Four months after taking over the parish in Melnytsya, World War II broke out — in 09 1939, the Germans and Russians attacked Poland. Melnytsya, a small town in Volyn, was then inhabited — together with the village that was incorporated into the town in the 1920s, and the nearby colony, both of the same name — by an estimated 3,000 people, including c. 60% Jews, c. 30% Orthodox Ukrainians and dozen or so Polish families. Before the annexation of the aforementioned village, Melnytsya was a 97% Jewish. The town was best known, however, for the miraculous image of the Blessed Virgin Mary, „Eleusa from Melnytsya”, which King John III Sobieski is said to have had with him — or captured as one of the spoils — during his expedition to Vienna, to the Kallenberg mountain, where on 12.09.1683, the troops commanded by him defeated the army of the Ottoman Empire under the command of Vizier Kara Mustafa, preventing an Islamic invasion of Europe. It was for this Image, and for the pilgrims who peregrinated to it, that a new church was built in 1749 and an indulgence was established on 15.08, the Roman Catholic Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The image was prob. crowned shortly thereafter, although the documents from this act have not survived. In 1873, taking advantage of the delegalization of the Greek Catholic Church, i.e. the Uniates, the Russian authorities ruling then in part of partitioned Poland closed the church in Melnytsya, and a few years later handed it over to the Orthodox Church. In 1915, during World War I, after the Russian defeat in the Battle of Gorlice in 05.1915, and the panic‐stricken flight of c. 3 million Russians, members of the partitioning administrative apparatus on Polish lands — officials, teachers, military personnel, Orthodox clergy, along with their families — the Germans entered Melnytsya. It is not clear whether the Orthodox clergy left the town at that time, but in 06‐09.1916, during the so‐called Brusilov Offensive, i.e. during the last major Russian offensive of the war, the church was seriously damaged, practically reducing it to ruins. After Poland regained its independence in 1918, after defeating the Russians in the Polish–Russian War of 1919‐1921, the church returned to the Roman Catholic Church. The parish around it, established in 1938, had c. 1,200 faithful, mostly Poles, most of whom lived and farmed in the surrounding villages.

In 09.1939, the Russian occupation began. Repressions particularly affected the Polish inhabitants of the area, including many military settlers, veterans of the wars for Polish independence. According to one source, „families of wealthy residents and rural intelligentsia were deported [deep into Russia], to Kazakhstan”. Another, Alfreda Ferschke, née Winter, recalled: „The winter was harsh that year. 30 degrees Celsius frost gripped this restless land, and the night of February 10, 1940, left a mark on my psyche and personality for life. Everyone was sleeping […] The barking of dogs in our yard and the persistent pounding on the door: "Open up!" The father opened the door and a group of armed Ukrainian men with one Russian burst into the house […] The armed Russian demanded documents from the father, took them and said: "Собирайтесь. Пересылаем вас в другое область" (Eng. "Get ready. We are taking you to the other district") [… The mother] sees her husband kneeling before the Russian and begging him to take him away, he is ready to be killed just to spare his wife and children. A Ukrainian stood nearby and said: "Убей просится" (Eng. "Kill, asks for it"). The Russian replied "Не льзя" (Eng. "It is not allowed") […] He ordered us to harness our horses, gave us ten minutes to pack, if not, we would be tied up and thrown onto a sleigh […] On the way, a woman gave us a cup of hot milk, it was the last cup of milk for six years”.

After the German attack on 22.06.1941, on their erstwhile ally, the Russians, the Germans entered Melnytsya on c. 29.06.1941. And the persecution of Jews began immediately. It was — as in dozens of other places at that time — partly a retaliatory act for the undoubted collaboration of many Jews with the Russian occupiers in the years 1939‐1941 and their participation in the persecution of Poles, as well as Ukrainians. Thus, already at the beginning of 07.1941, the Germans murdered, according to Jewish sources, „56 young Jewish men” some of whom were supposedly identified „by a Polish anti‐Semite”, a former school principal, who accused them of collaborating with the Russians. A few weeks later, the Germans murdered another c. 280 Jews.

Under German occupation, Melnytsya found itself in the Germ. Kreisgebiet Kowel (Eng. Kovel district) within the Germ. Generalbezirk Wolhynien–Podolien (Eng. General District Volyn‐Podolia), as part of an entity called the Germ. Reichskommissariat Ukraine (Eng. Reich Commissariat of Ukraine).+The first murders of Jews also had — in accordance with the practice of the Germ. Wehrmacht (Armed Forces) — a deterrent character, but soon at the beginning of 1942 the Germans began implementing the genocidal plan Germ. «Endlösung der Judenfrage» (Eng. Final Solution of the Jewish Question), i.e. the extermination of all Jews in the occupied territories. In the Germ. Reichskommissariat Ukraine, Jews were not actually sent to specially created Germ. Vernichtungslager (Eng. Extermination Camps), but were murdered on the spot, in mass executions, with the help of collaborationist Ukrainian formation Germ. Ukrainische Hilfspolizei (Eng. Ukrainian Auxiliary Police), in some regions also referred to as Germ. Schutzmannschaft (Eng. Protection Battalions), i.e. Schuma. Such was also the case in Melnytsya. In mid‐08.1942, a ghetto was established, locking up c. 1,200 Jews in it. And already on 03.09.1942, at 5:00 a.m., c. 100 Ukrainian policemen with Germ. Ukrainische Hilfspolizei, under the direction of 5 Germans, surrounded the ghetto and then drove everyone to the sand extraction site, known as Pl. piaskownia, and there, above the pits previously dug by the Ukrainians, murdered in a mass execution. For the next few days, the Ukrainians hunted Jews, searching their homes.

