About 300 Poles were murdered in the German–Ukrainian pacification. On that day, the villages of Karasiówka, Łążek Chwałowski, Łążek Zaklikowski, Szczecyn and Wólka Szczecka were pacified and burnt down simultaneously with Borów. The number of its victims has not yet been precisely established. According to the calculations of Józef Fajkowski, over 900 people were murdered, of which 802 were residents of six pacified villages, while the remaining 100 came from neighboring towns (Przejradowo, Kosina, Mniszka, Stare Baraki, Nowe Baraki, Zaklików). According to Konrad Schuller, the number of victims of the pacification could have exceeded 1,000. The highest estimates are 1,300 murdered. The neighboring villages were attacked first. When the villages adjacent to Borów were already on fire, Fr Władysław Stańczak (vicar of the local parish) was making a pastoral visit to the surrounding hamlets. Noticing the fires, he returned to Borów, whose inhabitants gathered in the church for a solemn mass on the occasion of the Feast of Our Lady of Candlemas. Thanks to his warning, part of the population managed to escape and hide in the nearby swamps. Many inhabitants of Borów, however, stayed in the village to save their belongings. This group included, in particular, many women and children, as it was commonly expected that German repression would fall only on men suspected of collaborating with the guerrillas. Borów pacification began around 11:00. The buildings were set on fire by artillery, after which the Germans and their Ukrainian collaborators entered the village. Most of the captured residents were taken to the square near the belfry and shot there by machine gun fire. Many others were bayoneted or burned alive. About 300 people were killed in total. After the war, it was possible to establish the names of 229 of those murdered – 183 of which came from Borów, and the rest were residents of neighboring towns. One of the victims of the pacification was Fr Stanisław Skulimowski, the parish priest in Borów. The village was completely burnt down, destroying over 200 farms. As a survivor of the massacre, Fr Władysław Stańczak: „The village was almost completely burnt, the parish church, a mill and 5 houses remained. About 200 people died, including the parish priest Stanisław Skulimowski, the headmaster of the school Tadeusz Praczyński and many other people, mostly old people, children and women. During the action, the attackers shot everyone they met. They threw the killed people into a fire, and it was even said that they locked people in their houses and set them on fire. The inventory of the entire village was stolen by the Germans together with the Ukrainians. The tabernacle church was desecrated”.

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

source: portal: stankiewicze.com — web page: www.stankiewicze.com [accessible: 2010.01.01]

Near Borów there was the headquarters of the 1st Regiment of the Legia Nadwiślańska Ziemia Lubelskiej NSZ, whose soldiers and commander – Major Leonard Zub–Zdanowicz „Ząb” – often stayed in the village. The extermination action was carefully prepared, and the Germans used all the forces and resources available in this area to carry it out. The main strike force was probably the 1st Battalion of the 4th SS Police Regiment and Ukrainian policemen from the 5th Galician SS Volunteer Regiment (Galizisches SS Freiwilligen Regiment 5). In total, nearly 3,000 policemen, SS–men and soldiers participated in the pacification of Borów and the neighboring villages – with aerial reconnaissance and light artillery support. The pacification pattern was very similar, at first the German troops tightly surrounded the villages, which were set on fire with grenade launchers and anti–tank guns. Then the Germans and The Ukrainians entered the village and, going from house to house, murdered every captured Pole, regardless of age and sex. There have been cases of people being driven into buildings, which were then set on fire or thrown with grenades. There were acts of exceptional bestiality – stabbing infants and young children with bayonets; throwing women, invalids and old men alive into burning buildings. It has happened that young women were raped before their death. „anonymous editor of the Polish (unpublished) translation of the so–called alexandrian materials, a copy of which is in deposit with Professor Sigismud Mankowski in Lublin, stated that SS Galizien pacified Polish villages. He also mentioned Borów nad Wisłą in the Kraśnik county. a report from the gendarmerie about the destruction of the «600–strong Bolshevik group of» by the army and police has been preserved. On February 2, 1944, the Germans destroyed the fortresses of the National armed Forces – Borów and three nearby villages. Over 700 people were murdered. Who was the culprit? The available documents show that the Germans limited themselves to firing guns at the village and setting up a cordon so that no one could escape the pacification expedition. The auxiliary formations did the dirty work. according to the report of the Polish underground: «The Ukrainians have passed their teachers: children were thrown into burning buildings, old men were crushed with their knees to the ground and they shot in the back of the head»”.

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

source: „Field report, February 21, 1944”, Central Archives of Modern Records, in: No. 202/III—22, 43

It was claimed that it was the Ukrainian SS men who took part in the massacre. It was also emphasized that „survivors had escaped, which was tolerated by the [German] army, outraged by the methods of the” [Ukrainian] SS men.

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

source: „Report, no data [March 1944]”, Central Archives of Modern Records, in: DR, 202/III—22, 75

The above reports are confirmed by the post–war testimonies of witnesses kept at the Regional Commission for the Investigation of Crimes against the Polish Nation in Lublin. They show that „after the fire broke out, infantry entered, mostly The Ukrainians [sic] drunk, they shot people, pierced with bayonets, small children were thrown alive into the fire or into” wells. As the soldier of NSZ Edward Delekta („Miś”), who miraculously rescued from the massacre, recalled, some of the escapees from Borów were treated by German paramedics. In the end, „German officer forbade the shooting of the population, ordered that everyone be gathered in one place”. It is not known whether the officer was a military or an SS man, but it is known that he was the commander of the action, because „The Ukrainians obeyed him”.

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

source: web page: www.eioba.pl [accessible: 2010.08.26]

The NSZ units stationed near Borów were not able to fight the Germans, because due to the onset of winter Major Zub–Zdanowicz temporarily demobilized his regiment, leaving only 50 partisans under arms. In view of the overwhelming advantage of the enemy, the NSZ unit withdrew from Borów to the forests near Zaklików. For this reason, the communists and peasants later claimed that Major Zub–Zdanowicz had abandoned the defenseless population to the prey of the Germans. During his stay in exile, he was even formally accused of leaving the village of „without exhausting the” defense measures at his disposal. In 1947, the case was heard by the 2nd Field Court at the Polish Resettlement and Distribution Corps, which discontinued the investigation due to the finding of an obvious disproportion between Polish and German forces.

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

source: „Pacification of Polish villages in Janowskie Forests (1944)”; in: portal: WikipediA — web page: pl.wikipedia.org [accessible: 2021.04.11]