Ukrainians who rescued Poles

01

Why rescue belongs in an atlas of crimes

A map limited to perpetrators and victims can accidentally suggest that nationality dictated every choice.

Rescue cases are not a sentimental appendix and do not balance the number of victims against the number of helpers. Their historical function is different. They demonstrate that the anti-Polish campaign required decisions, pressure, information, local participation and punishment of disobedience. Ukrainian neighbours could join an attack, remain passive, flee, warn Poles, hide them, guide them to safety or refuse an order. Recording these alternatives makes responsibility more precise. It prevents the phrase “the Ukrainians” from replacing the names of organisations, units, local groups and individuals. It also prevents the opposite error: using exceptional rescue stories to obscure the organised character and enormous scale of the killings. The same atlas can therefore show a destroyed Polish settlement, the structure responsible for an attack and the Ukrainian person who helped survivors escape. These layers do not cancel one another. Together they show violence as a human system in which choices still existed, even when making the right choice could lead to death. ^1,4,13

02

The word “Righteous” and its limits

The term is useful as a moral signal, but it is not an official title equivalent to Yad Vashem recognition.

Romuald Niedzielko deliberately borrowed a familiar word to describe Ukrainians who helped people classified by radical nationalists as enemies. In this dossier it is written in a descriptive, not legal or institutional, sense. There is no single international procedure that verifies these cases, no uniform evidentiary threshold and no complete list of decorated rescuers. Some people saved an entire family for months; others passed one warning that allowed dozens of neighbours to leave. Some were themselves in immediate danger, while others acted before the threat reached them. The register even includes rare cases in which a participant in violence spared a selected victim. Such conduct may be important evidence, but it is not morally identical to sustained rescue. The portal therefore avoids assigning one ceremonial status to every entry. It describes the act, identifies the source and indicates confidence. The word “righteous” remains a public-language category that directs attention to moral opposition, not a substitute for detailed biography or formal recognition. ^5,1

03

What the numbers actually measure

More than 1,300 helpers and more than 2,500 people saved are minimums drawn from a defined collection of testimony.

The best-known register covers events from roughly five hundred localities across the former eastern provinces and the post-war border regions. Its author gathered named people, families, anonymous neighbours, clergy, village officials and occasional members of armed structures who provided some form of aid. The result is not a demographic estimate of all Ukrainians who opposed murder. It is a count of cases that survived in accessible sources and could be tied to a place with sufficient precision. The same family may appear in several memories, while one anonymous helper may represent a person whose name was forgotten by a child survivor. Whole villages saved after a collective warning can also distort a simple comparison between the number of helpers and the number rescued. The portal therefore publishes the headline figures with three qualifications: they are minimums, they cover several historical regions rather than Volhynia alone, and they reflect the state of evidence available to the compiler. New testimony can increase the register, but silence in the archive cannot prove that no help occurred. ^2,3,6

04

A chain of small acts could become rescue

Survival often depended on several people performing different tasks over hours, days or months.

The register contains warnings, hiding places, food, clothing, first aid, transport, forged explanations, directions through forests, shelter in Ukrainian homes and barns, care for children and long-term upbringing of orphans. These actions should not be collapsed into one generic label. A warning before an attack could save an entire settlement without any physical hiding. A farmer who concealed a family for one night accepted a different level of exposure than a household that fed fugitives for months. A driver or cart owner could move wounded people to a hospital, while another person distracted attackers or provided a document allowing passage through a checkpoint. Rescue was often a network rather than a single heroic scene. One neighbour heard the plan, another carried the message, a third opened a cellar and a fourth showed the path to a town or self-defence centre. For data work this means that each event should record the action, duration, number of people aided, relationship between helper and survivor, and whether the helper acted alone, with family or as part of a broader local warning. ^1,4

05

A warning could save more people than a hiding place

Information was often the decisive resource because attackers depended on surprise, local knowledge and blocked escape routes.

Many rescue accounts begin not with shelter but with a sentence delivered quietly: leave tonight, do not sleep at home, avoid the main road, go to the town, the church or the self-defence centre. In Olesza most Polish residents were reportedly warned by friendly Ukrainians and left before the danger became immediate. In Obrowiec local Ukrainians alerted Polish neighbours before an attack; the surviving account also records reprisals against their farms. In Boremel several named people warned families at different moments, showing that information circulated through school friendships, employment, neighbourhood ties and mixed households. Such testimony must be handled carefully. A later survivor may remember the result but not the original source of the warning, and several people may repeat the same message. The portal should therefore distinguish an individual named warning, a collective warning attributed to local Ukrainians and an inferred evacuation for which no rescuer is identified. This avoids inventing biographies while preserving the historical fact that advance information changed survival chances. ¹

06

Hiding people meant living with discovery

A barn, cellar, attic or neighbouring house could become a temporary refuge, but every meal, footprint and question increased danger.

