Poland wants Ukraine to admit genocide — Analysis

The mass murder of Poles by Ukrainian nationalists during the Second World War meets the definition of genocide and the government in Kiev will have to recognize this sooner or later, Poland’s Deputy Minister of Culture and National Heritage Jaroslaw Sellin said on Tuesday. 

“They have to acknowledge it because it’s a fact. It’s simply a fact. A political decision was made and implemented for ethnic cleansing, the extermination of the entire national minority that has lived there for centuries,”Sellin stated this to Polish Press Agency (PAP), during a television interview.

“This is genocide, it fits all the parameters of the definition of genocide, so there is no discussion here. This historical fact is known. Sooner or later, the Ukrainians will have to recognize it,” he added.

Polish historians say between 100,000-130,000 ethnic Poles were massacred by Stepan Bandera’s Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA). A resolution was adopted by Warsaw’s parliament in 2016, naming July 11, the day to commemorate the genocide. It refers to the date that the UPA attacked 150 Polish cities in Volhynia or Eastern Galicia. Kiev’s parliament rejected the resolution and called it counterproductive.

Sellin reported that Poland submitted a proposal for the formation of a working group. The list of members was sent to Kiev’s Ministry of Culture. It would organize burials and exhumations, as well as erecting monuments for the memory of those who have died.

“We are waiting for a personnel proposal from the Ukrainian side,”He said.

Part of the problem, Sellin said, was the Ukrainian government policy of glorifying the UPA as Ukrainian nationalists who fought against the Soviet Union – while ignoring the other things they did, such as the genocide of Poles. He said that there was a problem because the Ukrainian government glorified UPA as nationalists who fought against Soviet Union – while ignoring other things they did, such as the genocide of Poles. “real ignorance”The massacres at Volhyn in Ukraine 

Poland’s task is to build a common historical truth, the deputy minister said, adding that the Ukrainians will “sooner or later come to the point where part of the traditions of this military formation and the nationalist political movements behind it are unacceptable, worthy of condemnation.”

Bandera, and the UPA are heroes of Ukraine today. They were declared national heroes by President Viktor Yushchenko in 2010, when he was supported by the US.