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73-400: On 18 July 2020, as part of the administrative reform of Ukraine, the number of raions of Volyn Oblast was reduced to four, and the area of Kamin-Kashyrskyi Raion was significantly expanded. The January 2020 estimate of the raion population was 32,552 (2020 est.). 50°30′N 24°47′E  /  50.500°N 24.783°E  / 50.500; 24.783 This article about

146-554: A UPA group, commanded by Hryhory Perehyniak, pretended to be Soviet partisans and assaulted the Parośle settlement in Sarny county. It is considered a prelude to the massacres and is recognized as the first mass murder committed by the UPA in the area. Estimates of the number of victims range from 149 to 173. Throughout Volhynia, individuals, often with their families, began to be killed, while in

219-709: A Ukrainian state must be ethnically homogeneous and the only way to defeat the Polish enemy was through the elimination of Poles from Ukrainian territories. From the OUN-B perspective, the Jews had already been annihilated, and the Russians and Germans were only temporarily in Ukraine, but Poles had to be forcefully removed. The OUN-B came to believe that it had to move fast while the Germans still controlled

292-625: A bid to protect the population and prevent them from fleeing to the cities. It was determined to fight the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), not believing there was any possibility of an agreement, but at the same time it was obliged to carry out the plan of an anti-German general uprising, which ordered it to spare its forces until the Soviet-German front arrived. On the opposite side was the local Government Delegate, Kazimierz Banach  [ pl ] "Jan Linowski", who still believed in

365-518: A further deterioration of relations between the two ethnic groups. Between 1921 and 1938, Polish colonists and war veterans were encouraged to settle in the Volhynian and Galician countryside; their number reached 17,700 in Volhynia in 3,500 new settlements by 1939. Between 1934 and 1938, a series of violent and sometimes-deadly attacks against Ukrainians were carried out in other parts of Poland. Volhynia

438-467: A location in Volyn Oblast is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Volyn Oblast Volyn Oblast ( Ukrainian : Волинська область , romanized :  Volýnsʹka óblastʹ ) or simply Volyn ( Ukrainian : Волинь , romanized :  Volýnʹ ), is an oblast (province) in northwestern Ukraine . It borders Rivne Oblast to the east, Lviv Oblast to the south, Poland to

511-523: A resolution calling UPA's crimes against Poles "crimes bearing the hallmarks of genocide". In 2013 it adopted a resolution calling them "ethnic cleansing with the hallmarks of genocide". On 22 July 2016, Poland's Sejm established 11 July as a National Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Genocide committed by Ukrainian nationalists against citizens of the Second Polish Republic. This characterization

584-583: A tool for Polonization and to convert the Orthodox population to Roman Catholicism. Over 190 Orthodox churches were destroyed and 150 converted to Roman Catholic churches. On the other hand just before the war , Volhynia was "the site of one of eastern Europe's most ambitious policies of toleration". Through supporting Ukrainian culture and religious autonomy and the Ukrainization of the Orthodox Church,

657-568: A wave of sabotage actions and assassination attempts on Polish officials and moderate Ukrainian activists. In 1929, the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) was formed in Vienna , Austria , and was the result of a union between several radical nationalist and extreme right-wing organisations with UVO. Members of the organization carried out several acts of terror and assassinations in Poland, but it

730-545: Is disputed by Ukraine and by some non-Polish historians, who characterize it instead as ethnic cleansing . The recreated Polish state covered large territories inhabited by Ukrainians, while the Ukrainian movement failed to achieve independence. According to the Polish census of 1931, in Eastern Galicia, the Ukrainian language was spoken by 52% of the inhabitants, Polish by 40% and Yiddish by 7%. In Wołyn (Volhynia), Ukrainian

803-562: Is no possibility for reconciliation and that Ukrainians ought to be deported to Soviet Ukraine after the war. Such view was shared by the local Home Army command, but the Polish authorities in Warsaw and London took a more moderate stance, discussing the possibility of limited Ukrainian autonomy. Both the Polish government-in-exile and the underground state and the Ukrainian OUN-B considered

