The Causes of Ukrainian-Polish Ethnic Cleansing 1943 Author(S): Timothy Snyder Source: Past & Present, No

Home , April 1943, Banderites, December 1943, Dmytro Dontsov, Erich Koch, Ewa Siemaszko

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The Causes of Ukrainian-Polish Ethnic Cleansing 1943 Author(s): Timothy Snyder Source: Past & Present, No. 179 (May, 2003), pp. 197-234 Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of The Past and Present Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3600827 . Accessed: 05/01/2014 17:29

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This content downloaded from 137.110.33.183 on Sun, 5 Jan 2014 17:29:27 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE CAUSES OF UKRAINIAN-POLISH ETHNIC CLEANSING 1943*

Ethniccleansing hides in the shadow of the Holocaust. Even as horrorof Hitler'sFinal Solution motivates the study of other massatrocities, the totality of its exterminatory intention limits thevalue of the comparisons it elicits.Other policies of mass nationalviolence - the Turkish'massacre' of Armenians beginningin 1915, the Greco-Turkish'exchanges' of 1923, Stalin'sdeportation of nine Soviet nations beginning in 1935, Hitler'sexpulsion of Poles and Jewsfrom his enlargedReich after1939, and the forcedflight of Germans fromeastern Europein 1945 - havebeen retrievedfrom the margins of military and diplomatichistory. When compared to the Final Solution,each fallsbelow the horrible threshold of intention to exterminate.Yet, whentaken together, they constitute one of thecentral trends of the social and politicalhistory of the Euro- pean twentiethcentury: the violentremoval of populationsin thepursuit of nationally pure space. The lexiconof the Final Solutionhas itsproper limits. 'Holo- caust' and 'Shoah' are specificterms of lament,and 'genocide' refersto the legallyascertainable intention to destroya group. Anotherterm is needed for violentpolicies aimingto clear territoriesof nationalenemies, though not to kill everyman, woman and child. This is the meaningof 'ethniccleansing', which reached English fromSerbian throughtelevision and newspapersin 1992. Serbian practices in Bosnia, at first deemed shockinglyexotic, quickly inspired fruitful comparisons withother events of the European twentieth century. The perpetrator'sperspective, so compactlycontained, stimulated painfulattempts at understanding.'Ethnic cleansing' became a termof art not onlyof the cleansersbut of theirchroniclers, and thusprovided the basis forfresh investigations of central * For commentson earlierversions of the manuscript,the authorthanks Karel Berkhoff,Sarah Bilston,Ray Brandon,Jeffrey Burds, Mark Mazower and partici- pants of the Russian and East European HistoryWorkshop at Harvard University and the Russian and East European HistoryReading Group at Yale University. Certainarguments were originallypresented at the Remarque InstituteSeminar at New York University.Responsibility for content rests with the author.

0 The Past and PresentSociety, Oxford, 2003

This content downloaded from 137.110.33.183 on Sun, 5 Jan 2014 17:29:27 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 198 PASTAND PRESENT NUMBER179 events of twentieth-centuryEuropean history.'It has also broughtinto focus national atrocities that had hithertoescaped scholarlyattention. One such episode is the removalof Poles fromVolhynia by Ukrainiannationalists in 1943. It is a storyof multiple occupations,and ofcleansing within cleansings. Volhynia, like the rest of the easternhalf of interwarPoland, was subjectto triple occupationduring the Second World War. These territories, fromVilnius to L'viv,home to aboutthirteen million people in 1939, wereoccupied first by Stalin'sSoviet Union (1939-41), thenby Hitler'sGermany (1941-4), and thenagain by Stalin's SovietUnion (from1944).2 In thethree years before Ukrainian nationalistsbegan to cleanse Poles, Volhyniawas the site of a stunningdisplay of politicallymotivated population move- ments.During the firstSoviet occupation, the Nazis imported ethnicGermans from newly Soviet Volhynia. (This was partof Hitler'sfearfully ambitious project to build a nationallypure GreaterGermany, which entailed the deportationof Poles and Jewsfrom the enlargedReich.) The Soviets,having enlarged SovietUkraine to the west,deported tens of thousandsof the

'Important examples are ChristopherBrowning, Nazi Policy,Jewish Workers, GermanKillers (Cambridge, 2000), ch. 1, entitled'From "EthnicCleansing" to Geno- cide to the "Final Solution":The Evolutionof Nazi JewishPolicy, 1939-1941'; Terry Martin,The Affirmative Action Empire: Nations and Nationalismin theSoviet Union, 1923-1939 (Ithaca,2000), ch. 8 on 'EthnicCleansing and EnemyNations'; Norman Naimark,Fires of Hatred: Ethnic Cleansing in Twentieth-CenturyEurope (Cambridge, Mass., 2000); PhillipTher and Ana Siljak (eds.), RedrawingNations: Ethnic Cleansing in East-CentralEurope, 1944-1948 (Lanham, 2001); see also Mark Mazower, 'Vio- lence and the Statein theTwentieth Century', Amer. Hist. Rev., cvii(2002). 2Although the literatureon the Second World War is almostimponderably vast, the particularpredicament of tripleoccupation escapes notice. The relativeweak- ness of the historiographywas underscoredby two recentcontroversies: the British and NorthAmerican reaction to the Englishtranslation of Jan T. Gross's valuable studyof the mass murderof Jews at Jedwabne,Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jew- ishCommunity in Jedwabne (Princeton, 2001), and the disputesover Julian Hendy's 'documentary' on the Waffen-SS division 'Galizien'. The murder of Jews at Jedwabnetook place at the juncturebetween the firstand second occupations;the formationof the Waffen-SS'Galizien' was a resultof the weakeningof the second occupation and the anticipationof the third.On the firstoccupation, the starting pointis an earlierwork: Jan T. Gross: Revolutionfrom Abroad: The Soviet Conquest of Poland's WesternUkraine and WesternBelorussia (Princeton, 1988). On the second, the literatureis larger,though oriented towards German sources: consult Dieter Pohl, NationalsozialistischeJudenverfolgung in Ostgalizien (Munich, 1996). On the third,recent work based on Soviet sources includes two articlesby JeffreyBurds, 'Agentura:Soviet Informants' Networks and the UkrainianUnderground in Galicia, 1944-1948', East EuropeanPolitics and Societies,xi, 1 (1997), and 'Gender and Policingin SovietWest Ukraine',Cahiers du monderusse, xlii (2001).

This content downloaded from 137.110.33.183 on Sun, 5 Jan 2014 17:29:27 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions CAUSES OF UKRAINIAN-POLISH ETHNIC CLEANSING 199 MAP 1 INTERWAR EASTERN EUROPE, C. 1938

Tallinn ESTONIA SSWEDEN 3() miles N ("3() miles N - V A Ia? Ri V4(X)kilonvmtres BALTIC LATVIA SEA * Moscow LITHUANIA ' KaunasKa eWilno SOVIET UNION GERMANY *M" Berlin BELORUSSIAN-"s * S.S.R.I , GERMANY POAND -

Prague * *Volh * Kyiv Cracow.-1"

Vienna - " AUSTRIA HUNGARYudapest ROMANIA U AI

Belgrade SBeaBucharest YUGOSLAVIA , BLACKSEA

Volhynian elites, mostly Poles, to Siberia and Kazakhstan. These actions ceased only when the Germans invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941. In 1941 and 1942, the Germans organized a brutallyintimate genocide of the Volhynian Jews, which trained many of the perpetratorsof the 1943 cleansings of Poles. The 1943 decision of Ukrainian nationaliststo cleanse was, among other things, a strategic calculation based upon news of the Soviet victoryat Stalingrad in February 1943, and the judgement that German occupation was both unbearable and temporary.As Eastern Europe was balanced between two totalitarianregimes, and west Ukraine between a second and thirdwartime occupation, an organizationthat wished to build a Ukrainian state took mattersinto its own hands. In Germany, the ethnic cleansing of Jews was followed by their extermination. Yet ethnic cleansers may take Hitler

This content downloaded from 137.110.33.183 on Sun, 5 Jan 2014 17:29:27 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 200 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 179 seriouslywithout sharing his commitment to total elimination. Ethniccleansing is fareasier than the murderof an entire group,and servesmost nationalist programmes just as well. Nationalistswho wish to builda nationallyhomogenous state need not killall membersof a minoritypopulation: killing manyto removemost is sufficient.Of course,in Volhynia as in otherlands that had beeneastern Poland, Hitler was notthe onlymodel. By 1943,Poles and Ukrainiansalike understood thatStalin and Hitler forcibly removed and destroyed groups in thename of national politics. They not only saw ethnic cleansing,they were also subjectto it and complicitin it. By 1943 somethinglike one-quarter of theVolhynian population had experiencednational violence in one form or another, as victim, accompliceor both.For manysurvivors, personal experience took on politicalsignificance. Triple occupationnot only exposedthese lands to bothNazi and Sovietoccupation policies,it made them the site of intense competition between the twosystems. Because alien rule could be seenas bothintoler- ableand transitory, the triple occupation also gave rise to des- peratelystrong hopes for liberation and feverishlyconceived plansfor collaboration. The tripleoccupation here provides the overarching institu- tionalframework for a causalexplanation of one episode of ethnic cleansing.Naturally, the ideal-type 'ethnic cleansing' must animatethe evidence,and the evidencemust be available. Researchon ethniccleansing is generallybedevilled by contem- porarysecrecy and propaganda,subsequent partisanship and bias, and generalpaucity of sources.Thanks in partto the developmentof Polishand Ukrainianscholarship, and the good politicalrelations now prevailingbetween these states, manyof the evidentiary problems are now surmountable inthis case.Although not all relevantarchival materials are available, the end of communismhas createdan unusualopportunity forthe review and collectionof documentsin Warsaw,Kyiv and (to a muchlesser extent) Moscow. Also important are the recollectionsof VolhynianJews, Poles and Ukrainians,and recordsof the wartime Polish government-in-exile inLondon.3

Polish and Ukrainianhistorians collaborated in a series of remarkableconfer- ences devoted to these events. See Polska-Ukraina: trudnepytania [Poland- Ukraine:Difficult Questions], 8 vols. (Warsaw,1997-2001). Veryimportant recent (cont. on p. 201)

This content downloaded from 137.110.33.183 on Sun, 5 Jan 2014 17:29:27 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions CAUSES OF UKRAINIAN-POLISH ETHNIC CLEANSING 201 MAP 2 WARTIME EASTERN EUROPE, C. 1942

SWEDEN 0 300X)miles N ,4X) kilometresA L SEA (RECHSKOMMREICHSKOMMISSARIATOSTLAND Moscow

Kaunas *Vinius SOVIET UNION Danzig Minsk* Berlin

GOUVERNEMENT C~acow/ Luls'ke Kyiv L'viv REICHSKOMMISSARIAT UKRAINE HUNGARY

S CROATIA ROMANIA SERBIA WBLACSEA

'Volhynia' is the English name forthe ancient Orthodox land today known,in Ukrainian, as 'Volyn' (Polish 'Wolyri',Yiddish 'Volin', Russian 'Volyn'). Volhynia constitutes the extreme north-westof today's Ukraine, sharingthe Pripet marshes with Belarus to the north,divided fromPoland by the Bug River to

(n. 3 cont.) contributionsare Grzegorz Motyka, Tak bylo w Bieszczadach: walki polsko- ukrairiskie,1943-1948 [How It Was in the BieszczadyMountains: Polish-Ukrainian Conflicts,1943-1948] (Warsaw, 1999) and I. I. Il'iushyn,OUN-UPA i ukrains'ke pytanniav rokydruhoi svitovoi viiny v svitlipol's'kykh dokumentiv [OUN-UPA and the UkrainianQuestion duringthe Second WorldWar in the Lightof Polish Docu- ments] (Kyiv, 2000). A pioneeringwork based upon German archivalmaterials is RyszardTorzecki, Polacy i Ukrairicy:sprawa ukrairiska w czasieII wojnyiwiatowej na terenieII Rzeczypospolitej[Poles and Ukrainians:The UkrainianQuestion during the Second World War on the Lands of the Second Polish Republic] (Warsaw, 1993). Polish, Ukrainian and Russian archival sources and Jewish,Polish and Ukrainianmemoirs are cited below.

