The Pidkamin massacre or the Podkamień massacre of 12 March 1944 was the

massacre A massacre is the killing of a large number of people or animals, especially those who are not involved in any fighting or have no way of defending themselves. A massacre is generally considered to be morally unacceptable, especially when per ...

of Polish civilians committed by the

Ukrainian Insurgent Army The Ukrainian Insurgent Army ( uk, Українська повстанська армія, УПА, translit=Ukrayins'ka povstans'ka armiia, abbreviated UPA) was a Ukrainian nationalist paramilitary and later partisan formation. During World ...

(UPA) under the command of Maksym Skorupsky (Maks), in cooperation with a unit of the 14th SS-Volunteer Division "Galician".Mikolaj Falkowski
"Podkamień. Perła Kresów. Miejsce pamięci ofiar UPA." Official webpage of the Polish Radio.
/ref> The victims were ethnic Polish residents of the Eastern Galician village of Podkamień in the occupied

Second Polish Republic The Second Polish Republic, at the time officially known as the Republic of Poland, was a country in Central Europe, Central and Eastern Europe that existed between 1918 and 1939. The state was established on 6 November 1918, before the end of ...

Tarnopol Voivodeship Tarnopol Voivodeship ( pl, Województwo tarnopolskie) was an administrative region of interwar Poland (1918–1939), created on 23 December 1920, with an area of 16,500 km² and provincial capital in Tarnopol (now ''Ternopil'', Ukraine). The voi ...

(now

Pidkamin Pidkamin ( uk, Підкамінь, pl, Podkamień) is an urban-type settlement in Zolochiv Raion (district), Lviv oblast in Ukraine. It is located near the administrative border of three oblasts, Lviv, Rivne, and Ternopil. Pidkamin hosts the ...

, Zolochiv Raion, Ukraine). During the war the area was administratively part of the Nazi German ''

Reichskommissariat Ukraine During World War II, (abbreviated as RKU) was the civilian occupation regime () of much of Nazi German-occupied Ukraine (which included adjacent areas of modern-day Belarus and pre-war Second Polish Republic). It was governed by the Reich Min ...

'' (now

Ternopil Oblast Ternopil Oblast ( uk, Тернопі́льська о́бласть, translit=Ternopilska oblast; also referred to as Ternopilshchyna, uk, Терно́пільщина, label=none, or Ternopillia, uk, Тернопілля, label=none) is an obl ...

). Estimates of victims include 150,

Grzegorz Motyka Grzegorz Motyka (born 1967) is a Polish historian and author specializing in the history of Poland–Ukraine relations. Since 1992 he served at the Institute of Political Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences and at the Institute of National ...

, Ukraińska Partyzantka 1942–1960, Warszawa 2006, p. 182, 385 more than 250 Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, Chapter 5
Kiev, Ukraine: Institute of History of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. Chapter written by

Ihor Ilyushin Igor ( be, Ігар, Ihar ; russian: Игорь, Igor' ; sr-Cyrl, Игор ; uk, Ігор, Ihor ; ) is a common East Slavic given name derived from the Norse name Ingvar, that was brought to ancient Rus' by the Norse Varangians, in the form ...

. pg. 285 and up to 1000.Henryk Komański, Szczepan Siekierka, ''Ludobójstwo dokonane przez nacjonalistów ukraińskich na Polakach w województwie tarnopolskim w latach 1939–1946''; 1182 pages, format B5, 379 illustrations, hard cover. Pages: 362-363

Prelude

During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

Pidkamin, ( pl, Podkamień), was a shelter for Poles from the neighbouring province of

Volhynia Volhynia (also spelled Volynia) ( ; uk, Воли́нь, Volyn' pl, Wołyń, russian: Волы́нь, Volýnʹ, ), is a historic region in Central and Eastern Europe, between south-eastern Poland, south-western Belarus, and western Ukraine. Th ...

, who had escaped the

Massacres of Poles in Volhynia 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 ...

and sought refuge in the local Dominican monastery. The complex was surrounded by walls and was located on a hill that dominated the surrounding area and as a result provided a relatively safe haven for refugees. Around 2,000 people were living at Podkamin town and the monastery when it was attacked in March 1944, by the UIA in cooperation with 14th SS Division.

The massacre

On the first day of the attack it was repelled by a small self-defence group, and that night some of the inhabitants managed to escape. The next day the UIA promised to spare the inhabitants lives in exchange for the surrender of the monastery. While the monastery was being evacuated the UIA opened fire and entered the monastery complex, and massacred a number of people, including the clergy. The bodies of the dead were then thrown into the well. Afterwards the UIA camped in the nearby town of Pidkamin, and between the 12–16 March repeatedly attacked people hiding in the villages. On 16 March, as the Soviet

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, after ...

approached, the UIA withdrew from the area.

Aftermath

Approximately 100 ethnic Poles were murdered in the monastery, and additional 500 were killed in the town of Pidkamen itself. In the nearby village of Palikrowy, 365 Poles were killed. Armed Ukrainian groups destroyed the monastery, stealing all the valuables, except for the monastery's crowned icon. Tadeusz Piotrowski who based his findings on the

Home Army The Home Army ( pl, Armia Krajowa, abbreviated AK; ) was the dominant resistance movement in German-occupied Poland during World War II. The Home Army was formed in February 1942 from the earlier Związek Walki Zbrojnej (Armed Resistance) esta ...

or German Police sources, estimates that the number of victims in the monastery and adjacent villages numbered 1000. Among the survivors was the renowned writer and painter,

Leopold Buczkowski Leopold Buczkowski (November 15, 1905 – April 27, 1989) was a Polish writer, poet, painter, graphic artist and sculptor. Biography Leopold Buczkowski was born on November 15, 1905, in Nakwasza, located in the former Austrian Empire, though n ...

Footnotes

Sources

, Ukraińska Partyzantka 1942–1960, Warszawa 2006. Pages: 182, 385. *

Per Anders Rudling Per Anders Rudling (born 11 April 1974 in Karlstad)The Algemeiner Per Anders Rudling.''The Algemeiner'' Jewish & Israel News. Articles by Per Anders Rudling. Retrieved 30 May 2014. is a Swedish-American historian, In response to the Canadian-Ukrai ...

, ''They Defended Ukraine’: The 14. Waffen-Grenadier-Division der SS (Galizische Nr. 1) Revisited'', The Journal of Slavic Military Studies, 25:3, 329-36
online version

External links