THE PROBLEM OF POLISH MILITARY’S COMPLICITY IN THE EXECUTION OF CARPATHIAN SICH MEMBERS ON THE VERETSKYI PASS IN MARCH OF 1939

Abstract

The purpose of the article – based on a broad scope of available sources, foremost documents discovered in the Polish archives, to reconstruct events on the common border between Hungary and Poland in March of 1939 related to the involvement of Poland’s military formations in violence against the combatants of Carpatho-Ukraine’s armed forces on the Veretskyi Pass. The research methodology is based on general scientific principles of objectivity and historicism, which allows for considering the studied phenomena based on objective regularities in their internal relations and interaction with specific historical circumstances. At the same time, the following methods have been used: chronological, analysis and synthesis, internal and external critique of sources, and legal historical, which has allowed to sum up, consider the historical context of events, and avoid political stereotypes and prejudices. The scientific novelty consists in a detailed reconstruction of specific historical circumstances of the execution of the Carpathian Sich riflemen on the Veretskyi Pass, determining an approximate number of victims, defining the character of the acts of violence from an international humanitarian law perspective and its link with Poland’s broader policy in the Ukrainian issue in 1938 – 1939. Conclusions. In March of 1939, Poland acted not only as an energetic mastermind and inspirator of anti-Ukrainian policies of the Hungarian occupational authorities in Transcarpathia but also as an accomplice in the violence campaign in Carpatho-Ukraine which included participation in the killings of its citizens on the territory of a neighbouring state. New archival evidence indicates that summary executions of Carpathian Sich riflemen on the Veretskyi Pass took place on March 22, 1939, and not on March 17–18, 1939 as previously assumed. Their main perpetrators were the servicemen of Poland’s Border Protection Corps (KOP). The minimal number of victims as documented by the Polish reports was 43. Herein, one should not exclude the possibility of individual executions on this strip of the newly created Polish-Hungarian border before and after March 22, 1939, however, they did not have the same scale. This, in turn, allows to refute assumptions that have dominated Ukrainian scientific and popular literature for a long time indicating the number of victims at 500-600, which eventually was not confirmed by the materials of archaeological excavations on the murder sites. The execution of the Carpathian Sich riflemen should be qualified as war crimes for they were committed in violation of the fundamental norms of valid international humanitarian law – the Hague Convention and Geneva Convention – concerning members of Carpatho-Ukraine’s National Defence. The crimes were sponsored by the state since the greenlight on their perpetration was given by the high military leadership of the Second Polish Republic, which was reflected in the materials of deliberations on March 15, 1939 with the participation of high-ranking commanders of the Polish troops deployed on the border with Carpatho-Ukraine.   

Keywords: Carpatho-Ukraine, Carpathian Sich, Second Polish Republic, Czecho-Slovakia, Veretskyi Pass, war crimes