Huta Pieniacka massacre
Encyclopedia
The Huta Pieniacka massacre was a punitive military operation against the inhabitants of the ethnically Polish
village Huta Pieniacka
, located in western Ukraine
, which took place on February 28, 1944. Estimates of the number of victims range from 500 to 1,200.
Polish and Ukrainian historians disagree over the responsibility for the Huta Pienacka massacre. According to Ukrainian sources, it lies exclusively with the German Police battalions, whereas according to the Polish Institute of National Remembrance
, the action was committed by the 14th sub-unit of the "Galizien" Division of the Waffen-SS
. From witness accounts and scientific publications, SS Galizien were accompanied by Ukrainian nationalists (a paramilitary unit under Włodzimierz Czerniawski's command), including members of the UPA and inhabitants of local villages who intended to seize property found in pacified households. Polish historians have gathered extensive documentation, including testimonies of 80 witnesses.
The Warsaw division of the "Commission for the punishment of crimes against the Polish people" launched an investigation in July 2001. The judicial case adheres to Polish law, attested by the fact that the crimes were perpetrated by ethnically Ukrainian citizens of Poland, residents of Eastern Galicia, which up until 1945 formally fell under Polish jurisdiction.
(now Ternopil oblast
in Ukraine) of the Second Polish Republic
. In 1939, following joint German and Soviet attack on Poland, the Voivodeship was annexed by the Soviet Union
, becoming part of the Ukrainian Soviet Republic. After the 1941 German attack on the Soviet Union
, it fell under German occupation.
The village was a major Polish resistance centre, fighting against German forces and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army. As a result, the Ukrainians wanted to eliminate this Polish stronghold. Polish inhabitants of the village co-operated with Soviet partisans
, active in the area. In January and February 1944, Soviet troops were frequent visitors, and this was noticed by both the Ukrainians and the Germans. An armed stronghold, Huta Pieniacka had fought off several attacks in 1943 and early 1944.
. According to Ukrainian accounts, the bodies of the two soldiers, Roman Andriychuk and Oleksa Bobak, were found naked and mutilated. Their bodies were recovered during a second raid five days later that resulted in between 8-12 Ukrainians being wounded, one of whom, Yuri Hanusiak, died in hospital. Elaborate funerals were organized for those killed, during which Otto Wächter
, the German governor of Galicia, laid a wreath at their graves as a Luftwaffe band played.
The village was shelled by artillery. The Ukrainian SS police, led by a German SS captain, after firing and throwing grenades, entered Huta Pieniacka, assembled the farmers and their families and locked them in their barns. They then set fire to the village and remained until nightfall before leaving. Those trying to escape were killed.
Witnesses interrogated by the Polish prosecutors of the "The Head Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation" described the details of crimes committed against women, children and newborn babies. After murdering the inhabitants of Huta Pieniacka, the local Ukrainian population looted the remaining property of the murdered, loading everything on horse-drawn carts that had been prepared beforehand. According to those Poles who survived, the Germans did not participate in the massacre
itself.
In the April 9, 2008 issue of the Gazeta Polska
weekly, an article about the massacre appeared. According to those persons who survived (four of whom were cited), the murderers were Ukrainians of the SS Galizien Division. All those who recollected the massacre (Emilia Bernacka, then 10; Filomena Franczukowska, then 20; Jozefa Orlowska, then 16; and Regina Wroblewska, then 6) claimed that the village was attacked by the Ukrainian troops, who murdered all Poles they managed to catch, including infants. The mentioned persons survived because somebody managed to open the rear door of a village church in which the murderers were massacring the Polish civilians.
Filomena Franczukowska, who was 20 then and is the oldest still-living survivor of the massacre (as of April 2008) stated in the Gazeta Polska article that the Ukrainians came to the village at 4 am. They entered Huta Pieniacka from the nearby village of Zarkow and began shooting at everybody. Her father had been beaten before being executed, and one of attackers said loudly in Ukrainian, "Now you have your Poland and your England." Franczukowska lost both parents and three younger siblings in the massacre; only her brother survived. She said that the murderers deliberately did not kill two twin boys, aged 4, and were laughing at the children who were trying to 'wake up' their dead mother. Franczukowska, together with her brother and a group of people, was ordered to go to a barn which was locked and set on fire. She somehow managed to open the rear door and escape to a forest. "Now they say they do not know who did it, but it is enough to visit neighboring Ukrainian villages, one can still see remnants of the stolen property. The locals remember this event and this is why none of them has settled in Huta Pieniacka since then," she said.
