Vasyl Ovsienko: On February 6, 2000, in Ivano-Frankivsk, at 10 Oleha Koshovoho Street, we are conducting a conversation with Ms. Liuba Vozniak-Lemyk. Vasyl Ovsienko is recording.
Liuba Vozniak-Lemyk: Liuba Vozniak, born September 30, 1915.
V.O.: And where were you born?
L.V.-L.: I was born in Krynytsia, in the Nowy Sącz Powiat. It’s now in Poland. Krynytsia is better known; the powiat, not so much. Krynica-Zdrój is a large resort in Lemkivshchyna. I was only born there, and then we moved to a village—probably because there was a hospital or something there. My father was a priest there in Prostaka Velyka. I lived there until I was five. I remember Lemkivshchyna, but that’s not interesting. You need the hard facts, right?
V.O.: Tell us at least something from your childhood.
L.V.-L.: I liked it—there was a river near the house, and I loved to climb the hill and roll down into the valley. I often ended up in the water. That’s what I remember about myself. I remember it was the World War. My father went to Vienna. Somewhere in Polissia or Pidlisia, near Przemyśl, there was a camp, and they went to Vienna—they were fleeing. Many of our people fled. This was with my older sister; I wasn’t born yet. What do I remember from that time?
My first childhood memories—they brought a little girl, Liusia, to us. A relative lived near her father, an Ilia Havryliuk, a gymnasium teacher; he wrote poetry, and he was arrested. So they sent that little girl to us, even though things were already difficult for us. And then someone was being smuggled across the border from our place because it was a border settlement. They went somewhere—to Czechoslovakia, or somewhere. I’d have to look at a map. Some men came to our house, took rakes to look like peasants, and left. Whether they were caught, or someone informed on my father, I don’t know, but one day our house was full of police. They arrested my father, and he was imprisoned in Kraków. Later, my father was released, and Ilia Havryliuk was released too. They took Liusia back from us, and my father moved to another parish near Lviv, in Porshna. I spent my childhood years there. I also had my sister Odarka and my mother. You know, my grandmother is a distant relative of the Bandera family. My grandmother’s own sister was Slavka, Stepan’s mother. They had more children; they lived here in Buhryn. And this Porshna was about 15 kilometers from Lviv, so they often visited us. The boys, the students, you know, they want to eat, so they would come to our place…
I studied for a bit in the village school, and then I went to Lviv with my sister. In Lviv, I attended the State Seminary.
What I want to tell you is how I first encountered politics. (Laughs). It was 1928, on November 1, at St. George’s Cathedral—do you know Yur? It has a large courtyard, and the church itself has a balcony. A memorial service for the Sich Riflemen was being held there on November 1. The Plastuny came—all in their Plast uniforms, with staffs. I wasn’t very big yet, and I was envious; I wanted to be a Plastunka too. I liked how they performed with those staffs in their uniforms, and my sister was among them… But what about me? No one paid any attention to me. I stood in a corner and watched: a man in a black tailcoat comes out onto the balcony and unfurls a yellow-and-blue flag with “UVO”—“Ukrainian Military Organization”—written on it. A speech begins—I remember it to this day: “Ukrainian people!…” But so many years have passed… Everyone listens, and then the Plastuny and students start singing revolutionary songs: *“Ne pora, ne pora, ne pora moskalevi, liakhovi sluzhyt…”* And then, into the gate of St. George’s Cathedral, Polish police ride in on horseback, with batons, and start beating everyone. I’m curious, but I slowly back away—I’m afraid of the horses and the police. I moved to the side, but I didn’t run away; I just stood and watched. I saw how the students, who had scattered, later gathered in groups of four or five and organized a whole procession from the hill all the way to where the Franko monument now stands, to the university. From there, along Akademichna Street—that’s from the Opera House to where the student dormitory was.
