From 1903, practically until the end of his life, ministered as administrator of the Bilyi Kamin parish, in the interwar period, in the Zolochiv district in the Polish Ternopil Voivodeship — with a few interruptions, when was called by his Congregation to other duties. E.g. in 1939 was transferred approximately 45 km northwest, to Novyi Mylyatyn, then in the Kamyanka Strumilova district, in the same Ternopil Voivodeship.

Was there when in 09.1939 the Germans and Russians attacked Poland and World War II began. 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 Borders and Friendship between Germany and Russia” of 28.09.1939, also known as the second Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, the Russians entered both Novyi Mylyatyn and Bilyi Kamin. The Russian occupation began. „When the Russians came, Ushnya stank of tar”, recalled one of his parishioners in Bilyi Kamin. „God, what a rabble they were, rifles on strings, canvas shoes. They attacked young girls, they were like beasts. We were terribly afraid of them”. The Russians subjected Poles in particular to repression, arresting Polish intelligentsia, teachers, doctors, landowners, government officials, foresters, policemen, and even the families of Polish servicemen. In 1940‐1941, many other Poles became victims of four large waves of deportations „to Siberia” or to the north, e.g. to the vicinity of Arkhangelsk, especially during the first one, around 10.02.1940. The 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 to look into the chest — unfortunately, it was empty, because our neighbors had already emptied it. We practically didn't take anything, 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. Children's catechism classes in schools were abolished.

After the German attack on 22.06.1941, on its erstwhile ally, the Russians, and the beginning of the German occupation, returned to Bilyi Kamin in 1942, once again becoming superior of the local Lazarists’ Congregation CM house and at the same time the parish priest of the local Roman Catholic parish. In 1939 the parish numbered c. 3,400 faithful, although in Bilyi Kamin itself with an estimated population of 1,700 only c. 35% were Roman Catholic Poles, c. 50% Greek Catholic Ukrainians and c. 15%, i.e. c. 300 Jews. Most of his parishioners lived in the neighboring villages, in Belzets, Buzhok, Cheremoshnya, Pochapy, Zhulychi, Skvaryava, Ushnya, with the latter two having separate chapels/filial churches. E.g. In Ushnya in 1939, with a population of c. 2,000, Roman Catholic Poles constituted c. 75%. After the Germans entered, his parish became part of the Germ. Kreishauptmannschaft Złoczów (Eng. Zolochiv County), in the Germ. Distrikt Galizien (Eng. District of Galicia), within German‐occupied and run quasi‐state called the Germ. Generalgouvernement (Eng. General Governorate), i.e. GG.

When returned, the Germans were already implementing the genocidal plan Germ. «Endlösung der Judenfrage» (Eng. Final Solution of the Jewish Question), which in the GG was codenamed Germ. «Aktion Reinhardt» (Eng. Operation Reinhardt). A forced slave labor camp for Jews had been operating in Bilyi Kamin since 1941. The local gathering center for Jews was however Zolochiv, c. 15 km to the south. In 1939, c. 7,800 Jews lived in this town, constituting c. 50‐60% of the inhabitants — the rest were Poles c. 25‐30% and Ukrainians c. 20‐25%. Just before the escape from Zolochiv in 1941, in the face of the German attack, in the local prison in the Sobieski Castle, the Russians murdered 649‐752 inmates. After the escape of the Russians, Ukrainians — members of the genocidal OUN, civilians, prob. with consent of the Germans — as well as the Germans themselves, e.g. soldiers from one of the subunits of the Germ. 5. SS‐Panzerdivision Wiking (Eng. 5th SS Panzer Division‐Wiking), committed mass murders of Jews, accusing them of collaborating with the Russians, prob. rightly to a large extent. In the 4‐day pogrom, between 700 and 3,500 Jews were murdered. Then, some Jews were sent to local labor camps — according to Jewish sources, in 1942 there were 5,833 Jews left in the city. In 08.1942, extermination operations began, in which units of the Ukrainian, collaborative Germ. Ukrainische Hilfspolizei (Eng. Ukrainian Auxiliary Police), operating in some regions as Germ. Schutzmannschaft (Eng. Security Battalions), i.e. Schuma, actively participated. On 28‐29.08.1942 c. 2,000, and on 02.11.1942 c. 2,500 Jews were deported to the Germ. Vernichtungslager (Eng. extermination camp) VL Belzec. On 01.12.1942 a ghetto was established in Zolochiv, surrounded by a barbed wire fence, with one entrance secured by the Germ. Ukrainian Hilfspolizei, to which Jews from the surrounding area were brought, including e.g. from Bilyi Kamin and Ushnya. c. 4,000 Jews were placed in the ghetto. The ghetto was liquidated on 03‐04.04.1943, when the Germans, together with the Germ. Ukrainian Hilfspolizei and a group of the Germ. Judischer Ordnungsdienst (Eng. Jewish Order Service) from Lviv, drove c. 3,500 Jews to the village of Yelykhovychi, a few kilometers south of his parish Ushnya, and murdered them all there. One Polish witness recalled: „When they killed the Jews, how terrible it was! The Germans made a ghetto where the paper factory used to be. First, they had to dig large ditches, and then — we could hear it, because it was maybe 2 kilometers away — we could hear the rattle of those machine guns. Dear God, how terrible it was! They put them on the edge of those ditches and shot them with machine guns. Some were actually killed, some wounded. A few days later, when curious children would come there to look, the earth was still jumping”. For the following few weeks, the Germans and the Germ. Ukrainian Hilfspolizei scoured the city for hiding Jews. In 07.1943, the German authorities were able to declare that Zolochiv and the surrounding area were Germ. „Judenfrei” (Eng. „free of Jews”).

