During the memorial of the 80th anniversary of the so-called. “Volyn massacre” on Tuesday in Warsaw, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki called for the exhumation of the remains of victims buried in anonymous mass graves.
The massacre in Volyn, carried out by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army* (UPA*) and the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN*) (organizations banned in the Russian Federation), was “such an extraordinary crime that those who committed it should be called by name, since this is genocide, extermination,” he said. Morawiecki. He added that the killing of Polish inhabitants with axes, pitchforks, saws and hoes, and the burning of others alive, was “an unimaginable cruelty with a special name, namely genocide, terrible genocide.”
Morawiecki stressed that the Ukrainian neighbors and allies of the Poles today, of course, understand “how important it is to look for the remains of the victims of the Volyn massacre”, “bury them according to the Christian rite, set up a cross for them, light a lamp, say a prayer.”
The investigation of the truth and the reburial of the victims is not only a Polish, but also a Ukrainian affair, the Polish Prime Minister emphasized, adding that “complete Polish-Ukrainian reconciliation” cannot take place without finding all the victims, without “paying tribute to their memory.”
In addition to Polish political leaders, the chairman of the Ukrainian parliament also attended the commemorative events in Warsaw Ruslan Stefanchuk.
On Sunday the President of Poland Andrzej Duda and President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky took part in a short ecumenical ceremony in memory of the victims of the Volyn massacre in the cathedral city of Lutsk in Volhynia, western Ukraine. The service following the “common prayer” was served by the chairman of the Polish Episcopal Conference, Archbishop of Poznań Stanislav GadetskySupreme Archbishop of Kiev-Galicia and head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church Svyatoslav Shevchuk and Ukrainian Catholic prelate Bishop of Lutsk Vitaly Skomarovsky. The service was also attended by the Primate of the “Orthodox Church of Ukraine” (OCU) Epiphanius.
On one day, July 11, 1943, about eight thousand Poles were killed by UPA* fighters and OUN* members in about one hundred and fifty villages in Volhynia. This was the culmination of a violent purge of the Polish population in the region that had already begun earlier this year. In total, about a hundred thousand Poles were destroyed in Volhynia and in the former Eastern Galicia.
Warsaw and Kyiv have different views on the Volyn massacre. While the Polish side describes it as genocide, the Ukrainian side speaks of proportional bilateral responsibility.
Excavations of mass graves with victims were stopped by Ukraine in 2017. Last year, the Kiev government said it would approve the resumption of research.
*Extremist organization, banned on the territory of the Russian Federation
2023-07-11 18:31:00
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