Paweł Krych, b. 15/05/1904.

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

I remember the attack on our village in the winter of 1944. Through the window, my mother saw that the village on the other side of the river was burning. I was already asleep, so she wrapped me in a blanket, put my father's boots on my feet and we ran away to our Ukrainian friend. She took us in and hid us with her children in the descent to the basement next to the kitchen stove. On this descent there was a basket with wood, old rags and rubbish. In the morning there was a terror, the dogs barked, half the village was burned. And suddenly there is a knock on the window. He was a fugitive, my father's friend, he hid in the river from the Banderites, waited for a few hours, then crawled on the meadow until he reached the Ukrainian woman. He related what was going on there. He hid his wife, mother and pregnant daughter in a haystack, they survived. After that evening, guards were organized, the militia and farmers guarded the village. It did nothing. The next night they raided the police station. My cousin was killed by a grenade. Colleagues cut off his legs and arms, he bled out. My father took my older sister and took me to Brzeżany, to a friend of mine. The Banderites did not prowl in the cities, but there was another threat. The Soviets combed apartments, raped women and girls. My sister was 22 and I was six. Our hideout was a bed on high legs, covered with a blanket and a sheet to the ground. We were lying under it.

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

source: Sik Cecylia, „Your Borderlands: And Szybalin is sorry”; in: portal: Gazeta Lubuska — web page: www.gazetalubuska.pl [accessible: 2013.06.14]

H. Komański et Sz. Siekierka  […] date the attack on November 11, 1944.

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

source: Komański Henryk, Siekierka Szczepan, „The genocide committed by Ukrainian nationalists on Poles in the Tarnopol Province 1939-1946”, in: Wroclaw 2004, p. 128

The UPA murdered 12 Poles. „It started. At about 8 p.m. On a November evening in the darkness. In the part of Szybalin on the eastern side of Ceniówka, inhabited by Polish families. November 1944. A loud bang in front of the front door. Mom, frightened and trembling, decides. Wrapped in a scarf, he places me on his back. I was less than 7 years old. he shakes me, quickly puts on me, wraps me in a large checkered shawl. In a trembling half–whisper he prays: «We run to your protection, Holy Mother of God…» I wake up. Father is gone: he was on guard at the house of the Adam's family, She suffered that night. Mum can't make a decision. Our room was lit with reddish light waving from two small windows. single shadows. A sharp, commanding scream: «Kidaj granatu pid czerwonu dachiwku!». [Throw the grenade through the red roof]. Our hut is covered with red tiles. A huge bang in front of the front door. Mom, frightened and trembling, makes up her mind. Wrapped in a scarf, he places me on his back. We enter a tiny hall. Mom opens the door. Mortar and crushed debris from a strained frame are falling over our heads. From my mom's back, I see a stack of straw on the left side of the yard, a tall, crackling flame. To the right, along the wall of our hut, a straw mat is burning and smoking with a rust–colored fire. Clouds are moving low, visible from the fire that illuminates them, it is drizzle. I look at it with a mixture of dread and some fearful boyish curiosity. My mother tosses me so that I do not fall. We turn right, along the burning meadow, towards the Kurdish garden. An open gate. Just beyond the junction in front of us is a dark male figure. I can see her eye to eye from my mom's back. Instinctively we turn left into the dark «Stij!» [Halt! Stop!]. I turn my head: gray figures run diagonally towards us – there are many of them. Mom's excruciating scream in mortal terror, and almost at the same time the deafening roar of a rifle shot right behind us – once, twice. Together with the bang, very clear, distinguished by a deadly vibration, sharp whistle of bullets – both, right next to our heads. We run down the muddy slope. I cling to my mother's back as much as I can. We slide down the slippery soil to the entrance of the aforementioned Kurdishag earthen shop. We crouch. Wait a minute and in front of us, at our fingertips, dark figures are running. They are coming back. «Here it died, here it died». They are looking. It is muddy. Slush. Mż. They disappear. Darkness and silence. Despite the dread of the situation – I remember it well – I felt safe, still on my mother's back. Just her shaky body. In a difficult, squatting position, my mother tossed me up every now and then so that I would not fall off. I clung to her tightly and fell asleep. About 20 minutes. Mom carefully gets up, I wake up – still on her back. We're running to the Kurdishans. I can see Grandma Rozalia. Quiet and fearful exchange of views. Grandma takes me in her arms and hands me over to her daughter, aunt Katarzyna Zamojska, who is also terrified of terror. To his mother he says: «Dear, I have already said the angel of the Lord for you». She saw our dramatic escape from the window of her house, she saw the shots fired at us by the Banderites from the closest distance and she was convinced that we had been murdered at the entrance of her garden, clay store. Aunt Katarzyna immediately places me in the clay cellar of her apartment. It's a kind of home shelter. Hania and Michał Szum are already there, a bit older, my cousins, children of Rozalia's second daughter – Maria. Suddenly, outside the house, right outside the window, a piercing wail. This is what aunts Maria, Katarzyna and grandmother Rozalia despair of. but the drama is not over. One and a half year old sister Bronisława stayed in the cradle in the abandoned house. I know the rest of the events from my mother. Grandma Rozalia, our savior, asks: «where is the child? Go get the baby, go get the baby». And he literally drags the terrified, terrified Mother to our house, covered with a smoldering lair of fire. In mortal fear, they stop in front of the entrance door, damaged by the explosion. They are closed. While escaping, we left them open. Perhaps there is a bandwagon in the interior? Mom breaks the fear. He opens and enters. The apartment is filled with acrid smoke. He hears his sister choking on the smoke. He sees that it is lying face up on the table. so they were! They pulled it out of the cradle and left it there. Maybe they were checking if it was a boy? No – a girl, so they saved. Mom wraps it in a pillow and gives it to Grandma Rozalia. She is saved. The interior of the cottage is filled with acrid smoke. but in a small attic there are our winter supplies: some flour, some wheat, millet, buckwheat groats. We cannot survive the winter without them. Mom enters a small pantry and climbs up the attic by a ladder. All the stock in the dark dumps on the earthen floor of the pantry. In the suffocating smoke, he loses orientation. In the dark, he searches for a descent. He hits them by accident and falls down with all the inertia of his body. He hurts his head badly, but saves his life and wrestling. They served us to survive the winter in Brzeżany and during our exodus to the West. Until the end of her days, she wore a large scarred scar above her temple – fortunately, hardly visible. Hidden in the basement shelter with Hania and Michał Szum, we remain in a complete darkroom, covered with a wooden cover. There is some straw. We hug each other and fall asleep. We are waking up. Daylight shines through a small gap in the cover. We want to pee. We piss on the field. We cry. Someone finally lifts the lid. Aunt Maria. We're leaving. It's broad daylight. White–gray clouds are racing across the sky. It's chilly. November 9. The aunt leads the three of us to her house, down the clay road, at the foot of the slope. A crowd of people on the road, mostly women. I hear lamentations, lively conversations. I see my mother with my sister in her arms. I was glad, but Aunt Maria tells me to go on. Mom has a terrible cut on her forehead, a huge swollen hematoma. On the face – I noticed it and remembered it – the still undyed horror. He gestures with his hand to follow my aunt. Grandma Rozalia takes us over and leads us to the spacious kitchen. Gives you food: thick millet. He tells me to stay here, not to leave. He says there is a great misfortune. They're killed – that's what he puts it. He names a few names. Mom recognized the bandwagon shooting at us. However, she kept this dark knowledge a secret until our sad exodus – for fear that her father would seek dangerous revenge. In 1978, on the day when my father and I visited my native Szybalin for the only time, by a strange coincidence, the funeral of this man was held in the local church. As if time itself was settling scores”.