Longer concealment required a household to reorganise ordinary life. Food had to be divided, children kept quiet, visitors misled and the hiding place cleaned without attracting attention. In mixed villages the helper might meet attackers, local activists or relatives who knew the property well. Some rescuers therefore moved fugitives between several homes or hid them only at night. Others offered a barn or cellar for a few hours until the road opened. The evidence often comes from the person who was hidden and may describe the helper simply as a neighbour, widow or Ukrainian family. That does not make the account worthless, but it limits what can be claimed. A responsible entry should say who gave the testimony, when it was recorded, how long the concealment lasted and whether another source confirms it. It should also avoid romanticising the relationship. Some aid grew from friendship or kinship, some from religious conviction, and some from a basic refusal to allow murder on one’s property. The common element was a practical decision to share danger. ^1,6

07

Escape routes, transport and medical aid

Getting out of a hiding place was often as dangerous as entering it.

Survivors needed knowledge of patrols, bridges, forest paths and villages where they could safely ask for water. A rescuer could accompany a family for only a kilometre, yet that distance might take them beyond an ambush or roadblock. Others used carts, work credentials or personal contacts to carry wounded people to a hospital. The case from Leszczańce records an older Ukrainian finding tortured women, taking them to a Ukrainian forester and arranging transport to Buczacz, where they recovered. Near Huta Stepańska an unknown Ukrainian woman found a lost five-year-old girl in the forest, kept her secretly and later located her father. These stories show why the category “saved” should not be limited to people hidden during an attack. It includes treatment, recovery of lost children, safe passage and the transfer of information that reunited families. It also requires caution about outcome. A person could receive aid at one stage and still die later. The portal should describe what the helper achieved, not automatically label the final fate without evidence. ¹

08

Mixed families stood at the centre of many choices

Kinship could create a rescue network, but it could also expose a household to direct orders and collective punishment.

Many helpers were spouses, in-laws, cousins or children from Polish-Ukrainian families. Their decisions expose the violence hidden inside ideological categories. A Ukrainian husband could be ordered to kill his Polish wife; sons could be ordered to murder their Polish mother; a woman with Polish relatives could be accused of disloyalty merely for warning them. The register records Heuko and his family killed after he refused participation and refused to murder his Polish wife. It also records the Stopnicki brothers, described as being killed after they did not carry out an order to murder their Polish mother. These cases should not be used as decorative examples of “good relations”. They show an attempt to subordinate private loyalty, marriage and family to a programme of ethnic separation. Rescue in a mixed family was therefore not always a voluntary encounter between strangers. It could be a defence of the most immediate human bond against an organisation claiming authority over the household. The portal should record both the relationship and the coercion applied, because without them the moral and political meaning of the refusal disappears. ^1,5

09

Clergy and religious conscience

Religious language could legitimise nationalism, but it also supplied arguments for refusing murder.

The rescue record includes Greek Catholic and Orthodox clergy who warned Polish priests, hid fugitives, condemned killings from the pulpit or used their authority to prevent an attack. It also records priests expelled or killed after such opposition. At the same time, no denomination should be presented as uniformly protective. The behaviour of clergy differed by person, locality and moment, and institutional statements did not automatically control armed groups. Niedzielko observed that members of smaller Protestant communities, including Baptists, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Stundists, appear visibly among helpers, possibly because pacifist teaching and distance from nationalist structures strengthened resistance to orders. This is an interpretive observation, not a denominational ranking. A dossier entry should identify the individual action: a sermon condemning murder, shelter on a rectory, an intervention with local activists or a warning delivered to a Catholic priest. It should also separate moral protest from effective rescue. A priest could publicly condemn violence and still be unable to save anyone; another might save a family without leaving a written statement. Both belong in the history, but under different evidence categories. ^5,8,1

10

Help from people connected to armed structures

Organisational affiliation and an individual act must be described separately, especially when a helper also belonged to a hostile structure.

