Ukrainian policemen escaped from the German service and took them to the forest and shot 7 Poles, including a woman.

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

Ukrainian policemen arrested and murdered Adam (Stefan?) In a forest nearby. Lynx.

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

The local Ukrainians murdered the father who was looking for his son Adam Rys, who was murdered on May 18 – he was buried in a common grave with his son.

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

After the massacre on July 11 and 12, the UPA murdered 12 Poles who were hiding in one place.

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

The Ukrainians murdered 11 Poles, including 2 mothers, each with 3 children.

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

The UPA massacred about 220 Poles. Although the priest canceled the sum from 11 o'clock, Poles came to see it. They were surrounded in the church and murdered, and the parish priest Bolesław Szawlowski was also killed. The Ukrainians were walking around the church and shooting at the gathered people, mainly old people, women and children, and finishing off the wounded. They robbed the church, drank the wine, and laughed. Over 100 victims were buried in the death pit near the belfry. After the massacre in the church, the UPA hunted Poles all over the town and its vicinity for two days. Ukrainian women and youth participated in the murders.

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. 896—899

„Palinko was my father's great–uncle, he was about 70 years old, since I can remember, he was always a churchman. On this morning of July 11, 1943, when he met my father, he said: – but we have nice weather (there was no cloud in the sky), there will be a lot of people in the church, because this is probably the last Sunday before harvest. and he went to church. Together with my father and Tośek Gąsiorowski, we went to the church for a sum (that's 11: 00). Tośka's mother was visiting friends in another village, and my sister (I don't remember her name) went to church with a friend. as usual, Tośek and I stood in front of the altar on the left, there were still a few boys standing there. The girls stood on the right side of the altar. Dad always stood by the window in the corridor (the church in Porycko had a cloister around the church), looking straight at the altar. In the church, as I saw there were quite a lot of people. Whole families were there, with small children in their arms. Uncle Palinko (the churchman) rang the bell, and after a while Father Szawłowski came with the altar boys, the sum (service) began. I don't remember when someone entered the church and shouted: – The Ukrainians – the UPA are in front of the church. There was a great commotion, people started running (to the door and back to the altar), the children cried. But the mass was still going on. It was only when the main door opened and the machine gun fired from there that there was panic, huge scream and lamentation. People ran back and forth, fell, knelt, prayed and shouted, and the most heard was the screams of small children. I do not remember how, but I lost Tosek somewhere in the tumult and crush. I started running to the side door, there was a crush and confusion at the door. as I understood later, my father was the other way around, after hearing the shots he would enter the church from the corridor (cloister), and somehow we met right in front of the choir (where the Zegarski organist was playing the clavichord to the mass). My father grabbed my hand and dragged me up to the tower and up the stairs to the choir. The machine gun was firing all the time, and single rifle shots were also heard. Mr. Zegarski was already there and a few more people (I don't remember their names anymore). They were my father's friends. Besides me, there were a few small children there. Father and Zegski remembered that the door from the tower to the attic of the cloisters had been walled up only with flat brick and clay, because there was no cement at that time. Since there were no tools, my dad with the Clock's pocket knives began to pick out the clay and the bricks began to move, so one by one they were picked up and removed. a small opening was made and all those present entered the attic. Someone last made a hole with bricks. as I remember, there were a dozen or so of us, maybe 15 people, including small children. We ran up the attic all the way to the second tower which (as we knew) had no stairs. We were disturbed by the thick beams supporting the roof in our fast run. But thanks to these beams, we had a sweat, then something to hide behind. While running, we heard how the machine gun fired all the time and it was