Nadiya, a child of the murderers and rapists, was able to escape in Kyiv, Ukraine, only to find herself hidden in a haystack amid the bloodshed, shouting, and shooting that occurred 82 years ago.
The 94-year-old woman told Al Jazeera, and asked to keep her last name and personal information, and said, “He covered me with hay and told me not to get out no matter what.”
On July 11, 1943, members of the nationalist paramilitary group UiA stormed Nadiya’s village near the Polish-Ukrainian border, killing ethnic Polish men and raping women.
Anyone who attempted to defend the Poles was also killed, according to Nadiya.
Although the nonagenarian is frail and rarely goes out, her face sparkles when she recalls her grand- and great-grandchildren’s names and birthdays.
Even though her parents never discussed the now-dubbed Volyn massacre, she also recalls the names of her neighbors who were murdered or forced to flee to Poland.
Nadiya criticized the UIA, which continued to fight the Soviets until the early 1950s, by saying, “The Soviets forbade it.”
Nadiya claimed that her account may rile Ukrainian nationalists who criticize UIA fighters for supporting Russian independence in World War II.
The UIA leaders made their decision after communist purges, violent atheism, forced collectivism, and a famine that claimed the lives of millions of Ukrainians. They backed Nazi Germany, which occupied the USSR in 1941.
However, the Nazis ultimately refused to annex Ukraine and toppled Stepan Bandera, one of the UIA’s leaders, into a concentration camp.
Roman Shukhevych, a top UIA leader, was charged with involvement in the Holocaust and the massive ethnic Pole massacres in 1943’s western Ukrainian region of Volyn and adjacent areas.
Genocide?
According to survivors, Polish historians, and officials who consider the Volyn massacre to be a “genocide,” up to 100 000 civilian Poles, including women and children, were stabbed, axed, beaten, or burned to death.
The Polish Institute of National Memory’s Robert Derevenda stated to Polskie Radio on July 11 that “what’s horrifying isn’t the numbers but the way the murders were carried out.”
In honor of the 1943 murders, the Polish parliament designated July 11 as “The Volyn Massacre Day.”
The bill stated that “a martyr’s death for being Polish deserves to be commemorated.”
Poland is fully entitled to commemorate this tragedy, according to Kyiv-based analyst Igar Tyshkevych, according to Al Jazeera. “From Poland’s point of view, yes, this is a tragedy of the Polish people,” Tyshkevych said.
However, he said, right-wing Polish politicians may use the day to promote anti-Ukrainian narratives, and Kyiv’s harsh response could increase tensions.
He continued, “Ideally, historians and not politicians should be the subject of discussion during all of these processes.”
The Volyn massacre is referred to as a “tragedy” by Ukrainian politicians and historians. They accuse the Polish army of killing tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians in response to a lower death toll.
Bandera and Shukhevych, UIA leaders, have frequently been hailed as national heroes in post-Soviet Ukraine, and hundreds of streets, squares, and other landmarks have been given their names.
changing political and viewpoints
Vyacheslav Likhachyov, a Kyiv-based human rights advocate, called “banderite” any proponent of Ukraine’s independence or even any ordinary person who fought for the legitimacy of the public’s representation of Ukrainian culture.
When many supporters of Ukraine’s independence started to understand Bandera and the UIA, he claimed, “turning a blind eye to their radicalism, xenophobia, and political violence.”
Despite objections from many Ukrainians, particularly in the eastern and southern regions, anti-Russian Ukrainian leaders began to celebrate the UIA in the 2000s.
According to Likhachyov, the UIA is seen today through a somewhat myopic lens of Ukraine’s ongoing conflict with Russia.
According to Nikolay Mitrokhin, a researcher at Bremen University in Germany, the political elite of Ukraine views the Volyn massacre and armed fighting between Ukrainians and Poles as only “a war related to the Ukrainians’ fight for their land.”
A village, where the majority of the population is on the enemy’s side, is regarded as a “legitimate target” according to the sayings of war, which any village can experience.
Many Ukrainian young people with right-leaning backgrounds “fully accepted” Bandera’s radicalism and the militant nationalism, he claimed.
Before Russia’s massive invasion in 2022, thousands of far-right nationalists gathered in every Ukrainian town to honor Bandera’s birth anniversary on January 1.
They chanted, “Bandera is our father, Ukraine is our mother,” in response.
The Polish and Israeli embassies issued protest declarations in response, reminding them of the UIA’s involvement in the Volyn massacre and the Holocaust.
In 2014, far-right activists enlisted in large numbers in 2022 to fight separatists opposed to Moscow-backed separatists in southeast Ukraine.
There is no room for reflection and self-analysis in Ukraine’s “social threat” to its very existence, according to rights advocate Likhachyov.
Meanwhile, he said Warsaw will continue to call for concessions after the Volyn massacre and threaten to oppose Ukraine’s annexation of the European Union.
According to analyst Tyshkevych, Moscow “traditionally plays” the conflict to bring about division between Kyiv and Warsaw and accuse Ukrainian leaders of “neo-Nazi” tendencies.
Can there be reconciliation?
The Volyn massacre’s memory is still rife with controversy today. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 has helped the UIA’s reputation as a freedom fighters, somewhat putting aside any discussion of its involvement in the atrocities of World War II.
The commemoration of the massacre has become a symbol of national trauma and, occasionally, a tool of influence in political disagreements with Ukraine.
After Kyiv lifted a seven-year moratorium on such exhumations, Polish experts began exhuming the remains of the Volyn massacre victims in the western Ukrainian village of Puzhniky in April. Some think this may be the first step in aversing the Volyn massacre’s repercussions.
According to historians, reconciliation won’t happen quickly.
Ivar Dale, a senior policy adviser with the Norwegian Helsinki Committee, a human rights watchdog, told Al Jazeera, “The way to reconciliation is frequently painful and requires people to accept historical realities they’re uncomfortable with.”
Source: Aljazeera
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