Brzuska ( uk, Березка) is a
village
A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to ...
in the administrative district of
Gmina Bircza, within
Przemyśl County,
Subcarpathian Voivodeship, in south-eastern Poland. It lies approximately north of
Bircza, west of
Przemyśl
Przemyśl (; yi, פשעמישל, Pshemishl; uk, Перемишль, Peremyshl; german: Premissel) is a city in southeastern Poland with 58,721 inhabitants, as of December 2021. In 1999, it became part of the Subcarpathian Voivodeship; it was pr ...
, and south-east of the regional capital
Rzeszów.
Brzuska (Berezka/Bereska in Ukrainian) was a large village north of Bircza with approx 1500 inhabitants before World War 2.
The inhabitants were mostly originally Rusyns, who then became Ukrainian. There were also some Poles (80) and Jews (50) who lived in the village.
The main land owner was a Jewish family, surname Ringel, who was taken away by the Russians during or after the war.
Originally, a Greek Catholic church once stood on the hill - Saint Nicholas the Miracle Worker, which was destroyed. There was also a masonry church called Transfiguration of Our Lord. It was erected in 1868, renovated in 1920. It was also destroyed.
During the 1944–1947 expulsion of the Ukrainian inhabitants, approximately 250 were killed, including Rev. Oleksa Bilyk (1892–1944) and his family. It is reported the killings were a revenge attack for the massacre of Poles in Volhynia. After the expulsion, it is reported the UPA burned the village so they could not be inhabited by the Polish population.
A Ukrainian cemetery still exists on the hill in the village, but the access road has been removed and it can only be reached by foot. Rev. Oleksa Bilyk's grave is there and is still tended to. A local Ukrainian lady, who still lives in the village, sold a cow to pay for a headstone.
See also
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Historiography of the Volyn tragedy This article presents the historiography of the Volyn tragedy as presented by historians in Poland and Ukraine after World War II. The Massacres of Poles in Volhynia were part of the ethnic cleansing operation in the Polish province of Eastern Galic ...
*
Operation Vistula
References
External links
Carpatho-Rusyn Knowledge Base
File:Main_Brzuska_road_in_Poland.jpg, View of Brzuska
File:cemetery_marker.jpg, Marker of the Ukrainian Cemetery
File:Bilyk_ grave.jpg, Grave of Rev.Oleksa Bilyk
File:unmarkd_grave.jpg, Unmarked grave in the Ukrainian Cemetery
Villages in Przemyśl County
{{Przemyśl-geo-stub