Photos of UPA's victims

[MichaelB_PL]

Originally Posted by benda

Not exactly. An order to kill Ukrainians was given by not "a local officer" - it was no other man than Bur-Komarowski himself (as far as I know he is considered as the major leader of whole Polish resistance and AK particularly) on August, 4, 1943.

What was the order? Yes, Bor-Komorowski was major leader of AK.

But I want to show that accusing only Ukrainians of this tragedy is not correct.

IMO the ones guilty for the tragedy were Ukrainians indeed, but not all Ukrainians - only UPA-B members and supporters.

IMO the Poles did NOT provoke the massacres in any real way- yes, there
was the Pacification, but a sane, normal person would not be driven to mass murder of civilians by the relatively mild Polish opression before the war.

I think the real cause of these events was the totalitarian criminal ideology of OUN - without it, there still would be a Polish-Ukrainian conflict, but it would resemble the 1918-1919 Polish-Ukrainian war- armed conflict, but fought mostly soldier vs soldier, without serious atrocities directed against civilians.


Michael

[benda]

Originally Posted by dobko

How can someone so young be so wise, Alex?

I agree with you and Zby.

It has nothing common with wisdom, Clay. These are just my thoughts - nothing more. But...thank you anyway.

Originally Posted by MichaelB_PL

What was the order?

Rather simple - to "pay Ukrainians back". The consequences were as I've written before (by the way, sorry for a mistake: 150 villages were burnt, not 1500. But it is only for Khrubeshuv and Tomashiv districts).

Originally Posted by MichaelB_PL

IMO the ones guilty for the tragedy were Ukrainians indeed, but not all Ukrainians - only UPA-B members and supporters.

I should notice that Germans also promoted the conflict.

Polish-Ukrainian conflict, as you've said, was unavoidable. Often it was a local conflict between peasants for social questions - land, border. These problems appeared with the participation of Poland too. Local conflicts began before UPA. Though the first massacre was really done by them. German police in Ukraine consisted mostly of Ukrainians, many of which were members of OUN. When the administration knew it, they replaced Ukrainians with Poles. So one of UPA leaders demanded that Poles quit either Ppolice or Ukraine. Neither was done. Then UPA cruelly and ruthlessly massacred Polish citizens of Volynian villages. Poles responded the same way (for example, Polish police with German forces destroyed almost quarter Ukrainian population of Ludvypol district). Generally, Poles suffered more in regions where they comprised minority, and vice versa. The first mass murder was made by UPA (and they will never get rid of this shameful crime) but as we can see Poles showed no less cruelty.

Finally, about "totalitarian criminal ideology of OUN". As I have told you, ideology of OUN had something common with Soviet totalitarism. Did Soviets kill a lot of Poles after the war?

[MichaelB_PL]

Originally Posted by benda

Rather simple - to "pay Ukrainians back". The consequences were as I've written before (by the way, sorry for a mistake: 150 villages were burnt, not 1500. But it is only for Khrubeshuv and Tomashiv districts).

Ok, I did't know about that (the order, not the mass murders).

Finally, about "totalitarian criminal ideology of OUN". As I have told you, ideology of OUN had something common with Soviet totalitarism. Did Soviets kill a lot of Poles after the war?

I do not know what you are trying to say here...

Soviets did not kill lots of Poles after the war, defining 'lots' in WWII terms... it depends if we count the Soviet-controlled ethnically quasi-Polish (often Polish-Jewish) communist security forces as 'Soviet' or not.

But what does it have to do with UPA?

OUN's ideology had also lots to do with Nazism, and Nazis killed more than a million of Poles after the main military phase of the conflict.


Michael

[benda]

Originally Posted by MichaelB_PL

But what does it have to do with UPA?

Michael

Ideology of OUN had more common with Soviet than with German.

"I think the real cause of these events was the totalitarian criminal ideology of OUN"

These are your words.

So I can make conclusion that massacre happened because of Soviet ideology (really, it was totalitarian). Then Soviets who had similar ideology should have killed many Poles as well. But they did not. Question: why didn't they if they shared the same ideology as OUN (which, according to your words was the reason of the tragedy)?

[MichaelB_PL]

Originally Posted by benda

Ideology of OUN had more common with Soviet than with German.

"I think the real cause of these events was the totalitarian criminal ideology of OUN"

These are your words.

So I can make conclusion that massacre happened because of Soviet ideology (really, it was totalitarian). Then Soviets who had similar ideology should have killed many Poles as well. But they did not. Question: why didn't they if they shared the same ideology as OUN (which, according to your words was the reason of the tragedy)?

Well, I think you are over-playing the similiarity between OUN and the Soviets - obviously their ideology had many similiarities with Nazis - like emphasis on the nationality.

The Soviets did favour Russian nationality to some degree, but it was not their first priority.
For the Soviets, a communist Pole was in many ways more a communist than a Pole, thus from their point of view the Poles were useful if they could get converted to loyalty to Stalin. For the Nazis and OUN however, a Pole was a Pole, and no ideological change could make him "proper person"- and I think this difference was the biggest cause in difference in rate of murder.



Michael

[benda]

Well, as I said before, OUN had more common with Soviet totalitarism than with German. It is glorifying of the leader, building a country on social-democratic principles with minimum of private property, single-party system, severe discipilne within the party, etc.

[MichaelB_PL]

Originally Posted by benda

Well, as I said before, OUN had more common with Soviet totalitarism than with German. It is glorifying of the leader, building a country on social-democratic principles with minimum of private property, single-party system, severe discipilne within the party, etc.

Perhaps my knowledge of Nazi Germany is lacking, but I think most these elements can be attributed to it as well- things like glorification of the leader, severe discipline, lack of political pluralism, etc.

Still, I do not fully understand what your point was- to me it is obvious that Soviets did not murder Poles because they never cared about ethnicity much - compared to OUN.


Michael