Massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia

The massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia ( pl, rzeź wołyńska, lit=Volhynian slaughter; uk, Волинська трагедія, lit=Volyn tragedy, translit=Volynska trahediia), were carried out in German-occupied Poland by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, or the UPA, with the support of parts of the local Ukrainian population against the Polish minority in Volhynia, Eastern Galicia, parts of Polesia and Lublin region from 1943 to 1945. The peak of the massacres took place in July and August 1943. Most of the victims were women and children. Many of the Polish victims regardless of age or gender were tortured before being killed; some of the methods included rape, dismemberment or immolation, among others. The UPA's actions resulted in between 50,000 and 100,000 deaths.

According to Timothy Snyder, the ethnic cleansing was a Ukrainian attempt to prevent the post-war Polish state from asserting its sovereignty over Ukrainian-majority areas that had been part of the prewar Polish state. Henryk Komański and Szczepan Siekierka write that the killings were directly linked to the policies of Stepan Bandera's faction of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN-B) and its military arm, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, whose goal as specified at the Second Conference of the OUN-B on 17–23 February 1943 (March 1943 in some sources) was to purge all non-Ukrainians from the future Ukrainian state. The massacres led to a conflict between Polish resistance and Ukrainian insurgency in the German-occupied territories, with the Polish Home Army in Volhynia responding to the Ukrainian attacks, on a much smaller scale.

In 2008, the massacres which were committed by the Ukrainian nationalists against the Poles in Volhynia and Galicia were described by Poland's Institute of National Remembrance as bearing the distinct characteristics of a genocide, and on 22 July 2016, the Parliament of Poland passed a resolution recognizing the massacres as genocide.Polish "Senate recognizes Volhynia massacre to be genocide." http://tass.ru/en/world/887135 http://tass.ru/en/world/887135 Radio Poland "Polish MPs adopt resolution calling 1940s massacre genocide" http://www.thenews.pl/1/10/Artykul/263005,Polish-MPs-adopt-resolution-calling-1940s-massacre-genocide This classification is disputed by Ukraine and some non-Polish historians. According to a 2016 article in '' Slavic Review'', there is a "scholarly consensus that this was a case of ethnic cleansing as opposed to genocide". Other victims of the massacres included several hundred Jews, Russians, Czechs, Georgians, and Ukrainians who were part of Polish families or opposed the UPA and sabotaged the genocide by hiding Polish escapees.

Background

:''See articles:'' Cherven Grods, Galicia–Volhynia Wars and Polish–Ukrainian War

Interwar period in Second Polish Republic

Just before the Soviet invasion of 1939, Volhynia had been part of the Second Polish Republic. According to the historian Timothy Snyder, between 1928 and 1938, Volhynia was "the site of one of eastern Europe's most ambitious policies of toleration".Timothy Snyder. (2003)''The Causes of Ukrainian-Polish Ethnic Cleansing 1943,'' The Past and Present Society: Oxford University Press. p. 202 Through supporting Ukrainian culture, religious autonomy and the Ukrainization of the Orthodox Church, Józef Piłsudski and his allies wanted to achieve Ukrainian loyalty to the Polish state and to minimise Soviet influences in the borderline region. That approach was gradually abandoned after Piłsudski's death in 1935 as a consequence of an increase in radical Ukrainian nationalism.

In 1929, the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) was formed in Vienna, Austria, and was the result of a union between radical nationalist and extreme right-wing organisations, including the Union of Ukrainian Fascists. The organization initiated a campaign of terror in Poland, which included the assassination of prominent Polish politicians, such as Interior Minister Bronisław Pieracki, and Polish and Ukrainian moderates, such as Tadeusz Hołówko.

The terror campaign and civil unrest in the Galician countryside resulted in Polish police exacting a policy of collective responsibility on local Ukrainians in an effort to "pacify" the region, demolishing Ukrainian community centers and libraries, confiscating property and produce, and beating protesters. Ukrainian parliamentarians were placed under house arrest to prevent them from participating in elections, with their constituents terrorized into voting for Polish candidates. The Ukrainian plight, protests and pacification received the attention of the League of Nations as 'an international cause célèbre', with Poland receiving condemnation from European politicians. The ongoing policies of Poland led to the deepening of ethnic cleavages in the area.

