Huta Stepańska and Wyrka massacre in Volhynia, July 1943

In the summer of 1943 the settlements of Huta Stepańska and Wyrka in Volhynia became the largest Polish self‑defence centres in the region. Formal self‑defence was created on 9 February 1943 after the Butejki massacre, and command changed several times, ending with Lieutenant Władysław Kochański. By early July the sites sheltered roughly three thousand people in Huta Stepańska and about two thousand in Wyrka, mostly refugees from nearby villages.

From the evening of 16 July 1943, units of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), led by Iwan Łytwynczuk and supported by local militia, launched a three‑day assault. Approximately three hundred defenders were killed on the first day and an additional fifty to one hundred on the second. On the morning of 18 July the surrounded defenders opened a corridor toward the Kowel‑Sarny railway line, allowing a column of wagons and civilians to escape under heavy fire. Polish estimates place total Polish casualties at around six hundred dead. The UPA report from 27 July cited over five hundred Polish fatalities. Both villages were set alight and their stone buildings demolished, after which a memorial service was held on the ruins.