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Электронное приложение к журналу «
Международная жизнь
»
Author : N. Platoshkin
Doctor of Science (History)
TODAY'S POLAND, or, more accurately, its lead-
ership, in a strange way supports the openly ex-
tremist nationalistic regime that took power in
Kiev in February 2014 and glorifies the exploits of
Ukrainian nationalists during the Second World
War. But Stepan Bandera and other leaders of the
Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN)
had their arms up to the elbows in Polish blood.
Forgetting this means encouraging modern follow-
ers of Bandera to commit similar atrocities. And they have been trying hard as well, for
example burning people alive in Odessa, something their predecessors had done in Poland,
and not too long ago either.
From the moment of its emergence in 1929, the OUN saw Poland as a historical enemy
of a "united (soborna) Ukraine," along with the "Moscow Empire." Between 1929 and
1939, the OUN carried out a series of notorious terrorist attacks against top Polish officials,
including Polish leader Marshal Jozef Pilsudski. These terrorist activities peaked in the as-
sassination of Polish Interior Minister Bronislaw Pieracki in 1934. It is worth mentioning
that the OUN enjoyed serious support in Polish-occupied Western Ukraine because of
the Polish government's chauvinistic anti-Ukrainian policy.
During the German occupation of Poland and Ukraine between 1939 and 1944, Soviet
partisans were active in the Lemko region, especially its eastern part, and the majority of
the local population supported the Soviet Union. This was in striking contrast to Galicia,
where the Germans were able to form an SS division - the Galicina - from Ukrainian vol-
unteers, and where the OUN enjoyed considerable support among the population.
In autumn 1944, Soviet Ukraine and the PKWN signed a treaty on voluntary population
exchanges. The treaty was signed by PKWN Chairman Edward Osobka-Morawski and
the Chairman of the Ukrainian Council of People's Commissars, Nikita Khrushchev.
The treaty gave ethnic Ukrainians, Belarusians and Russians living in Poland the right to
move to Soviet Ukraine and allowed ethnic Poles and Jews who, before September 17,
1939, had been citizens of Poland to return to that country.
The UPA became more popular in the Lemko region after the deportation of local pop-
ulation to Ukraine began. Naturally, the majority of local people did not want to leave their
homeland, and the UPA encouraged their reluctance in every way. Poland responded by
Operations of the Polish Armed Forces Against Ukrainian Nation-
alists in 1944-1947