From 1938, ministered in the village of Tuligłowy, in Jarosław County, Lviv Voivodeship, located in a corner of the San River, marked by a change in its direction from east to north. The village was home to an estimated 1,000 people, of whom 99% were Roman Catholic Poles. In addition, there were a few Greek Catholics and c. 10 Jews. The ethnic composition of the district was more diverse — the majority, c. 58%, were Poles, but c. 38% were Greek Catholic Ukrainians, and c. 2.5% Jews.

After the German and Russian attack on Poland in 09.1939 and the start of World War II, Jarosław County was occupied by the Germans, but shortly thereafter part of the county on the right bank of the San River was handed over to the Russians, in accordance with the genocidal agreement between the two allies, known as the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of 23.08.1939, later confirmed by the so‐called „Treaty on the German–Russian Borders and Friendship” of 29.09.1939, also known as the Second Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. Tuligłowy remained under German occupation and got incorporated into the Germ. Kreishauptmannschaft Jarosław (Eng. Jarosław County) in the Germ. Distrikt Krakau (Krakow District), as part of the German‐occupied and run quasi‐state called the Germ. Generalgouvernement (Eng. General Governorate), i.e. GG.

In the first years of the war, Poles were subjected to particular repressions. Details were worked out at four so‐called thematic conferences, when the Germ. Geheime Staatspolizei (Eng. Secret State Police), i.e. the Gestapo, and the Rus. Народный Комиссариат Внутренних Дел (Eng. People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs), i.e. the NKVD, two genocidal allied organizations, debated cooperation and ways of combating and exterminating Poles in the territories they occupied. The first took place on 27.11.1939 in Brest‐on‐the‐Bug; the second one immediately afterwards in Przemyśl. The third one took place on 20.02.1940 in Zakopane, in the villas „Pan Tadeusz” (Eng. „Sir Thaddeus”) and „Telimena”, the fourth in 03.1940 in Kraków. In the meantime, at the beginning of 02.1940, in Hermann Göring's hunting lodge in Rominty in the Romincka Forest, a meeting of two génocidaires, Heinrich Himmler and Lavrentiy Beria, took place, where the decision to exterminate Polish society and combat the Polish resistance movement was probably finalized. As a consequence, in 04.1940, almost simultaneously, the genocidal murders of Polish prisoners of war began in Russia, which went down in history as the «Katyn genocide», and in the German‐occupied GG, the Germ. Außerordentliche Befriedungsaktion (Eng. Extraordinary Pacification Action) began, i.e. «Aktion AB», which was part of the so‐called Germ. «Intelligenzaktion» (Eng. Operation Intelligentsia), aimed at exterminating Polish political and intellectual elites.

At the same time, the Germans in GG pursued a clearly pro‐Ukrainian policy. Ukrainians were guaranteed self‐government, the use of the Ukrainian language in administration, and Ukrainian education. The Ukrainian police, Germ. Ukrainische Hilfspolizei (Eng. Ukrainian Auxiliary Police), in some regions also referred to as Germ. Schutzmannschaft (Eng. Protection Battalions), i.e. Schuma, began its operations. Ukrainians were also entrusted with prison service, employed in concentration camp crews, and employed in lower administration. Ukrainian political organizations operated openly, such as the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists OUN, the Ukrainian Central Committee UCC, which became the Ukrainian representation towards the German authorities. They were allowed to take over Polish schools, reading rooms, and churches and organize them as Ukrainian. In 1940, the Ukr. Служба Безпеки (Eng. Security Service), i.e. SB OUN, was allowed to be established under the watchful care of the Germans, whose task was to track down political and ideological opponents of the OUN. SB OUN training was conducted, among others, in Zakopane, at the „Stamary” hotel. According to the hotel's contemporary website, „the training included the principles of sabotage, Gestapo interrogation methods, and killing methods”. All these undertakings were overseen by the Gestapo, which had its headquarters in the „Palace” villa, where Polish patriots were being murdered. SB OUN was later to participate in genocidal attacks on the Polish community, i.e. «Genocidium Atrox».

Near his village, in Pruchnik, c. 7 km away, the Germans — according to Jewish sources — terminated most Poles from positions in the municipal administration and replaced them with Ukrainians, although in the town Ukrainians constituted only 8.5% of the population, Poles c. 40%, and Jews c. 51%.

