Polish villages that disappeared from the map: documenting destruction, depopulation and surviving traces

01

What it means for a village to disappear from the map

Destruction, depopulation and loss of a name are connected, but they are not the same event.

The phrase “destroyed settlement” can describe several different outcomes. Buildings may have been burned during an attack while some residents survived and returned. A village may have been emptied by murder, flight and later population transfers even when individual structures remained. A settlement may also have survived physically but received another name after the war or been administratively absorbed into a neighbouring locality. The atlas separates these outcomes because only such distinctions allow records to be compared honestly instead of turning different processes into one dramatic counter. ^1,2

A status in the atlas describes the strongest supported outcome for a particular settlement, not the moral gravity of the crime. “Partly destroyed” does not mean lesser suffering; it means different or weaker evidence about the fate of the buildings. “Abandoned” does not by itself determine whether residents fled an attack, were later transferred, or could not return for administrative reasons. Each category therefore needs its own note, date and source.

02

Prewar Volhynia: a mosaic, not a uniform ethnic map

Polish villages, colonies and settlements existed beside Ukrainian, Czech, Jewish and German communities.

The prewar Volhynian voivodeship did not consist of clearly separated national blocks. Poles were a minority in the region as a whole, yet they lived in towns, large villages, small agricultural colonies, military settlements, estates and scattered farms inside predominantly Ukrainian localities. This pattern matters for mapping because one historical name could refer to a village, colony, hamlet or estate, while several similarly named settlements could lie within the same municipality. ^3,4,5

The 1931 census is a fundamental reference point, but it is not a ready-made list for a modern map. It used the administrative divisions and categories of language and religion of its time, not today’s Ukrainian boundaries. Census data must therefore be combined with municipal lists, Military Geographical Institute maps, parish documents, family testimony and the current register of localities. ^3,6

03

Destruction was a process, not a single moment

Attack, murder, looting, burning, flight and postwar decisions could follow one another.

A village could disappear in several stages. Intimidation, isolated murders or warnings often came first. Residents then fled to a town, a larger Polish self-defence base, a forest, or a German or Hungarian post. After homes were abandoned, livestock and property were looted, buildings dismantled or burned. If surviving families did not return before the front moved and the border changed, postwar authorities could treat the settlement as extinct, rename the area or attach it to another village. ^1,7,8

Not every destroyed settlement was the site of a mass killing at the same moment. Residents might have been murdered in a field, forest, church or neighbouring settlement, while their homes were burned later. In other cases the central outcome was flight and permanent dispersal. The event point, grave, cemetery and historical village centre may therefore lie in different places.

04

Why estimates of vanished settlements differ

The total depends on the unit, territory and definition of disappearance.

IPN publications include estimates that, out of roughly 2,500 Polish localities in Volhynia, about 1,500 to 1,800 ceased to exist. Other works speak more generally of about 2,000 destroyed Polish settlements. These statements are not necessarily contradictory. One author may count only villages and colonies that disappeared completely, while another also includes partly burned, abandoned or postwar-renamed settlements. The territorial boundary and the date used to test continued existence may also differ. ^1,2

The atlas must not copy such an estimate directly into a record counter. One settlement can have several event descriptions, name variants and sources, while one source entry may cover a village together with a colony, estate or hamlet. A public counter must therefore report the number of records in the dataset, not pretend to be a final count of unique historical localities.

05

Parośla: a massacre after which houses no longer formed a community

The February 1943 massacre shows that the destruction of a village concerned people and the network of communal life.

Parośla I is often identified as the site of the first mass UPA crime against the Polish population of Volhynia. On 9 February 1943 residents were deceptively gathered and murdered. For the history of the settlement, the key fact is not only the victim count but the destruction of families, neighbourly networks, farms and the local capacity to rebuild. Even if structures remained on the ground, the village as a community had been shattered. ^10,11

The Parośla case also warns against the simple equation “burned village equals murdered village.” In some places attackers burned the buildings; elsewhere they left them for later looting. A settlement’s status must follow specific testimony and documents, not an assumption that every attack unfolded in the same way.

06

Janowa Dolina: destruction of a modern settlement

Destruction did not concern only small agricultural colonies.

Janowa Dolina was a model workers’ settlement built beside basalt quarries, with a school, chapel, hospital and planned housing. During the night of 22 to 23 April 1943 it was attacked and burned, and hundreds of residents were murdered. The case shows that destruction targeted not only homes but also infrastructure, workplaces and institutions that enabled the community to function. ¹²

After the war the locality of Bazaltove developed on the site. This was not a simple rebuilding of Janowa Dolina. Population, administration, name and political context had changed. The atlas must link the historical settlement and the present locality without treating them as identical unless the transformation is explained. ^12,5

07

July 1943: destruction as an instrument of population removal

Coordinated attacks struck many localities and accelerated mass flight.

