During World War I, in 1916‐1918, chaplain in the Army of the Austro–Hungarian Monarchy.

In 1939/1940, after the German and Russian invasion of Poland in 09.1939 and the outbreak of World War II — pursuant to the genocidal German–Russian agreement of 23.08.1939, known as the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, confirmed on 28.09.28, 1939 by the so‐called „Treaty on the German–Russian Frontiers and Friendship”, also known as the Second Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact — when his then parish, Bohdanivka, found itself in territory granted by the allies to Russia, and the Russian occupation began, transferred to a branch parish / curacy in the village of Kotsubyntsi, located in the Kopychyntsi county of the Polish Ternopil Voivodeship, c. 7 km from the county seat of Kopychyntsi and c. 17 km from the border town of Husiatyn. The previous administrator of the curacy, Fr Thaddeus Gajdek, reserve chaplain of the Polish Army, prob. in 09.1939, left Poland with the Polish army and found himself in Budapest, ministering there in the military parish. In 1939, Kotsubyntsi had an estimated population of c. 2,400 people, of whom Roman Catholic Poles constituted c. 36%, Greek Catholic Ukrainians c. 61%, and Jews c. 2%.

In 1938, there were c. 966 Catholics covered by curacy's ministry.

The Russians subjected Poles in particular to repression, arresting Polish intelligentsia, teachers, doctors, landowners, government officials, foresters, policemen, and also families of Polish servicemen. Many other 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 look into the chest — unfortunately, it was empty, because our neighbors had already emptied it. We took practically nothing with us, because they didn't let us 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. High taxes were imposed on the clergy, and religious education was removed from schools. Must also have been aware of the fate of a group of young Poles from Chortkiv, c. 15 km away — aged 18‐22, and even younger — who were at risk of being drafted into the Russian army. With the knowledge and support of the prior of the Dominican Order monastery, Fr Justin John Spyrłak, a decision was made to attempt to get to France, where the Polish government was then forming Polish military units. The intention was to seize Russian military barracks, free those held in prison, seize the railway station and use a captured train to reach Romania and from there to France. The operation — the first such uprising during World War II, which went down in history as the „Chortkiv Uprising” — was planned for the anniversary of the outbreak of the anti‐Russian January Uprising of 1863. The attack on the barracks on 21.01.1940, however, failed, and the Russians quickly mobilized large armed forces, including the genocidal NKVD. News of the Polish action reached the highest levels of Russian power, including the Kremlin. c. 128 young Poles were quickly arrested. By 23.01.1940, 242 had been arrested, and by 25.04.1940, as many as 540. All were interrogated and tortured. A show trial was held for those arrested, at which at least 21 people were sentenced to death — the sentences were carried out — and 55 were sent to Russian slave labor camps, i.e. Gulag, and most of the rest were deported deep into Russia, „to Siberia”.

After the German attack on 22.06.1941 on their erstwhile ally, the Russians, and the beginning of the German occupation, his Kotsubyntsi found themselves in the Germ. Kreishauptmannschaft Czortków (Eng. Chortkiv 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 first victims of the German occupier were Jews. Already at the turn of 1941/1942, the Germans began implementing the genocidal plan Germ. «Endlösung der Judenfrage» (Eng. Final Solution of the Jewish Question), i.e. the extermination of the Jews, codenamed Germ. «Aktion Reinhardt» (Eng. Operation Reihardt) in the GG, and throughout 1942, they systematically brought groups of Jews from nearby villages to the aforementioned Kopychyntsi. When they drove the Jews from Kotsubyntsi there is unknown. The number of Jews in the de facto ghetto in Kopychyntsi — already on 12.07.1941, a few days after the beginning of the occupation, Jews were forbidden to leave the town — fluctuated as new groups were brought from nearby villages and deported for extermination (c. 2,500 in 1939; 3,123 in 06.1942; 2,915 in 10.1942; 5,000 in 05.1943, after the Jews from Buchach were brought there). From 11.1941 by 10.1942, c. 500 Jews were deported to slave labor camps, including to the plantations of the Kazakh dandelion (i.e. Taraxacum kok‐saghyz), a plant from Central Asia, cultivated for the rubber contained in the milky sap of its roots, which the German company Continental AG produced for the German war machine. After some time, everyone was murdered there. The first large‐scale deportation, i.e. Germ. Aktion (Eng. Operation), took place on 30.09.1942, when c. 1,000 Jews were transported to the Germ. Vernichtungslager (Eng. Extermination Camp) VL Belzec, where they were all murdered. The unfortunates were herded to the railway station in Kopychyntsi — under German supervision — by policemen from the collaborating Germ. Ukrainische Hilfspolizei (Eng Ukrainian Auxiliary Police), in some regions also operating as Germ. Schutzmannschaft (Eng. Protection Battalions), i.e. Schuma, and by the Germ. Jüdischer Ordnungsdienst (Eng. Jewish Order Service), operating in the ghetto, killing about 50 Jews in the process. c. 200 Jews died of hunger and disease during the winter of 1942/1943. The second Germ. Aktion took place on 15.04.1943, when the same criminals dragged c. 500 Jews from their apartments, drove them to the railway station, forced them to kneel over previously dug holes and killed them all by shots to the back of the head. Many were buried, although they were still alive. The largest Germ. Aktion took place on 03‐11.06.1943, when the Germans and their Ukrainian auxiliaries murdered c. 4,000 people in Kopychyntsi. The remaining 1,000 Jews were transported to neighboring ghettos and labor camps, where almost all of them perished. On 20.07.1943, the Germans could announce that Kopychyntsi was Germ. „Judenrein” (Eng. „free of Jews”).

