„Mali sme páchateľov a nemali sme trestný čin. Ten musel byť… hľadaný“. Činnosť komisie pre vyšetrovanie príslušníkov Ukrajinskej povstaleckej armády (banderovcov) v Československu v rokoch 1947 – 1948

MAREK SYRNÝ – MICHAL ŠMIGEĽ
Katedra histórie, Filozofická fakulta, Univerzita Mateja Bela v Banskej Bystrici

„We had the perpetrators, but we didn’t have a crime. It had to be… sought out.“ The activities of the commission investigating members of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (Banderites) in Czechoslovakia in 1947–1948 

Abstract: As a result of combat operations by the Czechoslovak army and security forces aimed at eliminating units of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UIA), which had been crossing Czechoslovak territory into the American zone in Germany since June 1947, and in view of the increasing number of Ukrainian insurgents captured and surrendering to the Czechoslovak authorities, there was a need for their lawful investigation and possible prosecution for crimes committed on the territory of the country. As part of this, the Czechoslovak Ministries of Defense and the Interior proceeded to establish a special investigative body called the „Commission for the Investigation of Crimes Committed by Bandera’s Bands on the Territory of the Czechoslovak Republic.“ Its task was to investigate the activities of the UIA units in Czechoslovakia from a criminal law perspective and to prepare the groundwork for the prosecution of captured and surrendered Ukrainian partisans. During the Commission’s activities, a total of 132 captured Ukrainian insurgents were interrogated between October 1947 and February 1948, and criminal charges were brought against them. From the perspective of today’s research into the activities of the UIA in Czechoslovakia, the Commission’s general findings regarding the organization and activities of UPA units in 1945–1946 and especially in 1947 summarized in the final documents, are particularly interesting. Although these summaries of the Commission do not always correspond to the current state of research on the activities of Ukrainian insurgents in Czechoslovakia and are largely biased by the political assessment of the UIA at the time, they nevertheless provide a wealth of valuable original information and are a valuable research source.

Keywords: Ukrainian Insurgent Army, UIA raid on the West, UIA investigation, Czechoslovakia 1947–1948.