The weekly publication of the Polish Home Army – the Biuletyn Ziemi Czerwienskiej (Land of Czerwien Bulletin) for March 26, 1944 (№ 12) [216, p. 8] stated that during the Battle at Pidkamin
and Brody, Soviet forces took a couple of hundred soldiers of the SS Galizien division prisoner. All were immediately shot in the Zbarazh
castle on the basis that two weeks earlier they had apparently taken part in the killing of the Polish inhabitants of Huta Pienacka, and as a result could not be categorized as prisoners of war.
According to the chief of staff of the Galizien Division Sturmbannführer, Wolf Heike, the local police command demanded that the Galizien Division take part in the operation, requesting a regiment. However because the division was still in the state of formation, the commander-in-chief Fritz Freitag
refused to send a regiment. Only after the order was repeated were one company and some small detachments sent. These were attached to the group commanded by Colonel Bayersdorf.
Heike wrote that the untrained soldiers with inexperienced commanders were not suited to this task and that the "group from the division, as a non-German section, was blamed for things that the Germans had done themselves." "They (the division) in the final result could not take the responsibility for the pacification of the village. At that time a different German section was functioning."
On March 2, 1944 in the Division's newspaper an article appeared directed to the Ukrainian youth written by the military commanders. They blamed all the murders of Poles and Ukrainians on Soviet partisans and stated that "God forbid if among those who committed such inhuman acts, a Ukrainian hand was found, it will be forever excluded from the Ukrainian national community."
On arriving at the village, intense shooting commenced. The battle continued for some time before the village was taken. Chuyev states that Ukrainian police took part in the punitive action, and that one could assume that members of this police force included previous members of the UPA.
According to Heike, the group (sent from the SS Galizien) did not fulfill its goal. Upon arrival it came under the command of the police general from Przemyśl
who had no idea how to command army divisions. After four weeks of fighting around the area, the group was returned to the division in Neuhammer.
Chuyev records that SS Oberfuhrer Freitag stated that he would never allow the use of a battle group for such a command, as it became understandable what methods were used by local police commanders covering themselves in the name of the Reichsfuhrer, as no direct order had been given by Heinrich Himmler
to send a detachment from the Division.
(IPN) started an investigation into the massacre in November 1992. The investigation was subsequently suspended between 1997 and 2001, and as of 2008 is being conducted by the Kraków branch of the Institute.
The documentary, however, made numerous factual mistakes. The statement that the 4th and 5th regiments of the SS Galizien Division took part in the massacre was inaccurate, as the Division had at that time been normalized to 3 regiments; there were no 4th or 5th regiments. The division also was at that time still in the process of formation, which was completed two months later in May 1944 near the Polish town of Dębica
.
Ukraine sent a note of protest regarding the fact that the Polish consul had ignored the Ukrainian government completely when opening the monument, that the new monument did not adhere to Ukrainian laws and was erected without the necessary permits.
As a result of actions by the parliamentarian Oleh Tyahnybok
, a note of protest regarding the illegal erection of the monument was sent out and the Polish consul was declared a persona non-grata for degrading the national dignity of the Ukrainian people.
On February 28, 2007 a new monument was unveiled to the Poles who had been killed in the atrocities at Huta Peniacka. A delegation from Poland led by the vice consul of Culture for the Polish consulate in Lviv, Marcin Zieniewicz, stated that the occasion marked one of the most tragic pages in the history of not only the Polish people, but also of the Ukrainian people. On February 28, 2009 the presidents of Ukraine and Poland met at the monument to commemorate the massacre.
The village of Huta Pieniacka no longer exists. Most of the houses were burned during the massacre and only the school and a Roman Catholic church remained. Both of these buildings were demolished after the war, and in the area of the village there is a pasture for cattle. There is a post with a Ukrainian inscription Center of the former village, but it does not mention the name of the village.
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
village Huta Pieniacka
Huta Pieniacka
Huta Pieniacka – was an ethnic Polish village of about 1,000 inhabitants, until 1939 located in Tarnopol Voivodeship, Poland...
, located in western Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
, which took place on February 28, 1944. Estimates of the number of victims range from 500 to 1,200.