In parallel to the repressions against Poles, the Germans systematically separated Jews. And so in Pruchnik in 11.1939 they established an open ghetto — i.e. closed only by selected streets of the town — into which prob. Jews from his Tuligłowy parish had already been herded. In 1939, Jews constituted over 50% of the town's inhabitants, in 12.1939 there were c.600 Jews, mostly women, children and the elderly — because younger men had fled to the Russian occupation. Separation, combined with a semblance of self‐government, e.g. the establishment of the Germ. Judenrat (Eng. Jewish Council), responsible for the internal administration of the Jewish ghetto, was initially met with some favor by the Jewish community in many places. Over the next two years, however, the Germans introduced increasingly stricter restrictions, mainly financial ones, and the situation in the ghetto became increasingly difficult. And after the German attack on 22.06.1941 on erstwhile ally, the Russians, the fate of the Jews became tragic. The ghettos became a trap, especially after 25.10.1941, when the decree of the Germ. Generalgouverneur (Eng. General Governor) of the GG, Hans Frank, came into effect in the GG, according to which „Jews who leave their assigned district without authorization are subject to the death penalty. The same punishment applies to persons who knowingly provide such Jews with a hiding place”, and „Instigators and accomplices are subject to the same punishment as the perpetrator; an attempted act will be punished as the deed accomplished”. Immediately afterwards, at the beginning of 1942, the Germans began to implement the genocidal plan Germ. «Endlösung der Judenfrage» (Eng. Final Solution of the Jewish Question), which in GG was known as the Germ. «Aktion Reinhardt» (Eng. Operation Reinhardt). The Germans, with the help of the Germ. Ukrainische Hilfspolizei, liquidated the ghetto in Pruchnik on 01‐03.08.1942, transporting all Jews to the ghetto in Bircza, from where most were soon transported to the Germ. Vernichtungslager (Eng. Extermination Camp) VL Belzec, where they were murdered.

The Germ. Kreishauptmannschaft Jarosław and the Germ. District Krakau were adjacent to the Germ. Distrikt Lublin (Eng Lublin District) — within the GG. The Germ. SS‐ und Polizeiführer (Eng. SS and Police Commander) in the Germ. Distrikt Lublin, and de facto deputy governor of this district, was one of the greatest criminals in human history, the Austrian, Odilo Lotario Globočnik, whom one historian described as „the most vile individual in the most vile organization that has ever existed”. It was he who conceived and opened the VL Belzec concentration camp, where i.a. Jews from Tuligłowy were prob. murdered. And in the second half of 1942, when VL Belzec was ending its genocidal activity, the Germans and Globočnik shifted their main focus to the Germ. Aktion Zamość (Eng. Operation Zamość), a series of displacement and pacification operations of Polish villages in the Zamość region, as part of the Germ. Generalplan Ost (Eng. General Plan Eastern), the German settlement and Germanization program, in order to gain Germ. Lebensraum (Eng. living space) for the Germ. Herrenvolk (Eng. master race). The intention was to displace hundreds of thousands of Poles and bring in German colonists in their place, surrounding the area from the east by a kind of barrier, villages in which the intention was to settle a German‐friendly Ukrainian community. Altogether, the Germans managed, with the help of Ukrainian collaborators, to displace 100,000‐110,000 Poles, including 30,000 children, some of whom — considered the most racially „pure” — were taken from their parents and given to families deep in Germany.

But not everything went according to the Germans" plan. The first stage of the Germ. Aktion Zamość began on 28.11.1942, and encompassed 116 Polish villages, from which c. 21% of the displaced were designated for extermination and sent to concentration camps. This stage ended in 03.1943. However, it was met with an armed reaction from Polish partisan forces, grouped mainly in the Solska Forest — units of the Home Army AK, Peasant Battalions BCh (both part of the Polish Clandestine State), and the Commie‐Nazi People's Guard GL. On 12.12.1942, the Zamość Uprising began, in which the Polish partisans responded to the expulsions by attacking villages of German and Ukrainian colonists. I.a. on 01.02.1943, near Zaboreczno, BCh units fought a victorious battle, forcing the withdrawal of a 600‐strong German gendarmerie battalion and making the Germans to temporarily cease the expulsions of the Polish population.

The strength of the Polish reaction alarmed the German command not only in the Germ. Distrikt Lublin, but also in the Germ. Distrikt Krakau and the Germ. Kreishauptmannschaft Jarosław. The AK in this region numbered c. 1,500‐3,000 soldiers, while the BCh prob. numbered c. 1,000‐2,000, operating mainly in rural areas. And then the Germans began planning a pacification operation of the villages located in the corner of the San River, in order to intimidate villages and their inhabitants suspected of collaborating with Polish partisans and the Polish Clandestine State. Proscription lists were prepared — prob. with the help of local Ukrainians and policemen from the Germ. Ukrainische Hilfspolizei.