This content downloaded from 137.110.33.183 on Sun, 5 Jan 2014 17:29:27 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 202 PASTAND PRESENT NUMBER179 thewest. Galicia, which together with Volhynia constitutes the bulkof western Ukraine, lies to thesouth (see maps).Volhynia was a provinceof the Grand Duchies of Rus' and Lithuania, the Polish-LithuanianCommonwealth, and the Russian Empire.Whereas Galicia retained its Greek Catholic religion underAustrian imperial rule, Volhynia was reconvertedto Orthodoxyby Russia in 1839. Most ofhistorical Volhynia was joined to independentPoland afterthe FirstWorld War, and theevents discussed here took place withinthe confines of what hadbeen, until September 1939, Poland's Volhynia palatinate (wojew6dztwowoltyskie). Polish Volhynia was home to an OrthodoxUkrainian majority (68 per cent) and significant Roman CatholicPolish (17 per cent) and Jewish(10 per cent) minorities.4From 1928 to 1938,it was thesite of one ofeastern Europe'smost ambitious policies of toleration, Henryk J6zewski's 'Volhynianexperiment' of culturaland religiousautonomy for Ukrainians.This policywas intendedto limitthe popularity of communism;by itsend, Galiciannationalists had establisheda footholdin Volhynia.Nevertheless, survivors of the wartime cleansingsoften recall a climateof accordin pre-warVolhynia. Yet by April 1943, afterthree and a halfyears of war, the Ukrainiannationalist Mykola Lebed' proposed'to cleansethe entirerevolutionary territory of the Polish population'.5The UkrainianInsurgent Army (Ukrains'kaPovstans'ka Armiia, UPA) then cleansed the Polish populationfrom Volhynia. Ukrainianpartisans killed about fifty thousand Volhynian Poles and forcedtens of thousands more to fleein 1943.6Why, in the middleof the Second WorldWar, would Ukrainianpartisans

4 A provincialreport of June 1937 found348,079 Poles (16.7 per cent), 205,615 Jews(9.9 per cent) and 1,420,074 Ukrainians(68.1 per cent). The remaining5.5 per cent were mainlyGermans, Czechs and Russians. [HenrykJ6zewski], 'Wolyri': BibliotekaUniwersytetu Warszawskiego, Dzial rekopis6w[University of Warsaw Library,Manuscripts Department] (hereafter BUW, DR), syg. 1549, p. 1. 5 Petro Balei, FrondaStepana Banderyv OUN 1940 roku[The Fronde of Stepan Bandera in the Organizationof UkrainianNationalists, 1940] (Kyiv, 1996), 141; for paraphrases,see Mykola Lebed', Ukrains'kapovstans'ka armiia [Ukrainian InsurgentArmy] (Drohobych, 1987), 53; Taras Bul'ba-Borovets', Armiia bez derzhavy[An Armywithout a State] (L'viv, 1993), 272; VolodymyrSerhiichuk, OUN-UPA v rokyviiny [The OUN-UPA duringthe War] (Kyiv, 1996), 289. The UPA's chroniclesnow acknowledgesuch a plan. OleksandrVovk, 'Preface', Litopys UPA [The UPA Chronicle],2nd ser.,ii (1999), pp. xxxix-xl. 6About thirty-fivethousand victimshave been identified.A published list is Wladyslawand Ewa Siemaszko,Ludob6jstwo dokonane przez nacjonalist6w ukrairiskich (cont. on p. 203)

This content downloaded from 137.110.33.183 on Sun, 5 Jan 2014 17:29:27 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions CAUSES OF UKRAINIAN-POLISH ETHNIC CLEANSING 203 attackPolish civilians? To understandhow Lebed's wishcame true,we mustpose threequestions: about legitimateauthority, aboutsocial action,and aboutrevolutionary ideology.

CAUSES 1939-1943: (1) LEGITIMATE AUTHORITY Ukrainewas stateless.Self-determination was not universally observedafter the First World War, as Ukrainewas partitioned betweenBolshevik Russia and Poland at Riga in 1921. By the 1930s, the main currentof Volhynianpolitical life was co- operationwith the Polish state. The governorof Poland's Volhyniapalatinate, Henryk J6zewski, believed that 'a Ukrainian- Polish settlementis the fundamentof the existenceof Poland and Ukraine'.7In his 'Volhynianexperiment', J6zewski encouraged Ukrainianpoliticians to make their case in Warsaw througha non-partyreform bloc. The major centristparty in Poland's Ukrainianterritories overall, the Ukrainian National- DemocraticUnion, adopted a similarline in 1935: loyaltyto the Polishstate in exchangefor local reforms.Reconciliation to the realityof Polish statehoodmade good sense once Poland had signed non-aggressiondeclarations with the Soviet Union (1932) and Germany (1934). When the Polish state was destroyedby these very two powers in 1939, suchstrategies lost theirraison d'etre. As Poland's Ukrainianterritories fell to the SovietUnion, thelegal parties of theinterwar period dissolved themselvesto avoid repression.In any event,henceforth no

(n. 6 cont.) na ludnoscipolskiej Wolynia, 1939-1945 [The Genocide of the Polish Populationof Volhynia by Ukrainian Nationalists,1939-1945] (Warsaw, 2000); Genocideand Rescuein Wolyn:Recollections of the UkrainianNationalist Ethnic Cleansing Campaign againstthe Poles during World War II, ed. Tadeusz Piotrowski(Jefferson, 2000) also providesEnglish translations of pertinentmemoirs (and documents).The glosses in both collectionsshould be treatedwith care. See especiallyGrzegorz Hryciuk, 'Stratyludnoici na Wolyniuw latach 1941-1944' ['Population Losses in Volhynia in 1941-1944'], Polska-Ukraina:trudne pytania, v, 278. As in othercases of ethnic cleansing,higher figures circulate. 7 HenrykJ6zewski, 'Opowieid o istnieniu'['A Tale ofExistence']: BUW, DR, syg. 3189, 'Sprawa ukraifiska'['The UkrainianQuestion'], 36. See generallyWlodzimierz Medrzecki, Wojew6dztwowolyhiskie, 1921-1939: elementyprzemian cywilizacyjnych, spolecznychi politycznych[The Volhynian Palatinate, 1921-1939: Elements of Civilizational,Social and Political Transformations](Wroclaw, 1988); Jan Kesik, 'Wojew6dztwowolyriskie 1921-1939 w Swietleliczb i fakt6w'['The VolhynianPalat- inate 1921-1939 in theLight of Facts and Figures'],Przeglqd Wschodni, v, 1 (1997).

This content downloaded from 137.110.33.183 on Sun, 5 Jan 2014 17:29:27 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 204 PASTAND PRESENT NUMBER179 west-Ukrainianpolitician of any orientation would have argued forits reconstitution in lands where Ukrainians could be reck- oned a majority:Volhynia and Galicia.8The destructionof Polandrevealed the consensus in favourof sobornist': the creationof an independentUkraine including all Ukrainian lands. War destroyedthe centreand gave the farleft its great chance(or so it seemed).Before J6zewski's consolidation in 1928,crypto-communists hadwon the most votes in Volhynia and enjoyedthe greatest public presence.9 Even in 1938,after the terror-famineand duringthe purgesin SovietUkraine, J6zewskicomplained that his citizenslistened to hourafter hourof Soviet radio in theirown language.10 Before 1939, the WestUkrainian Communist Party had advocatedthe destructionof Poland and the absorption of its south-eastern territories by SovietUkraine." In 1939, the Red Armyand the NKVD realizedthis programme. During twenty-one months ofSoviet rule, revolution meant the destruction of theupper classes.About half a millionPolish citizens were imprisoned or deportedfrom Poland's former eastern territories toCentral Asia andSiberia, among them seventy thousand Volhynian Poles - 20 per centof the entirePolish population of the region.12As

sUnlikeSoviet censuses, the 1931 Polish census had no categoryfor nationality. Peoplewere categorized by religion and mothertongue. The palatinateswere also gerrymanderedto inflate the Polish presence in, for example, Lw6w palatinate. Yet no onedoubted that Ukrainians outnumbered Poles not only in Volhynia but in the threepalatinates known in Polish as 'MalopolskaWschodnia' (Eastern Little Poland)and in Ukrainianas 'Halychyna'(Galicia). 9On public presence,see MinisterstwoSpraw Wewnetrznych,Wydzial Narodowosciowy[Ministry of InternalAffairs, Nationalities Department], 'Sprawozdaniez zycia mniejszosci narodowych za miesiqce wrzesieri-pazdziernik 1928' ['Reporton theLife of NationalMinorities for the Months September-October 1928']:BUW, DR, syg.1550. On votes(including those not counted), see Minis- terstwoSpraw Wewnetrznych, Wydzial Bezpieczeristwa [Security Department], 'Udzial ugrupowariwywrotowych w wyborachdo cial ustawodawczychw Polsce w roku1928' ['The Participationof RevolutionaryGroups in theElections to Legis- lativeBodies in Polandin theYear 1928']: ArchiwumAkt Nowych [Archive of NewFiles], Warsaw (hereafter AAN), MSW, syg.1186. 1' HenrykJ6zewski, 'Memorial w sprawiekierunku polskiej polityki paristwowej na Wolyniu'['A Memorialon theQuestion of the Direction of Polish State Policy in Volhynia'],1938: BUW, DR, syg. 1549, akt 6. 1 The basic works are Janusz Radziejowski, The CommunistParty of Western Ukraine,1919-1929, trans. Alan Rutkowski(Edmonton, 1983); George D. Jackson, Cominternand Peasantin East Europe,1919-1930 (New York, 1966). 12The Volhynianestimate is fromWincenty Romanowski, ZWZ-AK na Wolyniu, 1939-1944 [The ZWZ-AK (Union of Armed Struggle/HomeArmy) in Volhynia, (cont. on p. 205)

This content downloaded from 137.110.33.183 on Sun, 5 Jan 2014 17:29:27 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions CAUSES OF UKRAINIAN-POLISH ETHNIC CLEANSING 205 a Ukrainianhistorian describes their predicament: 'A Polish colonist,officer, or policemencould not hide fromthe organs of the NKVD, especiallysince in everyvillage there were Ukrainianactivists who deliveredsuch people to the Soviet administration'.13Educated Ukrainians, though fewer in number,were also vulnerable.A Ukrainianwoman could be made a schoolteacheras the Soviets reorganizedVolhynian schools,then deported straight from her classroom.'4 Deporta- tionsceased onlywith the suddenarrival of theWehrmacht in June1941. Afterthe Germaninvasion, Volhynian communists eitherfled with the Red Army,or riskedexecution by the SS or lynchingsby their countrymen at home.'5 The end of the Polish statein 1939 crippledthe Ukrainian centre,and theGerman invasion of 1941 scatteredthe Ukrain- ian left.The nationalistUkrainian right then emerged from the shadows.The Organizationof UkrainianNationalists (OUN), foundedin 1929 by veteransof the Polish-WestUkrainian War, had spent a decade undergroundbefore the Nazis invaded Poland.'6 Years of duellingwith Polish intelligence also prepareda generationfor life underground.17 In a gesture thatseems a touchstoneof a lostage, Poland freedits political prisoners,including Ukrainian terroristssuch as Mykola Lebed' and Stepan Bandera, in earlySeptember 1939. The

(n. 12 cont.) 1939-1944] (Lublin, 1993), 104. For conservativereckonings of the 1939-41 deportations,followed here, see O. A. Gorlanovand A. B. Roginskii,'Ob arestakh v zapadnykhoblastiakh Belorussii i Ukrainyv 1939-1941 gg.' ['On the Arrestsin the WesternDistricts of Belarus and Ukraine in 1939-1941'], in A. E. Gur'ianov (ed.), Repressiiprotiv poliakov i pol'skikhgrazhdan [Repressions of Poles and Polish Citizens](Moscow, 1997), 96 and passim;Piotr Eberhardt, Miqdzy Rosjq a Niemcami: przemianynarodowosciowe w Europie Srodkowo-Wschodniej w XX w. [BetweenRussia and Germany:Nationality Transformations in East-CentralEurope in the Twenti- eth Century](Warsaw, 1996), 180. See also Gross, Revolutionfrom Abroad, 197 ff. 13Il'iushyn, OUN-UPA i ukrains'kepytannia, 17. 14 BogumilaBerdychowska and Ola Hnatiuk,Bunt pokolenia: rozmowy z intelektu- alistamiukrairiskimi [The Revolt of a Generation: Conversationswith Ukrainian Intellectuals](Lublin, 2000), 32. 15 Karel Cornelius Berkhoff,'Hitler's Clean Slate: EverydayLife in the Reichs- kommissariatUkraine, 1941-1944' (Univ. of Toronto Ph.D. thesis,1998), 87-8. 16 The basic worksare AlexanderJ. Motyl, The Turnto theRight: The Ideological Originsand Developmentof UkrainianNationalism, 1919-1929 (Boulder, 1980); JohnArmstrong, Ukrainian Nationalism, 3rd edn (Englewood, 1990); see also Petro Mirchuk,Narys istorii Orhanizatsii ukrains'kykh natsionalistiv [A Sketchof the His- toryof the Organizationof UkrainianNationalists] (Munich, 1968). 17For a sense of the extentof Polish penetrationof the OUN, consult AAN, MSW, syg. 1038-41, 1252.

This content downloaded from 137.110.33.183 on Sun, 5 Jan 2014 17:29:27 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 206 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 179 intentionwas to spareprisoners the trials of Germancaptivity, but theseparticular prisoners awaited the Germanswith hope. Since Germanywas the only possible ally in the Ukrainian nationalists'quest to build a new independentstate out of Soviet and Polish territories,such men had convincedthem- selvesthat Hitler's rise was a good omen.18In 1939, Nazi Ger- manyfavoured Ukrainians in theGeneralgouvernement carved fromoccupied Poland.19 Yet the war did not presentthe sortof opportunitythat the OUN hadexpected. The secretannexe to theMolotov-Ribbentrop pactbetween Nazi Germanyand theSoviet Union leftPoland's Ukrainianlands on the Sovietside, where they were joined to SovietUkraine. Opportunities for fruitful careers in the Nazi Generalgouvernementfailed to satisfynationalists who hoped forstatehood for all Ukraine.20Attempts to undermineSoviet rule in Galicia and Volhyniacame to nothing,and the Soviet NKVD liquidateddozens of valuable OUN leaders.Meanwhile, the consequencesof an earlierNKVD specialoperation made themselvesfelt. The NKVD murderof respectedOUN leader Ievhen Konovalets'in 1938 set in motiona competitionfor powerbetween a youngergeneration with good connectionsin Polish Ukraine and an older generationof emigrants.21In February 1940, the OUN divided into two fractions,the formerled byStepan Bandera and thelatter by Andrii Mel'nyk. The two fractions,conventionally referred to as the OUN-B and OUN-M, were at war for a year before theirformal divisionin April 1941. The youngerOUN-B was far more influencedby the integralnationalist Dmytro Dontsov, and moreinclined to thinkthat great efforts of will suffice to change

18The OUN had contactswith Hitler before his rise to power,and co-operated with German intelligence.Komunikat Informacyjny,3 June 1932, Ministerstwo Spraw Wewnetrznych,Wydzial Bezpieczeristwa: AAN, MSW, syg. 1040, pp. 50-7. As the agentnoted en passant,not all the emigr OUN leaders were anti-Semites, and some had Jewishgirlfriends. 19VolodymyrKubiiovych, Ukraintsi v Heneral'niiHubernii, 1939-1941: istoriia Ukrains'kohotsentral'noho komitetu [Ukrainians in the Generalgouvernement: A Historyof theUkrainian Central Committee] (Chicago, 1975), 49, 197, 280 and passim;Il'iushyn, OUN-UPA i ukrains'kepytannia,35; JanT. Gross,Polish Society under GermanOccupation: The Generalgouvernement, 1939-1944 (Princeton, 1979), 141. 20 Torzecki,Polacy i Ukrainicy,48-51. 21Konovalets' was killed in Rotterdamby a bomb disguised as a box of choc- olates. His assassin's account is in Pavel and AnatoliSudoplatov, Special Tasks: The Memoirsof an UnwantedWitness - a SovietSpymaster (Boston, 1995), 7-29.

