„Volyn” — Boj Wojtowicz, Andrew (b. 1959, Głubczyce),
2017, middle part of a tryptich,
canvas, 200×420 cm, own technique with ash and soil;
source: www.weduta.com

Ideas have consequences

„A Pole is the worst, most contemptible, most vile, most hated, dishonest, stupidest, most wicked and cowardly creature of all monkeys”^{„European Orangutan, or the Pole as He Is”, Louis de Kermorvand, 1779, Hamburg}.

„The most horrible government in the whole history. An ancient feudal government in all its abomination”^{letter to Frederick II, Voltaire, 1773}.

This is how Poland and Poles were portrayed at and around the First Partition of Poland in 1772 engineered by three neighbors: Russia, ruled by the German Tsarina, Catherine II (1729, Szczecin – 1796, Petersburg); Prussia, under the rule of another German, Frederick II (1712, Berlin – 1786, Potsdam), and the Austrian monarchy with the German–speaking emperor, Joseph II Habsburg (1741, Vienna – 1790, Vienna) (ruling with his mother, Maria Theresa (1717, Vienna – 1780, Vienna)).

François–Marie Aroutet, known as Voltaire (1694, Paris – 1778, Paris), quoted above, went even further praising the looters: „[The Russian army] is the first of its kind since the world exists, it is an army of peace, which serves only to support the rights of citizens and to intimidate persecutors”. And he literally prayed to Catherine II herself: „You, Catherine, we praise, you, lady, we confess”. Apparently not selflessly…

The robbery of Poland was completed in 1795. The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth vanished from the map.

But the similar views on Poles presented above did not disappear. The tolerant tradition of the Polish Commonwealth, the ability of Poles to manage the largest country on the continent in the 16^th century, a country where there were no religious wars devastating all of Western Europe, were quickly forgotten. Others dominated — prof. Grzegorz Kucharczyk (b. 1969, Gorzów Wielkopolski), paraphrasing the views of such German intellectual leaders as Immanuel Kant (1724, Królewiec – 1804, Królewiec), Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749, Frankfurt am Main – 1832, Weimar), Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770, Stuttgart – 1831, Berlin), Frederick William Christian Charles Ferdinand von Humboldt (1767, Potsdam – 1835, Tegel), put those view recently in the following way:

„The Polish nation, the Poles, are an ahistoric nation, without history, and therefore without future development prospects. And the partitions of Poland, and thus the destruction of the Polish state, was a modernization act, for which Poles should be grateful to the Hohenzollern monarch — that they found themselves in such an enlightened state, which, after all, is exercising and has the modernizing potential”^{21.iv.2021, www.youtube.com}.

In Russia, such sentiments were echoed by Alexander Pushkin (1799, Moscow – 1837, Saint Petersburg), renowned and celebrated poet, writing about the „boastful Lechites”^{„Slanderers of Russia”} (ie. Poles) and justifying the Russian occupation:

Our troops invaded again
the longed–for Warsaw gates.
Poland, like a fleeing troop,
into the dust her bloody booty casts.

„Borodino aniversary”

Where are those lands?

The area covered by Genocidium Atrox, the genocide which is the raison d'être of this portal, until 1772 was part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (łac. Res Publica Utriusque Nationis) republic of the nobility, known as the First Polish Republic, a multinational, real union of Poles and Lithuanians, but also Ruthenians (Ukrainians), Belarusians, Jews and other smaller communities living in the vast lands of this country.

In 1772, the greater part of the Genocidium Atrox area fell into the hands of the Austrian Empire. From 1795 Volyn and the Lublin region were occupied by Russia. In fact, this division of the Genocidium Atrox area remained in force until 1915.

The image of Poles formed by Russian and German intellectuals throughout the 19^th century shaped the views of Russians, Germans and Austrians. It also largely dominated in Western Europe. But it was also slowly beginning to sink into the very fabric of the societies of the former Republic of Poland. When therefore at the end of the 19^th century and at the beginning of the 20^th century new generations of these societies began to search for ways and redefine ways of regaining independence and sovereignty, they more and more often did it separately then jointly.