Volhynia was a place of increasingly violent conflict, with Polish police on one side and Western Ukrainian communists supported by many dissatisfied Ukrainian peasants on the other. The communists organized strikes, killed at least 31 suspected police informers in 1935–1936 and began to assassinate local Ukrainian officials for "collaboration" with the Polish state. The police conducted mass arrests, reported the killing of 18 communists in 1935, and killed at least 31 people in gunfights and during arrests over the course of 1936.

Beginning in 1937, the Polish government in Volhynia initiated an active campaign to use religion as a tool for Polonization and to convert the Orthodox population to Roman Catholicism.Timothy Snyder. (2005). ''Sketches from a Secret War: A Polish Artist's Mission to Liberate Soviet Ukraine.'' New Haven: Yale University Press. pp.167 Over 190 Orthodox churches were destroyed and 150 converted to Roman Catholic churches.Subtelny, Orest. (1988). ''Ukraine: A History.'' Toronto: University of Toronto Press, pg. 432. The remaining Orthodox churches were forced to use the Polish language in their sermons. In August 1939, the last remaining Orthodox church in the Volhynian capital of Lutsk was converted to a Roman Catholic church by a decree of the Polish government.

Between 1921 and 1938, thousands of Polish colonists and war veterans were encouraged to settle in the Volhynian and Galician countrysides, adding to the already-significant Polish, Jewish, German and Armenian urban populations in both regions whose presence in the lands had dated to the 14th century. The new settlements were constructed in areas lacking infrastructure, such as buildings, roads and rail connections. In spite of the great difficulties, their number reached 17,700 in Volhynia in 3,500 new settlements by 1939.Lidia Głowacka, Andrzej Czesław Żak
Osadnictwo wojskowe na Wolyniu w latach 1921–1939 w swietle dokumentów centralnego archiwum wojskowego
(Military Settlers in Volhynia in the years 1921–1939), PDF, pp. 143 (4 / 25 in PDF), 153 (14 / 25 in PDF). ''"Mimo ogromnych trudności, kryzysu gospodarczego na początku lat 30. i złożonej sytuacji politycznej na tym terenie, osadnicy zdołali zagospodarować znaczne obszary ziemi i stworzyć od podstaw wiele osad z nowoczesną –jak na owe czasy –infrastrukturą. W 1939 r. na Wołyniu mieszkało około 17,7 tys. osadników wojskowych i cywilnych w ponad 3,500 osad."'' According to the Polish census of 1931, in Eastern Galicia, the Ukrainian language was spoken by 52% of the inhabitants, Polish by 40% and Yiddish by 7%, In Wołyn (Volhynia), the Ukrainian language was spoken by 68% of the inhabitants, Polish by 17%, Yiddish by 10%, German by 2%, Czech by 2% and Russian by 1%. The additional presence of the newly arrived settlers ignited further anti-Polish sentiment among local Ukrainians.Subtelny, O. (1988). ''Ukraine: a History''. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, pg. 429. A. Rudling. ''Theory and Practice. Historical representation of the wartime accounts of the activities of OUN-UPA (Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists-Ukrainian Insurgent Army)''. East European Jewish Affairs. Vol. 36. No.2. December 2006. pp. 163–179.

Harsh policies implemented by the Second Polish Republic were often a response to OUN-B violenceMotyka, ''Ukraińska partyzantka ...'', p. 58 but contributed to a further deterioration of relations between the two ethnic groups. Between 1934 and 1938, a series of violent and sometimes-deadly attacks against Ukrainians were conducted in other parts of Poland.

Also in Wołyń Voivodeship, some of the new policies were implemented, resulting in the suppression of the Ukrainian language, culture and religion, Oleksandr Derhachov (editor), "Ukrainian Statehood in the Twentieth Century: Historical and Political Analysis", 1996, Kiev
section 2, subsection 2
/ref> and the antagonism escalated. Although around 68% of the voivodeship's population spoke Ukrainian as their first language (see table), practically all government and administrative positions, including the police, were assigned to Poles.

