Dmytro Klyachkivsky (4 November 1911-12 February 1945) was a colonel of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army during World War II, and was responsible for the Volyn Tragedy, the ethnic cleansing of Volhynian Poles.
Biography[]
Dmytro Klyachkivsky was born on 4 November 1911 in Zbarazh, Galicia, Austria-Hungary (present-day Ternopil Oblast, Ukraine). He initially served in the Polish Army, and he was sentenced to ten years in prison after the NKVD arrested him. In July 1941 he escaped from prison and from January 1942 he assisted insurgents in the Ukraine in the fight against Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. From 1943 to 1945 he ordered the massacre of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia, killing 100,000 of them. He threatened to court-martial those who refused to follow these orders. In January 1945 he was killed by the NKVD near Rivne at Orzhiv.