accompanied by single shots and grenade blasts. I didn't realize what was going on there, my father and my friends didn't speak, they were scared no less than I was. We hid behind the last beam of the scaffold and sat like mice, silent and breathless. It was dark around us because – as I mentioned – there were no stairs on this tower. The entrance to the tower was bricked up. after some time we saw two figures walking towards us in the glow of the window above the sacristy. They were men with rifles, they were walking towards us. There was a little commotion, but dad said: «keep quiet, maybe won't notice us». Everyone thought the same, that maybe they had already discovered us. The shiver seemed to run down everyone's spine. We stuck to the beams even more and waited to see what would happen next. They walked a few more meters, going through the beams of the attic, and stood listening, while we held our breath. after a few minutes of such strong tension, we breathed a sigh, noticed that they (and they were most likely murderers from the church) turned back and walked away, and we breathed a sigh of relief. We have been saved by thick attic beams for the time being. But after a while, maybe half an hour later, a powerful explosion blew the air, making the ceiling shake below us, we didn't know what was going on. In a moment, black smoke and the stench of burned straw began to flow into the tower. Dad guessed that the UPA had probably blown up the altar or catacombs of the Czacki counts under the church floor. as we were preoccupied with our recent experiences and eavesdropping on what was happening in the church, it suddenly began to thunder and flash. a heavy, heavy rain fell, we heard it pounding against the metal of the roof. It was booming very loudly. It turned out that the storm was violent and short–lived, but it was enough for the UPA to get out of the church. It was already around four in the afternoon. Such was our tension during this time that we did not count how long it all took. Someone entered from the sacristy and told us that the Ukrainians were no longer in the church. We didn't want to believe. Little by little, with our soul on our shoulder, we started walking through the beams towards the exit, to our hole in that other tower. Going down the stairs of the tower, I saw the first victim, it was a murdered woman. She was lying on the stairs, and as I remember, upside down, she was dead, and a pool of blood ran all the way down the stairs to the church. Coming out of the tower to the church, we saw what had happened, we were overcome with terror and fear. There was a white coating of lime plaster dust on the floor of the church, and the people were all white. It turned out that when the UPA lit the straw to detonate the artillery shell that was supposed to destroy the altar, limestone plaster fell on the ceiling and walls of the church. Everything was covered with white powder and pieces of plaster. The explosion did not destroy the altar. Only the steps in front of the altar and the carpets were burned. Many people were lying in pools of blood, others were kneeling, others were calling for help. I saw how some helped each other to get out from under other dead bodies. Still others carried their dead or injured to their hands. The father, terrified by what he saw, remembered that grandfather Józef Jezierski was also in the church, he started looking for him, going from one corpse to another, but grandfather was not there, either among the living or the dead. My father pulled me towards the sacristy. But to get there, we had to walk through pools of blood where three women were lying. as it seemed to me, it was a mother with daughters. My father took me in his arms and carried me so as not to step on the lying women. We saw Grandpa standing hidden behind a side door. It was a big door which entered the church and the sacristy. Grandpa was standing outside the door, he was unconscious, with a blackened mustache and a burned jacket. I remember my father saying to my grandfather: «let dad go home and tell Gienek (this is the father's brother who lived with his grandparents in Stary Porycko) to take the family and run towards Sokal». (Sokal was outside the border [former Russian–austrian border], it was already the General Government, as the Germans called it). Grandpa asked my father: «and where are you going», my father replied that to the world and that to Sokal. When we were talking to my grandfather, I saw people coming out, running away from the church, carrying the injured children in their arms. Everyone was very scared, I could see some of them were stained with blood. They went home hoping that they would find shelter there, and there (as it turned out