This content downloaded from 137.110.33.183 on Sun, 5 Jan 2014 17:29:27 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions CAUSES OF UKRAINIAN-POLISH ETHNIC CLEANSING 207 historyfor the better.22Their civilwar was, however,nothing more than a strugglefor power, and as such was not easily concluded.Indeed, the stakeswere only raised when Germany invadedthe SovietUnion and broughtall of Ukraineunder its controlin summer1941. The Germaninvasion of the SovietUnion also proveda dis- appointment.In 1941, Germanysent Ukrainian nationalists to establishlocal administrationin Volhyniaand otherUkrainian lands conqueredby the Wehrmacht.Yet nationalists'political hopes were dashed when Germanydeclined to forma single administrativeunit fromits occupied Ukrainianterritories. SovietUkraine was alienand hostile,but had at leastembraced almostall of the Ukrainianlands. In thisrespect, the German invasionof the Soviet Union was a step back. Galicia was joinedto the Generalgouvernementruled by Hans Frankfrom Cracow,Volhynia and most of SovietUkraine to the Reichs- kommissariatUkraine ruled by Erich Koch in Rivne. Nazi authoritiesshowed little patience for Ukrainian national aspira- tions.The OUN-B, tryingas alwaysto createfaits accomplis, declaredthe existenceof a Ukrainianstate in L'viv in June 1941; over the next two years the Germansimprisoned (or killed)about 80 per cent of the OUN-B leadership.23Stepan Bandera foundhimself at Sachsenhausen;two of his brothers were later beaten to death in Auschwitzby Polish (Volks- deutsch)kapos.24 Bandera's arrest left Mykola Lebed' theleader of

22 On Dontsov,see Tomasz Stryjek,Ukrairiska idea narodowa okresu miqdzywojennego [The Ukrainian National Idea of the InterwarEra] (Wroclaw, 2000), 110-90; Vasyl' Rudko, 'Dontsov i Lypyns'kyi' [Dontsov and Lypyns'kyi'],Harvard UkrainianStudies, ix (1985); JohnA. Armstrong,'Collaborationism in WorldWar II: The IntegralNationalist Variant in EasternEurope', JL Mod. Hist.,xl (1968), 400; cf. Anatolii Rusnachenko,Rozumom i sertsem:ukrains'ka suspil'no-politychna dumka 1940-1980-khrokiv [With Reason and Passion: UkrainianSocio-Political Thought, 1940s-1980s] (Kyiv, 1999), ch. 1. 23RyszardTorzecki, Kwestia ukrairiska w polityceTrzeciej Rzeszy [The Ukrainian Questionin thePolitics of the Third Reich] (Warsaw,1972), 247. Germanrecords of some ofthe more important arrests are reproducedin Litopysneskorenoi Ukrainy: dokumenty,materialy, spohady [Chronicle of the EnduringUkrainian Nation: Documents, Materials,Reminiscences], ed. Ia. S. Lial'ka and Iu. Iu. Slyvka,2 vols. (L'viv, 1993-7), ii, 79-97. 24Borys Vitoshyns'kyi,'Ukrains'ko-pol's'ki vzaiemyny v nimets'kykhtiurmakh i kontstaborakh'['Ukrainian-Polish Relations in German Prisons and Concentra- tion Camps'], in MykhailoMarunchak (ed.), V borot'biza ukrains'kuderzhavu [In the Strugglefor a Ukrainian State] (Winnipeg, 1990), 160-2; Oleksa Vintoniak, 'Pro Avshvitsi iak zhynuvVasyl' Bandera' [AboutAuschwitz, and how Vasyl' Ban- dera Perished'],ibid., 301, 305-6.

This content downloaded from 137.110.33.183 on Sun, 5 Jan 2014 17:29:27 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 208 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 179 theOUN-B. Lebed' concentratedhis considerable energies on the formationof an OUN-B securityservice, whose members were to be characterizedby 'fanatical nationalism and intransigenceto the enemiesof the nation'.25 The Ukrainiancentre had dissolved,the lefthad fled,and the righthad emerged.Yet the rightwas dividedby a Soviet provocation,decapitated by its own civil war and German reprisals,and radicalizedby hopes raised and dashed. In this way,after three years of war, Ukrainian politics in Volhyniawas representedby the more extreme fraction of a nationalistterrorist organization,led byimmature and angrymen. Lebed' was thirty- threeyears of age whenthe ethnic cleansing of Poles began.

CAUSES 1939-1943: (2) CAPABLE CLEANSERS It is one thingto proposeethnic cleansing; it is quiteanother to findpeople able to implementsuch a policy.Yet theVolhynian OUN-B was able to raise a UkrainianInsurgent Army (UPA) withina fewdays in late March 1943, and beginthe cleansing of Poles fromVolhynia that same month.By the end of April 1943 the UPA had perhapsten thousandsoldiers under its command, and had reduced much of Volhyniato mutual slaughter.By July1943 it had swollento twentythousand soldiers,and was capable of co-ordinatedactions across hundreds of miles of Volhynianterritory. How did such operations becomepossible? The answerbegins with the rendingof the fabricof tradi- tionalsociety in Volhynia.The destructionof the Polish state in September1939 led to the lootingof prosperoushouses and stores,the murderof Jewsand landlords,and the settlingof personalscores. This social self-destructionwas encouragedby Soviet occupation policy, designed to identifyand remove potentialsources of resistance.26 By summer1941, the Volhynian educatedclasses had been deportedto Siberiaor CentralAsia. These deportationswere SovietNKVD operations,but man- powerwas providedby the local militia,which in theVolhynian

25In the words of Lebed's biographer:Oleksandr Panchenko, Mykola Lebed': zhyttia,diial'nist', derzhavno-pravovi pohliady [Mykola Lebed': Life, Activity,and Views on the State and Law] (Poltava, 2001), 67. 26 Gross, Revolutionfrom Abroad, 35-44 and passim.

This content downloaded from 137.110.33.183 on Sun, 5 Jan 2014 17:29:27 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions CAUSES OF UKRAINIAN-POLISH ETHNIC CLEANSING 209 countrysidewas preponderantlyUkrainian (and infiltratedby the OUN). The OUN had operated a separate section in Volhyniasince 1934, and by 1939 commandeda smallnetwork of universitystudents and recentgraduates.27 Since the OUN had rarelytried terrorism in interwarVolhynia, many of its men got theirfirst taste of violence during the Sovietdeportation of Poles. For Ukrainianpeasants, Soviet deportationpolicy was an earlylesson in the unityof class and nationalpolitics, and thepossibility for radical solutions. This was perhapsless ironic than it seems: communistsand nationalistsin Volhyniaboth linkedthe land questionwith the Polish question in the 1920s and 1930s.28 The Soviet collectivizationof agriculturein 1939, though incomplete,privileged corruption and theft;in 1941 Nazis placed theirown colonistsin chargeof state farms.Koch's administrationof the ReichskommissariatUkraine did away withsecondary schooling for Ukrainians; Ukrainian teenagers drankvodka to pass thetime.29 He saw Volhyniaas a sourceof foodstuffs,raw materialsand forcedlabour. Having secured totalcontrol over policy by summer 1942, he explainedhis policy line: 'This people mustbe governedby ironforce, so as to help us win the war now. We have not liberatedit to bring blessingson theUkraine, but to securefor Germany the neces- saryliving space and a source of food'.30 The Ukrainiansin 27 MinisterstwoSpraw Wewnetrznych,Wydzial Bezpieczeristwa,Komunikat Informacyjny,30 May 1932: AAN, MSW, syg. 1040, p. 47; MinisterstwoSpraw Wewnetrznych,Wydzial Bezpieczeristwa,'O.U.N. - sprawozdanie Nr. 1 z 27.10.1934': AAN, MSW, syg.1252, pp. 13, 29; MinisterstwoSpraw Wewnetrznych, Wydzial Bezpieczeristwa,'O.U.N. - sprawozdanie Nr. 4 z 6.1.1935': AAN, MSW, syg. 1252, p. 53. 28Nationalist propaganda by communists in Volhynia would bear future research.Secret reportsfrom Volhynian authorities to Warsaw describelow-level national violence organizedby the CommunistParty of WesternUkraine in the second halfof the 1930s, especiallyin the run-upto May Day. See the reportsfor 1935, 1936, 1937 and 1938, collected in the Akta sprawyHenryka J6zewskiego, WojskowySqd Regionalny,1954 [Recordof the Proceedings in the Case of Henryk J6zewski,Regional Military Court, 1954], syg.275/54, tom 2, ArchiwumParistwowe miasta stolecznegoWarszawy [State Archiveof the Capital City of Warsaw],tem- porarilyheld at the Sd Okregowyw Warszawie, VIII Wydzial Karny, Sekcja Uniewainieri[Warsaw District Court, 8th CriminalDivision, Revocations Section]. 29Berkhoff, 'Hitler's Clean Slate', 334. See also Gross, Revolutionfrom Abroad, 45-50. 30AlexanderDallin, GermanRule in Russia, 1941-1945: A Studyof Occupation Policies(London, 1957), 142; see also Rolf Dieter Miiller (ed.), Die deutscheWirt- schaftspolitikin den besetztensowjetischen Gebieten, 1941-1943 (Boppard am Rhein, 1991), 626.

This content downloaded from 137.110.33.183 on Sun, 5 Jan 2014 17:29:27 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 210 PASTAND PRESENT NUMBER179 chargeof local administrationin the villages and countryside wereable to send Poles to the Reich as forcedlabour for a time, butsoon were forced to send Ukrainians as well.31Employment inthe police was one of the few ways that young Ukrainians could drawa localsalary and avoid deportation to theReich. Germanoccupation policy confronted Volhynian Ukrainians withviolent death on a tremendousscale. From the moment ErichKoch established his offices in Rivne,he rejoicedin con- tinualpublic murder: of Jews in Aktionenin autumn1941, of Ukrainianand Polishvillagers pacified for real or imagined resistance,of Soviet prisoners of war starved to deathin a camp a few hundredmetres from his offices.32Koch's attitudeto Ukrainianswas mostfamously expressed thus: 'If I finda Ukrainianwho is worthyto sit with me at the table, I musthave him shot'.33During the firstwave of Jewishkillings by the mobileEinsatzgruppen in summer and autumn1941, the SS intentionallyexposed the Ukrainian militia (or auxiliary police) to theshooting of Jews.34 During the second and finalwave, in summerand autumn1942, the Germansused a much- augmentedUkrainian police force in a labour-intensiveversion ofthe Final Solution. The Holocaustin the Reichskommissariat wasnot a matterof railways and gas chambers, as inthe Gener- algouvernement,butof short marches and shooting. While many Jewsin Galicia,just to thesouth, were gassed in camps,the Jewsof Volhynia were shot in pits close to home.As a survivor recalled:'in our area therewere no camps.They just took peopleout and shotthem immediately'.35 The liquidationof theghettos in 1942was an SS operation,but it was implemented byabout 1,400 German and about 12,000 Ukrainian policemen.

31 In towns the civilianadministration was largelyPolish, but the police were under no illusionsas to theirloyalty: 'the Polish populationis basicallyhostile to the Germans'. Meldung der Einsatzgruppenund -kommandos,'Lage und Stim- mung in der West-Ukraine',10 Apr. 1942, repr. in LitopysUPA, 1st ser., xxi (1991), 119. 32Local women who broughtfood to the starvingprisoners were oftenbeaten, or evenshot: Karel C. Berkhoff,'The "Russian"Prisoners of War in Nazi-RuledUkraine as Victimsof Genocidal Massacre', Holocaust and GenocideStudies, xv, 1 (2001), 12. 33Dallin, GermanRule in Russia, 167. On his racial attitudestowards Ukrainians, see Gerald Reitlinger,The House Built on Sand: The Conflictsof GermanPolicy in Russia, 1939-1945 (New York, 1960), 174-82. 34Raul Hilberg, The Destructionof theEuropean Jews (New York, 1978), 202, 247, 250. 35FortunoffVideo Archivefor Holocaust Testimonies,Yale University(here- afterFVA), Memoir T3237.

