Massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia

The Massacre of Poles in Volhynia (Polish: Rzeź wołyńska (lit. Volhynian slaughter)) was a massive ethnic cleansing operation in Germany-occupied Volhynia and Eastern Galicia that took part during the World War II, between late 1942 and early 1944. The action, orchestrated by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army and conducted together with various other Ukrainian groups resulted in tens of thousand, and perhaps hundreds of thousand, Polish peasants being murdered and many more fleeing the area. The bulk of the killings took place in the second half of 1943, particularly in July. The estimates of the number of causalities vary widely and continue to be the subject of scholarly as well as political debates.

The tension between ethnic Poles and Ukrainians had its origin in the period when both nations strove to regain their independence following the First World War. Both nations claimed the territories of Volhynia and Eastern Galicia for themselves. The conflict escalated in the interwar period, particularly in the 1930s, due to nationalist policies of the Second Republic of Poland and Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and later, during the period of Soviet annexation of Western Ukraine in 1939-1941. It culminated in bloodshed when Germans occupied Galicia and Volhynia began encouraging inter-ethnic violence in the territories they controlled.

Background history of Polish-Ukrainian relations

Unlike Ukraine, Poland managed to regain her independence following World War I. While, after the initial conflicts, the Polish government of Józef Piłsudski allied with Ukrainian People's Republic against the Bolshevik Red Army and supported the idea of an independent Ukraine, the Poles did not keep up to their promises. With the signing of the Peace of Riga, Ukraine was divided between Poland and the Bolshevist Russia, with both Volyn and Galicia falling under Polish control.

Second Polish Republic (1921-1939)

For more information on the situation of Ukrainian minority in the Second Polish Republic, see History of Ukrainian minority in Poland.

Ethnic make up of Vohlynia in 1915

Regional area	Ukrainians	Poles	Jews
Kovel	78.49%	4.59%	11.48%
Kremenetz	82.72%	3%	12.13%
Lutsk	56.96%	9.7%	14.13%
Ostroh	76.68%	6.61%	10.08%
Rivne	60.48%	9.19%	15.97%
Volodymyr-Volynsk	72.09%	8.37%	10.42%
Dubno	72.09%	6.51%	11.48%

Some of the policies implemented by the Second Polish Republic in Volyn were aimed at suppressing Ukrainian language, culture and religion. Despite the fact that the majority of the population of Volyn was ethnically Ukrainian (see the table), practically all government and administrative positions, including the police, were assigned to ethnic Poles. By 1938, thousands of Polish colonists were encouraged to settle in Volyn and Galicia. This number was estimated at 300,000 by Ukrainian sources and less than 100,000 by Polish sources (see osadnik) While most of these colonists were soon to be deported to Siberia (in 1940 and early 1941) , their short presence contributed to the growing Polish-Ukrainian tension. The number of Ukrainian-language schools in Volyn was reduced from 440 to 8 and hundreds of Orthodox churches were either destroyed or converted to the Roman Catholic Rite.

The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) planned the removal of Poles from the area since its very beginning in 1929. The Ukrainian and Polish antagonism escalated in the 1930s, when the terrorist campaign of the OUN (including assassinations of prominent Polish politicians and both Polish and Ukrainian moderates, such as Tadeusz Hołówko) provoked increased pacification of Ukrainian settlements by Polish forces and a corresponding escalation of tensions.

Soviet Union (1939-1941)

In September 1939, following the outbreak of World War II and pursuant to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, Poland was occupied in the west by Nazi Germany and the eastern provinces were annexed by the Soviet Union. Volyn was split into two oblasts (Rovno and Volyn) of the Ukrainian SSR. Upon the annexation, the Soviets started to eliminate the predominantly Polish middle and upper "bourgeoisie" classes. During 1939-1941 1.450 million inhabitants were deported by the Soviet authorities, of whom 63.1% were Poles, and 7.4% were Jews. Others escaped from the Soviet-occupied territories to the areas controlled by Germans. Several hundred thousand Poles died at the hands of Soviets, including Polish officers from Sovietannexed territories murdered by NKVD in the Katyn massacre, and others. The deportations and murders deprived the Poles of their community leaders.

Only those Poles loyal to Soviet occupier were able to keep their positions, and these supported the Soviet NKVD efforts to subvert the Ukrainian independence movement. Cases where Polish police collaborating with the NKVD handed over documentation regarding the activities of Ukrainian nationalists were common.

