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In January, vandals desecrated the grave of UPA soldiers and peaceful Ukrainians on the monastery mountain. On the eve of Polish President Andrzej Duda’s visit to Ukraine, the authorities erected a new monument, but it no longer has the names and surnames of the victims.
On the eve of Polish President Andrzej Duda’s official visit to Ukraine, a new monument was erected on the Ukrainian military grave in place of the one destroyed by vandals on Monastyr mountain near Verhrata village in Podkarpackie province. This was reported on October 10 by the publication of the Ukrainian diaspora “Nashe Slovo”.
The new commemorative plaque reads: “The mass grave of the Ukrainians who died in the battle with the Soviet NKVD in the forests of the monastery on the night of March 2-3, 1945.” However, unlike the destroyed monument, there are no names of the victims on it, the newspaper notes.
Nashe Slovo recalls that the installation of the monument in Verhrat in its previous form was agreed as a result of a dialogue between the Union of Ukrainians in Poland and the World Union of Soldiers of the National Army. Only the names, surnames and dates of birth of those buried without rank or military symbols were placed on the grave, and the inscription was engraved: “They died in the fight for Ukraine.” She is now absent.
The former director of the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory Volodymyr Vyatrovych on his Facebook called the actions of the Polish side “brutal” and in violation of interstate agreements, noting that Warsaw will present the installation of the plaque as a step towards Ukraine.
“The Ukrainian authorities can pretend that they did not notice the dismissive approach and talk about normalization of relations. Although they should have recalled about dignity and the fact that real association relations are based solely on mutual respect,” Vyatrovich said.
On January 20, it was learned that unknown persons destroyed a commemorative plaque at the burial site of 62 Ukrainian Insurgent Army soldiers and peaceful Ukrainians on Monastery Mountain, ripping off the embroidered towels and throwing them in the trash. The Polish Foreign Ministry called the incident an attempt to undermine relations between the countries.
Since 2015, this is the second time a grave has been desecrated. Then the plaque was smashed and the cross was painted white and red. The restoration of the monument at the expense of the Polish authorities in 2018 was requested by the Ukrainian Ambassador, Andriy Deshchitsa.
In previous years, Ukrainian memorial sites and tombs were repeatedly destroyed in Poland. Because of this, in the summer of 2017, the Ukrainian side refused the Polish side in the search and exhumation of the Poles buried in Ukraine.
On July 11, 2019, Duda called on Ukraine to lift the moratorium on exhumations.
On August 31, after a meeting with Duda, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that he was willing to give permission for the exhumation of Polish graves on Ukrainian territory. On September 27, 2019, Ukraine gave its formal consent for the resumption of search and exhumation work.
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