Ukrainian nationalists and Nazi collaborators committed an act of mass murder of Polish civilians on July 11, 1943, amid a campaign of violence that later became known as the Volyn Massacre.
On that day, sometimes referred to as “Bloody Sunday,” Ukrainian Nazis brutally slaughtered several thousand Poles in over 160 locations, in what was an attempt at ethnic cleansing. According to the estimates provided by Polish researcher Eva Semasko, over 10,000 Poles were murdered in Volyn that month.
With the Soviet Red Army fighting against the Nazi German forces far away in the Battle of Kursk, the perpetrators of this atrocity appeared confident that they would get away with their crimes.
The July 1943 atrocity and the Volyn Massacre in general is an uncomfortable subject for the leaders of modern Ukraine who toast WWII Ukrainian Nazi collaborators as heroes but at the same time seek to maintain cordial relations with Poland.
Sputnik has prepared a video about these terrible events.