later) the UPA was waiting for them to continue murdering them. Those who were at home and those returning from church. This is how the entire Palinek family was murdered. after talking to my grandfather, we did not go to Palinki (fortunately) or to our room in the barrack, although it was on the way. We went towards the chutors near the forest, where my father had a Ukrainian friend, a former neighbor from Pawłówka, Mielniczuk Kiryk, and he counted on him to help us. We ran the hedges, avoiding meeting people, only the dogs barked behind us. after an hour of such a run, we hid in the rye field (the rye was high, because it was shortly before the harvest) and waited until it was dark to go to Kiryk (that is the name). as we sat so quietly, dozing a bit, we suddenly heard the voices of the Ukrainians, they were walking along the road. They told each other as «shot the Lachs (they shot the Poles) in the church of Porycki». We bowed our heads and waited for them to pass. and then suddenly we heard a dog barking, we were numb with fear, but it was probably still a puppy. If it was an old dog, it would be after us. We only realized this when the Ukrainians left and the dog stopped barking. Probably the dog was running around the walkers, barking at its masters. Kiryk was not even surprised, he listened to his father's account of what had happened in the church. He took us into his home, fed us and put us overnight. I slept with his son in bed, and dad in a haystack, so it was safer for both Kiryk and us. On the second day (July 12), the host, at my father's request, went to Palinki in Porycko and brought our packed suitcases. as he said, he did not go near the church because he was afraid, that he would meet the UPa. From the Palinki neighbors he found out who of them were murdered in the church (grandfather Palinka and his granddaughter were murdered, and the priest at the altar was only wounded). When my father went to church, he had no documents or any money with him (but everything was in his father's suitcase). When Kiryk returned from Poryck, he told us that the UPA went to murder after leaving the church. Kiryk's wife gave us bread for the rest of the journey. We waited until it got dark, because we were going to cross the railway tracks, and that was the way of the Ukrainians to Porycko. We waited for the moon to go down and ran the tracks. after some time we met friends and together we went boldly to the border (it was the border between Ukraine and Reich). It was already morning. The Germans were just leaving the border, they didn't stop us, they only ordered to go straight to Sokal. In Sokal we have already met several dozen people, such as us, refugees from the vicinity of Porycko. But they didn't hear anything about our grandparents, uncle and uncle with the children from Stary Porycko. But there was no peace in Sokal as well, one night they woke up with single shots and a cannonade of a machine gun. In the morning we found out that it was from the German police headquarters that the Ukrainian police escaped into the forest at night with all their weapons, hence the night shooting. We spent the rest of the German occupation in Karnków with the Bańcer grandparents. My mother has already died, and my brother and father are living in Kwidzyn. We found out about the murder of my grandparents and the entire Jezierski family only in the 1960s. Our friend afanazy Hoszko, a Ukrainian, former employee of the workshop in Porycko, lived in Silesia after the war. He went to Porycko in the 1960s to visit his family. He talked to his brother Sergey and he told him about the murder of our grandparents from Stary Porycko. Well, our grandparents: Józef and Jadwiga Jezierski, great–grandmother Ulanowska and uncle Gienek, his wife and two underage children were murdered by Ukrainian neighbors. They were led by a Ukrainian, Klim Matwiejczuk, a neighbor from Stary Porycko. In my grandparents' house there was also the family of my uncle's wife. The Zembrzyskis' grandfather and grandmother were there, as well as their older daughter with two children, aged 12–14, and there was also the younger sister of the uncle. So there were 13 people in the house together. They were all murdered in the yard and the children drowned in a well. Uncle Gienek, wounded, tried to escape with his wife, the UPA caught up with them on the embankment between the lake and ponds and finished them there. The house has been burned down and all their belongings were taken by the main murderer, Matwiejczuk. The name of the Jezierski family, Eugeniusz and his wife Maria, appear on the tombstone in the Pawliwka cemetery. Whoever spoke about this horrible murder must have been there or heard from one of the killers”….