The peak of 11 and 12 July 1943 was neither the beginning nor the end of the violence, but it transformed the region’s geography. Simultaneous attacks on numerous villages, colonies and churches told survivors that the threat was not confined to a single locality. Flight from homes became a survival strategy, and abandoned settlements lost their population even before they were burned or dismantled. ^13,9,8

On the map an attacked locality must be distinguished from one that was completely destroyed. A source may confirm murder and flight without describing the later fate of the buildings. In such a case the atlas must not automatically mark the village as vanished. The status requires separate evidence of burning, abandonment, rebuilding or later existence under another name.

08

Ostrówki and Wola Ostrowiecka: two villages, many burial sites

The destruction of a settlement does not create one point or one number.

On 30 August 1943 Ostrówki and Wola Ostrowiecka were attacked. More than a thousand people were killed at different locations, and both villages ceased to exist as inhabited Polish communities. Later work showed that graves lie near former buildings, the cemetery and other points in the landscape. The history of the two villages must therefore connect village geometry, killing sites, graves, the cemetery and present administrative areas. ^2,14,17

Work conducted in 1992, 2011, 2015 and 2026 shows that the absence of a visible village does not mean an absence of material evidence. Grave patterns, foundations, personal objects, old vegetation and witness memory can reconstruct parts of the former space. Fieldwork does not replace source criticism, however, because a grave alone does not automatically answer every question about victims, perpetrators and chronology. ^14,17

09

Self-defence changed the fate of settlements

Some villages were destroyed; others became refuges for the surrounding area.

Polish self-defence posts arose locally and often linked several villages into a larger centre. Residents of colonies that could not be defended separately moved to such places. Concentrating the population improved survival chances but also meant the permanent abandonment of small settlements. Some were later burned, dismantled or never repopulated even though no mass killing occurred there. ⁷

The map should therefore show both the refugees’ place of origin and the base they reached. Otherwise the history focuses only on the best-known self-defence centres, while the network of smaller villages and colonies that lost their population disappears. The destroyed landscape also consists of these less visible places.

10

After 1944: the border made disappearance permanent

Postwar state change and population transfers prevented many survivors from returning.

The return of the Red Army and incorporation of Volhynia into the Ukrainian SSR did not restore the prewar settlement pattern. Surviving Poles left or were transferred to postwar Poland. Other residents were settled in abandoned areas, fields consolidated, roads rerouted, drainage works conducted and forests planted. A village burned in 1943 could therefore leave no easily readable trace after several decades. ^5,14

From the atlas perspective wartime and postwar developments form one chain of consequences, but they cannot be attributed to one actor. Murder and burning, forced flight, the border decision, population transfer and later landscape transformation are separate events. The dossier links them chronologically while preserving a distinct responsibility field and source for each stage.

11

Names, variants and false matches

A similar name does not prove that a modern village is the same locality.

A historical locality may appear under an official Polish name, a local Ukrainian form, Russian spelling, a German map variant and a modern transliteration. Testimony recorded years later can add further mistakes. A match requires agreement of county, municipality, parish, neighbouring places, road pattern and distances, not merely a similar-sounding name. ^6,11

When evidence identifies only an area, the atlas should publish an approximate point with an uncertainty radius. A falsely exact coordinate can place the village beside the wrong road, inside a neighbouring settlement or at the centre of a modern locality that merely inherited a similar name. Honest uncertainty is more useful than apparent precision.

12

How a place that no longer exists is reconstructed

The strongest result comes from combining maps, documents, testimony and field evidence.

The foundation consists of prewar and occupation-era maps, locality lists, parish registers, censuses, Polish, German and Soviet administrative documents, survivor testimony and statements collected soon after the events. Every source has limits. A map may be outdated, a census may omit a small hamlet, and a witness may remember a location relative to a landmark that later disappeared. ^11,4,6,15

Fieldwork can confirm an old road line, foundations, wells, orchards, cemeteries and graves. Aerial imagery and modern terrain models can reveal traces invisible from ground level. Such material should narrow the geometry only after documented analysis. Vegetation patterns or a depression in the ground alone are not enough to publish the name and history of a settlement. ¹⁴

13

A settlement record is not a victim total

Numbers of people, families, farms and burial sites describe different things.

A source may give the number of murdered residents, recovered bodies, names in a database or an estimate including refugees from nearby localities. These values cannot be added directly. Bodies may have been moved, one person may appear under several name variants, and a family that arrived before an attack may not appear in the prewar resident list. ^15,11,8

The atlas publishes a range or an uncertainty note and preserves the source’s original wording. A settlement-level number does not automatically create a name list. The person database and geographic record should be linked through a source identifier but developed separately, so unidentified victims are not assigned names and people known only through family testimony are not lost.

