From 1939, ministered in the parish of Zawadka Rymanowska, then on the western edge of Sanok County, Lviv Voivodeship, situated in the valley of a small stream, a tributary of the Jasiołka River, along which ran a highway leading from Dukla to Hungary through the Dukla Pass, the lowest pass in the main ridge of the Carpathians. At that time, there were c. 1,100 people living there who considered themselves Ruthenians, i.e. Greek Catholic Lemkos — apart from several dozen Poles — but in 1936 the parish had c. 1,595 faithful. In Sanok County, Lemkos constituted c. 54% of the population, while Roman Catholic Poles c. 41%, while in neighboring Krosno County, with which Zawadka Rymanowska had strong ties, Poles constituted a vast majority of c. 80%.

In the late 1920s, the so‐called Tylawa schism took place, i.e. a wave of mass conversions of Lemkos to Orthodoxy — as a result of which c. 18,000 Lemkos left the Greek Catholic Church — in protest against the Ukrainization policy of the hierarchy of that Church. The Church responded by establishing the Greek Catholic Apostolic Exarchate of Lemkowszczyzna, i.e. AEL. AEL managed to stop the Ukrainization efforts in the parishes under its control, which prevented further apostasy of the Lemkos, although prob. many priests of AEL still supported the radical Ukrainian national ideology. Mykhailo Baczyński, a member of the Seym, i.e. Parliament, 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”. The administrator of the AEL, Fr Jacob Medwecki, published i.a. a ban in 1937 on the distribution of such magazines as Ukr. „Український Бескид” (Eng. „Ukrainian Beskids”), financed by the ordinary of the Greek Catholic Eparchy of Przemyśl, Bp Joseph Kocyłowski, whose circulation was confiscated several times by the Polish authorities; Ukr. „Наш Лемко” (Eng. „Our Lemko”), published in Lviv; and Ukr. „Діло” (Eng. „Work”), a newspaper also published in Lviv, which — as the justification stated — „spread discord, are hostile towards the Polish State and incline the local population negatively towards the decrees of the Holy See and the Government of the Republic of Poland”. Was a priest of AEL.

After the German and Russian attack on Poland in 09.1939 and the start of World War II, after the beginning of the German occupation, Zawadka Rymanowska found itself in the Germ. Kreishauptmannschaft Krosno (Eng. Krosno County) in the Germ. Distrikt Krakau (Eng. Kraków District), within the German‐occupied and run quasi‐state called the Germ. Generalgouvernement (Eng. General Governorate), i.e. GG. The German occupation authorities of the GG began to implement a policy of undermining the influence of the Roman Catholic Church and Polish culture by supporting the Greek Catholic rite and Ukrainian‐language education in schools. The policy of supporting the Ukrainian element was perhaps most visible in the social policy of the GG. The Germans allowed the activities of social and charitable organizations, but only the Ukrainian Central Committee UCK was partially financed from the GG budget. It could also use funds from Ukrainian cooperatives. On the other hand the Polish Central Welfare Council RGO and the Jewish Social Self‐Help had to rely exclusively on voluntary contributions. As a result, Polish and Jewish organizations could only conduct charitable activities: supporting food supplies, refugee aid, etc. Ukrainians/Rusyns, using GG funds, were able to build Ukrainian/Rusyns hospitals, orphanages, nurseries, and schools.

Lemko support for this policy was expressed, i.a. by the inhabitants of the village of Krępna, c. 22 km from Zawadka Rymanowska, where 80% of the inhabitants were Rusyns: „There was Poland, but it will never be again. Poles ruled, but now they will never be again. Poles have been twirling our tongues for two hundred years, and they won't twirl now”. This led to an escalation of the Polish–Ukrainian conflict. It could not have been otherwise, since the entrance door to the waiting room of the main train station in Kraków bore the inscription: Germ. niem.

„Nur für Deutsche aus dem Reich, Volksdeutsche und Ukrainer” (Eng. „Only for Germans from the Reich, Volksdeutsche, and Ukrainians”. The attitude of the Lemkos towards the Poles was not, however, clear. One member of the Polish clandestine organizations recalled that when, after the beginning of the German occupation, Polish soldiers and officers tried to get to Hungary to reach the Polish army forming in the west — then in France — „in the entire Subcarpathia, we had the greatest trust in the Lemkos […] No one betrayed as there […] The Lemkos did not betray the Poles”.