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

source: Jezierski Ryszard, „The story of the Jezierski family from Porycko”; in: „On the Oder”, in: No. 6—8/ 2012

I was a witness to the murder on July 11, 1943 by a group of „ resuns” (Engr. butchers) UPA in the parish church in Porycko, Włodzimierz Wołyński district. At that time, we lived in the Olin Colony, 4 km south of Porycko. On Sunday, July 11, 1943, we went by wagon to our parish church in Porycko. There were six of us: my grandfather Józef Bławat, 66, my father Kazimierz Bławat, 41, my sisters Waleria and Genowefa, 9 and 11, and my brother Józef Bławat, 15. I was just over 7 at the time. When we got to the church, the horses with the cart were tied to a tree by the fence in the church yard on the north–eastern side. We entered the church ourselves. Grandpa went to the fourth bench in the right row, sitting on the edge of the central aisle. The sisters stood under the pulpit closer to the balustrade and the altar. My brother stayed behind the pews and my father stayed with me next to the confessional nearby. The church was filling up slowly, the parish priest Bolesław Szawłowski began to celebrate the Holy Mass. Listening to Introitus, we did not even sense that the church was already surrounded by a group of UPA Ukrainians. Suddenly I heard the sound of heavy machine gun shots coming from the main entrance to the church. My dad immediately sat me down in the niche of the statue of the Mother of God stolen by the Soviets in 1939. The first victims were killed among the faithful standing in the central nave. At that time, in order to prevent further massacre, and at the same time with their own death, the people standing in front of the choir closed the main door. Father Bolesław Szawłowski, seeing so many wounded and killed, interrupted the Holy Mass, He went up to the pulpit and gave the last absolution to the dead, wounded and alive, kneeling before God in the face of death. Speaking the last blessing, he added the words: „Brothers, Poles, we are dying for the faith”. At this point, the Bandera followers smashed the sacristy door with a grenade and stormed the altar steps, from where they started shooting at the faithful. One of the machine guns aimed at the priest who was still in the pulpit. Father Bolesław Szawłowski, hit in the hand and feet, rolled down the steps of the pulpit, falling on the bodies of his parishioners killed at the altar stupas. My dad was kneeling next to the confessional, but one of the Ukrainians saw him as the bullet hit the cheek as he passed under the eye, he died in front of my eyes without saying anything. I sat petrified for a moment as indelible as eternity. Then the Bandera followers threw grenades between the pews. The thrown bundles of grenades caused terrible havoc among the faithful: the bodies were torn in half, the entrails flowing from the torn bodies produced a nasty stench, the bodies without legs were jumping on their hands in the last impulses. The floor between the pews was covered in blood. Unable to reach the choir, they fired rifles with fire. The Poles opened the main door and whoever was alive ran to the exit. But there, in front of the church, was a heavy disc–type machine gun. Within a minute, only a mountain of dead and wounded bodies remained in the passage. In the meantime, four resuns (Eng. butchers) brought in two large artillery shells, which they placed on the main altar, covered them with straw from the mattresses, then set fire to them and left, hoping that the shells would demolish the church. However, a grenade intended to aid detonation, placed between the missiles, he blew out the flames, tearing only the opening to the tomb under the altar. The church was full of smoke. I left the alcove and ran to my grandfather lying between the benches. But my grandfather, severely wounded in the knee, ordered me to run away alone to my aunt Waleria Walczak, who lived near the church. So I made my way through the pile of dead people on the steps of the main entrance. At the entrance to the courtyard, I saw two The Ukrainians with a machine gun and I froze. Then, unexpectedly, one of them said to the other: „Puskaj, yew will eat” anyway (my white clothes were soaked with the blood of the killed and wounded, whose bodies I had to break through to leave the church). As much as I could, I ran to Aunt Walerka's house, but I could not enter the apartment: a woman with a smashed head was lying right on the threshold, the brain and blood were splashed all over the vestibule. So I withdrew to the woodshed as heavy rain began to fall. Meanwhile, the Banderites left the church grounds, starting to beat and rob the inhabitants of Porycko. Hidden behind the woodshed door, I watched our horses and cart, waiting for someone to come. After some time my brother Józek, who had survived, was hidden in the tomb, together with his neighbor. Overjoyed, I ran to them and reported where who was. On our way to the church, we found Tośek (cousin, s/o Waleria Walczak). We carried it to our cart, which the Ukrainians had abandoned, seeing the drawbar broken by frightened horses. The neighbor decided that we would not take my dad any more, because there would be no time for it and the Ukrainians could come back at any moment, so we only took my grandfather and he ordered us to move quickly. She also reached the wagon from the Angels from our colony. Józek sat on the broken drawbar and steered the cart and the horses from there. We were lying on the wagon with a cake to make it look as if the horses had scared away, and thus, rushing through the fields and meadows, we got to the house. Meanwhile, the houses in the Olin colony were abandoned by the inhabitants, someone who was late for mass returned to the settlement and informed about the slaughter in Porycko. So we did not find my grandparents, Szczęch, or my mother with the other children: one‑year‑old Kazia and thirteen‑year‑old Tadeusz. Together with many others, they fled towards Sokal, because there the Germans held a post on the Bug. We met our uncles, Jakub Szczęch and Konstanty Furmaga, who were watching the village and, surprised by our sight, shouted: „You are alive, and they said that they had murdered all the resuns (Eng. butchers) in the” church. „Well, we're alive.”