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876-612: The Banderites occurred in Eastern Galicia and Volhynia . Several hundred Poles were also killed at the hands of Ukrainian nationalists at the time, and a group of about a hundred Polish students were murdered in Lviv. On 30 June 1941, the OUN-B proclaimed the establishment of Ukrainian State in Lviv . In response to the declaration, OUN-B leaders and associates were arrested and imprisoned by

949-528: The Gestapo (ca. 1500 persons). The OUN-M continued to operate openly, collaborating with the Germans and taking over local administration, but its leaders also began to be arrested and the organisation's influence was curtailed by the Germans in early 1942. Meanwhile, the OUN-B, unwilling and unable to openly resist the Germans, began methodically creating a clandestine organization, engaging in propaganda work, and building weapons stockpiles. It set out to infiltrate

1022-513: The Kostopol and Sarny counties in the northeastern part of Volhynia, where Ivan Lytvynchuk  [ uk ] "Dubovy" was in command, the UPA proceeded to systematically murder Poles. They attacked dozens of villages, the largest massacre of which took place in Lipniki, where one of the first Polish self-defences was established, but despite resistance during the attack on the night of 26–27 March,

1095-462: The Luboml district. The killings continued until mid-September. During the night of August 30 Ivan Klimchak  [ uk ] "Lysiy" unit surrounded the village of Kąty, where Poles were murdered farm by farm, killing 180–213 people. Then, on August 31, the unit killed 86–87 people in the village of Jankowce. On the same day they surrounded the village of Ostrówek. The population was gathered in

1168-1214: The Potsdam Agreement . The area underwent rapid industrialisation including the construction of the Lutsk automobile factory (LuAZ). Nevertheless, the area remains one of the most rural throughout the former Soviet Union. The following historical-cultural sites were nominated in 2007 for the Seven Wonders of Ukraine . The Volyn Oblast is administratively subdivided into 4 raions (districts). 50°44′29″N 25°21′14″E  /  50.74139°N 25.35389°E  / 50.74139; 25.35389 Massacres of Poles in Volhynia The Massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia ( Polish : rzeź wołyńsko-galicyjska , lit.   'Volhynian-Galician slaughter'; Ukrainian : Волинсько-Галицька трагедія , romanized :  Volynsʹko-Halytsʹka trahediya , lit.   'Volhynian-Galician tragedy') were carried out in German-occupied Poland by

1241-577: The Rail War against German supply lines and were known for their efficiency in gathering intelligence and for sabotage. The region formed the basis of several networks and many members of the local population served with the partisans. The Poles in the area became part of the Polish Home Army , which often undertook operations with the partisan movement. UPA initially supported Nazi Germany which had in turn supported them with financing and weaponry before

1314-801: The Red Army recaptured the territory from the Nazis. In the immediate aftermath of World War II the Polish-Soviet border was redrawn based on the Curzon line . Volyn, along with the neighbouring provinces became an integral part of the Ukrainian SSR . Most Poles who remained in the eastern region were forced to leave to the Recovered Territories of western Poland (the former easternmost provinces of Germany) whose German population had been expelled in accordance with

1387-496: The Rivne and Kremenets districts. Maksym Skorupskyi, one of the UPA commanders, wrote in his diary: "Starting from our action on Kuty, day by day after sunset, the sky was bathing in the glow of conflagration. Polish villages were burning". The local Home Army command, under Col. Kazimierz Bąbiński  [ pl ] "Luboń", responded to the attacks by organising local self-defences, of which about 100 were formed by July 1943, in

1460-490: The Sanacja regime wanted to achieve Ukrainian loyalty to the Polish state and to minimise Soviet influences in the borderline region. That approach was gradually abandoned after Józef Piłsudski 's death in 1935. Practically all government and administrative positions, including the police, were assigned to Poles. Harsh policies implemented by the Second Polish Republic were often a response to OUN-B violence, but contributed to

1533-558: The UNDO , was arrested along with many of his colleagues, and never heard from again. The elimination by the Soviets of the moderate or liberal political leaders within Ukrainian society allowed the extremist underground OUN to remain the only surviving group with a significant organizational presence among western Ukrainians. In Kraków on 10 February 1940, a revolutionary faction of the OUN emerged, called

