Abstract

In the spring of 1944, German strategists and topographers drew up a plan of the defence line on the Bug River. The authors of this article set out to locate its shelters, barracks, watchtowers, and observation points. They provided GPS coordinates for 22 German defence works in the vicinity of Strzyżów, Rogalin Dolny, Zosin, Łuszków, Wieniawka, Horodło, Poraj, Bereźnica, Matcze, and Zagórnik, along with a detailed description of the wooden and earth shelter in Kolonia Poraj Marcinówka. They call for an extension of the research and archaeological supervision of the remains of the artefacts and ammunition. The line of shelters was intended to seal the Bug River belt against the infiltration of partisan units from the east. Their construction was supervised by the 5th Galician SS Volunteer Police Regiment composed of Ukrainian volunteers and the SS Galizien. According to Stanisław Czekanowski from Dziekanów, an administrator of the Hrubieszów Agricultural Society and the author of the quoted memoirs, attacks on the Bug River line by the “Bolshevik artillery” were expected. Czekanowski also wrote about the terror wreaked by the Ukrainian Self-Defence Legion at the time. The authors note that the first sentry posts on the demarcation line between the USSR and the Third Reich on the Bug River were established in 1939, but they were soon followed by transfer points. In the area under discussion, such points were set up in Kolonia Bereźnica (commandant Włodzimierz Malczewski, aka Amator) and in Horodelskie Pogórze. In 1944, they served, among other things, to supply the 27th Volhynian Division of the Home Army with weapons and equipment. The Bug River was also crossed by refugees fleeing the Volhynian massacre.