History of the Unconquered: UPA Battle with Germans for Zagorovsky Monastery

The most tragic page in the history of the Zagorovsk Nativity of the Virgin Mary Monastery is connected with the dates of September 8-11, 1943. At that time, there was a fierce battle between a detachment of UPA soldiers and SS punitive forces.

Novy Zagoriv is a small village in the Lokachinsky district of the Volyn region. Its main attraction is the Zagorivsky Monastery.
The monastery was founded by Peter Zagorovsky in the 16th century. The first mention of the monastery dates back to 1566 and states that for his healing from illnesses, the nobleman Zagorovsky began building a stone church on the site of a wooden one. The next owner of New Zagorov, Fadiy Chatsky, added a new two-story monastery fraternal building to the altar part.
The monastery was Orthodox until 1719, then accepted the union.

From the visitation of 1824 we learn that the locals from the union converted to the Orthodox faith. In 1886, during an expedition to Volyn, the Zagorovsky Monastery was visited by Professor A. Prakhov. He took a number of photographs, recording the general appearance of the main monastery building and its interior, which can be considered the first iconographic material of the shrine known to us.

It is known that as of 1908, there were three churches in the monastery: the main one – the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos, dedicated to the warmth of the Three Saints (on the first floor of the south-eastern monastery building) and the Exaltation of the Holy Cross – in the southern monastery building. At the same time, there was an elementary school in the monastery in memory of the 900th anniversary of the Volyn diocese.
After a day of liberation struggle, the lands of Western Ukraine, including the Vladimir-Volynsky district, which included the village of Novy Zagoriv, came under the jurisdiction of the Polish state. In 1921, the Zagoriv monastery was returned to the Greek Catholics.
In the summer of 1943, the German occupiers declared Ukraine a “zone of anti-partisan operations.” Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski, commander of the German anti-partisan forces on the Eastern Front, was recruited to fight the Ukrainian rebels.

In early June 1943, UPA departments drove out the German administration and established their rule in several regions of Volyn – Turysk, Matsie, Goloby, Posyolok, Shatsk. The population of these regions provided them with all possible assistance as the real owners of their native land.

Ukrainian patriots attacked railways, disrupted the train schedules by which the occupiers tried to deliver military equipment and military forces in a timely manner to reinforce their forces in one or another section of the front, where they suffered failure.

Thus, on the night of June 23-24, 1943, the railway line between the stations of Nemovichi-Malinsk on the way to Rovno-Sarny was interrupted. In the front carriages there were 150 Gestapo criminals. They were returning from the pogrom of Polish and Volyn villages, and in the last carriages there were guns, tanks, ammunition and all sorts of supplies.

The sleepy Gestapo men had not yet managed to open the doors of their carriages to find out the reason for the train’s stop, when shots rang out in the front two carriages. The centurion commander Yarema and his friend Dorosh were shooting at the punitive forces. The Gestapo men tried to escape through the windows, but well-aimed shots prevented the enemy from escaping from the trap. In the morning, the rebels returned to the forest with weapons and ammunition.
In May and June 1943, UPA departments in constant battles with the Nazis control all of Polesia and Volyn, limiting the occupiers’ possession to only the territories of the main highways and railway lines.

In early August, a UPA department attacked uninvited guests who were robbing the population of Gnidava (Lutsk district). In the ensuing fierce battle, the rebels destroyed the robbers, and the stolen property was returned to the population.

On the night of August 19-20, the rebels attacked the city of Kamen-Kashirsky. After a fierce battle, the rebels won and captured valuable trophies: more than 20 thousand rounds of ammunition, 5 machine guns, 4 cars, over a hundred pistols, 16 typewriters, 4 radios, 11 horses with saddles, 7 motorcycles, 1 passenger car, 1 passenger car. The enemy lost 100 people killed.

On the afternoon of September 8, 1943, a special purpose rebel couple led by Andrey Martsenyuk (“Beryozha”) entered Novy Zagoriv. The rebels settled near the Zagoriv Monastery, which should become a reliable point of defense in the event of a meeting with the Germans.

