In 1943, when Soviet Russia suddenly became a loving member of the international family of free and democratic nations, the American and British papers were deluged with ''information" about a vague and undefined Polish-Soviet frontier, which was commonly referred to as the "Curzon Line." A great number of American and British "expert" writers, professors and professional diplomats blindly accepted the Soviet claim to the Ukrainian and Belorussian territories east of the so-called Gurzon Line, which from 1920 to 1939 had belonged to Poland. Soviet Russia's claim however, was based on a fictitious and historically false pretension. In 1920 a British statesman by the name of Lord Curzon arbitrarily suggested that a line, running from the Narew River in Northern Poland down to the San River and the Carpathian Mountains, become a permanent Polish-Soviet political boundary. Furthermore it was implied that the territories east of the same line were part of Czarist Russia prior to 1914. Former US Ambassador to Poland Arthur Bliss Lane, gives the following explanation of the origin of the Curzon Line:
"Based on a provisional line, fixed for administration purposes by the Paris Peace Conference on December 8, 1919 it extended from the Polish-Lithuanian frontier along the Niemen River to Grodno, through Brest-Litovsk, and thence along the Bug River to the former Russian-Austrian boundary, or northern frontier of Eastern Galicia, which had not yet then formally incorporated into the Polish state. When Lord Curzon, in a note dated July 11, 1920, to the Soviet Government, the proposed armistice line between the Poles and the Russians, he unilaterally extended the line of December 8, 1919. to the Czechoslovak frontier, running to the east of Przemysl and to the west of Lviv (I Saw Poland Betrayed, p. 35)."
This statement, however, requires some elaboration. The origin of the Curzon Line has no connection whatsoever with the Soviet state. It came into the diplomatic dictionary as early as the spring of 1919, when the Supreme Council of the Allied Powers was debating the status of Eastern Galicia, then in a state of war between the Poles and Ukrainians. A special commission on Polish Affairs was created and under the chairmanship of Lord Curzon worked out a plan for settling the future of Eastern Galicia. The commission drew up two alternative frontier lines. Line A, running east of Przemysl and west of Lviv, was proposed as the boundary line between the Polish state proper and an autonomous Ukrainian Eastern Galicia, which the Poles hoped, would be under the suzerainty of Poland. Line B, on the other hand, farther to the east, left Lviv and Drohobych with its oil fields to Poland and was recommended in the event Eastern Galicia be divided between Poland and an independent Western Ukrainian (Galician) state. It was not anticipated, however, that Eastern Galicia would fall into the hands of the Bolsheviks, whom the Allies namely Great Britain and France -- were then trying to wipe out in Russia. The Supreme Council of the Allied Powers accepted the proposed Line (Line A), in general, as a "demarcation line" on December 8, 1919, when the Ukrainians were ousted by the numerically and technically superior Polish troops.
During the Polish-Soviet war in 1920 the proposed demarcation line of December 8, 1919, became associated with the name of Lord Curzon, inasmuch as the latter had taken part in the Polish-Soviet peace negotiations. In the meantime Poland and Soviet Russia came to an agreement and signed a peace treaty at Riga in March, 1921, which resulted in the establishment of a new Polish-Soviet boundary line, and which existed until September, 1939.
But whatever the Ukrainians had against the pre-1939 government of Poland, they knew Soviet or German sovereignty to be even more undesirable. When the war broke out in 1939, mast of them felt that a time of extreme hardship and political persecution would descend upon the whole of Ukraine. Few, if any, entertained the illusion that the occupation of that part of their soil either by Germans or Soviets would bring any amelioration of their political and social status.
On September 17, 1939, the Soviet troops crossed the Polish-Soviet frontier and in a few days occupied what was known as the ethnic non-Polish territories, inhabited for the most part by Ukrainians and Belorussians. According to the Soviet-German pact Of August 23, 1939, the Soviets laid claim to these territories on the basis that the Ukrainians and Belorussians should be re-united with their brothers in Soviet Ukraine and soviet Belorussia. The Germans, who wanted to buy Soviet "neutrality" at any cost, readily agreed to the so-called "MolotovˇRibbentrop Line," which ran approximately along-the same line delineated by Lord Curzon in 1919; it extended from the Polish-Lithuanian frontier to the Carpathian Mountains. Thus most of the Ukrainians came under the Soviet dictatorship. The million who lived west of that line, namely in the regions of Lemkivshchyna and Kholm (western part) remained under Nazi rule.
The period from September 17, 1919, to June 21, 1941, known as the first occupation of Western Ukraine, has gone down in Ukrainian history as one of the periods of greatest suffering. Mass deportations combined with outright executions terrorized the entire population. Members of cooperative societies and leaders official and cultural groups were executed at random or exiled into the depths of the Soviet Union. More than 750,000 Ukrainians were either killed, outright or deported to slave labor camps in Soviet Russia.
When the Germans attacked the Soviet Union in June, 1941, the Russians decided to exterminate the Ukrainians in Eastern Galicia and Volhynia totally. Soviet troops and NKVD detachments massacred Ukrainians by the thousands, and the prisons of Lviv, Tarnopil Drohobych, Stray, Boryslav and others were littered with dead and dying bodies. Soon after their occupation, the Nazis began an energetic campaign to recruit all available labor for German agriculture and industry. When the Nazis mistakenly became sure of a victory over Soviet Russia, they introduced the Schrecklichkeit policy in the Ukraine. In answer, thousands of young Ukrainians went underground to form the powerful Ukrainian insurgent Army (the UPA), which fought the Nazis to the last day of their stay in Ukraine. The same underground movement waged an implacable war against Soviet Russian occupation of Ukraine and communist partisans, hoping to establish a free and independent Ukraine at the end of the war.
As early at 1944 the Soviets. immediately after occupying a good part of Poland, began their wart of mass deportation and "resettlement." The Poles were to be sent westward to the "new" Poland, and the Ukrainians, Belorussians and Lithuanians found west of the Curzon Line, were to go eastward. According to the Soviets and their Warsaw puppets, it was to he an entirely voluntary affair. Yet the transfer was identical with Hitler's tactics when he occupied Poland in 19)9, at which time Ukrainians were forcibly being exchanged for Germans in the USSR.
With the final defeat of Germany and the end of hostilities, the entire European East was in a state of bitter war against the Soviets. Powerful underground armies in Poland, Ukraine and the Baltic States waged a desperate struggle for survival, fighting the ruthless deportations by the Soviet government. Yet, the Western world, overwhelmed by its recent victory over Germany and Japan, paid scant attention to the plight of there people wham the Russians had earmarked for complete extermination.