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1606-672: The Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), with the support of parts of the local Ukrainian population, against the Polish minority in Volhynia , Eastern Galicia , parts of Polesia , and the Lublin region from 1943 to 1945. The peak of the massacres took place in July and August 1943. These killings were exceptionally brutal, and most of the victims were women and children. The UPA's actions resulted in up to 100,000 Polish deaths. Estimates of

1679-472: The "Dubovy" unit murdered 184 people. About 130 people were murdered in Brzezina on 8 April 1943. Then the massacres began to be carried out in the westward located counties, mainly in the Lutsk county. According to Timothy Snyder, in late March and early April 1943, the UPA forces killed 7,000 Polish civilians. The OUN-B and UPA leadership chose Holy Week (18–26 April) as the period for an organised attack on

1752-538: The 15th century, the area came under the control of the neighbouring Grand Duchy of Lithuania , in 1569 passing over to Poland and then in 1795, until World War I , to the Russian Empire where it was a part of the Volynskaya Guberniya . In the interwar period, most of the territory, organized as Wołyń Voivodeship was under Polish control. In 1939 when Poland was invaded and divided by Nazi Germany and

1825-487: The Galician countryside resulted in Polish police exacting a policy of collective responsibility on local Ukrainians in an effort to "pacify" the region. Ukrainian parliamentarians were placed under house arrest to prevent them from participating in elections, with their constituents terrorized into voting for Polish candidates. Beginning in 1937, the Polish government in Volhynia initiated an active campaign to use religion as

1898-417: The Germans who arrived at Kuty, alerted by the glow of fire and the sound of gunfire. The assaults spread throughout the eastern Volhynia, and in some localities Poles managed to organise self-defence units that were able to repel attacks by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, but in most cases the UPA slaughtered and burned Polish villages. In May and June, the purge extended to Petro Olijnyk's subordinate areas of

1971-462: The Germans, then the entire population was gathered in the school. Men were led outside and killed with axes and blunt tools, then the school, with women and children inside, was set on fire and pelted with grenades. Overall 572–520 people were killed . In total, several hundred Polish villages were attacked in August 1943. In the eastern part of Volhynia the slaughter of the Polish population continued,

2044-537: The OUN-R or, after its leader Stepan Bandera , the OUN-B ( Banderites ). This was opposed by the current leadership of the organization, so it split, and the old group was called OUN-M after the leader Andriy Melnyk (Melnykites). On 22 June 1941, the Soviet Union was attacked by Germany; the Soviets quickly withdrew eastward and left Volhynia. The OUN supported Germans, seized about 213 villages and organized diversion in

2117-551: The Poles of their community leaders. During the wartime Soviet occupation, Polish members of the local administration were replaced by Ukrainians and Jews, and the Soviet NKVD subverted the Ukrainian independence movement. All local Ukrainian political parties were abolished. Between 20,000 and 30,000 Ukrainian activists fled to German-occupied territory; most of those who did not escape were arrested. For example, Dmytro Levytsky , head of

2190-661: The Poles on the grounds of collaboration with German authorities. During the Soviet occupation, the Polish underground in the eastern territories collapsed. However, after the Germans took control of the area, the structures of the Home Army (AK) were rebuilt. In Volhynia, an Independent District of the Home Army was established, while in Eastern Galicia the Lwów Area of the Home Army was created. The former numbered around 8,000 sworn soldiers at

2263-531: The Polish population, committing massacres in numerous villages. Encountering resistance, the UPA commander in Volhynia, Dmytro Klyachkivsky ("Klym Savur"), issued an order in June 1943 for the "general physical liquidation of the entire Polish population". The largest wave of attacks took place in July and August 1943, the assaults in Volhynia continuing until the spring of 1944, when the Red Army arrived in Volhynia and

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2336-479: The Polish population, which was to include the western counties of Równo and Krzemieniec , where Petro Oilynyk  [ uk ] "Eney" was in command. Several villages was attacked, but the most bloody was the massacre of the night of 22–23 April in Janowa Dolina , where UPA unit commanded by Ivan Lytvynchuk "Dubovy" killed 600 people and burned down the entire village. In another massacre, according to

