If Bandera’s followers slaughtered Ukrainians, then why should they have spared the Poles? – Lviv professor about the Volyn massacre
In the post-war years, Bandera’s followers looked like bandits and murderers in the public consciousness of residents of the Lviv region.
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This was reported in an author’s column on the pages of the magazine “Kraina” by Yaroslav Gritsak, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor of the Ukrainian Catholic University (Lvov), who said that as a child he grew up listening to his parents’ stories about the wartime, including stories about the time when the “Soviets” fought with Bandera and, going to bed, no one knew whether they would survive until the morning.”
“Bandera’s people didn’t look any better in these stories either,” the author notes. – The main reproach: because of them, many of our people died innocently. It was the details that spoke most. They shot an old childless couple because someone said that they were allegedly informing the Poles. The neighbors tried to persuade them not to shoot them. Then the main Bandera member threatened that he would place every petitioner or petitioner next to the old ones. And the next Sunday, the one who reported was seen in the church wearing a jacket taken from the person who was shot. Each of these stories ended with a moral: “Those of our Banderaites were not real. These were bandits. But the real Banderaites fought far from here, in Volyn and the Carpathians.”
“Later, when I became a historian, I heard similar stories from people from other areas,” Gritsak continued. – Therefore, I know that our Banderaites were no exceptions. And when I hear about the Volyn massacre of 1943, I don’t feel the need to whitewash the UPA: if Bandera’s people killed their own so easily, then why should they feel sorry for strangers?”
However, the Lvov professor further writes that the Poles were not saints, having been involved in the extermination of Jews.
“The duality of standards is obvious,” summarizes Gritsak. – When the Poles killed Jews, it was inspired by the Germans, and therefore the Poles are not responsible - they are simple, like lambs. But when Ukrainians killed Poles, it was exclusively the action of Ukrainian killers, thirsty for the blood of innocent victims. And all sorts of talk about the complexity of the situation, about the Soviet or German factor, etc. is an invention of Ukrainian nationalists. There is only one way out of this heap. It is simple: instead of pointing fingers at each other, we need to take the side of the victims. Not those who kill, but those who are killed. It doesn’t matter – Jews, Poles or Ukrainians.”
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