– we managed to answer. Uncle Kostek immediately ordered „Kuba to change the wound dressings!”. Józek was supposed to help with changing the drawbar, and I had to light the fire in the furnace to heat the water to wash my wounds. However, the wounds were not washed and dressed. At the sight of the smoke rising from the chimney, a crowd of The Ukrainians from a neighboring village started towards us. Uncle Kostek shouted: „Come on!” and uncle Kuba went to bring Tośek. Grandpa did not let go. He said he was old and wounded, they wouldn't hurt him. He stayed home lying on the bed. Józek was finishing changing the drawbar and improving the harness. Uncle Kostek threw a sack of peas on the cart, covered us with hay and ordered us to go to Sokal; „But only on” forest roads. Both uncles stayed, hiding in the orchard to observe the fate of the buildings and property. It was less than 50 meters to the forest, so the Ukrainian peasants did not manage to catch up with us. Józek, knowing the forest roads which he often used to go shopping to Sokal, happily took us to the border on the Bug. The Germans, seeing the wounded cousin and our frightened boys, let us cross the border and directed us to the sanitary aid station, which was located in the courtyard of the monastery. This point was served by the Swedish and Polish Red Cross from Kamionka Strumiłowa. Imagine our surprise when it turned out that aunt Waleria Walczak was already there, running about 22 km from Poryck to Sokal. Overjoyed, she took her injured son in her arms and ran to the doctors. Seeing that an operation was needed because a grenade fragment was stuck in the head, they sent it the next day by the first railway transport to Lviv, about 100 km away. There, after the operation, my cousin lived for another month. He died in the hospital in Lviv. The two–day presence of the shrapnel infected the blood. Brother Józek and I waited in the vicinity of the convent, hoping that one of the sisters would still arrive, as we had not seen any of them, either alive or dead. After two days, we went to the town of Waręż where our uncle Adam Bławat lived. We gave him a report on „resuns” (Engr. butchers). He made us stop and wait at his house. He himself went to convince two Germans to go with him to Cologne OLIN. He could speak a little German with an Austrian melody, because before the First World War he had served in the Army Central Committee. Somehow he managed to get along with „for the appropriate fee” and they took him by wagon to our village. There he found only houses and buildings burned down, and in the place where the bed stood, charred grandfather's bones. So he buried them, and from the house he took the family documents hidden behind the chimney ash pan. He went to Poryck to bury his dad, but there he found out that the murder victims had been buried by the Germans in the courtyard in front of the Church in a common grave – 180 murder victims. The parish priest was buried at the request of the Pope, separately near the statue of St. Anna on the right side of the courtyard, as the Pope argued that „should not be allowed to hide a priest in the ground trampled by”. When he came back, we insisted that he let us go look for mom. The uncle agreed, though not without hesitation. He loaded us with a sack of groats, potatoes, a few loaves of bread, some oats for the horses, and hay on top. We set off, obviously turning back to Sokal to check if our sisters had turned up. They did not want to take us for rail transport, because only people were loaded, without carts and horses. So we traveled about a week in our wagon to Przeworsk in the Podkarpacie region, equipped with a document in German and Polish, confirming that we were refugees from beyond the Bug. We were lucky. Our people stopped exactly in Przeworsk with a farmer named Kapusta, who lent the refugees his quarters. There was a lot of joy. Our mother thought we had all died. It was necessary to tell a few times, because the neighbors came together, curious about the news, „how the neighborly residents were earning money on Polish belongings, alive and dead”. that we are refugees from beyond the Bug. We were lucky. Our people stopped exactly in Przeworsk at a farmer named Kapusta, who lent the refugees his quarters. There was a lot of joy. Our mother thought we had all died. It was necessary to tell a few times, because the neighbors came together, curious about the news, „how the neighborly residents were earning money on Polish belongings, alive and dead”. that we are refugees from beyond the Bug. We were lucky. Our people stopped exactly in Przeworsk at a farmer named Kapusta, who lent the refugees his quarters. There was a lot of joy. Our mother thought we had all died. It was necessary to tell a few times, because the neighbors came together, curious about the news, „how the neighborly residents were earning money on Polish belongings, alive and dead”..

