Resumo de The Genocidal And The Humanitarian

In his book ?Ludobójcy i ludzie? (?The Genocidal and the Humanitarian?) Leon Kar?owicz tries to prove that not all Ukrainians during the World War II supported the ideology propagated by the Ukrainian nationalists. In his book the author describes many examples of honest and humanitarian attitude shown by members of the Ukrainian population to the crimes committed by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) soldiers. Although helping Poles was threatened with death, many Ukrainians risked their lives in order to save their Polish neighbors. There were a lot of such people. According to the Ukrainian researcher Victor Poliszczuk the number of Ukrainians that were killed by their fellow countrymen because they refused to take part in raids on Polish settlements reached about 30 thousand.

Kar?owicz describes only a small part of cases of help given to Poles by Ukrainians. They are mainly testimonies of eye-witnesses of those events and memories of those Poles who owe their lives to Ukrainians. The aim of Kar?owicz''s work (as he emphasizes it in the introduction) is to draw the reader?s attention to the tragedy of those members of the Ukrainian population who did not wish to kill others. The names and surnames of most of them are not known, and they never received any reward for their sacrifice. Many of them have for a long time been dead and they cannot enjoy the fact that their services are beginning to be emphasized in the literature.

Most of the events described by Kar?owicz are similar. Ukrainians helped their Polish neighbors by warning them about raids planned by the UPA. The Poles then had enough time to leave their homes and to seek a safe hideout. Another equally frequent form of aid was providing shelter for endangered people. A lot of Poles who managed to survive the pogroms had to hide in fields and woods. Those who were lucky enough, found a shelter in Ukrainian houses. Among others Kar?owicz reports that a Ukrainian woman kept Poles in the attic of her house, despite the fact that her sons were members of the UPA. The woman hid the Poles, although she had to keep the fact in secret from her own children.

W?adys?aw Czermi?ski, better known as Lt. ?Jastrz?b? (?Hawk?) ? the founder of the first resistance unit operating in the Kovel district and one of the commanders of the 27 Volhynian Infantry Division of the Home Army owed his life to a Ukrainian.

Kar?owicz describes the case of a Ukrainian called P?aton, who found a crippled Polish child, took him to his house and took care of him. He was soon punished for that act by the UPA ? he was thrown alive to a well and crushed with wooden logs (p. 16). Among the relations collected by the author information can also be found about the fact that young Ukrainian women refusing to cooperate with the UPA had their breasts cut off and that members of the UPA killed those who didn''t want to join their troops.

In the book information about the help offered to Poles by Ukrainian children is also given. And so, e.g. Zofia Gruszka on her returning home was warned by a Ukrainian boy that she should take another road because ?they are murdering people there?.

One of the most interesting relations regards the fate of a woman whose life was saved by... one of the members of the UPA taking part in a raid on the Polish population of Lipniki (a village in the Kostopol district). The man seeing a wounded woman hiding in a ditch with a child in her arms, misled his comrades by telling them that there were no Poles in the area he had checked. In this way the woman and her child survived. The relation confirms that even those who murdered Poles feeling no remorse for their crimes, sometimes could show some mercy.

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