Most Poles, however, clanged on to the legacy of the First Polish Republic, to the multinational idea, the bulwark of Christianity, the bulkhead against the barbarity that threatened in the east. On the other hand, a significant part of Ukrainians began to define themselves through the concept of foreignness, identified as enemies of the idea of the Ukrainian state.

Thus, in 1902, the program of the Ukrainian People's Party, founded in 1902 by Mykola Mikhnovsky (1873, Turivka – 1924, Kiev), stated explicitly in the first version of the Ukrainian Decalogue (see insert on the left):

„Ukraine for Ukrainians! So expel all foreigners — oppressors — from Ukraine”…

And defined these „oppressors”: „All people are your brothers, but Muscovites, Poles, Hungarians, Romanians and Jews — are the enemies of our nation”.

At the same time the Polish writer, Nobel prize winner, Henry Sienkiewicz (1846, Wola Okrzejska – 1916, Vevey), in the last words of the novel „With Fire and Sword”, was seeking out paths of „brotherhood” between the nations ruled by Russia, Germany or Austria instead, when lamenting the earlier times struggles within the First Polish Republic:

„The Commonwealth was deserted, Ukraine was deserted. The wolves howled on the ruins of ancient cities and the once flourishing countries were like a great tomb. Hatred grew into hearts and poisoned the blood of kin — and for a long time no lips said: «Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to people of good will»”.

The nations of the former Republic of Poland began to refer to various foundation sources. „Divide et impera”, used by the partitioning powers, began to bear fruit.

How did it come about?

So when World War I broke out in 1914, when a year later the Germans and Austrians pushed the Russians far east, de facto ending the Russian power in the former Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, when the tsarist regime collapsed in 1917, Ukrainian activists proclaimed Ukraine's independence. On 22.i.1918, the establishment of the Ukrainian People's Republic URL was announced in Kiev.

One of the first steps of the authorities of the URL was the conclusion of the „peace” treaty of Brest‑Litovsk with the Central Powers of the conflict of World War I, i.e. Germany and Austrians, on 9.ii.1918, under which the URL was to acquire the Chełm region inhabited mainly by Poles, and later also — after its severance from Austria — Eastern Galicia with Lviv and Przemyśl, inhabited to a large extent, and in the cities overwhelmingly, by Poles.

Both areas — in particular the latter, significantly larger and more important historically and territorially, which explains the inclusion of the clauses on Eastern Galicia in the secret part of the treaty — are the lands where Genocidium Atrox took place.

Poles were not invited to the talks. The aim of the Germans and Austrians was simply to force Russia, where the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 led to the Civil War, to conclude a ceasefire with the Central Powers so that they could focus on the war in the West (the ploy succeeded and on 3.iii.1918 in the same place — Brest — Germany, Austria and Bolshevik Russia signed the second Brest‑Litovsk Treaty). The costs were to be paid by Poles — the Polish–Ukrainian clash was inevitable.

And when on 11.xi.1918 the World War I ended, when the Republic of Poland was reborn, the Polish–Ukrainian war broke out. The divided Ukrainians lost it, and the area of Genocidium Atrox became part of the Second Polish Republic.

Healing the wounds after the wars could not have been easy. Even Europe — and Germany in particular — was unable to deal with a similar, larger–scale, problem. It seems apt to quote Sienkiewicz again: „Hatred grew into hearts and poisoned the blood of kin”^{H. Sienkiewicz, op. cit.}. And after 1929, after the publication of a brochure prepared by Stepan Lenkawsky (1904, Uhorniki – 1977, Munich), „The Decalogue of a Ukrainian Nationalist” (see the adjacent insert), which in the same year was adopted by the Ukrainian Nationalist Organization OUN, as binding on all its members, reconciliation became downright impossible.