This content downloaded from 137.110.33.183 on Sun, 5 Jan 2014 17:29:27 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions CAUSES OF UKRAINIAN-POLISH ETHNIC CLEANSING 211 The Ukrainianpolicemen did littleof the shooting,but they providedthe manpowerfor the operationsthat led 150,000 VolhynianJews to the killingfields. In the countryside,the police tooka moredirect role and killedthe Jews themselves.36 The fewJewish survivors found shelter with Ukrainian or Polish families,or fledto theforest.37 Ukrainiansin the Germanauxiliary police in Volhyniacol- laboratedin theFinal Solutionthroughout November 1942. In March and April 1943, theyprovided the bulk of the recruits forthe OUN-B's new partisanarmy, the UPA. The OUN-B had directedits men to thepolice in 1941, as itstask forces followed theWehrmacht through Ukraine. In 1942, as the num- bers of auxiliarypolice increasedto meet the demandsof the Final Solution,the OUN-B agitatedamong them: 'When there are fiveGermans and fifty[Ukrainian] militiamen, who has power?'38In 1943, theOUN-B was able to extractits men, and bringmany of the police along with them. They had been taughthow to kill.Former policemen brought not only their SS trainingand theirweapons, but theirreplaceable experience of co-ordinatedmurder of designatedpopulations. 39 The OUN-B appealeddirectly to thisexperience, and to thewidely held idea thatthe Ukrainians were next: 'The Germansuse everymethod to beat us down,and thenlater do withus whatthey did with theJews. We are notJews and we willnot die a Jewishdeath'.40 The people who became UPA soldiersknew about Jewish

36Archiwum Wschodnie [EasternArchive], Oirodek 'Karta', Warsaw (hereafter AW), Memoirs 11/2451/6,II/2451/7; Zydowski InstytutHistoryczny [Jewish Historical Institute],Warsaw (hereafterZIH), Memoirs 301/5980/B,301/3178, 301/2890, 301/2879; FVA, Memoir T903; Shmuel Spector, The Holocaustof Vol- hynianJews, 1941-1944 (Jerusalem,1990), 172-83; Douglas Huneke, TheMoses of Rovno: The StirringStory of Fritz Graebe,a GermanChristian who Risked his Lifeto Lead Hundredsof Jews to Safetyduring the Holocaust(New York, 1985), 64-93. Ukrainianauxiliary police fromVolhynia also collaboratedin the murderof Jews in neighbouringregions. 37Ukrainian rescues of Jews in Volhynia:FVA, MemoirsT1413, T1645, T2484. 38Meldung der Einsatzgruppenund -kommandos,'Lage und Stimmungin der West-Ukraine',123. 39Martin Dean, 'The German Gendarmerie,the UkrainianSchutzmannschaft, and the "Second Wave" ofJewish Killings in Occupied Ukraine',German Hist., xiv, 2 (1996), 179. 40 OkruzhnyiProvid OUN, 'U spravi ostannikhpodii na nashykhzemliakh' [OUN RegionalCommand, 'In theMatter of the Most RecentEvents on our Lands'], Apr. 1943, Tsentral'nyiderzhavnyi arkhiv vyshchykh orhaniv vlady ta upravlinnia Ukrainy[Central State Archive of the Higher Organs of Power and Administrationof Ukraine],Kyiv (hereafterTsDAVO), 3833/1/87/1.

This content downloaded from 137.110.33.183 on Sun, 5 Jan 2014 17:29:27 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 212 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 179 death,as theyhad broughtit aboutas Germanpolicemen. The lessonslearned were applied to Poles.

III

CAUSES 1939-1943: (3) IDEOLOGY AND CIRCUMSTANCE Having establishedhow a man such as Lebed' could rise to authorityin Ukrainianpolitics, and how a class ofpeople capable ofexecuting his programmecould emerge,we mayinquire moreclosely about the response of Ukrainian nationalists to the circumstancesof war. Identifyingsome constantsshould allow us to distinguishthe variables. One constantfrom the pre-warperiod was an ideologyof ethnichomogeneity. The OUN was founded,in 1929, as an organizationcommitted to removing all occupiers from Ukrainiansoil.41 It arose fromthe disappointmentof the destructionof the West Ukrainian Republic by Poland in 1919; itsmembers were typically Polish citizens from Galicia. A wartime constant,from 1939, was the preoccupationwith the futurerestoration of the Polish state. Both fractionsof the OUN understoodthat Poland wouldnot voluntarily relinquish Volhyniaand Galicia afterthe war.42 As proponentsof an inde- pendentUkraine including these territories, Ukrainian nation- alistsknew they had littleto gainfrom wartime discussions with Poles. Boththe OUN-B and theOUN-M believedthat the situation would resolveitself if populationswere moved in both directions.Emboldened by Hitler's cleansings,in December 1941 the OUN-M evenproposed bilateral 'voluntary' resettle- ments'on themodel of the Germanexperiment' to the Polish anti-Nazi resistance,the Home Army.43The proposal was

41 Mirchuk,Narys istorii OUN, 93. 42 The Polishgovernment in London knewthat an 'armedoccupation' of Volhynia would be necessary to keep it afterthe war. 'Meldunek specjalny - Sprawa Ukrairiska'['Special Report - The UkrainianQuestion'], R6wecki to Sikorski,15 Nov. 1941, in StudiumPolski Podziemnej [Polish Underground Movement Study Trust], London, VI/3.1.1.1.1. See also 'Przynaleznosdziem wschodnichdo Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej' ['The EasternLands as Belongingto the Polish Republic'], zesz. A.9.V., tecz. 39; and 'Tajne' ['Secret'], 3 Aug. 1943, zesz. A.9.V., tecz. 34, Ministerstwo Spraw Wewnetrznych,Archiwum Muzeum Polskiego [Archive of the Polish Museum], London. 43VolodymyrKubiiovych was the author of thisproposal: see Il'iushyn,OUN- UPA i ukrains'kepytannia, 48. IndividualPoles who knewUkrainian politics were (cont. on p. 213)

This content downloaded from 137.110.33.183 on Sun, 5 Jan 2014 17:29:27 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions CAUSES OF UKRAINIAN-POLISH ETHNIC CLEANSING 213 rejected:that it could be made at all suggeststhe importance of theGerman precedent. The OUN-B, trueas everto its radicalism,interpreted the partyprogramme in a moredecisive fashion than the OUN-M, and followeda moreruthless strategy. It meantto pre-emptthe returnof Polish statehoodby expellingthe Poles fromwest Ukrainebefore the war was over.A guidelinefor OUN-B task forcescomposed just before the German invasion of the Soviet Union,in May 1941, indicatesthe desirability of the removal of 'Poles in the westernUkrainian regions, who have not aban- doned theirdreams of rebuildinga GreaterPoland at the expense of Ukrainianlands'.44 By 1941, havingexperienced Sovietoccupation, the OUN-B no longersaw Poles as themain enemy:but theywere still to be removed,as potentialallies of Soviet power. The OUN-B was also more willingthan the OUN-M to killUkrainians in pursuitof its goals, and by this means and othersit had monopolizedpolitical life in Volhynia by 1943.45 Anotherpertinent strategic difference between the OUN-B and the OUN-M concernedcollaboration. In 1939, the still- unitedOUN collaboratedwith Germany in orderto advance its own politicalgoals. By 1943, afterthe Germandefeat at Stalingrad,its two fractions disagreed over the political value of such collaboration.The OUN-M followeda morepatient line in Galicia, collaboratingwith Germanydespite earlydisap- pointments.In spring1943, the OUN-M endorsedthe formation

(n. 43 cont.) consideringsimilar steps. See, forexample, 'Zagadnienie ukrairiskie'['The Ukrain- ian Question']: BUW, DR, syg. 155. Here someone who was apparentlyan official of the Sanacja governmentsof the 1930s proposes the deportationof fivehundred thousand Ukrainiansfrom a post-warPoland with pre-warfrontiers: 'during the presentwar the Germans themselveshave shown how these thingscan be done. Not to mentionsimilar Soviet practices.If we live in an epoch when the Gordian knot is cut with a knife,then thereis no option but to apply the same salutary measure here'. The model here is not the total exterminationof the Jews,but German (and Soviet) ethniccleansing. 44'Borot'ba i diial'nist'OUN pidchasviiny' ['The Struggleand the Activityof the OUN duringthe War'], May 1941: TsDAVO, 3833/3/1/60,translated and discussed in Karel C. Berkhoffand Marco Carynnyk,'The Organizationof Ukrainian Nationalists and itsAttitude toward Germans and Jews:Iaroslav Stets'ko's 1941 Zhyttiepys[Bio- graphy]',Harvard Ukrainian Studies, xxiii, 3/4 (1999), quotationat p. 153. 45UPA murderof Ukrainiansis a topic thatawaits its historian.For a sense ofits scope, see LitopysUPA, 2nd ser., ii (1999), 312. For tacticstowards the OUN-M, see TsDAVO, 3833/1/94/1-2;TsDAVO, 3833/1/225/6-13.See also Berdychowska and Hnatiuk (eds.), Buntpokolenia, 37.

This content downloaded from 137.110.33.183 on Sun, 5 Jan 2014 17:29:27 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 214 PASTAND PRESENT NUMBER179 ofa GalicianWaffen-SS division.46 The OUN-B,meanwhile, knewthat the calculus of collaborationin Volhyniawas very different.Whereas Generalgouverneur Frank accepted the formationof a Waffen-SSdivision in Galicia,Reichskommissar Koch interpretedthe defeat at Stalingradas a reasonto press harderon theUkrainian population in Volhynia.47Just as the methodsof the OUN-M worked best in Galicia, so theOUN-B's approachwas best suited to Volhynia. The shadowof the third occupation fell first upon Volhynia, as Sovietpartisans began raidsas earlyas June1942. By autumn1942, at leastsix separate partisan detachments from Belarusor easternUkraine had appearedin Volhynia.The Sovietpartisans called themselves a 'movement', but they were controlledby a 'centralstaff': their actions constituted a closely controlledpropaganda of the deed. ColonelAnton Bryns'kyi, Red Armyintelligence officer and latera Hero of theSoviet Union,was 'Old UnclePete' as a partisanleader in Ukraine. The OUN-B understoodthe propaganda effects of Soviet par- tisansuccesses, and feared that Ukrainians would be drawnto fightunder Soviet partisan command."4 Moreover, German reprisalsto Sovietpartisan attacks targeted the civilian Ukrain- ian populationin Volhynia,especially educated people. These Germanreprisals removed potential Ukrainian opposition to the OUN-B, radicalizedUkrainian society, and forcedsur- vivorsof pacifications to seekshelter in theforest.49 Without alternatives,both survivors and policemendisgusted by such actionsmight join the Soviet partisans. In 1942,two nationalist groupsalso took advantage of Volhynia's favourable terrain: the

46 Taras Hunczak, On theHorns of a Dilemma:The Story of the Ukrainian Division Halychyna(Lanham, 2000), 5-9; WolodymyrKosyk, L'Allemagne national-socialiste etl'Ukraine (Paris, 1986), 369. Establishedin April 1943, Waffen-SS'Galizien' was one of the twentyor so Waffen-SSformations composed of non-GermanEuro- peans: Georg Tessin, Verbiindeund Truppender deutschen Wehrmacht und WaffenSS imZweiten Weltkrieg, 1939-1944, 17 vols. (Frankfurtam Main, 1977), i, 387-93. 47 Dallin, GermanRule in Russia, 156. 48For an example of Soviet partisanagitation, see A. P. Bryns'kyi,Po toi bik frontu[On the OtherSide ofthe Front],2 vols. (Kyiv, 1976-8), i, 326. For OUN-B intelligenceon Soviet partisans,see TsDAVO, 3833/1/87/2-33.Volhynian Poles noted thesenew concernsof local Ukrainiannationalists: AW, MemoirsII/1321/2k and II/1328/2k. 49A summary of predicamentsis Ihor Kamenetsky,Hitler's Occupationof Ukraine,1941-1944: A Studyof Totalitarian Imperialism (Milwaukee, 1956), 35-50.

This content downloaded from 137.110.33.183 on Sun, 5 Jan 2014 17:29:27 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions CAUSES OF UKRAINIAN-POLISH ETHNIC CLEANSING 215 'originalUPA' of Taras Bul'ba-Borovets'and the OUN-M. Local OUN-B activistswere left behind, and resentedit. Then Stalingradraised the stakes. After the Sovietvictory of 2 February1943, morecommunist partisans moved into Vol- hynia.On 10 February1943 the CentralStaff of the (Soviet) UkrainianPartisan Movement ordered new operationsin Vol- hynia.50The OUN-B, meetingon 17-21 February,responded by callingfor the creationof a nationalistpartisan army.51 The OUN-B had hoped to delaythe formationof thisarmy for as long as possible,keeping its men in the relativesafety of the Germanpolice or underground,and allowingthe Red Army and Wehrmachtto exhaust each other in battle.52Soviet recruitmentof local manpowerafter Stalingrad forced the issue. The OUN-B soughtto providean alternativeto 'ele- mentsof the Ukrainiannation who mightotherwise seek shelter fromGerman imperialism from Moscow'.53 Lebed', who had been planningfor such a contingencyin 1942, beganprep- arations.Galicians with militaryexperience, such as Roman Shukhevych,made theirway to Volhynia.For Shukhevych, who was thirty-fiveyears of age, the logic of collaborationhad just come to an end. Shukhevychescaped as the Germans dissolvedhis police battalion(Schutzmannschaftbataillon 201)

So'Soderzhanie: "O vykhodev novyi raion deistviiVolynskogo partizanskogo otriada"' ['Report: "On the Entryof the VolhynianPartisan Detachment into a New Region of Activity"'],No. 0013, 10 Feb. 1943; 'Soderzhanie: "O vykhodev novyiraion deistviiRovenskogo partizanskogo otriada"' ['Report:"On the Entryof the Rovno PartisanDetachment . ."'], No. 0012, 10 Feb. 1943, in Ivan Bilas, Represyvno-karal'nasystema v Ukraini,1917-1953 [The Systemof Repressionand Punishmentin Ukraine,1917-1953] (Kyiv, 1994), 367-9. 51 'PostanovyIII. KonferentsiiOrhanizatsii Ukrains'kykh Natsionalistiv Samo- stiinykivDerzhavnykiv, 17-21 liutoho 1943 r.' ['The Resolutions of the Third Conference of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists - Advocates of Independence and Statehood, 17-21 February 1943'], in OUN v svitlipostanov VelykykhZboriv [The OUN in theLight of the Great Congresses] (n.p., 1955), 81-3, 88. This publicationis oftenunreliable: but here it providesevidence that contra- dictslater OUN myth-making,and confirmsother sources. 52Kraievyi Provid OUN [Regional OUN Command (Bandera)], 'Provokatsii' ['Provocations'], Nov. 1942: TsDAVO, 3833/1/86/6a;'Partyzantka i nashe stanovyshchedo nei' ['Partisan War and our Position towards It'], June 1942: TsDAVO 3833/1/87/1.See also I. I. Il'iushyn,Protystoiannia UPA i AK v roky DruhoiSvitovoi Viiny [The Confrontationof the UkrainianInsurgent Army and the Home Armyduring the Second World War] (Kyiv,2001), 128. 53'Postanovy III. KonferentsiiOrhanizatsii Ukrains'kykh Natsionalistiv Samo- stiinykivDerzhavnykiv, 17-21 liutoho 1943 r.', in OUN v svitlipostanov Velykykh Zboriv,82. The concernwas forVolhynia: see Panchenko,Mykola Lebed', 75.

