politicians who tie the country’s support for Kyiv in its war with Russia to issues around historical justice. Nawrocki calls for museum funding Poland’s conservative President-elect Karol Nawrocki has said he won’t support Ukraine’s bids to join NATO and the EU until the discord over the legacy of the massacres in Volhynia is resolved. Nawrocki is scheduled on Friday to participate in commemorations on the grounds of the yet-to-be-finished Museum of Remembrance of the Victims of the Volhynian Massacre in Chełm later on Friday. The construction of the new museum started in 2020 under the previous conservative Law and Justice (PiS) government but progress has stalled since the current centrist coalition came into power in late 2023. The Ministry of Culture said there were inadequate funds for the plans, which led the local government in Chełm to file a lawsuit. On Friday, Nawrocki pushed for increased funding for this museum. “Poland needs this museum and this place in order to build awareness of the truth about the behavior of Ukrainian nationalists, but also not to allow the more than 120,000 victims to be forgotten,” he said.