The Pacification began (Repressions against the Ukrainian population in Galicia, carried out in the autumn of 1930 by the Polish government of J. Piłsudski.—Ed.). When we were walking to school, Polish students were destroying everything that was Ukrainian—“Tsentrosoyuz,” “Svitoch” (that was a candy factory), “Maslosoyuz.” They destroyed everything, beat people… And we were on our way to school. We wore school uniforms and *mazepynochky*. A student would come up, rip the cap off your head, and hit you, so we would run from them—that’s what was happening in Lviv back then. These are my first memories.
Then “Plast” was disbanded, and an underground organization, “Yunatstvo,” came to replace it. They were already accepting us into “Yunatstvo.”
V.O.: And when were you accepted?
L.V.-L.: That was 1928. I was born in 1915, so I was 14 years old. In each class, they chose a few—I don’t know what their criteria were. We were responsible for the school activities. When there was some state holiday, I would give a speech during the break and say that our Ukrainian holiday is such-and-such… And for the Polish holidays, we would try to think of something to do so we wouldn’t have to go. For example, we would go to the Church of the Holy Spirit on Kopernyka Street (that church has been destroyed). It was our church. One time they told us they were going to break us up. There were four or five of us students from one class. Some student ran up to us with a stick, started hitting the pavement with it and shouting: “It’s a disgrace to go to such a holiday!” And we screamed: “They’re beating us!”—and ran away. They managed to beat a few, but we escaped. Only some returned. Those were the kinds of holidays we had.
Then the Poles came up with an idea—they no longer took us there but held the holidays at school. Our school was semi-private; the keys were in the building. A whole bunch of keys for the classrooms… During one holiday, someone fainted. There was supposed to be a concert, violins—and then they were carrying him out. The whole celebration was ruined. And the last holiday was for Józef Piłsudski. Here’s what we came up with then: I got the keys, we made an impression of them in soap—and now I had my own key. At night, we climbed in and tore down all the portraits of Piłsudski, destroyed them all. We destroyed them, but they thought someone from the outside had come in. When it happened, they chose 15 or 16 students and expelled them from school. This was around the time Pieracki, the minister of education, was killed. Around 1933—I don’t remember exactly, so many years have passed. (15.06.1934.—Ed.).
After that, my father arranged private lessons for me. I was supposed to prepare to enter the gymnasium; it was supposed to be done somehow underground, but it didn’t work out for me—the war started. It was already 1939.
And what else was our work—during the holidays, we would come from Lviv to the village, go to the “Prosvita” reading rooms, give lectures, and lead study groups. We told people about Danylyshyn and Bilas and carried out educational work. The OUN, which focused on the national consciousness of the population, was already active. At that time, there were “Sokil-batko” and “Luh”—they were sports societies. There were concerts. We also took part in that. We would go straight from school to the cemetery, to the graves of the Sich Riflemen. The school didn’t organize this; we made the wreaths of thorns ourselves. We would gather some flowers, cover the thorns with them, and carry them—a whole procession. When we reached the cemetery, we would tear off the flowers—and there was the wreath of thorns. Because if the police saw it earlier, they would take the wreath of thorns and destroy it.
That was our work. The most important thing was to care for the language. No one was ever to speak Polish, except during lessons—that language was out of the question. There was a girl named Malaniuk; she was dancing with someone at a concert—maybe she had a Polish boyfriend, or something—and she recited some Polish poem, so they booed her off, just for the language. They boycotted her. So, for us, this was a matter of principle.
When 1939 came, Ukraine was already ready to fight. The most important institution in every village was the “Prosvita” reading room. There was anti-alcohol propaganda. It got to the point where even at weddings they would put out maybe one bottle, and later—no, later they would put out a note: “Instead of alcoholic beverages—money for political prisoners.” Money for political prisoners came from Christmas caroling, from everything. That was the kind of educational work we did.
My father had moved to Rozdil then. We were in Rozdil when the Poles retreated and the Bolsheviks came. They came in September, and by October, they were arresting our people using the same Polish prison documents.