Extending help was very difficult, after all, since 25.10.1941, a decree of 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 helpers 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, in Bilyi Kamin, where on 01.03.1943 only c. 1,200 people lived and prob. everyone knew each other, the manager of the local power plant, Florian Zawer, and his wife Casimira, hid two Jews on their property. Similarly, in the village of Ushnya, Poles, John and Eugenie Rogowski, hid Jews. c. 50 years later all of them — Florian Zawer posthumously — were honored by the Yad Vashem Holocaust Martyrs" and Heroes" Remembrance Institute in Jerusalem with the title „Righteous Among the Nations”.

The murders of Jews were not yet over when, in 02.1943, in Volyn, c. 100 km to the north, 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 — 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”.

«Genocidium Atrox» began in the Germ. Distrikt Galizien.

Already in 09‐10.1943, c. 10 Poles were murdered in Cheremoshnya, including 6 foresters. On 23.10.1943, in Belzets, „at half past 10:00 in the evening, a party burst into the house of the testifier, prob. 4 to 5 Ukrainians dressed in German uniforms, wearing helmets, with revolvers in their hands. The testifier did not see this, but witnesses told her that was wounded in the neck and then taken in a cart to the forest, where most likely was killed. The body of the deceased was not found, but the cart in which he was transported was found in the forest, soaked in blood. The deceased's name was Ryczel Stanislav — 42 years old. He left behind a wife, two sons, and a week‐old child. This little one died 3 months after the death of his father. That same night, half an hour earlier, a Polish couple [prob Anne and Francis Cyran] were killed in an apartment in the same village […] They were beaten terribly on the head and then shot with a bullet in the head”. On 02.04.1944, in the hamlet of Stadnya near Skvaryava „the attack took place […] at night around 1:00 a.m. The village was attacked by c. 30 Ukrainians armed with handguns, grenades, automatic rifles, bayonets, axes and knives. They were dressed in civilian clothes, [f] Ukrainian militia clothes and Soviet overcoats. They burst into Polish houses in groups and murdered both women and men. Eight people were killed then. They murdered their victims with rifles and knives. Names of the murdered: Dębowy John — 42 years old, brother of the testifier; Dębowa Marie, wife of the testifier — 35 years old; children of the testifier: Stefanie — 14 years old, Mechyslav — 16 years old; Kobiałka Michael — 50 years old; Kawałkowa Marie — 38 years old; Matwiejszyn — 54 years old, a non‐partisan Ukrainian. [Eighth surname: Joseph Zieliński — age 48] […] The bodies of the deceased were buried in a common grave at the local cemetery”. In 05.1944, in Bilyi Kamin, „six Polish women, unknown, who had returned from the station to bake bread, were strangled”, although — as sources say — in the years 1943‐1945 „a strong self‐defense force was formed in the village under the direction of the [Home Army AK, part of the Polish Clandestine State], which effectively repelled Bandera’s attacks on the village”. In the same month, however, in Ushnya, „as a result of a denunciation from Ukrainian policemen [i.e. Germ. Ukrainische Hilfspolizei], Gestapo men [from Germ. Geheime Staatspolizei (Eng. Secret State Police), i.e. Gestapo,] arrested 20 Poles: one managed to escape, 19 were shot”. In Zhulychi, in 06.1944, „Ukrainians murdered 15 Poles, including the four‐person Nahorczyński family and the five‐person Regula family”.

