ANALIZA POLITYCZNA I PRAWNA ZBRODNI NACJONALISTÓW UKRAIŃSKICH W WOJEWÓDZTWIE RZESZOWSKIM W LATACH 1944-1947
POLITICAL AND LEGAL ANALYSIS OF THE CRIMES COMMITTED BY UKRAINIAN NATIONALISTS IN RZESZOW PROVINCE IN THE YEARS 1944-1947

Summary/Abstract: The Ukrainian nationalists committed many crimes in Poland before WWII, e.g.they murdered the Polish Minister of Interior Bronisław Pieracki. The work by Dmytro Doncow “Nacjonalizm” (published in 1926) and the work by Stepan Łenkawśkyj “The Decalogue of a Ukrainian nationalist” were very popular with them. Both of them promoted fascist ideology of the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists [OUN] (est. 1929). OUN collaborated with the Germans during WW II, e.g. the Ukrainian auxiliary police escorted Jews from ghettoes to the places of execution and murdered many of them. Although the Germans did not approved of their proclamation of independence and arrested the leaders of the radical fraction of OUN Stepan Bandera and Jarosław Stećko (and some others) in July 1941, they did not stop collaborating with the Germans.The Ukrainian nationalists decided to start the genocide of Polish people in Volhynia, where the Poles constituted a minority. For this reason, they established the Ukrainian Insurgent Army [UPA] in March 1943. They murdered most of their victims by deception, some of them were even killed in churches during services. Their goal was to exterminate as many Poles as possible. They tortured their victims in a very sadistic way, with no exception for infants, children, pregnant women and old men. The structures of the Polish self-defence protected people at risk from OUN and UPA. Moreover, sometimes the armed Polish secret forces, executed those Ukrainians, who collaborated with OUN and UPA, as a revenge for killing Polish civilians. Many of the Ukrainians supported OUN and UPA and supplied them with food. For this reason the Polish communist authorities, decided to relocate the Ukrainian civilians and to smash OUN and UPA in the south – eastern territories of Poland. The military operation “Vistula” achieved these goals in the summer, 1947. Regarding OUN and UPA as the Ukrainian independence movement seems to be wrong, because of their criminal activity, imposing compulsory service in UPA and murdering those Ukrainians, who did not support them.

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