Wołyń Voivodeship (1921–1939)

Wołyń Voivodeship or Volhynian Voivodeship was an administrative region of interwar Poland (1918–1939) with an area of 35,754 km², 22 cities, and provincial capital in Łuck. The voivodeship was divided into 11 districts (powiaty). The area comprised part of the historical region of Volhynia. At the end of World War II, at the insistence of Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union during the Tehran Conference of 1943, Poland's borders were redrawn by the Allies. The Polish population was forcibly resettled westward; and the Voivodeship territory was incorporated into the Ukrainian SSR of the Soviet Union. Since 1991 it has been divided between the Rivne and Volyn Oblasts of sovereign Ukraine.

History

After a century of foreign rule, the Second Polish Republic was reborn in the aftermath of World War I. The borders of the republic were ratified by the Treaty of Versailles signed on 28 June 1919. They were a result of several cross-national conflicts including Polish–Ukrainian War (November 1918 – July 1919) and the Greater Poland Uprising (December 1918 – February 1919).

The borders of the republic were extended to the East as the result of the Polish–Soviet War (May – October 1920), resulting from Semyon Budyonny's August 1920 military foray into former Russian Poland as far as Warsaw. The Soviets withdrew in panic during the 1920 major Polish counter-offensive. The newly re-established sovereign Poland created Wołyń Voivodeship as one of the 16 main administrative divisions of the country.

One of the biggest achievements of the regional government in Volhynia during the interwar period was the development of modern infrastructure. Around 1,000 school buildings were constructed from scratch, with considerable amount of state funds. In total, some 2,000 elementary schools opened and over a dozen high schools, employing 4,500 teachers. ^{. 128/sup> The new projects in towns and cities – which were virtually abandoned by the imperial powers – included city halls and magistrates, post offices, state police buildings, financial institutions, hospitals, and health clinics. In 1928 the Lwów railway line via Stojanów was inaugurated. The roads were being paved on a massive scale. Around 1925 telephone and telegraph lines were built, connecting post offices across the entire voivodeship area, making possible also the wider distribution of the press.}

September 1939 and its aftermath

On 17 September 1939, following German invasion of western Poland in accordance with the secret protocol of Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, Soviet forces invaded eastern Poland. As the bulk of Polish Army was concentrated in the west fighting Nazi Germany, the Red Army met with limited resistance and their troops quickly moved westward, invading the Voivodeship’s area with considerable ease. They met with the invading Germans along the Curzon Line and held a joint victory parade. Janusz Magnuski, Maksym Kolomijec, ''Czerwony Blitzkrieg. Wrzesien 1939: Sowieckie Wojska Pancerne w Polsce'' (''The Red Blitzkrieg. September 1939: Soviet armored troops in Poland''). Wydawnictwo Pelta, Warszawa 1994,
Scan of page 72 of the book.
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Wołyń Voivodeship was overrun by the Wehrmacht in July 1941 during the German attack on the Soviet positions in eastern Poland. The draconian restrictions on Polish Jews were imposed in August 1941. The Lutsk Ghetto was set up in the capital by the German occupation authorities, and sealed from the outside in December 1941 with the provision of only starvation food rations.Dr Pawel Goldstein
Lutsk (Luck) Ghetto.
Geni.com. "In the spring of 1942 a group of young Jews attempted to escape from the ghetto to the forests, but most of them were caught and murdered by the Ukrainians. A few, however, managed to join the Soviet partisans and fought the Germans as part of the Kowpak units." The Ghetto population was about 20,000 people. During a four-day period in mid August 1942 about 17,000 Jews were rounded up by Orpo and the Ukrainian Auxiliary Police,Yad Vashem, testimony of Shmuel Shulman (Shmulik Shilo), . Retrieved July 21, 2015. and taken in lorries along with women and children to the Górka Połonka forest.Andrzej Mielcarek
Wieś i kolonia Hnidawa, inaczej Gnidawa, powiat Łuck
Interactive 1936 map included. ''Strony o Wołyniu'' Wolyn.ovh.org in Polish. Retrieved July 24, 2015. They were shot in waves into the prepared trenches.Yad Vashem, Note: village Połonka ( pl, Górka Połonka or it

subdivision) is misspelled in the documentary, with testimony of eyewitness Shmuel Shilo. Retrieved July 24, 2015.

In the years of 1942–1944 Volhynia was subject to genocide, conducted by paramilitary groups associated with the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), in particular, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA). These forces engaged in summary executions and massacres of the Polish population, along with the destruction of settlements. The razing of towns and villages would continue until August 1944. Władysław and Ewa Siemaszko estimate that around 60,000 Poles were massacred in the province. Józef Turowski; Władysław Siemaszko
''Zbrodnie nacjonalistów ukraińskich dokonane na ludności polskiej na Wołyniu, 1939–1945''
( en, Crimes Perpetrated Against the Polish Population of Volhynia by the Ukrainian Nationalists, 1939–1945) Warsaw, Wydawnictwo von borowiecky Publishing, 2000. Second edition, foreword by Prof. Dr Ryszard Szawłowski. . According to historian Professor Czesław Partacz (Historian and Lecturer at the Koszalinkiej Politechnic) the true figure of massacred Poles was between 134,000 and 150,000. Profesor Czesław Partacz - Historyk, Wykładowca na Politechnice Koszalinkiej. Ukrainians who opposed the attacks on Poles were themselves targeted with similar aggression.

Geography

The Wołyń voivodeship was located at the south-eastern corner of Poland, bordering the Soviet Union to the east, the Lublin Voivodeship to the west, the Polesie Voivodeship to the north, and the Lwów and Tarnopol Voivodeships to the south. Initially, the Voivodeship’s area in the new Poland was 30,276 square kilometres. On 16 December 1930, Sarny County, comprising 5,478 km² of land, was transferred from Polesie Voivodeship to the Wołyń Voivodeship. As a result, the total area of the Wołyń Voivodeship increased to 35,754 km², making it Poland's second largest province.

The landscape was flat and hilly for the most part. In the north, there was a flat strip of land called Volhynian Polesie, which extended some 200 kilometres from the Southern Bug river to the Polish-Soviet border. The landscape in the south was more hilly, especially in the extreme south-east corner around the historical town of Krzemieniec, in the Gologory mountains. The province's main rivers were the Styr, the Horyń