Subject: Ukrainian nationalism. WWII period.

From: [email-masked] (DRAGON FLY)
Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1993 12:25 EDT

From: Ted Sosnowski <[email-masked]>
Subject: Freedomfighters from "Galytchina"?!
 
The following posting is intended as an information to complement recent
postings on this list pertaining to the Ukrainian nationalists during WW II
The names of locations etc. are the ones used at the time (or their English
equivalents)
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REIGN OF TERROR
 
Towards the end of 1942 a reign of terror as had been unknown since the
Cossack onslaughts of the 17th and 18th centuries was unleashed against
the Polish population, already decimated by the Soviet and Nazi occupants
of the provinces of Volhynia and Eastern Galicia, PolandUs south eastern
borderlands.
        Unhampered by the Nazi occupants, various Ukrainian nationalist factions
(some of whom had collaborated with the Nazis) set upon the Polish
inhabitants of those ethnically mixed territories, murdering tens of
thousands of defenceless Polish
civilians in an effort to eradicate or drive out the centuries old Polish
element and lay the foundation for a Ukraine free of all minorities.
The following is a reminder of that tragic and forgotten chapter of World
War Two.
        When the Polish army was retreating from the advances of the Germans
in September 1939, there were many instances of individual Polish
soldiers being attacked and killed by hostile Ukrainians in this area.
        The situation worsened after the Soviets invaded eastern Poland on
September 17, 1939.  There was a massive assault on the Polish
population, which at first resulted in the arrest of tens of thousands of
Polish officials, military personnel and members of the educated classes.
By the time the Nazis entered in June, 1941, the Soviets had deported to
the Gulag over one million Polish men, women and children, many of
whom were to perish in Siberian labour camps and in mass executions
such as the one in Katyn, where some 14,500 Polish officers were executed
in the spring of 1940.
        As British historian Norman Davies has pointed out, the Soviet occupants
were assisted in this operation by local collaborators, who in the cities and
larger towns were for the most part Jews, and in the countryside largely
Ukrainians. A strange phenomenon indeed, considering that Soviets had
killed off several million people in the artificial famine that plagued the
Soviet Ukraine in the early 1930Us and were shipping off to the Gulag
thousands of their Jewish citizens.
        The indiscriminate slaughter of the Polish and Jewish population of
Volhynia and Eastern Galicia began with the retract of the Soviets and the
entry of the Germans in June 1941.  Even before the Nazi killing squads
the Einsatzgruppen had organized the collaborators to assist in the
execution of Jews, the slaughter of Jews and Poles had got underway.
        Martin Gilbert, the official biographer of Sir Winston Churchill and
unequalled chronicler of the Holocaust, records many of these Jewish
tragedies:
        At Lubieszow, Jews armed themselves with axes, hammers, iron bars and
pitchforks, to await the arrival of local Ukrainians intent upon murder as
soon as the Red Army withdrew, and before the Germans had arrived.  The
Ukrainians came, and were beaten off.
        But then, retreating to the nearby village of Lubiaz, they fell immediately
upon the few isolated Jewish families living there.  When, the following
morning, the Jews of LubieszowUs self defence group reached Lubiaz, "they
found the bodies of twenty children, women and men without heads,
bellies ripped open, legs and arms hacked off". (The Holoucast, The Jewish
Tragedy, page 157)
        In Lwow, based on death lists drawn up in advance by Ukrainian
nationalists, executions of Poles by local Ukrainian nationalist groups
abounded.  At the headquarters of the Ukrainian police on Lozinski Street
several thousands of Poles were imprisoned, tortured and murdered with
unspeakable cruelty.  (An eye witness account appeared in the London
Dziennik Polski).  Eminent Polish scholars from the centuries old John
Casimir University were rounded up and executed by the Nazis. (see W
Zelenski, "Jeszcze o zabojstwie Pierackiego i rozrachunkach polsko-
ukrainskich", 46 Zeszyty Historyczne, 1978, pages 157-8) A similar fate
befell the remnants of the Polish intelligentsia in Stanislawow, when in
August 1941, the Ukrainian militia rounded up 120 Poles and handed
them over to the German Gestapo for execution. (see J. Zielinski,
"Stanislawow -1941", Tygodnik Powszechny, No. 49(567), December 6,
1959)
        The fate of the Jews was, if anything, worse:
        In Lvov, where several thousand Jews had been murdered (by the
Ukrainians) at the beginning of July (1941), there had been a pause in the
killing...  But on July 25, the local Ukrainians launched the "Petlura action",
a three day orgy of killing  to "avenge" the murder of Simon Petlura by
Shalom Schwarzbard, fifteen years before.  Thousands of men and women
were seized ostensibly for forced labour.  Most were taken to a prison in
the city, where they were beaten to death.  Hundreds disappeared without
trace.  At least two thousand were killed. (M. Gilbert, The Holoucast, page
173)
        There was no effective opposition to stop or contain these excesses.
