Parośla I massacre

Parośla I massacre – a crime committed by Ukrainian Insurgent Army under the command of Hryhorij Perehijniak "Dowbeszka-Korobka", on 9 February 1943, on ethnic Polish residents of the village of Parośla (named Parośla I) located in Antonówka community, Sarny county in Volhynia. It is considered a prelude of a genocide (ethnic cleansing) of Poles by the UIA, and it is recognized as the first mass murder committed by the Ukrainian nationalists in the area. Estimates of the number of victims range from 149 to 173.

Prelude
In the interbellum period, Parośla I (there were two villages named Parośla in Antonówka community, numbered as I and II) was a Polish village with 26 households, located in mostly Ukrainian-inhabited province of Volhynia. A few days before the assault, newly created unit of UIA attacked Polish village of Włodzimierzec. After a skirmish with auxiliary police (composed of Cossacks in Nazi Germans service), six Cossacks were taken prisoner, 1 German and 3 Cossacks were killed during the fight. On the way to Parośla, Ukrainian nationalists murdered five inhabitants of the settlement of Wydymer who were working in the forest at the time.

Crime
According to statements of Polish survivors, an UIA unit, armed mainly with knifes and axes, entered the village pretending to be Soviet partisans. Ukrainian nationalists then split up and entered the houses. They forced people to make dinner for them. In the Kolodyński family house, the unit's command first interrogated six prisoners, then killed them with axes. Meanwhile the village was surrounded by the UIA, and all Poles passing through it were caught. In every house there were several UPA members. After dinner, they ordered all inhabitants to lay down, claiming that they were preparing an assault of the Germans, and it was proof for Germans, that Poles did not cooperate with them. Not all inhabitants of Parośle believed in these words, because some of them recognized Ukrainian language, but they had no choice, since they were unarmed.

All Poles were murdered with knifes and axes without mercy: old men, women, children (including a six-month-old baby stuck to a table). Walenty Sawicki, commander of local Riflemen's Association was murdered with unusual atrocity. Only 12 Poles survived, including a tvelve-year-old boy named Witold Kołodyński, who was found with a cracked skull. Houses were robbed and property was taken away on the sleigh by the assailants. Fifteen more Poles were killed by the same UIA unit, shortly after Parośla crime on road to a village of Tuptyn. The next day Poles from other neighboring villages found bodies in Parośla. Those wounded were taken to a hospital in Włodzimierzec. German soldiers came to the village and under their escort corpses were buried down in a grave. A member of UIA unit named P. Wasylenko, who was caught by Soviets after the war, described the crime: "All Poles were cut into pieces, babies as well".

In 1943 a cross was erected in the village, but it does not exist anymore. Years later a local Ukrainian man named Antin Kowalczuk erected another cross in a nearby forest, with information about Ukrainian nationalists crime. The cross is very scruffy, and access to it is very difficult.