Polish and Ukrainian historians disagree over the responsibility for the Huta Pienacka massacre. According to Ukrainian sources, it lies exclusively with the German Police battalions, whereas according to the Polish Institute of National Remembrance
Institute of National Remembrance
Institute of National Remembrance — Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation is a Polish government-affiliated research institute with lustration prerogatives and prosecution powers founded by specific legislation. It specialises in the legal and historical sciences and...
, the action was committed by the 14th sub-unit of the "Galizien" Division of the Waffen-SS
Waffen-SS
The Waffen-SS was a multi-ethnic and multi-national military force of the Third Reich. It constituted the armed wing of the Schutzstaffel or SS, an organ of the Nazi Party. The Waffen-SS saw action throughout World War II and grew from three regiments to over 38 divisions, and served alongside...
. From witness accounts and scientific publications, SS Galizien were accompanied by Ukrainian nationalists (a paramilitary unit under Włodzimierz Czerniawski's command), including members of the UPA and inhabitants of local villages who intended to seize property found in pacified households. Polish historians have gathered extensive documentation, including testimonies of 80 witnesses.
The Warsaw division of the "Commission for the punishment of crimes against the Polish people" launched an investigation in July 2001. The judicial case adheres to Polish law, attested by the fact that the crimes were perpetrated by ethnically Ukrainian citizens of Poland, residents of Eastern Galicia, which up until 1945 formally fell under Polish jurisdiction.
Background
Huta Pieniacka was a village of about 1,000 ethnically Polish inhabitants in 200 houses, located in the Tarnopol VoivodeshipTarnopol Voivodeship
Tarnopol Voivodeship was an administrative region of interwar Poland with an area of 16,500 km², 17 counties, and capital in Tarnopol...
(now Ternopil oblast
Ternopil Oblast
Ternopil Oblast is an oblast' of Ukraine. Its administrative center is Ternopil, through which flows the Seret River, a tributary of the Dnister.-Geography:...
in Ukraine) of the Second Polish Republic
Second Polish Republic
The Second Polish Republic, Second Commonwealth of Poland or interwar Poland refers to Poland between the two world wars; a period in Polish history in which Poland was restored as an independent state. Officially known as the Republic of Poland or the Commonwealth of Poland , the Polish state was...
. In 1939, following joint German and Soviet attack on Poland, the Voivodeship was annexed by the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, becoming part of the Ukrainian Soviet Republic. After the 1941 German attack on the Soviet Union
Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that began on 22 June 1941. Over 4.5 million troops of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a front., the largest invasion in the history of warfare...
, it fell under German occupation.
The village was a major Polish resistance centre, fighting against German forces and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army. As a result, the Ukrainians wanted to eliminate this Polish stronghold. Polish inhabitants of the village co-operated with Soviet partisans
Soviet partisans
The Soviet partisans were members of a resistance movement which fought a guerrilla war against the Axis occupation of the Soviet Union during World War II....
, active in the area. In January and February 1944, Soviet troops were frequent visitors, and this was noticed by both the Ukrainians and the Germans. An armed stronghold, Huta Pieniacka had fought off several attacks in 1943 and early 1944.
Prelude
On February 23, 1944, a patrol consisting of 60 men of the II Battalion of the 4th Gal. SS-Freiwilligen-Regiment attempted to assault the village. The Poles, many of whom were members of the Home Army, killed two of the troops and wounded another. This incident was described in the Chronicle of the Halchyna Division, and documents found in uniforms of the killed soldiers stated that they were members of the SS Galizien Division, stationed in BrodyBrody
Brody is a city in the Lviv Oblast of western Ukraine. It is the administrative center of the Brody Raion , and is located in the valley of the upper Styr River, approximately 90 kilometres northeast of the oblast capital, Lviv...
. According to Ukrainian accounts, the bodies of the two soldiers, Roman Andriychuk and Oleksa Bobak, were found naked and mutilated. Their bodies were recovered during a second raid five days later that resulted in between 8-12 Ukrainians being wounded, one of whom, Yuri Hanusiak, died in hospital. Elaborate funerals were organized for those killed, during which Otto Wächter
Otto Wächter
The Baron Otto Gustav von Wächter , was an Austrian lawyer and later German SS officer and National Socialist official...