The Poles arrested my sister, and she was imprisoned in Stryi. I escaped in the evening, but my father stayed at home, not thinking anyone would bother him. Suddenly, in the middle of the night, he heard a knock. He jumped out through the window; there were people’s gardens there. He hid in the cornfields. He heard gunshots, they threw several grenades into our house, and the house went up in smoke. We were left with nothing. It was a Polonized town, Rozdil. We spent the night in a Polish kindergarten; they gave us one room there.
I was the first to cross the Sian River, to go abroad. Then my father and sister followed.
Stepan Bandera’s brother Vasyl married my sister Darka. Vasyl came and took me to Kraków. I lived with them for a while in Kraków, with Stepan and Vasyl. Various people would come to visit them. I took a typing course and worked as a typist. This was before the split into Melnykites and Banderites, before that.
Then Stepan got married. He had gotten out of prison—many of our people got out of prison, and they all ended up in Kraków, in emigration, wherever they could. I did typing there. When Stepan was getting married, it was me, Vasyl, and someone else from the organization, I don’t remember who. In general, Stepan was very modest. He didn’t want to have a big wedding; he said, “If I invite people, it has to be everyone—or no one.” Because he had many friends, he had been imprisoned with many of them, but our organization was poor. So they went and got married—there’s a little old church in Kraków. It was me, Vasyl, and no one else.
V.O.: And who was Stepan Bandera’s wife?
L.V.-L.: Stepan’s wife was Slavtsia Oparivska. Her mother was a teacher; her father, I think, was a Sich Rifleman, he was killed. She graduated from the philology department in Lviv, and her mother was a teacher. Her mother was later killed; she died during Operation Vistula. Neither her mother nor anyone else was at the wedding, only me, Vasyl, and Stepan with Slavtsia.
Besides being a typist, I also took postal courses to work at the post office. I worked for a little while. But on May 23—which is the date of Yevhen Konovalets’s death (14.06.1891–23.05.1938)—they were collecting money near that little church, and I was pinning on ribbons or something. Mykola Klymyshyn (b. 1909, an OUN activist, sentenced to life imprisonment for participation in the assassination of the Polish minister Pieracki; organizer of the OUN expeditionary groups (Bandera’s groups) in 1941.—Encyclopedia of Ukraine) came up to me and introduced me to someone: “Please meet.” It was Mykola Lemyk (1914–41, an OUN combatant who carried out an attack on O. Mailov, the head of the Bolshevik consulate in Lviv (1933), as a protest against the Bolshevik-organized famine in Ukraine. In 1941, one of the main organizers of the OUN expeditionary groups to Ukraine and the leader of the southern section; hanged by the Germans.—Encyclopedia of Ukraine). (If possible, add more precise dates of Mykola Lemyk's life.) We met, he started visiting, and then one day he came and decisively took me to that little church, and we got married very quickly, on August 4, 1940. Our wedding rings were inscribed: “May 23, 1940.” I wanted it that way because we met on that day. Not our wedding day, but a day memorable for us, the day of Konovalets’s death. I moved out of the Banderas’ apartment.
Where I lived, there was some kind of contact point. Mykola never told me, but I know that people came from the homeland. Many people came, and we had only one small room. We lived very modestly; it was hard to live. I went to work at the post office, but then I got sick, and after that, I went to work in some Lviv shop. It was a shop owned by Jews, but the Germans were already there, and I worked there as a cashier. She sold some hats there. I pretended not to see what she was selling. What could I do—times were tough.
Then came 1941, the war. We all quickly moved to Przemyśl. Expeditionary groups were already being organized—the Southern, Northern, and Central. My Mykola led the Central one. You know, we didn’t get married under the name Lemyk, because it was well-known. After all, Mykola had been in prison. We used the name Synyshyn. My marriage certificate was interesting—it’s a pity I lost it—it was written in Polish: “Mykola Lemyk, alias Synyshyn.” “The false Synyshyns,” they wrote, and they sent me that kind of certificate just now.
