After the outbreak of World War I in 07‐08.1914, the village of Mylne — c. 30 km north of Ternopil, then belonging to the Austro–Hungarian Monarchy, ruling over parts of partitioned Poland — where ministered, during the so‐called Galician Battle of 18.08‐11.09.1914, was occupied by the troops of the Russian Empire. A year later, as a result of the defeat of the Russian troops in the Battle of Gorlice in 05.1915, Austro–Hungarian troops returned to Mylne in 10.1915. However, the village found itself on the front line, which settled in the area. As a result, the village inhabitants — and himself with them — were evacuated c. 40 km to the west, to the village of Rykiv, c. 12 km southeast of Zolochiv. Could return to Mylne only after the separatist peace treaty of 03.05.1918 concluded in Brest‐Litovsk, when Russia — by then Bolshevik — withdrew from the war, relinquishing vast areas in the east to the Central Powers, mainly the German Empire and the Austro–Hungarian Monarchy: in the meantime, Mylne was once again occupied by the Russians during the great Russian Brusilov offensive of 04.06‐20.09.1916, only to fall into Austro–Hungarian hands as a result of the failure of the Russian Kerensky offensive of 01‐19.07.1917. When finally returned to Mylne in 1918 with the inhabitants, the village was destroyed, and the newly built church in 1914 had its tower demolished. Ministered in Mylne till c. 1921, when, after the end of World War I, the rebirth of the Polish state, the Polish‐Ukrainian War of 1918‐1919, and the Polish victory in the Polish–Russian War of 1919‐1921 — during which the village changed hands, successively from Ukrainian to Polish, then to Russian and to Polish again — the village finally found itself within the borders of the Polish state.

In 1933, became the administrator of a small curacy parish in the village of Sernyky Dolyshny, c. 40 km north of Stanislaviv, halfway between Rohatyn and Halych, then in the Rohatyn county of the Polish Stanislaviv Voivodeship. Based on the results of the 1921 census, it can be assumed that in 1939 Sernyky Dolyshny had an estimated population of c. 1,500 people, of whom Roman Catholic Poles constituted c. 73% and Greek Catholic Ukrainians c. 25%. The village also had c. 35 Jews. However, the Schematismus of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Lviv states that in c. 1938 there were c. 591 parishioners of the curacy, fewer than the estimated figures would suggest. The village also had a house/palace belonging to the family of the owners of the village and the estate, Krzeczunowicz, of Armenian origin. Sernyky Dolyshny neighbored with two other villages situated along the small Uyasdsky Potik, a tributary of the Naraivka River — Sarnki Srednye and Sarnyky Verkhne, both villages inhabited by c. 95% Ukrainians. In Rohatyn county, where these villages were located, in the rural areas Roman Catholics constituted c. 21% of the population, Greek Catholics c. 75%, and Jews c. 3%.

After the German and Russian invasion of Poland in 09.1939 and the start of World War II, pursuant to the genocidal German–Russian agreement of 23.08.1939, known as the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, confirmed on 28.09.1939, by the so‐called „Treaty on the Borders and Friendship between Germany and Russia”, also known as the second Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, the village found itself under Russian occupation. Many Polish soldiers did not return to their families, having either found themselves in Russian or German internment camps or having made their way west, where the formation of the Polish army began. I.a. — as it seems — the Krzeczunowicz family abandoned their estate (the last owner of the estate in Sernyky Dolyshny died in 1988 in Paris). Arrests of Polish intelligentsia, teachers, doctors, landowners, government officials, foresters, policemen, and the families of Polish military personnel began. In the years 1940‐1941, many Poles became victims of four large waves of deportations „to Siberia”. Accounts often mention that „they came at night, without warning, and took away entire families, from infants to the elderly”. „When we went out into the yard, they allowed my mother to look into the chest — unfortunately, it was empty, because our neighbors had already emptied it. We took practically nothing, because they did not allow us to move around the house […] There were large snowdrifts and heavy frost”. In addition, 150,000–200,000 men were conscripted into the Russian army, and c. 100,000 were forced to work for Russian industry, mainly in the mines of the Donets Basin, in heavy industry plants in the Urals and in Siberia. Then the surveillance of priests and monks began. The clergy were subjected to high taxes.

On 22.06.1941, the Germans attacked their erstwhile ally, the Russians, and the German occupation began. Sernyky Dolyshny became part of the Germ. Kreishauptmannschaft Brzeżany (Eng. Berezhany County), within the Germ. Distrikt Galizien (Eng. District of Galicia), a part of the German‐occupied and run quasi‐state called the Germ. Generalgouvernement (Eng. General Governorate), i.e. GG.

