The Polish Parliament has introduced a public holiday in memory of the victims of the Volyn tragedy
The Polish Sejm decided to declare July 11 a public holiday – the day of remembrance of “the victims of the genocide committed by the OUN and the UPA in the eastern territories of the Second Polish Republic.” About this it is said in the official statement of the Diet.
On June 4, the Polish parliament adopted a law establishing a new commemorative date. From now on, every year on July 11, Poles will be honored who, according to the Polish side, became victims of the actions of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army in Volyn.
“Martyrdom for belonging to the Polish nation deserves to be remembered in the form of a day designated annually by the Polish state, on which the victims will be honored”, – says the statement of the parliament.
The document emphasizes that during the years 1939–1946, the OUN, the UPA and “other Ukrainian nationalist formations operating in the eastern border territories of the Second Polish Republic” committed “genocide of the Polish population.”
“They killed more than 100 thousand Poles, mostly peasants, destroyed their property and forced hundreds of thousands of Poles to leave the eastern border territories of the Second Polish Republic”, – added in Poland.
Previously, in response to the destruction of Ukrainian monuments in Poland in 2015-2017 and due to the lack of investigations into these cases, Ukraine introduced a moratorium on search operations and exhumations of the remains of Poles who died in 1943-1945 as a result of the actions of the UPA.
Over the years, this issue has remained a source of tension in Polish-Ukrainian relations. The Polish side, in particular the government led by Donald Tusk, insisted on canceling the moratorium, pointing out that the resolution of historical contradictions is one of the conditions for Ukraine’s accession to the European Union.
It will be recalled that in April, the exhumation of the remains of the dead Poles began on the territory of the former village of Puzhnyki in the Ternopil region. Pavel Koval, head of the Polish-Ukrainian working group on historical dialogue, called this step a breakthrough in relations between the two states.