14

What remains after a village

An empty field may contain more history than a modern road sign.

The most durable traces may be cemeteries, roadside crosses, wells, old fruit trees, foundation outlines and local field names. Not all are public commemorations. A cemetery may be neglected, a cross erected privately by a family, and a grave left entirely unmarked. The atlas should distinguish a material trace of the former settlement from a modern memorial object. ^14,15

The absence of a visible trace does not prove that a village never existed. Drainage, deep ploughing, extraction, road construction and afforestation can completely alter the surface. A negative result from one field visit should not remove a record when maps and documents confirm the settlement; it should lower geometry confidence and prompt further research. ^14,6

15

Polish and Ukrainian memory does not use the same maps

The same space may be described as a lost village, crime site, field or part of a modern community.

For survivor families the historical name is often the main carrier of memory. For present residents of Ukraine the area may not have used that name for generations, and their families may have arrived after the war without knowledge of its earlier history. Different knowledge is not automatically denial. A public description should give former and current administration, explain name changes and enable the place to be found without accusing today’s residents. ^16,17,5

An honest dossier must also acknowledge Ukrainian victims of Polish retaliatory actions and other violence in the region. This does not alter OUN-B and UPA responsibility for the organised anti-Polish campaign or the scale of destruction of the Polish settlement network. It prevents the history of places from being transformed into collective guilt assigned to an entire nation. ^9,16,18

16

Publication standard: what a mature record should contain

A vanished-village record must show evidence, limits of knowledge and a path to correction.

A mature minimum record should contain the historical name and variants, prewar county and municipality, present administrative unit, settlement type, date or range, the fate of residents, a separate settlement-fate field, geometry confidence, uncertainty radius, coordinate source and at least one independent event source. If information is missing, the record may be published as approximate, but the gap must be visible. ^15,11,6

The atlas does not replace a locality monograph or a complete victim database. Its task is to connect dispersed evidence into a transparent starting point: to show that the place existed, what sources say happened to its people and buildings, where the area can approximately be found today, and which elements still require research. The most important quality is not apparent completeness but verifiability and correction.

Timeline

1. 18 March 1921: Treaty of Riga

   Volhynia is divided between Poland and Soviet Russia; its western part later forms the Volhynian voivodeship. ⁵

2. from 1928: Development of Janowa Dolina

   A modern workers’ settlement is built beside the basalt quarries. ¹²

3. 9 December 1931: Second population census

   The census records the population and settlement structure of the Volhynian voivodeship using contemporary categories. ^3,4

4. 17 September 1939: Soviet occupation

   Soviet annexation changes administration, property and the social structure of the region. ⁵

5. June 1941: German occupation

   Volhynia becomes part of the occupation system of Reichskommissariat Ukraine. ⁵

6. 9 February 1943: Massacre at Parośla I

   Residents of the Polish colony are murdered; the event is commonly treated as the beginning of the mass phase. ¹⁰

7. spring 1943: Flight from small colonies

   Escalating violence drives residents toward towns and self-defence bases. ^7,8

8. 22-23 April 1943: Destruction of Janowa Dolina

   The workers’ settlement is attacked and burned, with hundreds of residents killed. ¹²

9. 11 July 1943: Coordinated peak of attacks

   Attacks on numerous localities and churches accelerate the mass abandonment of Polish settlements. ^13,9

10. 12 July 1943: Continuation of the violence

    Attacks and flight spread to further localities; some abandoned settlements are later burned. ¹³

11. 30 August 1943: Ostrówki and Wola Ostrowiecka

    Both Polish villages are destroyed and their residents murdered at several locations. ^2,14

12. autumn 1943: Population concentrates in self-defence bases

    The network of small colonies loses residents seeking protection in larger centres. ⁷

13. 1944: Return of the Soviet front

    The change of power does not restore most abandoned Polish settlements. ⁵

14. 1944-1946: Population transfers

    Surviving Polish residents leave Volhynia, making the disappearance of former communities permanent. ⁵

15. August 1992: First exhumations at Ostrówki and Wola Ostrowiecka

    Polish-Ukrainian work locates mass graves within the vanished villages. ¹⁴

16. 2011: Further research and burials

    Research expands knowledge of graves and the former spatial layout. ¹⁴

17. 2015: Further fieldwork

    Further searches show how landscape transformation complicates locating villages and graves. ¹⁴

18. 8 July 2020: New IPN Victim Database

    An interactive map links crime sites with personal data and accepts corrections. ¹⁵

19. 2023: Publication of Eastern Lands Committee sources

    A source edition makes testimony collected soon after the killings widely available. ¹¹

20. 2025: New review of research

    Tomasz Bereza identifies open questions concerning victim numbers, perpetrators and documentation completeness. ⁸

21. 20 April 2026: New searches in the former villages

    Polish and Ukrainian specialists begin investigations at Ostrówki and Wola Ostrowiecka. ¹⁷

Edition and citation

A stable bibliographic reference for research, teaching and publication.