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

source: Prus Franciszek, „I will remember Szybalin, November 8, 1944”, comp. Szymon Kozica; in: portal: Gazeta Lubuska — web page: plus.gazetalubuska.pl [accessible: 2021.04.11]

The dead were buried in a tiny, separate Polish cemetery in Szybalin, on the road to Brzeżany. „Ceremony in the square in front of the church in Zielona Góra Łężyca, commemorating the victims of genocide committed by the OUN–UPA in the Borderlands. The guests reveal more boards  […] Franciszek Prus delicately takes the white and red ribbon off the board, bows his head and kneels on both knees. On the board, an inscription: «In memory of the inhabitants of the village of Szybalin, district Brzeżany, province Tarnopolskie, murdered by the OUN–UPA on the night of November 8, 1944: 1. adamów apolonia – 18 years old, 2. adamów Michał – 20 years old, 3. Krych Paweł – 37 years old, 4. Szymański Jan – 35 years old, 5. Uchman adam – aged 17, 6. Uchman apolonia – aged 30, 7. Uchman Franciszek – aged 19, 8. Ruchlewicz anna – aged 40, 9. Ruchlewicz Stefania – aged 19, 10. Prus Michał – aged 30, 11. Prussia Maria – years 28, 12. Kozaczek Paweł – age 22»”.

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

source: Kozica Szymon, „They survived to tell us this story”; in: portal: Gazeta Lubuska — web page: plus.gazetalubuska.pl [accessible: 2021.04.11]

Cecylia Sik: „After that evening, guards were organized, the militia and farmers guarded the village. It did nothing. The next night they raided the police station. My cousin was killed by a grenade. Colleagues cut off his legs and arms, he bled out. My father took my older sister and took me to Brzeżany, to a friend of mine. The Banderites did not prowl in the cities, but there was another threat. The Soviets combed apartments, raped women and girls. My sister was 22 and I was six  […] We were also deported because I was very ill. A German doctor was called, he cut the ulcers on my body, disinfected it and ordered me to make compresses of onions and gray soap. It helped, but the scars were very visible over the long years of”.

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

source: „I grieve my Szybalin”; in: portal: GazetaLubuska.pl Plus — web page: plus.gazetalubuska.pl [accessible: 2021.04.11]

[Ukrainians] robbed and burned Polish farms and murdered 20 Poles. See above: on the night of November 8–9.

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

The UPA massacred 5 Poles.

source: Żurek Stanisław, „Calendar of the genocide – April 1945”; in: portal: Volhynia — web page: wolyn.org [accessible: 2021.02.04]