Providing help was practically impossible. Any kind of help was punishable by death — from 25.10.1941, a decree issued by the Germ. Generalgouverneur (Eng. General Governor) of the GG, Hans Frank, was in force, 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 a completed act. In less serious cases, heavy imprisonment or prison may be imposed”. Nevertheless, it is known that the Ukrainian Karpiszyn family hid a Jew, Eliyahu Festa, for which in 1996 three of their members were honored by the Israeli Yad Vashem Institute with the title of „Righteous Among the Nations”.

And it was then, in 02 1943, several hundred kilometers to the north‐east, in Volyn, 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.

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 was not formally addressed to the units of the Germ. Ukrainische Hilfspolizei in the Germ. Distrikt Galizien — for there, in 1943, the genocidal OUN did not establish an armed wing under the name UPA, but formed armed units under a euphemistic name, to „confuse” the Germans, of Ukr. Українська Народна Самооборона (Eng. Ukrainian National Self–Defense), i.e. UNS — but de facto also there the Ukrainian genociders, „unemployed” after the end of the Germ. «Aktion Reinhardt», deserted and joined the UNS. Initially, however — according to Ukrainian and Russian sources — the UNS was established to oppose the so‐called Kovpak raid. Sidor Kovpak, a Ukrainian communist, on the orders of the Russians, set off from the historic Seversky region, near the border between Ukrainian and Belarusian lands, with 2,000 Russian partisans westward. Through Volyn, made his way, essentially undisturbed, to the vicinity of Ternopil in the GG. There began sabotage operations and, e.g. blew up a railway viaduct on the Ternopil–Volochysk route, east of Ternopil, on the most important rail line for armaments supplies to the German army, which was then fighting in the decisive battle of World War II in the east, the tank battle of Kursk, disrupting and weakening the German military effort for several weeks. UNS not only failed to achieve his goal of opposing Kovpak, but in several cases actually allowed the partisans to move without a fight. The Ukrainian population in many villages supported the Russian action. The Germans, on the other hand, responded with large forces, pursuing the moving unit, attacking it, e.g. using aircraft, and in several places surrounding it. Each time, the partisans managed to break through the rings of the raid. In 07.1943, Kovpak's unit broke through from the vicinity of Skalat, c. 30 km east of Ternopil, to Halych on the Dniester. On the way, it passed through Kotsubyntsi, where, according to Ukrainian sources, murdered one of its inhabitants, a member of the genocidal OUN.

And in 12.1943 — when it became clear that the Germans were losing the war in the East, i.e. on 24.12.1943, a major Russian offensive called the Dnieper–Carpathian Operation began — the UNS was formally transformed into a genocidal „UPA‐West” OUN/UPA unit. In 01.1944, its commander was another of the Ukrainian „trainees” of the Germ. Sondergruppe Nachtigall and the Germ. Schutzmannschaftsbataillon 201, the degenerate Vasyl Sydor, nom de guerre „Shelest”, who almost immediately ordered „to strike the Poles continuously until they are exterminated to the last one from these lands”. The «Genocidium Atrox» began in the Germ. Distrikt Galizien.

The UNS/UPA had nothing else to do at the time, because — as even the 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 belong to these „officials”. Moreover, the Germans behaved passively towards the genocidal acts of the UNS/UPA, generally not undertaking major operations against Ukrainians.