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

source: Bławat Jan, „Massacre in the parish church in Porycko 11. VII. 1943”; in: „Borderlands Information Service”, in: No. 7/2013 – comment by Stanisław Żurek: the author of the memoirs stated that he presented the events in this version at the hearing at the IPN prosecutor in Gdańsk - he wrote them in 1995

Krzysztof Filipowicz: „I was 15 then. On Sunday, July 11, 1943, I went to church with my family. Holy Mass at 11 was led by Fr Bolesław Szawłowski. The church was full of people from both Porycko and the surrounding area. I did not serve mass, although I was an altar boy. During the service, the church was surrounded by armed Ukrainian gangs. The shooting began. The Poles gathered in the temple were terrified. Some in panic tried to flee the temple. The bullets reached them outside. after some time the bandits entered the church. – I saw Father Szawłowski fall – reports Filipowicz. – I saw how the torturers stood at the altar and started shooting at people. Those who were not hit by the bullets of the bandits began to protect themselves wherever anyone could: in recesses, behind pillars. Me and my mother hid against the wall behind the pillar. at some point the bandits started bringing straw to the church. Explosives have been placed in it. I was convinced that I would die like the others. In fervent prayer, I asked God to die while escaping, hit in the back. as the straw was lit, missiles began to explode. Those who were still alive began to suffocate from the smoke. I began to beg my mother to run away from this place, lest I burn alive. I think my mother was already injured then, but she didn't tell me anything. She obeyed my request and we began to move between the dead bodies towards the exit. as we reached the corridor that surrounded the main nave of the church, I felt a strong draft and the whistle of bullets. at that time, the mother fell shot. I kept running to the exit. at one point I saw my older sister, 18‑year‑old Józefa. She was injured, she was lying in blood, she was begging for help. I tried to pick her up but I couldn't. I said I'd get help. Then I saw bandits in front of the main exit. They were shooting at me. I fell down and started crawling back to the church.
He ran up the stairs leading to the temple tower. He quickly remembered that a few years earlier, Father Szawłowski had the door leading to the attic over the corridor surrounding the main nave of the temple bricked up. With a few men, they punched a hole through which they could hardly get to the attic. «I lay there for hours. It started to rain. Water drummed on the roof just above my head. I cried and rang my teeth in fear». He left the hideout when the bandits left the scene of the slaughter. There were dead bodies in pools of blood. Here and there came the soft groans of the dying. Józef's sister was still alive. Stanisław ran home and told his father what had happened in the church. First, the older sister was brought. She ended her life on her bed. – Later, the father brought his mother, a younger sister, i.e. a thirteen‑year‑old Genowefa, and a five‑year‑old niece – he recalls looking through the car window far away. all of them died from the bullets of Ukrainian bandits. – In the morning my father and his friends dug a grave in the cemetery. My mother, sisters and niece were laid there. The dead were covered with boards and covered with earth. We said our prayers and returned to the home”.

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

source: Wójtowicz Leszek, „Krzysztof Filipowicz has died”; in: portal: kresy.pl — web page: kresy.pl [accessible: 2021.04.11]

Nikołaj Ohorodniczuk vel Kwiatkowski (former resident of Radowicz): „On July 11, 1943 in the morning, together with the UPA group of about 20 people, I entered during the Holy Mass. to the church in the town of Pawłówka (Poryck) in the Ivanic region, where within thirty minutes, together with others, we killed citizens of Polish nationality. During the action, 300 people were killed, including children, women and the elderly. After killing the people in Pawłówka – I went with the group to the nearby village of Radowicze and the Polish colonies of Sadowo and Jeżyn, where I took part in the mass liquidation of the Polish population. 180 women, children and old people were killed in these colonies. All houses were burnt, property and cattle were plundered.” – testified in 1981 before the Ohorodniczuk court. According to Aleksandra Hryciek from Radowicz and Halina Jucharemiwna, who observed the Ohorodniczuk show trial in the day room of the sugar factory in Iwanicze, the court found that he was in charge of the action in Poryck. The then accused, Szpaczuk and Stasin, also participated in the crime.