When the Polish-Soviet frontier was definitely agreed upon in 1945 following the Yalta Conference, there were still some 1,200,000 Ukrainians living west of the new boundary. They inhabited the western parts of the former Polish provinces of Przemysl (Lemkivshchyna in the South), Lublin, Kholm. Polisia and Pidliasia in the north. It is true that at the beginning the Soviet government did request from its Warsaw puppets simply that all Ukrainians be sent east of the new frontier on a "voluntary basis." Accordingly, the Soviet propaganda machine went into motion; several Soviet repatriation commissions were dispatched to the Ukrainian towns and villages in order to convince the people that if they would go to Soviet Ukraine voluntarily, the Soviet government would grant them farms and machinery free of charge. The intelligentsia, such as teachers, dentists, lawyers, engineers, doctors and other professional men were "invited" especially to come and help rebuild the Soviet fatherland.
But the Ukrainians ignored the bait. The dreadful memories of the executions and mass deportations of Ukrainians in Eastern Galicia were far too vivid. Only too well they knew that the communist regime of Soviet Russia was the enemy of free man, and that their brother Ukrainians were kept in political and social bondage.
The determination not to leave their ancestral land developed to such a degree that by the close of 1945 the Ukrainian underground resistance movement numbered some 100,000 to 120,000 well equipped and highly disciplined fighting men. Entire districts and towns were in their hands; the authority of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (the UPA) was felt not only in the Carpathian Mountains, but as far as the woody and marshy regions of Volhynia and Polisia (the Privet Marshes). Finally, when units of Marshal Malinovsky's Second Army were returning eastward from the war in Germany, thousands of Ukrainians serving in the ranks seized the opportunity to desert the Soviet ranks and join the Ukrainian nationalist partisans, who fought not only Stalin's regime but his Polish henchmen in Warsaw as well. The Soviet government experienced great difficulty in combating the underground. When the Ukrainians west of the Curzon Line did not respond to Soviet and Polish appeals to join the brother Ukrainians in "the happiest country in the world," the Soviet government adopted the drastic policy of forcibly deporting all Ukrainians from what now is Poland. To execute this move the Warsaw government was told to muster the entire police-force at-its disposal, namely, the Polish Army, the MO (Citizens' Militia), the KBW or the Corps of Internal Security and finally the Polish NKVD, UB. Although these forces were composed of Poles, the command was, for the most part, in Russian hands.
It may be noted here that in presenting the brutalities and horrors perpetrated by the "new" Poland upon the Ukrainian population, we have no intention of assigning the responsibility to the Polish people for these acts. We know that after all the Poles themselves are merely slaves of the Soviet state. We know that the Warsaw government which ordered the wholesale massacre of the Ukrainians is not a truly representative government of the Polish people, but a satellite puppet instead, which takes its orders always and solely from Moscow.
In January 1946, when Soviet-American cooperation was deemed a possibility, a few American correspondents were allowed to visit Poland and to write about the tragic fate that befell the Ukrainians in Soviet-dominated Poland As a rule, these reports were in line with the Warsaw-Moscow policy of representing the Ukrainian minority who were unwilling to go to the Soviet slave state as being nothing less than "fascists," "White Russian renegades of General Vlasov," "former German SS men" and the like. Even such distinguished and internationally known correspondents as Sydney Gruson of The New York Times unwarily, it seemed, succumbed to the spell of Warsaw propaganda. In the reporting of these developments, the Ukrainians unfailingly were described as "bandits" and "murderers," favorite terms used by the Soviets to describe their opponents. A typical example of such reporting appeared in the New York Daily News of January 28, 1946, under the name of Tenolde Sunde, The News' staff correspondent. Sent from the little town of Humenne in Czechoslovakia, it read:
"A queer secret, savage war is being fought in this Carpathian Mountain region where Ukrainian irridentists called "Benderovci",
assisted by White Russian renegades and German SS and Gestapo escapees from Soviet prisoner-of-war camps, have taken absolute
control of the rugged sector of Poland and frequently spill over into eastern Slovakia. Numbering perhaps 20,000, according to Czech
military estimates, the "Benderovci," named for one Bender, a pre-war Ukrainian leader who fought for the Nazis, actually govern and
administer a rough triangular area extending from a point of the Dukla Pass to Sanok and Lupkov."
The bandits are organized into regiments and, operating as disciplined and highly trained forces, wear German, Russian. Czech
and English uniforms with the identifying insignia of the three-pronged fork of Neptune on their tunics. Their arms consist of heavy
and light machine guns, automatic rifles and pistols.... The stated purpose of the powerful outlaw organization is to achieve the
independence of the Ukraine.... The "Benderovci" include followers of the notorious White Russian General Vlasov, who went over to the Nazis.... They definitely receive support from the Polish leader, General Anders, and his force now in the American and British zones
of Germany.... In one respect the 'Benderovci' are playing an important part in Eastern Slovakian politics. The Communists are beginning to lose supporters in this Red area; due to the people's growing terror of the 'Benderovci.'... The Polish chaos is so complete that the Russians have found it necessary to move in, to officer the troops from the top. Fork of Neptune Insignia
An Associated Press dispatch, dated April 19, 1946 in Warsaw, gives at least a less colored version: "Strongly armed bands of Ukrainian nationalists are terrorizing southeastern Poland, crossing the demarcation line from the Russian side of the frontier and burning villages, carrying off livestock and leaving thousands of Polish peasants homeless.... The wave of terror, extending southeast from Rzeszow along the San River, is being fought by several divisions of Polish militia.... These Ukrainians have insisted upon their right to remain on Polish soil and also have demanded that the Ukraine be made an independent state. Many of the Poles attacked are living in homes once occupied by the Ukrainians."
Thus the life-and-death struggle of the Ukrainians against the forcible deportation by the Soviet-oriented Polish government was badly depicted as banditry and pillaging, without any attempt to give the real back-ground of these tragic acts.
The plan to exterminate all those Ukrainians who refused to be sent to the Soviet Union, originated in the Kremlin: Stalin could not tolerate a Ukrainian-conscious minority even outside the USSR. From the time of the establishment of the Soviet-Polish frontier on the Curzon Line, the Soviets have waged ceaseless efforts to persuade the remaining Ukrainians to go to the Soviet Union. Toward that end they have sent several "repatriation commissions," which began functioning in such major towns as Przemysl, Sanok and Yaroslav. With the more than willing cooperation of the Polish authorities, the Soviets held several "propaganda meetings," at which they strove to convince Ukrainians to go east of the Curzon Line.
