Ukrainians and Poles assess the UPA differently because they talk about different periods of its history.
When people in Ukraine talk about UPA, they usually mean only the third, longest stage of its history — since 1945, when it fought against the Red Army in Halychyna and Volyn. In Poland, the situation is different: for obvious reasons, Poles remember the initial stage, when [UPA] consisted mainly of Ukrainians — former German policemen.
During this period, from April to the summer of 1943, tens of thousands of Poles were killed in Volyn. There is also a second stage, when UPA fought in Poland against the communist regime and the deportations of Ukrainians.
The main problem is that the views on all these stages are different on both sides. And Ukrainians now think about their history exclusively in the context of relations with Russia — this is a mistake.
Poles killed in an UPA attack, June 1944. Victims of the UPA attack on a train near the village of Zatyle (now Poland), June 1944.
volhyniamassacre.eu / «Бабель»
Russia loses on the battlefield, but wins the battle for memory in Kyiv and Warsaw.
There is an opinion that Ukrainians “annoy” or “provoke” Russia when they mention UPA. In fact, the opposite is true: Moscow is only happy about it. In the Russian and Soviet tradition, Polish-Ukrainian relations were often presented through the prism of Polish grievances against Ukrainians. When the communists ruled Poland, they always emphasized Poland’s negative memory of Ukrainians.
The Poles ignore their own historical crimes against Ukrainians.
The Poles in Volyn also killed thousands of Ukrainians. There was also the pacification of Ukrainian villages in Galicia in the 1930s [a punitive action by the Polish authorities], the closure of Ukrainian Orthodox churches in Volyn, and the almost complete absence of official Polish reaction to the Holodomor [in 1932-1933 in Soviet Ukraine]. Although the Poles knew better than anyone what was actually happening in Ukraine.
Parade of the Polish Army through the streets of Lviv, 1930s. The "Prosvita" reading room in the village of Kniahynychi (now Ivano-Frankivsk region) was ransacked by Polish gendarmes during the pacification.
Wikimedia
The current war should not be linked to World War II and UPA.
This is the wrong approach of the Ukrainians themselves. It is better to focus on the current war and treat it as a source of Ukrainian symbols and memory.
This war is morally simpler, it can be won politically, but the war for memory cannot. Memory is an extremely complex thing, not all Ukrainians understand how complex it is.
In Poland, there is a habit of looking at Ukrainians as “younger brothers” who can be lectured to.
And at Americans as “older brothers” who are supposedly always right. It is time to reconsider this. Poland still has too much trust in its allies — the US and NATO. Yes, NATO is important, and so is the EU.
But today Poland’s geopolitical position depends more on Ukraine than on the US. Ukrainians are fighting in this war, Americans are not fighting and will not. Ignoring this and our own interests is a serious mistake.
The Poles have become the West that has stopped seeing the threat from Russia.
During the Cold War, Polish politicians constantly reminded the West that the Soviet Union was a serious threat. After the 1990s and in the first decades of the 21st century, they also repeated to the US and Europe that they underestimated Russia. And now the Poles themselves are committing this sin. They are now the West that does not understand the threat posed by Russia.
If Ukraine loses, it will have critical consequences for Poland’s sovereignty. I think that this will not happen and that Ukraine will win. But if not, Poland will not be able to resist Russia, which will receive Ukraine’s resources.
Therefore, not supporting Ukraine is like demanding the abolition of Polish sovereignty and independence.
The First Secretary of the Polish United Workersʼ Party Edward Gierek speaks on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, October 8, 1974. George Bush Sr. and the leader of the Polish anti-communist Solidarity movement Lech Walesa, in Washington, D.C., in 1989.
Getty Images / «Babel'»