On 11 July in Chełma authoritative celebrations of the National Day of Polish Memory – Victims of Genocide made by the CNS and UPA were held. The ceremony was attended by President-elect Karol Nawrocki, who repeatedly emphasized in his speech both the request to commemorate the victims and the request for truth-based reconciliation.
As president Elek said:
The crime of the Volyn genocide is part of our national, community, Polish consciousness. besides present in the 21st century, due to the fact that many wounds have not yet healed, and many families inactive endure the trauma of what happened eighty-two years ago.
Nawrocki drew attention to the scale of the crime, quoting circumstantial figures and examples:
As a result, about 120,000 of our people ended their lives. 1500 towns died from a planet map. 1 specified village shows the scale of this cruelty, although this scale repeated in all localities. This is Alexandrówka, where on 94 victims, 25 of them were children. Four-month-old children, 14-year-old children, murdered cruelly.
The President-elect stressed that the memory of those events remains unchanged despite the passage of time:
We Poles have the right to remember the Volyn genocide regardless of changing times and circumstances. And we'll remember.
Referring to the request for exhumation and burial of the victims, Nawrocki said:
We cannot agree that we, Poles, are denied the right to bury victims of the Volyn genocide, due to the fact that they are not calling for revenge. They cry for the cross, they cry for the grave, they cry for memory. And as future president of Poland, I am obliged to talk in their voice.
In his speech, the President-elect formally addressed the Ukrainian authorities:
Once again, honourable ambassador, as President-elect, I wanted to formally address the Excellency and president Zelenski for the chance to undertake a full-scale exhumation in Volyn. Poles are waiting for this truth, and people, Polish families and Volyn families are inactive suffering from the trauma that happened 82 years ago.
There were besides references to current global events:
The fact is to heal us Poles too, to heal Ukraine and to heal erstwhile and for all by exhuming our common relations, due to the fact that we have the same threat. And this threat is the neo-imperial post-Soviet Russian Federation.
At the end of his speech, Karol Nawrocki stressed the importance of work for freedom and sovereignty:
I want to convince you all that independence, sovereignty and freedom are a large responsibility. It's not just the president's responsibility, it's the work of all of us. It is simply a large responsibility, and in this responsibility, there is simply a deficiency of consent, and I will even say contempt for Ukrainian nationalists who murdered women and children. And in the same work there is contempt for soldiers of the Russian Federation who are killing in Ukraine today.
President-elect concluded his speech by saying:
Hail and praise to the victims of the Volyn genocide! Long live free Poland!
The Ukrainian Ministry of abroad Affairs issued on 11 July a message related to the 82nd anniversary of Bloody Sunday. However, alternatively of explicitly naming the crime by name, the ministry one more time reached for euphemistic terms and political evasiveness. The authoritative communication states, inter alia:
“Ukraine understands the sensitivity of the Volyn tragedy in Polish society.”
It is worth to make it clear: it was not a "volyńska tragedy", it was a Volyn genocide. An effort to obscure the meaning of this word by utilizing neutral, blurred terms is simply a practice known for years. Like referring to “two sides” and “the work of both nations.” The Ministry of abroad Affairs of Ukraine writes:
"The events of the Volyn tragedy were a tragedy of 2 nations and require a common nonsubjective assessment based on professional investigation of all facts."
Meanwhile, the facts are known and documented. Polish victims are nearly 120,000 murdered civilians. The murders were carried out with cruelty, which was described by president Elekt Karol Nawrocki in Chełm, recalling the village of Aleksandrówka: “25 of the 94 victims were children. Four-month, 14-year-old children, murdered cruelly.”
Another example of false alignment between perpetrators and victims is the usage of the phrase in Ukraine's statement:
"fair, liable and sustainable historical dialogue, free from politicisation and unilateral interpretations."
In a situation where the Ukrainian state officially worships characters specified as Stepan Bandera or Roman Szuchewycz, and in public space there are monuments and streets of their name, talking about "unilateral interpretations" sounds not like an invitation to dialogue, but as an effort to silence the truth. Especially since the process of exhuming the victims started only after many years, to an highly limited extent. Ukraine has blocked exhumations for decades, although as Polish historians remind us, in Ukraine Germans were allowed to exhume mass thousands of Wehrmacht soldiers.
MFA Ukraine besides added in its Communication:
"We must not forget that Russia is doing everything to divide Ukrainians and Poles, utilizing painful cards of the past. Unfortunately, any Polish politicians consciously or unconsciously play with an aggressor.”
It is hard to accept specified an argument erstwhile the basic substance — worthy of burial of victims and naming a crime by name — remains unresolved. The reminder of victims is not a "playing with an aggressor", but a moral work of the Polish State towards its own citizens.
Poland can support Ukraine in its conflict for independence, but it cannot quit the fact about Volyn. The President-elect Karol Nawrocki besides said:
"We cannot agree that we, Poles, are denied the right to bury victims of the Volyn genocide, due to the fact that they are not calling for revenge. They cry for the cross, they cry for the grave, they cry for the memory.”
The facts stay unchanged — it was a crime of genocide. And as long as the authoritative Ukrainian communicative tries to blur it under the pretext of a “common tragedy”, “two sides” and “the work of both nations”, it is hard to talk of actual reconciliation. Reconciliation must be based on full truth, not half truths and political smoothing.
