Volhynia-43. Genocide for ‘Glory to Ukraine’

‘They impaled the children on fence stakes or nailed them to doors and floors.’

The former commander of the Volhynia self-defence unit Jan Niewinski talks of the horrors of the massacre, which was staged by squads of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and the UPA in 1943-1944. Tens of thousands of people were killed for the sake of the ideology of nationalists who believed Ukraine was for Ukrainians and divided people into their own and “foreign enemies”.

‘The foreign enemies were Muscovites, that is, pro-Moscow Russians, Jews, or, as described in officials documents ‘Y*** and Poles. The territory had to be cleansed of them,’ explains Sergey Kravetz, the editor of a scientific publishing house.

Watch the documentary Volhynia-43. Genocide for ‘Glory to Ukraine’ to find out how the ethnic massacre overlaps with modern Ukrainian history.