This content downloaded from 137.110.33.183 on Sun, 5 Jan 2014 17:29:27 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 216 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 179 and arrestedits officers in January1943, and now soughta post befittinghis rankand experience.54 The Germandefeat at Stalingradhad immediatelocal conse- quencesin westernUkraine. Anticipating the third occupation, and promptedby changesin the local militarybalance, the OUN-B alteredits national strategy. A strategyit was, foreven the most devotednationalists understood that the creationof an armyrequired far more than ideologicalconviction. Any good partisanleader must be alertto the politicalmalleability of prospectivesoldiers. Although one mightassume that someone who joined a communistarmy would not have joined a nationalistarmy, the eventsof 1943 belie the expectationthat ideologygoverns the initialchoices of men and women who become partisans.(Consider the Ukrainianpoliceman who saveda Jewishgirl from the death pits by carrying her off to join the Sovietpartisans.)55 Both the OUN-B and Sovietpartisan commanderswere rightto thinkthat Ukrainian policemen in the Germanservice could be drawninto theirranks. In early 1943, partisancommanders wished to cornerthe available manpowerof fighting age beforesomeone else did. They knewthat the experienceof directedkilling combined withpolitical indoctrination could make loyal and even com- mittedfighters out of apoliticalpeasants. Even whenVolhyn- ians joined the variouspartisan armies for reasons of lifeand death, theirexperience in the forestand in combat created or consolidateda politicalloyalty - even if it was of the most existentiallydesperate and intellectuallyimpoverished sort. Escalation has its own rules and its own logic, one sort of commitmentcan lead to another,as we shallsee as we turnto theevents of 1943 in Volhynia.

54For the recollectionsof such officers,see VolodymyrMakar, 'Pivnichno- zakhidniukrains'ki zemli' ['North-WesternUkrainian Lands'], Apr. 1943, repr.in Litopys UPA, 1st ser., v (1985), 15; V. Hrabenko, 'V riadakh UPA na Kostopil'shchyni'['In the Ranks ofthe UPA in the Kostopil' Region'], ibid.,68; V. Novak, 'Pivnichno-zakhidniaokruha "Turiv"' ['The North-WestDistrict "Turiv" '], ibid., 96; Stepan Soroka, 'Pidhaiets'ka sotnia UPA na Volyni 1943 rik' ['The Pidhaiets'ka Company in Volhynia, 1943'], ibid., 138; Roman Petrenko,'Pershi boiovi viddilyUPA' ['The FirstCombat Units of the UPA'], LitopysUPA, 1stser., xxvii(1997), 75-6. On Shukhevych,see Encyclopediaof Ukraine,5 vols. (Toronto, 1993), v, 680-1. 55ZIH, Memoir 301/2879.

This content downloaded from 137.110.33.183 on Sun, 5 Jan 2014 17:29:27 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions CAUSES OF UKRAINIAN-POLISH ETHNIC CLEANSING 217 IV

NATIONAL UPRISING, MARCH 1943 RedArmy Colonel Anton Bryns'kyi, alias Old UnclePete, had a fewtricks up hissleeve. Having established his Soviet partisan unitin Volhyniain 1942,he recruitedUkrainian agents within Koch's Germanadministration in Rivne. In March1943, he turnedto the centralweapon of the Sovietpartisan arsenal: provocation.He allowedhis contactswith Ukrainian policemento becomeknown to theGermans. His hopewas that the Germanswould shoot some policemen, and that the rest would fleeto theforest and join his units. The effortwas well timed: theGerman quota for forced labour in theReichskommissariat Ukrainehad just been increased,and Ukrainianpolicemen weredisgusted with the hunt for forced labour. Bryns'kyi was halfsuccessful. In midMarch 1943, German reprisals began and Ukrainianpolicemen began to leavetheir posts. But the OUN-B,better organized than Bryns'kyi knew, rolled with the punch.56OUN-B membersinside the police organized rebel- lions at police stations,and thenled the policemento the forest."Rather than joiningthe Soviet partisans,former policemenwere led to thenew UPA, proclaimedon thespot. Bryns'kyi'sprovocation gave the UPA its firstlarge body of recruits.

56This Bryns'kyiprovocation thesis was firstadvanced, on the basis of Bela- rusian archivaldocuments, by GrzegorzMotyka, 'Lach6w usun4d' ['To Expel the Polaks'], Gazeta Wyborcza,15 Apr. 2002 (p. 3 of Internetversion), and thenin his 'Sowieci a konfliktpolsko-ukrairiski' ['The Soviets and the Polish-Ukrainian Conflict'],in KrzysztofJasiewicz(ed.), Tygielnarod6w (Warsaw, forthcoming). I am gratefulto Motykafor allowing me to see manuscriptcopies of his two articlesfor thisvolume, cited here and at n. 67 below. See also Il'iushyn,Protystoiannia UPA i AK, 127. Readers unconvincedthat Soviet partisanswould be capable of such sophisticatedtrickery should consult the two articlesby Burds cited above (n. 2), and JohnArmstrong, Soviet Partisans in WorldWar II (Madison, 1964). 57Later, the beliefarose that the OUN-B planned to create the UPA at exactly this time, and that its men simplyanswered the call, emptyingGerman police detachmentsall at once. ContemporaryOUN-B documentsbetter fit the preparation- then-provocationthesis. OkruzhnyiProvid OUN, 'U spravi ostannikhpodii na nashykhzemliakh', Apr. 1943: TsDAVO, 3834/1/1/1;S. Novyts'kyi,'U zmahan- niakhza voliu volyns'koizemli' ['In the Strugglefor the Freedom of the Volhynian Land'], LitopysUPA, 1st ser., v (1985), 169; see also HerasymKhvylia, 'V lavakh UPA na Volyni' ['In the Ranks of the UPA in Volhynia'],in Petro Mirchukand V. Davydenko (eds.), V riadakhUPA [In the Ranks of the UPA] (New York, 1957), 30-2. A large memoir and quasi-memoirliterature discusses the originsof the UPA: forexample, Volodymyr Zavedniuk, Na pivnochi,na Volynistvorylas' armiia UPA [In the North,in Volhynia,Was Formed the UPA Army](Ternopil', 1996).

This content downloaded from 137.110.33.183 on Sun, 5 Jan 2014 17:29:27 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 218 PASTAND PRESENT NUMBER179 This was an accident,but one forwhich Ukrainian nationalists had prepared.By 20 March UPA SupremeCommander RomanShukhevych was readywith broadsides proclaiming the creationand missionof the UPA: to fightGerman and Russian imperialism.58The quick recruitmentof late March whetted the nationalists'appetite for the restof the policemen.On 4 Aprilthe OUN-B promiseddeath ('revolutionary tribunals') to Ukrainianswho remainedin the Germanservice.59 One UPA officerreckoned that 'about 50 per cent' of thosewho joined theUPA in theseearly days were forced to do so.60Hundreds (or perhapsa fewthousand) more policemen joined the UPA in earlyApril, as the head of the Germanpolice complainedthat he was losingunit afterunit.61 As these policemenhad providedthe backbone of German authority, their departure weak- ened Germanpower in the Volhyniancountryside. The UPA also attackedGerman police outposts, restricting German power in thetowns.62 Guns providedby Germanswere turned against Germans.The Germanpolice were bogged down in marshesto the north;the Wehrmachtwas far to the east (Kharkivwas recapturedin March); Koch's entirecivilian administration in Rivnenumbered only 252 people.However else one mayevaluate theactions of the UPA, herewas a rareexample of rebels calling thebluff of numerically small German occupation forces. The OUN-B had no wishto fighta full-scalewar against the Germans,since its leadersbelieved, after Stalingrad, that the Germanswould be drivenout of Ukraineby the Red Army. Ukrainiannationalists saw anti-Germanactions as preparation forthe harder Soviet occupation to come.63In Volhynia,local commanderssaw thefield opened for the removal of the Poles.

58 Polovnakomanda Ukrains'koi Povstanchoi Armii [Field Commandof the Ukrain- ian InsurgentArmy], 'Ukraintsi' ['Ukrainians'], 20 Mar. 1943: TsDAVO, 3833/1/86/17. 59A. V. Kentii, 'Stratehiiai taktykaukrains'kykh natsionalistiv' ['Strategy and Tactics of UkrainianNationalists'], in S. V. Kul'chyts'kyi(ed.), ProblemaOUN- UPA [The Problemof the OUN-UPA] (Kyiv,2000), 56. 60Makar, 'Pivnichno-zakhidniukrains'ki zemli', 23. 61 'Bandentditigkeitim Bereichdes Befehlshabersd. SP u. d. SD Ukraine',9 Apr. 1943, repr.in LitopysUPA, 1stser., xxi (1991), 169. Polish and Ukrainianprimary and secondarysources speak of fivethousand desertions in March, and anotherfive thousand in April. These figuresare perhaps exaggerated.Forthcoming work by Ray Brandon on the Germansources should cast some on this issue. 62 light murky Kosyk,L'Allemagne national-socialiste etl'Ukraine, 331-9, 358-62. 63'Postanovy III. KonferentsiiOrhanizatsii Ukrains'kykh Natsionalistiv Samostiinykiv Derzhavnykiv,17-21 liutoho1943 r.', in OUN v svitlipostanovVelykykh Zboriv, 82; (cont.on p. 219)

This content downloaded from 137.110.33.183 on Sun, 5 Jan 2014 17:29:27 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions CAUSES OF UKRAINIAN-POLISH ETHNIC CLEANSING 219 Establishingan armymeant securing control of Volhyniafrom the Germans; Ukrainian interests,they decided, required removingthe Poles.64 With the Red Armystill hundreds of miles awayand thelocal Germansquickly humbled, there was plenty of time. Indeed, UPA commanders,like all partisanleaders, had to do somethingwith their troops if they were to avoidlosing them.With the Red Armyon the way,Poles could be seen as futureallies of thenext occupiers, and treatedas the largestof thegroups of 'undesirable elements' to be removedfrom Ukraine in themeantime. Yet thelocal motivesof OUN-B commanders cannot be reduced to strategyor even tactics.They found themselvesin a new situation,both demanding and promising. Shukhevychlikely saw his chance to improvehis position withinthe OUN-B. A warbrings military men to thefore, and Shukhevychand his allies replacedLebed' at a hastilycalled summitof the OUN-B in late April1943.65 Likewise,the Vol- hynianuprising elevated the role of local activists.Before the war, RostyslavVoloshyn was a humbleuniversity student in charge of the OUN's modest Volhyniannetwork. In spring 1943, he became Shukhevych'sdeputy at the startof theVol- hyniancleansing, supervising local unitsof the UPA's security services.By summer,after his units had largelycleared the Poles fromVolhynia, Voloshyn reached the summitof the politicalleadership of the OUN-B.66 These OUN-B leadersin

(n. 63 cont.) also 'Chernetkapostanovy zasidannia provodu OUN pro vidnoshenniaOUN do rosiis'kohonarodu i natsmenshistiv'['A Draft Resolution of the Meeting of the OUN Leadership on the Relation of the OUN to the Russian Nation and to National Minorities']:TsDAVO, 3833/1/38/2. 64 M. Omeliusik, 'UPA na Volyni v 1943 rotsi' ['The UPA in Volhynia in 1943'], LitopysUPA, 1st ser., i (1976), 23-6; RostyslavVoloshyn, 'Na shliakhakh zbroinoiborot'by' ['On the Paths of the ArmedStruggle'], Litopys UPA, 1st ser., ii (1977), 19-24; VolodymyrMakar, 'Pivnichno-zakhidniukrains'ki zemli', May 1943, Litopys UPA, 1st ser., v (1984), 15; see also 'Niemcy a UPA: dokumenty' ['Germans and the UPA: Documents'], Karta, xxiii(1997). Later Soviet interroga- tions of UPA partisansseem to confirmthe existenceof an orderto killPoles. For example, Protokol Doprosa [InterrogationProtocol] for I. I. Iavorskii, 14 Apr. 1944, in Gosudarstvennyiarkhiv Rossiiskoi Federatsii [State Archive of the Russian Federation],Moscow (hereafterGARF), fond R-9478, opis' 1, delo 398. JeffreyBurds providedme withcopies of filesfrom this fond. 65Motyka, 'Lach6w usunrd'(p. 2 ofInternet version); Panchenko, Mykola Lebed' 69. 66For his interwarrole, see MinisterstwoSpraw Wewnetrznych,Udzial Bezpie- czeristwa[Security Section], 'O.U.N. - Sprawozdaniedoraine Nr. 2' [OUN - EmergencyReport No. 2], 16 Nov. 1934: AAN, MSW, syg.1152, p. 43. For his war- timerole, see Torzecki,Polacy i Ukrairicy,238, 240; Panchenko,Mykola Lebed', 78.