The Poles, or to be more exact, the Warsaw communist officials, did not have to be told twice to help "persuade" the Ukrainians to move east. Their turn came when these Soviet "repatriation commissions" completely failed the Ukrainians stubbornly refused to move from the localities in which they had been living for centuries. At first the Poles arrested and summarily executed a few dozen Ukrainians in the city of Yaroslav. Then the communist-led groups of the MO (Milicja Obywatelska -- Citizens' Militia) began to terrorize the Ukrainian population and loot their homes in the city of Przemysl (Peremyshl). Several Ukrainian families of prominence, such as the Fedaks, Barans and Romankivs, suffered beatings and lootings. During the "repatriation action" several prominent Ukrainian leaders were kidnapped by the Polish MO and handed over to the Soviet NKVD agents, who had permanent headquarters in the city itself. Among the victims were Dr. V. Okolit, Dr. Kovtsev and the Very Rev. M. Barabash, abbot of the Basilian Monastery, and several Basilian nuns, whose fate is unknown to the present day.
To the victims of the Polish-Soviet brutalities belonged the Most Rev. Joseph Kocylovsky, Ukrainian Greek Catholic Bishop, who was forcibly taken out of his palace and handed over to the Soviet authorities in June, 1946.
The "action" was performed by the units of the Ninth Division of the Polish army, and a unit of the officer candidates' school (szkola podchorazych), as well as by the special agents of the UB and MO. The looting of the Bishop's palace was conducted under the supervision of District Commissioner Felczynski and the UB Chief, Dzugaj. Among the officers many spoke Russian.
Told that he should be ready to leave for Soviet Ukraine in two hours, Bishop Kocylovsky maintained the dignity and prestige of a prelate. He replied simply: "Rome has given me my diocese, and Rome alone can remove me from my city." This, of course, was hardly a serious argument for the communist storm troopers. Bishop Kocylovsky was seized bodily by soldiers and agents and, with a total disregard of his advanced age (he was 76), literally flung into a military truck. Under a strong armed convoy he was taken to the frontier village of Medyka and handed over to the Soviets. He was reportedly taken to a Kiev prison, but an unconfirmed report released in 1947 stated that the venerable prelate had died in a Soviet dungeon. With him was also taken his Auxiliary Bishop Lakota Very Rev. Ivan Krych and others. All were abused and beaten by the MO troopers.* (*The New York Times of July 1, 1948, reports that the Vatican received news that Bishop Josaphat Kocylovsky died in a Russian prison after having been tortured.) In his recently published book, I Saw Poland Betrayed (p. 205), Arthur Bliss Lane, who resigned as U.S. Ambassador to Poland, gives more details as to the function of these para-military organizations used for the "repatriation action" of the Ukrainians:
"Yet another organization, known as the Voluntary Citizens' Militia Reserve (O.R.M.O.) and also numbering one hundred thousand had been formed. This sinister group, composed of adherents of the Polish Workers' Party, was used to break up political meetings, to damage buildings occupied by the opposition parties and, like the hoodlums of the Brown Shirts, generally made life disagreeable for all those who did not toe the government line. Dressed in civilian clothes, they were identifiable by their red and white arm bands and the rifles slung over their shoulders."
Another military group, KBW (Korpus Bezpieczenstwa Wewnetrznego) - or the "Internal Security Corps," was formed as an independent until at the disposal of the Minister of Public Security to be used against "bandits" and others who opposed the Soviet puppets. The latter group numbered in 1946 at least 100,000 men, and like the O.R.M.O., was directly under the supervision of Radkiewicz, the chief of the UB, and not under the command of the Polish army under Marshal Rola-Zymierski.
Apparently the Poles, following Russian orders, thought that by breaking down the Ukrainian intelligentsia, they would be able to repatriate with comparative ease the some 700,000 to 800,000 Ukrainians always were. Most of the villages put up a determined resistance, giving from the "new" Poland. But the Ukrainian peasants proved to be what they considerable trouble to the Fifth and Ninth Divisions (labeled "punitive") of the Polish army, which were ordered to help Soviets in expelling Ukrainians to the Soviet Union.
The so-called "repatriation" (a misnomer, for these Ukrainians were not foreigners on the soil from which they were being forcibly expelled) was conducted under inhuman and barbarous conditions.
The amount of human misery entailed by such action as deportation and transfer of hundreds of thousands of human beings cannot easily be understood by an American, or, for that matter, Western mind. Entire villages were fired upon by artillery with the definite intention of destroying them thus depriving the recalcitrant Ukrainians of their habitation. In Several localities men, women and children were murdered in order to terrorize the rest of the population into leaving for the Russian-occupied Ukraine. Those who were compelled to go were given only two hours time to make their departure. Generally, only a few personal belongings were allowed to be taken. Thousands of Ukrainians were then forced to some railroad station under armed escort from where they were sent to the Soviet Union. During the forced marches, these "repatriated" Ukrainians were molested and even beaten by escorting Polish guards, armed with tommy-guns and pistols. No medical attention was permitted, and those Ukrainians who were sick or tired, were, as a rule, shot on the spot.
