In 1939, ministered in the church in Mechyshchiv, in the parish of Berezhany, located in the Berezhany county in the Ternopil Voivodeship. Mechyshchiv had an estimated population of c. 2,200, of whom it is estimated that about half were Roman Catholic Poles and the other half were Greek Catholic Ukrainians. Several dozen Jews also lived there.

After the German and Russian invasion of Poland in 09.1939 and the start of World War II, in accordance with the genocidal agreement between the two allies, known as the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of 23.08.1939, confirmed by the so‐called „Treaty on the Borders and Friendship between Germany and Russia” of 28.09.1939, also known as the 2nd Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, the Ternopil Voivodeship fell to the Russians. When word spread about the Russian invasion of Poland on 17.09.1939, a day later in his village „a group of local Ukrainians armed with scythes, pitchforks, axes and rifles marched demonstratively through the village. They plundered and looted local public buildings such as the post office, police station and others […] Poles hid in houses and fields, because the Ukrainians had posted mobile guards; any Pole encountered outside was expected to be beaten or killed. This continued around the clock. At night, glows from burning houses could be seen in Slovyatyn [c. 6 km to the east]”. Sources state that „Two people were beaten and wounded […] [One of them, Vincent Ciecierski, a Ukrainian] was hit several times in the back with an axe. He died in early November”. Another account mentions „the murder of a teacher, Zdebowa, who was brutally abused”. And yet another source reports that militants of the genocidal Ukrainian organization OUN murdered „10 Polish farmers in 09.1939, robbed their homes and burned down five farmsteads”.

In early 1940, moved west, near the border with German‐occupied Polish lands, i.e. German‐occupied and run quasi‐state called the Germ. Generalgouvernement (Eng. General Governorate), i.e. GG. The chronicle of the Lubaczów parish contains the following entry: „With the new year, another employee arrived in the Lubaczów parish, Father Adam Rocz, who, because of the Ukrainians, had to leave his parish in Mechyshchiv near Berezhany and took the name Francis Malinowski. He arrived in Lubaczów at night and, by mistake, knocked on the door of a Soviet officer's apartment at the rectory. Hearing a Russian voice, he hid in a shed and stayed there, despite the severe frost, until morning. In the afternoon, he left for his new post in Krowica Sama, where he performed pastoral duties at the local branch church, as a Lubaczów cooperator”.

His curacy/parish, located in Roztocze, which connects the Lublin Upland with Podolya, included i.a. three villages: Krowica Hołodowska, Krowica Sama and Krowica Lasowa — a wooden Latin church dedicated to the Transfiguration of Our Lord, funded by the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences PAU and built in 1932‐1933, was located in Krowica Sama, right on the border of Krowica Hołodowska. Together, these three villages had an estimated population of c. 3,600 in 1939, of which Roman Catholic Poles constituted c. 27% and Greek Catholic Ukrainians c. 66%. There were also c. 250 Jews.

Was there, it seems, on 22.06.1941, when the Germans attacked their erstwhile ally, the Russians. The German occupation began. The Krowica village and the Lubartów parish were incorporated into the Germ. Kreishauptmannschaft Rawa Ruska (Eng. Rava‐Ruska county), part of the Germ. Distrikt Galizien (Eng. District of Galicia), within the aforementioned GG.

At some point, was said to have been hiding in the convent of the Sisters of Mercy of St Borromeo SCB, in Wielkie Oczy, c. 12 km south of his church. This prob. took place during the German occupation, because earlier, when Wielkie Oczy was under Russian occupation, the Russians had set up an arms depot in the nuns" chapel. The nuns were forced to leave their Congregation's house, take off their nun robes, and take up gainful employment.

