From 1936, ministered in the village of Leszczowate, in the Lesko county of the Lviv voivodeship, in the heart of the Bieszczady Mountains. The village had an estimated population of c. 1,200 people, of whom Greek Catholic Rusyns/Ukrainians constituted c. 93%, Roman Catholic Poles c. 4%, and c. 50 Jews lived there — i.e. it was a de facto Rusyn village, even though Poles constituted c. 16% of the entire county.

Not much is known about his views or attitudes, but it can be assumed that was a priest who supported the Ukrainization policy of his Greek Catholic Church hierarchy, which at the turn of the 1920s and 1930s led to i.a. the wave of mass conversions of Lemkos to Orthodoxy — c. 18,000 Lemkos/Rusyns left the Church. The Church managed to stop further apostasy of the Lemkos, not thanks to the attitude of its eparchy, but thanks to the establishment of a special Apostolic Administration of the Lemko Region. Mykhailo Baczyński, a member of the Seym, i.e. Parliament, of the Republic of Poland, in his parliamentary speech of 21.01.1931, revealed what the Rusyns had to deal with within the Greek Catholic Church, who were not susceptible to the genocidal — as it turned out — ideology of Ukrainian nationalists: „The Greek Catholic Church was transformed after the war [the Polish–Ukrainian war of 1918‐1919] into an agitational Ukrainian political tribune from which words of love for one’s neighbor are sown, but words of hatred”. Many priests of his eparchy, however, still supported Ukrainian nationalists, close to the genocidal OUN/UPA.

After the German and Russian attack on Poland in 09.1939 and the outbreak of World War II, Lesko County was occupied by the Germans, but shortly thereafter handed it 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 „The Treaty on the Borders and Friendship between Germany and Russia” of 28.09.1939, also known as the Second Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. During the Russian occupation, it was mainly Poles who experienced Russian persecution there. The details were specified at four so‐called thematic conferences, when the Germ. Geheime Staatspolizei (Eng. Secret State Police), i.e. 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 and run quasi‐state called the Germ. Generalgouvernement (Eng. General Governorate), i.e. 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».

One of the first measures of the Russian occupier was the sovietization of schools, which meant, for example, the removal of religious education. Immediately thereafter, mass arrests of Poles began. In four large‐scale deportations deep into Russia, „to Siberia” — the first of which took place around 10.02.1940, in the middle of a particularly frosty winter — the Russians deported from 340,000 to 1,000,000 Polish citizens, entire families, „especially those who held significant positions”, i.e. teachers, officers and military settlers, political activists, property owners, businessmen, officials and other wealthy people, considered by the Russians to be a „hostile and harmful element”. Basically, none of them returned to their homeland. Perhaps, however, his Rusyn parishioners also experienced the benefits of the rússkiy mir (Eng. Russian mir), because a little later, in 03.1943, only 761 inhabitants of the village of Leszczowate were recorded.

After the German attack on 22.06.1941 on their erstwhile ally, the Russians, and the beginning of the German occupation, the village was incorporated into the Germ. Kreishauptmannschaft Sanok (Eng. Sanok County) in the Germ. Distrikt Krakau (Eng. Kraków District), as part of the GG. The Germans — like the Russians — subjected the Poles to particular repressions. But at the same time, began the process of extermination of Jews. The Jews from Leszczowate were driven in c. 06.1942, by the Germans and the collaborating Germ. Ukrainian Hilfspolizei, to a ghetto in Lesko, c. 20 km away, on the right bank of the San River. The Germans established it in Lesko, in which c. 60% of the inhabitants were Jews, in the spring of 1942. However, even earlier, on 25.10.1941, a decree issued by the Germ. Generalgouverneur (Eng. General Governor), Hans Frank, came into force 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 helpers are subject to the same punishment as the perpetrator; an attempted act will be punished as a completed act”. Immediately afterwards, at the beginning of 1942, the Germans began implementing the genocidal plan Germ. «Endlösung der Judenfrage» (Eng. Final Solution of the Jewish Question), which in the GG was known under codename Germ. «Aktion Reinhardt» (Eng. Operation Reinhardt). In 06.1942, when Jews from many locations of the Germ. Kreishauptmannschaft Sanok, including Leszczowate, were driven to Lesko, the number of ghetto inhabitants increased from c. 2,300 to prob. c. 3,900. On c. 04.09.1942, all but c. 100 elderly and infirm people, whom the Germans and the Germ. Ukrainian Hilfspolizei murdered in the cemetery in Lesko — altogether c. 200 Jews were murdered in Lesko during the operation of the ghetto — were herded to the Germ. Zwangsarbeitslager (Eng. Forced Labor Camp) ZL Zaslaw, in the village of Zasław, c. 8 km away, on the other side of the San River. Over the few following days, c. 4,000 Jews were transported from VL Zaslaw to the Germ. Vernichtungslager (Eng. Extermination Camp) VL Belzec, where they were all murdered. ZL Zaslaw was finally liquidated in 1943, but Lesko could have been declared Germ. „Judenrein” (Eng. free of Jews) even earlier.

