Massacres of Poles in Volhynia - Question of Genocide

Question of Genocide

The Institute of National Remembrance investigated the crimes committed by the UPA against the Poles in Volhynia, Galicia, and prewar Lublin Voivodeship; collecting over 10,000 pages of documents and protocols. The massacres are classified by the Commission prosecutor Piotr Zając as having character of genocide. According to Zając, "there is no doubt that the crimes committed against the people of Polish nationality have the character of (...) genocide".

On 15 July 2009 the Sejm of the Republic of Poland unanimously adopted a resolution regarding "the tragic fate of Poles in Eastern Borderlands". The text of the resolution states that July 2009 marks the 66th anniversary "of the beginning of anti-Polish actions by the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army on Polish Eastern territories - mass murders characterised by ethnic cleansing with marks of genocide."

However, according to Katchanovski, the actions which occurred in Volhynia cannot be classified as genocide "because there is no evidence of an intent to eliminate entire or a significant party of the Polish population, and the anti-Polish action was mostly limited to a relatively small region."