The Volhynian Crime: The Pilecki Institute and its scholarly and research activities - Instytut Pileckiego

On the Sunday of 11 July 1943, units of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, the armed wing of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (Stepan Bandera faction) – a radical fascist organization striving to build an independent Ukrainian state without any national minorities – carried out a coordinated attack on almost a hundred Polish settlements in the German-occupied Volhynian Voivodeship of the Second Polish Republic.

The Polish populace, which was gathered in churches for the Sunday services, was killed by bullets, grenades, bladed weapons and farm tools. Only a handful managed to survive, either by putting up a desperate fight for survival or by receiving help from the limited Polish self-defense forces. No less than 7,000 people were killed on that day alone. The ruins of the church in Kisielin and many other Roman Catholic churches bear silent testimony to these events and stand as a permanent indictment of the perpetrators.

The “Bloody Sunday” in Volhynia marked the apogee of the “anti-Polish operation” carried out by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army and the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists between February 1943 and June 1945. The OUN decided to “cleanse” the ethnic Polish-Ukrainian borderlands of Poles – some were to be murdered, while the rest expelled to the west. Mass atrocities against civilians were carried out in the Polish prewar southeastern provinces of Volhynia, Tarnopol, Stanisławów, Lwów, as well as part of the Lublin region. According to the most reliable estimates, at least 90,000 Poles, and possibly as many as 100,000, were killed by Ukrainian nationalists. Polish counteraction and reprisals also resulted in the deaths of at least 13,000 Ukrainians, with estimates reaching 14,000. The Volhynian-Galician Crime and its reception in Poland and Ukraine remain the centerpiece in the conflict of memory between Poles and Ukrainians.

The Witold Pilecki Institute of Solidarity and Valor has long been engaged in researching these tragic events, commemorating the victims of the Volhynian Crime, and honoring those Ukrainians who risked their lives and health to bring help to their neighbors.

The Virtus et Fraternitas Medal

The Archive of the Pilecki Institute actively works towards commemorating foreigners who offered aid to Polish citizens in the 20th century, during both war and peace time. Among the medal recipients (78 people from 15 countries), Ukrainians decorated for helping Poles during the Volhynian Crime constitute the largest group (27 people). To name but a few: Anatolyi and Zinaida Giergiel, Fedor and Kateryna Boymistruk, Mykhailo Susla, the Skakalski family, Piotr Parfenyuk, Paraskeva Padlevska. They helped in various places, both in towns and villages, such as Marcelówka, Butejki, Gaj, Podkamień, Czerniejów, Krzemieniec, Kisielin, and Aleksandrówka. Their help in the face of the threat posed by Ukrainian nationalism was not limited to the memorable July of 1943. Some continued to shelter Poles as late as in 1944, while the Boymistruks adopted a little Polish girl, a survivor from Gaj, and treated her as their daughter for the rest of their lives.

The full list of the medal recipients and their stories can be found at: https://instytutpileckiego.pl/pl/medal/odznaczeni?strona=2

The Archive of the Pilecki Institute is currently working on archival testimonies concerning the Volhynian Crime – several hundred accounts of witnesses, mostly soldiers of the 27th Volhynian Infantry Division of the Home Army, which were collected in the 1980s. The materials are held at the Institute of National Remembrance and will be made available by the Pilecki Institute as part of the “Chronicles of Terror” project (zapisyterroru.pl), of which the Institute of National Remembrance is the main partner.

