Pomordowani 30 sierpnia 1943 r. w parafii Ostrówki na Wołyniu
Victims of the 30th August 1943 massacre in Ostrówki parish in Wołyń

Summary/Abstract: Sixty-eight years after the Ukrainian nationalists perpetrated slaughters of Polish inhabitants of the Wołyń parish Ostrówka in Łuck diocese on the night of 29 and 30 August 1943, their mortal remains saw the day of the church burial. After the massacre properties and possessions of the local farmers and landholders were taken over by the Ukrainian Insurrection Army , houses and farm buildings were burnt down and the villages of Ostrówka and Wola Ostrowiecka were annihilated. Until the present moment it was possible to exhume in two stages, in 1992 and 2011, most of the murdered local parishioners, Pomordowani 30 sierpnia 1943 r. w parafii Ostrówki na Wołyniu 168 whose number now amounts to more than 1000 people. Owing to enormous and longstanding commitment of a PhD Leon Popek from the Lublin branch of the Institute of National Remembrance, whose parents originated from Ostrówki and whose about 40 family members were murdered in these pogroms, it was possible to prepare and conduct a funeral of the mortal remains of the victims on the 30th August 2011 at the old Polish cemetery. It was a religious and ecumenical (Catholic and Orthodox) ceremony, and the liturgy was conducted by the diocesan bishop of Luck, Markijan Trofimiak. Among the present were the representatives of Polish and Ukrainian authorities, few of the witnesses of these events living in Poland, their families and the inhabitants of the Ukrainian villages in the vicinity. With hope we await to see the erection of the monument commemorating the victims of the tragic events, of which we were ensured by the presidents of Poland and the Ukraine on the 30th August 2011 during a meeting in Jurata.

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