This content downloaded from 137.110.33.183 on Sun, 5 Jan 2014 17:29:27 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 220 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 179 Volhyniabegan the cleansingof Poles on theirown initiative, apparentlywithout an orderfrom the organization's leadership. The decisionto forma partisanarmy came fromthe OUN-B leadershipin February;the firstsoldiers came froma Soviet provocationin March;the decision to use thenew UPA against Poles came, it seems,from below.67 The OUN-B had made a specialityof faitsaccomplis directed to the outsideworld; the rapidcleansing of the Poles was a faitaccompli by activistsin Volhyniadirected towards the rest of the organization. VolhynianPoles werevulnerable to thepoint of defenceless- ness. Ukrainiansoutnumbered Poles byperhaps 5: 1 in Volhy- nia when the cleansingsbegan. No one was preparedfor the sudden onset of organizedviolence led by men trainedin Lebed's securityservices, by the Germanpolice, or by both. The UPA killedabout seventhousand unarmed men, women and childrenin the firstdays of the attacksin late March and earlyApril 1943. All witnesseswere in accord as to the basic shape of theseevents. Confused and withdrawingSoviet parti- sansreported that the UPA had undertaken'a completeannihi- lation of the Poles of Ukraine'.68The head of the German police noted the withdrawalof Sovietpartisans, and ascribed ongoingattacks on Polishlocalities to theUPA.69 The earliest availableUPA reportdiscussed the conquest of a Polishvillage: 'two-thirdsof the buildings were burned down. The battlelasted a fewhours. The Poles givethe number of their dead as 500'.70

67Grzegorz Motyka, 'Ukrairicy a konfliktpolsko-ukrairiski' ['Ukrainians and the Polish-UkrainianConflict'], in Jasiewicz(ed.), Tygielnarodow, forthcoming (see n. 56 above). The UPA uprisingin Volhyniasupplemented, rather than replaced, otherOUN-B tactics.In 1943 activistsin Volhynia(of whom Shukhevychwas the most important)had to make the case thatthe timehad alreadycome to leave the serviceof the Germansin orderto attacknational enemies openly and in the name of the Ukrainiannation. 68Strokachand Martinov to Khrushchev,'Spetssoobshchenie o deiatel'nosti ukrainskikhnatsionalistov' ['Special Reporton the Activityof UkrainianNational- ists'], 21 Apr. 1943, in Bilas, Represyvno-karal'nasystema v Ukraini,383. Other reportsare in the same spirit.'Vypiska iz razvedsvodkishtaba partizanskikhotriadov Zhitomirskoiobl.' ['Extractfrom Intelligence Report of the Staffof the Partisan Detachmentsof ZhitomirRegion'], 27 Apr. 1943, in Serhiichuk,OUN-UPA v roky viiny,31; 'Vypiskaiz razvedsvodkiNo. 6 shtaba partizanskikhotriadov Zhitomir- skoi oblasti',25 May 1943, ibid.,55. 69'Bandentitigkeitim Bereich des Bfh. d. SPudSD Ukraine', 7 May 1943, in LitopysUPA, 1st ser.,xxi (1991), 170. 70VolodymyrMakar, 'Pivnichno-zakhidniukrains'ki zemli', Apr. 1943, Litopys UPA, 1stser., v (1985), 20. Ukrainianlosses are 'small': a signthat this was an oper- ationof ethnic cleansing that met some resistance,not a battlebetween armed units.

This content downloaded from 137.110.33.183 on Sun, 5 Jan 2014 17:29:27 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions CAUSES OF UKRAINIAN-POLISH ETHNIC CLEANSING 221 ThroughoutApril and throughoutVolhynia, UPA soldierssur- roundedcolonies and villages,burned houses, shot or forced back insidethose who triedto escape.7 In mixedsettlements, the UPA's securityservice warned Ukrainians to fleeby night, thenkilled everyone remaining at dawn.72This was a co-ordi- natedattack by armedmen upon a leaderlessand disorganized minoritypopulation. Poles had lost theirlay elitesand Roman Catholicpriests to Sovietdeportations, and theiryoung men to Germanforced labour. Nevertheless, Poles who survivedthese firstattacks found ways to defendthemselves and takerevenge. A Ukrainianwriter recalls their dilemma: 'the Poles werelook- ingfor something neutral, but therewas no such thing'.,3

VENGEFUL COLLABORATION, APRIL-JULY 1943 Poles now joinedthe Soviet partisans. The taboo createdby the experienceof Soviet rule in 1939-41 was broken,as present need trumpedpast grievance. The OUN-B had keptsome of its own people fromjoining the Soviet partisansby formingthe UPA, butthe UPA's actionsdrove Polish men and womeninto these verycommunist formations. As many as 5,000-7,000 Poles joined the Soviet partisansin Volhyniain 1943. They joined 900-1,500 Jewishfighters, survivors of the Final Solu- tion.As one Jewishsurvivor recalled of the spring of 1943, '15 Poles joinedus. Theirhomes had been burnedand theybarely escaped alive. They stayedwith us for4-5 months,and we foughtthe Banderites[the UPA] fourtimes. Each timeJews and Poles were killed,as were Banderites'.Not faraway was anothersmall group of partisans, this one predominantlyPolish but includingJewish women.74 Soviet commandersbrought such groups under theircontrol, leaving Poles and Jews,it appears,the numerical majority in Sovietpartisan units in Vol- hynia.One nominallyPolish unit of Soviet partisans ('Poland is not Yet Lost' Battalion)had a Jewishhusband and wife as

71 For Polish recollectionsof thesefirst attacks, see AW, Memoirs II/36,II/2667, 1/594, II/1328/2k. 72GARF, R-9478/1/398,Protokol Doprosa forV. E. Stupak, 30 Sept. 1944. 73Berdychowska and Hnatiuk (eds.), Buntpokolenia, 36. 74ZIH, Memoir 301/5980/B.

This content downloaded from 137.110.33.183 on Sun, 5 Jan 2014 17:29:27 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 222 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 179 commanderand chiefpolitical officer." One mustnot imagine that most simple soldiersjoined the Soviet partisansout of ideologicalcommitment. Local Jewswere in the forest'to go and fightthe Germans',needed weapons, and usuallyhad little choice but to join the Soviet units.76The Soviet partisans offeredPoles the opportunityto pacifyUkrainian villages deemedto shelternationalists.7 This made the UPA's taskin Volhyniaharder, but also simpler:harder, since the UPA had broughtabout the Soviet-Polishco-operation it had intended to pre-empt;simpler, because the cleansingof Poles now had both operationaland propagandasignificance in the UPA's moreimportant struggle with the Soviets.78 Poles also retreatedfrom the countrysideto the towns,and establishedself-defence units under German protection.By attackingGerman power and Polish populationsat the same time,the UPA drovethem into each other'sarms. The UPA's cleansingof the countrysidealso killedJews who had survived theghetto clearings with Polish villagers, and droveJewish sur- vivorsback to areas of Germancontrol.79 (About 98.5 per cent of Volhynia'sJews perished.80 This proportionis unusually highfor two reasons:first, relatively few Volhynian Jews had

75Ster Elisavetskii,Polveka zabveniia: evrei v dvizheniisoprotivleniia i partizanskoi bor'bev Ukraine,1941-1944 [A Half Centuryof Oblivion:Jews in the Resistance Movementand in the PartisanStruggle in Ukraine, 1941-1944] (Kyiv, 1998), 86, 392; Spector,Holocaust of VolhynianJews, 323, 325; GrzegorzMotyka and Rafal Wnuk,Pany i rezuny:wsp6lpraca AK-WiN i UPA, 1945-1947 [Milordsand Butch- ers: Co-operationbetween the AK-WiN (Home Army:Freedom and Independ- ence) and the UPA, 1945-1947] (Warsaw, 1997), 58. 76FVA, Memoir T0927. Consult also the recollectionsof Misha Gildenman in TheyFought Back: The Storyof the Jewish Resistance in Nazi Europe,ed. and trans. Yuri Suhl (New York, 1967), 261-74. 77AW, Memoirs II/1350/2k,II/1328/2k. Of course, everyonewho joined the Soviet partisanswas subjected to indoctrination.Poles were taught,for example, thatthe Soviet massacre of Polish officersat Katyn' (revealedin April 1943) was carriedout by the Germans. 78The Soviet partisansrecovered quickly from their surprise at the emergenceof the UPA. By summer1943, theyknew that the UPA saw them(not the Germans) as the pertinentenemy, and had prepared sophisticatedcounter-intelligence. M. Novikov,'Razveddannye o natsionalistakh'['Reconnaissance on the Nationalists'], after10 Sept. 1943, in VolodymyrSerhiichuk, Radians'ki partyzany proty OUN- UPA [SovietPartisans against the OUN-UPA] (Kyiv,2000), 28. 79FVA, Memoirs T640, T1117. In at least one case, a Polish peasant who had sheltereda Jewwas caughtby the Germans as he fledto a town: AW, Memoir of WeronykaMaszewska, uncatalogued.Jews and Poles sometimesfled togetherto the forest:ZIH, Memoir 301/3178. 80 Spector,Holocaust of VolhynianJews, 358.

This content downloaded from 137.110.33.183 on Sun, 5 Jan 2014 17:29:27 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions CAUSES OF UKRAINIAN-POLISH ETHNIC CLEANSING 223 been deportedby the Sovietsin 1939-41 to the comparative safetyof Siberiaand Kazakhstan;and second,the UPA's 1943 attackson Polish villagesremoved most remaining local shelter.) Yet some Jewssurvived in the German-controlledtowns in 1943, and even foughtwith the Polish self-defenceunits.81 These unitsventured outside the towns,and took revengeon Ukrainiannationalists and Ukrainianvillages. On occasion Polish self-defenceunits co-operated with the Germanpolice or Sovietpartisans in attackson Ukrainianvillages.82 Colonel Bryns'kyi,the Soviet partisanleader, fondly recalled fighting side by side witha youngPolish priest, Father Marian, of the Huta Stepariskaself-defence unit.83 Poles whohad survivedthe firstround of attacks were unsparing in theirrevenge. They had seen theirhouses burnedand theirfamilies killed, often in the most horrifyingways. As a Polish historiansummarized their mood: 'Murderwas reckoneda virtue.Young men who had lost their entirefamilies notched theirrifles to record the numberof theirvictims'. He continued:'In the strugglewith the UPA, the principlewas not to take prisoners.Nor were unarmedmen spared'.84 Matterswere much worse than this. The Germansrecruited about 1,200 freshPolish policemen in April1943 to replacethe Ukrainiandeserters. Polish motives were local and personal:to defendthemselves or take revenge.85Once theyjoined, Poles could not easilychange their mind: sixty who triedto resignon 10 April 1943 were summarilyshot. Yet regardlessof indi- vidualmotivations, this response to UPA attacksaccelerated a fatefulescalation. Poles now aided Germanpolicemen as they pacifiedUkrainian villages. By July1943 a battalionof Polish policemenhad been dispatchedto rural Volhyniato pacify Ukrainianvillages. This was Schutzmannschaftbataillon202, the only such Polish unit,recruited from Galician Poles but servingin Belarusbefore the transferto Volhynia.This added

S"On self-defence,see AW, Memoirs II/1356/2kw,II/1350/2k, II/1363, 11/737. On Jewsin PariskaDolina in summer1943, see AW, Memoir of OlgierdKowalski, uncatalogued; on Jews in Przebraze in summer 1943, see Spector, Holocaustof VolhynianJews, 260. 82For examplesof both, see AW, Memoirs II/1350/2kand 11/737.For a list,see Il'iushyn,Protystoiannia UPA i AK, 156-7. 83 Bryns'kyi,Po toibik frontu, ii, 136-7. 84Romanowski, ZWZ-AK na Wolyniu,181-2, 183. See also LitopysUPA, 1st ser.,ii (1977) 192-4. 85 See AW, Memoirs11/737, 11/996, II/1371/2k.

This content downloaded from 137.110.33.183 on Sun, 5 Jan 2014 17:29:27 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 224 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 179 to the powerfulimpression among Ukrainians that Poles were collaboratingwith murderous German policies in Volhynia.86 That said,the auxiliary police remained heavily Ukrainian despite thedesertions of March and April,and Ukrainianpolicemen in theGerman service continued the pacification of villages (often Polish) suspectedof shelteringSoviet partisans. Ukrainians in theGerman police pacified Polish villages; Poles in theGerman policepacified Ukrainian villages. All servedthe German policies of maintaininglocal orderand resistingSoviet incursions; few could resistinterpreting their experience in nationalterms. Withina monthafter the UPA began to slaughterPoles in April1943, Poles wereresponding in kindin self-defenceunits, as Sovietpartisans, and as Germanpolicemen. Over the course of 1943, perhapsten thousandUkrainian civilians were killed by Polish self-defenceunits, Soviet partisansand German policemen:only a fifthof the number of Polish victims, and not killedin thename of the Polish nation, but enoughto createthe image of massiveand senselesssuffering and violence.87The UPA founditself with new recruits: 'I was in thewoods', as one VolhynianUkrainian woman later recalled before her deathat Auschwitz,'to avengemy family'.88Personal loss createdthe opportunityfor political propaganda. OUN-B and UPA pamph- lets, broadsides and newspapersassociated the Poles with boththe Nazi and Sovietoccupations. From a perspectivedis- tantin time and space, thisassociation appears very strange. Poland had been partitionedby thesetwo powers in 1939, and in 1943 the Polish resistancewas fightingthe Germanswhile fearingthe consequences of a Sovietvictory. Yet fromthe per- spectiveof a Ukrainianpeasant in Volhynia,little experienced in internationaldiplomacy, and witnessto attacksby Poles in theservice of Germany or theSoviet Union, the link between the Polishnation and Germanand Sovietimperialism made sense.89

86Motyka, Tak bylow Bieszczadach, 118-23; Il'iushyn,OUN-UPA i ukrains'ke pytannia,67-9. 87Consult Hryciuk,'Straty ludnosci na Wolyniu',272. 88 Ol'ha Froliak-Eliiashevs'ka,'Hanna z volyns'kykhlisiv' ['Hanna of the Volhy- nian Forests'], in Marunchak(ed.), V borot'biza ukrains'kuderzhavu, 772. SgLocal propaganda: Holovna Komanda UPA, 'Ukraintsi', June 1943: TsDAVO, 3833/1/86/19-20;Litopys UPA, 2nd ser.,ii (1999), 283-9, 296-9. General propaganda: Political Resolution 13, Third ExtraordinaryCongress of the OUN, 21-25 August 1943, in OUN v svitlipostanov Velykykh Zboriv, 117-18. See also Roman Ilnytzkyj,Deutschland und die Ukraine,1934-1945, 2 vols. (Munich, 1958), ii, 400-6; Berdychowskaand Hnatiuk (eds.), Buntpokolenia, 36.

