The wounds of 1943 remain open because they were cut into the civilian life of both peoples.
In Volhynia and Eastern Galicia, organised killings of Polish civilians were carried out by elements of the UPA and associated formations. These crimes claimed tens of thousands of innocent lives and left a legacy that continues to shape memory, identity, and relations between Poles and Ukrainians.
Remembering those victims is not an obstacle to reconciliation; it is a condition of it.
Today, however, both nations confront a challenge that belongs not to the past but to the present. Russia has repeatedly sought to exploit historical grievances, turning old tragedies into new divisions and using memory as an instrument of political fracture.
Poland and Ukraine need not choose between truth and cooperation. They can honour the dead while defending the living.
That requires honest acknowledgement of the crimes, proper commemoration of the victims, continued efforts to locate and bury the dead with dignity, and a clear distinction between historical responsibility and collective national guilt.
Only on such foundations can lasting trust be built. The alliance between Poland and Ukraine is strengthened, not weakened, by truth. In an increasingly dangerous Europe, their partnership is not merely desirable. It is essential.
“THE BRIDGE WE BUILD FROM ASHES”
(The release of historic antagonisms and the forging of the survival alliance of now.)
The fields of ’43 still breathe,
their shadows whisper under wreath.
The barns are gone, the churches bare
but memory keeps the smoke in air.
The axes fell, the torches roared,
and neighbour turned to knife and sword.
The dead lay still, the guilt ran wild ....
no mother saved, no fleeing child.
But guilt is not a nation’s name,
nor blood a birthright into shame.
The crimes were done by hands and will ....
not by the hearts that beat here still.
And now the northern storm returns,
the empire stirs, the Kremlin burns
its lies across the borderlands,
and reaches out with poisoned hands.
It feeds on fractures, old and deep;
it wakes the ghosts we failed to keep.
It whispers, “Hate. Divide. Recall.”
so one by one good allies fall.
But we are done with dying twice ....
once by blade, once by device
of those who twist our history’s cries
to blind today’s unguarded eyes.
So here we stand, on wounded ground,
and bind the break with oath and sound:
that truth be told, the graves restored,
the past acknowledged, not ignored.
And then, with ashes swept aside,
we raise a bridge the width of pride,
and walk it, Poland, Ukraine, one,
toward the rising, hostile sun.
For only joined can we endure
the storm that beats upon our door.
The truth remembered, graves made whole,
remembrance steadying every soul.
From sorrow’s depth we rise as one ....
the past acknowledged, the future won.
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11 June 2026