WARSAW, Nov 11 Ukraine allowed the Polish side to search for graves and the exhumation of the remains of Poles killed by Ukrainian nationalists during the Second World War, according to the Polish Foundation «Freedom and Democracy». on the territory of Ukraine,» the Foundation said in a statement.
It is specified that permission has been received for archaeological and prospecting work in the town of Puzhniki in the Ivano-Frankivsk region, where the graves of the Poles killed in February 1945 are located.
«We thank the Ukrainian authorities for this important decision, as well as all the representatives of Poland, in particular, the president, prime minister, minister of culture and national heritage, who took steps to obtain permission to search and exhume our compatriots whose remains are buried on the territory of Ukraine «, the message says.
This information was confirmed by Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Poland Marcin Przydacz. «The Ukrainian side officially informed us that search operations with the participation of Polish specialists on the territory of Ukraine are possible,» the PAP agency quotes him.
The Deputy Minister added that the fact of official permission to conduct search operations «is a big change compared to how earlier Ukrainian authorities approached this situation.
From the beginning of 1943, Ukrainian nationalists committed murders and expelled Poles from their homes in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia. These events are called «Volyn Massacre». The beginning is considered February 9, 1943, when at least one and a half hundred Poles were killed in the village of Paroslya Pervaya in Volyn (now the Sarnensky district of the Rivne region of Ukraine). In March-April 1943, about 5,000 Ukrainian deserters from the German auxiliary police units based in Volhynia joined the Bandera forces. From this period began a wave of attacks on Polish villages.
The extermination of the Polish population until June 1943 covered almost the entire territory of Volhynia. Then a secret directive was issued by the territorial headquarters of the UPA in Volyn to conduct a major action to eliminate the Polish male population aged 16 to 60 years. Together with Bandera, soldiers of the 14th SS Grenadier Division «Galicia» also took part in the genocide of the Poles.
Neo-Nazi marches have become the norm for Ukrainian society in recent years. The radicals calmly arrange processions through the streets of cities, shouting anti-Russian slogans and slogans copied from the Nazis. In this video, one of these marches is on October 14, 2021, on the anniversary of the creation of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army *.
Polish historians regard the Volyn massacre as genocide and ethnic cleansing and claim the death of up to 150 thousand people — men, women, the elderly and children.
Volyn massacre still remains the main cornerstone in Ukrainian-Polish interstate relations. In the summer of 2016, the lower house of the Polish parliament adopted a resolution recognizing July 11 as the National Day of Remembrance for the victims of the genocide committed by Ukrainian nationalists against the inhabitants of the Second Polish Republic in 1943-1945. After that, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted a statement condemning the decision of the Polish Sejm to recognize the Volyn massacre as genocide. The Ukrainian deputies considered that this decision jeopardized the political and diplomatic developments of the two countries. Poland will not retreat from the topic of the Volhynia massacre in relations with Ukraine, said Prime Minister of the Republic Mateusz Morawiecki.
*Extremist organization banned in Russia