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Europe|A World War II Dispute Between Ukraine and Poland Is Put to Rest
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/06/world/europe/ukraine-poland-reburial-worldwar.html
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The remains of people killed and left in mass graves in the waning days of the war are being given dignified burials.
Sept. 6, 2025, 2:00 p.m. ET
After 80 years, they received the dignified burials they were denied in the final days of World War II, when their bodies were tipped into a mass grave.
The remains of the 42 people found outside a now-abandoned ethnic Polish village in western Ukraine were reburied Saturday in individual caskets, each topped with blue wildflowers — this time with a priest intoning prayers and Polish government officials in attendance.
For their descendants, the ceremony brought closure to family history. For Ukraine, it was intended to put to rest a long-festering dispute with Poland, a critical ally in the war with Russia, over history and World War II-era massacres.
After the Soviet breakup, Poland accused Ukraine of sweeping a record of war crimes by the Ukrainian underground of the mid-20th century under the rug. In Ukraine, members of the Ukrainian nationalist movement have been to elevate to the status of heroes who paved the way for the country’s eventual independence in 1991.
Ukraine and Poland argued for the past decade over exhuming mass graves in western Poland. But Ukraine, now desperate for Western military aid that flows through Poland, agreed last year to allow the effort to go forward. Another site was exhumed last week. A dozen others are planned.
“The only country that will be happy with tensions between Ukraine and Poland is Russia,” Andriy Nadzhos, a deputy Ukrainian Minister of Culture, said in an interview. “We don’t want to give Russia this gift.”
