Piskorowice

Piskorowice [pʲiskɔrɔˈvʲit͡sɛ] (Ukrainian: Пискоровичі, Pyskorovychi) is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Leżajsk, within Leżajsk County, Subcarpathian Voivodeship, in south-eastern Poland. It lies approximately 8 kilometres (5 mi) south-east of Leżajsk and 43 km (27 mi) north-east of the regional capital Rzeszów.

Map of Piskorowice, Poland

In Piskorowice and outlying villages a massacre of between 160 - 400 ethnic Ukrainians led by members of the National Military Organization of the "Wolyniak" group, aided by Polish civilians, took place on April 16, 1945 sometimes referred to as part of the wider Pawłokoma massacres. [1] From the Polish viewpoint of that time these actions were deemed to be retaliation for the anti-Polish crimes against humanity committed by the UPA.The immediate reason of this retaliation was the massacre committed by UPA the day before in the village Wiązownica. Today, these massacres are considered war crimes by the Polish state.

A personal report translated from the Ukrainian Wikipedia: "On the night of April 17 to April 18, 1945 Polish armed bandits of the National Military Connection led by Józefa Zadzierskiego (pseudonym "native of Volyn") conducted a massacre at the school with nearly 200 Ukrainian residents of Pyskorovych and surrounding villages. Under the protection of several Red Army soldiers they were expected to transport the villagers for "Voluntary" resettlement to the USSR. It is estimated there were nearly 700 citizens of Ukrainian nationality from Pyskorovych and surrounding settlements who fell victim to Polish underground military units in the years 1944-1947. In the village of Piskorovychi/Piskorowice in the cemetery there are monuments to the victims of the Polish slaughter, the burial place of 5-10 named people, and in one grave inscription is hidden 386 Ukrainians destroyed in 1945, where a monument has been erected by Ukrainian Canadians. It is not known how many people perished in the San river, where armed bandits waited for people crossing from Leżajsk that were returning home from Germany and elsewhere. It was said the river was red with human blood. In the village school were gathered the people for resettlement. On that evening the NKVD guard was recalled to Yaroslav, and militia of 10,000 Poles led by the nickname "native of Volyn" and "hairy" surrounded all the villages on the river San and made their final action. On the rest of the villages there is little information, we write only about Piskorovychi here because there was killed my mother's sister and brother Bazylevych Mykhailin and Paul (Mykhailin was a widow, and Paul escaped the field near the village, for some days crows pecked his body). People were off on the second floor of the school so crowded that then the corpses could not be pulled out. It was packed, and they were fired upon from the bottom of the first floor with machines guns. Blood flowed on the walls and the first floor was filled with blood. " [1] Village Pyskorovychi along with s. Pawlokoma (366 victims), p. Gorajec (198 victims), p. Birch (180 victims), p. Malkovich (154 victims), and c. Bahiv (90 victims) was a symbol of cruelty of the Polish armed groups against civilians of the Ukrainian population during the Polish-Ukrainian War 1943-1948 biennium December 2, 2007 at the school premises with. Pyskorovychi a memorial table in Polish and Ukrainian languages following text: "In memory of the inhabitants of Ukrainian nationality Pyskorovych and neighborhoods murdered in this house in April 1945."