As a result of denunciation by local Ukrainians, the Gestapo arrested and shot 5 Poles.

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

Prepared by the parish priest of Niebylec, priest Franciszek Muras, a list  […] of Ukrainians murdered in March 1945 by members of the Home Army:
„Stefan Rędziniak, s/o Jan and Anna Machoś, born on April 8, 1897, died on March 17, 1945
Katarzyna Naczas, d/o Józef and Anna Czurczak, born June 15, 1904, died March 17, 1945.
Paweł Rędziniak, s/o Stefan and Katarzyna Naczas, born July 26, 1926, NA
Władysław Dzindziś, s/o Jan and Julia Lewczak, NA
Katarzyna Rędziniak, d/o Aleksander and Rozalia Czurczak, born March 3, 1877, NA
Maria Klofas, d/o Jan and Katarzyna Rędziniak, born December 10, 1911,
Elżbieta Klofas, d/o Jan and Katarzyna Rędziniak, born December 10, 1913, NA
Józef Czurczak, s/o Piotr and Ewa Rędziniak, born July 17, 1914, NA
Maria Rędziniak, d/o Błażej and Rozalia Rędziniak, born 1885, NA
Władysław Rędziniak, s/o Grzegorz and Maria Leszczak, born August 24, 1924, NA
Rozalia Rędziniak, d/o Grzegorz and Maria Leszczak, born June 1915, NA
Eugeniusz Sas, s/o Grzegorz and Anna Leszczak, born 1923., NA”.

source: „List of those murdered in Gwoździanka [in] 1945”; in: Institute of National Remembrance IPN Rzeszów, in: Acta OAIPN Rz 107/689/1, sh. 63

source: Huk Bogdan with a group of friends, „Murders of the Ukrainian population 1944-1947”; in: portal: Ruthenian apocrypha — web page: www.apokryfruski.org [accessible: 2021.09.30]

Fragment of the report of the interrogation of Mieczysław Pięta by the investigating officer of the WUBP [regional Commie–Nazi Security Services UB] in Rzeszów about his participation in the murder of 14 Ukrainians by members of the Home Army group:
„On March 17, 1945, on the order of 'Kotwica', I was supposed to plead with 18 people for a meeting in the great forest in Sołonka, where Data Aleksander was with me then, and all armed, we went to the meeting, where, after arriving at the designated place 'Kotwica' was waiting there with about 20 people, and after 'Kotwica' had left, he told us that the Ukrainians were murdering Poles and he was ordered to pacify Gwoździanka commune in Niebylec county, Rzeszów district. From this meeting, we all went to the above–mentioned village, where we were divided into 7 groups, 7 people entered and we stopped in front of the village itself, and 'Anchor', having a list of those we were supposed to shoot [...] gave each group a surname and the name of the house the group is to go to and carry out the sentence, where 14 people, whose names I do not know, were murdered at that time. After the murder, we took horses, cows and other movables from the elements, which were put on carts and I do not recall which members went, but we went in a different direction”.

source: „Report from the questioning of M. Pięta”, 15 VIII 1951; in: Institute of National Remembrance IPN Rzeszów, in: Acta OAIPN Rz 050/1845, sh. 45

source: Huk Bogdan with a group of friends, „Murders of the Ukrainian population 1944-1947”; in: portal: Ruthenian apocrypha — web page: www.apokryfruski.org [accessible: 2021.09.30]