The register contains complicated cases: a person associated with local nationalist structures who issued a pass, a local commander who warned selected neighbours, or an attacker who spared someone during a killing operation. Such cases are historically valuable because they reveal access to information and the possibility of disobedience inside violent structures. They must not be simplified into either redemption or exoneration. Saving one person does not erase participation in other crimes, just as membership in a hostile organisation does not make the rescue fictitious. The database should therefore record the act of aid and, separately, the person’s organisational role, alleged participation in violence and the quality of evidence for each claim. In Boremel Matwij Tokar, described as organising a partisan group later incorporated into UPA, reportedly advised a Polish family on a safer route and provided a makeshift pass. This is not proof that the organisation protected Poles. It is evidence that one connected individual used knowledge and authority to help a particular family. Precise wording allows the record to remain morally serious without forcing a complex biography into a simple category of hero or perpetrator. ¹

11

The price of helping

Threats, beatings, burned farms and executions transformed assistance into active resistance.

The compilation states that several hundred Ukrainians were killed for helping Poles or refusing participation in the anti-Polish campaign. This figure is also a documented minimum and includes different kinds of repression. Some were murdered together with the people they protected. Others were killed after refusing an order, denouncing robbery, warning a neighbour or maintaining a Polish marriage. A household might lose property without losing life, as in accounts of farms burned in retaliation for warnings. Clergy could be expelled, threatened or killed after condemning violence. Repression served more than revenge. It communicated a rule to the surrounding community: assistance was treason and neutrality could be tested by demanding participation. This is why rescue cannot be described only as kindness. In many localities it was a political refusal enforced against a movement that claimed to define national loyalty. The portal should record the type of reprisal, the alleged perpetrating structure, date, place, family members affected and evidentiary basis. When a source says merely that someone “disappeared” after helping Poles, the entry must preserve uncertainty rather than convert disappearance into a confirmed execution. ^2,5,1

12

Several cases show different mechanisms of rescue

Examples are most useful when they are not turned into interchangeable legends.

Boremel provides a network of warnings and practical assistance: Hołod warned a widow using information obtained through his household; the deacon Chomicki hid and transported fugitives; Imbirowski warned the Werner family; school friends and neighbours alerted the Kiesz family; Tokar advised a route and supplied a pass. Near Huta Stepańska an unknown woman protected a lost child and reunited her with her father. In Wawrynów Heuko and his family were reportedly killed after he refused to join violence and refused to murder his Polish wife. In Czanyż the Stopnicki brothers were killed after they did not execute an order to murder their Polish mother. In Okno Dymitr Niewieszczuk was killed after urging neighbours to stop murders and robberies. In Obrowiec warnings enabled many residents to escape, while Ukrainian farms were later burned in retaliation. These stories differ in evidence, duration and outcome. Presenting them together is not meant to create a gallery of saints. It shows the range from one sentence of warning to sustained family protection and lethal refusal. ¹

13

Anonymous rescuers and incomplete names

An unnamed neighbour can be historically real even when biography is impossible to reconstruct.

Children who survived an attack often remembered a face, a first name, a house or the direction of a road but not a full surname. Post-war displacement then separated survivors from the places and Ukrainian families that had helped them. Administrative names changed, villages disappeared and records were destroyed. The result is a large group of accounts describing “a Ukrainian woman”, “an old neighbour”, “the forester” or “a friendly family”. Deleting such cases would privilege bureaucracy over testimony and erase help that was deliberately secret. Treating them as fully identified persons would be equally misleading. The portal uses a middle category: anonymous rescuer documented by a named source and linked to a place or event. The entry should reproduce only the details actually preserved and should avoid turning an occupational label into a surname. Confidence can be strengthened when separate survivors describe the same household, when the route fits known geography or when a contemporary document confirms the attack. It remains weaker when the story appears only in a late family account without location, date or traceable witness. ^6,1,7

14

How a rescue record should be verified

Verification should preserve testimony while making its limits visible to the reader.

A professional record begins with the narrowest claim supported by the source. It identifies the historical locality, approximate date, helper, people aided, form of help, immediate danger and later consequence. It then separates direct testimony from editorial inference. A survivor saying “our Ukrainian neighbour warned us” supports a warning, but not automatically the neighbour’s motive, organisational affiliation or knowledge of the entire plan. A post-war publication citing an earlier interview should be linked to that interview when possible. Names need variant spellings in Polish, Ukrainian and local transcription, because one person may appear under several forms. Geographic confidence should also be explicit: exact farm, village centre, approximate historical locality or region only. The portal should allow one rescue act to connect to several crime records without duplicating the person, and one person to have several acts on different dates. Contradictions belong in notes rather than being silently harmonised. The aim is not to award a verdict but to make the evidence inspectable, updateable and resistant to both nationalist denial and uncritical legend. ^6,15,1

15

From private gratitude to public commemoration

For decades many rescuers survived mainly in family stories, correspondence and local associations.

