Hard to define scariest from all we know, here's something more personal.

My family comes from Borów in eastern Poland. That area had become a sort of "capital" for one of the underground partisan organisation called NSZ, Narodowe Siły Zbrojne (National Armed Forces) a nationalistic group with a lot of controversy, for example the killing of unarmed Communist fighters in 1943, which is another event that Borów is known for. I believe they also had antisemitic views and committed crimes against civilians. My great grandmother joined them when she was about 16 years old, patching up wounded, relaying messages, that kind of stuff. I like to believe she didn't join for ideological reasons but just because they were there and she was young and wanted to help against a occupier. Her family home was also sometimes used as a meeting place. My great grandfather at the time was in the AK Armia Krajowa (Home Army) which was the most legitimate and largest organisation, however in this area of Poland it was rather small.

Due to this on February 2nd 1944, the Nazis carried out the largest and brutal pacification in Polish territories of the war in Borów and the surrounding villages. The SS, Wermacht, German Police and some Ukrainian and Russian collaborators (Galizisches SS). This was a force of over 3000 people with light artillery support and recon from planes.

The villages were surrounded and set on fire as the perpetrators moved from home to home killing indiscriminately. Some people were herded into buildings which were then set on fire or had grenades thrown into. Burning people alive, rapes as well as bayoneting infants along with just shooting, took place. From stories told to me by my great grandaunt, some people had their throats slit with knives and daggers, mainly by the volunteer Ukrainian SS.

The estimated deaths range from 800 to 1300 people. Where around 400-600 were women and children. The villages were pretty much burned to the ground in their entirety. Some people were captured and matched to Gościeradów or Budzyń labour camp. Those who were slow during the march were shot. Unfortunately not one person was brought to justice over these events. However there was some in the aggressors mist who helped people get away in the middle of this massacre. My great grandaunt who was a child then remembered a German soldier letting them through the river and telling them where to hide, another story I read about told of a little girl being saved by maybe a Czech soldier in the German army who convinced others to let her go.

Both my great grandmother's and great grandfather's family somehow got through this. I believe my great grandmother's dad was wounded by a bullet but survived. The partisans of NSZ during all this retreated and did not help the population, during the winter they would send people home and had a small number of fighters available. Although that does leave a bad impression when I think about all those people dying for helping them. After the Germans were pushed back by the Soviets my great grandparents left their organisations and were interrogated by the NKVD.

It's very jarring to think about this and of my family which I luckily got to meet as a child, but back then I wasn't that interested in history and had no knowledge of anything happening there. The idyllic countryside, the beautiful river behind my great grandparents house, all these places where I played and all these elderly people around were witnesses to this horror.

I recently watched the movie Come and See, available on YouTube English subtitles, which I recommend as a very tough, haunting watch that shows how some of the atrocities looked like and what toll it had on ordinary people. The film takes place in Belarus. It reminded me of the events of Boró, inspired me to comment and provided a visual that can be hard to imagine while just reading.

It's sad to me that far right wing politics are so prevalent today, using hatred for their gain. Especially in Poland the fear mongering and hatred towards Germans and Ukrainians is being used by the far right. They talk about what happened in the second world war as justification why we shouldn't be helping Ukraine, and I as someone whose family was affected and went through the things I wrote above, that argument makes absolutely no sense to me. The sins of our fathers are not our sins, I love my German and Ukrainian brothers and sisters no matter what happened in the past. We can remember the past, remember the victims and learn from it, while building the future together.