Jeffrey Burds of Northeastern University believes that the buildup towards the ethnic cleansing of Poles, which erupted during the Second World War in Galicia and Volhynia, had its roots in that period.

The Ukrainian population was outraged by the Polish government policies. A Polish report on the popular mood in Volhynia recorded a comment of a young Ukrainian from October 1938: "we will decorate our pillars with you and our trees with your wives".

By the beginning of the Second World War, the membership of OUN had risen to 20,000 active members, and the number of supporters was many times as many.

Second World War

In September 1939, at the outbreak of World War II and in accordance with the secret protocol of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, Poland was invaded from the west by Nazi Germany and from the east by the Soviet Union. Volhynia was split by the Soviets into two oblasts, Rovno and Volyn, in the Ukrainian SSR. Upon the annexation, the Soviet NKVD started to eliminate the predominantly Polish middle and upper classes, including social activists and military leaders. Between 1939 and 1941, 200,000 Poles were deported to Siberia by the Soviet authorities. Many Polish prisoners-of-war were deported to East Ukraine, where most of them were executed in basements of the Kharkiv offices. Estimates of the number of Polish citizens transferred to the Soviet Union, such as Eastern Europe, the Urals and Siberia, range from 1.2 to 1.7 million.Poland's Holocaust, Tadeusz Piotrowski, 1998 p. 13 Tens of thousands of Poles fled from the Soviet-occupied zone to areas that were controlled by the Germans. The deportations and murders deprived the Poles of their community leaders.

During the Soviet occupation, Polish members of the local administration were replaced by Ukrainians and Jews,Matthew J. Gibney, Randall Hansen, ''Immigration and Asylum'', page 204
books.google.com. Retrieved on 11 July 2011. and the Soviet NKVD subverted the Ukrainian independence movement. All local Ukrainian political parties were abolished. Between 20,000 and 30,000 Ukrainian activists fled to German-occupied territory; most of those who did not escape were arrested. For example, Dmytro Levitsky, the head of the moderate left-leaning democratic party Ukrainian National Democratic Alliance and the chief of the Ukrainian delegation in the prewar Polish parliament, with many of his colleagues, were arrested, deported to Moscow, and never heard from again. The elimination by the Soviets of the individuals, organizations, and parties representing moderate or liberal political tendencies within Ukrainian society allowed the extremist Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, which operated in the underground, to be the only political party with a significant organizational presence among western Ukrainians.

On 22 June 1941, the territories of eastern Poland which were occupied by the Soviet Union were attacked by German, Slovak and Hungarian forces. In Volhynia, the Red Army was only able to resist the attack for a couple of days. On 30 June 1941, the Soviets withdrew eastward and Volhynia was overrun by the Germans, with support from Ukrainian nationalists, who carried out acts of sabotage. The OUN organized the Ukrainian People's Militia, which staged pogroms and helped the Germans round up and execute Poles, Jews and those who were deemed to be communist or Soviet activists, most notably in Lwów, Stanisławów, Korosten and Sokal.

In 1941, two brothers of the Ukrainian leader Stepan Bandera were murdered, while they were imprisoned in Auschwitz, by Volksdeutsche kapos. In the Chełm region, 394 Ukrainian community leaders were killed by the Poles on the grounds of collaboration with the German authorities.

During the first year of the German occupation, the OUN urged its members to join German police units. They were trained in the use of weapons so they could assist the German SS in the murder of approximately 200,000 Volhynian Jews. While the Ukrainian police's share in the actual killings of Jews was small because it primarily played a supporting role, the Ukrainian police learned how to make use of genocidal techniques from the Germans: detailed and advanced planning and careful site selection, giving phony assurances to local populations prior to their annihilation, and sudden encirclement and mass killing. The training which the UPA received in 1942 explains how it was able to efficiently kill Poles in 1943.

