Massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia

The Massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia (Polish: Rzeź wołyńska, literally: Volhynian slaughter; Ukrainian: Волинська трагедія- Volyn tragedy) were part of an ethnic cleansing operation carried out by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) North in the Nazi-occupied regions of Volhynia (Reichskommissariat Ukraine) and UPA-South in Eastern Galicia (General Government) beginning in March 1943 and lasting until the end of 1944. The peak of the massacres took place in July and August 1943 when a senior UPA commander, Dmytro Klyachkivsky, ordered the liquidation of the entire male Polish population between 16 and 60 years of age. Despite this, most of the victims were women and children. The actions of the UPA resulted in 40,000-60,000 Polish civilian casualties in Volhynia, and from 25,000 to 30,000-40,000 in Eastern Galicia.

The killings were directly linked with the policies of the Bandera faction of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and its military arm - Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), whose goal specified at the Second Conference of the OUN-B (17–23 February 1943), or at least in March 1943 was to purge all non-Ukrainians from the future Ukrainian state. Not limiting their activities to the purging of Polish civilians, the UPA also wanted to erase all traces of sustained Polish presence in the area. An OUN order from early 1944 stated: "Liquidate all Polish traces. Destroy all walls in the Catholic Church and other Polish prayer houses. Destroy orchards and trees in the courtyards so that there will be no trace that someone lived there... Pay attention to the fact that when something remains that is Polish, then the Poles will have pretensions to our land".