The Ukrainian-Polish Massacres (1943-44)

The Ukrainian-Polish relations had been complicated for centuries. One of the most tragic pages in these relations was the conflict between two partisan armies – the UPA and the Armija Krajowa (AK), the Polish nationalist underground army. Ukrainian nationalists wanted to drive the Poles out of the areas where Ukrainians were a majority. For its part, the Poles wanted to retain control of the lands that had been part of the Polish state. The bloody events started in Volhynia in April 1943 when UPA units massacred several Polish villages in Rivne region. Everybody, including women and children were “slaughtered,” according to Soviet partisan reports to their headquarters in Moscow. D. Kliachkovsky, the UPA’s commander-in-chief, gave Polish settlers in Volhynia an ultimatum – “either you cross the Sian or Buh rivers within 48 hours or you will be killed.” The AK leadership sent its own order: “Remain on your places or Poland will lose Volhynia.” On 11 July 1943, the OUN-B simultaneously attacked 167 Polish settlements and massacred their entire population. R. Shukhevych,²² who replaced D. Kliachkovsky as commander-in-chief of the UPA at the end of 1943, gave orders to entirely annihilate the Poles („дощенту знищити поляків”). According to the Polish sources, in 1943-44 about 60,000 Polish men, women, and children were massacred in Volhynia by Ukrainians, especially the SB, the security service of the OUN.²³ On 4 August 1943, General T. Komorowski, the leader of the AK, issued an order for “retaliating actions” against Ukrainians in predominantly Polish regions (Kholm and other areas). By June 1944 about 150 Ukrainian villages had been burnt in Khrubeshuvsky and Tomashivsky districts. More than 15,000 Ukrainian peasants perished in these events.

The Germans as well as Soviet partisans did not involve into the Polish-Ukrainian conflict but encouraged and provoked it by any means. These bloody events were caused by Polish and Ukrainian chauvinism that devaluated human lives. Both Ukrainian and Polish extremists covered their cruel and sadistic actions with patriotic slogans. The Ukrainian-Polish massacres can be called the acts of genocide.

The Soviet Offensive

The first Soviet attempts to liberate Ukraine were made in spring 1942. Unfortunately for the Soviet command, they ended in disaster (240,000 Soviet soldiers were taken prisoner near Kharkiv, and 200,000 – in Crimea). After these victories the Germans were able to launch a wide-scale offensive on Stalingrad. In the Stalingrad battle Germany lost 300,000 of its best troops (91,000 of them surrendered). That was the turning point in the World War II. In December 1942 the Soviets reached Ukraine and in September 1943 – the Dnieper.

The right bank of the river was heavily fortified and the German command considered it impregnable. Hitler proudly called it the “Eastern Rampart.” Stalin gave an order to liberate Kyiv, which was located on the right bank, by 7 November (to commemorate the 26^th anniversary of the Revolution). Thus, the Soviet army had to start an unprepared storm of Ukraine’s capital. Kyiv was taken on 6 November at the cost of horrible casualties. The Dnieper was literally red with blood. A soldier remembered, “Our unit of 25,000 entered the river and only 3,000 reached the opposite bank.” There were so many Soviet soldiers killed in the Dnieper that their corpses even blocked the river near the Liutezh platsdarm. Dynamite was used to break this frightening dam made of dead bodies. More than 400,000 Soviet soldiers died in the Kyiv battle.²⁴ For the Kyiv battle about 2,500 soldiers were decorated with the highest Soviet military reward – the Golden Star. That is 20 percent of all the warriors rewarded with this decoration during the Second World War.

The battle over the Dnieper has another tragic page. Dozens of thousands of Ukrainian youngsters (aged 16-17) were mobilized by the Soviet command and thrown on the German defensive lines. The youth were not trained and not even given uniforms. Hence their nickname was “jackets” (піджаки). They were used as cannon-fodder to spear Soviet regular troops. One rifle was given to a group of 5-10 “jackets.”

In February 1944, as a result of brilliant Korsun-Shevchenko military operation the Soviet armies liberated the entire Right-Bank Ukraine. On July 27, in the course of famous Lviv-Sandomir operation the Soviet troops took the capital of Galicia, Lviv. In October 1944, all Ukrainian territories were liberated from the fascists.