The Kryivka Secret Printing House Museum of the Ukrainian Partisan Army in Lviv Oblast was completely burnt down late on Jan.1. The arson attack occurred the same day nationalists across the country commemorated the 108th birthday of Stepan Bandera, the symbolic leader of the Ukrainian Partisan Army who lived in exile for most of its existence.
The Kryivka Secret Printing House Museum was opened in 2014 in the forest near Basivka village, Lviv Oblast. The underground hiding place was a secret printing house where the Ukrainian partisans printed their campaign materials.
“It was definitely a well-planned fire. The Kryivka museum was a 120-square meter underground dug-out structure with mud walls, so the perpetrators needed flammable liquid to set it on fire,” Ivan Popovych, the Kryivka Museum director told the Kyiv Post on Jan.3.
Popovych said he has “no clue” who carried out the attack and an investigation is still in progress. “I think the perpetrators could have poured the flammable liquid through the ventilation holes,” added Popovych.
Lviv Oblast Police spokesperson Svitlana Dobrovolska told the Kyiv Post on Jan. 3 that the National Police of Lviv Oblast have started the pre-trial criminal investigation into the deliberate destruction of property.
Popovych said the museum had no insurance and no security guard. Popovych left the museum on Jan.1 after 4 p.m. and returned the next day after noon to find it completely burnt out.
The bunker is located in the place of the 1955 battle between Ukrainian partisans and Soviet People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs (NKVD) squad.
“That battle was called the last battle of UPA. We found the last witness of that fight and she showed us the hiding place and also described its authentic interior so that we could reconstruct it properly,” said Popovych, describing how he and other villagers had voluntarily reconstructed the printing house.
“I can’t believe this has happened. I was born in Zakarpattya Oblast. I read the books about Bandera and the UPA. The books showed him and the Ukrainian partisans as brutal killers of Ukrainians,” said Popovych.
“Only as an adult I discovered that partisans were the fighters for Ukraine’s independence, strongly demonized by the Soviet propaganda. I was shocked to read the cheering comments on Facebook. Some users are happy the museum was burnt down,” he said.
