The eight, including children, were among roughly 80 Poles killed by a unit of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) in the former village of Puźniki (Puzhnyky), then in Poland's Tarnopol region, in February 1945.
More than 40 sets of remains have been recovered from the site so far, following exhumation work led by the Freedom and Democracy Foundation alongside the Polish culture ministry.
Culture Minister Marta Cienkowska told Polish Radio the breakthrough carried special weight.
"I am very proud that we managed to do this for the first time in history," she said, crediting genetic testing that matched DNA from the remains with samples from surviving relatives.
She described the work not as an achievement but as "restoring a measure of historical justice" and fulfilling a duty to families who had "waited more than 80 years to light a candle at their loved ones' graves."
The identifications, she added, were made possible through cooperation between several institutions, including Poland's Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), as well as Ukrainian partners – and represent only the beginning of a wider identification effort.
Maciej Dancewicz, deputy head of the Freedom and Democracy Foundation, called the result unprecedented.
"Not even during the exhumation of Katyń massacre victims, nor the Volhynia massacre, has anyone managed to establish the identity of the remains found," he said, adding that it offers firm proof the remains belonged to Poles killed by the UPA.
For grieving families, he said, it closes a chapter that has lasted more than 80 years.
Identification certificates will be presented to relatives of the eight victims at a ceremony on Monday.
A further search is expected to begin at the end of August, targeting a second burial pit at Puźniki believed to hold the remaining 40 or so victims of the 1945 killings.
Ukrainian nationalist forces killed an estimated 100,000 Poles across Volhynia and eastern Galicia between 1943 and 1945.
Most victims remain buried in unmarked graves to this day.
(ał)
Source: IAR