Ukraine approves exhumations of Polish WWII victims in Huta Pieniacka and Uhly

Ukraine approves three sets of exhumation work

Ukraine's State Interministerial Commission for the Commemoration of Participants of the Anti-Terrorist Operation, Victims of War and Political Repressions met on Friday, 7 August, and approved three sets of exhumation-related work. The Ukrainian Institute of National Memory (UINP) announced the decisions on Saturday on Facebook. The approvals cover exhumation research at the site of the former village of Huta Pieniacka in the Lviv region, search and exhumation work in Uhly in the Sarny municipality of the Rivne region, and the collection of DNA samples from remains buried between 1992 and 2015 at the cemetery of the former village of Ostrówki.

The decisions were made within the framework of the Ukrainian-Polish Working Group on National Memory. The commission stated that the Huta Pieniacka work follows agreements reached by the working group, while the Uhly exhumation concerns individuals who died or went missing during World War II. The DNA sampling from Ostrówki was approved as a separate decision, with details on further steps to be determined in subsequent phases of cooperation.

Polish minister responds

Marta Cienkowska, head of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage (MKiDN), told PAP that the ministry's goal is to ensure a dignified burial for all victims of the Volhynian-Galician massacres. She said the search and exhumation plan coordinated by the Working Group for Dignified Burials has been implemented consistently since the beginning of 2025.

Cienkowska outlined the sequence of upcoming work. Late August will see searches begin for the second grave of Volhynia massacre victims in Puźniki. After that, exhumations will be conducted in Huta Pieniacka and Uhly, for which official Ukrainian consent was received on 8 August.

Previous exhumation results

Poland's Institute of National Memory reported on Friday that exhumation work at the former villages of Ostrówki and Wola Ostrowiecka in Volhynia, conducted from 13 July to 7 August, uncovered the remains of 55 people, including 26 children, and over 300 personal items. The remains are to be buried on 30 August in the UPA victims' quarter at the cemetery in Ostrówki.

Search work in Huta Pieniacka was completed in June. In March, search work in Uhly did not locate a mass grave, though remains of a cemetery chapel and a single skeleton were found. Prof. Andrzej Ossowski of the Pomeranian Medical University in Szczecin, who led the Polish side of the research, provided this account to PAP.

We examined all indicated places. We thoroughly searched the entire area. We found remains of a cemetery chapel. We did not find a mass grave, but we found remains and a single skeleton that we can link to this event.

Broader historical context

Poland and Ukraine have long differed in their memory of the role of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, which in 1943-1945 carried out an ethnic cleansing of nearly 100,000 Polish men, women, and children. Poland considers the crimes against the Polish population to be genocide, while many Ukrainian historians and politicians interpret them as part of a broader Polish-Ukrainian conflict for which both sides bore responsibility.

Upcoming work

In addition to the Huta Pieniacka and Uhly exhumations, Poland's IPN plans to begin exhumations at Hołosko Wielkie in Lviv in late August, where Polish Army soldiers killed in 1939 are buried. Progress in the exhumation cooperation was discussed at a recent meeting of the Polish-Ukrainian Working Group for Dignified Burials.