Aleksander Motyl von der Rutgers University veröffentlichte auf seinem Blog einen Text zum Wolhynien-Massaker. Siehe http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/blog/alexander-j-motyl/remembering-1943-volhynian-massacres
Dieser enthält jedoch zahlreiche Spekulationen, weshalb ich darauf mit dem folgenden Brief reagierte:
Dear
Alex,
I have some critical comments to your jugdments about the Volhynian Massacre (or "Slaughter", not "Volhynian Massacres" as you name it) 1943-44. You unfortunately made some mistakes with regard to its perpertators, its bloody, cruelly sequences and to the number
of its victims. Obviously you do not know the meanwhile classical research by Grzegorz Motyka about the Volhynian Slaughter and the Action Vistula which has been published, as I remember, in 2010 or in 2011. Probably for this reason you prefere to speculate about facts which are well known. My second point concerns the classification as genocide. Frankly speaking I am not sure, whether the Volhynian
Slaughter was one or not, because its systematic killing actions were carried out by armed gangs - Ukrainian partisans from the UPA -, which no state authority stood behind. Otherwise the UPA regarded itself as an "army" of a future Ukrainian state (and this claim is today regarded as legitimate by many Western Ukrainians). But by no doubt the intention of these Ukrainian totalitarists
was genocidal. They carried out a formal order to kill all Poles in Volhynia - this order specified children, women and the old not to be spared. In about 100 000 cases (Galicia included) they "succeded". For understanding the definition of genocide I recommend the last book by Naimark (published some two years ago in Ukrainian language, too) who explains the circumstances under which the UN-convention to genocide in 1947 had been drafted (by Rafał Lemkin who's original concept actually includes not only ethnic but also political crimes) and accepted by the allies.
Slaughtering people in this region had a pre-history. In most cases inspired by the Germans (who, as we know, in sommer 1941 invaded eastern Poland which had been under Soviet occupation until then) some
Poles and Ukrainians on many places killed Jews in a similar cruelly way. For example in Lwów and its environment mostly Ukrainian mob slaughtered some 6000 Jews at this time. In Jedwabne near Bialystok Polish mob executed cruelly probably about 300 Jews (by bearning them alife) .
If you do not mind, I would like to correct one thing more. In your text you mentioned that the Polish state did not exist during the Volhynian Slaughter. This is wrong. Of course, the Polish state did legally exist during the WW2. Only adherers of
Hitler-Stalin-pact may neglect it seriously.
Best
Jerzy.
PS. To apologise? The killer, if they still are are among us, may try this way. To forgive? Nobody has the right to forgive in the name of the killed, surely not the current Ukranian state. What to do, then? Telling true.