The massacres

The prelude

The Ukrainian areas occupied by Soviet Union were attacked by German, Slovak and Hungarian forces on June 22, 1941. Soviet forces in Volhynia were better armed and prepared than in more northerly areas and were able to defend themselves for a couple of days. On June 30 the Soviets withdrew to the pre-war borders and Volhynia was soon occupied by the Nazis.

Throughout 1942 both Poles and Ukrainians considered Volhynia to be a relatively peaceful area with no significant rise in ethnic tensions. As evidenced both by Polish and Ukrainian underground reports, the only major concern were strong Soviet partisan groups, operating in the area. The groups, recruited mostly from the Soviet POWs initially specialized in raiding local settlements, which disturbed both OUN and AK, who expected it to result in the increase of German terror. Indeed these concerns soon materialiзed, as Germans started the "pacifications" of entire villages in Volhynia in retaliation for their real or alleged support for the Soviet partisans. Polish historiography wrongly attributed most of these actions to Ukrainian nationalists, while in reality they were conducted by Ukrainian occupational police units under direct supervision of Germans. One of the best known examples was the pacification of Obórki village in Lutsk county on 13-14 November 1942. While most of the action was carried out by the Ukrainian occupational police, the murder of the 53 Polish villagers was perpetrated personally by the Germans, who supervised the operation.

For many months in 1942, the OUN-B was not able to control the situation in Volhynia, where aside of the Soviet partisans, many independent Ukrainian self-defence groups started to form in response to the growth of German terror. The first OUN-B military groups were created in Volhynia only in autumn 1942 with the goal of subduing the other independent groups. Within several months, with its brutal methods, the newly created OUN-B forces managed to either destroy or absorb other Ukrainian groups in Volhynia, including four OUN-M units. In spring 1943 the OUN-B partisans started to call themselves the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), using the former name of the Ukrainian People's Revolutionary Army, another Ukrainian group operating in the area in 1942.

On February 9, 1943, a group pretending to be Soviet partisans murdered 173 Poles in Parośle settlement in Sarny county. According to Polish historiography the perpetrators were a unit of UPA, commanded by Hryhory Perehyniak. In March 1943 approximately 5,000 Ukrainian policemen defected with weapons and joined UPA. This fact contributed to the dominant position of UPA among other Ukrainian groups active in Volhynia and at the same time marked the beginning of large-scale UPA operations against the Polish population. In the night of 22-23 April, Ukrainian groups, commanded by Ivan Lytwynchuk (aka Dubowy), attacked the model settlement of Janowa Dolina, killing 600 people and burning down the entire village. Those few who survived were mostly people that found refuge with friendly Ukrainian families,

Volyn

Two delegates of the Polish government in Exile, Zygmunt Rumel and Krzysztof Markiewicz, together with a group of representatives from the Polish Home Army, attempted to negotiate with UPA leaders, but instead were tortured and murdered (on July 10, 1943, village of Kustycze).

Next day, July 11, a round of massacres began, with many reports of UPA units marching from village to village, killing Polish civilians.

On July 11, 1943, UPA units surrounded and attacked Polish villages and settlements located in three counties - Kowel, Horochow and Włodzimierz Wołyński. The events began at 3 in the morning, Poles had no chance to escape. After the massacres, the Polish villages were burned to the ground. According to those few who survived, the action had been carefully prepared, a few days before the massacres there had been several meetings in Ukrainian villages, during which UPA members were telling natives that slaughter of all Poles was necessary. Within few days a number of Polish villages were completely destroyed and their population murdered.

The atrocities were perpetrated with cruelty, the victims, regardless of their age or gender were routinely tortured to death.

According to a Ukrainian historian from Lviv, Yuryi Kirichuk, the scenes taking place in Volynian villages in 1943 resembled the times of Jarema Wiśniowiecki and Maxym Kryvonis and the pogroms in Nemyriv (1648) and Uman (1768). He described the conflict as similar to the medieval religious wars or peasants's rebellions. .

Altogether, in July 1943 the Ukrainians attacked 167 towns and villages. This wave of massacres lasted 5 days, until July 16. It is also asserted that the UPA continued the ethnic cleansing, particularly in rural areas, until most Poles had been deported, killed or expelled.