The “guests” did not have to wait long. A company of German gendarmerie, a company of Don Cossacks and a police company of Volksdeutsche were sent against four of the 44 rebels – a total of about 400 people. Having carelessly approached the rebel positions, they came under heavy machine gun fire, losing about 40 fighters.

The Germans tried to set the monastery on fire with torches and storm it. However, all this was in vain – the occupiers achieved nothing except new losses.

“Mortars began to roar, machine guns and submachine guns began to crackle… Grenades exploded one after another, everything merged into one terrible roar. The battle was in full swing, the Germans were crawling like locusts, and along with them the Vlasovites and the “Volksdeutsche”.

The battle lasted all night. The rebels could hear the cries of German radio operators calling for help. When it began to get light, the fighters saw that new vehicles with soldiers had arrived for the Germans. Bereza thought about the situation and gave the order to retreat from Shans to the monastery.

Then the Germans decided to request reinforcements. The rebels, realizing the tragic complexity of their situation, decided to fortify themselves in the monastery and hold the defense within the holy walls.

On the morning of September 9, additional gendarmerie forces were transferred to Novy Zagorov. Reinforcements arrived for the Germans from three directions: from Volodymyr-Volynskyi, Gorokhov and Lutsk. Having reorganized, they immediately went on the attack, and retreating was not easy. But the monastery was connected to the fort by a ditch, prudently dug earlier, and the rebels took advantage of it.

Now more than 700 fighters armed with mortars and artillery were fighting against the rebels. The shelling of the monastery lasted all day, and in the evening reinforcements arrived for the Germans – ten light tanks. Three German planes also began bombing the monastery. The rebels withstood the air strikes, hiding in the deep basements of the temple, and repelled the night assault.

September 10 became a real test of the rebel spirit. During the whole day, German forces stormed the monastery. But the machine gunner Kotsyuba, sitting on the bell tower, repelled the enemy invasion with continuous machine gun fire.

From the night of September 10 to midday on September 11, the German occupiers shelled the monastery with artillery, tanks and mortars, and in the evening they again stormed the monastery. The rebels lost three more of their brothers wounded, including their commander Bereza, but they did not give up their positions.

On the night of September 12, they decided to break out of the cordon. Having hidden their wounded comrades in the basements of the temple, the rebels split into two groups of six people and, having struck the German infidels in two directions at once, broke out of the deadly ring.

At 5 o’clock in the morning, taking advantage of the thick fog, the UPA men threw grenades at the enemy positions and in the resulting disorder they went for a breakthrough. Machine gunner Kotsyuba, who was lying wounded on the bell tower, also managed to escape, after the battle had died down.
On the morning of September 12, 1943, the Germans entered the monastery. Hearing a groan, they discovered one of the hidden wounded and hanged him.

The bodies of the monastery’s defenders were collected and buried by local peasants. They also found and rescued two more wounded in the basements on the evening of September 12 after the Germans left.

The Ukrainian rebels lost 29 men in that battle. One was killed in captivity, twelve escaped, and two were rescued by local residents. German losses are estimated at 90-100 killed and 150-200 wounded. According to other sources, German losses are estimated at 540 killed and over 700 wounded.

The monastery was significantly destroyed, but the building still stands today.

The story-chronicle about the struggle of the Bereza family was published in the novella “Battle under the walls of the temple” by Pyotr Boyarchuk and the poem “In Memory of 29” by the poet of the sixties Nikolai Kholodny.

In Zagorovo on the mountain
(rebel song)
In Zagorovo on the mountain,
in the old monastery,
on Sunday, early in the morning,
The rebels prayed there.

“Bless, Mother of God,
stand firm against the enemies,
defend Ukraine
“in a knightly manner, until death.”

“Fight, my children,
protect the poor land,
following the example of my Son
Ukraine will rise from the dead.

On Monday, at dawn,
in Zagorov tanks are shining,
cars and planes are humming
the Germans are hugging.

“Friends, alarm, gay, get up,
don’t give the monastery,
“Defend Ukraine!” –
“We get it or we die!”

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