The Book of the Righteous of the Eastern Borderlands 1939−1945
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THE BOOK OF THE RIGHTEOUS OF THE EASTERN BORDERLANDS 1939−1945 About the Ukrainians who rescued Poles subjected to extermination by the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army Edited by Romuald Niedzielko THE BOOK OF THE RIGHTEOUS OF THE EASTERN BORDERLANDS 1939−1945 THE BOOK OF THE RIGHTEOUS OF THE EASTERN BORDERLANDS 1939−1945 About the Ukrainians who rescued Poles subjected to extermination by the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army Edited by Romuald Niedzielko Institute of National Remembrance – Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation Graphic design Krzysztof Findziński Translation by Jerzy Giebułtowski Front cover photograph: Ukrainian and Polish inhabitants of the Twerdynie village in Volhynia. In the summer of 1943 some local Ukrainians were murdering their Polish neigh- bors while other Ukrainians provided help to the oppressed. Vasyl Klishchuk – one of the perpetrators, second from the right in the top row. Stanisława Dzikowska – lying on ground in a white scarf, one of the victims, murdered on July 12, 1943 with her parents and brothers (photo made available by Józef Dzikowski – Stanisława’s brother; reprinted with the consent of Władysław and Ewa Siemaszko from their book Ludobójstwo dokonane przez nacjonalistów ukraińskich na ludności polskiej Wołynia 1939–1945, vol. 1–2 [Warsaw, 2000]) Copyright by Institute of National Remembrance – Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation ISBN 978-83-7629-461-2 Visit our website at www.ipn.gov.pl/en and our online bookstore at www.ipn.poczytaj.pl. CONTENTS Introduction . 7 1 Volhynia Voivodeship . 23 2 Polesie Voivodeship . 113 3 Tarnopol Voivodeship . 115 4 Lvov Voivodeship . 170 5 Stanisławów Voivodeship . 183 6 Rzeszów Voivodeship . 196 7 Lublin Voivodeship . 200 Appendix: Polish Help to Ukrainians . 203 List of abbreviations . 214 Bibliography . 215 INTRODUCTION This book lists acts of humanitarian help provided by Ukrainians to the Polish population of Poland’s Eastern Borderlands (mainly the Volhynia, Lvov, Tarnopol, and Stanisławów voivodeships) who were subjected to extermination by Ukrainian nationalists in the 1940s. Hence, its chronological frame is the period 1939−1945, which is the period from the Polish defeat in September 1939 and the beginning of Soviet occupation until the forced expatriation of the Polish population from the Eastern Borderlands to central Poland and the “Recovered Territories” in Poland’s new western voivodeships. Before I give an overview of this book’s contents let me first provide an extreme- ly short and unavoidably simplified sketch of the course and tragic outcome of the Polish-Ukrainian conflict.1 It is necessary to mention the general, ever-present context during 1939−1945. Namely, it needs to be stressed that both invader/occupiers – i.e., the Germans and the Soviets – devastated and enslaved the conquered nations, destroying the exist- ing (shaky, yet civilized) order. This created conditions for the “incidental” (from the perspective of Polish and Ukrainian interests and strategies) local conflict to turn into a bloodbath – that is, into a solution following the barbaric principles of “modern” warfare. Even though certain signs of intensified tensions had been seen prior to the out- break of WWII, it was generally thought that the coexistence of Ukrainians and Poles in the Eastern Borderlands was going well. Here is a statement by Father Prof. Mieczysław Albert Krąpiec, a Pole from Zbaraż in the Tarnopol voivodeship: “Indeed, we lived with the “Rusini” [Rutheni- ans], as we then called them, like among family. We celebrated their holidays and visited them in their homes – and vice versa. I still know Ruthenian carols and dum- kas – and they sang our songs too. It was no wonder when they sometimes attend- ed Holy Mass at our Roman Catholic church, or when we sometimes went to their Orthodox church. One of the requirements of the local culture was that we spoke Ruthenian, that is Ukrainian, instead of Polish to the Ruthenians – that is, to the Ukrainians. The intimacy was so great that after the bloodshed had begun inhabitants of some Polish villages simply could not believe, despite the facts, that their neigh- bors could hurt them.”2 In September 1939 members of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, infa- mous for numerous acts of anti-Polish terror committed during the Second Republic 1 I treat the term “Polish-Ukrainian confl ict” as a descriptive term that encompasses various manifesta- tions of the antagonism between the two nations living on the same territory of the Second Republic of Poland, manifestations including isolated murders, armed combat, mass genocide, pacifi cations, forced deportations, etc. 2 M.A. Krąpiec, “Cień nieosądzonych zbrodni”, in J. Kanas, Podolskie korzenie (Lublin, 2002), 8. 