The 2007 register gathered dispersed testimony into a national publication and later appeared digitally in Polish, Ukrainian and English. Meetings, educational materials, survivor publications and literary reconstructions expanded public access. In 2020 plaques at Jasna Góra commemorated both Polish victims of the Volhynia crime and Ukrainians who rescued Poles, giving the rescuers a visible place in official memory. This recognition remains uneven. Many named people have no individual memorial, while anonymous helpers cannot be commemorated through a conventional biography. Public memory also faces political pressure. Rescue can be invoked selectively to soften discussion of perpetrators, or ignored because it complicates an ethnic narrative. A responsible commemoration should do neither. It should name the victims, identify the structures of violence, honour documented aid and acknowledge uncertainty. Multilingual publication matters because descendants of rescuers and residents of the historical localities may read Ukrainian more easily than Polish. It also prevents the history from remaining an internal Polish family archive. Recognition is strongest when the source and limits of the story accompany the name. ^10,9,11,12

16

What these stories change, and what they do not

They reject collective guilt without replacing responsibility with a comforting story of universal neighbourly solidarity.

The existence of rescuers proves that Ukrainians were not a single moral or political bloc. It also proves that the organisers of anti-Polish violence understood aid as a threat and sometimes punished it with death. These conclusions strengthen, rather than weaken, the need for precise attribution. Responsibility belongs to organisations, commands, units, local groups and individuals whose actions can be documented. Honour belongs to people who warned, hid, transported, fed, treated or defended neighbours, according to the evidence available. Neither category should be inherited automatically by descendants or applied to an entire nation. For Polish-Ukrainian dialogue this is demanding. It requires naming organised crime without ethnic generalisation, and honouring Ukrainian rescuers without using them to dilute the suffering of Polish victims. The dossier therefore ends with two statements that can stand together: the anti-Polish campaign was organised mass violence, and Ukrainians who opposed it made real, sometimes lethal, moral choices. A public atlas becomes more credible when it can hold both truths, show its sources and allow future corrections. ^13,14,7

Timeline

1. 1939-09: War destroys the pre-war order

   Soviet and German occupation, displacement and political violence weaken institutions and expose local communities to radicalisation and coercion. ¹

2. 1941-06: Occupation violence expands

   The German invasion of the Soviet Union opens a new phase of mass violence and collaboration, while some Ukrainians also begin helping threatened Jews and other neighbours. ⁵

3. 1943-02: The anti-Polish campaign intensifies in Volhynia

   Attacks on Polish settlements make warnings, hiding and flight increasingly urgent forms of aid. ^13,1

4. 1943-04: Boremel: several rescue routes

   Named Ukrainians warn families, hide fugitives, organise transport and provide a makeshift pass, illustrating rescue as a network. ¹

5. 1943-07: A child is returned after the Huta Stepańska fighting

   An unknown Ukrainian woman finds a lost five-year-old girl in the forest, hides her and later locates her father. ¹

6. 1943-07-11: Mass attacks and local warnings

   The July wave demonstrates how a warning delivered hours earlier can determine whether a family reaches a town, forest or self-defence centre. ^1,13

7. 1943-12: Koropiec: shelter and clerical protest

   Poles seek night shelter in Ukrainian homes, while a Greek Catholic priest calls from the pulpit for an end to murder and is expelled. ¹

8. 1944-03: Obrowiec: warnings followed by reprisals

   Local Ukrainians warn Polish neighbours before an attack; the source reports that their farms are later burned in retaliation. ¹

9. 1944-04: Czanyż: refusal to kill a Polish mother

   The Stopnicki brothers are reported killed after refusing an order to murder their mother from a mixed family. ¹

10. 1944-07: A Greek Catholic priest hides a Catholic priest

    During an attack a local priest gives shelter on his rectory, saving the life of the Roman Catholic parish priest. ¹

11. 1944-12-24: Ihrowica: several Ukrainian homes become refuges

    Survivors describe seeking shelter, food and a night’s rest from several Ukrainian women during and after the Christmas Eve attack. ¹

12. 1945-04: Wawrynów: a family is killed for refusal

    Heuko and his family are reported murdered after he refuses participation in violence and refuses to kill his Polish wife. ¹

13. 1945-12-18: Mykoła Riwny is killed for refusing murder

    The eighteen-year-old Ukrainian is recorded as killed together with Poles after refusing to participate in their murder. ¹

14. 1945-1946: Displacement separates survivors from rescuers

    Post-war population transfers, border changes and fear break local contact and make later identification far more difficult. ¹

15. 2007: The Book of the Righteous is published

    Romuald Niedzielko publishes the principal register of Ukrainian aid to Poles, covering about five hundred localities. ^2,1

