Three Crosses in Volyn | Beyond East and West

In 1943, Ukrainian Oleksandra Vaseiko's father hid his Polish friends from a neighboring village in Volyn in the woods. Due to the conflict between the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) and Poland’s Armia Krajowa, the Polish family was forced to flee. When they were tracked down and killed, the man buried his Polish friends in a forest under a pine tree. And a few years later, he showed this place to his daughter Oleksandra and asked her to remember it. More than 60 years have passed, and the woman still takes care of the burial site under the pine tree, puts up icon lamps and keeps the memory of the dead Poles.

The joint hromadske and LSE research project "Beyond East and West" sets out to explore Ukrainians' attitudes to history: in this case how one Ukrainian tried to help rescue lives of neighbors of different ethnicity despite the circumstances.