Exhumation of Polish Remains Begins in Ukraine
On Thursday morning, the exhumation of the remains of Poles who died in 1945 began in the Ternopil region, in the now defunct village of Puzhnyky.
The Gaze reports on this with reference to the Polish radio station RMF FM.
The exhumation work is being carried out by a Polish-Ukrainian team of researchers, including forensic doctors, archaeologists, geneticists and anthropologists.
From the Polish side, researchers from the Freedom and Democracy Foundation, scientists from the Pomeranian Medical University and representatives of the Institute of National Remembrance are working on the site. Representatives of the Ukrainian foundation Volyn Antiquities are also taking part in the work.
‘Polish citizens, whose identities have been established, died in Puzhniki. We want to identify all the victims of that dramatic night in 1945 and give them a decent burial. This is what the families who are still alive and are involved in the process, for example, by donating genetic material,’ said Maciej Wróbel, State Secretary of the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, before the exhumation began.
It is estimated that around 80 people died in Puzhniki during the tragic events of 1945.
The work is not easy, as the cemetery and mass grave, the place where the exhumations are carried out, are located in the middle of the forest. Transporting several tonnes of specialised equipment there was a challenge.
Bad weather could have been a challenge, making the journey more difficult. However, this morning the weather is sunny in the Ternopil region.
In response to the massive destruction of Ukrainian monuments in Poland in 2015-2017 and the inadequate investigation of these crimes, Ukraine has imposed so-called moratoriums on the search and exhumation of the remains of Poles killed in 1943-45 by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army.
For years, the issue of exhumations has been a bone of contention in relations between Ukraine and Poland. The new Polish government, headed by Donald Tusk, put pressure on Kyiv to lift the moratorium.
Warsaw even said that the resolution of historical disputes would be one of the prerequisites for Ukraine's accession to the EU.
It became known in January that the Freedom and Democracy Foundation, which discovered the Puzhniki grave site two years ago, had received permission from the Ukrainian authorities to dig up the remains and conduct further research.
The news comes after Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced a ‘breakthrough’ in the exhumation of the victims of the Volyn tragedy earlier this year.
As The Gaze reported earlier, in 2024, Polish and Ukrainian Foreign Ministers Radoslaw Sikorski and Andrii Sybiha issued a joint statement in Warsaw, in which Ukraine confirmed that there are no obstacles to the exhumation of the victims of the Volyn tragedy.