The Russians entered Bilyi Kamin on 18.07.1944. Earlier, around 17.04.1944, they had suspended the offensive known as the Dnieper–Carpathian Operation for the spring period, c. 30 km east of Zolochiv. The next operation, the Lviv–Sandomierz Operation, they began on 13.07.1944. Within 5 days they reached his parish, but before entering Bilyi Kamin, the troops of the Germ. 14. Waffen‐Grenadier‐Division der SS – ukrainische Nr. 1 (Eng. 14th Grenadier Division of the Waffen‐SS – 1st Ukrainian), i.e. «SS‐Galizien», Ukrainian formation within the genocidal Germ. Die Schutzstaffel der NSDAP (Eng. NSDAP Protection Squad), i.e. «SS», a paramilitary formation subordinate to the ruling National Socialist German Workers' Party NSDAP in Germany. This is how the «SS‐Galizien» was encouraged to fight, during the Germ. „Appell des Führerkorps der Galizischen SS‐Freiw. Infanterie–Division in Heuhammer am 16 Mai 1944” (Eng. „Appeal of the commanders of the Galician Volunteer Infantry Division SS in Heuhammer on 16 May 1944”), by the German leader, Reichsführer «SS», Heinrich Himmler: „Your homeland has become so much more beautiful since you got rid of — on our initiative, I must say — those inhabitants who have so often been a dirty stain on the good name of Galicia, namely the Jews. I know that if I had ordered you to liquidate the Poles, I would have given you permission to accomplish what you so desperately desire. However, the privilege of issuing such an order belongs solely to the savior of Europe, Adolf Hitler”. Hitler, it seems, did not have time to issue such an order, so Shukhevych «Genocidium Atrox» carried out without his formal consent.

The Russian occupation began and for a short time put an end to the Ukrainian murders. The main reason was the saturation of the front rears with Russian soldiers, in particular by members of the genocidal Russian NKVD, one of whose goals was to neutralize the genocidal OUN/UPA. However, the main goal became the fight against the Poles, in particular the Polish Clandestine State, the largest resistance movement in German‐occupied Europe, and the Home Army AK, its military wing. Therefore, when the AK, implementing plan Pl. „Burza” (Eng. „Tempest”), i.e. taking control of Polish territories by attacking the Germans just before the arrival of the Russians, took part in the capture of Lviv, the Russian general, acting under the name Ivanov — the real name of this génocidaire was Ivan Serov — met with the commander of the Lviv AK District, Vladislav Jacob Filipkowski, nom de guerre Pl. „Cis” (Eng. „Yew”), and even promised him the creation of a new Polish division to fight alongside the Russians. But after the capture on 28.07.1944 of Lviv, the Russians invited the AK, with „Cis” at its head, for talks in Kiev. On 31.07.1944 the AK delegation flew by plane to Zhytomyr, where it met Polish and Russian — though in Polish uniforms — generals of the Polish army fighting alongside the Russians, de facto Russian stooges. On 02‐03.08.1944 the AK delegation was arrested. On the same day in Lviv the entire Lviv AK staff was arrested. The Russian hunt for the AK began and its captured members were sent to Gulag slave labor camps.

Meanwhile, the OUN/UPA „lay low” for some time. The power of the Russian front and rear forces was so overwhelming that on 01.09.1944 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 still to attack „a Polish militia of 20 people in some 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”. However, in late autumn, genocidal attacks on Poles were resumed. And then, on 30.11.1944, one of the OUN/UPA units attacked Bilyi Kamin. Among the murdered was the aforementioned Florian Zawer, a miller who had been hiding Jews on his property for over a year. According to family memories, „he left his house to go to the tailor's and from there went to the mill. Near the mill, he saw a group of soldiers in Soviet uniforms who were taking several of his workers out of the mill. Leopold Zawer followed them to explain the reason for their arrest. He was taken with them; UPA members were dressed in Soviet uniforms. Those arrested were murdered near the post office in Bilyi Kamin. The shoes of the dead were removed, and the found documents were taken by bandits”. Other sources state that among the murdered were also Zawer's father and brother. Still others state that „among the victims were c. 8 Soviet soldiers and 7 or 9 members of the IB (including several of Ukrainian nationality)”, i.e. members of the Rus. истребительные батальоны (Eng. Pursuit Battalions), a Russian auxiliary paramilitary formation within the structures of the criminal NKVD, to which the Russians recruited the local population and whose main role was to defend the civilian population from attacks by the genocidal OUN/UPA.

