Poland to Commemorate Volyn Massacre Victims with New National Day

Polish President Andrzej Duda laid flowers on the field of the no-longer existing Polish village of Kolinia Pokuta in Volyn during a 75th anniversary observance in 2018. Photo: president.pl

WARSAW — Legislation has been signed into law by Polish President Andrzej Duda designating July 11 as the National Day of Remembrance for Poles killed in the Volyn massacres, RMF24 reported on July 2. The bill passed both chambers of parliament with near-unanimous support.

The law commemorates the mass killings of Polish civilians by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), and other nationalist groups between 1939 and 1946 in the Volyn region, now part of western Ukraine. Poland’s Institute of National Remembrance estimates that approximately 100,000 Poles were killed in the violence.

The Volyn massacres remain a point of contention in Polish-Ukrainian relations. Ukrainian historians argue that thousands of Ukrainians also died in retaliatory attacks, framing the events as mutual ethnic violence rather than genocide. In 2016, however, the Polish Parliament officially recognized the killings as genocide.

Efforts to reconcile the historical wounds have gained momentum in recent months, including the resumption of exhumations of Polish victims in western Ukraine. In January, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced a breakthrough in talks with Kyiv on the issue.

July 11, the date of the largest coordinated attacks on Polish villages in 1943, will now be marked annually in Poland.

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