We are going with the expeditionary group, Mykola takes me with him, there are some boys there. We are walking and—God, it’s terrible!—we see the ruins, murdered people everywhere. The worst was in Ternopil, in those basements… It was a horrific sight—full of the corpses of our prisoners. Then we cross the Zbruch River—I don’t know how we crossed it, it seems small, I don’t even remember now. We are walking through Eastern Ukraine. It was moving for Mykola—he had never been there. They didn’t want to send him because he had been in prison, and it was a rather high-profile case. He turned to me: “Listen, could you stop me from going? Could you have stopped me? Of course not.” Of course, I couldn’t have. We were the same age, we were basically raised at the same time. He was imprisoned at the same time I was working in the organization. Of course, I couldn’t have, and he says: “But I served so much time for that Ukraine! You really couldn’t have stopped me.” I say: “No.” We walk through those villages; I was interested in the Zhytomyrshchyna region. Whether it was Zhytomyr or Khmelnytskyi—there was some large sugar factory there. I don’t remember which village it was. Suddenly, for some reason—I don’t know why—we turn back. Mykola didn’t tell me. There were about 20 of us in the group.
We return to Lviv. We have an apartment there. Mykola is always going somewhere, and I’m curious, because I went to school in Lviv, and so did he. But we don’t find any acquaintances. I went to Bryhidky, the prison, and we found photos of our friends there… It was so moving.
Then there was the proclamation of Ukraine’s independence—we were still there. And then Mykola goes alone with a group, but he doesn’t take me. He pleaded with me then: “You can’t stop me from going.” He kept sending a courier after me to tell me to come. Imagine, I walked such a long way—I don’t know how I did it—death awaited at every step. We came to a village (it’s a pity I don’t remember its name). There was a large sugar factory there. I am walking with just the courier; I remember his name was Moroz. Whether that was his real name or his pseudonym—I don’t know. We spent the night, and in the morning, we go to an engineer’s house. He receives us very warmly but says: “The boys left yesterday, they’re not here.” We don’t know if they left or if they were arrested—we know nothing.
When Moroz and I were walking to that village, we dug a small hole in a little forest and buried all the notes, directives, and everything else. We buried everything there and arrived with nothing. That engineer received us very warmly, and in the early morning, we get up—the Germans come and take that boy, Moroz. And we had an agreement, as we did with everyone: if we get caught, we’ll say we are brother and sister, that he heard you could find work here, and there’s unemployment, hunger… That’s what we agreed on. They take him, and I’m left alone. I wait for an hour, two, three, I wait until evening and don’t know what to do. If I leave, he might come back and not find me. What should I do? I think to myself: I’ll wait. I’m sitting there, and the engineer says to me: “Don’t worry, he’ll be back in the morning.” And then: “I hear the Germans have come. Stand here or sit and don’t show yourself, so they don’t see you.” I listened, sat down, and waited for them to see me—in a figurative sense. Because they ate and drank there, then got up and took me.
They take me to the command post. I had studied German in school, and I took postal courses where I also learned German. The Germans speak to me, I answer them in German and say that I came here looking for work. Then they ask me: “Would you like to work for us as a translator?” I say: “I would be very happy if you would hire me.” They say: “Good.”
I went with them, then I come back to that engineer and say that they’re hiring me, I’m going home for my things. And he says to me: “Then pass the word along for all the boys to come to me.” I say: “Alright.” It was the first time I walked alone at night, I walked through the fields, looking for the village. I arrived—no one wants to take me in, until some old woman, a Baptist who didn’t accept their passport, took me in. How I got home—I don’t remember, but I arrived in Lviv and passed on the message to the right people. There is a note from Mykola from Kyiv. I’m getting ready to go to Kyiv. I met with our people there—there were many Banderites there.
In Kyiv, the Melnykites were official—Olena Teliha and others. They had taken over the newspaper “Nova Ukraina” and in it, they addressed the eastern Ukrainians, saying that we, the Melnykites, are here, while the underground ones, like rats, are the Banderites. From Kyiv, I go to Kremenchuk. In Kremenchuk, I’m supposed to go to the editorial office of “Dniprova khvylia,” I have a password there: “Do you have many issues of ‘Dniprova khvylia’?” But they were already waiting. The courier who was with me found out in the waiting room that the editor, Shchepanskyi, his wife, and children had already been shot by the Germans. And I had come to ask for him! If he had been a Muscovite, he wouldn’t have let me go. But he grabbed me by the arm and shouted: “Let’s go!” We ran. We ran for a long, long time, we escaped from that Kremenchuk.