Fragment of the report of the interrogation of Władysław Grys by the investigating officer of the WUBP [regional Commie–Nazi Security Services UB] in Rzeszów about his participation in the murder of 14 Ukrainians by members of the Home Army group:
„In March 1945, I do not remember the day, I participated in the murder of 14 people of Polish nationality [should be: Ukrainian] in the Gwoździanka cluster, the Rzeszów district. It was that one day I was informed about it by Homaniuk, nom‑de‑guerre 'Anchor' that we will go to Gwoździanka today to attack the Ukrainians. I agreed to this proposal. I took a gun, a German automatic with cartridges, which I had in storage since January, which was the property of Homaniuk 'Anchor'. I took the weapon, and at the same time informed the members of Łutrzycki Władysław and Kurosz Władysław, who lived in Lecko, the Rzeszów poviat (now where they lived, I do not know), with whom together, armed with weapons, I went to the Tyczyński forest for a forester's lodge. After coming to the forest, we met a group of people waiting, armed with weapons, unknown people. We joined this group and in a total of about 30 armed under the command of Homaniuk, pseudonym Kotwica we went to the Gwoździanka group.
After coming to the Gwoździanka group, 'Kotwica' the chief commander divided the whole group into several small groups, from 6–8 people in one group. These groups had census lists to be rolled up, and one by one they spread out into the countryside. Later, I also joined one group c. 5 strong under the command of 'Leszek' we went to one house, where I was standing in the field at the time, and a few unknown to me ran into the apartment, where one man I saw was shot dead in that house. I don't know who shot it. Then we took a wardrobe and one cow from that house, which I was driving later.
Then we went along the road through the village, at that time I heard shooting all over the village. After a while, we gathered in one place, I found out that about 14 civilians and two policemen were wounded and disarmed in this village. At this meeting, I also saw what had been taken during this robbery, which was: a pair of horses with a cart, a pair of horses without a cart, three cows, one bull and a large amount of clothing and other things that I did not see exactly. Then we headed towards the Tyczyński forest. On the way, I got the cow from it and with the gun and the cow I went home. What has been done with the rest of it all, I don't know. I later gave the cow a share for two unknown to me from Tyczyn and for Władysław Łustrzycki, who lived in Lecko, Rzeszów poviat, who also took part in this attack”.

source: „Protocol from the interrogation of the suspect W. Grys”, 29 VI 1948; in: Institute of National Remembrance IPN Rzeszów, in: Acta OAIPN Rz 25/1529, sh. 13—14

source: Huk Bogdan with a group of friends, „Murders of the Ukrainian population 1944-1947”; in: portal: Ruthenian apocrypha — web page: www.apokryfruski.org [accessible: 2021.09.30]

Fragment of the report of the interrogation of witness Teresa Czurczak by a militia MO officer in Niebylec about the murder of three Ukrainians by Home Army AK members:
„On the night of March 17, 1945, around 9.30 p.m., Sas Jurko knocked at my house (now it is the USSR) and said through the window:
— «Let go to the apartment, because I am going to you».
So my sister opened the door, three individuals entered the mixing, and Sas Jurko with them, who lit the lamp and told my husband, who was then lying on the bed, to get up, so my husband got up. They told my husband to go with them and asked him several times what his husband's name was, to which my husband said his name was Czurczak Józef, so they told him to get up from the ground and go with them, so my husband did it. They told me that my husband would come home in two hours, but they told Sas Jurek that he should stay at my house and not leave until my husband came back. he knew My husband was shot in the basement of Rędziniak, Stefan, who, together with his wife, was also shot in the basement”.

source: „Protocol from the questioning of the witness T. Czurczak”, 24 II 1948; in: Institute of National Remembrance IPN Rzeszów, in: Acta OAIPN Rz 107/689/1, sh. 44

source: Huk Bogdan with a group of friends, „Murders of the Ukrainian population 1944-1947”; in: portal: Ruthenian apocrypha — web page: www.apokryfruski.org [accessible: 2021.09.30]

