Anniversary of Volhynia Massacre. President Duda: it's not about revenge, we just want the truth

President Andrzej Duda, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki as well as other high officials took part in the commemorations of the National Day of Remembrance of the Victims of the Genocide, held on Monday at Volhynia Square in Warsaw.

In his speech, president Duda said the tragic events of July, 1943, resulted in the death of 100,000 people.

He stressed that the truth about the Volhynia Massacre, which was "in fact genocide", should be stated loud and clear. "It never was and it's still not about revenge or any retaliation. There's no better proof for this than what is happening right now. Although so difficult, what is happenieng today between Poles and Ukrainians serves as the ultimate proof," the president added.

"What do we want? We want the truth. What do we want? We want graves," Duda said. "That what is simply normal in the civilisation both our countries emerged out of - Christian and Latin (civilisations). We want to be able to say prayers over the graves of our relatives and compatriots - if still possible - marked by name and surname," he added.

Polish president also said his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskiy had submitted at the Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian parliament) a draft law on granting Poles a special status in Ukraine.

Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki was the next to speak at the ceremony. He said that "the Borderlanders were killed twice". "First time with axe blows, and second time with silence, with the latter one being more tragic than the first," he said, quoting Father Tadeusz Isakowicz-Zaleski - a Polish priest who had lost several members of his family in Volhynia Massacre.

"Because it's all about the truth, it's something more important than memory," he added.

"That's also why this decades-long conspiracy of silence - first between the rulers of PRL (Polish People's Republic), Moscow's loyal servants, and then maintained by the elites of the Third Polish Republic - must be broken," the prime minister stressed.

"Therefore, it is my commitment: I shall not rest until we find the very last grave, burial place of those murdered in Volhynia and across all Eastern Borderlands. That reality must be fully revealed," Morawiecki vowed.

The National Day of Remembrance of the victims of the Genocide of Citizens of the Polish Republic committed by Ukrainian Nationalists is an official commemorative date in Poland, celebrated on July 11. The commemoration date was chosen because July 11, 1943, had been the apogee of the Massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia when armed units of Ukrainian nationalists simultaneously attacked 99 settlements inhabited by ethnic Poles.