President Karol Nawrocki is scheduled to attend ceremonies in the village of Radruż in southeastern Poland, where he will pay tribute to victims of what Polish authorities describe as genocide committed by Ukrainian nationalists in the eastern territories of prewar Poland.
Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz plans to travel to western Ukraine to commemorate victims of what are known as the Volhynia massacres.
Every year on July 11, Poland marks the anniversary with commemorative events across the country, including a ceremony at a Warsaw monument dedicated to those killed in the massacres.
Polish officials have said that future relations between Poland and Ukraine should be built on historical truth while preserving cooperation between the two countries.
According to Poland's Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), the massacres were carried out between February 1943 and the spring of 1945 by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) in the eastern territories of occupied prewar Poland.
Polish historians estimate that about 100,000 ethnic Poles were killed during the campaign.
The bloodiest day came on July 11, 1943, known in Poland as "Bloody Sunday," when UPA units launched coordinated attacks on around 100 Polish villages in Volhynia, a region that is now part of western Ukraine.
Polish civilian victims of a World War II massacre committed by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA). Image: Władysława Siemaszków, Ludobójstwo, page 1294, from Henryk Słowiński collection, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Poland classifies the killings as genocide, saying they were carried out as part of an effort by Ukrainian nationalists to create an ethnically homogeneous Ukrainian state.
Ukrainian historians and officials have described the events as part of a broader Polish-Ukrainian wartime conflict, while the UPA remains a symbol of the struggle for independence for many Ukrainians.
Before World War II, Volhynia was home to Poles, Ukrainians, Jews, Czechs, Germans and other communities. The region, then part of Poland, was occupied by the Soviet Union in 1939 and by Nazi Germany in 1941.
On the eve of the anniversary, the IPN paid tribute to the victims, saying on social media that the attacks of July 11, 1943, marked the culmination of a broader campaign of violence against the Polish population in Volhynia, Eastern Galicia and parts of the Lublin and Polesie regions.
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Source: IAR, PAP