Stefan Kijach was murdered by the Ukrainians.

source: Żurek Stanisław, „75th anniversary of the genocide – April 1943”; in: portal: Volhynia — web page: btx.home.pl [accessible: 2021.02.04]

The UPA and the local Ukrainian peasants slaughtered 258 Poles. They threw 30 people alive into a well and smashed them with stones, they burned 13 related men alive in a barn, they caught the escaping ones on horseback, tortured, mutilated and killed. The main tools of the murder were axes, knives, pitchforks, poles, etc. Rape, screeching of tortured children, screams of mothers and fathers mutilated and killed carried far from the village. 18 children aged 3 – 12 caught in the crops, including the sons of Regina Futym: 5‑year‑old Zbigniew and 3‑year‑old Ryszard, „Ukrainian partisans” loaded a ladder wagon and took them to the Ukrainian village of Czestny Krest, where they murdered them by piercing them pitchforks and chopping with axes. They looted and burnt the farms, often with the bodies of their victims.

source: Żurek Stanisław, „75th anniversary of the genocide – July 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. 860—863

source: Siemaszko Ewa, Bereza Tomasz, „July 1943 in Volhynia”

Somewhere in the distance, single shots could be heard. Suddenly, Uncle Wasilewiczowa ran into the yard screaming that the village was on fire. We ran out with my father to the yard and saw that the only Polish house of the Kozłowski family was burning in the idyllic chutors, and that of Mikołaj Turewicz in our colony. We had no idea they were murdering people at the same time. We have not heard anything about these mass murders, because the possibility of moving around was limited to our village. The Ukrainian neighbors were so inclined that if one of the Poles went somewhere outside the village, they had to report and at night he was also taken and died. Bearing in mind that only fires we decided to save something from our belongings. So the cows and horses were in the field in the pasture – sister Józia grazed them. Mum and Pola took what they could from the apartment, while my dad and I went to the barn, to pull out the thresher, chipper, combustion engine and chaff cutter. When only the chaff–cutter was left to be taken out, dad came out of the barn to bring a bar to put under the chaff–cutter to make it easier to move. And at that moment a wagon pulled up, with a wagon and three armed bandits on it. They saw their father, jumped off the wagon and called him to each other while repeating their rifles. Dad started walking towards them, but after walking maybe two steps he turned and whispered to me, "Run." I didn't show up from the barn all the time, and the distance from the barn to the road was maybe 10–15 meters, because the barn was on the other side of the road in a pine tree. So Papa went ahead, and the three followed him into the yard. I did not see what happened next, because these two and my father were behind the apartment. I only heard shots and saw how one of them fired incendiary bullets at the thatch of the house, which soon began to burn. Other buildings were also on fire. I watched it all from the barn, but when it started to burn for good, I ran away from the barn, fearing that they might come here soon. From the barn, I ran outside the buildings of my neighbor, Zwiernik, and ran in another place to the pine tree, jumped over the road and found myself in our crops, which was a large field of wheat. I headed towards the little valley thinking it would be safer there. Sister Janina and Danusia also took refuge in this valley. She was sitting on the ground and I only saw her three paces away until I got scared. She told me that when she saw that it was on fire from the side of Sielec, she took Danusia and followed us along the path. Only halfway up did she look and saw that our buildings were on fire then she turned back and did not go back, but hid in the crops. It was not known what about sister Józia, who was grazing cows in the field. A little stealthy, a little where there was a bare field, I crawled to her. She sat scared and crying. I told her not to move, that I would come back here with sister Janina. Soon we came and we were together, but it was not known what about the parents and sister Pola, so the sisters stayed and I decided to go on a scout. And so, with cereals, and then, crawling through the garden, I approached the site of the fire. The view was terrible – the buildings were burnt, there is no cover, you can see far away. The unbearable situation, in a word, horror. I began to move closer and closer calling my parents, but no sign of life. When I was quite close, I saw something red on the ground near the fire site. Then I ran and it was indeed Sister Pola's red blouse. My sister was lying on the ground, dead, with both her parents next to her. All three were shot dead. At the sight of this, I froze, became numb, and could not even cry. I stood so numb for a while, then the fear took over and I ran into the field to the waiting sisters. When I told them what had happened, there was a great lamentation, but it was already evening, so we set up a night in life. Sister Janina's house was not yet burnt down, but it was dangerous to get there for fear of an ambush. We spent the night in life, and in the morning it was barely light, we went to see our dear murdered. They were lying as before. We prayed briefly and ran back to the corn. The problem was with little Danusia, because there was no way to boil milk, so using it, that the cows were in the field, we milked them and the baby drank raw milk. It couldn't suck her breasts either, because my mother didn't eat anything. In the morning I went to my neighbor Wasyl Hnatiuk and asked him to bury my parents and sister. His wife told me that Poles were murdering The Ukrainians across the Bug River, so they were taking revenge on the Poles, but that was not true. He supposedly went to the other neighbor to help him, but I waited for an hour and thought that he might not bring Banderites over sometimes, so I went back to the grain. However, this neighbor did not make the burial. It was only after a few days that his parents were buried on the spot by another neighbor from Czestny Krest, Andrzej Nowosad with his son Wiktor. We were still sitting in the crops and from time to time I approached the site of the fire, because we hoped that Mieczysław's brother and Janina's husband – Antoni Jakubowski, would return, who were also in the meadow on July 12, but in a different place. Unfortunately, we didn't live to see them the next day or ever. As we found out later, they were stopped on the road, murdered and burned in the barn. In anticipation, we spent the next night and day, and we had to stay in the grain for the third night. At night it started to rain so heavily that we were soaked to the skin. But the worst thing was with Danusia, because after raw milk she had an upset stomach, and at the same time this rain so that there was no dry diaper, so wet and cold. As soon as it got gray, we decided to save ourselves  […] And this is how our stay at Maria Wola ended. We lost the most precious – our parents, brother and sister, and Janina lost her husband. We have lost our roof over our heads, the heritage of our parents' lives and, a little bit of us – children. We ran away like that how we stood and in what we had on our backs – in poor everyday clothes, happy to lift our lives, unsure of tomorrow, at the mercy of good people and facing the great unknown what to do next. We've lost everything from handkerchiefs, underwear, bedding, summer and winter clothes and footwear, dishes, home appliances, furniture, tableware and everything from the smallest things to buildings.

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

source: Korniak Wiktor, „Memories of son Józef and Aniela née Wasiewicz, resident of the Maria Wola colony, Mikulicze commune, Włodzimierz Wołyński poviat”, Kraśnik Dolny, 2007; in: „Borderlands Information Service”, in: No. 7/2013 – fragment