The pretext was the execution of three sentences issued by the Jarosław AK District sabotage group on informants of the Gestapo. I.a. in the village of Łopuszka, c. 16 km west of Tuligłowy, at the beginning of 03.1943, a local girl, Angela Bawor, was executed, who „collaborating with the Gestapo, denounced many people involved in or suspected of being involved in the underground movement”.

On 06.08.1943 — it was the last Saturday of Carnival, Ash Wednesday fell on 10.03.1943 — a German „punitive expedition” set off prob. from Jarosław. Its precise composition is unknown, but it was prob. commanded by a certain Franz Schmidt, born in Czech Moravia, of Austrian origin, who lived in Jarosław from 1927, and after the beginning of the German occupation became involved with the German occupation apparatus of coercion, being promoted to the position of deputy head of the Gestapo station in Jarosław. The composition of the „expedition” was prob. based on German gendarmes (the name of Anton Hachmann, the commander of the German gendarmerie from Łańcut, is known, who earlier, on 04.12.1942, directed the murder of four Poles, the Dec brothers, for hiding and feeding a group of Jews in a forest bunker) and the Germ. Ukrainian Hilfspolizei from Radymno (with the commander of this station, Volodymyr Janusz). Among the latter's subordinates was Anton Jarek from Pełnytycze, c. 10 km north of Tuligłowy, where in 1939 — and probably also in 1943 — his father, Fr Theodore Jarka, was the Greek Catholic parish priest.

The „death rally” began in a cluster of villages c. 15 km west of Tuligłowy. In Łopuszka Wielka, 19 people were murdered within a few hours. Then they moved to Rączyna, where 30 people were murdered. From there, murderers moved to Pantalowice, where 11 people were shot — in this case, it seems, randomly picked up on the road. After a drinking spree lasting until Sunday morning, in the afternoon they moved to the village of Kaszyce, c. 10 km east of Tuligłowy. There, the inhabitants were massacred. The scale of the massacre indicates that the aforementioned proscription lists were not used here either, but that all those caught were murdered. In total, 136 people were murdered, including 114 village residents and 22 people from nearby villages. These included women, children, and the elderly. The next day, „expedition” entered Rokietnica, c. 3 km east of Tuligłowy. Sources here speak of selecting specific victims from a list — the perpetrators entered the village, began searching homes, and then murdered 44 people. Immediately afterward, murderers moved on to the neighboring village of Czelatyce, where 15 people were murdered.

The next day, 09.03.1943, on the so‐called Shrove Tuesday before Lent, they entered Tuligłowy. A witness described the events as follows:

„The priest stood by the window. At one point, he folded his hands as if in prayer and shouted: «Mother of God, the end of our lives». Through the window, we could see two horse‐drawn carts full of Germans arriving at the rectory.

[…] The Germans quickly surrounded the rectory, and one of them stood in the kitchen doorway. He was tall, broad‐shouldered, and had such terrible eyes. He stood in the doorway in such a way that he blocked our escape. He leaned on the doorframe with one hand, and in the other he held a long rifle.

[…] I didn't want to die. I don't know how much time passed, when suddenly the silence was broken by a terrifying, dull shot. The landlady shouted: «Jesus Mary», and the Gestapo officer who was standing in the doorway shouted in Polish: «Run».

[…] After a while, we saw what looked like five Gestapo officers getting on the cart and driving away.

[…] When we entered the building [and the parish office of the rectory] we saw the priest's body lying on the floor in a huge pool of blood […] He was shot in the back of the head.

[…] They placed his body on a table. I was ordered to take a bucket of cold water, a rag, and wash the blood off the floor. I washed the blood and cried. I had to change the water several times because the blood wouldn"t wash off the floor”.

Sources indicate that among the murderers were the German Anton Hachmann and the Ukrainian, son of a Greek Catholic priest, Anton Jarka.

Prob. he was the only victim that day in Tuligłowy. During the entire „expedition”, at least 233 people were murdered.

The aforementioned Franz Schmidt, known as the „executioner of Jarosław”, was not tried. After the war, was accused of participating in the murder of c. 1,000 Poles, over 4,000 Jews, and c. 300 Russian prisoners of war, but the German democratic authorities, despite knowing about his residence, never convicted him. Similarly, it seems, Anton Jarka, who immediately after the described murders joined the Germ. 14. Waffen–Grenadier–Division der SS / ukrainische Nr. 1 (Eng. 14th Grenadier Division of the Waffen SS / 1st Ukrainian), commonly referred to as SS‐Galizien, part of the genocidal Germ. Die Schutzstaffel der NSDAP (Eng. NSDAP Protection Squad), i.e. «SS», a paramilitary formation subordinate to the ruling National Socialist German Workers' Party NSDAP in Germany, did not pay for his crimes.

Lat. „O Tempora! O mores!”