2409-467: The Polish population. Between 1939 and 1943, the share of Polish population in Volhynia had dropped to about 8% (approximately 200,000 inhabitants). Volhynian Poles were dispersed across rural areas, Soviet deportations stripped them of their community leaders, and they had neither own local partisan army nor state power (with exception of the German occupants) to turn to for protection. On 9 February 1943,

2482-467: The Polish underground, which had organized Polish self-defense, formed the 27th AK Infantry Division . Approximately 50,000–60,000 Poles died as a result of the massacres in Volhynia, while up to 2,000–3,000 Ukrainians died as a result of Polish retaliatory actions. At the 3rd OUN Congress in August 1943, Mykola Lebed criticized the Ukrainian Insurgent Army's actions in Volhynia as "banditry". The majority of delegates disagreed with his assessment, and

2555-489: The Polish village of Gaj, near Kovel , was burned and some 600 people were massacred, and 438 people were killed, including 246 children, in Ostrówki. In July 1943, a total of 520 Polish villages were attacked, killing 10,000–11,000 Poles. At the same time, the killings in the eastern part of the county continued. Another large wave of slaughter of the Polish population took place on 29 and 30 August 1943, this time also covering

2628-499: The Soviet Union following the Molotov–Ribbentrop pact , Volyn was joined to Soviet Ukraine , and on December 4, 1939, the oblast was organized. Many Ukrainians rejoiced at the "reunification", but the Polish minority suffered a cruel fate. Thousands of Poles, especially retired Polish officers and intelligentsia were deported to Siberia and other areas in the depths of the Soviet Union. A high proportion of these deportees died in

2701-545: The Soviets had not yet entered. Many partisan units also undertook offensive actions against the Germans, making it impossible for them to protect the civilian population. The attacks began on 7 December with assaults on the villages of Budki Borowskie, Dołhań and Okopy. Most assaults took place right before Christmas. The attacks continued until March. One of the bloodiest massacres took place in Wiśniowiec, in February 1944, when

2774-598: The UPA reports, the Polish colonies of Kuty , in the Szumski region, and Nowa Nowica , in the Webski region, were liquidated for co-operation with the Gestapo and the other German authorities. According to Polish sources, the Kuty self-defense unit managed to repel a UPA assault, but at least 53 Poles were murdered. The rest of the inhabitants decided to abandon the village and were escorted by

2847-478: The UPA-North) was published by Polish historian Władysław Filar : We should make a large action of the liquidation of the Polish element. As the German armies withdraw, we should take advantage of this convenient moment for liquidating the entire male population in the age from 16 up to 60 years. We cannot lose this fight, and it is necessary at all costs to weaken Polish forces. Villages and settlements lying next to

2920-435: The anti-German uprising began, OUN-B units started attacking Polish villages and murdering Poles. The attacks soon turned into a full-scale extermination campaign, aimed at killing off or driving out the Polish population from areas considered by OUN-B to be Ukrainian. With dominance secured in spring 1943, when the UPA had gained control over the Volhynian countryside from the Germans, the UPA began large-scale operations against

2993-399: The area in order to pre-empt future Polish efforts to re-establish Poland's prewar borders. The result was that the local OUN-B commanders in Volhynia and Galicia, if not the OUN-B leadership itself, decided that ethnic cleansing of Poles from the area through terror and murder to be necessary. Only one faction of Ukrainian nationalists, OUN-B under Mykola Lebed and then Roman Shukhevych ,

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3066-615: The attacks were generally not coordinated, the UPA units attacking those Polish villages that still survived. Many of them had been turned into self-defence points, so the massacres were often preceded by fights, sometimes the defenders managed to repel the UPA units. In the summer of 1943, in Volhynia, every Pole and every person with Polish roots was facing death at the hands of Ukrainian nationalists. Ukrainians with Polish roots were also killed, as were people from mixed families. Poles could only feel relatively safe in self-defence bases and larger towns. One Polish refugee from Volhynia wrote at