These actions were conducted by many units and were well-coordinated. Also, even though it may be an exaggeration to say that the massacres enjoyed general support of the Ukrainians, it has been suggested that without wide support from local Ukrainians they would have been impossible. Those Ukrainian peasants who took part in the massacres, created their own units, called Samoboronni Kushtchovi Viddily (Kushtchov Self-Defence Units). People who did not speak Polish, but were considered Poles by the perpetrators were also murdered. According to the Home Army report from 1943, in several cases the Poles were assured by their Ukrainian neighbours that they were safe, only to be attacked and massacred a few days later . Those Poles captured by the Ukrainian nationalists had no chance of survival.

According to Władysław Filar from Polish Institute of National Remembrance, a witness of the massacres, it is impossible to establish whether these events were ever planned. There is no documentation proving that UPA-OUN made a decision to exterminate Poles in Volyn . However, Filar cites numerous statements of the Ukrainian officers, who reported their actions to the leaders of UPA-OUN. For example, in late September 1943, commandant of the Lysoho group wrote to the OUN headquarters: "On September 29, 1943, I carried out the action in the villages of Wola Ostrowiecka and Ostrówki. I have liquidated all Poles, starting from the youngest ones. Afterwards, all buildings were burned and all goods were confiscated". Professor Filar adds that on that day in Wola Ostrowiecka 529 Poles were murdered (including 220 children under 14), and in Ostrówki, the Ukrainians killed 438 persons (including 246 children) .

In August 1943 UPA placed notices in every Polish village stating "in 48 hours leave beyond the Buh or the Sian river - otherwise Death," After 1944, the scale of the atrocities was limited.

Ukrainian nationalists limited their actions to villages and settlements, and did not attack towns or cities. According to a journalist Adam Kruczek, a historian from the Lublin's branch of the Institute of National Remembrance stated that in 1943 the massacres were organized westwards, starting in March in Kostopol and Sarny counties, in April they moved to the area of Kremianets, Rivne, Dubno and Lutsk. In July massacres took place in such counties as Kowel, Horochow and Włodzimierz Wołyński, and in August - in Luboml. The geography of the actions suggests that they must have been prepared in advance. The slaughter did not stop after the Red Army entered into the areas.

According to a Polish historian Piotr Łossowski, the scheme used in most of the attacks was the same. At first, local Poles were assured that nothing would happen to them. Then, at dawn, a village was surrounded by armed members of the UPA, behind whom were peasants with axes, hammers, knives and saws. Murdered were all Poles encountered, sometimes they were herded into one spot, to make it easier. After a massacre, all goods were looted, including clothes, grain and furniture. The final part of an attack was setting fire to the village.

Eastern Galicia

Monument of Poles killed by UPA (1943-1945), in Przemyśl, Poland

In mid-1943 the conflict spread to the neighbouring province of Galicia, where the majority of the population was still Ukrainian, but where the Polish presence was stronger.

In the night of February 5-6, 1944, Ukrainian groups attacked a Polish village of Barycz, near Buchach. 126 Poles were massacred, including children and women. A few days later, a local group of OUN, under Petro Chamchuk attacked Polish settlement of Puźniki (February 12-13), killing around 100 persons and burning houses. Those who survived, moved mostly to Prudnik

Then, in the village of Korosciatyn, 78 Poles were murdered, the victims were later counted by a local Roman Catholic priest, rev. Mieczysław Kamiński Father Kamiński stated that local Greek Catholic priests were urging the Ukrainian faithful to kill all members of mixed, Polish-Ukrainian families.

One of the most infamous massacres took place on February 28, 1944, in a Polish village of Huta Pieniacka. In the Huta Pieniacka massacre around 1,000 Poles were murdered, including a significant number of children. A number of Ukrainian historians deny the role of the Ukrainian Galizien Division in the killings, and attribute them entirely to German units.^[3] Among scores of Polish villages, whose inhabitants were murdered and all buildings burned, there are such places as Berezowica near Zbaraz, Ihrowica near Ternopil, Plotych near Ternopil, Podkamien near Brody, Hanachiv and Hanachivka near Przemyslany In the village of Semianivka near Lviv, the troops of the Galizieb Division killed 30 persons. It happened on July 22, 1944, after the battle of Brody, where majority of the Division was destroyed by the Red Army.