From then on, the road led only to perdition. It was noticed by some — unfortunately a few only — Ukrainians. In 1932, in the brochure „Українська проблема” (Eng. „The Ukrainian problem”), the Greek Catholic bishop of the Stanislaviv Eparchy, today Bl. Hryhoriy Khomyshyn (1867, Hadyńkowce – 1945, Kiev), wrote:

„Nationalism began to take on the features of a pagan spirit in us, because it introduces a pagan ethic of hatred, ordering to hate everyone who is of other nationality, and even refusing to help them and show mercy in their misfortune. This is contrary to Christian ethics, because Christ commanded, by word and example, to love one's neighbors, not only friends and one's own, but also personal enemies and others, strangers by nationality”.

And he continued prophetically:

„National hurrah–patriots, chauvinists and also short–sighted Ukrainian politicians caused the bitter fate of the Ukrainian people. These people, who acted as madmen rather than leaders, they spat on every serious and reasonable attempt at solution. It was they who brought about this spiritual decay in the nation, they undermined faith and morals, they blinded it and poisoned the nation. It was they and they still provoke the wrath of God and are ready to lead to a state that from the boiling cauldron of the East there would be fiery lava pouring out, which might totally erase us from the face of the earth”.

The beginning

Demography of Genocidium Atrox area in 1931, when a general census in the Second Polish Republic was held, and estimates for 1939, are presented below:

^* – where A indicates part of Lviv voivodeship that in 1945 was incorporated in Russian–controlled Polish prl republic.

The date the Genocidium Atrox started might be identified precisely as 1.ix.1939, when the Germans invaded the Polish–Republic, without declaring war. On the basis of the infamous agreement of 23.viii.1939, two outstanding socialist leaders — a German, with a Nazi shade, Adolf Hitler (1889, Braunau am Inn – 1945, Berlin), and a Russian, with a Communist shade, Joseph Stalin (1878, Gori – 1953, Kuntsevo) — and its secret annexes, from the names of the signatories, i.e. the foreign ministers of the two aforementioned criminals, known as the Ribbentrop–Molotov Pact, the Germans entered the Republic of Poland from the west, and 17 days later the Russians invaded Poland from the east. Two bandits thus carried out the fourth partition of Poland, formally agreed and signed, along with other secret annexes, on 28.ix.1939 in the so‑called „German–Russian Frontier Treaty”.

World War II began.

And immediately, in the face of the collapse of public order, Ukrainian attacks on Poles began. However, they would not have exceeded the level of ordinary crimes, pure terrorism, were not for one of the secret annexes of the aforementioned „German–Russian Frontier Treaty”, that stipulated: „Both sides will not tolerate any Polish propaganda in their territories that concerns the territories of the other side. They will suppress any beginnings of such propaganda in their territories and inform each other of the appropriate measures planned and taken to that end”.

And they duly started to fulfill their obligations. Within a few months, four so‑called „thematic conferences” took place, attended by representatives of the German secret political police Gestapo and the Russian NKVD genocidal organization. Information and experiences in combating the resistance of Polish society were exchanged and the ways of eliminating Polish leaders were discussed. The first one took place on 27.xi.1939 in — lo and behold — Brest on Bug river; the second one right after that in Przemyśl; the third — on 20.ii.1940 in Zakopane, in the villas „Master Thaddeus” and „Telimena” (the names evoke the heroes of the most famous Polish epic poem „Pan Tadeusz”); the fourth — in iii.1940 in Cracow.

The final plans were prob. agreed upon at the beginning of ii.1940, when in the hunting lodge of the German marshal Hermann Göring (1893, Rosenheim – 1946, Nuremberg) in Rominten in the Romincka Forest, the head of the Russian genocidal NKVD, Lavrentiy Beria (1899, Mercheula – 1953, Moscow), met with the head of the German genocidal services, Heinrich Himmler (1900, Munich – 1945, Lüneburg).

Genocidium Atrox area — Ternopil Voivodeship, Stanislaviv Voivodeship, Volyn Voivodeship and most of the Lviv Voivodeship — mostly fell to Russia. There, the „suppression of Polish propaganda” began on the first day of the occupation. The commander of the Russian Ukrainian Front entering Poland, a Ukrainian on Russian service, Semyon Timoshenko (1895, Furmanka – 1970, Moscow), issued an appeal, calling for the murder of „eternal enemies” with „scythes, pitchforks and axes” (see beside).

