Nawrocki spoke in Radruż, in Poland's Podkarpackie region, at the start of ceremonies marking the country’s National Day of Remembrance for Poles killed in the atrocities perpetrated by Ukrainian nationalists.
"'Ignorance about the missing undermines the reality of the world' — those are the words of the poet Zbigniew Herbert. We are here so that the reality of today's and tomorrow's world can be heard. Because we will not accept forgetting the 120,000 Poles, civilians, women and children, brutally murdered by Ukrainian nationalists", Nawrocki said.
He said knowledge, truth and remembrance exist "so that we can also think about our future", adding: "So that we can make amends to them through our prayer and our memory, and draw lessons for our future from the Volhynia genocide. We are here so that ignorance about the missing does not undermine the reality of the world in the 21st century".
Nawrocki said he understood deeply the trauma still carried by Polish families in the 21st century because of crimes committed by Ukrainian nationalist formations, the OUN and the UPA.
"To those who speak of today's geopolitics, of a world at war, of raison d'etat, I want to remind them that the death of 14-year-old Jadwiga Romanik — her threshold of pain, what her parents went through, what she felt in her heart as Ukrainian nationalists murdered her — is the same death being experienced today by 14-year-old Ukrainians at the hands of bandits from the Russian Federation", he said.
He asked how these deaths differ from one another. "Is a death from yesterday somehow gentler than a death from tomorrow? The weeping and suffering of families, the pain, the degradation? That is why we must say clearly: yes, memory, history and the truth about the Volhynia genocide shape the future. We are here for the past, but also for the future, which is here with us, for our children", Nawrocki said.