Tells Mr. Krzysztof Kapitaniuk (son). Crime Scene: Borki (Kapitaniuki colony), Luboml county, Volhynia voivodship. Father – Stefan Kapitaniuk, s/o Tymoteusz (Tomasz) and Michalina née Bagniuk. probable date of birth: 1933. Stefan's parents owned a farm in the village of Borki – (also found in the names of the village: Kolonia Kapitaniuki). In August 1943, in Kolonia Kapitaniuki, as a result of an attack, the following were murdered: brothers Władysław, Tadeusz; mother: Michalina Kapitaniuk née Bagniuk. Stefan was injured in the head, he lost consciousness. He looked dead. He fell into the basement, or was hit with the dead bodies of his brothers and mother. According to a telephone report with the person / witness (Ms Kołtun) who went to the Kapitaniuk's house the next day and found the murdered; by the s/o Stefan Kapitaniuk, Krzysztof, who, after a long search, found traces of witnesses. In the description of Mrs. Kołtun, around noon she went to the Kapitaniuk's house, surprised that there was no traffic in the farmyard. She used the words (as she remembered): „The captaincy slept”. When she entered the house, she found a stabbed corpse. Shocked, she raised the alarm. A significant part of the villagers came together. During the removal of the bodies of the murdered from the house, Stefan moved and then he was given help. He was taken to hospital in Luboml. Later he stayed with a family named Szynkaruk in Nowy Jagodzin. All this time she was undergoing very difficult rehabilitation. So much difficult with a double physical and mental. Krzysztof's son found out about the case only many years after the event. The trauma associated with the experiences of that night was unbreakable for Mr. Stefan for decades. Probably the subconscious memory of the torment and death of his loved ones, which is in the mind of Mr. Stefan – prevents him from returning to that terrible moment. The memory gaps are so large that Mr. Stefan cannot say why the father was not on the farm during the attack on the mother and children. Why does he not remember his presence during the occupation. He probably did not return from Soviet captivity after the September campaign in 1939. Additional findings show that relatives of the Kapitaniuk family also lived in the village of Kuśniszcze. Mr. Stefan's son is looking for his father's baptismal certificate. From the information obtained earlier it appears that he was baptized in Grudziądz – hence the hypothesis, the suspicion that Tymoteusz (father of Mr. Stefan – the only survivor), he was a professional military man. This is an example of the covert activities of a group of Ukrainian nationalists operating in the immediate vicinity of larger concentrations of German troops, garrison towns and other military facilities. A stealthy nighttime raid on the weakest family in a village, one known to have virtually zero likelihood of armed resistance, so the chances of raising an alarm and exposing the murderers are close to zero. It should be remembered that in the vast majority of cases, the murderers were neighbors who sowed, plowed together during the day, and even feasted with their victims, turning into executioners at night. In an interview with Mr. Krzysztof there was a confirmation of this theory, he quoted the answer of the neighbor of the murdered, who found the body; she considered, like the Poles living in the village, that the murder of a defenseless mother and her sons was perpetrated by neighbors of Ukrainian citizenship. No firearms were used, so as not to bring a German patrol – scythes and axes were used.
There is another aspect to the matter that shows how close these people could be. Mr. Stefan told his son how in the 70s, being invited to a wedding to his family friends who lived in Poland, during a party he met an older Ukrainian who, being healthy drunk, threw a strange and amazing sentence: „And you got it in the head and you were all covered in blood, there in the basement” A sentence taken out of context without giving the date of the event, without the slightest indication of what the event was about, a sentence only understood by the perpetrator and the victim. How unpunished did this man have to feel to be able to deliver it? And how much new fear and anxiety has this confession brought to the victim? Or was that what it was about?
At the end of the 70's, Mr. Stanisław was in his native village. His family house stands, now inhabited by a Ukrainian family of peasants. Behind the house is a small cemetery with graves decorated with typical Orthodox crosses, where his relatives are buried: his mother and two brothers. Crosses were built by ordinary people who lived in his former home where he lived his childhood so tragically interrupted. The Ukrainians living in his former family house simply pay respect to the murdered people, although they do not know them, and take care of their final resting place. How much can you learn from them.

source: Żurek Stanisław, „The 75th anniversary of the genocide – August and the summer of 1943”; in: portal: Volhynia — web page: wolyn.org [accessible: 2021.02.04]

source: Szelągowski Piotr, text and development; in: portal: BezPrzesady — web page: bezprzesady.com [accessible: 2021.04.11]

Siemaszko et Siemaszko  […] document the death of January 10, 1944, 12 families, about 55 Poles in the village of Borki, not including the Kapitaniuk family; They do not mention the Kapitaniuki colony, perhaps it was a small colony belonging to the village of Borki.

source: Żurek Stanisław, „The 75th anniversary of the genocide – August and the summer of 1943”; in: portal: Volhynia — web page: wolyn.org [accessible: 2021.02.04]

source: Siemaszko Władysław, Siemaszko Ewa, „The genocide perpetrated by Ukrainian nationalists on the Polish population of Volhynia 1939 - 1945”, in: Warsaw 2000, p. 522

The UPA and Ukrainian peasants from neighboring villages murdered 12 Polish families, about 55 Poles.

source: Żurek Stanisław, „Calendar of the genocide – January 1944”; in: portal: Volhynia — web page: wolyn.org [accessible: 2021.02.04]