In his hateful proclamation, Timoshenko did not have to appeal to Ukrainian nationalists — there were layer upon layer of hatred in Russian socialism and communism in itself — but it is significant that the Russian soldier's rhetoric matched sentiments of the OUN Decalogue.

The Russians, however, did not intend to rely on the Ukrainians, and certainly not on the nationalists. They began by removing Poles from all public positions. They were replaced immediately, mainly by the Jews living in those areas and the communist Ukrainians, apart from the Russians themselves.

They did not stop there. Direct actions — genocides — aimed at Poles began. In Katyn near Smolensk, in Kharkiv, Kiev, Kherson in Ukraine, Minsk, the Russians murdered tens of thousands of officers of the Polish Army, Border Protection Corps, and policemen. Then, in four great genocidal deportation actions, hundreds of thousands of Poles were sent deep into Russia — to „Siberia”. In cattle cars, along with their families, social activists, members of the local Polish administration, teachers, forest service workers, railroad workers, military settlers, prison service officers, merchants, industrialists and bankers, representatives of intelligentsia, qualified workers and craftsmen — all were deported.

So when on 22.vi.1941, the Germans attacked their erstwhile ally, the Russians — who until the last day were sending wagons filled with materials necessary for warfare to Germany — and the German occupation of Genocidium Atrox area began, the Polish community of these lands was already deprived of the majority leadership elite. People capable and prepared for the difficult art of government were either murdered or deported to the East. And in the first months of the occupation, the Germans completed the work — they arrested and murdered, among others, the professors of the University of Lviv (4.vii.1941) and a group of teachers in Stanisławów (14‑15.viii.1941).

Not only the Polish community was deprived of its leaders: there were simply no men in their prime left; women, children and the elderly dominated.

And then the Ukrainian nationalists took to the floor. Genocidium Atrox has started in earnest.

The fiery lava

Genocidium Atrox is not a historical lecture. It is a kind of register of events seen through the eyes of witnesses. The analyzes of events, monographs of participants and organizations, movements and maneuvers of Ukrainian genocidal sotnyas, are left to professional historians. We allow ourselves only to describe the framework in which the „terrible” genocide took place:

• In 1941‑2, the Germans, using, inter alia, units of the collaborative Ukrainian auxiliary police Schutzmannshatf, committed the genocide of the Jews living in the area of Genocidium Atrox.
• The main period of Genocidium Atrox began in 1943, after the end of the extermination of the Jews, where the Polish community was the weakest — in Volyn, and from there the murders spread to other areas.
• In 1943‑4, the Germans, occupying and nominally managing the area of Genocidium Atrox, but after a string of defeats staring in the eyes of the fast approaching Russians exercised less and less control over it, which was conducive to the activity of the genocidal Ukrainian bands of the OUN and UPA.
• In 1944, the Russian–German front passed through the area of Genocidium Atrox (the western areas of the former Lviv Voivodeship the Russians captured in i.1945) and the Russian occupation began.
• In 1945, the Russians handed over part of the Genocidium Atrox area to Russian mercenaries — Polish communists — and marked a border that left most of the area under direct Russian occupation. Only the western part of the former Lviv Voivodeship, found itself in communist Poland, Prl.
• In 1945‑6, the Russians made voluntary and forced deportations of the population of Genocidium Atrox. Those Poles who survived were deported from the areas annexed directly by Russia to Commie Nazi Poland Prl. Some Ukrainians from the territories that fell under the communist regime, voluntarily and then forcibly, were relocated to the territories occupied by the Russians. Finally, the Ukrainians still remaining in the area of Genocidium Atrox in the territory of Prl were resettled in the „Operation Vistula” to the west and north of the Prl.

Landscape after the battle

The number of victims of Genocidium Atrox is presented in a separate insert on this page.

In 1948, in the part of the Genocidium Atrox area that came under direct Russian occupation, in what is now Ukraine, the number of Poles in 1939  — around 2,500,000— dropped basically to zero.

