My Friend the Enemy

Screening of documentary film on survivors of the Volhynia massacres of 1943

Q and A with director Wanda Koscia

Introduction by Dr Olesya Khromeychuk (UCL-SSEES)

Summer 2013, Volhynia, Western Ukraine. Polish survivors of a massacre by Ukrainian nationalists in 1943 return to the lands from which they fled.  

The survivors recount stories of horrific slaughter and of how some Ukrainians risked their lives to save their Polish neighbours. This ground-breaking documentary film opens up a period in history that has been neglected in western narratives of World War II, and which remains a point of sharp political division between Ukraine and Poland today. At the same time, the film retains a powerful focus on the human dimension of this tragedy, examining questions of memory, displacement and trauma.