大象传媒

Ukraine and Poland are neighbours and close allies in today鈥檚 conflict with Russia. But the ghosts of victims of an earlier war have returned to divide them. Tens of thousands of Poles were murdered by Ukrainians in Volhynia, in what's now western Ukraine, in 1943. Most of the victims still lie in unmarked graves, and Ukraine has only just lifted a ban on exhuming the bodies.

That followed heavy diplomatic pressure by Poland, about to take over the presidency of the European Union. It threatened to block moves towards Ukrainian integration with the EU unless the ban were lifted.

But Poland鈥檚 demand has stirred a controversy inside Ukraine about one of the darkest periods of its history. Ukrainian nationalists who were involved in the massacre - and their leader Stepan Bandera - are regarded by many Ukrainians as heroes.

Reporter Tim Whewell travels through Poland and western Ukraine to try to find out what really happened in 1943, and ask whether Poland and Ukraine can ever lay a fiercely-contested history to rest. And can the record of Ukraine's Second World War nationalists be openly discussed without giving a propaganda victory to Russia, which has tried to use the subject to vilify Ukraine?

Produced and presented by Tim Whewell
Sound mix: Rod Farquhar
Research by Grzegorz Sok贸艂, Taras Shumeiko and Serhiy Solodko
Translation by Eugenia Maresch, Grzegorz Sok贸艂 and Serhiy Solodko
Production co-ordinator: Gemma Ashman
Editor: Penny Murphy

Wild bird recordings by Izabela D艂u偶yk
"Lecieli 呕urawie" (Cranes Were Flying) sung by Franciszka Bydychaj
"Ave Maria" from "Kres Kres贸w" oratorium, composer Krzesimir D臋bski
"Siad艂a Hanula Na Posa偶e艅ku" (Hanula Sat on her Dowry) sung by Olga Kozie艂 and Anna Jurkiewicz, of the "Wo艂y艅 w Pie艣niach" ("Volhynia in Song") project

(Image: Lyudmila Hirska, aged 86, at the ruins of the Catholic church in Kysylyn (formerly known as Kisielin), Ukraine, where Poles were massacred in 1943. Credit: Tim Whewell/大象传媒)