, the German governor of Galicia, laid a wreath at their graves as a Luftwaffe band played.
Events
Early in the morning of February 28, 1944, a mixed force of Ukrainian SS police and German soldiers surrounded Huta Pieniacka. There were some 600–800 soldiers and it has been established that Kazimierz Wojciechowski (who was burnt alive that day), commandant of Polish forces in the village, had been informed of the approaching enemy around two hours before the attack. The Poles however, had too little time to prepare a defense or to escape.The village was shelled by artillery. The Ukrainian SS police, led by a German SS captain, after firing and throwing grenades, entered Huta Pieniacka, assembled the farmers and their families and locked them in their barns. They then set fire to the village and remained until nightfall before leaving. Those trying to escape were killed.
Polish account
Some time around noon a mixed force of Ukrainian SS police and German soldiers and a strong contingent from the SS Freiwilligen Division "Galizien" surrounded Huta Pieniacka and herded the villagers into their barns. The attackers set fire to the village and it burned all day. According to Bogusława Marcinkowska, a historian from Kraków's office of the Institute of National Remembrance, the Ukrainians threw infants against walls and cut open the stomachs of pregnant women. The murderers left at night. Many of them were drunk and singing songs. Only four houses remained, and on the next day a mass funeral took place. Those who survived escaped to Zloczow and other towns, never to return.Witnesses interrogated by the Polish prosecutors of the "The Head Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation" described the details of crimes committed against women, children and newborn babies. After murdering the inhabitants of Huta Pieniacka, the local Ukrainian population looted the remaining property of the murdered, loading everything on horse-drawn carts that had been prepared beforehand. According to those Poles who survived, the Germans did not participate in the massacre
Massacre
A massacre is an event with a heavy death toll.Massacre may also refer to:-Entertainment:*Massacre , a DC Comics villain*Massacre , a 1932 drama film starring Richard Barthelmess*Massacre, a 1956 Western starring Dane Clark...
itself.
In the April 9, 2008 issue of the Gazeta Polska
Gazeta Polska
Gazeta Polska is a Polish right-wing/conservative weekly, founded in 1993. Its current editor-in-chief is Tomasz Sakiewicz. Its most known contributors include: Piotr Lisiewicz, Jacek Kwieciński, Eliza Michalik, Robert Tekieli, Krystyna Grzybowska, Maciej Rybiński, Jacek Łęski, Piotr Semka, Jerzy...
weekly, an article about the massacre appeared. According to those persons who survived (four of whom were cited), the murderers were Ukrainians of the SS Galizien Division. All those who recollected the massacre (Emilia Bernacka, then 10; Filomena Franczukowska, then 20; Jozefa Orlowska, then 16; and Regina Wroblewska, then 6) claimed that the village was attacked by the Ukrainian troops, who murdered all Poles they managed to catch, including infants. The mentioned persons survived because somebody managed to open the rear door of a village church in which the murderers were massacring the Polish civilians.
Filomena Franczukowska, who was 20 then and is the oldest still-living survivor of the massacre (as of April 2008) stated in the Gazeta Polska article that the Ukrainians came to the village at 4 am. They entered Huta Pieniacka from the nearby village of Zarkow and began shooting at everybody. Her father had been beaten before being executed, and one of attackers said loudly in Ukrainian, "Now you have your Poland and your England." Franczukowska lost both parents and three younger siblings in the massacre; only her brother survived. She said that the murderers deliberately did not kill two twin boys, aged 4, and were laughing at the children who were trying to 'wake up' their dead mother. Franczukowska, together with her brother and a group of people, was ordered to go to a barn which was locked and set on fire. She somehow managed to open the rear door and escape to a forest. "Now they say they do not know who did it, but it is enough to visit neighboring Ukrainian villages, one can still see remnants of the stolen property. The locals remember this event and this is why none of them has settled in Huta Pieniacka since then," she said.
The weekly publication of the Polish Home Army – the Biuletyn Ziemi Czerwienskiej (Land of Czerwien Bulletin) for March 26, 1944 (№ 12) [216, p. 8] stated that during the Battle at Pidkamin
Pidkamin
Pidkamin is a town in the Brody district, Lviv oblast in Ukraine. It has a population of about 2,500 and is located around SE of Brody, SW of Kremenets and NE of Zolochiv....
and Brody, Soviet forces took a couple of hundred soldiers of the SS Galizien division prisoner. All were immediately shot in the Zbarazh
Zbarazh
Zbarazh is a city in the Ternopil Oblast of western Ukraine. It is the administrative center of the Zbarazh Raion , and is located in the historic region of Galicia....
castle on the basis that two weeks earlier they had apparently taken part in the killing of the Polish inhabitants of Huta Pienacka, and as a result could not be categorized as prisoners of war.