At the same time, unconfirmed rumors began to reach Poles and Ukrainians about the decisions of the Tehran Conference of 28.11‐01.12.1943, by the main leaders of the anti‐German coalition — the USA, Great Britain, and Russia — when the Allies agreed to establish the post‐war Polish eastern border along the Curzon–Namier line, divide Poland, and award Russia the areas it had seized in 09.1939, i.e. de facto recognizing the legitimacy of the Russian invasion of Poland in 09.1939 and the Russian claims expressed in the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of 1939. 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.

The Russians, however, did not intend to stop at simply marking new borders — they also intended to solve national and social problems using the old, proven Russian method. This method involved the deportation of entire nations and societies. Almost two million Poles from the so‐called Pl. Kresy (Eng. Borderlands), i.e. the territories east of the Curzon–Namier line and the Bug River, were being forced to leave to the west, to the lands that in 1939 were part of Germany. And they began to force Ukrainians and Rusyns to leave to the east, to the areas that were to belong directly to communist Russia. The Russians began the deportation action already in the autumn of 1944, when the final decisions about the shape of the borders had not yet been made — this happened on 04‐11.02.1945 at the Yalta conference — and when the German–Russian battlefront was still on the line of the Vistula, established there in 08.1944 on the orders of the highest Russian authorities, de facto in a momentary strategic collusion with the Germans, to give the Germans time to suppress the Warsaw Uprising started on 01.08.1944 by the Polish Clandestine, as part of Operation Pl. „Burza”, and to murder c. 200,000 Poles. The beginning of the deportation action were the so‐called Republican Agreements — the Russians liked to dress up all acts of lawlessness in the garb of legality. On 09‐23.09.1944, i.e. before the fall of the Warsaw Uprising, they led to the signing of three agreements by agents and traitors controlled by them, who were to take power in the Russian Polish Republic, called „prl”, with representatives of the other Russian republics: Ukrainian, Belarusian and Lithuanian, under which Poles were to be deported from the territories of these „republics” to the „prl”.

Deportation of Poles to the „prl” took place mainly after the end of World War II military operations in 05.1945. Victims of the new post‐war regime recalled that „the Russians came to us as "friends". We stayed with them for another year. We had to leave, we didn't go willingly, Ukrainians from Rzeszów came to our farms. What kind of Ukrainians were they? They didn't speak Ukrainian, only Polish”. Other former parishioners recalled: „There was poverty, but people cried when they went. To this day, when you go to Ushnya, you can feel such sentiment. It was a beautiful village […] People were going into the unknown. Nobody knew what it would be like, there was no radio, no television, they were told to pack up and go in the dark, so everyone was afraid of where they were going”. „Someone would chant a religious or patriotic song, and the entire transport would immediately sing along […] It was a great emotion […] that's how we said goodbye to our village. We sang these pious songs all the way to Lviv. People cried. I also remember that my grandfather, Felix Domański, didn't want to go west at all, because he said he was waiting for his son, Lukas, because the Germans had taken him and he would return. And we already knew he was dead”.

Some Poles remained in the east. The price was renunciation of Polish citizenship.

Was one of them.

Remained in Bilyi Kamin.

Is said to have stated: „Not all Poles leave here. So, as long as even one soul remains here, in need of my priestly help, I cannot leave them. I will stay here, where Providence has placed me”.

Remained despite being thrown out by the Russians from the rectory himself had once built, partly with his own funds.

Suffering from paralysis following a stroke and severe eczema, he moved in — like a beggar — with a „merciful widow”.

Perished a few years later.

Died on the land where, decades later, 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.

There are no monuments to the deported Poles there. Lat. „O Tempora! O mores!”