„was murdered by activists from OUN–UPA”, the forester Rybacki.

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

source: Orłowski Edward, „Foresters who died during the war and persecution in 1938-1949 in Eastern Lesser Poland and the post-war Rzeszów region”; in: Regional Directorate of State Forests in Krosno — web page: www.krosno.lasy.gov.pl [accessible: 2021.01.29]

The UPA and Ukrainian peasants murdered about 60 Poles. The torturers of the victims cut open their bellies, stuck pegs in the abdomen securing the bodies to the ground, chopped them into pieces with axes, tearing children apart. When on the next day those who managed to escape in their underwear and saved came from the forest – some suffered mental disorders at the sight of the mutilated bodies and some people died in shock. Friar Ludwik Wrodarczyk, 37, was kidnapped. The remaining Poles with Father Dziemba hid in the forest, where they ate the Christmas Eve Supper, then wandered towards Żytomierz and joined the Soviet partisans. Fr Paweł Wyszkowski OMI, superior of the Congregation of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate in Ukraine and Fr Andrzej Maćków OMI, vice–postulator of the beatification process of Fr Ludwik Wrodarczyk OMI, murdered by the Ukrainians: „On the evening of December 6, 1943, Fr Wrodarczyk wrote notes for the church choir for the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, and later together with Br. Karol Dziemba OMI and a hundred‑year‑old woman who helped with the work in the presbytery, recited the Litany of Loreto. As if sensing – what was to come soon – he said goodbye to his brother, and on his way out to the church he said: «Stay with God, Brother and love the Blessed Mother. Let us abandon ourselves to God's will. I will go to church, I cannot leave the Blessed Sacrament». Many times different people, and also Br. Karol, urged him to flee to the forest. He was convinced that his place was in the church and with the faithful, and nothing bad could happen to him, since he himself showed good for everyone. He knelt in the church and lay cross in front of the altar, praying and waiting for them to come for him. His hour had come and he consciously accepted it along with all that was to come. At 10.00 p.m., the first houses, set on fire by Ukrainian gangs, were already burning. People fled to the forest looking for shelter. If anyone was found alive, he had to die. Men, women and children were killed. That night, only in Okopy, about several dozen, maybe even 50 people were murdered. The stolen goods were loaded onto carts. UPA soldiers raided the church in Okopy. They met the parish priest on the steps of the altar and from the very first moment they began to abuse him. There were bundles of straw in front of the church door, which they wanted to set fire to the church. The pleading pleas of Father Wrodarczyk led the Banderites away from evil intentions and the church was saved. On the wagon waiting in front of the church, they loaded vestments and liturgical items, such as: monstrance, goblets and took them towards Karpiłówka. Father Wrodarczyk was also dragged, tied and tied to a sleigh, to Karpiłówka, 7 kilometers away, where the UPA headquarters was located. There were traces of beatings and mistreatment on the snow – drops of blood. It was the only case of a living Pole being abducted from a pogrom site. Probably for him, as a clergyman, another, more refined and cruel way of death was devised. There are several divergent accounts about the martyrdom of Fr Ludwik. Bronisław Janik, as a parishioner in Okopów, claims that Fr Ludwik was stripped naked and subjected to inhuman torture. He was stabbed with bayonets and needles, burned with red–hot iron, tied to a log, cut with a wood saw, and finally pierced with rifle bullets. It is not known where Fr Ludwik's body was buried. At the end of 1990 Information appeared that after the murder of the priest, one farmer was buried behind the barn in Karpiłówka. The latter, in turn, when the Red Army entered 1944, for fear of criminal liability, dug up the corpse and took it to the swamp and buried it there. In the 1950s, these vast marshy areas were drained and dried. Now wheat is growing there”. Father Dr. Szczepan T. Praśkiewicz OCD, a consultor of the Vatican Congregation for the Causes of Saints, said in a conversation with me: „I do not know yet, however, that in this key, i.e. in the key of martyrdom, there was a trial in which Ukrainian chauvinism would be a collective persecutor, on proving that the motivus praevalens was in religious rather than nationality”. What motivus praevalens is mentioned in the case of Fr Louis? The procedures of preparation for the beatification process are also intended to answer this question. At present, on the basis of the collected documents and testimonies, one can speak of an evil hatred towards Fr Wrodarczyk only because he was a Catholic priest. The very fact that he was not killed on the spot, but was decided to take him in order to torture him in a particularly cruel way, which in some measure proves hatred for a Catholic priest. I think that in the course of the preparation for the process, and then in the diocesan process itself, this fact will be displayed very accurately.

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

source: „I cannot leave the Blessed Sacrament”; in: portal: PCh24.pl – interviewed by Kajetan Rajski — web page: pch24.pl [accessible: 2021.04.11]

According to the accounts of the inhabitants of the village of Karpiłówka who were heard by Leon Żur in 1992 during the pilgrimage of Poles to the home village of Budki Borowskie and its neighbors, on December 7, Fr Wrodarczyk was interrogated, beaten and tortured at the house of the Fedosia and Hanna Panfiłowien sisters. Then, near their house, they laid the martyr in the snow, cut open his chest and took out a throbbing heart. The next day, the father of the Panfilovs sisters buried the priest behind the barn and after a while he moved the body to the forest beyond the village. This grave has not been found. In the house of the Panfilovets sisters, there was a bloodstain on the wall – it was still visible in 1992.

source: Żurek Stanisław, „75th anniversary of the genocide – December 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. 763—764

On June 24, 1942, an indulgence was held in the church in Okopy, for which thousands of Poles came „from behind the cordon”, i.e. the pre–war Polish–Soviet border, even from Żytomierz. Many Orthodox Christians converted to Catholicism. Father Wrodarczyk helped the hiding Jews. „The village was burned down on the night of December 6/7, 1943 by Ukrainian nationalists from the UPA, under the sign of OUN Stepan Bandera, supported by the local Ukrainian population, eager for loot (mainly from Karpiłówka, Borowy and Derć, and the chutors of these villages). The looting was mainly done by women, men by murder, and children and teenagers by setting the farmyards on fire. Three Polish villages were attacked simultaneously: Dołhań, Okopy and Budki Borowskie. Several dozen people were killed. Thanks to the warnings of friendly Ukrainians, the loss of lives was relatively small. Most of the inhabitants had been sheltering for several months in the nearby, huge forests and in wooded swamps and swamps. The population of the village of Okopy hid mainly in the forest areas «Chlebniki», «Kubły» («Chwalisów») and «Jamcowa Niwa». The murdered were buried in the local cemetery in Okopy. Inhabitants of the neighboring Ukrainian villages spontaneously erected a memorial in the cemetery for the UPA victims and this is probably the only reason why this parish cemetery has survived to this day”.

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

source: Masajad Edmund, 2007; in: portal: Volhynia pages — web page: free.of.pl [accessible: 2021.04.11]