In the area of Chortkiv and Kopychyntsi, the orders of the génocidaireSydor were carried out by the commander of the UPA Military District WO‐3 „Lysonya”, Emilian Polowy, nom de guerre „Ostap”, whose „career path” was identical to that of his superiors — i.e. throuh the Germ. Sondergruppe Nachtigall and the Germ. Schutzmannschaftsbataillon 201, where they gained experience in the extermination of Jews. It seems that the inhabitants of Kotsubyntsi were not attacked at that time, although on 12.03.1944, in Maidan, c. 12 km away, „A group of armed Banderites pacified Polish farms, burning them and murdering Polish inhabitants”. The investigation, reference number S 26/02/Zi, conducted years later by the Polish Institute of National Remembrance IPN in Wrocław, was to state that „c. 100 Poles were shot or burned alive, their belongings were robbed and most of their properties were burned”. This may have been because in Kotsubyntsi there was a Greek Catholic parish of the Stanislaviv eparchy, whose ordinary, Bp Gregory Khomyshyn, opposed nationalist and genocidal policies of the OUN. According to the IPN, Bp Khomyshyn „opposed the regulation of the German occupation authorities regarding the involvement of Greek Catholic priests in the formation of the SS‐Galizien Division, forbidding priests from leaving their jobs in parishes and serving as chaplains of the division”. The Greek Catholic Metropolitan of Lviv, Abp Andrew Sheptytsky, did exactly the opposite.

The situation changed after the Russians entered. The Russians captured Chortkiv and Kopychyntsi on c. 22‐23.03.1944, and the Russian occupation began. The new occupier began actively fighting the UPA, especially since the UPA began — in addition to constant genocidal attacks on Poles — to attack Russians. It came to a point that on 01.09.1944, Vasyl Sydor „Shelest” ordered a halt to actions against Polish civilians, but the order did not include „the Polish element collaborating with the NKVD and the organs of Moscow imperialism”. The OUN/UPA was still to attack „Polish militia 20 strong in any locality. One–third or half of them should be destroyed, the rest disarmed and warned that if they do not stop collaborating with the Bolsheviks against us, they will also be destroyed next time”.

And then was murdered by the Ukrainians. Ukrainian hatred towards the Polish population — which on 28.09.1941, a nun, Sr Sophie Matilde Ustyanowicz CSIC, serving at the time in the Congregation house of the Sisters of the Immaculate Conception CSIC in Yazlovets, c. 40 km west of Kotsubyntsi, described in a letter to her superior: „You have to devote yourself to the local population (I am talking about educational work) […] Spreading hatred towards everything Polish has completely depraved this unfortunate people. Social relations after this war will change the world even more than after that one [i.e. World War I]” — became evident.

On 06‐07.02.1945, the attack on Kotsubyntsi was prob. carried out by the sotnias of the kurenny Peter Khamchuk, nom de guerre ukr. „Бистрий” (Eng. „Smart”) — possibly a Ukr. „Чорноморці” (Eng. „Black See men”) and/or Ukr. „Сірі вовки” (Eng. „Gray Wolves”) sotnias — which on 26.01.1945 carried out a second attack on the above‐mentioned Maidan, murdering 178 people, including Fr Adalbert Rogowski. Perhaps agents of the genocidal Ukr. Служба Безпеки (Eng. Security Service), i.e. SB OUN, whose task was to track down political and ideological opponents of the OUN, carry out their physical liquidation, and also participate in the murders of the Polish population, took part in the attack. Sources indicate that „SB OUN could only issue death sentences to "enemies of the Ukrainian nation" […] For minor offenses, the so‐called buki were used, i.e. beatings with beech sticks from 10 to 50 strokes. Major offenses were punished by death. The sentence was carried out by shooting or hanging […] some group commanders "chopped off the heads of their victims"” The SB OUN was founded in 1940, under the watchful eyes of the Germans, and training was conducted, among others, in Zakopane, at the „Stamary” hotel. According to the contemporary website of this hotel, „the training included the principles of sabotage, Gestapo methods of interrogation and methods of killing”. At the same time, i.e. on 20.02.1940, in Zakopane, at the „Pan Tadeusz” (Eng. „Sir Thaddeus”) and „Telimena” villas, the third so‐called „thematic conference” of the Germ. Geheime Staatspolizei (Eng. Secret State Police), i.e. Gestapo, and the Russian Rus. Народный Комиссариат Внутренних Дел (Eng. People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs), i.e. NKVD, two genocidal allied organizations, debating cooperation and ways of combating and exterminating Poles in the territories they occupied. In Zakopane, all these undertakings were supervised by the Gestapo, which had its headquarters in the „Palace” villa, where Polish patriots were being murdered.

His rectory was attacked.

Was tortured for five hours: skinned, his wounds filled with ink, and boiling water poured over him.

Finally, was nailed to a wall and targeted for knife‐throwing.

Murdered along with the organist Albin Łobocki, five other Poles, and four Ukrainians who supported the Poles or simply disliked the OUN/UPA.

A month earlier, the génocidaire Emilian Polowy was to receive the Bronze Cross of Military Merit of the UPA. Meanwhile, the génocidaire Roman Shukhevych was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of Ukraine on 12.10.2007. 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”, the schools were named after them.

Lat. „O Tempora! O mores!”