16. 2013: Digital editions appear in three languages

    Polish, Ukrainian and English versions broaden access to the register beyond Polish survivor circles. ^10,3

17. 2020-07-05: Jasna Góra plaques honour rescuers

    A public ceremony commemorates Polish victims and Ukrainians who risked their lives to shelter and save Poles. ⁹

18. 2023: New survivor publications and educational materials

    IPN publishes edited testimonies and an anniversary bulletin that again includes rescuers and Ukrainians repressed for opposing murder. ^7,8

19. 2026-07: Rescue remains part of the current public-history debate

    Anniversary programmes and new discussions show that precise memory must include both organised violence and individual moral opposition. ^13,14

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/ukrainians-who-rescued-poles/

Recommended citation

UPA Memorials, “Ukrainians who rescued Poles”, public dossier, v3.14.4, July 28, 2026, https://upamemorials.org/en/dossier/ukrainians-who-rescued-poles/

Source ledger

1. 1. Kresowa księga sprawiedliwych 1939–1945, Primary source index, Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, access checked July 27, 2026

   The principal case register used for documented forms of aid, named and anonymous rescuers, and examples of reprisals.

2. 2. Kresowa księga sprawiedliwych 1939–1945, Institutional source, Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, access checked July 27, 2026

   Institutional description of the book, its geographical scope and the minimum documented figures.

3. 3. Kresowa księga sprawiedliwych 1939–1945 – e-book, Institutional source, Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, access checked July 27, 2026

   Free Polish, Ukrainian and English editions and a concise summary of rescue methods and scale.

4. 4. Sprawiedliwi Ukraińcy, Institutional source, Edukacja IPN, access checked July 27, 2026

   Educational definition of rescuers and the range of assistance offered to threatened neighbours.

5. 5. Sprawiedliwi Ukraińcy. Na ratunek polskim sąsiadom, Scholarly work, Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, access checked July 27, 2026

   Authorial discussion of motives, religious communities, the meaning of the term and the difficulty of counting.

6. 6. Materiały źródłowe – Czas grozy, Institutional source, Edukacja IPN, access checked July 27, 2026

   IPN guidance on the central role and limitations of witness testimony in research on Volhynia.

7. 7. Ocaleni z ludobójstwa. Wspomnienia Polaków z Wołynia, Scholarly work, Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, access checked July 27, 2026

   A later edited collection of survivor testimony that also restores the memory of Ukrainians who opposed murder.

8. 8. Biuletyn IPN nr 7–8/2023 – Wołyń. 80. rocznica, Institutional source, Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, access checked July 27, 2026

   Editorial framing of rescue stories, clergy opposition and an index of Ukrainians subjected to repression.

9. 9. Odsłonięcie Tablic Pamięci poświęconych ofiarom i Ukraińcom ratującym Polaków, Institutional source, Prezydent Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej, access checked July 27, 2026

   Evidence of official public commemoration at Jasna Góra in 2020.

10. 10. Kresowa Księga Sprawiedliwych w trzech językach, Institutional source, Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, access checked July 27, 2026

    The 2013 publication notice documenting Polish, Ukrainian and English dissemination.

11. 11. Sprawiedliwi. Rzecz o Ukraińcach ratujących Polaków, Institutional source, Instytut Pamięci Narodowej – Lublin, access checked July 27, 2026

    A public-history project based on documented rescue stories and their literary reconstruction.

12. 12. Sprawiedliwi – spotkanie autorskie we Wrocławiu, Institutional source, Instytut Pamięci Narodowej – Wrocław, access checked July 27, 2026

    Documentation of the continuing demand for a distinct public commemoration of rescuers.

13. 13. 83. rocznica Zbrodni Wołyńskiej – działania IPN, Institutional source, Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, access checked July 27, 2026

    Current institutional context for the national day of remembrance and the scale of the anti-Polish campaign.

14. 14. Nie tylko Wołyń – Ekspres czytelniczy IPN, Institutional source, Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, access checked July 27, 2026

    A 2026 public-history discussion placing the violence and memory in the wider Polish-Ukrainian history of 1918–1945.

15. 15. Bibliografia – Czas grozy. Zbrodnia Wołyńska 1943–1945, Reference work, Edukacja IPN, access checked July 27, 2026

    A reference list situating the rescue register among research on self-defence, testimony and regional violence.

16. 16. Ocaleni z ludobójstwa – publikacja Oddziału IPN w Gdańsku, Institutional source, Instytut Pamięci Narodowej – Gdańsk, access checked July 27, 2026

    Regional publication page documenting the edited survivor collection and its role in preserving testimony.