On 05.02.1941, after the death of the aforementioned Fr Jacob Medwecki, Fr Alexander Małynowski, a staunch supporter of the Ukrainization of the Lemko region, became the administrator of the AEL, in which he was supported by the German occupier. He immediately began the process of Ukrainization of the church structures under his control, removing priests who opposed it in independent Poland, introducing the Ukrainian language. He also collaborated with the organs of the genocidal Ukrainian organization OUN, tolerated and even supported by the Germans. He also relied on a large number — c. 20,000 — of Ukrainian refugees from the Russian occupation, mostly nationalists. In a memorandum to the Ordinary of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Kielce, Bp Czeslav Kaczmarek, a group of Greek Catholic priests, including Fr Volodymyr Wenhrynowicz, wrote about him: „He was always distinguished by a deep hatred for anything that was not Ukrainian and he did not choose means when it came to the destruction and oppression of his enemies”.

After the German attack on 22.06.1941, on its erstwhile ally, the Russians, and the occupation of the whole of Galicia, including Lviv, the Germans began to implement the German plan Germ. «Endlösung der Judenfrage» (Eng. Final Solution of the Jewish Question), which in the GG was carried out under the codename Germ. «Aktion Reinhardt» (Eng. Operation Reinhardt). In most places, members of the collaborative Germ. Ukrainische Hilfspolizei (Eng. Ukrainian Auxiliary Police), in some regions also referred to as the Germ. Schutzmannschaft (Eng. Protection Battalions), i.e. Schuma — took an active part in it. In Zawadka Rymanowska, there were no Jews, it seems, but information about the fate of e.g. Jews from Dukla, c. 10 km to the north, had to reach it. This is how the commissioner mayor of Dukla, a Ukrainian, Leo Bukatowicz, reported on the final liquidation of the ghetto on 12‐13.07.1942: „At night, the town was surrounded by the [Germ. Geheime Staatspolizei (Eng. Secret State Police), i.e.] Gestapo, from Jasło […], assisted by the border guard, German gendarmerie, and a unit of Ukrainians in black uniforms. All Jews were ordered to gather at 7 a.m. on the grounds of the manor estate, which was carried out by the Jewish council […] I saw that two Jews, the so‐called Goldman Jewish police, and another one, who were probably Gestapo informants and were tormenting Jews in a terrible way, were separated. After being sorted, they were loaded into cars and taken somewhere towards Barwinek. As I heard later, they were shot somewhere there, but I did not see it, and finally, two of those Jews, informers, were shot”. In the vicinity of Barwinek, c. 10 km south of Zawadka Rymanowska, on the aforementioned Dukla‐Hungary road, c. 400 Jews were murdered; 1,000 were deported to the Germ. Vernichtungslager (Eng. Extermination camp) VL Belzec and murdered there.

Immediately afterwards, information began to reach about the situation in Volyn, several hundred kilometers to the east, where in 02.1943 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”.

Next, 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. This should not have been surprising, since a large part of the command staff of the genocidal OUN/UPA was trained in 1939‐1941 — under strict German control — in the Germ. Distrikt Krakau, e.g. at the so‐called „Konovalets Officers' School” in Kraków. Other prominent activists were trained — in tracking down political and ideological opponents and their physical liquidation — as agents of the Ukr. Служба Безпеки (Eng. Security Service), i.e. SB OUN, founded in 1940, e.g. in Zakopane, in the „Stamary” hotel. As the contemporary website of this hotel states, „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 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.

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.

In 1943‐1944, Polish refugees from Volyn began to reach the Germ. Distrikt Krakau, bringing with them terrible, vivid stories of Ukrainian barbarity. This did not help to reduce tensions between the Polish and Lemko communities. On the contrary. Especially since at the turn of 1943/1944, in the face of signs of Germany's growing defeat and the approaching German–Russian front, the command of the genocidal OUN decided to expand the «Genocidium Atrox» to the GG, including the Germ. Distrikt Krakau. Until then, the genocidal UPA, so as not to „annoy” its German ally, had not formally operated there.