The Ukrainians murdered about 20 people. „We lived in the village of Borki in Wołyń, near Lubomlo, about 30 km from the Polish–Ukrainian border. My parents, Józefa and Bartłomiej Sobczuk, owned a large horticultural farm (12 ha), fish ponds, forests and land. The family was large, apart from me, Anna (15), Jan (21 – shot in 1941 by the Germans), Marysia (18), Bronisław (10) and Władysława (6). The village was Polish–Ukrainian and had about 150 farms. Quite affluent Poles constituted 15% of the total population  […] In March 1944 my parents and siblings, at the urging of their neighbors, returned to Borek and I stayed at the rectory in Luboml for another week. When I arrived at home after a week, my father, aware of the danger that still threatened us, told me «you must survive» and, without asking for permission, he took him to our Ukrainian family – mother and eight children – living off the beaten track, in a field about 3 km from ours villages. I was here for 2 weeks, but my stay was long, I missed my home, I wanted to change and take a bath. I dreamed of coming back permanently. There was peace in the village, and also in the area, and one day I returned home without thinking for a long time. However, my father did not let me stay, I had to return to my hideout immediately. Not alone anymore, but with sister Bronia. Thanks to my father's decisive decision, we survived. It was on that night that a gang of Ukrainian nationalists attacked our house. They appeared near the village late in the evening. Around 11 p.m. they knocked on the house where we were hiding. The children were already asleep. When the hostess opened the door, they came in, carefully looking around and asking if she was hiding the Poles. Reassured by her, they went to the village. The slaughter began around 1:00 am. Observing the village from a distance, we guessed that something terrible was going on, the inhabitants were awake, our closest neighbors fled into the fields. There were no shots and no fires. The bandits were afraid of the Germans who were quartered in nearby Luboml. So they murdered with hammers, axes and knives. Our babysitter, terrified of the situation and fearing a return visit, which could end tragically for us, for her and her children, decided to flee. Around 2:00 am, we went to the nearby village of Kuśniszce to find shelter there. Only one house had a light on. We entered it. A young Ukrainian with a wounded hand was sitting at the table. When asked what happened, he replied: «This sob… Bartosz bit off my finger». I was terrified – there was a man in front of me who probably murdered my father. So without questioning and trying to remain calm, we quickly left the house. It was dawn outside when we approached our village. Terrified and full of the worst feelings, we decided to return home with Bronia. On the way, we met two German soldiers and they escorted us. The sight was terrifying, in the yard lay the murdered and terribly massacred father, Marysia was lying in the orchard with an open head wound, mother was lying in the hall – the front of the skull was deeply dented. In the house, near the bed, Władzia was lying badly wounded in the back of the head, and when she saw us she started to cry. Only she from our family survived. About 20 people died in Borki that night. Including Ukrainians who converted to Catholicism. Among them was our neighbor, the widow of a Pole who died in the war. During the attack, she held her 9‑year‑old daughter tightly in her arms. Falling under the blows, she shielded the child with her own body. Thanks to this, the girl survived under her mother's corpse. The torturers were not satisfied with the death of the woman. They dragged a cow into the room, and it struggled to stain the body of the murdered man with dung. There was also a nice horse on the farm, the bandits cut off his hind legs. Even today I hear the animal's moan, I see it throwing itself in convulsions in the orchard near the house. He was shot by the Germans who appeared in Borki in the morning. Initially, they wanted to burn the village down, but at the request of the survivors, they abandoned this intention. Instead, they gave a few horse carts and, with the help of soldiers, collected the bodies of the murdered, which we then took to Luboml, to abandoned Jewish houses. There relatives identified them. Some of the bodies were terribly mutilated. The perpetrators tortured their compatriots who converted to Catholicism and married Poles with particular cruelty. One of them was our neighbor, a tall and powerfully built man who defended himself for a long time. Surrounded and overpowered by thugs, he was martyred. They hammered an enormous harrow nail into his skull. The bodies of the victims, wrapped in sheets, were buried in mass graves. The Germans placed me and my sister Władzia in a hospital in Luboml, Bronia found shelter with the organist's family also in Luboml. After two weeks, our relatives from Jagodzin took us away. The power of a seriously wounded head was treated by a doctor from a partisan unit who was stationed for some time in nearby Zamłynie. In Jagodzin, we lived to see the end of the war”. .

source: Żurek Stanisław, „Calendar of the genocide – March 1944”; in: portal: Volhynia — web page: wolyn.org [accessible: 2021.02.04]

source: Staniuk Anna, „Memories of mine”; in: Obecny Andrzej (ed.), „Volhyniaians in Słupsk”, in: Słupsk, 2008 — web page: bibliotekacyfrowa.eu [accessible: 2021.04.11]

Years later, I went to Borek. Former neighbors still remembered my family. There was no trace of my parents' house and their grave.

source: Żurek Stanisław, „Calendar of the genocide – March 1944”; in: portal: Volhynia — web page: wolyn.org [accessible: 2021.02.04]

source: Marecki Zbigniew, „She survived the UPA's hunt for Poles”; in: portal: Volhynia of our forebearers, in: March 8, 2008 — web page: www.nawolyniu.pl [accessible: 2022.04.06]

Siemaszko et Siemaszko  […] document only the attack on January 10, 1944, they do not mention the Sobczuk family among 55 victims.

source: Żurek Stanisław, „Calendar of the genocide – March 1944”; in: portal: Volhynia — web page: wolyn.org [accessible: 2021.02.04]

source: Siemaszko Władysław, Siemaszko Ewa, „The genocide perpetrated by Ukrainian nationalists on the Polish population of Volhynia 1939 - 1945”, in: Warsaw 2000, p. 522