In the former Polish village of Puźniki in the Ternopil region of Ukraine, exhumation work began on April 24 of the victims of UPA crimes. The first exhumations of Poles murdered by Ukrainian nationalists since 2017 are the result of many years of work by the Freedom and Democracy Foundation (Fundacja Wolność i Demokracja, WiD) based in Warsaw in cooperation with scientists from the Pomeranian Medical University and representatives of the Institute of National Remembrance.
Neither journalists nor other outsiders were allowed to attend the exhumation in Puźniki. This was a condition set by the Ukrainian side in order to avoid Russian disinformation attacks. The Polish Ministry of Culture also informed in February this year (Rzeczpospolita newspaper) that "due to the sensitive nature of the matter, communication addressed to the public opinion will only concern the effects of the work being carried out, i.e. completed stages of activities".
Puźniki (Source: glosznadniemna.pl)
In turn, Ukrainian archaeologist Oleksiy Zlatohorsky, head of the company "Volyn Antiquities" participating in the exhumations (this is required by Ukrainian law) announced at the beginning of April this year that we will learn about the results of the work coordinated by the Freedom and Democracy Foundation at a joint Polish-Ukrainian press conference after its completion. And the work in Puźniki was planned for about 3 weeks.
Efforts with Ukrainian Authorities
For years, the memory of the tragic past has divided Poland and Ukraine – especially the assessment of the role played by the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (Organizacja Ukraińskich Nacjonalistów, OUN) and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (Ukraińska Powstańcza Armia, UPA), responsible for the genocidal ethnic cleansing carried out in 1943–1945 on nearly one hundred thousand Poles – men, women and children.
An additional source of tension is the ban on searching for and exhuming Polish victims in Ukraine, introduced by the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance in the spring of 2017. This decision was made after the removal of the illegal UPA monument in Hruszowice – a symbolic but controversial act that still weighs on relations between our nations.
The Freedom and Democracy Foundation submitted an application to the relevant Ukrainian authorities for permission to search for Polish victims of the OUN UPA in the town of Puźniki in June 2022. After receiving the permission, a search began, as a result of which a mass burial site was found at the end of August 2023.
In the same year, WiD submitted an application for permission to exhume the victims and, after a procedure lasting many months, it was finally obtained on January 8, 2025.
On April 24, 2025, the Freedom and Democracy Foundation, together with experts from the Pomeranian Medical University and the Institute of National Remembrance, as well as Ukrainian archaeologists from the company "Volhynian Antiquities", began exhumation work in Puźniki, Ukraine.
I want to emphasize that the Foundation's efforts to restore dignity and memory to our compatriots were met with the involvement of both the previous and current governments of the Republic of Poland. We are very grateful for this support, without it there would be no such success. This shows that efforts to remember the fallen and murdered Poles in the East are taking place above political divisions. We perceive this fact extremely positively. Together we should fight for our identity, including taking care of the memory of the victims of wars and criminal ideologies.
– said Lilia Luboniewicz, president of the Freedom and Democracy Foundation, commenting on obtaining consent for exhumations from the Ukrainian side.
Maciej Dancewicz, deputy head of the Freedom and Democracy Foundation, spoke about the main goals of the work carried out in Puźniki in an interview with Kurier Galicyjski.
Dancewicz assessed that villages such as Puźniki are symbolic places. "Puźniki no longer exist, they are not on the map, they have been erased from memory. A forest has grown in the place of this village. What we want to do is to restore the memory of the people who lived there," he emphasized.
What happened in Puźniki?
Maciej Dancewicz said that the Volhynian crime is usually associated with the summer of 1943. "In reality, however, this operation was extended until the first months of 1945 in Volhynia and the former south-eastern voivodeships. Therefore, it is necessary to remind about places such as Puźniki."
