Mrs Szura's crosse
Łukaszko also witnessed the UPA's execution of a Polish family. He was ordered by the Bandera to bury the bodies of those killed in an unnamed grave in the forest.
After the war, Łukaszko took his daughter, six-year-old Oleksandra, there and told her to remember the burial place well. In turn, he himself carved three crosses on the pine trees under which the Poles were lying. He told his daughter that sometime in the future, Poles would probably come here again and look for their own. ‘I will be gone by then,‘ he said. ‘But you will show them where they are buried.‘
Łukaszko brought up his children in the spirit of friendship with the Poles. The daughter, Mrs Oleksandra Vaseiko, known as Mrs Szura, has kept the memory of this place alive for sixty years. Thanks to her, the graves of three people were found in the forest. Oleksandra Vaseiko still prays for Polish-Ukrainian friendship and for peace between our peoples. He says the Our Father prayer exclusively in Polish.
In 2019, at the request of the Pilecki Institute, she was awarded the Virtus et Fraternitas Medal by the President of the Republic of Poland for caring for the burial sites of Poles and helping to locate the site of the mass graves of Poles murdered in Wola Ostrowiecka and Ostrówki.
Papa said:
The Poles will come one day.
I will be gone by then,
but you will show them,
where they are buried.
A cross at the site of the grave. Photo Marcin Jończyk
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