Ukrainian account
The actions at Huta Pienacka were researched by Ukrainian historian Vasyl Veryha. On the basis of Polish, German and Soviet documents he was able to show that Huta Pienacka was one of the main centres for Polish Home Army and Soviet partisan activities. The self-defense group of the village cooperated with the Communist People's Guard; the 9th Soviet partisan detachment named after Chkalov and the special group of Boris Krutikov were based in the village. According to Veryha, the village population (with women and children) at that time numbered approximately 500 persons, and the partisans made up another 500. According to Ukrainian accounts, in addition to attacking German supply columns, the partisans based in Huta Pienicka terrorized neighboring Ukrainian villages, raiding them. Furthermore, according to Ukrainian accounts many of the fires in the village were set by a German Schutzpolizei unit who arrived afterward, and that explosions occurred as a result of ammunition stored in the houses. The grisly reports by alleged eyewitnesses about the deaths were described as "difficult to believe" by the Institute of History of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences.According to the chief of staff of the Galizien Division Sturmbannführer, Wolf Heike, the local police command demanded that the Galizien Division take part in the operation, requesting a regiment. However because the division was still in the state of formation, the commander-in-chief Fritz Freitag
Fritz Freitag
Fritz Freitag was a Brigadeführer in the Waffen SS during World War II. He was the commander of the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division Galicia and awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross. He committed suicide at the end of the war in May 1945.-Early years:Fritz Freitag was born on 28 April 1894,...
refused to send a regiment. Only after the order was repeated were one company and some small detachments sent. These were attached to the group commanded by Colonel Bayersdorf.
Heike wrote that the untrained soldiers with inexperienced commanders were not suited to this task and that the "group from the division, as a non-German section, was blamed for things that the Germans had done themselves." "They (the division) in the final result could not take the responsibility for the pacification of the village. At that time a different German section was functioning."
On March 2, 1944 in the Division's newspaper an article appeared directed to the Ukrainian youth written by the military commanders. They blamed all the murders of Poles and Ukrainians on Soviet partisans and stated that "God forbid if among those who committed such inhuman acts, a Ukrainian hand was found, it will be forever excluded from the Ukrainian national community."
Russian account
The Russian historical work regarding the massacre differs from those of the Ukrainians and the Poles. Russian historian Sergei Chuyev states that the village was indeed an outpost for Polish and Soviet partisans. The head of the village self-defense was lieutenant Kazimierz Wojciechowski who worked closely with the AK and the Soviet partisans led by Boris Krutikov and Dmitri Medvedyev.On arriving at the village, intense shooting commenced. The battle continued for some time before the village was taken. Chuyev states that Ukrainian police took part in the punitive action, and that one could assume that members of this police force included previous members of the UPA.
According to Heike, the group (sent from the SS Galizien) did not fulfill its goal. Upon arrival it came under the command of the police general from Przemyśl
Przemysl
Przemyśl is a city in south-eastern Poland with 66,756 inhabitants, as of June 2009. In 1999, it became part of the Podkarpackie Voivodeship; it was previously the capital of Przemyśl Voivodeship....
who had no idea how to command army divisions. After four weeks of fighting around the area, the group was returned to the division in Neuhammer.
Chuyev records that SS Oberfuhrer Freitag stated that he would never allow the use of a battle group for such a command, as it became understandable what methods were used by local police commanders covering themselves in the name of the Reichsfuhrer, as no direct order had been given by Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Luitpold Himmler was Reichsführer of the SS, a military commander, and a leading member of the Nazi Party. As Chief of the German Police and the Minister of the Interior from 1943, Himmler oversaw all internal and external police and security forces, including the Gestapo...
to send a detachment from the Division.
Investigation
The Warsaw branch of the Polish Institute of National RemembranceInstitute of National Remembrance
Institute of National Remembrance — Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation is a Polish government-affiliated research institute with lustration prerogatives and prosecution powers founded by specific legislation. It specialises in the legal and historical sciences and...