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

source: „Murder in the Church”; in: „Zamość Weekly”, in: July 9, 2003, p. 17

Also: Witness Jan B. (Bławat – Stanislaus Żurek's footnote) (born 1936): „We lived in the Olin colony located four kilometers south of Porycko. On Sunday, we went by wagon to our parish church in Porycko. There were six of us: grandfather Józef B., father Kazimierz, sisters Waleria (9 years old) and Genowefa (11 years old) and brother Józef (15 years old). When we arrived, the horses with the cart were tied to a tree next to the fence in the church yard, and we entered the church ourselves. Pastor Bolesław Sz. (Szawłowski – comment by: Stanislaus Żurek) began the mass. Suddenly I heard the sound of machine gun shots coming from the main entrance. My dad immediately sat me down in a niche that had been stolen by the Soviets of the Virgin Mary statue. Sam knelt next to the confessional, but one of the Banderites spotted him. The bullet hit his cheek. He died before my eyes without saying anything. I was sitting petrified. The Banderites threw grenades between the pews. They caused terrible havoc, tearing apart the bodies of the faithful, while escaping entrails gave off a terrible smell  […] . The floor between the pews was covered in blood. Unable to throw grenades into the choir, the Ukrainians shot it with rifles. The Poles opened the main door and who was alive ran to the exit. But there was a machine gun in front of the church. Within a minute, a mountain of dead and wounded arose in the passage. I left the alcove and ran to my grandfather, who was lying between the benches. He was injured in the knee and he told me to run away to my aunt Waleria W. who lived near the church. I was making my way through the pile of dead in the front door. as I went out to the courtyard, I froze because I saw two The Ukrainians with a machine gun. Unexpectedly one said to the other: «Let go, his wolves will eat» anyway. My white clothes in the morning were soaked with blood from the bodies, on which I had to struggle to leave the church. I ran to my aunt's house, but I did not enter the apartment because a woman with a smashed head was lying right on the doorstep. Brain and blood were splashed all over the vestibule. I retired to the woodshed. Heavy rain was falling down. Meanwhile, the Banderites left the church area, started beating and robbing the inhabitants of Porycko. Hidden behind the woodshed door, I watched our horses and cart, waiting for someone to come. after some time my brother Józek appeared with his neighbor. He survived hidden in a tomb / catacombs under the church /. I ran out to them and reported where who was. On our way to church, we found Tośek, aunt Waleria's son. We carried him to our cart which the Ukrainians abandoned when they saw the drawbar broken by frightened horses. The neighbor decided that we would not take Daddy, because the Ukrainians could come back at any moment, so we took only Grandpa, and he told us to move quickly. another girl from a. from our colony ran up to the car. Jozek sat on the broken drawbar and drove from there. We were lying on the cart with a cake to make it look like the horses were scared away. Thus, rushing through the fields and meadows, we reached home. The houses in the Olin colony were abandoned. Someone late for mass returned to the settlement and informed about the slaughter in Porycko. So we did not find Sz. 'S grandparents, nor our mother with the other children. They fled towards Sokal, because there the Germans had a post on the Bug. But we met our uncles  […] who were watching the village and, surprised by our sight, shouted: «You are alive, and they said, that the resuns (Eng. butchers) had murdered everyone in the church!». Uncle Kostek ordered the wounded to change the bandages immediately. Józek was supposed to help with the change of the drawbar, and I had to light the stove to heat the water to wash my wounds. However, we were no longer able to wash and dress the wounds. at the sight of the smoke rising from the chimney, a crowd of The Ukrainians from the neighboring village moved towards us. Uncle Kostek shouted: «Come on!», and uncle Kuba moved Tośka. Grandpa did not let go. He said he was old and hurt, they wouldn't hurt him. He stayed home on the bed. Józek was finishing changing the drawbar and improving the harness. Uncle Kostek threw a sack of peas on the cart, covered us with hay and ordered us to go to Sokal, but only along forest roads. Both uncles stayed, hiding in the orchard to observe the fate of the buildings and property. It was less than 50 meters to the forest, so the Ukrainian peasants did not manage to catch up with us. Jozek, knowing the forest roads that he often used to go shopping to Sokal, happily took us to the Bug. The Germans directed us to a sanitary aid point. Imagine our surprise when we found aunt Valeria there. She covered 22 kilometers, separating Poryck from Sokal. Overjoyed, she took the injured son in her arms and carried him to the doctors. Seeing that an operation was needed, because a piece of a grenade was stuck in Tosek's head, they directed him the next day by the first train to Lviv, 100 kilometers away. He was still alive for a month after the operation. The two–day presence of the shrapnel infected the blood. Józek and I waited in the vicinity of the monastery / Bernardines in Sokal /, hoping that one of / our / sisters would still arrive, because we had not seen any of them alive or killed. after two days we went to Waręż, where uncle adam B. lived. We gave him an account of the rezunach. He told us to wait, and he went to convince two Germans to go with him to the Olin colony. He managed to get along for the appropriate fee. Uncle found only burned houses and buildings in the village, and in the place where the bed stood, the charred bones of grandfather”.

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

source: Odonus Barbara, „Summer 1943”; in: „Card”, in: No. 43 /2004/

The Ukrainians murdered 4 Poles: a family of 3 and the husband of a Ukrainian woman.

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

The day after the massacre of July 11, the UPA attacked again, murdering at least 100 Poles.

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

Józef Krzysztoń was killed in a skirmish with the UPA.

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

Fr Stanisław Grzesiak to pray for Fr Szawłowski and was shot by the Ukrainians.

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