Archbishop Metropolitan Szeptycki, the head of the Uniate (Ukrainian)
Catholic Church, signed, together with four other Ukrainian nationalist
leaders, a letter to Adolf Hitler stating:  "We assure Your Excellency that
the leading circles in the Ukraine are prepared to collaborate with
Germany in a most close way, so as to conduct - with the united forces of
the German and Ukrainian people - the struggle against the common
enemy and to establish the New Order in the Ukraine and in all of Eastern
Europe".  (The full text appears in Gregor ProkopchukUs Der Metropolit).
        Little wonder that Gilbert records instances of Ukrainian priests inciting
their parishioners against the Jews  (The Holoucast, page 175).  Polish
sources provide examples of the same kind of attitude on the part of some
Ukrainian clerics towards the slaughter of the Poles. However, it was not
until late 1942 - when almost the entire Jewish population of this region
had been exterminated for the most part by the Nazis - that the focus of
the Ukrainian Nationalists shifted to the Poles.  Their fate was sealed once
large number of Ukrainians started to defect from the ranks of the Nazi
apparatus of terror, disenchanted by the lack of sympathy on the part of
the Germans for Ukrainian nationalist aspirations.  What resulted for the
Polish population has been summed up by American historian Jan T. Gross
as follows:
        At the end of 1942, large detachments of Ukrainian auxiliary police,
which had discharged their duties faithfully under the Germans, were
ordered by the Ukrainian underground (OUN) to abandon their posts and
to join or form partisan formations.  Then the bloodbath began for the
Polish population living in Wolyn (Volhynia) and in Eastern Malopolska.  In
several instances Ukrainian nationalists carried out extermination raids
with the knowledge and sometimes the help, of local German commanders.
What started as killings of single individuals and isolated Polish families
developed into the systematic extermination of entire Polish hamlets.  The
Polish population either fled the area or set up armed encampments -
sometimes ten to twenty thousand people strong - where it defended itself
against Ukrainian nationalists.  Although estimates are difficult to make,
Ukrainian nationalists murdered sixty to eighty thousand Poles in eastern
Poland between 1941 and 1944.
        With silent German blessing, Ukrainians were pushing out or openly
exterminating the Poles living in the Western Ukraine.... Altogether, the
Ukrainians were setting the stage for their ultimate takeover in the
aftermath of the war.  They were determined that after the war Poles
would no longer be able to suppress Ukrainian nationalist claims...
Accordingly, they began their campaign against the Poles before the war
came to an end. (Polish Society Under German Occupation, pages 193-195)
        As the terror gained momentum and spread from Volhynia to Galicia and
outward for the next three years Polish men, women and children,
including the Catholic clergy, became the object of relentless attacks
carried out by various Ukrainian factions with the exceptional savagery.
Hundreds of accounts of these atrocities can be found in Polish and Jewish
sources. Typical of the accounts of Jewish Holocaust survivors from
Volhynia is the following by a teenager from Berezno:
        Ukrainian Bandera supporters attacked three Polish homesteads where
Jews were being sheltered, killing twelve Jews and ten Poles... They
ordered the occupants to lie down and then shot them with machine guns.