At the beginning of 1942, the Germans began implementing the genocidal plan called Germ. «Endlösung der Judenfrage» (Eng. Final Solution of the Jewish Question), which in the GG had a codename Germ. «Aktion Reinhardt» (Eng. Operation Reinhardt). It is not clear when and under what circumstances the Jews were deported from Sernyky Dolyshny, but it can be assumed with a certain degree of probability that their last route led through the town of Burshtyn, located c. 12 km west of Sernyky. In Burshtyn, Jews prob. constituted c. 38% of the inhabitants. According to Jewish sources, in 1939 there were c. 1,800 of them, although the estimates based on available census data suggest there could have been as many as c. 2,200 of them. Some left the town during the Russian occupation. After the beginning of the occupation, Germans established a de facto ghetto in Burshtyn, an open one — i.e. not surrounded by a fence or wall. However, Jews were not allowed to leave the ghetto, because from 15.10.1941, the German „law on residence restrictions” in the GG was in force, signed by the Germ. Generalgouverneur (Eng. Governor General) of the GG, Hans Frank, according to which „Jews who leave the district designated for them 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 helpers are subject to the same punishment as the perpetrator; an attempted act will be punished as a completed act. In less serious cases, heavy imprisonment or imprisonment may be imposed”. In the ghetto, the Germans established the Germ. Judenrat (Eng. Jewish Council), responsible for order, the maintenance of which was imposed by the Germ. Jüdischer Ordnungsdienst (Eng. Jewish Police). Outside, the ghetto was controlled by the Germans, with the help of Ukrainian, collaborationist Germ. Ukrainische Hilfspolizei (Eng. Ukrainian Auxiliary Police), in some regions also referred to as Germ. Schutzmannschaft (Eng. Protection Battalions), i.e. Schuma. Jews from nearby villages and settlements began to be herded into the ghetto in Burshtyn, prob. also from Sernyky Dolyshny. According to Jewish sources, „their Ukrainian neighbors robbed them along the way, and many were murdered”. Some Jews were deported to slave labor camps. At the end of the summer of 1942, there were c. 1,650 Jews in the ghetto. On 21.09.1942, the first Germ. Aktion (Eng. Operation) took place, during which c. 200 Jews were deported to the railway station in Rohatyn, and from there to the Germ. Vernichtungslager (Eng. extermination camp) VL Belzec, where they were murdered. Finally, between 10‐26.10.1942, the remaining Jews were deported to Bukachivtsi, c. 10 km to the west, where there was also a railway station, and from there to VL Belzec. In all these actions Ukrainian collaborators of the Germ. Ukrainische Hilfspolizei participated. As Jewish sources report: „a certain number of Jews managed to avoid roundups and found shelter with local villagers, often for a fee. Many of them, however, were denounced or detected by the Germ. Ukrainische Hilfspolizei, shot or added to deportation transports”. In 1943 was then possible to report that the area was Germ. „Judenfrei” (Eng. „free of Jews”), which was reflected in the census of c. 01.03.1943, which showed that only 2,302 people lived in Burshtyn, and only 1,103 in Sernyky Dolyshny.

And it was then, in 02.1943 1943, in Volyn, c. 150 km to the north, that 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 (Eng. Armed Forces) 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 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 ranks. Perhaps as many as 10,000 Ukrainians did so.

The tactics of the genocidal Ukrainians were detailed in an order issued by the UPA commander in Volyn — from 11.1943 commander of the Operational Group „UPA‐North” — Dmytro Klachkivsky, nom de guerre „Klym Savur”, in 06.1943. 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”.

Volyn was drenched in Polish blood. Tens of thousands of Poles were murdered by the Ukrainians — with German passivity — in an extremely barbaric manner. Hundreds of villages were burned.

Although Shukhevych's order and the UPA's appeal were not formally addressed to the units of the Germ. Ukrainische Hilfspolizei in the Germ. Distrikt Galizien — because there in 1943 the genocidal OUN did not establish an armed wing under the name UPA, but formed armed units under a euphemistic name, so as not to „annoy” the Germans, of the Ukr. Українська Народна Самооборона (Eng. Ukrainian National Self‐Defense), i.e. UNS — but de facto also there the Ukrainian génocidaires, „unemployed” after the end of the German «Aktion Reinhardt», deserted and joined the UNS. The commander of the UNS at that time was a certain Alexander Lutsky, nom de guerre „Andriyenko”, a degenerate with a similar „career path”as the aforementioned genocide killer, Roman Shukhevych — from the Germ. Sondergruppe Nachtigall, through the Germ. Schutzmannschaftsbataillon 201, where they gained experience in the extermination of Jews, to the UNS. His orders in the Berezhany area were carried out by a certain Hryhoryi Golash, nom de guerre „Bey”, about whom much is known, but almost nothing about the years 1941‐1943, when the Germ. Ukrainische Hilfspolizei participated in the implementation of the Germ. «Endlösung der Judenfrage» — perhaps because his brother Stepan, who survived and settled in the United States, was for years a prominent member of the „Litopys UPA” Publishing Company, glorifying the genocidal activities of the OUN/UPA.