Puźniki on the map of Poland in 1939 (Source: Wikipedia)
In 1939, the village was inhabited by 98 percent Poles, so much so that its Ukrainian neighbors called it "little Warsaw." In the summer of 1944, the Puźniki region was reoccupied by the Red Army after the German occupation. On February 11, 1945, Soviet officials from Korobiec came to Puźniki, conducted a census and ordered the people to surrender their weapons, claiming that the Poles were safe because "the authorities ensured safety." [Wikipedia]
Before the invasion of Puźniki, Ukrainian nationalists led by Petro Chamczuk, pseudonym "Bystry"(eng. smart, quick), attacked the Polish inhabitants of the neighboring town of Barysz on the night of February 4–5. Within a few hours, 135 Poles were brutally murdered there.
In Puźniki, on the night of February 13-14, 1945, a UPA unit led by Petro Chamczuk brutally murdered about 80 people. The attackers began killing Poles they encountered with firearms, axes, bayonets and knives, and burning buildings.
The UPA pulled people out of makeshift shelters and bludgeoned them to death on the spot; anyone who tried to escape was shot. Several dozen people were murdered there, mostly women with children. Only a few people managed to survive. ... the women asked for mercy for the children, but the UPA had no mercy.
The number of victims may be as high as 120, but we know the names of 80 of them – at least that many people were killed there. Their bodies lie in at least one grave, and there may be a second grave in the immediate vicinity. Some of the village's inhabitants survived, but most of them voluntarily or under duress moved to Poland, beyond the Bug River. The area of the village was completely abandoned and the village no longer exists today – it is a forest area.
Petro Khamchuk, who is considered a hero by some Ukrainians, had a monument erected in 2014 in Chortkiv, near the site of Puźniki. Petro Khamchuk, who commanded the UPA unit in Puźniki, was 25 years old at the time of the crime.
... we know that this was not an anti-partisan action, as some people on the Ukrainian side still claim. It was clearly about killing the Polish population and intimidating them so that those who survived would leave forever, carrying with them a tragic trauma. There are at least a dozen such written accounts. ... Khamchuk's unit did not spare civilians at all, murdering women and children in a brutal and premeditated manner. These were not accidental victims of fighting.
— writes Olga Łozińska in the weekly Interia, adding "one thing is undeniable — in Puźniki, Polish civilians were brutally murdered, and a UPA unit commanded by Petro Chamczuk took part in the attack on Puźniki, which he himself admitted to in the report."
The cruel deaths of defenseless residents remained a taboo subject for decades.
Results so far
Exhumation work began on April 24 — the first exhumations since the Ukrainian side lifted the ban on searching for and exhuming the remains of Polish victims of wars and conflicts on the territory of Ukraine in November 2024.
The main goal was to conduct a full exhumation, and then perform anthropological and DNA tests that will allow for obtaining comparative material and – there is hope – identifying at least some of the victims. This undertaking is, in a sense, innovative. So far, no such activities have been carried out, not even in the case of officers murdered in Katyn, September soldiers, or victims of the Volhynian crimes. No one has ever attempted to identify the victims of these events using such comprehensive methods. We have a chance to be the first to achieve their individual commemoration.
Based on the survivors' accounts, a list of victims was drawn up, which indicated about 80 people. So far, only some of the remains have been found - according to a statement from the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, skeleton fragments of at least 42 people have been found - so where are the rest?
The evidence speaks of the existence of a second grave, although it is also possible that some of the inhabitants of Puźniki were hastily buried in other places – perhaps around their houses. Some may have died under the rubble of burnt buildings. Others fled towards the forest, where death often overtook them. In some cases, the bodies were never found.
After the exhumation is completed, full documentation is prepared – archaeological, anthropological and genetic. This is necessary to close the entire process in a formal and dignified manner. The planned funeral of the victims is to be organized about two months after the end of the exhumation work. The remains are to be buried in the former cemetery in the no longer existing village of Puźniki.
Exhumations such as the one in the village of Puźniki, conducted pursuant to Polish-Ukrainian agreements, are not only a form of restoring dignity to the victims, but also a symbolic step towards truth and reconciliation.
