Ukrainian UPA Genocide of Poles Very Unlike Operation Wisla Zurek

UPA w Bieszczadach: Straty Ludności Polskiej Poniesione z Rąk Ukraińskich w Bieszczadach w Latach 1939-1947, by Stanisław Żurek. 2007

Do Not Relativize Operation Wisla With the Earlier OUN-UPA Genocide of Over 100,000 Poles!

Title: THE UPA IN THE BIESZCZADY MOUNTAINS. This scholarly book traces the course of the Ukrainian fascist-separatist OUN-UPA (or UIA) genocide of Poles, focusing primarily on the geographic region located in the extreme SE of Poland as defined by her post-WWII borders. Zurek repeatedly refutes the claims of politically-correct history-distorters and moral relativists such as the Pole Grzegorz Motyka and the Ukrainian Eugeniusz Misilo.

From time to time, we hear claims about the “eternally Ukrainian” character of the territories on which the UPA operated. This is nonsense, and not only in relatively recent times. The Polans (Polanians?), a local Slavic tribe, were deported eastward, and forced to build the Kieven Rus state. So, ironically, the Ukrainian people have a substantial admixture of Polish (along with, later, Tatar) blood. (pp. 191-192).

THE TRAWNIKI

Ukrainian-German collaboration is addressed. For instance, at the Trawniki Camp alone, 15,000 Ukrainian-Nazi collaborators (including SS) were trained. (p. 139). Nor is it true that Ukrainian collaborators operated only on “Ukrainian ethnographic” territories. For instance, in the GG (General Government), there were 30,000 Ukrainische Hilfspolizei alone. (p. 139).

THE MYTH OF UPA KILLING POLES ONLY ON “UKRAINIAN ETHNOGRAPHIC TERRITORIES”

The genocidal events that took place east of the Bug-San River can in no way be dichotomized from those that occurred west of it. Approximately 200,000 Poles were murdered by radicalized Ukrainians (primarily by the OUN-UPA) east of this river, and 18,000 west of it. (p. 177; for elaboration, see pp. 180-on). This was no “Polish-Ukrainian War”: The vast majority of victims in each case were unarmed civilians whose only crime was to be born Polish. Ironic to “Poles started it” accusations, the Poles in Bieszczady, as their counterparts in Wolyn (Volhynia), had at first refrained from developing fortified villages (samoobrony) so as not to “provoke” the Ukrainians. (p. 13).

Specifically-named local Ukrainian Greek Catholic priests were UPA leaders, while other Ukrainian priests fled from it. (p. 14). The Bieszczady region itself experienced a significant influx of UPA Pole-killers from Wolyn (Volyn) and eastern Galicia. (p. 23, 37, 147). UPA men from mixed marriages were ordered to kill their Polish mothers. (p. 99). Ukrainians who were friendly to Poles, or otherwise nonconformist to the OUN, were murdered by the OUN-UPA (e. g., p. 55,79-80,94,101,182). In fact, according to Ukrainian historian Polishchuk (Poliszczuk), a total of some 80,000 Ukrainians perished at the hands of the OUN-UPA. (p. 195).

THE COMMUNISTS PRIORITIZED IN ARRESTING AND KILLING POLISH PATRIOTS

The UPA lasted as long as it did because the Communist authorities were pre-occupied in fighting real or imagined opposition to the new Soviet-imposed puppet state. (p. 111). “Operation Wisla” was, strictly speaking, not a Polish operation. It was directed from Moscow. (p. 153). Karol Swierczewski may have perished from an NKVD “hit”, not an OUN-UPA one. (pp. 123-on).

OPERATION WISLA WAS A MILITARY NECESSITY

The soundness of “Operation Wisla” is implicitly attested to by none other than UPA sources themselves. Without the resettlements inherent in “Operation Wisla”, the UPA could’ve continued fighting for up to another ten years. (LITOPYS UPA, Vol. 16)(p. 177; see also p. 199).

BOGUS ATTEMPTS TO COMPARE THE OUN-UPA GENOCIDE WITH OPERATION WISLA

Attempts to call “Operation Wisla” genocide, or to relativize it with the privations of Poles, are totally nonsensical. The removal of the Poles was associated with the OUN-UPA genocide, while the population transfers of Ukrainians involved minimal loss of life. In the much-condemned Jaworzno concentration camp, a mere 161 Ukrainians died (mostly from typhus) and about 114 were tortured. (p. 176). [This total was easily matched in a single Polish village attacked by the UPA].

Even the population transfers of Poles and Ukrainians were not symmetrical. 140,000 Ukrainians were relocated in “Operation Wisla” along with other Ukrainians sent to the USSR, while several times more Poles were relocated from the USSR-annexed Kresy. (p. 109). Finally, part of the Ukrainian population got to remain in their domiciles in post-WWII Poland, while almost 100% of the Poles in the Ukrainian-inhabited regions of the Soviet-annexed Kresy were expelled. (pp. 103-105).