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	VOLHYNIA: IPN IN POLAND REPORTS ON INVESTIGATION INTO VOLHYNIA MASSACRES Ukrainian Nationalists Against Poles living in Volhynia, Ukraine 1939-1945
	The following is a report by Jan Maksymiuk, about the National Remembrance Institute (IPN) in Poland for the "RFE/RL Poland, Belarus, and Ukraine Report" Volume 5, Number 26, Prague, Czech Republic, published on July 8, 2003: The National Remembrance Institute (IPN) on 1 July held a conference titled "The Crimes of Ukrainian Nationalists Committed Against the Polish population in 1939-1948 in the Light of Investigations Conducted by IPN Prosecutors." The proceedings of the conference were subsequently published on the IPN website (http://www.ipn.gov.pl/). One of the three reports presented at the conference touched upon an investigation into the crimes committed by Ukrainian nationalists against Poles living in Volhynia (now northwestern Ukraine) in 1939-45. The investigation is being conducted by the IPN's regional branch in Lublin. The conference took place 10 days before the planned reconciliation ceremony to commemorate the Poles of Volhynia in the Ukrainian village of Pavlivka on 11 July, which is to be attended by Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski and his Ukrainian counterpart Leonid Kuchma. "The fate of the Polish population of Volhynia and eastern Galicia doubtless made one of the most tragic pages in Polish history," IPN Chairman Leon Kieres said in opening the conference. "According to historians, from 75,000-90,000 Poles were killed due to operations of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army [UPA] in these regions. Some researchers say the number of victims could be even 100,000. Several hundred thousand people were forced to leave their own homes. Hundreds of Polish villages were totally destroyed. The UPA strove to remove Poles from the areas it regarded as indigenously Ukrainian. In the opinion of many historians, the goal pursued by the Ukrainian guerrillas was to destroy the Polish ethnic group in these areas, which can legally be categorized as genocide." Prosecutor Piotr Zajac from the IPN branch in Lublin told the conference that the investigation into the Volhynia massacres is being conducted under Article 118 of Poland's Criminal Code, which pertains to genocide. He said the investigation is viewing two probable hypotheses regarding the reasons for the Volhynia massacres, which culminated in 1943. The first hypothesis assumes that the extermination of the Polish population in Volhynia was planned and prepared in advance by the leadership of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and its military arm, the UPA, and subsequently carried out by UPA units, groups of Ukrainian self-defense, and Ukrainian peasants. The goal of the action was to physically liquidate all Poles in the area. The second hypothesis assumes that the OUN-UPA leadership intended to drive as many Poles as possible from Volhynia, without resorting to outright extermination, in anticipation of an independent Ukrainian state after the war and a plebiscite on which country, Poland or Ukraine, should possess the area. The massacres that ensued were neither planned nor accepted by the OUN-UPA leadership which, according to this version of events, lost control over the situation. The third hypothesis -- suggesting that the carnage was initiated solely by local Ukrainian guerrilla commanders and not coordinated by the OUN-UPA center -- was dropped by investigators as not corroborated by investigation materials, Zajac said. Zajac said the investigation will probably never establish the exact number of victims, since in many cases of manslaughter neither witnesses nor documents confirming them survived. By now, investigators have identified nearly 1,000 locations in Volhynia where killings and persecution of Poles took place. The estimated number of slain Poles stands between 50,000-60,000. "The final result of the action initiated by Ukrainian nationalists is beyond any doubt," Zajac noted. "The overwhelming majority of the Poles in the former Volhynia Voivodship either were killed or left those areas." According to a 1939 census, Volhynia was inhabited by 1.4 million Ukrainians (68 percent), 346,000 Poles (16.6 percent), and 205,000 Jews (9.9 percent). The interethnic situation in prewar Volhynia was tense. The state-sponsored policy of assimilation of ethnic minorities (which accounted for some 30 percent of the total population) and the compulsory conversion of Orthodox Ukrainian peasants into Catholicism by the Border Protection Corps resulted in local sabotages and killings of Polish administration officials, policemen, and soldiers in September 1939, following the outbreak of the German-Polish war on 1 September and the "liberating" invasion of the Red Army into eastern Poland on 17 September. According to the investigation, guerrilla groups -- both Soviet and Ukrainian nationalist -- first appeared in Volhynia in the autumn of 1942. The Ukrainian nationalist groups belonged to three military formations: the Ukrainian Insurgent Army commanded by Taras Bulba-Borovets (the "first" UPA" or UPA-Borovets), guerrilla groups led by the OUN-Melnyk faction (OUN-M), and guerrilla groups led by the OUN-Bandera faction (OUN-B). In 1943, the OUN-B renamed its guerrilla units into the Ukrainian Insurgent Army and subordinated UPA-Borovets and OUN-M groups to its command. The culmination of anti-Polish actions by the OUN-UPA in Volhynia took place in July-August 1943, when some 17,000 people were killed. UPA regular units were supported by local Ukrainian peasants, armed mainly with pitchforks, axes, and scythes. The most tragic day was 11 July 1943, when the UPA attacked simultaneously some 80 Polish settlements in two districts -- Horochow and Wlodzimierz Wolynski -- of Volhynia (the Polish-Ukrainian reconciliation ceremony is to take place on this date). "In the light of gathered evidence, taking the decision by OUN-UPA leaders about the expulsion of all Poles from the eastern territories of prewar Poland -- and in the case of Volhynia, about the extermination of all Poles -- ...is beyond any doubt," Zajac said. According to Polish investigators, the OUN central leadership decided in February 1943 to drive all Poles out of Volhynia, to obtain an "ethnically pure territory" in the postwar period. As regards the extermination of Poles in Volhynia, this decision was most likely made by OUN-B local leaders in Volhynia, without coordination with the OUN central leadership. Among those who were behind the decision, Polish investigators see Dmytro Klyachkivskyy, Vasyl Ivakhov, Ivan Lytvynchuk, and Petro Oliynyk. Zajac said the Polish population of Volhynia sought protection from the onslaught by Ukrainian nationalists by joining Soviet partisans in the area (5,000-7,000 people) or German auxiliary police (some 2,000 people). The Home Army subordinated to the Polish emigre government in London began retaliatory actions against Ukrainians in Volhynia in late 1943. Zajac estimates that some 2,000 Ukrainians may have died as a result of that retaliation, which is far below the estimate of 20,000-30,000 people cited by Ukrainians historians. FOR PERSONAL AND ACADEMIC USE ONLY

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