The town was deserted, the empty houses being slowly occupied by Ukrainian executioners.

Soon after, it was the turn of the Poles. In 02.1943 Roman Shukhevych, nom de guerre „Taras Chuprynka”, the chief commander of the Ukrainian, genocidal OUN/UPA organisation, who in 1941 was a member of the Ukrainian Germ. Sondergruppe Nachtigall (Eng. Special Group Nightingale) — a unit of the Germ. Wehrmacht that took part in the German attack on Russians in 1941, accused of participating in the Jewish pogrom in Lviv in 1941 — and later a member of the Germ. Schutzmannschaftsbataillon 201 (Eng. 201st Protection team Battalion) — responsible for the murder of Jews and civilians in the territory of Belarus — issued an order: „The extermination operation [of Poles] should be carried out according to the following principles: Polish villages are to be burned, and their populations massacred. Attacks on towns will take place in broad daylight, not at night. In mixed villages, the Polish population alone should be liquidated, and farmsteads should be burned only if they are 15 meters away and when there is no risk of the fire spreading to neighboring Ukrainian buildings. The Ukrainian population will receive instructions as to where to gather during the attack […] For every Ukrainian murdered, whether by Poles or Germans, 100 (one hundred) Poles will be executed”.

It was the de facto signal for the commencement of the «Genocidium Atrox» — i.e. the genocide perpetrated by Ukrainians, known as „Volyn genocide”.

Immediately thereafter, in 03.1943, the UPA issued an appeal to members of the Germ. Ukrainische Hilfspolizei, to desert and join the UPA. Perhaps as many as 10,000 Ukrainians did so.

The choice of Volyn for the beginning of the «Genocidium Atrox» was not accidental. Firstly, Volyn in pre‐war Poland had prob. the smallest percentage of Polish population in the entire country. Secondly, it was probably the least economically developed voivodeship of Poland, which was caused by the deliberate policy of the Russians in the 19th century, ruling then in part of partitioned Poland — the direct route to the heart of Russia, to Moscow, runs through Volyn, so no roads were laid there, no bridges built, no marshy areas around the Pripyat drained, no industry located, and no schools established. Thirdly, and finally, it was Volyn (and the Chełm region) that was to be incorporated into the borders of the short‐lived Ukrainian state, to be established on the basis of the Treaty of Brest‐Litovsk of 09.02.1918 during World War I, agreed by the Central Powers (German Empire, Austro–Hungarian Monarchy) — in 1941 the Germans simply fulfilled the obligations undertaken at that time.

After a few more months, the tactics of the genocidal Ukrainians were detailed in an order from 06.1943 issued by the UPA commander in Volyn, Dmytro Klachkivsky, nom de guerre „Klym Savur”. Anticipating Germany's defeat in the war with Russia, explained and ordered: „We should carry out a major operation to eliminate the Polish element. When the German troops withdraw, we should use this opportune moment to eliminate the entire male population aged 16 to 60 […] We cannot lose this fight, and we must weaken Polish forces at all costs. Forest villages and villages located near forest massifs should disappear from the face of the earth”.

He was already dead by then. On 18.03.1943, on the eve of the indulgence day (or on the indulgence day of 19.03.1943) — i.e., the feast day of the parish patron, St Joseph, Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary — Ukrainians attacked the Polish community for the first time. génocidaires from the Germ. Ukrainische Hilfspolizei — or perhaps already full‐fledged members of the genocidal OUN/UPA — kidnapped c. 17 of the most prominent Poles, whom the Russians had spared deportation „to Siberia”, doctors, teachers, a pharmacist with his wife and children, who were probably gathering for a church fair. W among them. His housekeeper was also there.

A witness recounted: „People were dragged from their homes early in the morning, their hands were tied with barbed wire, driven towards [the village of Velytsk, c. 7 km away], and murdered in the forest”.

The executions, in a small roadside forest c. 3 km outside Melnytsya, were carried out by Ukrainian policemen.

According to some sources, the murdered had their eyes gouged out and their tongues ripped out.

The victims were buried in a shallow pit and covered with earth. After a few days, the Ukrainians dug up the grave and robbed the bodies. The rectory was also looted. A witness described the effects of the looting as follows: „the rectory was stripped bare, books were scattered on the floor, and in the kitchen were chickens with their heads cut off”.

Five months later, on 29.08.1943, on the Orthodox feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the OUN/UPA murdered over 105 Poles from Melnytsya parish. Years later, 98 bodies were discovered in one grave, and 7 in the other.

In 1945, local Poles who survived the Ukrainian genocide were deported by the Russians to the territory of the Russian Republic of Poland prl. They took with them the miraculous image of „Eleusa from Melnytsya”. It is still venerated to this day in the sanctuary of Our Lady on Chełmska Mountain in Chełm. But the abandoned church in Melnytsya had been converted into a grain warehouse. Today, only its decaying remnants remain, the last trace of Polish culture in Melnytsya, which is now just a tiny village.

On 12.10.2007, the génocidaire Roman Shukhevych was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of Ukraine. In 12.2020, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, in a resolution, recognized génocidaire Dmitry Klachkivsky as „the leader of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army in Volyn and a participant in the struggle for Ukraine's independence in the 20th century”. In several locations, monuments and commemorative plaques have been erected to these Lat. „hostis humani generis”, the schools were named after them.

Lat. „O Tempora! O mores!”

According to some sources murdered by the „punitive” expedition composed of Germans and Ukrainian policemen that denounced Poles of being Russian collaborators.