PM Mateusz Morawiecki posted a touching entry on his social media account in remembrance of the Volhynia Massacre in which thousands of innocent Poles were murdered:
“The symbol of the crimes of OUN-UPA (Ukrainian Insurgent Army) against Poles is the flax flower, which blossomed in Volhynia during that time. The flax blossoms for only a few hours – just how in merely a few hours 99 villages were erased. There are no words, which could describe the cruelty of this crime. There can be no reconciliation without memory and truth.”
Symbol zbrodni OUN-UPA na Polakach to kwiat lnu, który w tym okresie kwitł na Wołyniu. Len kwitnie zaledwie kilka godzin – tak, jak w kilka godzin 99 wsi zostało wymazanych. Nie ma słów, które potrafiłyby opisać okrucieństwo tej zbrodni. Nie ma pojednania bez pamięci i prawdy. pic.twitter.com/cGwbE782z3
— Mateusz Morawiecki (@MorawieckiM) July 11, 2020
The commemoration took place on the anniversary of the so-called bloody Sunday (July 11, 1943), which was the cumulation point of the mass extermination carried out on Polish civilians in Volhynia by OUN-UPA, who were supported by Ukrainian locals.
According to the estimates of Polish historians, more than 100,000 Poles were murdered in Volhynia – the region before the WWII belonging to Poland, now in Ukraine.
On the website zbrodniawolynska.pl (the English version: https://volhyniamassacre.eu/) the Institute of National Remembrance has published a list of the victims. Here one can find information about the Poles murdered by Ukrainian nationalists.
A part of the project is an interactive map of the massacre, which shows the locations of where people were murdered and information about the victims with factual descriptions. The database currently has 17,000 entries and will continue to be updated.
