The Janowa Dolina massacre took place on 23 April 1943 in the village of Janowa Dolina, (now Bazaltove, Ukraine) during the

occupation of Poland Occupation commonly refers to: * Occupation (human activity), or job, one's role in society, often a regular activity performed for payment *Occupation (protest), political demonstration by holding public or symbolic spaces *Military occupation, t ...

in World War II. Before the Nazi-Soviet invasion of the

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

, Janowa Dolina was a model settlement built in the

Kostopol Kostopil ( uk, Косто́піль, pl, Kostopol) is a small city, originally named Ostlec Wielki or Ostaltsi, on the Zamchysko river in Rivne Oblast of western Ukraine (historical Volhynia). It was the administrative center of the Kosto ...

County of the Wołyń Voivodeship by workers of the Polish State Basalt Quarry. The town was inhabited by 2,500 people. Its name, which translates as the "Jan's Valley" in Polish, came from the Polish king

Jan Kazimierz John II Casimir ( pl, Jan II Kazimierz Waza; lt, Jonas Kazimieras Vaza; 22 March 1609 – 16 December 1672) was King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania from 1648 until his abdication in 1668 as well as titular King of Sweden from 1648 ...

, who reportedly hunted in the Volhynian forests, and after hunting — rested on the shore of the Horyń (

Horyn The Horyn or Haryn ( uk, Горинь ; be, Гарынь ; russian: Горы́нь; pl, Horyń) is a tributary of the Pripyat, which flows through Ukraine and Belarus. The Horyn is long, and has a drainage basin of .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 World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

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 ...

who murdered most of its Polish population including women and children.

First years

The settlement was built in the late 1920s and early 1930s following Poland's return to independence after a century of imperial Partitions. The area was ceded to Poland at the

Peace of Riga The Peace of Riga, also known as the Treaty of Riga ( pl, Traktat Ryski), was signed in Riga on 18 March 1921, among Poland, Soviet Russia (acting also on behalf of Soviet Belarus) and Soviet Ukraine. The treaty ended the Polish–Soviet Wa ...

, with large percentage of the ethnic Ukrainian population. The town was created next to the newly built major

construction aggregate Construction aggregate, or simply aggregate, is a broad category of coarse- to medium-grained particulate material used in construction, including sand, gravel, crushed stone, slag, recycled concrete and geosynthetic aggregates. Aggregate ...

quarry A quarry is a type of open-pit mine in which dimension stone, rock, construction aggregate, riprap, sand, gravel, or slate is excavated from the ground. The operation of quarries is regulated in some jurisdictions to reduce their envir ...

. Production of basalt in the quarry started in 1929, when the 18 km rail connection between Janowa Dolina and Kostopol was completed (Kostopol is located on the main rail route

Wilno Vilnius ( , ; see also #Etymology and other names, other names) is the capital and List of cities in Lithuania#Cities, largest city of Lithuania, with a population of 592,389 (according to the state register) or 625,107 (according to the munic ...

–

Łuniniec Luninets ( be, Лунінец, russian: Лунине́ц, pl, Łuniniec, lt, Luninecas, yi, לונינייץ, Luninitz BGN/PCGN romanization: ''Luninyets'') is a town and administrative centre for the Luninets district in Brest Region, Belarus. ...

–

Lwów Lviv ( uk, Львів) is the largest city in Western Ukraine, western Ukraine, and the List of cities in Ukraine, seventh-largest in Ukraine, with a population of . It serves as the administrative centre of Lviv Oblast and Lviv Raion, and is o ...

). As the quarry employed in late 1930s some 3,000 workers (97% of them were Polish). Homes were built for them and their families in a suburban setting. The quarry with a

company town A company town is a place where practically all stores and housing are owned by the one company that is also the main employer. Company towns are often planned with a suite of amenities such as stores, houses of worship, schools, markets and re ...

was the brainchild of Leonard Szutkowski, chief engineer who kept his post until 1940, and his deputies, engineer J. Niwinski and engineer Urbanowicz. Most workers lived in the freshly built houses; some commuted from nearby villages.

The settlement

Janowa Dolina was a very modern settlement; all houses had access to electricity and plumbing and its layout was based on a specially designed

grid plan In urban planning, the grid plan, grid street plan, or gridiron plan is a type of city plan in which streets run at right angles to each other, forming a grid. Two inherent characteristics of the grid plan, frequent intersections and orthogon ...