And it was then, in c. 06.1943, that the UNS — as well as local Ukrainian groups, operating, i.a. under another euphemistic name Ukr. Самооборонні кущові відділи (Eng. Self‐Defense Unit), i.e. the SKW, which had the character of a rural militia, turned its attention to the Poles. The UNS had nothing else to do at the time, because — as even Ukrainian Wikipedia confirms — „during the last months of 1943, UNS units did not conduct armed operations due to the introduction on 02.10.1943, by the Germans in Galicia of the system [of collective responsibility] of executing 10 hostages for the murder of every German soldier or official”. The Poles did not participate in the structures of the occupational government.

The first attacks on Poles in the Berezhany region took place in 10.1943. They began with attacks on Roman Catholic priests. On 12.10.1943, in the village of Skomorokhy, c. 5 km from his Sernyky Dolyshny parish, Ukrainians murdered Fr Thaddeus Stroński, and on the same day in the village of Biblo, c. 10 km from Sernyky, Fr Anthony Wierzbowski. In the same 10.1943, Ukrainian génocidaires managed to attack the village of Bilshivtsi, c. 10 km to the south, and murdered — using axes and knives — 16 Polish families, i.e. c. 70 Poles. There were also individual murderous attacks on his parishioners in Sernyky Dolyshny.

At the beginning of 1944 — in view of the launch on 24.12.1943 by the Russians of the strategic offensive known as the Dnieper–Carpathian Operation, which was to lead to the shifting of the German–Russian fighting front deep into the Germ. Distrikt Galizien and the establishment of a battle line on c. 17.04.1944, c. 70 km east of his parish — the génocidaire „Taras Chuprynka” Shukhevych issued an order to start the «Genocidium Atrox» in the Eastern Galicia. This was to be achieved, i.a. by renaming the UNS to the OUN/UPA operational group „UPA‐West”. The first commander of „UPA‐West” was the aforementioned Alexander Lutsky, nom de guerre „Andriyenko”, to be replaced in 01.1944 by another genocide perpetrator, Vasyl Sydor, nom de guerre „Shelest”, who ordered „to strike Poles relentlessly until they are destroyed to the last man on these lands”. And he, an „outstanding” Ukrainian, followed a similar path of honing his genocidal craft — from the Germ. Sondergruppe Nachtigall, through the Germ. Schutzmannschaftsbataillon 201, to «Genocidium Atrox» — as his boss, Shukhevych.

And then the genocidal OUN/UPA attacked his village.

The day before, on the night of 17‐18.02.1944, the OUN/UPA attacked the Polish village of Ludvikivka, c. 5 km west of Sernyky Dolyshny, in the direction of Burshtyn. Sources state that the village „was burned to the ground […] c. 300‐500 people died, and 100‐200 youth and children froze to death while escaping during the night”. Others elaborate: „They murdered people in a horrific manner. They impaled small children on pitchforks and threw them into the fire alive, and burned adults in their own homes or drove them into the barn and set them on fire”.

On 19.02.1944, Ukrainian génocidaires attacked Sernyky Dolyshny.

They stormed the rectory.

They were supposed to torture him.

And after the torture, was shot.

Along with him, the OUN/UPA murderers slaughtered 16 other Poles.

The village was burned down.

The parish priest of Burshtyn, Fr Stanislav Stankiewicz, wrote in a letter dated 24.04.1944, to his Metropolitan Curia in Lviv that in Sernyky Dolyshny „the remaining parishioners, fearing for their lives, made efforts to change their rite. They raided my rectory and forcibly took the birth records from the Sernyky Dolyshny parish office and transported them to the Greek Catholic parish office in Sernyky Srednye […] They also swore an oath of allegiance to the Ukrainian nation and the Greek Catholic religion”.

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”. On 10.12.2017, on behalf of the „Coordination Council for the Commemoration of Decorated Knights of the OUN and UPA”, génocidaire Vasyl Sydor was posthumously awarded in Lviv the Silver Cross of Military Merit of the UPA, 1st Class (No. 009). In several locations, monuments and commemorative plaques have been erected to these Lat. „hostis humani generis” — e.g. in Bodnariv, a monument was erected to the genocide killer Alexander Lutsky, and in Lviv, a commemorative plaque was erected to Hryhoriy Golash — the schools were named after them.

Lat. „O Tempora! O mores!”