The village of Pidkamen near Brody was a shelter for Poles, who escaped there, to hide in the monastery of the Dominicans. Some 2000 persons, majority of them women and children, were living there when the monastery was attacked in mid-March 1944, by the UPA units, cooperating with Ukrainian SS. Around 300 Poles were murdered in the monastery, additional 500 were killed in the town of Pidkamen. In the nearby village of Palikrovy, 300 Poles were killed, 20 in Maliniska and 16 in Chernytsia. Armed Ukrainian groups destroyed the monastery, stealing all valuables. What remained is the painting of Mary of Pidkamen, which now is kept in Saint Wojciech church in Wrocław.

Authors of a monograph "Zycie religijne w Polsce pod okupacja 1939-1945" state that Roman Catholic priests were among those killed with most cruelty. Father Ludwik Wrodarczyk from the village of Okop was crucified by the Ukrainians, father Stanislaw Dobrzanski from the village of Ostrowka beheaded (with him 967 local Poles were killed) and father Karol Baran from the village of Korytnica was cut in half by a saw.

According to Kirichuk, the first attacks on the Poles took place there in August, 1943 and they were probably the work of UPA units from Volyn. In return, Poles killed important Ukrainians, including the Ukrainian doctor Lastowiecky from Lviv and a popular football player from Przemysl, Wowczyszyn. By the end of summer, mass acts of terror aimed at Poles were taking place in Eastern Galicia with the purpose of forcing Poles to settle on the western bank of the San river, under the slogan "Poles behind the San". The number of victims is unknown. Kirichuk estimates that 10-12,000 Poles were murdered in Galicia alone

Approximately 366 Ukrainian and a few Polish inhabitants of Pawłokoma were massacred by a former Armia Krajowa unit aided by Polish self-defence groups from nearby villages. The massacre is believed to be an act of retaliation for earlier alleged murders by Ukrainian Insurgent Army of 9 (or 11) Poles in Pawłokoma and unspecified number of Poles killed by UPA in neighbouring villages.

German and Soviet involvement

While Germans actively encouraged the conflict, for most of the time they attempted to remain not directly involved. However, there are reports of Germans supplying weapons to both Ukrainians and Poles. Special German units formed from collaborationist Ukrainian or Polish police were deployed in pacification actions in Volhynia, and some of their crimes had been attributed to either the Polish Home Army or the Ukrainian UPA.

According to Yuryi Kirichuk the Germans were actively prodding both sides of the conflict against each other. Erich Koch once said: "We have to do everything possible so that a Pole meeting a Ukrainian, would be willing to kill him and conversely, a Ukrainian would be willing to kill a Pole". Kirichuk quotes a German commissioner from Sarny whose response to Polish complaints was: "You want Sikorski, the Ukrainians want Bandera. Fight each other".

On August 25, 1943, the German authorities ordered all Poles to leave the villages and settlements and move to larger towns.

Also the Soviet partisan units present in the area were aware of the massacres. On May 25, 1943, the commander of the Soviet partisan forces of the Rivne area in his report to the headquarters stressed that Ukrainian nationalists did not shoot the Poles but cut them dead with knives and axes, with no consideration of age or gender.

Number of victims

Estimates of Poles killed in Volhynia and Ukraine

Historian	Volhynia	All Ukraine
Norman Davies	60,000
Jan T. Gross	60-80,000
Ewa and Władysław Siemaszko	50-60,000	100,000
Ryszard Torzecki	40,000	100,000
Michał Fijałka	40,000
Józef Turowski	60,000	300,000
Grzegorz Motyka	35-60,000
Antoni Szczęśniak, Wiesław Szota		100,000
Bogumiła Berdychowska	34,647-60,000
Mykhaylo Koval	40,000 +
Orest Subtelny	60-80,000
Mikolai Siwicki	35,000

The exact numbers of civilian victims of the Volyn Massacre remains unknown. Historians estimate the number as being between 35,000 and 60,000 in Volyn alone, while estimates of all Polish victims of the ethnic cleansing in Ukraine run as high as 100,000. UPA did not spare members of mixed families, including Ukrainians (Piotrowski writes that OUN-UPA nationalists would also murder Ukrainians, those who either did not want to kill Poles, helped them or cooperated with Soviet units). The ethnic cleansing was focused on unarmed countrymen as UIA partisans were not present in cities. Piotr Łossowski estimates that in the massacres, around one-third of Poles living in Volyn (50,000-60,000) perished, those who survived, were mostly inhabitants of towns and cities . Władysław Siemaszko created a list consisting of 33,454 names, however, Łossowski emphasizes that the document is far from complete, as in numerous cases there were no survivors, who would later testify.

