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coercive ousters of Lemkos, and eventually used three infantry divisions to carry through
the expulsions.
The UPA's Security Service and "military police" would make short work of mobilization
dodgers. Deserters were shot in front of a line of UPA fighters, their relatives were mur-
dered, and their houses burned down.
The Polish police and security forces, which were still in the making, were unable to take
effective action against well-trained and well-armed UPA groups. In winter 1945, there
were about 300 Polish police in the whole of the Lemko region, and they were mainly
armed with rifles.
UPA Security Service militants would hang on village squares those who refused to col-
laborate with them and stab babies to death with kitchen knives. In the village of Guzwice,
all men, older women, and children were burned alive just because the village had handed
over compulsory farm produce supplies to the state. All the victims were Ukrainians. The
younger women were shot dead "out of mercy," having been raped before that.
Warsaw came up with a plan for a crackdown on the OUN and UPA to be codenamed
Operation Vistula.
Soon after Operation Vistula began, it became clear that the use of large army units against
small enemy bands was an ineffective tactic. Many of the army units were unfamiliar with
the terrain and with UPA tactics.
The end of Bastion represented the complete defeat of the UPA and rout of the Ukrainian
nationalist movement in Poland.
It is surprising that, after Warsaw declared the OUN/UPA a criminal organization, today's
Poland supports the Kiev leadership, who are modern ideological followers of Bandera
and Shukhevich, those butchers of the Polish people. Playing the nationalist card, no matter
what immediate benefits it might appear to offer, can lead to nothing else than innocent
blood.
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