Editorial status

Published public dossier

Release

v3.14.4

Updated

July 28, 2026

Canonical address

https://upamemorials.org/en/dossier/destroyed-polish-villages-of-volhynia/

Recommended citation

UPA Memorials, “Polish villages that disappeared from the map: documenting destruction, depopulation and surviving traces”, public dossier, v3.14.4, July 28, 2026, https://upamemorials.org/en/dossier/destroyed-polish-villages-of-volhynia/

Source ledger

1. 1. Leon Popek: Pamięć o Wołyniu i Małopolsce Wschodniej, Institutional source, Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, access checked July 27, 2026

   Estimate of Polish localities in Volhynia that ceased to exist and discussion of limits in compiling a complete victim list.

2. 2. Błogosławiona wieś, Reference work, Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, access checked July 27, 2026

   Memory monograph of Wola Ostrowiecka and a reference for estimates of destroyed Polish settlements.

3. 3. 90 lat temu GUS przeprowadził drugi powszechny spis ludności, Institutional source, Główny Urząd Statystyczny, access checked July 27, 2026

   Methodological context of the 1931 population census.

4. 4. Drugi Powszechny Spis Ludności z 1931 r. - województwo wołyńskie, Primary source index, Główna Biblioteka Statystyczna, access checked July 27, 2026

   Official catalogue record for the census results of the Volhynian voivodeship.

5. 5. Volhynia, Reference work, Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine, access checked July 27, 2026

   Ukrainian reference account of the region, border changes and postwar migration.

6. 6. Archiwum Map Wojskowego Instytutu Geograficznego, Primary source index, MapyWIG, access checked July 27, 2026

   Scans of WIG maps used to locate historical villages, colonies and roads.

7. 7. Samoobrony polskie, Institutional source, Edukacja IPN, access checked July 27, 2026

   Account of the network of self-defence posts and bases and their role in civilian survival.

8. 8. Zbrodnia Wołyńska - stan badań. Postulaty i perspektywy badawcze, Scholarly work, Pamięć i Sprawiedliwość, access checked July 27, 2026

   Review of research, source limitations and still-open research problems.

9. 9. Tragedia wołyńska lat 1943-1944: przyczyny, przebieg, skutki, Scholarly work, Pamięć i Sprawiedliwość, access checked July 27, 2026

   Ukrainian scholarly perspective distinguishing the aims and character of OUN-UPA and Polish underground actions.

10. 10. „Tylko w morzu krwi...” - początek zbrodni na ludności polskiej Wołynia, Institutional source, Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, access checked July 27, 2026

    Account of the beginning of mass killings, with particular attention to Parośla.

11. 11. Dokumenty zbrodni wołyńskiej, tom 1, Primary source index, Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, access checked July 27, 2026

    Edition of testimony and documents produced soon after the wave of killings in Volhynia.

12. 12. Tragiczna Wielkanoc 1943 roku w Janowej Dolinie, Institutional source, Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, access checked July 27, 2026

    History of the settlement, the April 1943 attack and the later transformation into Bazaltove.

13. 13. Rzeź Wołyńska - ludobójstwo zapomniane?, Institutional source, Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, access checked July 27, 2026

    Synthetic account of the scale of attacks, settlement destruction and unmarked graves.

14. 14. Wołyńskie ekshumacje w latach 1992-2015, Institutional source, zbrodniawolynska.pl (IPN project), access checked July 27, 2026

    Description of methods used to find vanished villages and graves and of landscape changes that complicate location.

15. 15. Archiwum IPN - Baza Ofiar Zbrodni Wołyńskiej, Institutional source, Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, access checked July 27, 2026

    Description of the interactive database of people and places and its correction workflow.

16. 16. Волинська трагедія, Institutional source, Український інститут національної пам’яті, access checked July 27, 2026

    Ukrainian thematic portal showing contemporary memory language and search initiatives.

17. 17. Пошукові роботи в Острівках та Волі Островецькій, Institutional source, Український інститут національної пам’яті, access checked July 27, 2026

    Ukrainian announcement locating the former villages within current administration and describing the 2026 work.

18. 18. Трагедія Красного Саду, Institutional source, Український інститут національної пам’яті, access checked July 27, 2026

    Ukrainian account of the destruction of Krasnyi Sad, used to acknowledge retaliatory victims and avoid collective guilt.