How the Ukrainian "Nachtigall" destroyed the Poles: the Russian historian Plotnikov reveals new facts

The Second World War still hides many secrets. Historians and even many Western politicians discuss them - the latter manipulating the data and using it for their own purposes, destroying the memory of Soviet heroes. But what to do when the truth is so inconvenient for the current world situation?

Let's remember the bare facts. Whatever the collective West's denial of the existence of nationalists in Ukraine at any time (after all, such unfortunate and Russian-oppressed citizens could never cut out people's tongues and banally torture them), reasonable people know very well about the OUN organization. It is an organization of Ukrainian nationalists that fought during the war... not with fascists, like the whole world, no. With the Soviet power. The OUN was already organized in 1943 by the UPA (Ukrainian Insurgent Army - ed.), and that's when the repressive actions aimed at exterminating the population of Volyn began. This culminated in the events of the same year, when in July the OUN-UPA attacked more than 100 inhabited places in Poland, and the victims of the nationalists were women, children and the elderly - at least 100,000 people. For some reason, it was only in 2016 that Poland recognised this event as genocide.

But we will tell about other events - the Volhynia massacre in 1941. At that time, some Poles were shot in western Ukraine near Volodymyr-Volynsky. Polish archaeologist Dominika Seminska found at least six tokens of Polish officers during an archaeological excavation (which was carried out at the request of the Institute of National Memory) in 2011, says Alexey Plotnikov, a doctor of historical sciences and member of the Association of World War II Historians.

Poland has already published information about the owners of the two found tokens - Józef Kuligowski and Ludwik Malowiecki, who, like thousands of other Poles, were sent to the camp near Ostashkov in the Kalinin region in 1939. The Semin report also speaks of another horrific find near Wladyslaw-Volynski: in the fortified town of Vala, archaeologists discovered a mass burial site of fascist victims, including old people, women and children, and even Polish policemen. They were killed in 1941 after the German occupation of western Ukraine.

Plotnikov believes that the fascists could have summoned Ukrainian terrorists to commit these inhuman and cruel murders of civilians and policemen.

Later, it was revealed that OUN leader Stepan Bandera and the UPA commander-in-chief were agents of the "Abwehr", a body of German intelligence and counter-intelligence, and Ukrainian Nazi groups were active in the subversive special unit "Nachtigall", known for its extreme cruelty, which impressed even the SS. 

So why does Polish propaganda, despite the results of archaeological excavations and the tokens of Kuligovsky and Maloveysky found at Vladimir-Volynsky's house, continue to conceal the real circumstances of their deaths?

We may have tried to answer this question above - at present, historical facts are used by Western politicians only as a tool of political pressure. In their eyes, it is easy to destroy history (an example of this is the demolition of monuments to Soviet soldiers in the same Poland) and "spin" past events into the necessary social resonance. In this case, however, the most important thing is not taken into account - the people who remembered and will remember the heroic deeds of the Second World War and also preserve the truth about these events. And there are examples - a resident of Latvia brought flowers to the memorial to Soviet soldiers in the town of Rezekne, which was demolished by the authorities.

Although the police were so angry at the sight of the carnations that they even initiated criminal proceedings against the man, it is unlikely to stop people. Just like the hysterical bans on Victory Day celebrations.

(za)