“There can be no full Polish-Ukrainian reconciliation without locating all the remains of the Volhynia Massacre victims; we need to close this painful wound in the history of both nations – emphasized Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, referring to the discovery of a Polish mass grave in Puzniki in Ukraine.”
“In Puźniki, Ukraine, Polish and Ukrainian specialists discovered a mass grave where, in 1945, the bodies of slain Polish villagers, victims of Ukrainian nationalists, were deposited. A request has been made to the Ukrainian authorities for permission to carry out an exhumation. This information was shared by the minister in the Chancellery of the Prime Minister, Michał Dworczyk, on X(Twitter).”
In a post and video on Facebook, the Prime Minister reminded that in July, during a visit to Puzniki in Ukraine, he wrote that the truth about the Volhynia massacre “must be our bridge to the future, which we will build over the stream of hatred”.
“We need to close this painful wound in the history of the Polish and Ukrainian nations. The path to this leads through the diligent research work of experts and historians, as well as the search for the remains of victims, exhumations – and burials” – emphasized the head of the government.
He pointed out that there cannot be a full Polish-Ukrainian reconciliation without finding all the remains of the victims of the Volhynia Massacre.
“We have already submitted a request to the relevant Ukrainian institutions for permission to exhume, examine, and provide a dignified burial. Importantly, among those involved in the work are also residents of nearby towns. We will not rest until we commemorate all the crimes of Ukrainian nationalism in Volhynia and Podolia,” emphasized the Prime Minister.
The Volhynia Massacre, which occurred between 1943 and 1944, was a series of brutal ethnic cleansings carried out by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) against Polish civilians in the Volhynia and Eastern Galicia regions. Motivated by Ukrainian nationalist aspirations for an ethnically pure Ukraine and exacerbated by historical grievances, these acts resulted in the death of tens of thousands of Poles.
