Historical story

Polish soldiers brutally murdered infants and old people. An unsettled crime in Zawadka Morochowska

“Within 10-20 minutes they slaughtered 68 women, children and the elderly. I have never seen anything like it in my life, ”wrote in the report from the village of Zawadka Morochowska in Podkarpacie. The crimes were committed by Polish soldiers. They were never judged.

"Cruelty worse than in the times of Nero and the Huns" - emphasized one of the witnesses of Zawadka's fate. The village near Komańcza was burnt down by the Germans during World War II. But its final destruction took place after the end of the conflict. The work of destruction was done by the Poles.

On January 25, 1946, a branch of the Polish army entered the small settlement - the 2nd Battalion of the 34th Budziszyński Infantry Regiment. The soldiers set fire to the buildings and began murdering the inhabitants. The reports later stated that the village was the base of the UPA - the Ukrainian Insurgent Army. In reality, however, no inhabitant of Zawadka was a member of a nationalist organization. There were only defenseless civilians in the village.

"Why did the battalion soldiers and its commander lieutenant colonel Stanisław Pluto murder the Ukrainian hosts?" - asks Krzysztof Potaczała in the book Only Stones Left. Operation "Vistula":expulsion and returns - “Apparently because they supported the Bandera followers. But even if it were, how infants and small children of several years can be considered as UPA collaborators and prick adults with bayonets as well? ”

They broke their legs, cut their stomachs

Polish soldiers had no mercy. The son of one of the murdered families, Mikołaj Biłas, recalled years later:

My 40-year-old father was shot by [Polish soldiers] while chopping wood. My mother, 32, was expelled on a frosty January morning with me in my arms and my sister, 7, in front of the house, where they committed a terrible murder!

Sisters broke their legs and cut their belly. They cut out my mother's tongue, broke her right arm, and slit open her abdomen with four thrusts of the bayonet. They cut the legs. I, a miraculous survivor, lived under my mother's body.

The exact number of victims is unknown. Estimates are for sixty or even nearly eighty dead. It was not the end of the tragedy anyway. Two months later - on March 28, 1946 - Polish soldiers re-entered Zawadka Morochowska.

All residents were herded to the school and it was announced that they would be beaten to the feet. Then Polish soldiers pulled eleven men from the crowd and shot them.

The third attack took place in April. Poles were killing again. This time, several people died. In the same month, those who remained in Zawadka were taken to the Zagórz railway station. They were all forcibly exiled to the USSR.

Zawadka Morochowska on the current map of Poland (google maps).

"Same degeneracy"

"Zawadka Morochowska is an example of the degeneracy of some units of the People's Army of Poland," writes Krzysztof Potaczała in his book Only stones left. Operation "Vistula":expulsion and returns - "The same degeneracy that accompanied the UPAs murdering Polish civilians in a fancy way in Muczne and in several other villages of the Bieszczady and Beskid Niski mountains. The resun label sewn on for years by the Banderites also fits like a glove to some soldiers with eagles on their caps. "

Source:

Trivia is the essence of our website. Short materials devoted to interesting anecdotes, surprising details from the past, strange news from the old press. Reading that will take you no more than 3 minutes. This particular material is based on:

  • Potaczała K., Only stones left. Operation "Vistula":expulsion and returns , Prószyński i S-ka 2019.

Check where to buy “Only stones left. Operation "Vistula":expulsion and returns ":