From 1935 ministered in the village of Tyudiv, in the Polish Kosiv county, Stanislaviv voivodeship, situated on the border river Cheremosh, in the historic land of Pokuttia, in the south of Red Ruthenia region. In 1939, the parish village was inhabited by c. 1,700 people, apart from a few Jews and perhaps Poles, exclusively Greek Catholic Ukrainians. In his parish in 1938, there were 2,721 faithful. The nearest town was Kuty, c. 6 km to the east, where there was a bridge connecting Poland with Romania. In 1939, an estimated 7,000‐9,000 people lived in Kuty, roughly one‐third Greek Catholic Ukrainians, one‐third Jews, and one‐third Roman Catholic Poles and Armenians — Kuty was the place of residence of the largest group of Armenians in Poland at that time.

After the German and Russian attack on Poland in 09.1939 and the start of World War II, upon hearing of the Russian invasion, Polish Army soldiers and high–ranking Polish officials, including the President of Poland, Ignatius Mościcki, crossed the bridge in Kuty into Romania on 17.09.1939. A few days later, the Russians occupied Tyudiv — 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 Frontiers and Friendship between Germany and Russia” of 28.09.1939, also known as the Second Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. The Russian occupation began.

During the Russian occupation, Poles, like the inhabitants of other villages and towns, experienced Russian persecution. Mass arrests began. In four large deportations deep into Russia, „to Siberia”, the Russians deported between 340,000 and 1,000,000 Polish citizens, entire families, „especially those who held significant positions”, i.e. teachers, officers and military settlers, political activists, estate owners, businessmen, officials, and other wealthy individuals, deemed by the Russians to be „a hostile and harmful element”. Thus, in the first of these, around 10.02.1940, in the middle of a particularly frosty winter, c. 88,385 people were deported from „Western Ukraine”, including from Pokuttya, where ministered.

Virtually none of them returned to their homeland.

On 22.06.1941, the Germans attacked their erstwhile ally, the Russians. His village was prob. initially entered by Hungarian troops collaborating with the Germans, to be replaced by the Germans in 08.1941. Tyudiv found itself in the Germ. Kreishauptmannschaft Kolomea (Eng. Kolomyia County), within the Germ. Distrikt Galizien (Eng. District of Galicia), part of the German‐occupied and run quasi‐state called the Germ. Generalgouvernement (Eng. General Governorate), i.e. GG. The persecution of Jews began immediately. In its vicinity, the Germans established a ghetto in Kosiv, c. 15 km from Tyudiv. Before the war, Kosiv had a population of c. 7,500, of whom c. 60% were Jews. The ghetto was established at the turn of 1941 and 1942 (formally in the spring of 1942) and was open, i.e. a special district was designated for Jews, without a boundary wall. Jews from surrounding villages and towns were systematically brought in there. At the beginning of 1942, the Germans began implementing the plan Germ. «Endlösung der Judenfrage» (Eng. Final Solution of the Jewish Question), i.e. extermination of the Jewish community, in the GG referred to by the German codename «Aktion Reinhardt» (Eng. Operation Reinhardt). In Kosiv it had started earlier — on 16‐17.10.1941, the Germans, with the help of the collaborative Ukrainian Germ. Ukrainische Hilfspolizei (Eng. Ukrainian Auxiliary Police), in some regions also operating as Germ. Schutzmannschaft (Eng. Protection Battalions), i.e. Schuma, murdered c. 2,100 Jews in Kosiv. In 1942, as part of several Germ. Aktions (Eng. operations) — e.g. on 24.04.1942 and 07‐08.09.1942, when the Germ. Aktion also included Jews from Kuty and prob. Tyudiv — Jews were deported from Kosiv to Kolomyia, and from there by rail to the Germ. Vernichtungslager (Eng. extermination camp) VL Belzec, where they were all murdered. In total, the Germans murdered c. 10,000 Jews who passed through the Kosiv ghetto, and in 11.1942 they were able to declare that Kosiv had become Germ. „Judenrein” (Eng. „free of Jews”). Only a small number of Jews managed to escape and hide in the surrounding forests.

Immediately afterwards, in 02.1943, c. 250 km to the north, in Volyn, 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.

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.