Against such inhuman and barbarous practices the Ukrainian population on the west side of the Curzon Line had no one to whom to turn for protection. The United Nations Charter apparently was not for those persecuted and beaten. For a time in some villages the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) groups were strong enough to put up an effective resistance against the Soviet-controlled Polish army. The Ukrainian Press Service in London has compiled a list of several villages where the Ukrainians were killed and their homes razed by the Polish troops. The following is only a partial report:
In the course of the "repatriation action" hundreds if not thousands of Ukrainians were murdered in a cold, premeditated manner. No crime, however big, committed by the Nazi executioners seems to surpass the bestialities perpetrated by the Soviet-led Polish army on Ukrainians in many villages west of the Curzon Line, In particular, what took place in the village of ZAVADKA MOROCHIVSKA on January 23, 1946 seems to have touched the nadir of human cruelty. It was planned and executed by the Polish government of Bierut and Co., whose representative to the United Nations, Dr. Oscar Lange, was then accusing the United States and Great Britain of "threatening" peace in Iran and Indonesia. The following report of the mass murder of Ukrainians by the Polish army in the village of Zavadka Morochivska, District of Sanok, Poland, was sent by the Ukrainian underground. Its authenticity was confirmed by several Ukrainian refugees as well as by American citizens recently repatriated from Poland. The text is a literal translation from a copy now in the writer's possession:
"On January 23, 1946, about 11:00 a.m., a runner from the village of Zavadka Morochivska came to our detachment and notified us that Polish troops in force attacked the villages of Bukhovitsia, Ratnitsia and Zboiska. The Poles, he continued, were looting homes, and beating and killing the peasants. Immediately our detachment began moving in the direction of these villages. We met peasants fleeing from the above-mentioned places who reported that a great many Poles had come early in the morning to Zavadka Morochivska and organized a savage butchery, in which several dozen inhabitants were brutally murdered. Later on, a woman came and, sobbing bitterly, began telling us what the Poles had done: 'They came to the
village at dawn. All the men began to run to the woods, and those who remained, attempted to hide in the attics and cellars but to no avail. The Polish soldiers were looking everywhere so that not a single place was left unsearched. Whenever they captured a man, he was killed instantly; where they could not find a man, they beat the women and children. . .. My father was hidden in the attic and the Poles ordered my mother to climb up the ladder to search for him. These orders were accompanied by severe rifle-butt blows. When mother started to climb, the ladder suddenly broke and she fell down,
breaking her elbow. Five Poles began to beat her again with rifle-butts and when she could not lift herself, they kicked her with their heavy boots. I ran to her with my four-year-old daughter and wanted to shield her, but the soldiers began to beat me and my child. I soon fell unconscious and awoke to find my mother and child killed and the entire village afire!" About two hours later we met more peasants from the villages of Zavadka, Mokre, Vysochany and Kamianne. They all said that the Polish army came in large forces, even bringing Up tank detachments. We moved further to the village of Karlikiv, where the day before the Poles had murdered 14 persons, among them a 70-year-old Catholic priest, Father S., his wife, daughter and a little grandchild.*
(*The Ukrainian Catholic Clergy by special permission of the Holy See dating back to
1596, were allowed to marry)
The peasants told us that a half dozen Polish soldiers came to the rectory and bayoneted the old, venerable priest when he refused to tell where his son was. Then they shot his wife and his daughter. The three-year-old granddaughter was in the arms of a maid. When she saw that her mother and grandparents were killed, she began to cry, calling to the maid, "Magda, please hide me because the Poles will kill me." At that moment a Polish soldier struck the child three times with a bayonet, killing it instantly. Then the same man fired at the maid, mortally wounding her in the abdomen. After that the rectory was set afire, as were other houses in the village. Those who tried to escape were instantly machine-gunned.
In the village of Kamianne we were told that the same Polish troops who had plundered and murdered people in Karlikiv, had
massacred about seventy persons in Zavadka Morochivska and had burned the village completely. The next morning we were on the move towards the village. From the hill above the village we saw nothing but smoldering ruins and a few moving Shadows that looked more like ghosts than human beings. We came to the first skeleton of a house where we saw the corpse of a young woman with several bayonet stabs. A few yards farther lay a dead man and a twelve-year-old girl. . . . An old mother was walking around and looking at the corpses of her children. She did not cry, her eyes were dry, but her mouth worked constantly. Nothing but a weak whimpering escaped her.
A ghastly, hair-raising (scene-wm) appeared when we moved into the cemetery-like village. Here and there walked ragged shadows.:..."'Why did they kill her, why have they murdered her?" lamented and old woman, standing over the body of her daughter. A small man, looking barely alive, came to us: Come and see what they have done!'
Showing us several corpses, he cried "There they are!" We saw three small children: seven months, two years and seven years old. All had
been bayoneted. On the other side of the street was his dead wife, with several bayonet Stabs in her breast and her legs badly mutilated.
"She is my wife," whispered the man, "and there is my old father. All have been murdered -- only I remain!" From a half-burned house an
eight-year-old boy came out with his seven-month-old infant brother: "I'm all alone. . . . Here is my mother and there lies my father. . . . He
was killed when he chopped wood to make a fire for us." Another boy of fourteen showed us the place where his father, mother and sister
lay dead. At the village we saw the bodies of four men who were machine-gunned when they tried to flee.
In the village cemetery several dozen bodies had already been placed in a common grave. All were horribly mutilated -- men,
women, children and old people alike met the same cruel death. Near the grave there were several corpses awaiting burial. One was that of
an old man who had been shot while praying. The bodies of adult males and females showed bruises from rifle butts, barbed wire and
nails with which they had been tortured before being shot."
The report was accompanied by a list of people, inhabitants of Zavadka Morochivska. The bloody and brutal "repatriation action" was conducted by the 34th Infantry Regiment, WP( Wojsko Polskie), stationed in Sanok, southeast Poland, The mass murder of the Ukrainians was entrusted to the First Battalion of the same regiment. The entire action was directed by the Commanding Officer of the 34th Infantry Regiment, Colonel Pluto, whose headquarters were established in the neighboring village of Mokre**. (**See the Appendix at the end of the pamphlet.)
The report adds that those whom the Polish soldiers did not kill were beaten and mutilated. The latter were, of course, refused any medical attention on the part of the Polish Army and many people died later as a result of the beatings. The entire village was thoroughly looted. The Poles took 17 horses, 34 cows, 137 chickens, 78 bushels of wheat and other goods. Some 27 houses were completely burned. It should be added that the village was destroyed by the Nazis, and it was not until 1945 that the peasants were able to rebuild it with whatever material they could find.
After the mass murder of innocent Ukrainians, the Warsaw government announced that those killed in Zavadka Morochivska were members of the Ukrainian underground army, commonly known as "banderivtsi," which was not true at all. Children, infants and old people can hardly be accused of belonging to a secret partisan organization. The real reason that they were killed was that they were Ukrainians and simply had to be exterminated. The rest of the villagers, who miraculously escaped the massacre, began slowly to build a new life again with the confident hope that the Poles would not molest them any more. Despite persistent orders from the Polish government to go east of the Curzon Line, these people preferred to remain in their native land. But the Polish authorities were equally determined that they should not be left in peace. Demand after demand came from Moscow that all Ukrainians should be surrendered without delay and without any exception.
Therefore on March 28, 1946, some two months later, the 34th Infantry Regiment's: First Battalion, under the command of an unidentified Russian captain, made a surreptitious raid on Zavadka Morochivska in order to destroy its remaining inhabitants.
Part of the villagers took to the woods, but the rest were arrested and herded into the square near the school building. Here the Russian captain, wearing a Polish army uniform, declared that he would execute all because they refused to go to Ukraine and preferred to stay and help the Bandera groups plunder and weaken the "new democratic Polish state." He then selected 11 men and, before the eyes of their wives, children and old people executed them without any judicial procedure.*** (*** Among those murdered thus were:
Among the executed were a few who had received wounds during the first massacre by the 34th Infantry Regiment from Sanok on January 23, 1946. After the execution, the Soviet captain burned the last of the houses, leaving only the school and church buildings. Before his departure, he addressed the few remaining women and old people:
"The same fate will be met by everyone who refuses to go to Ukraine. I, therefore, order that within three days the village be vacated; otherwise, I shall execute everyone of you. To prove that I have a good heart, I am not burning the school and church so that the women and children have a roof over their heads before they depart for the Soviet Union."
