Key points
- Poland has allowed Ukraine to conduct search operations in the village of Laskiv in the Kholmshchyna region – the likely burial site of civilian Ukrainian residents during World War II.
- The work will be carried out by the Memorial-Search Center “Dolia” on behalf of the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory.
- The permission resulted from agreements between the Ukrainian-Polish working group on dignified burials.
- On March 10, 1944, Polish formations killed over 330 Ukrainians in Laskiv, and on the same day 621 in the neighboring village of Sahrin.
Poland has allowed Ukraine to conduct search operations in the village of Laskiv in the Kholmshchyna region – the likely burial site of civilian Ukrainian residents during World War II. The Ukrainian side received the document only today, details are still unknown. Ukrainian Institute of National Memory head Oleksandr Alfyorov told Radio Svoboda in a comment.
The search operations will be carried out by the Memorial-Search Center “Dolia” on behalf of the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory.
The permission resulted from agreements between the Ukrainian-Polish working group on dignified burials, which operates on the initiative of the ministries of culture of both countries.
The tragedy in Laskiv in the Kholmshchyna region (now Lublin Voivodeship, Poland) occurred on March 10, 1944. The Polish underground formation “Batal’iony hlyp’ski” and the battalion of the Border Army attacked the village and, according to various estimates, killed over 330 Ukrainians, including women, children and elderly peasants. Orthodox priest Lev Korobchuk was also killed.
On the same day, armed Polish units attacked the neighboring Ukrainian village of Sahrin. According to Ukrainian researchers, 621 Ukrainians, including children, women and elderly people, died there. Last year Ukraine appealed to Poland to allow search and exhumation work in Sahrin, but has not yet received a response.
Search and exhumation work in Ukraine and Poland resumed in 2019. In 2024 the parties created a joint working group on historical memory, which defined plans for such work.
Since then Ukraine has received permission to conduct search work in Poland only in the village of Yurechkova, while Poland carried out exhumations in Lviv, in the non-existent village of Puzhniki in the Ternopil region, in the village of Ugli in Rivne, in the village of Guta Peniyaska in Lviv, and in Ostivka and Voli Ostrovetskyi in Volyn.
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