EDITORIAL: Akcja Wisla and reconciliation (05/12/02)

EDITORIAL

Akcja Wisla and reconciliation

This year marks the 55th anniversary of Akcja Wisla, or Operation Vistula, the military operation against Ukrainians residing on Polish territory that was conducted by Communist Polish authorities. According to the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, Akcja Wisla, which began on April 28, 1947, and lasted through July 31, resulted in the deportation of 150,000 Ukrainians from their ancestral territories in southeastern Poland to the so-called Ziemie Odzyskane, or "Recovered Lands," in the north and northwest, which were acquired from Germany after World War II.

Last month, according to RFE/RL, President Alexander Kwasniewski of Poland expressed regret over the operation, penning a letter to the National Remembrance Institute and a conference on Akcja Wisla. "On behalf of the Polish Republic, I would like to express regret to all those who were wronged by [this operation]. ... The infamous Operation Vistula is a symbol of the abominable deeds perpetrated by the Communist authorities against Polish citizens of Ukrainian origin."

The president went on to say: "It was believed for years that Operation Vistula was the revenge for the slaughter of Poles by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) in the east in 1943-1944. Such reasoning is fallacious and ethically inadmissible. It [invokes] a principle of group accountability, with which we cannot agree. The slaughter of Poles cannot serve as an excuse for the brutal pacification of Ukrainian villages and the expulsion of populace. Operation Vistula should be condemned."

The groundwork for this pronouncement was laid in 1997 when President Kwasniewski spent came to Ukraine on an official state visit and with President Leonid Kuchma signed the Declaration on Concord and Unity, which addressed the two major points of contention between the countries in the 20th century: Akcja Wisla and the killing of Poles in the Volyn region in the Ukrainian struggle for independence during World War II. A statement released by the presidents read: "We pay tribute to the innocent Ukrainians and Poles - the tormented, the dead and the forcibly uprooted."

For decades, Polish sources had said the go-ahead for Akcja Wisla was given a day after the assassination of Gen. Karol Swierczewski, Poland's deputy defense minister, by the UPA in an ambush in the Bieszczady Mountains on March 28, 1947. Prof. Eugeniusz Mironowicz from Bialystok University said at a conference last month that the killing of Swierczewski served as a convenient pretext for the Communist authorities to launch a drastic resettlement operation, but in fact it had nothing to do with the chain of political decisions that had been made earlier regarding the action.

That same conclusion had been reached by a Ukrainian American scholar, Diana Howansky, who holds a master's degree from the Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies and who, thanks to a Fulbright grant, spent September 1998 to September 2000 in Poland researching Akcja Wisla. In a presentation last June at the Lemko Vatra gathering in Ellenville, N.Y., Ms. Howansky reported how the operation was undertaken by the Polish government in order to force assimilation upon the Ukrainian minority and how the assassination of Swierczewski, attributed to the UPA, was used as a pretext. The Polish leadership officially claimed that the Ukrainian population had to be removed so as not to help the UPA, when in reality, plans to "Polonize" the Ukrainians were discussed months before the general's death.

Now, 55 years after this shameful and brutal operation, Polish authorities have condemned Akcja Wisla. We welcome President Kwasniewski's statement as a major move toward much-needed reconciliation of the Polish and Ukrainian nations - two neighbors and two strong allies in today's world.

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