from schizoidman@lemmy.zip to world@lemmy.world on 02 Apr 07:22
https://lemmy.zip/post/61833708
cross-posted from : lemmy.zip/post/61833663
The massacres were part of an ethnic cleansing operation by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) between 1943 and 1945 in the territories of Volhynia and Eastern Galicia, which had been part of Poland before the war but were then under Nazi-German occupation.
The UPA’s aim was to create an ethnically homogeneous Ukrainian territory. Today, the areas in which the massacres took place are located mainly in Ukraine, following postwar border shifts.
Around 100,000 ethnic Poles, mostly women and children, were killed, many with exceptional brutality. However, precise figures are impossible to ascertain because of a lack of documentation and because most victims were buried in mass, unmarked graves.
the massacres remain a source of tension. Poland regards them as a genocide and has officially recognised them as such. But Ukraine rejects the use of that term and seeks to contextualise the massacres by pointing to Polish persecution of Ukrainians.
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