Meanwhile, in 02.1943, c. 200 km to the north‐east, 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.

Although Shukhevych's order and the UPA appeal were not formally addressed to the units of the Germ. Ukrainische Hilfspolizei in the Germ. Distrikt Galizien and Germ. Distrikt Krakau — 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. De facto however also there the Ukrainian genociders, „unemployed” after the end of the Germ. «Aktion Reinhardt», deserted and joined the UNS, whose 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”. And in 12.1943 — when it became clear that the Germans were losing the war in the East, the UNS was formally transformed into a genocidal „UPA‐West” OUN/UPA unit. In 01.1944, its commander became 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”. Another of the main leaders of the „UPA‐West” group, the génocidaire Miroslav Onyshkevych, nom de guerre „Orest”, on 06.04.1944 specified the tasks of the UPA units under his command: „I order the immediate purging of my region of the Polish element […] The purging should be carried out in the sparsely populated areas by Poles. For this purpose, a militia group composed of our members should be established in the area, whose task would be to eliminate the above‐mentioned. Larger areas will be purged of this element by our military units even in broad daylight […] The purging of the area must be completed before our Easter, so that we can celebrate it without Poles […] Fight them hard and ruthlessly. Spare no one, even in the case of mixed marriages. Pull the Poles out of their homes, but do not eliminate the Ukrainians and children in these houses […] Take out your weapons. Death to the Poles”.

The «Genocidium Atrox» began in the Germ. Distrikt Galizien and Germ. Distrikt Krakau.

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 participate in the structures of this occupation power. Moreover, the Germans behaved passively towards the genocidal acts of the UNS/UPA, generally not undertaking major operations against Ukrainians.

Even far to the west, in the Germ. Distrikt Krakau, Poles began to realize what «Genocidium Atrox» truly meant. Although the scale of the genocide there was not yet large in 1944, traumatized refugees, witnesses to Ukrainian brutality, began to arrive from the east‐both from Volyn and the Germ. Distrikt Galizien. The Polish Clandestine State and its Polish partisans from the Home Army AK and the Peasant Battalions BCh began to participate in the formation of self‐defense units.

And on 30.07.1944, the genocidal OUN/UPA attacked Poles in a cluster of neighboring villages in his parish: Leszczowate, Ropienka, Brelików, and Wańkowa. C. 54 Poles and a Ukrainian woman, the wife of a Pole, were murdered. In 09.1944, a second attack took place, during which another 29 Poles were prob.murdered in Leszczowate.

This may have happened before 13.09.1944, when the Russians, as part of the offensive known as the Dukla‐Prešov Operation, entered Leszczowate and the Russian occupation began, but this is not clear. The Dukla–Prešov Operation was not a success for the Russians, and was halted on 10.1944. Similarly, the much larger Lviv–Sandomierz Operation was halted already in 08.1944 — on the orders of the highest Russian authorities. The cause was the outbreak of the Warsaw Uprising on 01.08.1944, i.e. an attempt by the Polish Clandestine State to seize power on Polish territory before the Russians entered. The Russians, de facto in a momentary strategic collusion with the Germans, allowed the Germans to crush the Uprising and murder c. 200,000 Poles. This meant that Przemyśl and its surroundings, including the area around Brzuska, became a front‐line area, till 01.1945 a place of quartering for thousands of Russian soldiers. The overwhelming strength of the Russian front troops was such that on 04.09.1944, Vasyl Sydor nom de guerre „Shelest” ordered a halt to the action against the Polish civilian population, but the order did not include the „Polish element collaborating with the NKVD and the organs of Moscow imperialism”. The OUN/UPA was to attack „a Polish militia of 20 people in a given 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”.

On 12.01.1945, the Russians launched a decisive offensive in the east, the so‐called Vistula–Oder Operation. They were secured in the rear, because the Polish Clandestine State and the Home Army AK, due to the Germans" bloody suppression of the Warsaw Uprising, were very weakened, so it was possible to leave the occupied territories under the control of the genocidal NKVD and the Polish traitors collaborating with it, i.e. the so‐called Russian Polish Republic „prl”. At the same time, the Polish government operating in London and the Polish Clandestine State decided to disband the AK. This happened on 19.01.1945.