Despite the second massacre, the remaining villagers were more determined than ever not to leave their soil. With the majority of their neighbors killed and all of their houses demolished, they continued to live in Ukrainians in the village of Zavadka Morochivska. The testimony was people in other villages. But this was not for long. The Polish government in Warsaw and its Soviet sponsors were determined to make an example of the village of Zavadka Morochivska for other Ukrainian villages and towns. On April 13, 1946, the same 34th Infantry Regiment from Sanok sent two companies to the village with an express order to kill all Ukrainians on sight if they refused to go east of theCurzon Line! The village was then surrounded on all sides with platoons of the Polish army. These were ordered to shoot every Ukrainian man, woman or child. Some of the villagers were captured and tortured to death.*
(* Among them were the following:
The captured women were also beaten with bayonets and rifle butts or were kicked and stoned. The children were, too, subjected to the same brutalities. A few huts, set up since the last second raid on March 28, 1946, were burned, as was the school building. The few remaining old women and children were told that if they didn't leave for the Soviet Ukraine within three days they would all be executed. Yet these unfortunates, without a roof over their heads and nothing to eat except what was given them by neighboring ,villagers, decided to die on their native soil rather than go to the Soviet Union.
But on April 30, 1946, a final raid was made upon Zavadka Morochivska by detachments of the Polish army. All inhabitants were forcibly driven to-the village square and from there, under a strong armed escort, to the railroad station of Zahir. Here all these Ukrainians, numbering 78 persons (only 4 men among them), were handed over to the Soviet commissars. No one knows what happened to them thereafter. Thus was a purely Ukrainian village totally destroyed by the Soviet directed Polish army, even more thoroughly than its famous Czechoslovak counterpart, Lidice.
The documents listed below are authentic copies of testimony given by captured Polish officers and men who took part in the mass murder of taken from a pamphlet, Krwawym Szlakiem Stalinowskiej Democracji (The Bloody Path of Stalinist Democracy, published illegally in Polish by the Ukrainian underground and circulated in Poland.
Pvt. Wladyslaw Pawlowski, born May 3, 1925. in the village of Buzany, District of Wroclaw, son of Stanislaw and Klementyna, Pole, Roman Catholic, graduate of fourth-grade school, at present serving with the 34th Infantry in Sanok, deposes:
"On January 22, 1946, our Second Battalion received an order
from Colonel Pluto to be prepared to raid the following villages:
Morochiv, Mokre and Zavadka Morochivska. We were most
positively ordered to take from the Ukrainians in these villages
everything they had -- shoes, clothing and anything which could be
found in their possession.... The next day we received another order
to move on the village of Zavadka Morochivska in order to burn it.
In the village of Mokre another battalion was stationed which was to
serve as our reserve force. Our battalion was assisted by some 20
special UB agents from Sanok.
The main task was performed by the Fourth and Fifth
Companies, which were specially instructed in Sanok before their
departure for the village. But I am unable to divulge the nature of
these instructions. My Sixth Company as well as the Heavy Weapon
Company (CKM) took up positions around the village with the
purpose of Protecting these companies which were engaged in action.
Therefore, I did not take part in what was going on in the village."
(Signed) Wladyslaw Pawlowski. Pvt:
Officer Candidate Franciszek Kutylo. born May 15, 1918, in Kamien, District of Lesko, son of Teofil and Zofia, Pole, Roman Catholic, graduate of 6th class of general school, at present Officer Candidate with the Fifth Company, 34th Inf. Regiment, 8th Division in Sanok, deposes:
"Since September, 1945 I was personally taking part in major terrorist operations in order to compel the Ukrainian population to submit to repatriation ,orders in the following villages: Dubrivka Ruska, Sianichok, Zahutyn, Prosik, Storozi Velyki. Storozi Mali. Zavadka Morochivska and finally Volycia, where I was captured by the UPA. Most of the terrorist action against the Ukrainians was directed by Lt. Lewicki and his deputy Mogulski. Often these raids were performed by the First Battalion, especially in the vicinity of the town of Bukivsko, and after each of such raids the soldiers sold their loot and held drinking orgies. During our bivouac in Dukla, our Third Battalion took part in forcible repatriation of Ukrainians in the villages of Tszoka and Tylava. All the inhabitants of these villages were expelled forcibly from their dwellings, and all their belongings were taken away from them. Lt. Lewicki, who was in charge of the repatriation of Ukrainians, amassed a great amount of loot. On January 25th, during the action in Zavadka Morochivska. our Battalion waited as a reserve in Mokre and was scheduled to support the Second Battalion which moved on Zavadka Morochivska. Therefore, I did not take part in the murder of inhabitants of Zavadka Morochivska."
