Ruling Polish party against calling Volyn tragedy as genocide

Polish ruling party "Civic Platform" (PO), the votes of which are necessary for passing a statement on the Volyn tragedy, opposes calling the events as "genocide" and establishment Memorial Day on July 11. This is evidenced by statements of the party members during the debate on this subject, which took place on Wednesday night.

PO members, represented by 206 lawmakers out of all 460 MPs, argued that "ethnic cleansing with genocidal features" better captures the essence of the tragic events than the word "genocide", which most of the other Polish parties insisted on.

The Party representatives also called on MPs to take into account the possible negative reaction in Ukraine.

Robert Tyszkiewicz from the PO stated that such a day was de facto a day of commemorating the Poles, who suffered from Ukrainians, saying that Polish citizens during the Second World War much more suffered from the German and Soviet authorities.

"This is a crime worthy of memory, but it seems that there must be a sequence: first we need to set the day honoring  victims of Nazism on September 1, then the day honoring the victims of the Soviet system on September 17 and then all the other anniversaries," he said.