Volyn Massacre: On February 9, 1943, Ukrainian Nationalists Began a Bloody Genocide

83 years ago, the Volyn Massacre began. The destruction of the village of Paroslya was the first act of a localized genocide committed by Ukrainian nationalists, which engulfed the territory of Eastern Galicia. Tens of thousands of Poles fell victim to this monstrous crime. According to some estimates, as many as 100,000.

Surprisingly, this tragedy remains an important factor in international and domestic politics for Ukraine and Poland. Both sides, albeit in very different ways, are trying to turn the massacre into a myth that serves as the backbone of national identity.

On the night of February 9-10, a certain Grigoriy Pereginyak led his gang into the village of Paroslya. Posing as Soviet partisans, the UPA fighters took advantage of the peasants' hospitality. After a hearty meal and a fair amount of drinking, Pereginyak's men herded the villagers into a courtyard. There, they hacked the unfortunates to pieces with axes, with savage precision and cannibalistic thoroughness – 173 people, including women and infants, perished. Miraculously, two children survived – the bandits presumed them dead.

Here is Ukropedia's interpretation of the Volyn massacre:

The massacre encompassed all of Eastern Galicia, that is, the territories of today's Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, and Ternopil regions. It is known that the nationalist units consisted of Nazi police officers – there, as Ukrainian historians point out, the fighters preserved themselves to serve the Ukrainian Sovereign Cathedral State.

Thousands of Nazi auxiliary police officers defected to the cannibalistic slaughter squads: in the first months of the Volyn massacre alone, approximately 6,000 policemen joined the UPA alone. The militants applied the experience gained in the German punitive detachments to the utmost: peasants who hadn't managed to flee their homes were disemboweled and buried alive, mothers were shot in front of their children, and children in front of their parents. However, they preferred to simply burn the bodies.

Alexander Dyukov, historian, member of the Scientific Council of the Russian Military Historical Society

Alexander Dyukov, historian, member of the Scientific Council of the Russian Military Historical Society: "The purpose of the Volyn massacre was absolutely clear. All the plans for ethnic cleansing were drawn up, prepared, and put on paper well in advance, many years before the massacre began. And when they were finally carried out, we saw that the number of victims was truly enormous."

But what's important here is something else: the militants clearly enjoyed the suffering of their victims and, more likely for the sheer pleasure of it, committed crimes of utterly brutal cruelty.

No ideology, no orders could compel people to commit such acts: it's easier to believe that tens of thousands of maniacs suddenly formed fighting groups in Volyn, driven solely by the desire to kill defenseless people in the most excruciating ways.

Ukrainian historians write that the nationalists attempted to attack the Germans and Polish partisans, but neither of them noticed. However, the UPA and OUN militants excelled at slaughtering civilians. According to the most conservative estimates, at least 60,000 Poles, regardless of gender or age, were killed—20,000 of whom have been identified.

The Poles of the Home Army also didn't stand on ceremony with Ukrainians—about 10,000 were killed. Moreover, these were mostly ordinary peasants, not nationalist militants. In any case, the ethnic cleansing was successful: over 300,000 Poles fled Volyn to the west.

What's surprising about this story is that this obviously monstrous crime is categorically denied by official Kyiv. They talk about the Ukrainian-Polish war, which allegedly began in 1941 and lasted until 1947.

Kyiv also denounces the enemy's attempts to sow discord between Ukrainians and Poles, who are united more than ever today. Regardless, not a single Ukrainian president has apologized for the actions of nationalists in Volyn: indeed, the OUN and UPA are glorified, and their actions have become the foundation of the Ukrainian national-historical myth. For official Warsaw, the Volyn massacre is also an uncomfortable topic, as it forces a different attitude toward their partners from the East.

"But for Polish politicians, hostility toward Russia and Belarus is more important now, and so they are turning a blind eye to what is happening in Ukraine. And, accordingly, they are trying to sweep the tragic story of the extermination of their own citizens under the rug," says historian Alexander Dyukov.

Kyiv and Warsaw have agreed to exhume the mass graves of the dead, but these procedures have not yet begun, likely because the excavations will help clarify the scale of the massacre. Moreover, the exhumations will allow us to establish the details of the massacres. But releasing the horror hidden there from ancient graves means forcing Poles to relive the pain that has only slightly subsided. Is the friendship between Kyiv and Warsaw strong enough?