The Polish side however, also engaged in acts of brutality and vengeance. Although the exact number of Ukrainian victims is not documented, according to Ukrainian estimates the number of victims from the actions of the Polish Home Army forces resulted in the deaths of an estimated 20,000 Ukrainians. Research continues on arriving at a more accurate estimation of the number of victims for each side.

The Soviet and Nazi invasions of pre-war eastern Poland, the UPA massacres of Poles, and postwar Soviet expulsions all contributed to the virtual elimination of a Polish presence in the region, as those who survived left Volyn en masse, mostly to the neighbouring province of Lublin. After the war, the survivors moved further west, mostly to the territories of Lower Silesia. Polish orphans from Volyn were kept in several orphanages, with the largest of them around Kraków.

Responsibility

The question of the responsibility for the ethnic cleansing remains a matter of a dispute between the historians. It is often attributed to the rise in nationalistic attitude of Ukrainian political and military organizations.

The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, (OUN) of which the Ukrainian Insurgent Army would have become the armed wing, promoted removal, by force if necessary, of non-Ukrainians from the social and economic spheres of a future Ukrainian state. The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists adopted in 1929 the Ten Commandments of the Ukrainian Nationalists, which all members of the Organization were expected to adhere to. This Decalogue stated "Do not hesitate to carry out the most dangerous deeds" and "Treat the enemies of your nation with hatred and ruthlessness".

It is suggested that the decision to ethnically cleanse the area East of Western Bug river was taken by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army early in 1943. In March 1943, according to the claims of one of their rivals, OUN(B) (specifically Mykola Lebed) imposed a collective death sentence of all Poles living in present Western Ukraine and a few months later local units of the UPA were instructed to complete the operation with haste. The decision to cleanse the territory of its Polish population determined the course of events in the future. According to Timothy Snyder, the ethnic cleansing of the Poles was the work of OUN-B. No known documents exist however proving that the UPA-OUN made such an executive decision to exterminate Poles in Volhynia. However, Polish investigators claim that the OUN central leadership decided in February 1943 to drive all Poles out of Volhynia, to obtain an ethnically pure territory in the postwar period. Among those who were behind the decision, Polish investigators see Dmytro Klyachkivskyy, Vasyl Ivakhov, Ivan Lytvynchuk, and Petro Oliynyk.

According to prosecutor Piotr Zając, Polish Institute of National Remembrance in 2003 considered three different versions of the events in its investigation: [4]

1. the Ukrainians at first planned to chase Poles out but the events got out of hand in the course of time.
2. the decision to exterminate the Poles was taken by the OUN-UPA headquarters.
3. the decision to exterminate the Poles was taken by some of the leaders of OUN-UPA in course of the internal conflict within the organisation.

Reconciliation

Efforts are ongoing to bring about reconciliation between Poles and Ukrainians regarding these tragic events. The Polish Institute of National Remembrance which is conducting an extensive investigation has collected over 10,000 pages of documents and protocols. The Polish side has made the first step towards reconciliation. In 2002 president Aleksander Kwaśniewski expressed regret over the resettlement program, known as Operation Vistula, stating that "Operation Vistula was the revenge for the slaughter of Poles by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army" in 1943-1944".

The Ukrainian government however has not issued an apology.

On July 11, 2003, presidents Aleksander Kwaśniewski and Leonid Kuchma attended a ceremony held in the Volynian village of Pavlivka (previously known as Poryck). They unveiled a monument to the reconciliation. President Kuchma however, did not offer an apology. The Ukrainians unexpectedly changed the inscription on the monument, even though it had been previously agreed upon with Poles. Later, the Ukrainians issued an apology for what they stated was a mistranslation, and promised to correct the inscription. Former chairman of Verkhovna Rada Volodymyr Lytvyn however, rejected calls for the Ukrainian state to apologize for the 1943 Volyn massacres. The Polish President stressed that it is unjust to blame the entire Ukrainian nation for these acts of terror, saying "The Ukrainian nation cannot be blamed for the massacre perpetrated on the Polish population. There are no nations that are guilty... It is always specific people who bear the responsibility for crimes".

