Przywracanie Pamieci: Stowarzyszenie Upamietniania Ofiar Zbrodni Ukrainskich Nacjonalistow w latach 1990-2018, by Szczepan Siekerka and Michal Siekierka. 2019. Wroclaw
SUOZUN: Organized Remembrance of the Ukrainian OUN-UPA Genocide of Poles That Was Conducted in 1939-1947
RECOVERY OF MEMORY: THE ASSOCIATION FOR THE COMMEMORATION OF THE VICTIMS OF THE CRIMES OF UKRAINIAN NATIONALISTS [SUOZUN] is the title of this Polish-language book. In view of the recent (2022) Ukrainian-Russian war and the arrival of some 4 million Ukrainian refugees in Poland (along with the continued glorification of the genociders Stepan Bandera and Roman Shukhevych among many of today’s Ukrainians), this book is more relevant than ever.
THE DEATH TOLL OF THE OUN-UPA GENOCIDE OF POLES
Siekierka and Siekerka re-affirm their older estimates of the number of Poles murdered, as apportioned by voivodship: 60,000-70,000 (Wolyn), 23,000 (Tarnopol), 21,000 (Lwow), 22,000 (Stanislawow), 3,000 (Polesie), and 5,000-6,000 (in Poland in her post-WWII boundaries). (pp. 385-386).
POLISH NATIONALISM IS VERY DIFFERENT FROM UKRAINIAN NATIONALISM
Lewaks (leftists) would have us believe that “nationalism is bad”, that “all nationalism is basically the same”, and that all forms of nationalism likely tend towards genocide. This is nonsense. Polish nationalism was and is based on Catholic ethics and would never even imagine exterminating another people. Ukrainian nationalism is based on fascism, unlimited ruthlessness, and the complete physical annihilation of an enemy. (p. 173).
Ukrainian nationalism was unmistakably exterminatory from the beginning. Ukrainian nationalists followed Doncov, who argued for total ruthlessness as a matter of policy. (p. 25). In Ukrainian nationalist thinking, Ukraine would not truly come into existence until there was not a single Jew, Pole, Hungarian, Romanian, or Russian living on Ukrainian-claimed territories. (p. 203). For more on this, see:
This book is not anti-Ukrainian. The authors, for example, identify 1,300 righteous Ukrainians that rescued or shielded Poles from the UPA genocide. (p. 47).
PERSISTENT ATTEMPTS TO BURY THE MEMORY OF THE GENOCIDE
During the decades of Communist rule, discussion of the Ukrainian genocide was taboo, as was anything that could serve as a reminder of the onetime Polishness of the Soviet-confiscated Kresy (Poland’s eastern half). In addition, Ukrainians were considered to be “brothers” of the Soviet Russians and could not be criticized. Survivors were in a state of resignation and wanted to “move on”.
Around 1990, after the fall of Communism, the many survivors of the Ukrainian genocide broke their silence. They soon organized and formed the SUOZUN (Stowarzyszenie Upamietniania Ofiar Zbrodni Ukrainskich Nacjonalistow) and made systematic studies of this little-known genocide. Eventually, 20,000 Polish eyewitnesses spoke up. (p. 27). In time, 150-180 monuments, plaques, etc., were erected on the relevant territories, most of which are now in Ukraine.
The post-Communist Polish government was, at least at first, not much more sympathetic to publicity about this genocide than the older Soviet-imposed Communist one. It evidently wanted “good relations” with the Ukrainians at all costs, and at the expense of the truth. (p. 12). To this day, the OUN-UPA genocide of Poles is not taught in schools. (p. 10). Surely this is not by accident. Note the irony of the fact that the Jews’ Holocaust is forced on Polish schools by international policies, but the Poles’ own genocide is omitted.
STOP USING ORWELLIAN TERMS TO WHITEWASH THE UKRAINIAN GENOCIDE
We keep hearing such bogus constructs as “Polish-Ukrainian conflict”, “fratricide”, and “Polish-Ukrainian War”. What’s this?
This was no more a “Polish-Ukrainian War” than the Holocaust was a “German-Jewish War” or the Armenian Genocide was a “Turkish-Armenian War” (as some Turks still claim). The Polish civilians were murdered en masse for no reason other than the fact that they had been born Polish. All Poles, even babies, were reckoned as “enemies of Ukraine” just as all Jews, even babies, were reckoned “enemies of the Third Reich” in the German-made Holocaust. (p. 193). If the UPA “action” was not genocide, then what is?
UKRAINIAN GENOCIDE OF POLES, AND NOT A “POLISH-UKRAINIAN” WAR
The Ukrainian operation was not aimed at Polish soldiers: It was aimed squarely at Polish civilians. So, unless one re-defines war to mean the systematic murder of defenseless civilians, it was not a “Polish-Ukrainian War”. In fact, in the first several months (in Wolyn) there was almost no Polish resistance at all. It was cold-blooded, well-organized, creatively sadistic Ukrainian murder of tens of thousands of mostly-unarmed Polish men, women and children, followed by the burnings of hundreds of Polish villages. (p. 203).
Surely the Ukrainian attackers knew that the Polish civilians were unarmed and defenseless. This is evidenced by the fact that the attackers included masses of mobilized Ukrainian peasants that carried knives, axes, pitchforks, etc.
There was belatedly some Polish resistance and indeed a few Polish reprisals. But it was a closing of the barn door after the horses had left, and not a “Polish-Ukrainian War”.