Massacres

Planning

The decisions leading to the massacre of Poles in Volhynia and their implementation can be primarily attributed to the extremist Bandera faction of OUN (OUN-B), not to other Ukrainian political or military groups. The OUN-B had an ideology involving the following ideas: integral nationalism, with a pure national state and language being desired goals; glorification of violence and armed struggle of nation versus nation; and totalitarianism in which the nation must be ruled by one person and one political party. While the moderate Melnyk faction of OUN admired aspects of Mussolini's fascism, the more extreme Bandera faction of OUN admired aspects of Nazism.Paul Robert Magocsi. (1996). ''A History of Ukraine.'' Toronto: University of Toronto Press, p. 621

At the time of OUN's founding, the most popular political party among Ukrainians was the Ukrainian National Democratic Alliance, which was opposed to Polish rule but called for peaceful and democratic means to achieve independence from Poland. The OUN, on the other hand, was originally a fringe movement in western Ukraine and was condemned for its violence by figures from mainstream Ukrainian society such as the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, Metropolitan Andriy Sheptytsky, who wrote of the OUN's leadership that "whoever demoralizes our youth is a criminal and an enemy of our people". Several factors contributed to OUN-B's increase in popularity and ultimately monopoly of power within Ukrainian society, conditions that were necessary for the massacres to occur.

Only one group of Ukrainian nationalists, OUN-B under Mykola Lebed and then Roman Shukhevych, intended the ethnic cleansing of Volhynia. Taras Bulba-Borovets, the founder of the Ukrainian People's Revolutionary Army, rejected the idea and condemned the anti-Polish massacres when they started. The OUN-M leadership did not believe that such an operation was advantageous in 1943.

After Hitler's attack on the Soviet Union, both the Polish government-in-exile and the Ukrainian OUN-B considered the possibility that in the event of mutually exhaustive attrition warfare between Germany and the Soviet Union, the region would become a scene of conflict between Poles and Ukrainians. The Polish government-in-exile, which wanted the region to return to Poland, planned for a swift armed takeover of the territory, as part of its overall plan for a future anti-German uprising. That view was compounded by OUN's prior collaboration with the Nazis and so by 1943, no understanding between the Polish Home Army and the OUN was possible.

In Eastern Galicia, the antagonism between Poles and Ukrainians intensified under the German occupation.Christoph Mick. "Incompatible experiences: Poles, Ukrainian and Jews under Soviet and German occupation 1939–44". Journal of Contemporary History. 2011. Vol. 46, Issue 2. pp. 355, 357, 360 Having perceived Ukrainian collaboration with the Soviet government in 1939–1941 and then with the Germans, the local Poles generally thought that Ukrainians ought to be removed from the territories. In July 1942 a memorandum by the staff of the Home Army in Lviv in July 1942 recommended that between 1 million and 1.5 million Ukrainians to be deported from Galicia and Volhynia to the Soviet Union and the rest scattered throughout Poland. Suggestions of limited Ukrainian autonomy, as was being discussed by the Home Army in Warsaw and the Polish government-in-exile in London, found no support among the local Poles. In early 1943, the Polish underground came to contemplate the possibility of rapprochement with Ukrainians, which proved fruitless since neither side was willing to sacrifice its claim to Lviv.

Even before the war, the OUN adhered to concepts of integral nationalism in its totalitarian form according to which Ukrainian statehood required ethnic homogeneity, and the Polish enemy could be defeated only by the elimination of Poles from Ukrainian territories. From the OUN-B perspective, the Jews had already been annihilated, and the Russians and Germans were only temporarily in Ukraine, but Poles had to be forcefully removed. The OUN-B came to believe that it had to move fast while the Germans still controlled the area in order to pre-empt future Polish efforts to re-establish Poland's prewar borders. The result was that the local OUN-B commanders in Volhynia and Galicia, if not the OUN-B leadership itself, decided that ethnic cleansing of Poles from the area through terror and murder to be necessary.