. Houses were placed in the beautiful pine forest. Streets bore no names; they were marked by letters — A, B, C, D… G (Glowna — main), until the last one, Z, placed closest to the Horyn River. Along them there were houses, each designed for 4 families. As inhabitants of Janowa Dolina later remembered, the settlement was full of flowers, plants and trees and neighbors competed with each other, trying to have the most beautiful flower garden. The settlement was separated from the nearby quarry by a strip of dense forest. In the central part of the settlement there was a huge, U-shaped building, called BLOK. Inside there were several institutions — a movie theater, hotel, cafeteria, stores. Next to the building there was a sports field, with a soccer stadium. The quarry sponsored its own sports club called Strzelec Janowa Dolina, which had several departments — soccer, boxing, wrestling, swimming. A

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: * Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD * Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a let ...

church was planned, but it had never been built. Instead, the faithful used a large barn. Also, in Janowa Dolina there was a Polish police station, school, kindergarten and a health center. As both the quarry and the settlement belonged to the Polish State, private businesses were not allowed. In Janowa Dolina all trade was controlled by the national “

Społem PSS Społem is a Polish consumers' co-operative of local grocery stores founded in 1868. Each of the branches of PSS Społem during the Partitions of Poland were formed via different conditions in law, economy and politics. The common character o ...

” company, inhabitants were able to purchase all desired products but alcohol, which was not sold in the settlement.

World War II

In September 1939,

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

troops, following the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, attacked the eastern part of Poland, which was not guarded by the

Polish Army The Land Forces () are the land forces of the Polish Armed Forces. They currently contain some 62,000 active personnel and form many components of the European Union and NATO deployments around the world. Poland's recorded military history stre ...

, as at the same time the Poles were fighting the Germans in the West. Eastern Poland (

Kresy Eastern Borderlands ( pl, Kresy Wschodnie) or simply Borderlands ( pl, Kresy, ) was a term coined for the eastern part of the Second Polish Republic during the History of Poland (1918–1939), interwar period (1918–1939). Largely agricultural ...

) was quickly occupied, together with Janowa Dolina, which, like the entire Volhynian Voivodeship, became part of the

Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic ( uk, Украї́нська Радя́нська Соціалісти́чна Респу́бліка, ; russian: Украи́нская Сове́тская Социалисти́ческая Респ ...

. Together with Soviet rule came mass deportations to

Siberia Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part ...

and other areas of the country; between September 1939 and June 1941 Janowa Dolina lost hundreds of inhabitants.

Destruction of the settlement

In June 1941,

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

attacked the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

. Janowa Dolina was added to the

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 Reic ...

. As Volhynia was the area of activity for various Ukrainian nationalist groups whose aim was to cleanse the land of Poles and Jews, the settlement’s fate was inevitable. On the night of April 22–23 (Good Friday), 1943, the Ukrainians from the

, together with local peasants, attacked Janowa Dolina. Some 600 people, including children and the elderly, were brutally murdered (see

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 ...

). Most homes were burned to the ground and the settlement deserted. The perpetrators, commanded by Ivan Lytwynchuk (aka ''Dubowy'') exercised rare cruelty. Poles, unprepared and caught by surprise, were hacked to death with axes, burned alive, and impaled (including children). The murderers did not spare anyone, regardless of age and sex.

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

garrison, numbering around 100 soldiers, did not act and remained in its barracks. After first wave of murders, the Ukrainian nationalists started searching the hospital. They carried its Ukrainian patients away from the building, while Polish patients were burned alive. Dr Aleksander Bakinowski, together with his assistant Jan Borysowicz, were hacked to death on the square in front of the hospital. In several cases, Ukrainians were murdered for trying to hide their Polish neighbours.

Petro Mirchuk Petro Mirchuk ( uk, Петро Мірчук) (1913–1999) was a Ukrainian writer living in the United States and a leading member of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists. Mirchuk headed the OUN's propaganda apparatus in 1939. He was an a ...

, Ukrainian historian, counted several hundred massacred Poles, with only eight UPA members killed.

Current events

The present-day name of the settlement is Bazaltowe. In the place where buildings once stood, there is a monument, founded by Polish survivors. Its opening (18 April 1998) was marred by a demonstration of Ukrainian nationalists, and afterwards, the original inscription was changed. The date "April 23, 1943" was removed and now the inscription says only "In memory of Poles from Janowa Dolina", without giving further information of their fate. Nowadays in the village monument in memory of infamous action of Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) is situated. The inscription in Ukrainian says that on 21-22 of April 1943 "the base of Polish-German occupiers of Volhyn" was liquidated here.Memorial
promemoria.pl; accessed 13 December 2014.

References

Wolyn.OVH.org {{coord, 50, 55, 35, N, 26, 14, 23, E, source:kolossus-ukwiki, display=title Massacres in 1943 Second Polish Republic Ukraine in World War II Ruins in Ukraine Mass murder in 1943 World War II crimes in Poland 1943 in Poland World War II massacres Massacres of Poles in Volhynia April 1943 events