Slaughter of Poles in Rumno

During the night of 2 to 3 June 1944 Ukrainian nationalists killed 40 Poles in the village of Rumno. For centuries these two nations lived in harmony beside each other, therefore the tragical events of that night at the end of World War II were totally unexpected. Thankfully, there were few Ukrainians with human emotions and courage, who helped save their vulnerable neighbours from death.

The Banderittes encircled Rumno late at night when everyone was asleep and began killing entire Polish families using knives, axes and bayonets. Numerous buildings were set alight. The killings were particularly brutal.

WARNING! Certain description might be very distressful to some readers.

“Drapała Sophia, 25 years old, was tortured by having her tongue and breasts cut off”;

Wandycz Anna, 23 was tortured in the same way;
Wandycz Sophia, age 25 had her breasts mutilated;
“Maria Wandycz, 9 years old, had her heart ripped out and left beside her body;

Pater Joseph, 21, was doused with gasoline and burned alive;

Puńczyszyn Maria, 6 years old, had her belly slit open with a knife, she died in agony;

Kasprzyczak Catherine, 30, was hacked with an axe;
Kasprzyczak Antoni, 2 years old, the son of Catherine, had his head smashed with blow of an axe;

Dżugaj Maria, 57 years old, was thrown into a fire and burned alive

The above are examples of how the 40 Polish victims died.

Some of the cruel murderers were recognised by other Ukrainians and identified as:

Szczepan Siekieka,

Henry Komańsky,

Krzysztof Bulzacky.

Others have not been identified.
This genocide committed by Ukrainian nationalists against Poles took place in the Lviv region.

Anna Hrabowieńska was one of the village’s resident who witnessed and have recounted those horrific events:

– ” It happened at night time, I’ve heard screaming. There was a lot of confusion going on. Our house was located between two Polish families. It was a terrible, everyone was running around trying to escape the slaughter, but there was nowhere to go. We were so afraid … The banderittes picked us up and drove to Horoz. On the way I saw fearful Poles and dead bodies everywhere . I heard machine-gun shooting. It was simply incomprehensible what was taking place. God knows who did it all … God, I don’t want to ever again witness anything like this” – said the old woman.

Some of the goodhearted Ukrainians of Rumna provided shelter to their Polish neighbours. There were also cases where certain homes were saved from burning. Many of the survivor owes their lives to Ukrainians who risked their own, and who did not let themselves be carried away by the Ukrainian Insurgent Organization’s criminal and insane idea.

“Stanislaw Pater, recalls:
– ” My mother Dorota and brother Tadeusz hid in a Ukrainian neighbour’s hut, Anastasia Kałandiak […] She was a widow who was a loyal friend and good neighbour to the end”. After the departure of Poles she suffered abuse from other Ukrainian neighbors for her humanly behavior, which was memorised in Romuald Niedzielko book called, “Kresowa Book of the Righteous 1939-1945”.

In another passage of this publication we also read about “Jan Gerus (then 11 years old boy) who recalls the fall of 1944 and a Ukrainian neighbour, with whom he went to the forest gathering firewood, when they encountered an armed UPA insurgent questioning them. The Ukrainian said that Gerus was his nephew and thus saved this boy’s life”.

The mass grave of murdered Polish nationals was commemorated in 1994 by Fr. prof. Tadeusz Pater who was born in Rumno. Some of today’s Rumno residents, who do not deny the crimes of years ago meet every year at the symbolic cross. Many of them have Polish roots, as for centuries there were mixed family here. A monument commemorating the victims stands at the edge of the prewar historic cemetery.

=====================

Translated from source:

http://www.studiowschod.pl/zbrodnia-w-rumnie-jedni-ukraincy-mordowali-drudzy-ratowai/

++++++++++++++++++++

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Enter your comment here...

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Email (Address never made public)

Name

Website

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s

Notify me of new comments via email.

Notify me of new posts via email.

Δ

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.