As evidenced by both Polish and Ukrainian underground reports, the only major concern of Ukrainian nationalists was initially that of strong Soviet partisan groups operating in the area. The groups consisted mostly of Soviet POWs and initially specialized in raiding local settlements, which disturbed both the OUN and local Polish self-defence units, which expected the result to be an increase in the German terror. The concerns soon materialized, as Germans began "pacifying" entire villages in Volhynia in retaliation for real or alleged support for the Soviet partisans. Polish historiography attributed most of the actions to Ukrainian nationalists, but they were really conducted by Ukrainian auxiliary police units under the direct supervision of Germans. One of the best-known examples was the pacification of Obórki, a village in Lutsk County, on 13–14 November 1942. Most actions were carried out by the Ukrainian occupational police, but the murder of 53 Polish villagers was perpetrated personally by the Germans, who supervised the operation.Sowa, ''"Stosunki ..."'', p. 171

For many months in 1942, the OUN-B was not able to control the situation in Volhynia, where, in addition to Soviet partisans, many independent Ukrainian self-defense groups started to form in response to the growth of the German terror. The first OUN-B military groups were created in Volhynia in autumn 1942, with a goal of subduing the other independent groups. By February 1943, the OUN had initiated a policy of murdering civilian Poles as a way of resolving the Polish question in Ukraine. In spring 1943, OUN-B partisans started to call themselves the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) and to use the former name of the Ukrainian People's Revolutionary Army, another Ukrainian group operating in the area in 1942. In March 1943, approximately 5,000 Ukrainian policemen defected with their weapons and joined the UPA. Well-trained and well-armed, the group contributed to the UPA achieving dominance over other Ukrainian groups active in Volhynia. Soon, the newly created OUN-B forces managed to destroy or to absorb other Ukrainian groups in Volhynia, including four OUN-M units and the Ukrainian People's Revolutionary Army. According to Timothy Snyder, along the way Bandera-faction partisans killed tens of thousands of Ukrainians for supposed links to Melnyk or Bulba-Borovets. The OUN-B undertook steps to liquidate "foreign elements", with posters and leaflets urging Ukrainians to murder Poles. Its dominance secured in spring 1943, the UPA having gained control over the Volhynian countryside from the Germans, the UPA began large-scale operations against the Polish population.

Volhynia

Between 1939 and 1943, Volhynian Poles had been already reduced to some 8% of the region's population (around 200,000 people). They were dispersed around the countryside and deprived of their elites by Soviet deportations, with no local partisan army of their own or state authority (except the Germans) to protect them.

On 9 February 1943, a UPA group, commanded by Hryhory Perehyniak, pretended to be Soviet partisans and assaulted the Parośle settlement in Sarny County.Sowa, ''"Stosunki ..."'', p. 176''Od walk do ludobójstwa''
, Ewa Siemaszko, Rzeczpospolita, 10.07.2008 It is considered a prelude Władysław Filar, Wydarzenia Wołyńskie 1942–1944 to the massacres and is recognized as the first mass murder committed by the UPA in the area. Estimates of the number of victims range from 149 to 173.

In 1943, the massacres were organized westward and started in March in Kostopol and Sarny Counties. In April, they moved to the area of Krzemieniec, Rivne, Dubno and Lutsk.Piotr Zając, Polish Institute of National Remembrance
Referat dotyczący ustaleń śledztwa w sprawie zbrodni popełnionych przez nacjonalistów ukraińskich na Wołyniu na ludności narodowości polskiej w latach 1939–1945
/ref> The UPA killed approximately 7,000 unarmed men, women and children in late March and early April 1943.

On the night of 22–23 April, Ukrainian groups commanded by Ivan Lytwynchuk (a.k.a. ''Dubovy'') attacked the settlement of Janowa Dolina, killing 600 people and burning down the entire village. The few who survived were mostly people who had found refuge with friendly Ukrainian families.Wołyń – Janowa Dolina
Wolyn.ovh.org. Retrieved on 11 July 2011. In one of the massacres, in the village of Lipniki, almost the entire family of Mirosław Hermaszewski, Poland's only cosmonaut, was murdered along with about 180 inhabitants. The attackers murdered the grandparents of the composer Krzesimir Dębski, whose parents were engaged during the Ukrainian attack on Kisielin. Dębski's parents survived by taking refuge with a friendly Ukrainian family.