Similarly, the number of Ukrainians in 1939 — approx. 250,000 — living in the area of Genocidium Atrox, which fell into the communist regime of Prl, i.e. in the lands of modern Poland, dropped virtually to zero.

c. 500 years of living together by Poles and Ukrainians have come to an end.

„The fiery lava” prophesized by Bl. Hryhoriy Khomyshyn consumed the lands of Genocidium Atrox.

Does anyone still remember?

In 1948 a veil of silence was drawn over the Genocidium Atrox. No one, literally no one — except the families of the victims — was interested in considering the consequences of the events, let alone holding the perpetrators accountable.

The Commie Nazi rulers of the Prl (Polish People's Republic), after carrying out the „Operation Vistula”, quickly closed this chapter — apart from the hagiographic exposition of the role of communist units in the fight against UPA after 1946 (some feature films were made). The topic was inconvenient, because it is impossible to talk about Genocidium Atrox without discussing the role of the Russians in the fourth partition of Poland in 1939 and the nature of the Russian occupation in 1939‑41. And these for the communists were taboo subjects.

The Russians, after the destruction of the genocidal UPA — which following the murder of Poles started fighting for\ an Самостійна Україна (Eng. independent Ukraine); with the Russians — and sentencing most of its leaders to death (not for crimes against Poles, but mainly for collaborating with Germans and fighting the Russians), postponed the case ad acta and started to deal with the forced communization of the rest of Polish society instead.

The West was also not interested, perhaps because it began cooperating with the perpetrators of the genocide from the OUN and UPA, those that managed to escape to the territories under Allied forces control in the west, using them in intelligence games with the Russian Empire.

Poles, who found themselves in the West after the end of the war, simply ceased to be noticed and listened to after the recognition of the communist regime of the prl by the Western powers. They were allowed to live enjoying the freedoms guaranteed in the west, possibly publish a little, but the circle of readers was small, basically limited to Polish emigration. Besides, they were not able to carry out scientific work — having to rebuild the material foundations of existence in foreign countries from scratch — with no access to Prl archives, let alone to Russia and the areas of Genocidium Atrox.

And the families of the victims? They had to, as their compatriots in exile, rebuild their lives — not in the conditions of freedom, however, but under communist terror — in the western, post–German territories of the communist regime. They did not have the time nor the opportunity to demand, in an organized manner, justice, to reflect upon and undertake scientific studies of the genocide in&swhich their families perished. Not having the opportunity and time to educate themselves, they had to provide — and did so — for the education their children. Anew, in new, unknown lands, they weaved delicate networks of social relations and formed their new surroundings.

On the other hand, the Ukrainians who were in exile had time to concoct hundreds of narratives that would distort the memory of events…

It was only in the 1980s that the monumental works of Władysław Siemaszko (b. 1919, Curitiba) and his daughter Ewa Siemaszko (b. 1947, Bielsko–Biała) brought to light the tragic history of the Polish Bordelands community.

Too late. Had the Genocidium Atrox extermination been looked at earlier, had it been of interest to Western historians and politicians in particular, had the analysis been done by the United Nations, perhaps — perhaps is possibly the right term — the Rwandan genocide in 1994 would not have happened. The similarities are indeed striking — the Hutu tribe, responsible for the genocide of the members of the Tutsi tribe, also had its own „decalogue”…

Ideas have consequences: the future is bright?

None of the perpetrators of Genocidium Atrox, apart from a few exceptions, did not bear — as it seems to the authors of this study — responsibility. Those of the perpetrators who died mostly lost their lives because they took up a fight with the Russians or with the communist authorities of the Commie Nazi Prl. If they were put on trial, it was for other reasons. Genocidium Atrox was not reason for the imposition of a penalty.