3139-467: The beginning of the Second World War, the membership of OUN had risen to 20,000 active members, and the number of supporters was many times as many. The policy of the Polish authorities towards the Ukrainian minority was changeable throughout the interwar period, varying between attempts at assimilation, conciliation and a policy of repression. For example in 1930 terror campaign and civil unrest in

3212-494: The congress decided to extend the anti-Polish operation into eastern Galicia. However, it took a different course: by the end of 1943, it was limited to killing leaders of the Polish community and exhorting Poles to flee to the west under threat of looming genocide. In March 1944, the UPA command, headed by Roman Shuchevych , issued an order to drive Poles out of Eastern Galicia, first with warnings and then by raiding villages, murdering men, and burning buildings. A similar order

3285-436: The death toll range from 60,000 to 120,000. Other victims of the massacres included several hundred Armenians, Jews, Russians, Czechs, Georgians, and Ukrainians who were part of Polish families or opposed the UPA and impeded the massacres by hiding Polish escapees. The ethnic cleansing was a Ukrainian attempt to prevent the post-war Polish state from asserting its sovereignty over Ukrainian-majority areas that had been part of

3358-434: The end of 1943, while the latter numbered around 27,000 at the beginning of 1944. The Polish forces were preparing to launch an anti-German uprising once the German army disintegrated. From 1943 onwards, the plan was to focus on capturing Lwów and western Volhynia once the Red Army arrived, and a fight against Ukrainian forces was also anticipated. Due to OUN's collaboration with the Nazis, local Poles generally thought there

3431-560: The extreme conditions of Soviet labour camps and most were never able to return to Volyn again. In 1941 Volyn along with the Soviet Union was invaded by the Nazi Germany's Barbarossa Offensive . Nazis alongside Ukrainian collaborators completed their holocaust of the Jews of Volhynia in late 1942. Partisan activity started in Volyn in 1941, soon after German occupation. Partisans were involved in

3504-591: The first two counties were attacked the following day. In the Polish village of Gurów, out of 480 inhabitants, only 70 survived; in the settlement of Orzeszyn, the UPA killed 306 out of 340 Poles; in the village of Sadowa out of 600 Polish inhabitants, only 20 survived. In Zagaje 260 Poles was killed. The wave of massacres lasted five days until July 16. The UPA continued the ethnic cleansing, particularly in rural areas, until most Poles had been deported, killed or expelled. The thoroughly-planned actions were conducted by many units and were well-coordinated. In August 1943,

3577-702: The killing of 18 communists in 1935, and killed at least 31 people in gunfights and during arrest attempts in 1936. In September 1939, Poland was invaded by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union . The eastern part of Poland was annexed by the Soviet Union; Volhynia and Eastern Galicia were attached to the Ukrainian SSR . After the annexation, the Soviet NKVD started eliminating the predominantly Polish middle and upper classes, including social activists and military leaders. Between 1939 and 1941, 200,000 Poles were deported to Siberia . The deportations and murders deprived

3650-503: The local collaborationist police, from which it received training and weapons. The auxiliary police assisted the German SS in the murder by shooting of approximately 200,000 Volhynian Jews, and their experience both led them to believe the Germans would turn on them next and taught them how to make use of genocidal techniques. In the Chełm region, 394 Ukrainian community leaders were killed by

3723-407: The massive forests, should disappear from the face of the earth. Full text of the "secret order" was never published and its authenticity is questioned. The UPA command decided to extend the genocidal action to the western areas of Volhynia, the districts of Horochów, Kowel and Vladimir, an area more densely populated by Poles. The action was to be coordinated to exploit the element of surprise to

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3796-483: The maximum. The day after murder of Polish emissaries, 11 July 1943, was the start of the operation and is regarded as the bloodiest day of the massacres, with many reports of UPA units marching from village to village and killing Polish civilians. On that day, UPA units surrounded and attacked Polish 96 villages and settlements located in counties Horochów , and Włodzimierz Wołyński , and 3 in Kowel county. Fifty villages in

