Russia’s war offers chance for Poland and Ukraine to reconcile over WWII massacre, says Polish PM

Russia’s war offers an opportunity to finally achieve reconciliation between Ukraine and Poland over the massacre of ethnic Poles by Ukrainian nationalists during World War Two, said Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki on the anniversary of the tragedy.

On 11 July, Poland commemorates the Volhynian massacre of 1943 to 1945, during which up to 100,000 Poles were killed in an ethnic cleansing operation led by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA). Today, most Poles regard the event as a genocide, but this is denied in Ukraine.

Speaking at a monument to the victims in Warsaw, Morawiecki declared that “the terrible hatred that then guided the Ukrainian hand cannot be forgotten”, because “there will be no reconciliation based on falsehood, based on forgetfulness, based on a lie”, reports TVP.

However, the situation today offers “a great opportunity” and “a starting point for reconciliation”, because at the hands of Russia “Ukraine is experiencing this hatred, this terrible nationalism to which it succumbed itself 80 years ago”.

“Today Ukraine sees that that the heir of the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the UPA is the russkiy mir [Russian world],” continued Morawiecki. “Today it is Putin, the Kremlin and Moscow behaving in a genocidal and criminal manner…guided by…extreme nationalism.”

Now, “when Ukraine heroically took up arms, when Poland helps Ukraine, when we opened our homes to refugees from Ukraine…we have an opportunity to overcome centuries-long dislike and hatred, an opportunity that we cannot waste, because posterity will not forgive us”.

The prime minister’s words were echoed by President Andrzej Duda, who said that the situation today is proof that for Poland, the struggle for historical truth about the genocide “was not and is not about revenge, about retaliation”.

“Where once there was a rifle, an axe, a pitchfork, [now] bread has been offered [to Ukrainian refugees], and a hand has been stretched out to help,” said Duda, quoted by Wirtualna Polska.

“There are no Poles today who do not know what the Volhynian massacre was, but they take Ukrainians under their roof and help the whole nation and the state,” he added.

Morawiecki, meanwhile, caused some controversy by suggesting in his speech that Germany, which was occupying Ukraine when most of the massacres took place, was ultimately responsible for them.

“Who ruled these lands then? Germany. They were the masters of the life and death of Poles, Ukrainians and Jews. Germany is also responsible for the Volhynian crime – let us recall this,” said the prime minister.

That claim is “a typical example of bending history to the needs of contemporary politics”, wrote Piotr Zychowicz, deputy editor of the right-wing Do Rzeczy weekly and author of a book on the Volhynian massacre. “The OUN/UPA was responsible for the genocide in Volhynia” and “the Germans often helped Poles attacked by Ukrainian nationalists”.

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s ambassador to Germany, Andrij Melnyk, also stirred criticism with a tweet in German marking yesterday’s anniversary.

“Dear Polish friends, on this anniversary I would like to commemorate the Polish victims of the Second World War,” he wrote. “Poland especially suffered under the tyrannical rule of the Nazis and the Soviets. Today we cannot allow anyone to drive a wedge between the Polish and Ukrainian nations.”

Many in Poland interpreted his remarks as a denial of Ukrainian responsibility for the Volhynian massacres – especially as they came two weeks after Melnyk had explicitly rejected the idea that Stepan Bandera, leader of the OUN, was responsible for the mass murder of Poles and Jews.

The massacres – which took place in eastern Galicia as well as Volhynia – were an ethnic cleansing operation aimed at ensuring that after World War Two Ukraine could assert sovereignty over areas that had previously been part of Poland. Most of the victims were women and children.

11 July 1943 – known as “Bloody Sunday” – was the most violent single day, with UPA units leading attacks on dozens of town and villages, killing Polish inhabitants and then burning settlements to the ground.

A 2018 poll by SW Research for Rzeczpospolita found that 72% of Poles regard the massacres as genocide. Two years earlier, Poland’s parliament had passed a resolution recognising it as such.

Many in Ukraine reject the description of the events as a genocide. They also point to anti-Ukrainian actions – including violence – by Poles and the Polish state before and during the events of 1943 to 1945.

Main image credit: KPRM (under CC BY PL 3.0)

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.