Claim: The expulsion of the Lemkos was a necessary evil to stop the Ukrainian Insurgent Army from continuing to operate in the border regions.

Reality: This commonly used statement (often by Poles) holds little substance in reality for a few reasons. First, there was a significant difference in both culture and ideology between the border Ukrainian villages commonly referred to as being in Zakerzonia (beyond the Curzon line) and Lemkovyna proper. The UPA saw almost no participation from the Lemko-Rusyn population, and Ukrainian nationalists had labeled the region as lacking patriotism for decades. Furthermore, the farthest eastern Lemko town was over 30 miles (48 kilometers) away from the border of Ukraine, and the most-western villages stretched all the way to the foothills of the Tatras where no fighting occurred.

It was not at all necessary for the expulsion of Lemkos to occur to stop the insurgency as the majority of its fighters weren’t Lemkos or residing within Lemko villages, and if Lemkovyna had remained the chance that it would have continued was nill because of this. The reality is that both the Polish and Soviet governments were complicit in a policy of Rusyn erasure where any settlement of Rusyns was considered Ukrainian. Therefore when the choice was made to expel the remaining Ukrainian population from the region, Lemkos were included in the plan. Had the Lemko-Rusyn minority been seen for what they are, a different people altogether, the inaccuracy of this would have been self-evident.

Map of Lemkovyna: