DID THE POLISH-UKRAINIAN CONFRONTATION «MOVE» FROM VOLYN TO GALICIA IN 1943?

Abstract

There is no reason to assert that the «wave of murderous attacks» by Ukraini ans against Poles, with numerous victims on both sides, quickly moved from the Reichskommissariat «Ukraine» to the «Halychyna» district of the General Governorship, that was in the summer or autumn of 1943. After all, this is not confirmed by any historical documents (primarily – by origin from the OUN(b) or the Home Army (Polish: Armia Krajowa, abbreviated AK). Corresponding sto ries in sources of other origin – about the resettlement of persons of Polish na tionality from Volyn to Eastern Galicia in July–October 1943 – are also absent, although, according to the logic, they should definitely be there.
Instead, a sharp aggravation of Polish-Ukrainian relations in the district «Halychyna» occurred in the second half of February 1944. Evidently, the contemporary avalanche-like increasing in victims from both the Polish and Ukrainian sides was caused by Soviet provocations related to the advance of the Soviet-German front to the West and corresponding raids in the western direction of Soviet partisan units.
The arrival of Mikhail Naumov’s several-thousand-strong Soviet cavalry unit in Galicia may have had an effect. On February 14, 1944, some of these partisans managed to cross the Lviv–Peremyshl railway line and they headed towards Medyka (others were defeated by the Germans, while another part of them turned back). After that event, the Polish-Ukrainian relations in the west of the Zahidnyi Bug River appeared to deteriorate sharply. Obviously, the fact that the local Ukrainian underground suspected that the local residents of Polish nationality were supporting the Soviet partisan movement also played a role, and therefore Ukrainians reacted accordingly. As for the Polish under ground (i.e. the AK Party Lviv regional branch representatives), having en countered the anti-Polish speeches of Ukrainians, they accused the occupa tion authorities of the Halychyna district of not even noticing them.
In late February 1944, in the Lviv area of the AK, hundreds of victims among «compatriots» were ascertained as a result of the unfolded «massacre». In March, the local Polish underground drew their attention to the «massive de struction of Poles by Ukrainians», and in April, basing on the results of the relevant events, they compared the situation with Ukrainian-Polish relations in Eastern Galicia to the one that developed in Volyn in the summer of 1943.
Meanwhile, in March, some of the Polish underground took retaliatory actions, declaring their intention to carry out «liquidation» and «pacification» actions against the leaders and agitators of the Ukrainian community. The first of those anti-Ukrainian «pacifications» was carried out by the «Kediv» of the AK Lviv District on March 15-22.
In the spring of 1944, the Ukrainian underground at the local level was seeking to come to a certain understanding with the remnants of the German occu pation administration of the «Halychyna» district, but the «Polish subject» usually did not appear in the lists of priority issues. Moreover, Ukrainians were very dissatisfied with the activities of the Polish-Hungarian fighters connect ed with the German-Nazi occupiers, who were pestering in the southern part of the district.
In May 1944, being convinced that the Polish underground, after the arrival of Soviet troops and authorities in Galicia, intended to cooperate beneficial ly with them, the OUN(b) switched to the tactic of «eliminating» the Polish population outside the Ukrainian ethnographic territories in Western Ukraine. And in June – July, the Ukrainian-Polish confrontation in the region turned into a struggle, in which the participation of the Ukrainian and Polish under ground became crucial and decisive.
This bloody conflict in the Halychyna district even «survived» the liquidation of the latter and the beginning of re-Sovietization of the region. And only approximately at the end of August – in September 1944, it began to subside. After all, according to the administrative documents of the OUN(b) and the UPA that came out at the time, it was decided to destroy those persons of Polish nationality who were cooperating with the Soviet government or had something to do with it. Furthermore, the Ukrainian nationalist underground of Galicia realized that it was necessary to seek connections with the Polish underground in order to organize a joint anti-Soviet struggle.