There are essentially no records of the direct, active participation of the Lemko inhabitants of Zawadka Rymanowska in these events, which formed the cruel backdrop of those years. The village was most affected by another event, i.e. the crossing of the German–Russian front in 1944. After the great Russian offensive, today known as the Lviv–Sandomierz Operation, was stopped in 08.1944 as a result of the outbreak of the Polish Warsaw Uprising on 01.08.1944 and the tactical, temporary Russian‐German alliance — as such should be considered the decision of the highest Russian authorities to halt the offensive and not to provide aid to the insurgents, and even to hinder the provision of aid — which enabled the Germans to crush the Uprising, the Russians decided to provide aid to another uprising, the so‐called Slovak National Uprising of 29.08‐28.10.1944. In that uprising, c. 4,200 Slovaks were killed — for comparison, in Warsaw the Germans committed genocide of c. 200,000 inhabitants of the Polish capital. On 08.09.1944 the Russians began the so‐called Dukla‐Prešov Operation, the aim of which was to break German resistance and get through the Dukla Pass to Slovakia. In extremely bloody fighting, on c. 23.09.1944, the Russians captured Zawadka Rymanowska. Some part of the village was prob. destroyed. The operation was not however successful, the Germans defended themselves fiercely and did not allow the Russians to break through to Slovakia — c. 126,211 Russian soldiers and 20,000‐70,000 German soldiers were killed, wounded or missing.

The Russian occupation began. It was not yet known at the time that already on 28.11 01.12.1943, at the Tehran Conference, the treacherous British and American allies had agreed to establish the post‐war Polish border on the so‐called Curzon–Namier line, i.e. de facto recognizing the legitimacy of the Russian invasion of Poland in 09.1939 and Russian claims expressed in 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 Frontiers and Friendship of Germany‐Russia”, also known as the Second Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, which led to the outbreak of World War II. This also meant that after the end of hostilities, Zawadka Rymanowska was to be located in the area assigned to the Polish Commie‐Nazi Russian regime, to the Russian Polish Republic called in short prl.

One of the first effects of the beginning of the Russian occupation was the massive deportation of the population, consistent with the standard, centuries‐old, criminal Russian practice of solving social and national problems. Millions of Poles were to be deported from the east and resettled westward, to territories that had belonged to Germany before World War II. Ukrainians and Lemkos were to be resettled from the prl, to territories directly occupied by the Russians. The deportations of Ukrainians took place in four stages. In the first, „voluntary” stage, 15.10‐31.12.1944, c. 20,000 Ukrainians were forced to leave, mainly from the Polish Lublin Voivodeship. In the second stage, also mostly „voluntary”, in the spring of 1945, Lemkos were forced to leave eastward from the areas covered by the aforementioned Dukla–Prešov Operation.

Some of his parish village then left for Ukraine.

Some, however, stayed — including him.

At that time, the Russians and their Polish proxies in the prl decided to forcibly relocate Ukrainians and Lemkos to the east. The third stage began on 01.09.1945.

Even earlier, however, the uniformed services of the Commie‐Nazi prl — officers of the MO Citizens' Militia and the criminal UB Security Service, soldiers of the Polish Army WP military units — began agitating and persecuting Ukrainians who resisted. I.a. there are reports of Greek Catholic priests being approached in the evenings and at night, interrogated at the armed services" headquarters, harassed, accused of collaborating with the genocidal OUN/UPA — often probably justifiably — and attempts to force a declaration of departure and the beginning of agitation of the faithful to leave.

This was prob. true in his case.

According to Ukrainian sources, on 11/12.08.1945, a „Polish gang attacked” his rectory.

Was allegedly beaten and robbed.

Suffered a heart attack and died.

The last Lemko inhabitants of Zawadka Rymanowska left the village in 1947, as part of the so‐called „Action Vistula”, the last deportation of Lemkos carried out by the Russians and the Commie‐Nazis collaborating with them in the prl — no longer to Ukraine, but to the territories of western and northern Poland, which had belonged to Germany before 1939. Earlier, in 1945‐1946, c. 170 farms, slowly taken over by Polish settlers, were burned down by gangs of the genocidal OUN/UPA, murdering c. 6 Poles in the process.