And then, in the lands abandoned by the Russian frontline troops, the genocidal OUN/UPA began to become active. This particularly concerned the area between the so‐called Curzon–Namier line and the San, i.e. between the Bug and San rivers, referred to by Ukrainians as Zakerzonia, was considered by the OUN/UPA to be the western part of the future Ukrainian state. The Curzon–Namier line was a demarcation line between Poland and the Russian Bolsheviks, proposed to the Russians on 11.07.1920, by the British Foreign Secretary, George Curzon, during the great Russian offensive during the Polish–Russian War of 1919‐1921, suggested by the so‐called expert, Lewis Bernstein Namier, a Jew of Polish origin. Russia — contrary to the plans of the British imperialists — suffered defeat in 1920, but the concept of the Curzon–Namier line, running through the center of Poland, became a cause célèbre for all imperialists for the division of Central Europe, especially the Russian and German ones. It was then, at the beginning of 1945, that the above‐mentioned génocidaire Miroslav Onyshkevych, nom de guerre „Orest”, became the commander of the OUN/UPA Military District WO‐6 „San”, which included Zakerzonia.

The complicated situation in Przemyśl and the surrounding area was compounded by decisions made on 28.11‐01.12.1943, by the main leaders of the anti‐German coalition — the USA, Great Britain, and Russia — at the Tehran Conference. There, it was de facto agreed that pre‐war Poland would be divided, and the areas seized and occupied by Russia in 1939 would become part of Russia. In this way, the coalition partners validated the genocidal Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, in its part concerning Russia. One of the changes decided upon by the Russian leader, the genocidal Stalin, was to leave the areas west of the Bug River, e.g. Zakerzonia, within the borders of the „prl”. However, the Russians did not intend to stop at simply drawing new borders — they also intended to solve national and social problems using the old, tried‐and‐true Russian method. This method involved the deportation of entire nations and societies.

Over a million Poles from the so‐called Pl. Kresy (Eng. Borderlands), i.e. the territories east of the Curzon–Namier line and the Bug River, began to be forced to emigrate westward and northward to the „prl”, to lands that in 1939 were part of Germany. And Ukrainians and Rusyns, mainly from Zakerzonia, began to be forced to emigrate eastward, to areas that were to belong directly to communist Russia. The first phase, lasting till the end of 1944, was „voluntary” and covered the territory north of Przemyśl. About 20,000 people left for Russia. The second phase began on 01.01.1945, and was generally met with resistance. There were few who volunteered.

Thus, at the beginning of 1945, after the Russian front‐line troops had left the Przemyśl region, a clash of three main forces took place. On the one hand, the Ukrainian genocidal OUN/UPA, fighting for Ukrainian Zakerzonia, carried out murders and pacifications of Polish villages, as well as attacks on Russian forces, including the genocidal NKVD, supported by Polish units that had decided to betray the ideals of an independent Poland and began collaborating with the Russians. On the other hand, the heirs of the Polish Clandestine State, who after many years of fighting against the Germans, intending to return to civilian life, were accused by the Russians and their Polish collaborators of … collaboration with the Germans, and in practice forced to renew the resistance and partisan movement. At the same time, they had to defend villages attacked by the genocidal OUN/UPA. Today we refer to them as „cursed soldiers”. The third side were the Russians, and in particular the genocidal NKVD units, supported by the growing in strength — thanks to Russian power — Commie‐Nazi „prl” units. They fought against the OUN/UPA, but especially against Polish patriots, former members of the Polish Clandestine State, seeing them as the greatest threat to Russian rule.

And it was then, at some point, that went with his wife to his father‐in‐law, Fr John Demiańczyk, a parish priest in the village of Skopów, located on the left bank of the San River — which winds generally eastward in the area — where c. 70% of the population were Rusyns/Ukrainians. His father‐in‐law was said to be an „impartial priest, even though he was Ukrainian, and lived on friendly terms with the Polish population”. It is unclear whether was only temporarily visiting his father‐in‐law, or whether decided to leave Leszczowate because, according to the new division enforced by the Russian occupier, the village was to be located right on the new border between Russian‐occupied Ukraine and the Russian client state, Polish Commie‐Nazi prl — on the prl side. Perhaps was therefore protecting himself from forced deportations to the east, where the Russians were already beginning the process of forcing the Greek Catholic clergy to apostasy and conversion to Orthodoxy.

In any case, may have participated in his father‐in‐law's visit to the village of Kramarzówka, c. 5 km from Skopów. It is not clear when this took place — perhaps at the end of 1944. Kramarzówka was a village with a significant Polish majority of c. 82%, but in addition to the Roman Catholic church there was a Greek Catholic parish church. When his father‐in‐law was returning to Skopów, was attacked by unknown assailants. Was threatened with death should appear in Kramarzówka again.

