Ukraine<\/a>\u2019s parliament on Thursday offered words of reconciliation over World War II-era mass murders that have strained relations with its neighbor and strategic ally Poland for 80 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cHuman life has equal value, regardless of nationality, race, sex or religion,” Ruslan Stefanchuk told Polish lawmakers. \u201cWith this awareness we will cooperate with you, dear Polish friends, and we will accept the truth regardless of how uncompromising it may be.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Stefanchuk’s words sounded a new tone and were in contrast to the recent angry reaction of Ukraine’s ambassador to Polish expectations of an apology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Poland this year is marking the 80th anniversary of the 1943-44 massacre of some 100,000 Poles by Ukrainian nationalists and others in Volhynia and other regions that were then in eastern Poland, under Nazi German occupation, and which are now part of Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Entire villages were burned down and all their inhabitants killed by the nationalists and their helpers seeking to establish an independent Ukraine state. Poland calls the events a genocide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
An estimated 15,000 Ukrainians died in retaliation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Stefanchuk was speaking in Poland\u2019s parliament during a visit to Warsaw. Poland has been offering military and humanitarian support to Ukraine in its war with Russia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Stefanchuk thanked Poland for the current support, and then offered sympathy to the families of the Poles slain in what is known as the Volhynia massacre. He also offered a joint effort to identify and honor all the victims buried in Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Poland has long been seeking Kyiv’s permission for exhumations, identification and commemoration of the Polish victims. However, some of the Ukrainian nationalist leaders of the time are regarded as key figures for Ukraine’s statehood, lending a different perspective there to the events.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Stefanchuk thanked the families of the victims for cultivating a memory which \u201cdoes not call for revenge or hatred, but which serves as a warning that nothing like that can ever happen between our nations again.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He said that identification and honoring of the victims \u201cwithout bans or barriers\u201d is \u201cour joint moral and Christian obligation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He said that an open, joint approach to the painful history would be an \u201cexceptionally necessary test\u201d that could pave the way for the words \u201cwe forgive and ask for forgiveness.\u201d Those words, offered by Poland’s Catholic bishops to Germany’s bishops in the 1960s, laid the foundations for Poland’s reconciliation with its World War II aggressor, Germany.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau described Stefanchuk’s speech as \u201cvery good,\u201d saying that \u201cwe have heard what we wanted to hear.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe are on the right path and this speech shows that our positions are getting closer again. We have something to build on,” Rau said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Poland\u2019s leaders have insisted that bringing the full truth into the open will strengthen bilateral relations with Ukraine and neutralize vulnerabilities that could be exploited by third countries seeking to undermine these ties.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ABC News: WARSAW, Poland — The chairman of Ukraine\u2019s parliament on Thursday offered words of reconciliation over World War II-era mass murders that have strained relations with its neighbor and strategic ally Poland for 80 years. \u201cHuman life has equal value, regardless of nationality, race, sex or religion,” Ruslan Stefanchuk told Polish lawmakers. \u201cWith this awareness we will cooperate with you, dear Polish friends, and we will accept the truth regardless of how uncompromising it may be.\u201d Stefanchuk’s words sounded a new tone and were in contrast to the recent angry reaction of Ukraine’s ambassador to Polish expectations of an… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":32379,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-in-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32378"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32378\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32380,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32378\/revisions\/32380"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/32379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}