(Signed) Franciszek Kutylo, Podchorazy, WP
2nd Lt. Bronislaw Kuzma, born October 13, 1917. in Leningrad, son of Ignatius and Adolfina, Roman Catholic, Belorussian, graduate of 7th class of general school, at present Commanding Officer of the Fifth Company, 2nd Bn. 34th Inf. Rgt., 8th Division in Sanok, deposes:
The commanding Officer of our 34th Infantry Regiment is a Soviet officer, Colonel Pluto. The Commanding Officer of the Second Battalion, to which my Fifth Company belongs, is also a Soviet officer, Captain Gutowski. Together with my Battalion I took part in many actions to expel Ukrainians from their villages, especially in the village of Prybyshiv. We had an absolute order to expel all Ukrainians and to confiscate their belongings, which were to be brought to the quarters of our captain in the barracks. ... I had heard quite often that the Banderovci numbered many thousands, and that not so long ago a group of 6,000 had arrived from Ukraine. I knew that they were fighting for the independence of Ukraine and against the Soviets. we had a specific order to kill Banderovci wherever possible.... On January 23rd or 24th we received an order to move on the villages of Morochiv. Mokre and Zavadka Morochivska. Captain Gutowski issued an order to search for arms, but at the same time to confiscate boots and everything that could be taken. We had done this in the villages of Morochiv and Mokre. Later we moved on Zavadka Morochivska. On the road we saw one Banderoviets who just came out of the woods. Pfc., Kuczynski from the Fourth Company and two other soldiers fired and wounded the man, who fell instantly. Corp. Olszewski from the Fourth Company and two other soldiers ran toward the wounded man. Pvt. Witold Osmianchuk from Bialystok stabbed him with his bayonet and smashed his head. The others also beat him until he was dead. Then they took off his boots, coat and money; how much I don't know. Later on we moved on Zavadka Morochivska. There we began to do the same things which we had done in other villages, following the orders of Captain Gutowski. But suddenly we were attacked by the Banderovci, and firing began. Thirteen of our men were killed and eight wounded, and we lost our horses and wagons with ammunition. The next day Colonel Pluto issued an order to the Second Battalion and the Third to burn Zavadka Morochivska. while the Third Battalion was dispatched as a reserve force, to the village of Mokre. Upon the order of Colonel Pluto; the Commanding Officer of the Third Battalion, Captain Kozyra, was put in charge of action in Zavadka Morochivska, despite the fact that his battalion was in Mokre. Captain Gutowski, our Battalion's commander, was at that time with the Third Battalion. The Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Companies were sent to the center of the village, where they burned houses and killed everyone who was found there. The Heavy Weapon Company took up a position outside the village so that no one could escape alive. I and my company were burning the center of the village and killing Ukrainians. Personally I stabbed to death a Ukrainian of about 40. I slit his stomach and later stabbed him a few more times. He was the only man I killed there. But there were some among us who were enjoying this butchery. They killed children, took out their eyes or cut women's breasts. Among such sadists were Sgt. Stanislaw Kucko, 27, from my Company, Sgt. Michniewicz, 29, from the Fourth Company, and Corp. Romanowski from the Sixth Company. In the mass murder of the population in Zavadka Morochivska, besides me, the following officers took part: Lt. Kopys. 35, 2nd Lt. Kisiel, 29 Warrant Officer Ostrowski, 40, Lt. Terlecki 24, 2nd Lt. Bogdanowicz. The next day, after burning the village and murdering the majority of the population, our Second Battalion received high praise from Colonel Pluto for a well-executed action."
(Signed) Bronislaw Kuzma 2nd Lt.
The mass murder of Ukrainians in Zavadka Morochivska was typical of others in villages destroyed and annihilated. In the beginning of 1946, the Soviet-controlled Polish army, known as WP (Wojsko Polskie) began to apply terrorist methods to force the Ukrainians to go east of the Curzon Line. With such slogans as "Death to Ukrainians," entire regiments of the Polish army, staffed with Soviet officers, raided the Ukrainian villages and towns, looting and plundering dwellings and killing all Ukrainians, whether men, women or children. Such action lasted through the entire year and was again intensified in the spring of 1947, when the Ukrainian resisters assassinated Gen. Karol Swierczewski, Polish Vice- Minister of Defense. An ardent Stalinist, he had taken part in the Spanish Civil War, and under the name of "General Waiter" commanded a brigade against the France forces. When the Polish puppet state was organized, he was made responsible for the deportation of Ukrainians.
Here is a partial report concerning acts of terror committed by the Polish army against the Ukrainian population:
Just how many Ukrainians were sent to Soviet Ukraine and how many of them were killed outright is a deeply guarded secret of the Soviet and Polish totalitarians. But only on May 7, 1947, TASS, official Soviet news agency, reported that the Polish-Ukrainian repatriation action had been terminated. It added that the repatriation of Ukrainians east of the Curzon Line and of Poles west of that Line had taken place in "an atmosphere of mutual agreement and accord."
On February 19. 1947, the Associated Press reported from Warsaw that the Polish government hoped that at least 5 to 6 million Poles would Settle in the new (German) territories. Even, according to official Polish Sources, during 1946 some 1,107,623 Poles were repatriated, and at least 1,653.627 Germans were expelled at the same time to the West. Actually, the number of expelled Germans was much higher. According to Vice- Premier Gomulka, the remaining Germans, numbering about 400.000, would be expelled in 1947. Up to February 19, 1947, 97,935 Ukrainians were sent to the Soviet Union in accordance with the Soviet-Polish pact.
While there was no secrecy about the Poles forcibly handing over Ukrainians to the Soviet Union, it was not known that the Warsaw government was also sending Ukrainians to East Prussia, Silesia and Pomerania. The London Times reported on June 24, 1947 that many thousands of Ukrainians had already been settled in East Prussia, from where Germans had been expelled. According to the Potsdam Agreement, East Prussia was divided in two parts: the northern part, with the great commercial city of Koenigsberg (now Kaliningrad), annexed by Soviet Russia and settled with ethnic Russians; the southern part, given to Poland, and where the Ukrainians are being sent under constraint. According to well informed sources, to date over 15,000 Ukrainians have been brought to East Prussia, but actually their number might be much higher. In Warsaw the official version of these deportations of Ukrainians is that they are implacable enemies of the Soviet Union and that they maintain close connections with the Ukrainian nationalists on the Soviet side, but above all. that they are supporting the Ukrainian underground which causes considerable trouble for both Poland and Soviet Russia.
More detailed information about the forcible deportations of Ukrainians from the northern province of Kholm and Pidlisia arrived in the summer of 1947. The inhabitants of these regions are Orthodox Ukrainians who came under Polish rule after 1919.
The overall policy concerning Ukrainians is barbarous and inhuman. These people, especially, Orthodox Ukrainians from the Kholm and Pidliasia regions, are given short notice to prepare for deportation. Although they are permitted to take their belongings, this is practically impossible since there are no means of transportation. When gathered at the "collecting points," the Soviet agents make thorough inspections to select men whom they think might be useful for their sinister purposes, such as intelligence work or as candidates to slave labor camps in Soviet Russia.
Significantly. despite the great tragedy that befell the Ukrainians West of the Curzon Line, the government of the so-called Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in Kiev has kept a strict silence about these deportations! Yet in 1939, after the Hitler-Stalin pact, Soviet Russia invaded these territories as a self-appointed "protector of the Ukrainian and Belorussian peoples!"
(These letters were written by Ukrainians from Poland to their relatives in the United States. For obvious reasons, the names of the senders have been omitted. Letters appeared in Svoboda, the oldest American-Ukrainian daily in the United States, under dates of April 30, 1947 and June 24. 1947).