3869-478: The occupation administration. As a rule, the Germans preferred Ukrainians and filled administrative positions with them. However, a shortage of suitably qualified people forced the Germans to reach out to Poles, who began to gain the upper hand in lower-level administration during 1942. This process caused unrest in the Ukrainian underground. Even in the interwar period, the OUN adhered to concepts of integral nationalism in its totalitarian form, which stipulated that

3942-453: The plan agreed with headquarters and Home Army commander General Rowecki to reach an agreement with the Ukrainians, which he had been trying to implement since 1942. Among local Home Army soldiers, Banach had a reputation as a traitor. Banach attempted to hold talks with the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) through the local OUN SB commander Shabatura. Preliminary talks took place on 7 July. For

4015-400: The possibility that in the event of mutually exhaustive attrition warfare between Germany and the Soviet Union, the region would become a scene of conflict between Poles and Ukrainians. In early 1943, the Polish underground considered the possibility of rapprochement with Ukrainians, which proved fruitless since neither side was willing to sacrifice their claims. The field of competition was

4088-474: The pre-war Polish state. The decision to force the Polish population to leave areas that the Banderite faction of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN-B) considered to be Ukrainian took place at a meeting of military referents in the autumn of 1942, and plans were made to liquidate Polish-community leaders and any of the Polish community who resisted. Local UPA commanders in Volhynia began attacking

4161-601: The raids were often conducted by Ukrainian auxiliary police units under the direct supervision of Germans. One of the best-known examples was the pacification of Obórki, a village in Lutsk County, on 13–14 November 1942. In October 1942, OUN-B decided to form its own partisans, called OUN Military Detachments. Individual units entered active combat in February 1943 (first came the sotnia of Hryhoriy Perehinyak attack on German police station in Volodymyrets on 7 February). At

4234-438: The rear of the Red Army. The OUN-B formed Ukrainian militias that, displaying exceptional cruelty, carried out antisemitic pogroms and massacres of Jews. The biggest pogroms carried out by the Ukrainian nationalists took place in Lviv , resulting in the massacre of 6,000 Polish Jews . The involvement of OUN-B is unclear, but at the very least OUN-B propaganda fuelled antisemitism. The vast majority of pogroms carried out by

4307-406: The school and church, valuables were taken away. Then the men were killed with blunt tools in three different places. The rest of the population was shot in the cemetery. A total of 476 to 520 people were killed . Another unit entered the village of Wola Ostrowiecka on the morning of 30 August. Children were treated with candy, and a speech was made to the population calling for a joint fight against

4380-590: The second round on 10 July, the plenipotentiary of the District Delegation, Zygmunt Rumel "Krzysztof Poręba", and the representative of the Volhynia District of the AK Krzysztof Markiewicz "Czart", together with the coachman Witold Dobrowolski, went. All three were brutally murdered on 10 July 1943 in the village of Kustycze. This event ultimately discredited the stance taken by Banach. A plan

4453-556: The start of World War II . Many served in the various RONA and SS units. Once they became disillusioned with the Nazi program, they independently began to target all non-Ukrainians (Poles, Jews, Russians, among others) for extermination. Some 30,000 to 60,000 Poles, Czechs, remaining Jews, and Ukrainians who tried to help others escape (Polish sources gave even higher figures) and later, around 2,000 or more Ukrainians were killed in retaliation (see Massacres of Poles in Volhynia ). In January 1944

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4526-499: The third OUN-B conference (17–23 February 1943), the decision was made to launch an anti-German uprising in order to liberate as much territory as possible before the arrival of the Red Army . The uprising was to break out first in Volhynia; therefore, the formation of a partisan army called the Ukrainian Liberation Army began there. The uprising broke out in mid-March, with Dmytro Klyachkivsky and Vasyl Ivakhiv leading it, then Klyachkivsky alone after Ivakhiv's death in May that year. It

4599-453: The time: "All around dead bodies and potential victims. It smells of corpses from every Pole now. There are living corpses walking around." After unsuccessful attempts to conclude a truce with the UPA, the Polish underground moved to active defence and offensive actions. On 20 July 1943, decisions were made to form nine partisan units, totalling around a thousand men. Their task was to support Polish self-defences and to attack UPA bases. There