Shukhevych's appeal was 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 — so as not to „annoy” the Germans — an armed wing called the UPA, but formed armed units under the euphemistic name of Ukr. Українська Народна Самооборона (Eng. Ukrainian National Self‐Defense), i.e. UNS — but de facto also there, Ukrainian génocidaires, „unemployed” after the end of the Germ. «Aktion Reinhardt», deserted and joined the UNS. Their main goal, like the OUN/UPA, was the extermination of the Polish population, although its internal documentation and reports ostentatiously stated „defense against the terror of the German authorities”. When at the turn of 1943/1944 it became clear that Germany was losing the war in the East — on 24.12.1943, the great Russian offensive called the Dnieper–Carpathian Operation began — the OUN/UPA decided to extend the «Genocidium Atrox» genocide to the GG, including the Germ. Distrikt Galizien. Most of the mentioned Ukrainian „self‐defense” UNS groups automatically transformed into OUN/UPA units. The Ukrainians then created, among others, the OUN/UPA operational group „UPA‐West”, under the command of Vasyl Sydor, nom de guerre „Shelest”, who ordered „to constantly strike at the Poles until they are completely destroyed from these lands”. The UPA Military District WO‐4 „Howerla”, commanded by Mykola Tverdokhlib, nom de guerre „Hrin” (Eng. „Thunder”), was responsible for implementing the «Genocidium Atrox» in the area of Kosiv and Kuty. Both degenerates, Sydor and Tverdokhlib, perfected their genocidal craft in 1941 in the Ukrainian Germ. Sondergruppe Nachtigall, and the former also in the Germ. Schutzmannschaftsbataillon 201 — just like their chief commander, the aforementioned Roman Shukhevych.

At the beginning of 03.1944, the Russian offensive began approaching Pokutya and Bukovina. The Germans, for tactical reasons, abandoned Kuty on the night of 19‐20.03.1944, although it was not until 29.03.1944, that the Russians captured three important towns on the Prut River, c. 30‐40 km from Tyudiv: Chernivtsi, Sniatyn, and Kolomyia. Over the next month, the fighting front in the area was practically established around the Prut River and the railway line running along it — the Russians were fortifying and replenishing supplies, while the Germans were preparing to defend further frontiers. A strip c. 50 km wide southwest of this line, encompassing, among others, Kuty and Tyudiv, was in the meantime de facto no man's land.

Ukrainian génocidaires from the OUN/UPA took advantage of this. Carried out a whole series of attacks, e.g. on Kuty. Witnesses reported: „On March 19 or 20 […] we met a dozen or so men on horseback, peasants with sheepskin coats on their heads. They were riding from the direction of Tyudiv”. „Banderites murdered the Berezovsky family. It was a shocking murder. The Banderites cut off the heads of the father, three sons, and the daughter and placed them on plates set for dinner with milk and mamalyga, and forced the mother to watch all this. Is it any wonder that the unfortunate woman lost her mind?”.

In early 04.1944, there was a break in the genocidal attacks for several days: „Around April 10, 1944, a detachment of Soviet soldiers entered Kuty and stationed itself in the town for several days, guaranteeing the safety of the local population from attacks by UPA bandits. After a week's stay, the detachment suddenly left Kuty for a few days, leaving the residents at the mercy of the UPA bandits. It later turned out that this commander was Ukrainian and had reached an agreement with the Banderites, giving them a free hand for a few days to deal with the Poles. For three days, UPA militias murdered Poles and Armenians, the inhabitants of Kuty, with impunity. They robbed and burned most of the Polish homes. They murdered at least 200 people. Some of the residents managed to hide or escape […] The murdered were buried in various pits. To this day, it is not known where and in what places they were buried”.

And then was murdered.

Polish sources claim that the reason was „favoring the Poles”.

His son was also murdered — because the family was „mixed”, i.e. his wife may have been Polish or Armenian. According to other sources, „six Poles” were murdered with him.

The same sources state that the perpetrators were militants from the SB OUN, perhaps from the Tyudiv, since the memories quoted above suggest the participation of the inhabitants of this village in the murders of Poles in Kuty and the surrounding area. SB OUN, i.e. the Ukr. Служба Безпеки (Eng. Security Service), whose task was to track down political and ideological opponents of the OUN, was founded back in 1940, under the watchful eye of the Germans. 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 Germ. Geheime Staatspolizei (Eng. Secret State Police), i.e. the Gestapo, which in Zakopane had its headquarters in the „Palace” villa, where Polish patriots were being murdered. The choice of Zakopane and Kraków as training places for future génocidaires was not accidental. At the same time, i.e. in 1939‐1940, the Germans and Russians were agreeing and specifying the details of the extermination of the Polish intelligentsia and leaders. This happened at four so‐called thematic conferences, when the German Gestapo, and the Rus. Народный Комиссариат Внутренних Дел (Eng. People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs), i.e. 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 immediately afterwards in Przemyśl. The third was held 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. In turn, „graduates” of SB OUN training were later to lead and participate in genocidal attacks on the Polish community, i.e. «Genocidium Atrox».

Finally, the Russians entered Kuty and Tyudiv on 21.04.1944. The Dnieper–Carpathian Operation ended — the Russian offensive was also interrupted for the duration of the war.

On 12.10.2007, the génocidaire Roman Shukhevych was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of Ukraine. On 10.12.2017, on behalf of the „Coordination Council for the Commemoration of Decorated Knights of the OUN and UPA”, genocidal perpetrator Mykola Tverdokhlib was posthumously awarded in Ivano–Frankivsk (i.e. Stanislaviv) the Bronze Cross of Military Merit of the UPA (No. 042). In several locations, monuments and commemorative plaques have been erected to these Lat. „hostis humani generis”, schools bear their name.

Lat. „O Tempora! O mores!”