July 11, 1943, marked the event known as "Bloody Sunday." Partisan units of Ukrainian nationalists, supported by the civilian population, attacked settlements in Volhynia. It was a meticulously planned operation. People were ruthlessly murdered regardless of age or gender (there was talk of the necessity to exterminate all Poles, tracing back seven generations).
Pre-war Volhynia Voivodeship in the Eastern Borderlands was a territory then occupied by the German Third Reich.
The "Bloody Sunday" was the culmination of the Volhynian massacres. On July 11, we observe the National Day of Remembrance for Poles—Victims of the Genocide committed by the OUN and UPA.
This day marked the peak of the Volhynian Massacres. At dawn, UPA units—often with the active support of the local Ukrainian population—simultaneously surrounded and attacked 99 Polish villages in the Kovel, Volodymyr, and Horokhiv counties, as well as parts of the Lutsk county. The civilian population was exterminated, and property was destroyed; villages were burned and belongings looted. Researchers estimate that approximately 8,000 Poles—mostly women, children, and the elderly—may have perished on that single day alone. Poles were killed by bullets, axes, pitchforks, knives, and other implements, often while inside churches during Holy Mass or other religious services.
July 10, 1943, is considered the symbolic date for the genocide in Volhynia; on that day, UPA members tore apart—using horses—Zygmunt Rumel, a representative of the Polish Underground State who had been sent to negotiate with them. Following this atrocity, mass murders of the Polish population began in Volhynia and later in Eastern Lesser Poland. It is estimated that Ukrainian nationalists, supported by the peasantry, attacked Poles living in 4,300 localities. Near destroyed villages and hamlets, nameless mass graves remain, concealing the bodies—often mutilated—of Polish inhabitants of the Kresy.
However, the goal of Ukrainian nationalists was not merely the physical elimination of the Polish community but also the eradication of all traces testifying to the centuries-long Polish presence in the Kresy. Consequently, alongside the acts of genocide, they destroyed Polish cultural assets and monuments and struck at the region's economy by burning Polish settlements to the ground, targeting Catholic churches with particular ferocity.
Between 1943 and 1945, Ukrainian nationalists murdered between 80,000 and 120,000 Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Lesser Poland. It is impossible to determine the precise number of victims.
