The village of Huta Pieniacka was inhabited exclusively by the Polish population. In 1939 the number of inhabitants was about 800.

During the Second World War there were many refugees from Volhynia and from villages in the vicinity of Huta Pieniacka in the village. In a situation of growing threat from the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), self-defence was organised in the village as early as the middle of 1943. At the end of 1943, a detachment of Soviet partisans led by Borys Krutikov and a group of a dozen or so Polish partisans from Volhynia arrived in the village. These forces ensured relative peace for the inhabitants.

On 23.02.1944, at night, a subdivision of the Ukrainian armed formation entered the outskirts of the village (according to some accounts, this unit began robbing and setting fire to Polish farms). The self-defence unit, convinced that it was an attack by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, opened fire on the intruders, killing several of them and forcing them to flee. In the morning, documents were found with the dead, on the basis of which it was established that the attackers belonged to the SS-Galizien. After this, the threat of reprisals from the German command was realised. At this point, the self-defence was already seriously weakened, as a detachment of Soviet partisans had left Huta Pieniacka a few days earlier. The self-defence command decided that since there was no chance of winning the fight against the Germans, the weapons should be hidden and there should be no resistance to the Germans.

The attack on the village took place on 28.02.1944 in the morning. The village was attacked by SS men and Ukrainians. The Poles were first herded into the church, and from there they were led out in groups of about 20, led into a barn and set on fire. According to witnesses, about 1,000 people died in this way, 172 Polish buildings were burnt down. Today, the village does not exist. All that is left of the old buildings are the foundations of the church and the plinth in the centre of the former village, on which a statue of the Virgin Mary once stood.

The tragedy of Huta Pieniacka has been commemorated several times. Some of the commemorations (especially the inscription boards) were removed in the 1990s by so-called unknown perpetrators. Some of the former commemorations (either in their entirety or without inscription plaques) have survived to the present day. These are: two plaque obelisks with torn inscription plaques, a stone column (stele) fenced with metal chains stretched between metal posts - from the 1960s, a chapel/world with a large erratic boulder next to it (- from 1989, a large wooden cross - erected on the initiative of Władysław Bąkowski in 2000, and three wooden crosses with plaques in memory of the murdered from the Rysicki, Sierociuk and Muzyczak families.

The main memorial object is the commemoration erected by the Council for the Protection of Struggle and Martyrdom Remembrance in 2005. - a granite cross with an inscription and on its sides two granite plaques with the names of the victims; the whole has been placed on a stone elevation and is surrounded by stone boulders on its sides and back. The inscription reads: "To the memory of the approximately 1,000 Poles resting here, residents of the village of Huta Pieniacka and surrounding villages, murdered on 28 February 1944. The burnt village ceased to exist. May they rest in peace. Families and the Government of the Republic of Poland 2005". On 8 or 9 January 2017, the monument unveiled in 2005 was destroyed by "unknown perpetrators" - the granite cross was blown up with explosives, the plaques with the names of the victims were smeared with paint - on one of them the Ukrainian flag was painted and on the other the Bandera flag, under which a stylised "SS" sign was also painted. The Polish side immediately protested and took steps to rebuild the monument in its original shape and material, but the Ukrainian side was unexpectedly quick to repair the damage by removing the dirt and rebuilding the cross (it was, however, made of a different material and with a different technology).