Center for Totalitarian Studies

The Polish-Ukrainian conflict, with a particular focus on the Volhynian-Galician Crime, is also the subject of research conducted by scholars employed at the Pilecki Institute. Prof. Andrii Portnov is the author of a book devoted to the conflict of memory surrounding, among others, these events: Polska-Ukraina. Wspólna historia, asymetryczna pamięć. Prof. Damian Markowski is the author of an academic monograph entitled W cieniu Wołynia. Antypolska akcja OUN i UPA w Galicji Wschodniej 1943–1945 (Wydawnictwo Literackie, Kraków 2023), which Prof. Grzegorz Motyka – an undisputed expert on the subject – regarded as one of the more important publications on anti-Polish cleansings during the Second World War. Prof. Markowski has also prepared a collection of sources titled Ludność polska w Galicji Wschodniej w latach 1941–1945 w świetle dokumentów, which will be published in October 2026 by the Museum of the Second World War in Gdańsk. He also participates in the Polish-Ukrainian scholarly debate on the coexistence and conflicts between the two nations, among others through contributions to the prestigious Ukrainian academic periodical, “Ukrainskyi Istorychnyi Zhurnal”. Prof. Markowski is also active in the media, giving numerous press interviews and providing commentary for radio and television concerning the Polish-Ukrainian conflict of memory (in the last two weeks alone, for the Polish Radio Programs 2 and 3, the Polish Press Agency, Kanał Zero, and Do Rzeczy: Historia, while in the previous year among others for The New York Times, The Times, El Pais, De Volkskrant, and many other media).

It is worth noting that the Scholarly Council of the Pilecki Institute is chaired by Prof. Grzegorz Motyka – a historian, political scientist, Director of the Military Historical Bureau, employee and former director of the Institute of Political Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences, who researches the Polish-Ukrainian relations after 1939 and the anti-communist resistance in Central Europe after 1944. Together with Prof. Damian Markowski of the Pilecki Institute, they actively participate in the public debate, giving numerous interviews on the Volhynian Crime, history and Polish-Ukrainian relations.

Prof. Andrzej Zawistowski is the initiator and coordinator of the project “Disinformation in history. The history of disinformation”, which is implemented jointly with the Mieroszewski Center, the Center for Eastern Studies, the Auschwitz Museum and the Polish History Museum. On 13 April 2026, the first symposium was held as part of this important research initiative of the Pilecki Institute.

Witnesses to the Age

In addition to scholarly and archive research connected with the Polish-Ukrainian relations, the Pilecki Institute also maintains an extensive oral history library “Witnesses to the Age”. The recollections of survivors of the Second World War and those who remember the postwar era have been recorded since 2018. The oral history archive contains more than 2,700 recordings. These include 88 interviews (152 hours) concerning the Volhynian Crime.

The “Witnesses to the Age” channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwJJZ385JQqrxCnMGJaE08g

Ukrainians who rescued Poles and were awarded the Virtus et Fraternitas Medal:

• Anatolyi Giergiel (1904–1981), Zinaida Giergiel (1915–1989)
• Maria Bazeluk (1903–1956), Petro Bazeluk (1903–1949)
• Fedor Boymistruk (1905–1974), Kateryna Boymistruk (1909–2000)
• Mykhailo Susla (1901–1970)
• Trofim Daneliuk (1880–1950)
• Zinaida Samchuk (1926–1996), Hanna Skakalska (1887–1966), Hanna Skakalska (1905–1987), Musiy Skakalski (1902–1974)
• Semen Bilichuk (1890–1944), Ustyna Kowtoniuk (1895 – ca. 1980), Sava Kovtoniuk (1888 – ca. 1970), Paraskeva Padlevska (1888 – ca. 1960), Anton Parfenyuk (1890–1947), Liubov Parfeniuk (1903–1967), Piotr Parfenyuk (1904–1993)
• Yevhenia Bondaruk (1922 – ca. 1995), Prokop Bondaruk (1918 – ca. 1990), Oksana Karpiuk (born 1892, date of death unknown), Anastasiya Koren (1908–1967), Mykola Koren (1899 – ca. 1960), Pavlo Kyts (1897 – ca. 1960), Sofia Kyts (born 1890, date of death unknown)
• Herasym Lukianchuk (1890–1953)

In addition to the persons named above, the Virtus et Fraternitas Medal was awarded to two living Ukrainians for their efforts at preserving the memory of the Volhynian Crime:

• Oleksandra Vaseyko (born 1946)
• Volodymyr Kryzhuk (born 1978)

The Virtus et Fraternitas Medal was also awarded to two Czechs who had helped Poles in Volhynia:

• Jan Jelínek (1912–2009), Anna Jelínková (1918–2009)

In addition, one Ukrainian unconnected with the history of the Volhynian Crime was awarded the Virtus et Fraternitas Medal for preserving memory::

• Petro Hrudzevych (1939–2022)