4672-432: The west and Belarus to the north. Its administrative centre is Lutsk . Kovel is the westernmost town and the last station in Ukraine on the rail line running from Kyiv to Warsaw . The population is 1,021,356 (2022 estimate). Volyn was once part of the Kievan Rus' before becoming an independent local principality and an integral part of the Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia , one of Kievan Rus' successor states . In

4745-429: Was a growing desire among the Polish population to retaliate against the Ukrainians. It is estimated that around 2,000 people were killed in Polish attacks on Ukrainian villages. The UPA's command decided to take advantage of the coming Soviet offensive to launch a final liquidation action against the Polish population. It was decided to attack those villages from which German or Hungarian units had already withdrawn and

4818-405: Was a place of increasingly violent conflict, with Polish police on one side and Western Ukrainian communists supported by many dissatisfied Ukrainian peasants on the other. The communists organized strikes, killed at least 31 suspected police informers in 1935–1936, and assassinated local Ukrainian officials for "collaboration" with the Polish government. The police conducted mass arrests, reported

4891-610: Was also at that time that the name Ukrainian Liberation Army was abandoned and the name Ukrainian Insurgent Army, hijacked from Bulba-Borovets, began to be used, thus impersonating it. The base of the new army was made up of Ukrainian policemen, approximately 5,000 of whom deserted en masse between March and April 1943, and men absorbed from Bulba-Borovets and OUN-M units. By July 1943, the UPA had twenty thousand soldiers. According to Timothy Snyder, in their struggle for dominance, OUN-B forces would kill tens of thousands of Ukrainians for supposed links to Melnyk or Bulba-Borovets. Even before

4964-434: Was committed to the ethnic cleansing of Volhynia. Taras Bulba-Borovets , the founder of the Ukrainian People's Revolutionary Army , rejected the idea and condemned the anti-Polish massacres when they started. The OUN-M leadership did not believe that such an operation was advantageous in 1943. By late 1942, the OUN-B in Volhynia was avoiding conflict with the German authorities and working with them; anti-German resistance

5037-469: Was drawn up in the Home Army command to organise a military operation against the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) to thwart the next wave of genocidal attacks, which, according to intelligence information, was planned for 20 July. The Soviet victories acted as a stimulus for the escalation of massacres in July 1943, when the ethnic cleansing reached its peak. In the 1990s, a citation from an alleged "secret directive" by Dmytro Klyachkivsky (head-commander of

5110-471: Was issued by the UPA commander in Eastern Galicia, Vasyl Sydor ("Shelest"). This order was often disobeyed and entire villages were slaughtered. In Eastern Galicia between 1943 and 1946, OUN-B and UPA killed 20,000–25,000 Poles. 1,000–2,000 Ukrainians were killed by the Polish underground. Some Ukrainian religious authorities, institutions, and leaders protested the slayings of Polish civilians, but to little effect. In 2008 Poland's Parliament adopted

5183-471: Was limited to Soviet partisans on the extreme northern edge of Volhynia, small bands of OUN-M fighters, and to a group of guerillas knowns as the UPA or the Polessian Sich , unaffiliated with the OUN-B and led by Taras Bulba-Borovets of the exiled Ukrainian People's Republic . Soviet partisans raided local settlements in search of supplies. Soon Germans began "pacifying" entire villages in Volhynia in retaliation for real or alleged support of Soviet partisans;

5256-509: Was spoken by 68% of the inhabitants, Polish by 17%, Yiddish by 10%, German by 2%, Czech by 2% and Russian by 1%. In 1920, exiled Ukrainian officers, mostly former Sich Riflemen and veterans of Polish–Ukrainian War , founded the Ukrainian Military Organization (UVO), an underground military organization with the goal of continuing the armed struggle for independent Ukraine. As soon as the second half of 1922, UVO organized

5329-574: Was still rather fringe movement, condemned for its violence by figures from mainstream Ukrainian society such as the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church , Andriy Sheptytsky . The most popular political party among Ukrainians was in fact the Ukrainian National Democratic Alliance (UNDO), which was opposed to Polish rule but called for peaceful and democratic means to achieve independence from Poland. By

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