This content downloaded from 137.110.33.183 on Sun, 5 Jan 2014 17:29:27 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions CAUSES OF UKRAINIAN-POLISHETHNIC CLEANSING 225 Forthe critical months of April to June 1943 in Volhynia, both theGerman police and the Soviet partisans were in significant measurecomposed of Polishrecruits, and both committed unforgettableatrocities. In thiswar of all againstall, the UPA's nationalistmessage brought intellectual order to an otherwise incomprehensiblesituation. The particularconditions of wartimeVolhynia allowed dedicated Ukrainian nationalists to provoke,explain and win an ethnicwar.

ETHNIC WAR,JULY-DECEMBER 1943 ByJuly 1943 the UPA hadswollen to twenty thousand soldiers, andcontrolled all butthe largest Volhynian settlements. It had forciblyassimilated other nationalist partisan groups in Volhy- nia,and organizedrecruitment drives and intelligencecells in villagesacross the region.90 Itwas in a positionto make good its promiseof 'shamefuldeath' to all Poles who remainedin Ukraine.91The springtimeattacks had broken taboos, brought downrevenge from Polish survivors and createdthe basis for effectivepropaganda. The removalof Germanpower was a genuineservice to the peasants: as a Jewwho fled the Ukrainian policein 1942 and theUPA in 1943recalled, 'the Ukrainians werealso persecuted by the Germans'.92 As ofMarch 1943, the Germanswere trying to seize threethousand people from ReichskommissariatUkraine daily for forced labour in the Reich.93The UPA used thisto theiradvantage, proclaiming thatdeath for one's countrywas better than slavery abroad.94 The UPA slowedthe hunt for forced labour in most of Volhynia, sometimesby such directmeasures as stoppingtrains.95 AnotherJewish survivor, a partisan who fought the UPA, noted

90The UPA kidnappedand then murderedthe (Czech) wife of Taras Bul'ba- Borovets'in an unsuccessfulattempt to gain his co-operation.On local presence,see therespectful Soviet partisan reports collected in Serhiichuk,Radians'kipartyzany proty OUN-UPA, forexample M. Novikov,'Razveddannye o natsionalisticheskikhformi- rovaniiakh'['Reconnaissance on NationalistFormations'], after 10 Aug. 1943, 22-4. 91 'Za shcho boret'sia UPA' ['What the UPA Is FightingFor'], Do zbroi,July 1943, in LitopysUPA, 2nd ser.,i (1995), 7-8. 92 EFVA, Memoir T640. 93Torzecki, Kwestia ukraitiska, 306 94Holovna Komanda UPA, 'Ukraintsi',June 1943: TsDAVO, 3833/1/86/21.See also Memoir 286, in Litopysneskorenoi Ukrainy, ii, 455. 95Memoir 288, in Litopysneskorenoi Ukrainy, ii, 457.

This content downloaded from 137.110.33.183 on Sun, 5 Jan 2014 17:29:27 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 226 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 179 a similarcause of theUPA's popularity:the Germans'took all the cows, everything,they beat themup, theykilled a lot of them,and that'swhy they [Ukrainians] went to the woods'.96 The UPA slowedGerman requisitions and exposedUkrainian peasants to new temptations.It was in a positionto offer peasantsGerman state farms - and Polishland.97 These cate- goriesoverlapped, since Poles stillmanaged some of the more importantproperties seized by the Nazis. In June 1943 the Reichskommissariatannounced the reprivatizationof land. Peasantsunderstood this as a signalof a comingGerman defeat, and beganto considerthe final post-war allocation of property.98 UPA commanderShukhevych issued an orderdistributing all lands of 'formerPolish colonists' to 'Ukrainianpeasants'.99 As a Polishhistorian notes, 'the idea ofrobbery was nothing new, as they [Ukrainians]were robbed daily'.100Moral deg- radation accompanied economic collapse, and Volhynian Ukrainiansprobably believed that land was whatthey needed. They werenot thepoorest Ukrainians under German rule, but theyhad lost the most duringthe war. To the east, in the famine-plaguedformerly Soviet parts of the Reichskommissariat, 1941 and 1942 were the best harvestsin memory.'0' As recentlyas 1933, Zhytomyroblast' (region), just east of Polish Volhynia,had lost 15-20 per cent of its populationto famine.1'02Although Volhynia was one ofthe most underdeveloped regionsof Poland, it was wealthyin comparisonto Soviet Ukraine.Volhynian Ukrainians who travelledto otherdistricts of the Reichskommissariatwere mistakenfor Germans, since theywore full suits of clothesand good shoes.'03Expectations weretherefore much higher in Volhyniathan elsewhere in the Reichskommissariat.For VolhynianUkrainians, the collectivi- zation policies of 1939-41 were an aberrationwhich no one wishedto continue.German attempts to preservethis system wereresented in 1941,as werethe increased requisitions of 1942. 96FVA, Memoir T1801. 97Makar, 'Pivnichno-zakhidniukrains'ki zemli', 23. 98Berkhoff, 'Hitler's Clean Slate', 138. 99'Rozporiadzhenniav zemel'nii spravi' ['An Order Regardingthe Land Ques- tion'], 15 Aug. 1943: TsDAVO, 3833/1/48/2b. 100Torzecki, Kwestia ukrairiska, 291. 101 Berkhoff,'Hitler's Clean Slate', 93-143, 315. 102 RobertConquest, TheHarvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivisation and theTerror- Famine (New York, 1986), 250. 103 Berkhoff,'Hitler's Clean Slate', 327-8.

This content downloaded from 137.110.33.183 on Sun, 5 Jan 2014 17:29:27 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions CAUSES OF UKRAINIAN-POLISHETHNIC CLEANSING 227 For all Ukrainiansin theReichskommissariat, 1943 promised to be a leanyear. For Volhynian Ukrainians, itpromised to be theworst of their lives. Volhynia,unlike the rest of the Reichskommissariat, hadhad a privateeconomy before the war. The genocideof Volhynia's Jewsruined what remained of this. Before the war, the occupa- tionalstructures of Ukrainiansand Jews in Volhyniahad been complementary:the Jews were the majority in thetowns, the Ukrainiansthe majorityin the countryside.Although there weresome Jewish farmers and someUkrainian traders, most farmerswere Ukrainian and mosttraders were Jewish. Towns in Volhyniahad been Jewish, with Poles settling in newlybuilt districtsin the 1920s and 1930s. The Final Solution(and Sovietdeportations) reduced the population of Volhynia's two largesttowns, Rivne and Luts'k,by morethan 50 per cent. Rivne'sfell from perhaps 41,900 (a Sovietcount) to perhaps 17,531(a Germancount), Luts'k's from 35,600 to 16,495.104 Beforethe Final Solution in Volhynia, 'every Jew had a friendly Ukrainianfarmer'.'05 Trade continued from the ghetto.1'06 When theJews were murdered, the Ukrainian farmers lost their means oftrade. By 1942 Volhynia's economy was one of barter. Germans tradedvodka for food. The SS paidfor runaway Jews in salt.107 By 1943even barter was a barrenproposition. In theabsence of thedivision of labour, accumulation ofland must have appeared toUkrainian peasants as thesafest strategy for the future. In July1943 Ukrainian peasants must have been tempted by wheatthat was ripeningfor harvest, golden and heavyin the fields.The presentoutlook was bleak, the future was uncertain, but a meansof rescue seemed to be at hand.The Volhynian traditionof seizing lands from Poles in hard times was two cen- turiesold: but now Polish property-owners hadno stateto pro- tect them,and Ukrainianpeasants were organizedby those who wishedto build a statethemselves.108 The UPA offered

104 Populationfigures compiled by Berkhoff,'Hitler's Clean Slate', 511. 105FVA, Memoir T1740. '06FVA, Memoir T3283. 107 Romanowski,ZWZ-AK na Wolyniu,71-3; also Armstrong,Ukrainian Nation- alism,ch. 5. 108sBetween 1905 and 1907 therewere 703 recordedcases of peasantsviolently assertingclaims to land, usuallyagainst Polish landlords,in whatwas thenthe Vol- hyniaguberniia of the Russian Empire: Daniel Beauvois, La Bataille de la terreen Ukraine,1863-1914: lesPolonais et les conflits socio-ethniques (Lille, 1993), 137.

This content downloaded from 137.110.33.183 on Sun, 5 Jan 2014 17:29:27 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 228 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 179 VolhynianUkrainians an ideologyof liberationand protection fromPolish revenge;its officershad guns in hand and moral justificationson theirlips. By July1943 'all the youngpeople had joined the UPA'.109That monththousands of Ukrainian peasantsjoined in UPA attacks.Peasant scytheskilled Poles, thenreaped wheatfrom their fields. As a Ukrainianhistorian has delicatelyput it: 'thesupport of the civilian Ukrainian population,armed with scythes,pitchforks, knives and hatchets, impartedto theVolhynian events an especiallybloody charac- ter'.110Yet the new peasantmanpower served an organization capableof precise and detailedplanning. On thenight of 11-12 July1943, the UPA attacked167 localitiesand killedperhaps ten thousandPoles. Co-ordinatedattacks continued through thesummer, as UPA commanderscalled forthe destruction of Poles, 'servantsof Germanand Russianimperialism', in their 'nests'.111Officers reported to headquartersthat the 'Polish action'was nearingits close, or that'the Polish problem is basic- allyresolved'.112 The finalwave of attacksfell on 25 December 1943, when Roman Catholic Poles, reckoningChristmas by the Gregorian calendar, were concentratedin flammable woodenchurches.

VII

CONCLUSIONS The Volhyniancleansings of 1943 broughtgeneral civil war to the Ukrainian-Polishborderlands. Reports of ethnicviolence, alongwith general considerations of Sovietsecurity, prompted Stalin to separate Poles fromUkrainians once and for all. Shortlyafter the Red Armybegan the third occupation of Vol- hynia,the NKVD set aboutfinishing the UPA's task,deporting remainingPoles westwardto Poland. Then, as the Red Army secured Poland, Ukrainianswere sent eastward to Soviet Ukraine. These 'repatriations'of 1944-6 were arrangedby 'legal' agreementsbetween Polish communistsand Soviet

109 Berdychowskaand Hnatiuk (eds.), Buntpokolenia, 36. 110oIl'iushyn,Protystoiannia UPA i AK, 129. 111'Vistiz Volyni' ['News fromVolhynia'], August 1943: TsDAVO, 3833/1/87/ 7. For UPA reports on the murder of Poles in August and September, see TsDAVO, 3833/1/87/18. 112 TsDAVO, 3833/1/120/18;TsDAVO, 3833/1/131/13-14.

This content downloaded from 137.110.33.183 on Sun, 5 Jan 2014 17:29:27 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions CAUSES OF UKRAINIAN-POLISH ETHNIC CLEANSING 229 Ukraine(now once again extendedwest to includeVolhynia and Galicia). In 1947, the new Polish communistregime for- ciblydispersed most of its remaining Ukrainians from the south- east to the north-westof the country.Between April 1943 and August 1947, some 94 per cent of the Polish populationwas removedfrom lands that became the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic,and some 95 per cent of the Ukrainianpopulation was forciblyresettled from lands that became communist Poland.About 106,000Polish and Ukrainiancivilians lost their lives,and 1.4 millionsurvivors their homes.'13 This final resettlementof 1947 destroyedthe UPA in Poland,which for the OUN-B was a minortheatre in anycase. The UPA foughton with courage,tenacity and brutalityin SovietUkraine for another five years. The UPA's war against the SovietUnion, the main taskfor which it had been created in spring1943, was the most impressiveexample of popular resistanceto communistpower in wartimeand post-war Europe. Roman Shukhevych,the UPA's commander,died fightingin SovietUkraine in 1950. MykolaLebed', theUPA's founder,was recruitedby US intelligence.114As world war shiftedto cold war,ethnic cleansing was forgotten.Neither the Americannor the Britishgovernments evinced an excessive interestin the past of Ukrainiansrecruited for difficultand riskyanti-Soviet operations. The Sovietskilled or exiledUPA soldiers(and theirfamilies) for the crimeof opposingSoviet rule."115The OUN-B and UPA presentedthemselves as anti- communistorganizations: the truth,though not the whole truth.The Polish communistregime legitimized itself by its defeatof the UPA and its creationof ethnichomogeneity. Communistpedagogy and scholarshipin Poland and theSoviet

113TimothySnyder, The Reconstructionof Nations: Poland, Ukraine,Lithuania, Belarus,1569-1999 (New Haven, 2003), chs. 7-9. 114Noted by ChristopherSimpson, Blowback: America's Recruitment ofNazis and its Effecton theCold War (New York, 1988), 163-71. Documents reproducedin JeffreyBurds, 'The Early Cold War in Soviet West Ukraine, 1944-1948' (Carl Beck Paper 1505, Pittsburgh,2001). The cold warnaturally influenced the way the Ukrainiannationalists described their wartime activities. See, forexample, United AmericanUkrainian Organisations Committee of New York, The UkrainianInsur- gentArmy in Fightfor Freedom (New York, 1954); ZynoviiKnysh, S'ohodni i zavtra: dumkynatsionalista [Today and Tomorrow:The Thoughtsof a Nationalist](Win- nipeg, 1950). 115Memoirs of Ukrainiansreturning from Siberian exile afterStalin's death are collectedin Litopysneskorenoi Ukrainy, i, 423-640; ii, 420-559.

