Consent to at least one place for the exhumation of victims of the Volhynian massacre would demonstrate Ukraine’s goodwill. If we plan to cooperate in the prosecution of Russian criminals for their current actions in Ukraine, what will this cooperation look like if we do not solve the cases of 80 years ago, says the president of the Institute of National Remembrance, Dr. Karol Nawrocki.
As the chairman of the Institute of National Remembrance recalled, applications regarding the exhumation of the victims of the Volhynian massacre have been sent to Ukraine since 2020, that is, before the outbreak of a large-scale war in Ukraine.
Unfortunately there was no answer
– he said.
Of course, our solidarity, sympathy and support for Ukraine is unequivocal in the fight against the Russian Federation. Also, because of personal and institutional relations, it is logical that we are on the side of Ukraine
– Nawrocki emphasized.
However, he noted that in his opinion, “the behavior of Ukraine and the gestures that we encounter, which in fact lead to nothing, the lack of permission to bury the victims of the Volhynian genocide, is a problem that cannot be translated into the current, even tragic and dramatic situation.”
The war has changed nothing, as the Ukrainian side continues to be reluctant to start excavation work and to accept or respond to any of our nine requests.
– said the president of the Institute of National Remembrance.
Is the Wehrmacht better than Polish casualties?
He also pointed out that Ukraine had recently agreed to the exhumation of 74 Wehrmacht soldiers, for example, during the ongoing war with Russia.
They agree to the exhumation of German soldiers who died after 1941 on the territory of the then Soviet Union, but not to the exhumation of Polish victims. As the chairman of the Institute of National Remembrance and a historian, I cannot understand why they do not agree to the exhumation of Polish civilian victims of 1.3 thousand people. places where the remains of Polish children, women and elderly people lie
– said the president of the Institute of National Remembrance.
Even one permission for excavations would demonstrate the good will of the Ukrainian side
– added the Institute’s president.
Nawrocki noted that this issue is being raised, among other things, out of “concern for the future.”
These are not just historical emotions that arise from a function that requires fidelity to the national memory
– he made a reservation.
We assume that in the future, after the victory, we will create international structures with Ukraine. At the Institute of National Remembrance, we have prosecutors who are ready to investigate the crime of genocide and mass murder of civilians. We hope that Russian criminals will be brought to justice for what they are doing today. But what would this cooperation in the international sphere look like if we were prosecuting Russian criminals for what they are doing to innocent Ukrainians today, and we are not solving cases from 80 years ago?
– Asked Nawrocki.
A living and painful issue
He recalled that for many families in Poland the issue of the exhumation of the victims of the Volhynian genocide is still very important.
Even in the field of communications we are fueling Russian propaganda, which is taking advantage of our inability to deal with fundamental issues. Because of this inability of circles that know how much Poles suffered in Volhynia, the Russian side is beginning to use it for propaganda purposes.
– argues the chairman of the Institute of National Remembrance.
I believe that this issue must be resolved. It is not that everyone who demands exhumation is a “Russian spy.” As president of the Institute of National Remembrance, I demand permission for exhumation, and this is my right and duty. And no one will accuse me of my actions as part of Russian propaganda, because the Russian Federation is hunting me and I risk five years in a labor camp.
– Nawrocki stressed, referring to the behavior of the Russian authorities in connection with the activities of the Institute of National Remembrance to remove Soviet propaganda facilities that have existed in Poland since the time of the Polish People’s Republic.
Geopolitics cannot erase the truth
At the same time, Nawrocki stressed that “if he understands the entire geopolitical shape of the Polish state’s security infrastructure, (…) he will not give up the demand for exhumation.”
An obligation to those who lost their lives in such tragic circumstances, an obligation to those in whose families this still lives today, in whatever negotiations – military, political, economic – this would not allow me to forget the need to resolve the matter of exhumation
– he emphasized.
Since the spring of 2017, there has been a dispute between Warsaw and Kiev over the ban on searching for and exhuming the remains of Polish victims of wars and conflicts on the territory of Ukraine, introduced by the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance. The ban was issued after the UPA monument in Hruszowice was dismantled in April 2017.
Poland and Ukraine have been divided for years by historical issues, especially different memories of the role of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, which in 1943-45 carried out a genocidal ethnic cleansing of some 100,000 Polish men, women and children.
While for the Polish side it was a reprehensible genocide (mass and organized) crime, for the Ukrainians it was the result of a symmetrical armed conflict for which both sides were equally responsible. Moreover, the Ukrainians want to see the OUN and UPA only as anti-Soviet organizations (because of their post-war opposition to the USSR), and not as anti-Polish organizations.
The Polish side wants to honorably commemorate the victims of the OUN-UPA at their cemeteries; for this purpose, the Institute of National Remembrance wants to exhume some of the victims, including those who died not during the massacre in Volhynia and Galicia, but, for example, during the fighting against the Soviets after September 17, 1939. The Ukrainian side is against this and in the past has made its consent conditional on the reconstruction by Poland of the UPA monument in Hruszowice in Podkarpacie, which is an unacceptable condition for the Polish side.
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Source: wPolityce