The most honest way to look at history is to study documents, historians say. One extraordinary book presented recently in Kyiv proves this right.
“Poland and Ukraine in the 1930s and 1940s: Documents from the Archives of the Secret Services,” sums up a decade of joint work by Ukrainian and Polish historians and is one of the best reads for those interested in first-hand accounts of this dramatic time in the history of both nations.
Containing previously secret documents of both Soviet and Polish secret services, the book begins by chronicling the great famine of 1932-33, including surprising letters by party members criticizing the Communist Party.
“I dined at the (officials’) canteen and even when there was not enough bread, and the people were swelling up from hunger, the canteen was serving meat and a variety of dishes at lower prices,” Nechayev I.P., a party activist in Kharkiv, wrote to the district party commitee on Oct. 20, 1932.
Deployed to the countryside to carry out the hlebozagotovka, the confiscation of grain and food from peasants, Nechayev in his letter categorically refused to participate in the campaign that led to the death by starvation of millions of Ukrainians.
He goes as far as criticizing Stalin himself. Reading the letter, one can only imagine where the poor man ended up.
Many documents are reports by informants about social reactions to the arrests and famines. One such informant in Odesa Oblast reports a conversation between peasants: „There is no hope for the future, there is no point in hoping for an intervention since everyone abroad is busy with their own things, and the hope of an internal revolt is just as faint because our society is too inactive.”
While the world closed its eyes on the tragedy unfolding in Ukraine in the winter of 1932-33, the documents show that Polish secret services and many diplomats in Moscow knew exactly what was going on. Some are transcripts of interrogations of ethnic Poles who escaped from the USSR; others are letters from consulates to embassies in Moscow.
A particularly harrowing report from June 6, 1933, has the Polish secret services saying that in Ukraine „cannibalism has became a sort of addiction. The mortality rate has reached such levels that one finds villages completely deserted, or villages where out of the population of 2,000-3,000, merely 300-400 persons remain.”
A June 16, 1933 report by the German consul in Kharkiv states that in many villages in Kharkiv Oblast „80 per cent of the population have died of starvation.” Some reports are almost unbearable to read, as they give details of frozen human corpses and children’s skulls in the piles of garbage.
The chapter on the great terror of 1937-1938 covers an anti-Polish operation which led to the death of over 100,000 Poles in Ukraine, Belarus and several Russian cities.
In an order from Aug. 11, 1937, Commissar for Internal Affairs Nikolai Yezhov accuses Poles of being involved in the fascist insurgency, espionage, sabotage, subversion and terrorism. Yezhov orders to arrest all Polish prisoners of war, fugitives from Poland and the most active anti-Soviet Poles. Further reports from the local Internal Affairs divisions list how many Poles were detained in each part of the country and the details of their charges.
Among the official orders and dry statistics, one document stands out.
It is a Nov. 30, 1937 letter by prisoner Gustaw Dalmer to a local party chief which describes him being forced to give false evidence: „I was beaten with a rifle barrel and bottles, not to mention hit with fists and kicks, I found myself in such a situation that I had to give a series of false evidence… that I was a spy and saboteur… prepared an arson attack on a kolkhoz, gathered information and public feelings…Many other people, not only me, are being treated in the same way. One person had the word ‚spy’ written on his forehead, he was spat at in the face, beaten to give false evidence…Yesterday a woman tried to kill herself. Several days ago three women miscarried because they were beaten so badly. Dozens of beaten people are lying in a special corridor or cells….Monstrosities go on endlessly. Please help me and other people.”
Once World War II broke out with the invasion of Poland by German and Soviet forces, communist secret services began eradicating the Polish underground in occupied eastern Poland.
The book also covers the most tragic chapter of Polish-Ukrainian relations, the Volyn tragedy of 1942-1944, as it is referred to by Ukrainian historians, and the Volyn massacre according to their Polish colleagues. As the war unfolded, many Ukrainian nationalists sided with Nazi Germany, outraging local Poles. This marked the begining of the mutual bloodshed as the Ukrainian Insurgent Army clashed with Poland’s Home Army.
“Ukrainian nationalists terrorize the Polish population. In the villages of Volodymyr Volynsk region and Vystosk regions….200 farms were burned down and all the people, including old people and children were slaughtered. Thousands of Polish men are hiding in the forests with their families,” reads a 1943 report by Soviet commisar Savchenko.
Some Soviet reports from 1944 describe how Germans use Ukrainian-Polish hatred and „form units of Poles equipped with…heavy and light machine guns and rifles” and urge them to burn Ukrainian villages and slaughter the population.
“The village was surrounded… 40 people were killed. The band went through the burned village finishing off the wounded. People hid in the ashes of burned houses and pretended to be dead. Some saved themselves this way.” This is how one witness descibes the events of March 9, 1944, where Poles attacked the Ukrainian village of Mietkie.
The book also offers insight into the resettlement of Poles and Ukrainians in 1944-1947, including the operation Vistula – the forced resettlement of approximately 200,000 of Poland’s Ukrainian minority by the Polish Communist government. These mass resettlements were aimed to ease fears of continued insurgency in border regions.
The most interesting documents discussed are the secret services’ reports of the opinions voiced by the Poles and Ukrainians during the displacements.”We, the Polish people were born here, are going to die here and are never going to leave Sambir raion,” said villager Wladek Drozdecki.
For now, the book has been distributed among embassies in Kyiv. It is also available at the Security Service of Ukraine archive at 7 Zolotovoritska St. upon request by email to [email protected].
Kyiv Post staff writer Svitlana Tuchynska can be reached at [email protected].