Reconciliation is hampered by the fact that the contemporary Ukrainian State is legally the continuation of the Ukrainian Soviet State, and has no legal relationship with the Ukrainian state proclaimed in 1941 in Lviv. The Ukrainian Insurgent Army and other military formations operating on Ukrainian territory have to date not been recognised by the Ukrainian government despite numerous efforts by president Yushchenko to do so. As a result, the government structures of contemporary Ukraine do not have the legal right to discuss any aspects regarding reconciliation.

References

• Template:En icon Subtelny, Orest (1988). "Ukraine: A History". Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 0-8020-5808-6.
• Template:En icon Filip Ożarowski Wolyn Aflame, Publishing House WICI, 1977, ISBN 0-9655488-1-3.
• Template:En icon Wiktor Poliszczuk "Bitter truth": The criminality of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), the testimony of a Ukrainian, ISBN 0-9699444-9-7
• Template:En icon Tadeusz Piotrowski: Genocide and Rescue in Wolyn: Recollections of the Ukrainian Nationalist Ethnic Cleansing Campaign Against the Poles During World War II, McFarland & Company, 2000, ISBN 0-7864-0773-5.
• Template:En icon Tadeusz Piotrowski: Vengeance of the Swallows: Memoir of a Polish Family's Ordeal Under Soviet Aggression, Ukrainian Ethnic Cleansing and Nazi Enslavement, and Their Emigration to America, McFarland & Company, 1995, ISBN 0-7864-0001-3.
• Template:En icon Mikolaj Teres: Ethnic Cleansing of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia, Alliance of the Polish Eastern Provinces, 1993, ISBN 0-9698020-0-5.
• Template:En icon Norman Davies, "No Simple Victory: World War Two in Europe", page 352, Viking Penguin 2007. ISBN 978-0-670-01832-1
• Template:En icon Timothy Snyder, The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569-1999, Yale University Press, ISBN 0-300-10586-X Google Books
• Template:Pl icon Andrzej L. Sowa (1998). "Stosunki polsko-ukraińskie 1939-1947". Kraków. OCLC 48053561.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Template:Pl icon Grzegorz Motyka (2006). Ukraińska partyzantka 1942-1960 (in Polish). Warszawa: RYTM. ISBN 83-7399-163-8.
• Template:Pl icon Władysław Siemaszko, Ewa Siemaszko (2000). "Ludobójstwo dokonane przez nacjonalistów ukraińskich na ludności polskiej Wołynia 1939–1945". Warszawa. ISBN 83-87689-34-3.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Template:Uk icon Volodymyr Serhiychuk, Poliaky na Volyni u roky druhoyi svitovoyi viyny. Kyiv, 2003. 576 pages. ISBN 966-70-60-48-7
• Template:Uk icon Volodymyr Serhiychuk, Deportatsiya Poliakiv z Ukrainy. Kyiv, 1999. 192 pages. ISBN 966-7060-15-2

See also

• Historiography of the Massacre of Poles in Volhynia
• 27th Polish Home Army Infantry Division
• Janowa Dolina
• Poryck Massacre
• Przebraże Defence

External links

• Template:Uk icon / Template:Pl icon Volhynia and Eastern Galicia 1943–1944. Documents of State Committee on Archives of Ukraine
• Template:Uk icon Tragedy of Volhynia 1943–1944. Documents of State Committee on Archives of Ukraine
• To resolve the Ukrainian Question Once and for all: the ethnic cleansing of Ukrainians in Poland 1943-1947, written by Yale historian Timothy Snyder
• Kost Bondarenko, "The Volyn Tragedy: Echoes Through Decades" in Zerkalo Nedeli (the Mirror Weekly), Feb. 15-21, 2003.
• Template:Uk icon L.Melnik, B.Yurochko, "Rozkhytane derevo myfiv" in The Lviv Newspaper, May 25, 2007.
• Documents on Ukrainian Polish Reconciliation
• Ut unum sint: Ukraine and Poland
• Template:Uk icon Volyn Discussion (a list of articles)
• Template:Pl icon a Polish website of Światowy Związek Żołnierzy Armii Krajowej
• Template:Pl icon Genocide in Volhynia
• Template:En icon An abbreviated preface to the monographic book of Władysław Siemaszko and Ewa Siemaszko, November, 2000.