2017-02-25 18:44 update: 2018-09-26, 23:55
Pomnik upamiętniający mord mieszkańców polskiej miejscowości Huta Pieniacka na Ukrainie. Fot. PAP/Darek Delmanowicz
Polish ambassador to Ukraine Jan Pieklo called the restoration by Ukrainians of the vandalised Polish memorial in Huta Pieniacka (Ukraine) "a huge surprise".
"This was a miracle of sorts. First, there was information that a cross returned to its place. A consulate employee went to Huta Pieniacka and returned with photos confirming the news. It is a replica of the original cross and it is made of granite", the ambassador told PAP and the Radio Information Agency.
"This is a very nice surprise, especially before tomorrow's observances", the ambassador went on.
Earlier in the day, Lviv district governor Oleh Syniutka announced that local residents had rebuilt a monument honouring Polish people murdered by Ukrainian nationalists in 1944 in Huta Pieniacka. The monument was destoryed in January.
Syniutka added that local residents from the region surrounding Huta Pieniacka had financed the rebuilding of the monument and stressed that "the Ukrainian state had not participated".
In January, unknown perpetrators broke a stone cross and destroyed plaques with the names of those murdered in the village of Huta Pieniacka, which was formerly part of Poland. One of the plaques was in part painted over in blue and yellow in an apparent reference to the Ukrainian national flag colours. Another plaque was painted over in the colours of a Ukrainian insurgent army that committed atrocities against Polish ciztizens during World War II.
Huta Pieniacka is a no-longer-existing village in what is now Ukraine’s Lviv region. On Feb. 28, 1944, Ukrainian volunteers forming a Ukrainian division of German Nazi SS killed therein anywhere from 600 to 900 people, according to various estimates.
The Huta Pieniacka massacre is considered to be the most serious crime committed by Ukrainian nationalists in that region of Eastern Europe. The monument commemorating the victims of the tragedy was unveiled in 2005.
On Sunday, Feb. 28, Ambassador Pieklo and Syniutka will attend observances marking the 73rd anniversary of the Huta Pieniacka massacre.
According to estimates by historians, in 1943-1945 Ukrainian nationalists on top with Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), overall murdered about 100,000 Poles in the regions of Volhynia and Eastern Galicia, which were part of Poland territory before World War II. The culmination of these events came on July 11, 1943 when Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) units attacked some 150 Polish localities.(PAP)
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