Soon after, according to Polish studies „from the beginning of 02.1945 to the end of 05.1945, in the relatively small area of Przemyśl County, between Dubiecko and Przemyśl, numerous attacks on the Ukrainian population, sometimes accompanied by mass murder, were recorded”. Attacks were made on the villages of Iskań, Przedmieście Dubiecko, Jawornik Ruski, Zohatyn, Piątkowa, the hamlets of Poruta and Zahuta, and the villages of Trójczyce, Kosienice, Podbukowina, Ruska Wieś, Bełwin, Siedliska, Maćkowice, and Małkowice. The number of Rusyns/Ukrainians killed at that time in that region is estimated at 900‐1,000.

The genocidal OUN/UPA did not remain indebted, carrying out attacks and murders, i.a. in Borownica, Jawornik, Dobrzanka, Tarnawka, Brzezawa.

Since c. the beginning of 03.1945 the attacks on the rectories of Greek Catholic priests took place. On.

23.02.1945 Fr Anatol Sembratowicz was murdered in Babice. On 03.03.1945 Fr John Sorokiewicz was murdered in Ujkowice. On 06.05.1945 (according to other sources 14.04.1944) Peter Wójtowicz and Jaroslav Wójtowicz were murdered in Nehrybka.

And that was when was murdered.

On 16.03.1945, the Krzywcza Commune Board reported to the County Office in Przemyśl: „On March 6, 1945, in the Skopów community, unknown perpetrators murdered a Greek Catholic priest, John Demianczyk, aged 80, a Greek Catholic priest, Stephen Konkolowski, aged 40, Konkolowska Mary née Demianczyk, aged 44, Miroslava Demianczyk, aged 52, a teacher at a Ukrainian school in Skopów, Vira Demianczyk, aged 36, and a maid, all of Ukrainian nationality”.

Another witness described: „A Ukrainian priest, named Demianczyk N., was murdered, and his three daughters, son‐in‐law, and maid were also shot. All their movable property was then robbed”, and the aforementioned report summarizes: „The perpetrators were in civilian clothes and some in military caps — four‐cornered hats, and spoke Polish”.

In addition to the murder at the rectory four more people were murdered in the village: three Ukrainians and one Pole, including two teenage boys.

Three weeks later, another attack took place in Skopów. The same Krzywcza Commune Board reported on 06.04.1945: „On March 27 of this year, an unknown band of about 200 people attacked the inhabitants of the Skopów community of Ukrainian nationality and shot about 60 people (all of Ukrainian nationality), as well as plundered and burned several houses, taking their belongings, including clothing, grain, cattle, and horses. Due to these attacks, the entire Ukrainian population abandoned their homes in the last days of March and moved to Krzywcza, from where the aforementioned people are being transported by horse‐drawn wagons to Przemyśl for resettlement”.

The question of responsibility for the attacks and murders remains unresolved to this day. Although the murders of Greek Catholic priests were, as suggested by a study by the Polish History Museum, an „organized operation” — „the perpetrators attacked repeatedly in the similar way […] each time a similar number of people were killed […] [a] similar modus operandi was used” — it is unknown who ordered it and who carried the attacks out. Perhaps the closest to the truth was the starost of Bircza — a collaborator with the Russian occupier, it seems — who assumed that it was „a "collection of people from the local subversive element and Polish repatriates from the east" organized into partisan units”. He prob. had in mind groups of former members of the Polish Clandestine State, the disbanded Home Army AK or the Peasant Battalions BCh, who spent the war years fighting the Germans, and as a reward, the new Russian occupier and his collaborators began to hunt them down, accusing them of collaborating with Germans. He also had in mind traumatized Poles fleeing from the east, victims of the Ukrainian «Genocidium Atrox» genocide.

The most frequently mentioned is the partisan unit of the former People's Security Guard LSB, part of the BCh not merged with the AK — BCh were disbanded in 03.1945 — led by Roman Kisiel nom de guerre Pl. „Sęp” (Eng. „Vulture”).

It is also possible that Polish units of the so‐called Citizens' Militia MO, collaborating with the Russians, participated in the murders, aiming to intimidate the Ukrainian population and force them to voluntarily leave their homelands and move east. It is also impossible to rule out pure banditry, which became a plague in those years.

The genocidal OUN/UPA itself accused — in a special leaflet — „both the Home Army AK and the local militia, as well as the inhabitants [of neighboring Polish villages]”.

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”, 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!”