Letter No. 1 written from the village of Stefkova, Lisko District, Poland, to relatives in the State of Pennsylvania and dated March 5, 1947:
"The Poles expelled all the people from the village and sent them behind barbed-wire enclosures. Many escaped to the woods so that no one remains except Polish soldiers. Your brother lies dead beside his coffin. Undoubtedly you wonder why I was not expelled. It is because my wife was born in America and her American passport gave her adequate protection for some time. As for myself. 1 had to flee with the children, but was caught by the militiamen before reaching the woods. At the same time they arrested my wife and were already taking her to the railroad station, but she had shown the letter from the American Ambassador, and was released. I was being led to the execution place when my wife came to the village. 1 was beaten up and covered with blood, and she hardly recognized me. But she saw one of our children sobbing and following me, and began to implore the Polish soldiers to release me. When she produced the American passport, I was set free.... What we live through today is worse than in any period of Ukrainian history. Even during the Mongolian incursions, Ukraine never suffered so much as now. I understand why the Ukrainian people have to fight for the right to live on their ancestral land. Only, at present, our people lack support and strength.... Those who refuse to pray or profess to be Communists, should come for a few weeks at least to the Soviet Union. Then, we are sure, they would believe in God, and would consider communism the most dangerous disease of mankind.... The clippings, sent to me by you are widely read and passed from hand to hand as far as Kiev itself." Sincerely,
Letter No. 2. written to a Ukrainian family in Michigan by its relatives from Poland on April 22, 1947. The letter is from Sokal District, near the Soviet-Polish frontier. "I don't know whether you received my previous letters, because there are various reasons why you might not have. You write us and tell us: "Hold on a better future is coming!" We surely are trying hard to hold, but every one of us asks: "When is this better tomorrow coming?" I am writing this letter through the same channels as before. ... What-will happen next, we shall see. Last year, as you probably know, they tried to "repatriate" us, but rather unsuccessfully. Today again they are starting the repatriation propaganda. It seems to be the policy to resettle all peasants from the Fast on former German lands in the West. Therefore, no one even wants to think of working, for nobody's future is safe.... You asked me about our present frontier. It runs now from the town of Biala Podlaska south along the Bug River, by-passing the cities of Kholm, Hrubeshiv, to the town of Krystynopol, thence, along the Solokey River west to the town of Uhniv. Don't think for a moment that our villages and cities are the way you left them.... Only names remain, the villages themselves have either completely disappeared-or are so damaged that but a few houses remain standing. For instance, such villages as Belzeyiv and Madzarky were completely leveled. Other villages around us had somehow escaped total destruction and still have a few nests for a few families. Our village, which before the war had about 140 houses, now has only 70 left and these are giving shelter to some 360 people. Of these, 200 are Creek Catholics and the rest are Roman Catholic. According to official estimates, our village belongs to the most populated localities in the area. The other villages have still fewer families: Pykoschyna - 16 families: Sebechiv -- 55; Verbizh -- 16; Moshkiv -- 16; Shmytkiv -- 5; Savchyn -- 30; Opilsko -- 1; Boyanychi -- 5; Zavyshychi - 23; Boratyn -- 30; Cebriv -- 5; Peremysliv - 44; Vyzhniv -- 16; Mytsiv -- 15; Dovzshniv, Zhniatyn and Lisky about 65 families each. It is evident that such a number of people cannot take care of harvesting. The fields that once were like flowering gardens, are deserted and uncultivated. Such is the general view of the Polish- Ukrainian frontier zone...."
Letter No. 3, written by a Ukrainian deported to East Prussia
(The letter was published in America, Ukrainian Catholic paper appearing in Philadelphia, on July 4, 1947):
"Dear brother and sister-in-law: I received your letter in which you write that a package containing clothes has been sent to us. Upon receiving the letter we were all greatly relieved that we would be able to clothe America who still defend the Bolsheviks to come and live with us. We are sure that within a month they would be completely cured of their admiration and enthusiasm.... Tell every American how the Soviets persecute the Ukrainian people! Yours...."
(Signature)
Letter No. 4, written from the Pidliasia Region
"...Ukrainian Pidliasia has ceased to exist-as such. All people from the Volodovschyna District were exiled to the West in the middle of June. The District of Bilsko is in the midst of deportation to the so-called "recovered territories," with the purpose of building a "new order" in Europe. To what part of former German lands our peasants will go, we do not know. Theoretically, they are allowed to take with them all their belongings, but this is hardly possible because of lack of transportation and the short notice given before deportation. Land, household goods are being confiscated by the communist rzad (government) for the benefit of the Polish proletariat.. .. From what is known here, the Ukrainian deportees are being sent to colonize Silesia and Pomerania in such a manner as not to permit their settling together, but are scattered among Polish families. Furthermore, they cannot have their own schools or churches. Now we hear the same action is vigorously pursued in the entire region of Kholm."
July 20, 1947. Letter NO. 5, written by a Ukrainian living now on the Curzon Line, Poland, and printed in Svoboda, February 26, 1948.
The hell which our Ukrainian people underwent on both sides of the Curzon Line is indescribable. First it was the forcible "repatriation" to what they called "our Soviet fatherland, and now it is "voluntary resettlement" in the German territories in East Prussia, Pomerania and Silesia. Actually our people did not want to go, but were forcibly expelled by the Polish lackeys of Stalin. In fact, the Ukrainians fought with the greatest stubbornness and determination against expulsion from their ancestral lands. .. . But their efforts were futile. . . . By organizing armed bands of civilians and sending them into Ukrainian villages, the Warsaw government has devised a very ingenious method to get rid of Ukrainians. What the Poles did there was worse than any crime committed in the times of the Mongolian invasions of Ukraine. By day and night they raided villages and towns, burned houses and buildings, arrested and beat people for refusing to leave their villages. Our Catholic priests and teachers were the first to fall victims to this unbounded Polish bestiality.... Even our Bishops Kocylovsky and Lakota did not escape the horrible fate meted out by the Polish militiamen. They have been arrested and forcibly deported east of the Curzon Line. The Ukrainian resistance, the UPA, fought these inhuman deportations but eventually the Poles brought up several army divisions and expelled great numbers of Ukrainians. Those who had somehow escaped from being sent to the Soviet Union had later been rounded up and deported to German lands in the West, but all able-bodied Ukrainians had resisted and fought with unprecedented courage. In this struggle Red Poland has lost its best military man, General Swierczewski, and several other high officers. In retaliation the Polish Communists have leveled hundreds of Ukrainian villages -- wherever they went, hundreds of corpses remained. . . . I am writing this letter at night for fear of being seen...
Letter No. 6 describing deportations of Ukrainians by Poles from the Lemkivshchyna region.
This letter Was printed in issue Number 7 of Pravda, a paper published by the immigrants from Carpatho-Ukraine in Philadelphia. (The paper is favorable to Russia and her policies):
January 1, 1947
"Dear Aunt and Uncle:
I am writing this letter because I want to describe to you the
deportations of Ukrainians. The Poles have issued an order: Musimy wysiedlic wszystkich Ukraincow do jednego! (We have to resettle every single Ukrainian!)
