Controversial Ukrainian partisan monument vandalised
PR dla Zagranicy
Nick Hodge
28.05.2015 13:03
A monument commemorating Ukrainian partisans who fought Poles during and in the aftermath of WWII has been vandalised in Hruszowice, south east Poland.
The monument in Hruszowice. Photo: PAP/Darek Delmanowicz
Unknown perpetrators poured paint over the memorial and wrenched plaques from the structure.
The monument honours members of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) who fell during clashes with Polish soldiers near Hruszowice in 1946.
An inscription hails “the heroes of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army who fought for a free Ukraine.”
The monument was erected in 1994 without the consent of Polish authorites and in 2013 Polish MEP Tomasz Poręba, a member of opposition party Law and Justice, lobbied unsuccessfully to have the memorial removed.
Prior to WWII, the territory of today's Ukraine was divided between Poland and the Soviet Union and the whereabouts of Hruszowice were chiefly inhabited by ethnic Ukrainians.
UPA emerged during World War II, and in 1943 it launched a programe of ethnic cleansing, beginning in the Volhynia region (now in Ukraine).
Tens of thousands of ethnic Poles were slaughtered in Volhynia, followed by thousands more when the fighting spread to other areas (1944-1947). Overall estimates of Polish victims have been as high as 100,000.
Polish militias and partisans fought back during WWII, with about 2000-3000 Ukrainians killed in Volhynia, and about 20,000 more later in other regions.
A Soviet-backed communist regime was installled in Poland in the wake of the war, and in 1947, Poland's then communist army, which had been engaged in clashes with UPA partisans, orchestrated Operation Vistula, which resettled ethnic Ukrainians living within Poland's borders. (nh)
Source: PAP