In another massacre, according to the UPA reports, the Polish colonies of Kuty, in the Szumski region, and Nowa Nowica, in the Webski region, were liquidated for co-operation with the Gestapo and the other German authorities. According to Polish sources, the Kuty self-defense unit managed to repel a UPA assault, but at least 53 Poles were murdered. The rest of the inhabitants decided to abandon the village and were escorted by the Germans who arrived at Kuty, alerted by the glow of fire and the sound of gunfire.G. Motyka, "Ukraińska partyzantka...", p.321 Maksym Skorupskyi, one of the UPA commanders, wrote in his diary: "Starting from our action on Kuty, day by day after sunset, the sky was bathing in the glow of conflagration. Polish villages were burning".

By June 1943, the attacks had spread to Kowel, Włodzimierz Wołyński and Horochów Counties and in August to Luboml County. The Soviet victory at Kursk acted as a stimulus for the escalation of massacres in June and August 1943, when the ethnic cleansing reached its peak. In June 1943, Dmytro Klyachkivsky, head-commander of the UPA-North, issued a secret directive saying:

We should make a large action of the liquidation of the Polish element. As the German armies withdraw, we should take advantage of this convenient moment for liquidating the entire male population in the age from 16 up to 60 years. We cannot lose this fight, and it is necessary at all costs to weaken Polish forces. Villages and settlements lying next to the massive forests, should disappear from the face of the earth.

However, most of the victims were women and children. In mid-1943, after a wave of killings of Polish civilians, the Poles tried to initiate negotiations with the UPA. Two delegates of the Polish government-in-exile and the Home Army, Zygmunt Rumel and Krzysztof Markiewicz, attempted to negotiate with the UPA leaders, but they were captured and murdered on July 10, 1943 in the village of Kustycze. Some sources claim that they were tortured before their death.

The following day, 11 July 1943, is regarded as the bloodiest day of the massacres, with many reports of UPA units marching from village to village and killing Polish civilians. On that day, UPA units surrounded and attacked Polish villages and settlements located in three counties: Kowel, Horochow, and Włodzimierz Wołyński. Events began at 3:00 am, leaving the Poles with little chance to escape. After the massacres, the Polish villages were burned to the ground. According to those few who survived, the action had been carefully prepared; a few days before the massacres, there had been several meetings in Ukrainian villages during which UPA members told the villagers that the slaughter of all Poles was necessary. Altogether, on July 11, 1943, the Ukrainians attacked 167 towns and villages.Foreign Policy Association: Central and Eastern Europe, CE Europe
Fpa.org. Retrieved on 11 July 2011. Within a few days, an unspecified number of Polish villages were completely destroyed and their populations murdered. In the Polish village of Gurow, out of 480 inhabitants, only 70 survived; in the settlement of Orzeszyn, the UPA killed 306 out of 340 Poles; in the village of Sadowa out of 600 Polish inhabitants, only 20 survived; in Zagaje out of 350 Poles, only a few survived. The wave of massacres lasted five days until July 16. The UPA continued the ethnic cleansing, particularly in rural areas, until most Poles had been deported, killed or expelled. The thoroughly-planned actions were conducted by many units and were well-coordinated.

In August 1943, the Polish village of Gaj, near Kovel, was burned and some 600 people were massacred, in the village of Wola Ostrowiecka 529 people were killed, including 220 children under 14, and 438 people were killed, including 246 children, in Ostrowki. In September 1992, exhumations were carried out in those villages and confirmed the number of dead.www.lwow.home.pl
www.lwow.home.pl. Retrieved on 11 July 2011.

The same month, the UPA placed notices in every Polish village: "in 48 hours leave beyond the Bug River or the San river- otherwise Death". Ukrainian attackers limited their actions to villages and settlements and did not strike towns or cities.

The killings were opposed by the Ukrainian Central Committee under Volodymyr Kubiyovych. In response, UPA units murdered Ukrainian Central Committee representatives and a Ukrainian Catholic priest who had read an appeal by the Ukrainian Central Committee from his pulpit.

