Massacres of civilians during World War II
100,000 Poles Murdered by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army: Volhynia 1943
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In 1943, during the Second World War, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) launched a brutal campaign against the Polish population of Volhynia and Eastern Galicia. Entire villages were destroyed, churches became death traps, and tens of thousands of civilians — including women and children — were murdered in one of the deadliest ethnic cleansing campaigns in occupied Europe.
This story explores the origins of the Volhynian massacres, the rise of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the UPA, and the attacks carried out in places such as Ostrówki, Wola Ostrowiecka, Kisielin, and during the Volhynian Bloody Sunday of 11 July 1943.
It also examines the fate of key figures including Roman Shukhevych, Dmytro Klyachkivsky, and Mykola Lebed, some of whom escaped justice after the war.
This is the story of the Volhynian massacres — a tragedy that claimed around 100,000 lives and remains deeply controversial to this day.
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