Poland anticipates exhumation of Volyn tragedy victims to begin post-Easter

The exhumation of Polish victims of the Volyn tragedy in the former village of Puzhnyky (now Sadove – ed.) in the Ternopil region will begin after Easter, approximately on April 25.

Maciej Dancewicz, deputy head of the Polish foundation "Freedom and Democracy," announced that they received permission in January to conduct exhumation works at the site, according to Ukrinform.

As Dancewicz noted, from late March to early April, part of the Polish group participating in the exhumation works in Puzhnyky will be in Ukraine on a working trip to coordinate all the technical details of the upcoming work.

"The work will begin after Easter, the specific day has not yet been finally determined… I estimate that it will be approximately on April 25," a representative of the foundation "Freedom and Democracy" said.

He stated that the Polish team conducting the exhumation in Pużnyky will include over 10 members, led by Dr. Andrzej Ossowski from the Department of Forensic Medicine at the Pomeranian Medical University in Szczecin. This institution hosts the Polish Genetic Database of Victims of Totalitarianisms, and its specialists—comprising geneticists, anthropologists, and archaeologists—are among the most experienced in Poland, equipped with the necessary tools and expertise for such fieldwork.

The Polish group will include specialists from the Pomeranian Medical University, the Freedom and Democracy Foundation, and representatives of the Polish Institute of National Remembrance.

Dancewicz reported that the exhumation work will last about a month. They will be conducted near the old cemetery, in a place where, in 2023, as a result of search work, the presence of the remains of Polish victims of the tragic events in Volhynia was confirmed.

"We would like to exhume the grave, examine the remains, and then rebury them in the old cemetery in Puzhnyky, which was previously agreed upon with the Ukrainian side," the Polish specialist noted.

According to him, the Polish side has established the names and surnames of 80 residents of this village who died on the night of February 13-14, 1945. Therefore, the Polish side expects that approximately 80-90 remains of the deceased residents of Puzhnyky will be exhumed at this location.

As Dancevych emphasized, after the exhumation in Puzhnyky is completed, the foundation will be ready to work in several more places in Ukraine. In particular, this concerns the search and exhumation of Polish army soldiers who died during hostilities with the Wehrmacht troops in September 1939 near Lviv.

"This year, we will ask the Ukrainian authorities for permission to continue the work in this place, which was already carried out in 2014-2017. However, we are now focusing on carrying out the work from April to May in Puzhnyky," the representative of the Polish foundation stated.

He also emphasized that Ukrainian-Polish cooperation in this direction is going well, the Polish side feels support from the Ministry of Culture and Strategic Communications of Ukraine and the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of Poland, as well as local authorities in the Ternopil region.

For reference:

On October 1, Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha stated that Ukraine is ready to discuss the Volyn tragedy.

In turn, the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance stated that in 2025, they plan to conduct search operations for the victims of the Volyn tragedy in the Rivne region. They will do this in response to the Poles' appeal.

Earlier, Polish Defense Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz stated in the summer that Warsaw would not be able to agree to Ukraine's accession to the EU until the countries had settled their disputes over the events in Volhynia during World War II.

Meanwhile, President Andrzej Duda criticized such statements. In his opinion, blocking Ukraine's access to the European Union is a continuation of Vladimir Putin's policy since the Russian dictator launched aggression against Ukraine precisely to stop its integration into the EU.

On November 26, Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski held talks with his Ukrainian counterpart Andrii Sybiha. Kyiv assured that there were no obstacles to the exhumation of the victims of the Volhynia tragedy in Ukraine.

According to the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance (UINP), the socio-ethnic confrontation between Ukrainians and Poles during World War II and the first post-war years was fueled by the Nazi and communist totalitarian regimes to weaken the Polish and Ukrainian underground. At the same time, the growth of interethnic hostility was also facilitated by the continued discriminatory policy in the interwar Polish Republic, which included the Western Ukrainian lands. In 1930, by order of Pilsudski, pacification began, which was accompanied by arrests, beatings, and murders of Ukrainians on ethnic grounds.

The Volyn tragedy is the ethnic cleansing of Ukrainians and Poles that took place during the Nazi occupation in 1943–1944. The Ukrainian Insurgent Army opposed the Home Army in a partisan struggle that caused casualties among civilians.

The names of about 30,000 Polish and about 10,000 Ukrainian victims have been identified.

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