This is only a part of what has happened with the Ukrainians on
the frontier between Poland and Western Ukraine, namely. the
districts of Lubachow, Yaroslaw, Przemysl, Sanok and others.
It began in November, 1945. Huge posters were distributed
exhorting all Ukrainians to go voluntarily to the east. It became
evident, however, that none of them would go there of his own free
will. The Poles then devised a clever plan: they organized armed
bands which began to raid the defenseless Ukrainian population and
thus attempted to compel it to go to the Soviet Union.
In the village of Korytnyky near Przemysl, the Poles murdered
several villagers and threw their bodies in the San River. In another
locality, Malkovychi, the same band murdered 70 people, and all
their homes were looted. There were many such raids. The people
were terrorized to such a degree that no one knew what to do or
whom to ask for protection. There were those villages which
organized impromptu defenses, and we had times worse than those
during the Tartar invasions seven centuries ago. When the Poles
approached at night, the bells would ring and the people would run
for their lives. To their defense finally came the Ukrainian Insurgent
Army, commonly called "banderivtsi." They not only were able to
protect the villages, but also to destroy armed bands sent by the
Polish government. But later on the Warsaw government sent many
troops which raided villages, forcibly expelled and instantly killed
those unwilling to go.
Then came the Soviet "repatriation" commissions which took all
those who were rounded up by the Polish army. On many occasions
our "boys from the woods" had armed encounters with the army, and
regular warfare was going on for many months. The Polish army was
even compelled to bring up artillery.
Dear Aunt and Uncle! The war is not finished here! There is not
a day or night without cannonade and firing! On the other side of the
frontier the city of Sambor several times was in the hands of the
Ukrainian Partisans! These partisans are fighting for the liberation of
our country. Thanks to them, today we are still alive,
The Polish "democratic army" wanted to destroy the Partisans at
any cost, but to no avail. Again during the severe winter of 1946
(February 15) they attacked our village. We had time to flee from the
house with the small children and went to our sister who was married
to a Pole. But at 4:00 A.M. the Poles came after us. They surrounded
the village with machine-guns and told people to get ready to go.
Neither the crying of old women nor the pleading of the few men
helped any.
Dear Aunt and Uncle! it is impossible to describe everything we
went through. We watched from the attic how these people were
taken away from the village.. . . We came back to our village after
four weeks. We found nothing there but bare walls. Here a Ukrainian
has no rights or importance. He is practically outside the law. Finally
they arrested and deported our Bishops, and most of our priests were
sent to Soviet Russia. The Ukrainian Creek Catholic Cathedral in
Peremyshl (Przemysl) was transformed into a Polish church.
Dear Aunt and Uncle! We had survived three major fronts
during the last war, yet it seemed much easier than to live now in
"peace."
The practice of mass deportations of people who came under the totalitarian domination of Soviet Russia and her satellites --- resembling as they do. the deportations by the Nazis - is contrary not only to the Charter of the United Nations, but to the principles of humanity everywhere. The scale of this "resettlement" and the conditions under which it is conducted are without precedent in history. No one, seeing and knowing its bestiality, can doubt that it is a crime against humanity for which history will exact a terrific retribution.
The present Polish government for which the Polish people are not responsible), has perpetrated unspeakable horrors and crimes upon the defenseless Ukrainian population that found itself within the frontiers of the "new" Poland. Acting upon orders from Moscow, this government has ,expelled several million Germans from the region east of the Oder-Neisse Rivers. The plan was that that territory should be colonized by the Poles and thus made an integral part of a Soviet-inspired Polish state. But there are not enough Poles who could be successfully organized to administer these lands as they were administered in the past. So an evil plan, contrary to the principles of human rights, was engineered.
Those Ukrainians who, despite extreme pressure and shameful persecution combined with mass murder, refused to go to the despotic empire of Stalin, were thus sent to these German territories. Just how many thousands were so far expelled and settled on the former German lands is impossible to ascertain. Unconfirmed reports, based on numerous letters from those who were deported, as well as the accounts of refugees, indicate that the number may soon reach 100,000 people. One of the most dismaying aspects of these expulsions is the fact that during the course of their execution many thousands of human beings have simply disappeared. These Ukrainians, it is recalled, had been living on the territories from which they were expelled for many centuries, and had not asked to be sent anywhere. Not part of any Axis alliance or partnership, the Ukrainians had unjustly suffered incredible punishment meted out by the Soviet quislings ruling Poland.
What fate befell these Ukrainians who were so brutally ejected from their ancestral soil, is not hard to guess: Those who went across the Curzon Line have completely disappeared in the vast slave empire which is Soviet Russia today. No one writes any more from the Soviet paradise. Those deportees who were still strong and healthy were immediately sent to war now in full swing in Central Russia. Sick, incapacitated people were simply dumped in Soviet kolkhozes and forced to work under communist bosses. Those who were forcibly deported to East Prussia, Pomerania and had been separated and mixed with the native Poles. Whether Catholic, or Orthodox, these Ukrainians are forbidden to have their own churches, still less their own Ukrainian schools. Even to speak their own native tongue has become a crime of huge proportions. The Ukrainians are now being told that their dissatisfaction with the totalitarian regimes of Soviet Russia and Poland is being "artificially aroused by the American imperialists." Such classification is ominous in the countries behind the Iron Curtain. What has happened to the Ukrainians in what is now Poland can easily happen tomorrow to any other people in the world. should they fall under the rule of Russia or her communist puppets.
Unlike many other victims of deportations, such as the Sudetens and Hungarians from Czechoslovakia, or the Germans from Polish-occupied territory who were deported to the West, the Ukrainians have been deported East. Therefore, fewer of them can be reached by our Bid, even if such aid can be organized. But there are thousands of Ukrainians who either were deported to Nazi concentration camps or escaped from Soviet slavery. Many of those have been returned to Russia as Soviet citizens under the infamous Yalta Agreement. But the thousands who remain outside of the Iron Curtain must be saved. If the IRO is to mean anything, and if the United Nations Charter on human rights is to observed, these Ukrainians should be given full assistance and protection.
Today when our civilization Crumbles before the dark force of the East, the hope of all mankind is directed to our country, not only for material assistance, but for spiritual guidance as well. America's leadership must actively oppose the forces that threaten the very foundation upon which the greatness of this nation was achieved: the freedom of man. When this freedom is curtailed anywhere for reasons of race, religion or nationality, our country and our civilization are in danger of destruction.