17 July, 2025
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Wlodzimierz Redzioch
Voices
16 July, 2025
5 min
The Greatest Crime of Ukrainian Nationalists
Poland Remembers the Genocide of Poles in Volhynia
It was one of the greatest tragedies suffered by the Polish nation during World War II: the extermination of approximately 120,000 Polish civilians by Ukrainian nationalists in the region of Volhynia (in Polish, Wołyń). To keep the memory of this crime alive and honor the victims—many of whom still have no graves—Poland this year marked, for the first time on July 11, a new national day: the National Day of Remembrance for Poles Murdered by Ukrainian Nationalists in the Eastern Territories of the Second Polish Republic.
Eighty-two years ago, on Sunday, July 11, 1943, as Polish villagers gathered in churches for Sunday Mass, Ukrainian nationalist militias launched coordinated attacks on more than 100 localities in Volhynia with the goal of wiping out the Polish population. That day, now known as “Bloody Sunday,” marked the peak of a campaign to eliminate Poles from lands where Ukrainian extremists aimed to build an ethnically pure state. The Ukrainian nationalists spared no one: elderly people, women, children, and even infants were slaughtered with unimaginable cruelty.
To this day, Ukraine has not legally or morally come to terms with these crimes. Worse still, the official state cult of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) and its leaders continues to grow within the country. The remains of an estimated 120,000 Polish victims still lie in mass graves, often unmarked and unidentified. Authorities in Kyiv have blocked large-scale searches, exhumations, and dignified burials. Poland’s Institute of National Remembrance, formerly led by Karol Nawrocki (now the elected President of Poland), has identified 2,800 sites of massacres in Volhynia and Eastern Lesser Poland.
Ukrainian nationalists had already resorted to terror before World War II. But after the German occupation of Poland, their uprising escalated dramatically. The most brutal phase began after June 1941, when Nazi Germany took control of Poland’s eastern territories. It was under the Third Reich that the Ukrainian nationalists found what they saw as their best ally. Members of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) and the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN)—whose leaders are now honored as national heroes in Ukraine—committed atrocities with shocking brutality.
Poles were killed with bullets, grenades, and, in many cases, with axes, sickles, and knives. Contrary to the Ukrainian narrative, this was not a regular armed conflict between opposing groups, but a planned genocide aimed at fulfilling the fanatic idea of “liberating Ukraine from the Poles.” It was the systematic extermination of a defenseless civilian population.
One secret report from the Lviv district to the underground command of the Polish Home Army describes the events in harrowing detail:
“The Ukrainians murdered the Poles with monstrous cruelty. They nailed women to the ground with bayonets—even pregnant women. They tore apart children, impaled others with pitchforks, and threw them over fences. They hacked off arms, legs, and heads with axes, cut out tongues, ears, and noses, gouged out eyes, smashed skulls with hammers, and threw living children into burning houses. They tossed grenades or burning straw into underground shelters.”
It is particularly disturbing that some members of the Greek-Catholic clergy supported these crimes. One witness reported that, the day before “Bloody Sunday,” during a service at the Greek-Catholic church in Horodno, the priest shouted:
“Ukraine, your time of power has come! Take your sickles, take your knives, and chase away the Poles,” and proceeded to “bless” the future weapons of the massacre: sickles, pitchforks, and axes brought into the church by the faithful.
The nationalists not only sought to eliminate the people but also to erase any trace of Polish presence. OUN directives stated:
“Destroy all walls of Polish churches and other religious buildings, cut down the trees nearby so that no trace remains that anyone ever lived there, and destroy all homes formerly inhabited by Poles.”
As a result, many Polish villages targeted in the ethnic cleansing campaign were burned to the ground and vanished. Today, forests and fields cover the places where they once stood.
The Volhynia genocide remains an open wound that cannot begin to heal until the victims’ families see their wishes fulfilled: to recover the remains of their loved ones and ensure them a dignified burial.
This year, in addition to honoring the victims, Poland also chose to commemorate the “righteous among the Ukrainians”. In the city of Toruń, at the shrine of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Star of the New Evangelization, and of Saint John Paul II, a new memorial was inaugurated to honor those **Ukrainian citizens who courageously resisted nationalist pressure and risked their lives to save Poles** during the Volhynia massacres. Many of these righteous individuals perished alongside those they tried to protect.
On this somber National Day of Remembrance, Polish President Andrzej Duda shared a message on social media:
“Only on the foundation of truth—even the most difficult truth—can mature and sincere relations between nations be built, including between Poles and Ukrainians.”
He added:
“We want—and have the right—to know where their remains lie. We want to bid farewell to our loved ones with dignity, pray at their graves, and light candles. The right to a dignified commemoration of victims—especially one that is shared—is crucial for reconciliation and the building of a better future.”
He concluded:
“Truth and memory do not have to divide us—if they lead to mutual understanding, reconciliation, and shared concern for a safe future.”
But reconciliation cannot happen without a clear acknowledgment from Ukrainian authorities of the genocide of Poles in Volhynia committed by nationalist criminals during World War II. Unfortunately, in post-1991 independent Ukraine, there has been a trend of redefining national “heroes,” often rehabilitating figures like Stepan Bandera or Dmytro Klyachkivsky—the UPA commander in Volhynia and the key architect of the massacres.
A Ukraine that wishes to be truly democratic cannot base its national identity on the glorification of Nazi collaborators or perpetrators of atrocities such as the Volhynia genocide.
Wlodzimierz Redzioch
Wlodzimierz Redzioch è nato a Czestochowa (Polonia), si è laureato in Ingegneria nel Politecnico. Dopo aver continuato gli studi nell’Università di Varsavia, presso l’Istituto degli Studi africani, nel 1980 ha lavorato presso il Centro per i pellegrini polacchi a Roma. Dal 1981 al 2012 ha lavorato presso L’Osservatore romano. Dal 1995 collabora con il settimanale cattolico polacco Niedziela come corrispondente dal Vaticano e dall’Italia. Per la sua attività di vaticanista il 23 settembre 2000 ha ricevuto in Polonia il premio cattolico per il giornalismo «Mater Verbi»; mentre il 14 luglio 2006 Sua Santità Benedetto XVI gli ha conferito il titolo di commendatore dell’Ordine di San Silvestro papa. Autore prolifico, ha scritto diversi volumi sul Vaticano e guide ai due principali santuari mariani: Lourdes e Fatima. Promotore in Polonia del pellegrinaggio a Santiago de Compostela. In occasione della canonizzazione di Giovanni Paolo II ha pubblicato il libro “Accanto a Giovanni Paolo II. Gli amici e i collaboratori raccontano” (Edizioni Ares, Milano 2014), con 22 interviste, compresa la testimonianza d’eccezione di Papa emerito Benedetto XVI. Nel 2024, per commemorare il 40mo anniversario dell’assassinio di don Jerzy Popiełuszko, ha pubblicato la sua biografia “Jerzy Popiełuszko. Martire del comunismo” (Edizioni Ares Milano 2024).
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