Dmytro Klyachkivsky
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| “ | We should undertake the great action of the liquidation of the Polish element. As the German armies withdraw, we should take advantage of this convenient moment for liquidating the entire male population in the age from 16 up to 60 years. We cannot lose this fight, and it is necessary at all costs to weaken Polish forces. Villages and settlements situated next to the large forests should disappear from the face of the earth. | „ |
| ~ Dmytro Klyachkivsky |
Dmytro Klyachkivsky (November 4, 1911 - February 12, 1945) was a commander of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army from 1943 to 1945.
Biography edit
Klyachkivsky was born in 1911 in the Ukrainian (then Austro-Hungarian) city of Zbarazh. He completed his secondary studies and entered the Law faculty of the Jan Kazimierz University in Lwow. After briefly serving in the Polish army, he joined the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and worked in the public sector as chair of a sports organization.
Following the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and subsequent invasion of Poland by Russia and Nazi Germany, Klyachkivsky was arrested by the NKVD for his membership of the OUN. He received ten years imprisonment (commuted from death).
In July 1941, Klyachkivsky escaped from prison. As a fugitive, he was appointed the regional leader of the OUN in 1942. Following that, Klyachkivsky was appointed the first commander of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army. In 1944 he was the regional commander of the UIA in Eastern Poland.
In mid-1943, the German army retreated from Eastern Poland. Klyachkivsky took the opportunity to issue a directive ordering the extermination of all Polish people in Volhinya. In the year 2000 historian Władysław Filar published a book containing evidence of the directive, which stated that "the entire male population... from 16 up to 60 years" should be killed. Most of the victims of the massacres were in fact women and children, which Klyachkivsky may or may not have known. One Ukrainian Insurgent Army commander who opposed it was threatened by Klyachkivsky with court-martial. Over a period of three years, tens of thousands of Poles were killed.
In January 1945, Klyachkivsky was caught in an ambush by the NKVD and subsequently killed in action.