This content downloaded from 137.110.33.183 on Sun, 5 Jan 2014 17:29:27 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 230 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 179 Union alikeinsisted that ethnic groups had alwaysbeen where theynow were,and thatpresent borders reflected ancient history.This, as we see, is manifestlyfalse. The orthodoxywas not believed,but it did stiflehistorical investigation of the causes of populationmovements. Yet even historianswho attendseriously to the longuedurte willfind little that foreshadows the immediatecauses of ethnic cleansingin Volhynia.Naturally, one wouldwish to appreciate the originsof the social lines dividingUkrainians from Poles. The Polish Reformationand Renaissancecreated, and then Russianimperial policies solidified, a durableVolhynian social world in which the rich and powerfulwere Polish-speaking Catholics,and the peasantswere Ukrainian-speakingOrtho- dox. The last gasp ofthe nativeOrthodox nobility in Volhynia was resistanceto the impositionof the Gregoriancalendar in 1582.116 It is ironic that differencesin church calendars allowedeastern-rite Ukrainians to plan attackson western-rite Poles in 1943, but religionmerely provided a foundationfor the organizednationalism that emergedin Volhyniain the 1930s, and littlemore than such practicalguides forethnic cleansers in 1943. In Volhynia,as perhaps elsewherein Europe, the intellectualdominance of traditionalreligion was brokenby the nationalismattendant upon ethniccleansing. Somethingsimilar might be said about social structure.Under Russian rule in the nineteenthcentury, bloody peasant uprisingswere the order of the day. Yet these were never definedin nationalterms, and independentPoland did much to reorderthis traditional Volhynian social worldin the 1920s and 1930s. Land was redistributed(if imperfectly),Ukrainian culturewas encouraged(if channelled)and a Polish Auto- cephalous OrthodoxChurch was established.117Soviet and

116Even here, one would wish to note certainstriking features of earlymodem Volhynia:where the lawyersknew Latin, Polish and Ukrainianin the earlyseven- teenthcentury; where the town of Ostrihboasted an Orthodoxacademy, a Unitar- ian Church and a yeshiva in the late sixteenth.Consult Nataliia Iakovenko, Paralel'nyisvit: doslidzhennia z istoriiuiavlen' ta ideiv UkrainiXVI-XVII st. [A Par- allel World: Investigationsof the Historyof Concepts and Ideas in Sixteenth-and Seventeenth-CenturyUkraine] (Kyiv, 2002), ch. 1; Borys Gudziak, Crisis and Reform:The Kyivan Metropolitanate,the Patriarchate of Constantinople,and the Genesisof the Union of Brest (Cambridge, Mass., 2001), ch. 8. 117This is a characterizationof interwarPolish policyin Volhynia,not Galicia. The historiographyof interwarwest Ukraine focuseson Galicia, withlittle on the (cont. on p. 231)

This content downloaded from 137.110.33.183 on Sun, 5 Jan 2014 17:29:27 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions CAUSES OF UKRAINIAN-POLISH ETHNIC CLEANSING 231 Nazi occupationdestroyed whatever remained of Volhynia's social hierarchybefore 1943, not least by killingor deporting traditionalelites. The Polish peasantscleansed from Volhynia were,as a rule,as poor as the Ukrainianswho cleansedthem. Social historyprovided some components of the ethnic definitionof Poles used by ethniccleansers, but was notitself a sufficientcause ofwartime ethnic cleansing. At all events,the example of the Belarusian regions just north of Volhynia,where the traditionalsocial orderwas much the same,shows that older cleavages need not manifestthemselves in wartimeethnic cleansing. Wartime Belarus witnessed much thesame chainof events: the destruction of Polish state authority;Soviet deportations; an intimateHolocaust; and multisided partisanwarfare.118 Yet therewas no ethniccleansing of Poles from Belarus. The difference,of course, is nationalism. WhereasBelarusian nationalism had littlepolitical salience in interwarPoland, Ukrainian nationalismwas an organized undergroundmovement before 1939. It favouredwar; war favouredit. All the same, the presenceof nationalismin the explanationdoes not mean ethniccleansing is the consumma- tionof previous national conflict over a particularterritory. For nearlya centurybefore the Second WorldWar, the centreof Polish-Ukrainianstrife had been Galicia, not Volhynia.119All

(n. 117 cont.) separatestrategy pursued by Warsaw in Volhynia.A recentwork contains needed characterizationsof Polish administrativepractices: Werner Benecke, Die Ostgebiete derZweiten Polnischen Republik: Staatsmacht und offentlicheOrdnung in einerMinder- heitenregion,1918-1939 (Cologne, 1999). Althoughstudents of these problems some- timesimagine that the situationin Volhyniawas essentiallysimilar to thatin Galicia, at the timeeveryone who ruled or wishedto rule Volhynia- Polish state officials, Soviet communists,Ukrainian nationalists,legal Ukrainian political parties - knewthat different conditions prevailed and differentstrategies were needed. 'Is There was much more lootingand murderof Poles by Belarusiansthan had been previouslyrecognized, but no one organizedthese property interests or social energies along national lines. Marek Wierzbicki,Polacy i Biatorusiniw zaborze sowieckim:stosunki polsko-bialoruskie na ziemiachpotnocno-wschodnich II Rzeczypos- politejpod okupacjqsowieckq, 1939-1941 [Poles and Belarusiansin the Soviet Sector: Polish-BelarusianRelations on the North-EasternLands of the Second Republic under Soviet Occupation, 1939-1941] (Warsaw, 2000); also KrzysztofJasiewicz, Zaglada polskichkresow: ziemiaristwo polskie na KresachPolnocno-Wschodnich Rzeczy- pospolitejpod okupacjqsowieckq, 1939-1941 [The Annihilationof the Polish Eastern Borderlands:Polish Landowners in the North-EasternBorderlands under Soviet Occupation, 1939-1941] (Warsaw, 1998). 119Between J6zewski'sdeparture in 1938 and the Soviet occupation in 1939 the Polish militaryconverted about 6,225 VolhynianOrthodox believers to Roman (cont.on p. 232)

This content downloaded from 137.110.33.183 on Sun, 5 Jan 2014 17:29:27 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 232 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 179 observersof Polish politics,if asked in September1939 to name the site of futureUkrainian-Polish clashes, would have chosenGalicia. If we ask whyethnic cleansing took place in westernUkraine ratherthan in westernBelarus, the answermust be pre-war nationalism.Ukrainian nationalists believed that Poles, as a nationalgroup, were a hindranceto theproject of building a Ukrainianstate. The Poles weredefined not as a racialbut as a politicalcollectivity, expected to behaveaccording to a predict- ably anti-Ukrainianpolitical logic, therefore to be removedto achievethe politicalend of Ukrainianstatehood. This kindof nationalismwas openlydeclared in peacetime,when there was no chance of politicalsuccess; in conditionsof war, ethnic cleansingwas nationalpolitics by othermeans. Yet if we ask whyethnic cleansing began in one partof westUkraine rather thananother, in Volhyniarather than Galicia, the answer must be soughtin the local particularitiesof the tripleoccupation. Volhyniawas less favourableterrain for nationalist conspiracy thanGalicia before1939, butmore favourable afterwards. Vol- hyniawas partof the Reichskommissariat,and thereforefaced a harsherGerman occupation regime; it was furthernorth, and thereforewas overrunsooner by Soviet partisans.It was the scene of a confrontationbetween Soviet and Germanforces fromautumn 1942, almost two yearsbefore the Red Army reachedGalicia. In Volhyniarather than Galicia the economy was reducedto barterby 1942 and thento chaos in 1943. In Volhyniathe OUN-B had on hand thousandsof policemen withusefully murderous experience. Because the Final Solu- tionwas implementedlocally in Volhynia,it taughtpolicemen skillsthat could be turnedto otheruses. The VolhynianHolocaust

(n. 119 cont.) Catholicism.In some way,these actionsmay have preparedVolhynian Ukrainians forrevenge, though their scale was verysmall in comparisonto the wartimeexperi- ences thatfollowed. The programmeof forcedconversions was directedmainly at the Chelm region,in Lublin palatinate,just to the west of Volhynia.The figure above is my count of quarterlytabulations submitted by local authoritiesto the Polish Ministryof InternalAffairs for 1938 and the firsthalf of 1939, in AAN, MSW, syg. 1746, pp. 1-318. On reconversion,see AndrzejChojnowski, Koncepcje politykinarodowoiciowej rzqd6w polskich w latach 1921-1939 [The Conceptions of NationalityPolicy of Polish Governments,1921-1939] (Wroclaw, 1979), 226-34. Some hundreds of Orthodox Ukrainiansin Volhynia responded to the 1938-9 campaign by convertingto Protestantism;during the war, UkrainianProtestants were prominentamong those who shelteredJews in 1942 and opposed the murder of Poles in 1943.

This content downloaded from 137.110.33.183 on Sun, 5 Jan 2014 17:29:27 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions CAUSES OF UKRAINIAN-POLISHETHNIC CLEANSING 233 of1941-2 is naturallyseen as an ending.Yet the Final Solution was notonly an effectbut a cause,not only the end of Jewish historyin Volhyniabut also a linkin a fatefulchain of events thatdestroyed historical Volhynia as such. The emergenceof an ethnicallyhomogenous 'western Ukraine'and 'south-easternPoland', without Jews, and with Poles and Ukrainiansseparated by a stateboundary, was one episodein thegeneral European movement towards national homogeneity.Its effectsclassify it withthe other violent move- mentsof populations, which we mayrefer to as ethniccleansing. But whatof the causes?This articlehas stressedthe immediate,the local and the particular. Yet perhaps the particular mechanicsof one case mayreveal those of others,and the comparisonthus made may provide the beginning of a general- ity.Events of the 1940s may, for example, cast light on events ofthe 1990s. The Volhyniancleansings of 1943 do shareseven featureswith the Yugoslav cleansings of the 1990s: (1) thepre- viouscollapse of state authority; (2) thecover of a largerwar; (3) theanticipation offuture states to be created;(4) dedicated cleansers,with military or policetraining, at workfar from home;(5) historicalpropaganda that both requires cleansing to be plausibleand justifiescleansing already under way; (6) a consciousescalatory push by dedicatedelites and propagand- ists,allowing individual experiences to be understoodas a nationalwar; and (7) a propertymotive that implicates society afterthe cleansing has begun.Like Yugoslavia, Volhynia was thesubject of an experimentin nationalpolitics that today we wouldcall multicultural,which ended just a fewyears before cleansingbegan. Like Yugoslavia, Volhynia was home to countless mixedmarriages - and wartimenational reidentifications. As inVolhynia, so inYugoslavia the vast majority of the population was surprisedand disorientedwhen ethnic cleansings began. The terms'Volhynia' and 'Yugoslavia'left common usage in muchthe same way, as topographycame to match demography in theEuropean twentieth century. Ethniccleansing supplies painful or triumphantpersonal experiencesthat link biography to nationality.It can easilybe seenas theculmination of ancient hatreds or thefinal stage in old politicalconflicts. In itsaftermath, personal suffering and nationalmemory blend into an irresistibleharmony, a siren's call to a falsehistorical past whereall thatis certainis the

This content downloaded from 137.110.33.183 on Sun, 5 Jan 2014 17:29:27 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 234 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 179 death.Those who plan ethniccleansing mean to obliteraterival nationsand complexpasts; thosewho carryit out findthem- selvesin need of purposefuldenial once war has passed. The comparisonbetween Volhynia and Yugoslavia,even presented in thesevery preliminary terms, suggests that the causes ofeth- nic cleansingare neitheras unique to cases nor as ancientin originsas mightbe assumed. Uniqueness and age are major featuresin coherentnationalist narratives of historical develop- ment.Their seemingplausibility suggests rather nationalism's masteryof history than the reverse. Ethnic cleansingbrings about the modernoverlap of language and land, not onlyby removingpeople fromterritory, but by alteringpeople's views of the world. Its intellectual powersprings not so muchfrom the violence of nationalcom- mitmentas fromthe committingof nationalviolence. Ernest Renan identifiedforgetfulness as crucial to the making of nations,and it was preciselythe scholarlyconsequences of determinedviolence that he had in mind.Events can be forgotten in theirtotality and in theirdetails; the presentarticle has sought to explain the originsof an obscure but important totality- theethnic cleansing of Volhynia - bybringing to light some forgottenbut crucialdetails about war and occupation. Yet Renan's reminderhas a broaderEuropean implication. To have forgottenthe particulars of ethnic cleansing may be necessaryfor the creationof particularnational histories. To have forgottenthe prevalenceof ethniccleansing may have been necessaryfor the creationof Europeanhistories in whichbor- dersand nationsare unproblematiccategories. Throughout the twentiethcentury, ethnic cleansersknew that borders and nationswere for the making.

Yale University TimothySnyder

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