05.07.02016, Strategic Culture Foundation http://www.strategic-culture.org (Russia)
Every July
Poland is rocked by internal debates about Ukraine’s historical responsibility
for the 1943 Volhynia massacre, and 2016 is no exception.
The ruling Law
and Justice party (PiS) of Jarosław Kaczyński came to power mainly on promises
to raise the topic of the massacre of the Polish population of Volhynia during
the WWII by the butchers from the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) in Kiev. «The crimes committed against our
compatriots by the UPA should be termed genocide. I will not permit any excuses
for what happened during the most terrible era in our history», exhorted Jarosław Kaczyński during the heat of
the election campaign.
However, his
actions never went beyond promises. Like its predecessors in the Civic Platform
party, the PiS refuses to declare July 11 as Kresy
Martyrdom Remembrance Day. (Kresy is the
name for the region of western Ukraine, western Belarus, and Lithuania that was
once part of the Second Polish Republic. On July 11, 1943, at the height of a
wave of violence committed by the UPA, 100 Polish villages and farmsteads were
attacked by Stepan Bandera’s gangs.)
Instead of
commemorating July 11, Jarosław Kaczyński proposes to move Martyrdom Day to