The Polish historian Władysław Filar, who witnessed the massacres, cites numerous statements made by Ukrainian officers when they reported their actions to the leaders of the UPA-OUN. For example, in late September 1943, the commandant "Lysyi" wrote to the OUN headquarters: "On 29 September 1943, I carried out the action in the villages of Wola Ostrowiecka (see Massacre of Wola Ostrowiecka), and Ostrivky (see Massacre of Ostrówki). I have liquidated all Poles, starting from the youngest ones. Afterwards, all buildings were burned and all goods were confiscated".Antypolskie akcje nacjonalistów ukraińskich
Lwow.home.pl. Retrieved on 11 July 2011. On that day in Wola Ostrowiecka, 529 Poles were murdered (including 220 children under 14), and in Ostrówki, the Ukrainians killed 438 people (including 246 children).

Eastern Galicia

In late 1943 and early 1944, after most Poles in Volhynia had either been murdered or had fled the area, the conflict spread to the neighboring province of Galicia, where most of the population was still Ukrainian, but the Polish presence was strong. Unlike in the case of Volhynia, where Polish villages were usually destroyed and their inhabitants murdered without warning, in eastern Galicia, Poles were sometimes given the choice of fleeing or being killed. An order by a UPA commander in Galicia stated, "Once more I remind you: first call upon Poles to abandon their land and only later liquidate them, not the other way around"). The change in tactics, combined with better Polish self-defense and a demographic balance more favorable to Poles, resulted in a significantly lower death toll among Poles in Galicia than in Volhynia. The methods used by Ukrainian nationalists in this area were the same: rounding up and killing all the Polish residents of the villages and then looting the villages and burning them to the ground. On 28 February 1944, in the village of Korosciatyn 135 Poles were murdered; the victims were later counted by a local Roman Catholic priest, Mieczysław Kamiński.Norman Davies – Teksty – EUROPA
Davies.pl. Retrieved on 11 July 2011. Jan Zaleski (father of Tadeusz Isakowicz-Zaleski) who witnessed the massacre, wrote in his diary: "The slaughter lasted almost all night. We heard terrible cries, the roar of cattle burning alive, shooting. It seemed that Antichrist himself began his activity!" Kamiński claimed that in Koropiec, where no Poles were actually murdered, a local Greek Catholic priest, in reference to mixed Polish-Ukrainian families, proclaimed from the pulpit: "Mother, you're suckling an enemy – strangle it." Among the scores of Polish villages whose inhabitants were murdered and all buildings burned are places like Berezowica, near Zbaraz; Ihrowica, near Ternopil; Plotych, near Ternopil; Podkamien, near Brody; and Hanachiv and Hanachivka, near Przemyślany.

Roman Shukhevych, a UPA commander, stated in his order from 25 February 1944: "In view of the success of the Soviet forces it is necessary to speed up the liquidation of the Poles, they must be totally wiped out, their villages burned... only the Polish population must be destroyed".

One of the most infamous massacres took place on 28 February 1944 in the Polish village of Huta Pieniacka, with over 1,000 inhabitants. The village had served as a shelter for refugees including Polish Jews as well as a recuperation base for Polish and communist partisans. One AK unit was active there. In the winter of 1944, a Soviet partisan unit numbering 1,000 was stationed in the village for two weeks.Institute of Ukrainian History, Academy of Sciences of Ukraine
''Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army'', Chapter 5, p. 283
/ref>Bogusława Marcinkowska, Institute of National Remembrance
Ustalenia wynikające ze śledztwa w sprawie zbrodni ludobójstwa funkcjonariuszy SS "GALIZIEN" i nacjonalistów ukraińskich na Polakach w Hucie Pieniackiej 28 lutego 1944 roku.
/ref>
/ref> Huta Pieniacka's villagers, although poor, organized a well-fortified and armed self-defense unit, which fought off a Ukrainian and German reconnaissance attack on 23 February 1944. Two soldiers of the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS Galicia (1st Ukrainian) Division of the Waffen-SS were killed and one wounded by the villagers. On February 28, elements of the Ukrainian 14th SS Division from Brody returned with 500–600 men, assisted by a group of civilian nationalists. The killing spree lasted all day. Kazimierz Wojciechowski, the commander of the Polish self-defense unit, was drenched with gasoline and burned alive at the main square. The village was utterly destroyed and all of its occupants killed. The civilians, mostly women and children, were rounded up at a church, divided and locked into barns, which were set on fire. Estimates of casualties in the Huta Pieniacka massacre

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