(IPN) started an investigation into the massacre in November 1992. The investigation was subsequently suspended between 1997 and 2001, and as of 2008 is being conducted by the Kraków branch of the Institute.
Aftermath
In late 1940s, some 8,000 soldiers of the SS Galizien division were allowed to come to Britain including, allegedly, members of the unit that massacred inhabitants of Huta Pieniacka. Most of them were not questioned about their activities, and successive British governments refused requests by lobby groups as well as American authorities to investigate their backgrounds. However, a 2001 television documentary, The SS in Britain, initiated a police investigation after uncovering evidence suggesting that former members of the SS Galizien division living in Britain had participated in massacres in Poland.The documentary, however, made numerous factual mistakes. The statement that the 4th and 5th regiments of the SS Galizien Division took part in the massacre was inaccurate, as the Division had at that time been normalized to 3 regiments; there were no 4th or 5th regiments. The division also was at that time still in the process of formation, which was completed two months later in May 1944 near the Polish town of Dębica
Debica
Dębica is a town in southeastern Poland with 46,693 inhabitants, as of 2 June 2009. It is the capital of Dębica County. Since 1999 it has been situated in the Subcarpathian Voivodeship; it had previously been in the Tarnów Voivodeship .-Area:...
.
Recent events
On February 28, 1989 a memorial was built on the site of the previous village, but was soon destroyed. A new monument commemorating the victims was erected in 2005 and unveiled on October 21, 2005. During the unveiling, a diplomatic incident took place when the consul put the full blame of the massacre on the Ukrainians in his speech, stating, "On 28 February 1944, when the 'SS Galizien' together with other Ukrainian nationalists did horrible things as told by a contemporary, they shot mothers, children and murdered..." No mention was made of the Germans who had given the command and had executed it. The consul had restated the Soviet version that the village was destroyed by Ukrainian bourgeois nationalists.Ukraine sent a note of protest regarding the fact that the Polish consul had ignored the Ukrainian government completely when opening the monument, that the new monument did not adhere to Ukrainian laws and was erected without the necessary permits.
As a result of actions by the parliamentarian Oleh Tyahnybok
Oleh Tyahnybok
Oleh Yaroslavovych Tyahnybok is a Ukrainian right-wing politician and former parliamentary of Verkhovna Rada. He also is the leader of All-Ukrainian Union "Freedom", a former candidate to the President of Ukraine, and a deputy of the Lviv Regional Council....
, a note of protest regarding the illegal erection of the monument was sent out and the Polish consul was declared a persona non-grata for degrading the national dignity of the Ukrainian people.
On February 28, 2007 a new monument was unveiled to the Poles who had been killed in the atrocities at Huta Peniacka. A delegation from Poland led by the vice consul of Culture for the Polish consulate in Lviv, Marcin Zieniewicz, stated that the occasion marked one of the most tragic pages in the history of not only the Polish people, but also of the Ukrainian people. On February 28, 2009 the presidents of Ukraine and Poland met at the monument to commemorate the massacre.
The village of Huta Pieniacka no longer exists. Most of the houses were burned during the massacre and only the school and a Roman Catholic church remained. Both of these buildings were demolished after the war, and in the area of the village there is a pasture for cattle. There is a post with a Ukrainian inscription Center of the former village, but it does not mention the name of the village.
See also
- List of massacres in Ukraine
- Historiography of the Volyn tragedy
- 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS Galizien (1st Ukrainian)
- Massacres of Poles in VolhyniaMassacres of Poles in VolhyniaThe Massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia were part of an ethnic cleansing operation carried out by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army West in the Nazi occupied regions of the Eastern Galicia , and UPA North in Volhynia , beginning in March 1943 and lasting until the end of...
- Chodaczkow Wielki massacreChodaczkow Wielki massacreVelykyi Khodachkiv - a selo in the Kozivskyi Raion, Ternopil oblast, Ukraine. It lies on the banks of the Rudka river, on the rail line from Ternopil to Rohatyn. The population is 1394 people .-History:...
- Pidkamin massacrePidkamin massacreThe Pidkamin massacre 12 March 1944 was the massacre of Polish civilians committed by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army under the command of Maksym Skorupsky , in cooperation with a unit of the SS Freiwilligen Division "Galizien"...