„The beginning of the drama
The village, cut off from the main concentration of Ruthenians–Zamieszaniec, lost its identity and became Polonized, and the process intensified after the First World War. In 1930, Gwoździanka had 428 inhabitants, including 160 Roman Catholics, which meant that it lost its uniform, Ruthenian character. The German occupation brought about the beginning of the drama of the rural population. In 1943, as a result of denunciation by local Ukrainian nationalists, the Gestapo arrested and shot 5 Poles on charges of cooperation with partisans. This fact caused tension in relations between Ruthenians and Poles as well as mutual distrust. The news from Volhynia about the slaughter of Poles made the situation even worse, but there were no national–related incidents. Until the unfortunate day of March 17, 1945.
The events in Gwoździanka were described by M. Chomiak in the quarterly 'Lemkowszczyzna' (No. 4, 1987), published in New York. Here is a fragment of this account:
«At night ‹Polish knights› surrounded the village  […] It was not a Tatar attack, nor an attack by predatory animals. It was an attack by Polish hyenas thirsty for Ukrainian blood. People were taken out of huts, tied to trees, to fences, hung for fun, trisubes and crosses were cut with knives on their chests, hands were cut off, throats were cut».
According to the author of this text, the commander of the Red Army unit who arrived at the scene counted 166 bodies of the murdered inhabitants. This version is still circulated in Ukrainian circles, especially in émigré circles, and is cited as the greatest crime, next to the Pavlokim murder, against Ukrainians in the Podkarpacie region. The problem is that it is untrue, based on the vivid imagination of M. Chomiak. What was it really like?
Terrible night
There are still people who remember that day, there is also evidence in the form of entries in the book of deaths and graves at the local cemetery. The course of events can be reconstructed without much effort. According to witnesses, some Poles from the lower part of the village and nearby villages threatened the Ruthenians that before they were displaced from Gwoździanka, they would face them.
— «They made a list of those with whom they had to deal» — recalls one of the inhabitants of Gwoździanka. — «They met in the evenings and planned the attack. That terrible night came, the day of doomsday began  […] The bandits did not murder blindly, they went to the houses they had on the list. They were armed, they fired  […] Terrified people ran away, hid wherever they could, screamed, frightened children cried  […] Then it got quiet, and in the morning you could see a terrible sight. The dead lay in houses, farmyards, on the road  […] Then these victims had to be buried in our cemetery. The graves were dug, in a row, next to each other. Years later, the families put up tombstones with surnames».
More or less in the middle of the cemetery, situated on a steep hill, above the church, a series of tombstones placed on a common concrete frame attract attention. Each name and date on March 19, 1945. The graves are easy to count — there are 12 of them. In the death book of the Roman Catholic parish in Niebylec, 12 people were also entered under the date March 17. With each annotation: mors subita (sudden death), the entry was made by the then parish priest of Niebylec, Fr Francis Muras. He had to do it, because the Greek Catholic priest of the Blizianka parish, a few months earlier, had been transferred to Siedliska and there was no priest in the parish, so the Soviet soldiers present in Gwoździanka called Fr Muras. Some witnesses maintain that there were 16 victims, but parish records do not corroborate this. It is possible, however, that several people were buried outside Gwoździanka.
Memory faded
The murder in Gwoździanka shocked the inhabitants of this and the surrounding villages. A senseless crime, the effect of hatred that had been born over the years, has never been judged, because those who knew who the perpetrators were, preferred to remain silent so as not to risk another bloody revenge. But it was said that the murderers had been overtaken by divine justice. They left this world suddenly, under strange circumstances, and their families did not find peace either. Today, the memory of this tragedy has faded a bit, and this gives the opportunity to tell unbelievable tales of cutting off hands, cutting out trizubes, slitting throats and the huge number of 166 victims.
The author of the quoted text made a historical speculation, transferring the descriptions of the crimes committed against the Poles of Volhynia to the events in Gwoździanka, known from many accounts and documents. Of course, a crime remains a crime, regardless of the number of victims. What happened in Gwoździanka cannot be justified and shows what ethnic and religious hatred can lead to”.

source: Bata Artur, „The death came during the night”; in: „Nowe Podkarpacie – Tygodnik regionalny”, in: July 23rd, 2014

source: „The tragedy of the village of Gwoździanka ”; in: Siwicki M., „The history of Polish-Ukrainian conflicts ”, in: Warszawa 1994, vol. III, p. 219—221

source: „Łemkiwszczyna”, in: No. 4, 1987

source: Huk Bogdan with a group of friends, „Murders of the Ukrainian population 1944-1947”; in: portal: Ruthenian apocrypha — web page: www.apokryfruski.org [accessible: 2021.09.30]

Prepared by the parish priest of Niebylec, Fr Franciszek Muras, list of […] Ukrainians murdered in March 1945 by members of the Home Army:
„Maria Naczas, d/o Józef and Anna Czurczak, b. July 26, 1897, d. May 12, 1945, NA”.

source: „List of those murdered in Gwoździanka [in] 1945”; in: Institute of National Remembrance IPN Rzeszów, in: Acta OAIPN Rz 107/689/1, sh. 63

source: Huk Bogdan with a group of friends, „Murders of the Ukrainian population 1944-1947”; in: portal: Ruthenian apocrypha — web page: www.apokryfruski.org [accessible: 2021.09.30]

Prepared by the parish priest of Niebylec, Fr Franciszek Muras, list of […] Ukrainians murdered in March 1945 by members of the Home Army:
„Wincenty Czurczak, s/o Jan and Maria Matłosz, b. 30 March 1893, d. August 9, 1945, NA”.

source: „List of those murdered in Gwoździanka [in] 1945”; in: Institute of National Remembrance IPN Rzeszów, in: Acta OAIPN Rz 107/689/1, sh. 63

source: Huk Bogdan with a group of friends, „Murders of the Ukrainian population 1944-1947”; in: portal: Ruthenian apocrypha — web page: www.apokryfruski.org [accessible: 2021.09.30]