Polish Minister of National Defence Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz has arrived on a visit to Ukraine and on Saturday attended a church service in the village of Olyka, Lutsk district, Volyn region, in memory of the Poles killed during the Second World War.
"There are places where the earth still remembers. Olyka, near Lutsk in Volyn, is one of those places where history left one of the deepest wounds on our nation. We pay tribute to the victims and remember in prayer during Holy Mass thousands of innocent Poles whose lives were taken solely because they were Polish," Kosiniak-Kamysz wrote on the X social network.
He illustrated the post with a photograph against the background of an abandoned Roman Catholic church, in which he knelt before an erected wooden cross, next to which two Polish service members held a guard of honor. Numerous representatives of the Roman Catholic clergy took part in the service.
"Memory is our duty. Truth is the foundation of reconciliation!" Kosiniak-Kamysz emphasized.
A day earlier, the head of the Polish defense department announced his trip to Ukrainian Volyn on the 83rd anniversary of Bloody Sunday to pay tribute to the victims. "For many years, the Bishop of Lutsk, Vitaliy Skomarovsky, has been organizing mourning ceremonies there. Our thoughts and prayers will be with all those who died just because they were Polish. The victims plead not for revenge, but for memory and truth," he wrote.
On July 11, Poland marks the National Day of Remembrance of the Victims of the Volyn Tragedy.