7 of Poland in the 1930s, conducted isolated attacks on military men and civilian refu- gees who had fled from central Poland, as well as on local land owners, foresters, and officials. Such attacks resumed at the end of June and in July 1941 with the arrival of the German army. Disappointed with the unfulfilled alliance with the Germans, leaders of the Ukrainian nationalist movement decided to take the initiative by using a method of fait accompli. Specifically, they would take control of a disputed area and defeat annexationists and “aliens” who stood in the way of the creation of an independent Ukrainian state designed along a radically nationalist model. Using a Ukrainian po- lice force, the Germans condu cted the total extermination of the Jewish population during 1941−1942.3 Ukrainian radicals concluded that the possibility had finally ma- terialized to defeat the other “ancient” enemy – namely, the Poles, who at that time became easy prey and who constituted a clear minority on those territories. Under the German occupation the aspirations of Ukrainians for emancipation clashed with Poland’s firm position stipulating protection of both the threatened Polish population and the country’s pre-war borders. Unsatisfied with the promise of greater autonomy after the war, the Ukrainians desired their own state. When the Ukrainian leadership elites realized that political compromise was impossible, they decided to force the Polish population to leave the Eastern Borderlands. The Organi- zation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and its military wing, the Ukrainian Insur- gent Army (Ukrainska Povstanska Armiia, UPA), commenced an “anti-Polish” oper- ation, which turned into a genocide: it became an organized mass extermination of all people of Polish nationality, the vast majority of whom were civilians. The operation was conducted in 1943 in the Volhynia voivodeship4 and in 1944 in Eastern Galicia (the Tarnopol, Lvov, and Stanisławów voivodeships).5 3 It is estimated that 700,000−800,000 Jews died in the eastern voivodeships of Volhynia and Galicia during the occupation. The stance of the Metropolitan Archbishop of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church Andrei Shep- tytskyi confi rms that not all Ukrainians accepted the Final Solution: “Pogroms and mass executions of Jews shook the archbishop so deeply that he published numerous pastoral letters in which he directly appealed to his follow- ers, “Thou shall not kill!”. Sheptytsky instructed religious orders to provide help and shelter to Jews. During pogroms he took several Jews in under his roof, including a rabbi from Lvov – Dawid Kahane. The metropolitan wrote a long letter to the Pope, in which he described everyday massacres on the streets and warned against the moral degeneration of Catholics. He sent a protest letter to Himmler (G. Lesser, “Pogromy w Galicji Wschodniej w 1941 r.”, in Tematy polsko-ukraińskie. Historia, literatura, edukacja, ed. R. Traba [Olsztyn, 2001], 120). For a much more ambiguous version of the stance of the metropolitan toward the Ukrainian massacres of Poles see J. Wołczański, “Korespondencja arcybiskupa Bolesława Twardowskiego z arcybiskupem Andrzejem Szeptyckim w latach 1943–1944”, Przegląd Wschodni (1992/1993) vol. 2, issue 2. 4 On July 30, 1943 the Polish Home Political Representation (Krajowa Reprezentacja Polityczna) called in its Odezwa do narodu ukraińskiego (An Appeal to the Ukrainian nation) for the discontinuation of both the mas- sacres of Poles and cooperation with the German occupier. It was announced that Poles would not abandon their claim to the eastern territories, but at the same time a promise was made to respect the Ukrainians’ equal rights and civil liberties. (Rzeczpospolita Polska, 9 August 1943, reprinted in Prawdziwa historia Polaków. Ilustrowane wypisy źródłowe 1939–1945, vol. 2: 1943–1944, ed. A.K. Kunert, [Warsaw, 1999], 1243–1244). 5 As for Volhynia it was decided that all Poles would be physically liquidated, while the inhabitants of Galicia (further to the east) were “only” given an ultimatum: either they leave the territory or they die. In practice, how- ever, the anti-Polish operation in Galicia had a similar course and similar effects to the one in Volhynia. 8 Under the leadership of the Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa), the Polish un- derground began to fight against the UPA only after the biggest wave of massacres, which were conducted in July 1943 in over a hundred localities across Volhynia. Armed combat, retaliatory attacks, and preventive attacks broke out in 1944 in the Tarnopol, Lvov, Stanisławów, and Lublin voivodeships. After the end of the war (when Poland lost its Eastern Borderlands) units of communist Polish Army and the Internal Security Corps (Korpus Bezpieczeństwa Wewnętrznego) continued to fight the Ukrainian partisan forces loyal to Stepan Bandera in the Rzeszów and Lublin ar- eas, located inside postwar Poland. The conflict ended in 1947 with the deportation of about 150,000 Ukrainians from Poland’s south-eastern counties within the frame- work of “Operation Wisła” [Vistula].6 The total number of casualties (irreversible losses) during that most tragic period of Polish-Ukrainian relations has yet to be determined. I omit the issue of deportation or forced resettlement of hundreds of thousands of people, many of whom lost their relatives, became wounded or sick or lost their life’s work.