They removed the victimsU shoes and any other valuable belongings, and
then set fire to the house.   (S. Wronski & M. Zwolakowa, Polacy Zydzi,
1939-1945, page 325. There are similar accounts from Jewish survivors
from Tarnopol, Stanislawow and Lwow voivodships on pages 324-331.)
        Numerous recorded testimonies attesting to these Ukrainian atrocities
appear in Komunikaty Towarzystwa im R. Dmowskiego. (see volume II,
part I, pages 300-342). Many of these accounts describe especially brutal
and sadistic massacres, which often entailed torture, mutilation and
dismemberment of the victims, such as the murder of several hundred
inhabitants of Kisielin in Volhynia after a church service in July 1943.  The
bodies of the women were mutilated with knives and axes:  the heads of
small children were smashed against the walls and floor of the church.
        Other Polish communities in Volhynia which were similarly wiped out in
the spring and summer of 1943 include Janowa Dolina, Parosla, Huta
Stepanska, Helenow, Zabary, Studzien, Woronczyn, Dabrowa, Dybryca,
Borek, Lady, Omylanka, Haly, Siedlisko, Zakuscie, Mielnica Duza, Kamionka
Nowa, and countless others.  In many cases there were just a few survivors
who escaped the massacre.
        Over one hundred eye witness accounts of similar tragedies in Eastern
Galicia were compiled by the Latin rite Roman Catholic Archbishop of
Lwow, Eugeniusz Baziak, and are summarized in Waclaw SzetelnickiUs
"Zapommiany Iwowski bohater ks. St. Frankl". (pages 117-39):
        February 23-24, 1944.  About 300 Ukrainian nationalists armed with
stakes, axes and firearms, attacked the village of Berezowica Mala, Zbaraz
county, killing 131 persons.  Over 40 women and children were tied up
and burned alive.
        March 12, 1944. Ukrainian SS and followers of Bandera assaulted the
Dominican monastery in Podkamien, Brody county, where the local Polish
population had taken shelter. Over 250 Poles were massacred in the
monastery, including three elderly friars and a priest. Hundreds of Poles
were murdered outside the monastery.
        Scores of Polish Catholic churches were destroyed or desecrated and
dozens of Polish priests and nuns were killed.
        Mention of these atrocities can also be found in: Armia Krajowa w
dokumentach, volume 3 (cited by W. Zelenski, 46 Zeszyty Historyczne,
1978, pages 180-1); Polskie Sily Zbrojne, volume 3, pages 527-9;
Wladyslaw Pobog-MalinowskiUs Najnowsza historia polityczna Polski,
volume 3, pages 325-30; Stefan KorbonskiUs The Polish Underground State:
A guide to the Underground 1939-1945, pages 155 and 158-9; Jozef
GarlinskiUs Poland in the Second World War, pages 209-10 and 220;
Richard C. LukasU The Forgotten Holoucast (page 82).
Holocaust historians and chronicles also attest to these atrocities:
        Between May and December 1942 more than 140,000 Volhynia Jews
were murdered.  Some, who had been given refuge in Polish homes, were
murdered together with their Polish protectors in the spring of 1943, when
of 300,000 Poles living in Volhynia, 40,000 were murdered by Ukrainian
"bandits". In many villages, Poles and Jews fought together against the
common foe. (Martin Gilbert, Atlas of the Holoucast, page 115)
        Notwithstanding the departure from the German ranks of Ukrainian
nationalist elements, some Ukrainians continued to serve the Nazi
occupants and took part in slaughter of Polish civilians, in some cases for
aiding and sheltering the few remaining Jews. The following entries are
taken from the chronicle of Poles murdered during the War for aiding
Jews:
        February 1944. Nazis and Ukrainian fascists attacked and burned to the
ground the Polish village of Huta Pieniacka, Brody county, whose
inhabitants had sheltered and assisted Jews, who were hiding in the
nearby forest.  The village was surrounded so that no one could escape the
burning inferno.