Perhaps it happened in 1942, when the Germans began to implement the genocidal plan Germ. «Endlösung der Judenfrage» (Eng. Final Solution of the Jewish Question), which in the GG functioned under the German codename Germ. «Aktion Reinhardt» (Eng. Operation Reinhardt). Within its framework, with the collaboration of the Germ. Ukrainische Hilfspolizei (Eng. Ukrainian Auxiliary Police), in some regions also referred to as the Germ. Schutzmannschaft (Eng. Protection Battalions), i.e. Schuma, Jews were gathered in Lubaczów. In the spring of 1942, there were c. 2,270 Jews there, and in 05.1942, c. 2,000 more from the surrounding villages were brought to this town. Among them were prob. Jews from Krowica. On 08.10.1942 the Germans announced the establishment of a ghetto — initially open — and ordered all Jews to move therein. Immediately afterwards, at the end of 10.1942, with the help of the Germ. Ukrainische Hilfspolizei, the Germans in the first Germ. Aktion (Eng. Operation) deported from Lubaczów — prob. by train, through Rava‐Ruska — c. 2,000 Jews to the Germ. Vernichtungslager (Eng. Extermination camp) VL Belzec, c. 35 km to the north‐east, where they were all murdered. In their place, in 11.1942, c. 2,000 Jews were brought from the nearby town of Oleszyce, to prob. transport c. 1,000 of them to their deaths in VL Belzec immediately afterwards. This was to happen just before 01.12.1942, when the ghetto was „closed” and surrounded by a barbed wire fence. Even before the end of 1942, several hundred Gypsies, i.e. Roma, were brought to the ghetto. Soon they were driven outside the city, into the forest, and, over pits previously dug by the Jews, murdered along with the Jews. Meanwhile, an epidemic broke out in the ghetto — 25 people died a day — and already on 06‐08.01.1943, the Germans, together with Ukrainians of the Germ. Ukrainische Hilfspolizei, organized the second Germ. Aktion. Hundreds of elderly and sick Jews were murdered in the city center, the bodies buried in the Jewish cemetery. The remaining — c. 2,000 — were deported from the city on the same 08.01.1943. Their fate is unclear — according to some sources, they were transporter c. 150 km north, to the Germ. Vernichtungslager VL Sobibor (VL Belzec was then being closed); according to others, they were driven c. 5 km north, to the vicinity of the Hrynków farm and the village of Dachnów, which in the years 1939‐1941 were located in the so‐called Russian border zone, where the Russians constructed the so‐called Molotov Line — a series of defensive forts and trenches, near Lubaczów referred to as the 6th Rava–Ruska Fortified Area. The Germans and Ukrainians were to murder them in these trenches. The Germans were able then to declare Lubaczów to be Germ. „Judenrein” (Eng. „free of Jews”).

In all three villages of his Krowica curacy, on 01.03.1943, there were only 2,871 inhabitants left.

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 — which, due to the end of the Germ. «Aktion Reinhardt», i.e. the genocide of the Jews, in many places became „unemployed” — 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. 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.

In the Lubaczów area, from c. 04.

1944, the «Genocidium Atrox» was carried out by the Chief of Staff of the OUN/UPA Military District WO‐2 „Bug” of the „UPA‐West”, Miroslav Onyshkevych, nom de guerre „Orest”. On 06.04.1944, this genocidal leader specified the tasks of the UPA units under his command as follows: „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 […] 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”.

Attacks on Poles began. Sources record, i.a., 21.02.1944 — attack on the property of the „Kraków Academy” (prob Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences PAU) in Krowica and the murder of 7 Poles and 1 Ukrainian woman, the administrator’s housekeeper; 03.1944 — murder of 7 Poles in Krowica; 20.04.

1944 — murder of 6 Poles, including a woman, in Krowica Hołodowska, who were burned in their homes; 26.04.1944 — burning of buildings and the murder of 9 Poles in Krowica Hołodowska; 03.05.1944 — murder of 7 Poles in Krowica Hołodowska; 05.1944 — murder of a forestry apprentice, Alfred Wilowski, in the Krowica forest district.

And it was then, in 1944, under unknown circumstances, that he was allegedly murdered „by a Ukrainian”.

It may have happened before c. 22.07.1944, when during the offensive known as the Lviv–Sandomierz Operation, the Russians entered his village. The Russian occupation began.

Shortly thereafter, the genocidal OUN/UPA and Ukrainians resumed their bloody attacks on his village. On 05.08.1944 — local Ukrainians murdered 2 Poles in Krowica Holodowska; in 09.1944 — they murdered 9 Poles there, including 2 married couples and 2 women; and in the same 09.1944 — they murdered 12 Poles, including 5 women, in Krowica Sama.

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!”