The Pope, St John Paul II (1920, Wadowice – 2005, Vatican), said:

„Christian forgiveness doesn't just mean tolerance, it is more than that. It is not the same as forgetting evil, or, even worse, negation of evil. God does not forgive evil, but forgives man and teaches us to distinguish the evil act itself, which deserves condemnation as such, and the man who committed it, and to whom he gives the opportunity to change. While man is inclined to identify a sinner with sin, blocking any way out for him, the heavenly Father sent his Son into the world to open the way of salvation to all. Christ is this path: by dying on the Cross He redeemed us from our sins. To the people of all times, Jesus repeats: «I do not condemn you, go and sin no more»^{cf. Jn 8:11}  […] What is needed today is Christian forgiveness, which gives hope and trust, and at the same time does not weaken the fight against evil. You must give and receive forgiveness. However, man will not be able to forgive unless he first allows God to forgive him and recognizes that he needs His mercy. We will be ready to forgive the sins of others only when we realize how much fault has been forgiven us”^{Angelus, 29.iii. 1998}.

About the events of Genocidium Atrox he wrote: „In the turmoil of the Second World War, when the need for solidarity and mutual help should have been more urgent, the dark action of evil poisoned the hearts, and the unsheathed swords led to the shedding of innocent blood. Now, sixty years after those sad events, the need for a profound examination of conscience is growing in the hearts of most Poles and Ukrainians. There is a need for a reconciliation that would allow us to look at the present and the future in a new spirit. This prompts me to be grateful to God, together with those who, in reflection and prayer, remember all the victims of those acts of violence”^7.Vii.2003.

Servant of God Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński (1901, Zuzela – 1981, Warsaw) used to say: „When human memory fades, the stones continue to speak”. The problem with Genocidium Atrox, however, is that not even the „stones” are left of those who were murdered. Instead, other „foundations” are being erected — it is difficult for the authors of this study to understand such acts of „examination of conscience” as are carried out today in many places in Ukraine, where Genocidium Atrox perpetrators are remembered through very specific „stones”: i.e. monuments in their honor, streets named after them, and even schools having them as patrons.

Whose advice will Ukrainian children of today turn to, whose biographies will they study when the next times of trial come? And they will indeed come…

What decisions will they make?

May they be based on the words of the Holy Pope, and not on „heroes” whose monuments Ukrainian children pass by every morning on their way to school.

For ideas do have consequences.

To count the victims

The authors of the portal — Poles, who even today are being called „monkeys” — cannot, however, „forget about evil”. Even if, in the context of Genocidium Atrox, there may be difficulties in defining it precisely — Zbigniew Herbert (1924, Lviv – 1998, Warsaw), a great Polish poet, saw it this way: „it is devoid of dimensions / it is difficult to describe / it escapes definitions”^{„Monster of Mr Cogito”} — we believe that one should try, if only by recalling the memories of those who survived.

And, not being able to erect even a simple tombstone for the murdered, make at least an attempt to count those that perished. Because „the memory drawer will suddenly open”^{Z. Herbert, „Prayer of the Old”}, and then it may be too late to ask the question: „Will you then / take us back / for it will be a return to the childhood knees”^{Z. Herbert, op. cit.}.

This imperative of memory — to paraphrase the poet: „to understand other people […] other sufferings / and above all, to be humble / that is, the one who yearns for a source”^{Z. Herbert, „Prayer of Mr Cogito — the traveler”} — best describes another poem by the same bard:

[…] Mr Cogito
climbs
to the highest tottering
step of indefiniteness

how difficult it is to establish the names
of all those who perished
in the struggle with inhuman power

the official statistics
reduce their number
once again pitilessly
they decimate those who have died a violent death
and their bodies disappear
in the abysmal cellars
of huge police buildings

eyewitnesses
blinded by gas
deafened by salvos
by fear and despair
are inclined toward exaggeration

accidental observers
give doubtful figures
accompanied by the shameful
word „about”

and yet in these matters
accuracy is essential
we must not be wrong
even by a single one

we are despite everything
the guardians of our brothers

ignorance about those who have disappeared
undermines the reality of the world

it thrusts into the hell of appearances
the devilish net of dialectics
proclaiming there is no difference
between the substance and the spectre

therefore we have to know
to count exactly
call by the first name
provide for a journey

in a bowl of clay
millet poppy seeds
a bone comb
arrowheads
and a ring of faithfulness

amulets

Zbigniew Herbert — „Mr Cogito on the Need for Precision” — excerpt (translation: John and Bogdana Carpenter)