        March 23, 1944.  As punishment for aiding Jews, Nazis and Ukrainian
fascists set fire to the Polish village of Huta Werchobuska, Zloczow county,
burning alive all the inhabitants who were found there. (Polacy Zydzi,
1939-1945, page 433; Yad Vashem Bulletin, April 1957, pages 19-20).
        The terror even spread westward beyond the Bug River.  The chronicle of
victims among the Polish Catholic clergy, under Nazi occupation lists four
priests of the Lublin diocese who were murdered by Ukrainian
nationalists.  Many Ukrainians who refused to support these genocidal
actions were also known to have fallen victim to the wrath of their
countrymen.
        The number of Polish victims is difficult to estimate.  Reliable sources
place the toll at no less than 100,000. Some estimates run much higher.
        And under threat of death from Ukrainian nationalist factions, tens of
thousands of Poles were forced to abandon their homes and flee westward
into central Poland well before the Soviet advance into eastern Poland.  But
even these evacuees did not always find safety in their new home.  Those
that settled in the village of Bolestraszyce near Przemysl were set upon
and murdered by Bandera supporters. (see Komunikaty Tow. im. R.
Dmowskiego, vol. II, part I, page 341).
        Understandably, there were numerous desperate acts of self defence and
even retaliation on the part of the Polish population, which took the lives
of many Ukrainians. Polish sources readily acknowledge this.  However, the
fighting did not spread beyond the area affected by Ukrainian terrorist
activities.  The compact Lemko enclave wedged between a Polish
population to the north and a Slovak population to the south, could have
become during the war an easy target for Polish reprisals.  It remained
untouched, however, until after the war when Ukrainian nationalist
factions, fleeing the Soviets, moved into that area and unleashed another
reign of terror.
        The slaughter of the Polish civilian population of south eastern Poland
cannot simply be explained away by reference to disparate national aims.
There were intensely different aspirations on the part of the Polish
majority and the Czech minority in Trans Olza (Zaolzie), yet that did not
lead to any action on the part of the Poles to wipe out the Czech population.
        On the whole, Ukrainian historiography does not even acknowledge the
wartime slaughter of the Polish population of this region.  At best it
maintains that the slaughter was a mutual one, as if the Volhynian Poles,
who formed from 10 to 20% of the population of that provinceUs various
counties prior to the massive Soviet deportations of 1940-41, constituted
any danger to or would throw themselves at the large Ukrainian majority
who were clearly in a favoured position and enjoyed the protection of the
Nazi occupants. The fact that the Polish government in exile still regarded
the area as an integral part of Poland cannot be seen as any sort of
justification for the slaughter either.  Nor can any justification be based on
some principle of social or economic vindication.  Surely, the fact that a
Polish peasant owned on average 2 1/2 hectares more than a Ukrainian
peasant is not cause to massacre the Polish population.
        Another attempt to justify the slaughter is based on historic wrongs on
the part of Poland, particularly the brutal pacification carried out by the
Pilsudski regime in the early 1930Us, which resulted in a harsh period of
martial law in this region and possibly a few deaths.  However, the
Ukrainian terrorist activities which precipitated these events most
certainly resulted in far more Polish victims and enormous loss to Polish
property, a fact acknowledged by the League of Nations when, in 1932, it
deliberated on this matter.
        The most ineffectual, and indeed woeful of the attempts to deny or
justify the tragedy that befell the Polish and Jewish population of Volhynia
and Eastern Galicia, is the claim that it was carried out by someone other
than Ukrainians - often by the victims themselves - and that the
Ukrainians, who are told were altogether blameless, are once more the
victims of Soviet propaganda.  Some Ukrainian sources even go so far as to
say that it was the Polish and Jewish population who were collaborating
with the Nazis. (...)
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The above text was sent to me by The Canadian Polish Research Institute,
288 Roncesvalles Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M6R 2M4
 as a xerox copy of an article printed some 5 years ago by Zwiazkowiec
"The Alliancer" in Toronto
Ted Sosnowski <[email-masked]>
"representing my opinions only"