Over 600 victims of NKVD re-buried in Ivano-Frankivsk region

In the Tysmennytsia District of the Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast, on May 9, the victims of the Communist repressions of NKVD of 1939-1941 were reburied.

According to the press service of the Ivano-Frankivsk Archeaparchy of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC), the burial was administered by Metropolitan Volodymyr (Viityshyn) jointly with Bishop Mykolai (Simkailo) of Kolomyia and Chernivtsi of UGCC and bishops of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Kyivan Patriarchate and Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church.

Religious communities of UGCC of the villages of Pshenychnyky, Khomiakivka, Pogonia, administration and students of the Ivano-Frankivsk Spiritual Seminary and Academy, a large number of lay people of Ivano-Frankivsk Archeparchy and over 100 priests participated in the burial of 640 innocent people tortured to death including 80 children.

“… This tragic event is a lesson to humanity to prevent such tragedies in future…” noted Metropolitan Volodymyr and read out the address of the head of UGCC, Patriarch Sviatoslav on the re-burial.

According to representatives regional historic and educational society Memorial, over 600 people killed by the NKVD were found and exhumed by them in the village of Pshenychnyky.

The Memorial society decided to rebury them on May 9 to “remind the society about the terrible aspects of the Soviet-German friendship and Soviet-German slaughter during WWII.”

“For only one tyrant, that of Hitler was destroyed. The other one, that of Stalin remained and still is unpunished despite of its crimes against humanity in 1939-1941 and in the postwar years. An evidence of the crimes is the mass burial of the victims of the NKVD in the village of Pshenychnyky where 82 of the 600 martyrs were children.”

The excavations and the findings of the forensic experts showed that the victims were not wearing any clothes. The reburial according to Christian traditions was conducted near the village of Khomiakivka. A mass grave with a cross will be created by the road and memorial services will be conducted.

The reburial was attended by the leaders and deputies of the Ivano-Frankivsk Regional and City Councils, deputies representing the opposition parties, residents of neighboring villages, and hundreds of visitors.

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Rev. Yuriy Truchan
Press-secretary of the Ivano-Frankivsk Archdiocese UGCC