We arrived in Poltava. Mykola had already been killed, but I didn’t know. It happened in Myrhorod. In Poltava, I met a woman named Olenka Yurchynska (she has since passed away), but no one wanted to tell me that Mykola was already dead… His assignment was for Kharkiv.
In that Poltava, I worked at an arts and crafts school. An interesting incident happened there, which I want to mention. I went to work as a typist in a bank. One day, a man who seemed to be German comes to me, but he speaks Russian. He was from the White Guards. He says to me: “Tell me everything about yourself.” I tell him that my father was shot. And he replies: “You know, that’s a story like ‘The Queen of Spades.’” I didn’t answer. He walked away, and I quickly wrote myself a pass and fled. And I never appeared there again.
I met interesting people in Poltava. Olenka and I are going to Kharkiv, where Mykola’s last assignment was. I wasn’t idle there either; we distributed literature. We traveled to Sumy, and it wasn’t so easy. We would get on a train with coal, fill a sack with literature, and cover it with apples. One time, Olenka and I almost got caught—we were saved by a gate that wouldn’t open.
We returned to Western Ukraine. Here, for a long time, I couldn’t find out that Mykola had been killed. None of our people told me the details. Only now has a man named Kyrylo been found, who was a boy back then and worked somewhere there, and later was abroad. He put up a memorial plaque for Mykola and takes very good care of it. He himself is from Myrhorod. So, there you have it, such a story…
The Germans are slowly retreating, the Bolsheviks are coming—where to go? I was left without contact, I didn’t know what to do. I met an acquaintance, he took me… There was a radio station called “Aphrodite”—have you heard of it? They’ve written a little about it now. It was being set up, but it wasn’t working out…
V.O.: What kind of radio station was it, whose was it? What forces supported it?
L.V.-L.: The UPA. I think so, but I don’t know for sure. I completed a course for radio operators. We had a woman from Kyiv there, and a Frenchman who knew French and German.
V.O.: Did that radio station broadcast in different languages?
L.V.-L.: Yes. But only for a short time, because not everything was properly set up. All we knew were raids, raids, raids… Then everyone went their separate ways because there was no opportunity to do anything. I settled near Stryi, got myself new documents. My sister and my father’s little Odarka were deported to Anzhero-Sudzhensk…
V.O.: I want to ask again: did this “Aphrodite” radio station operate during the German or the Soviet occupation?
L.V.-L.: Both. It was created and initially operated during the German occupation, and it was easier then, but under the Soviets—it was difficult. They apparently were intercepting something; there were terrible raids, and it became impossible to work. It was beyond our resources and our strength.
I settled near Stryi. They made documents for me. I can’t say if someone turned me in or not—I don’t know. In any case, they deported the woman we were staying with, and then they come to arrest me. They come, arrest me, and take me to Lviv, to the prison on Lonskoho Street—do you know that street?
V.O.: No, I don’t know Lviv.
L.V.-L.: So you don’t know Lviv?
V.O.: There’s a lot I don’t know!
L.V.-L.: I grimaced because I love Lviv very much. You see, it’s a love for a forgotten corner. They bring me to Lonskoho, and right away they ask me who I am, what I am. I give a fake surname. A colonel asks who my father is. I say he’s a blacksmith. And he says: “A blacksmith of human souls.” I thought to myself: uh-oh, they know about me. That colonel got angry and threw me out: “Get out of here!” It was such a long office, I’m walking through that office… They threw me in a punishment cell. It was December 24, and terribly cold…
V.O.: What year?
L.V.-L.: 1946. I’m thinking: 1946 or 1947? No, forty-six. They threw me in that punishment cell, in the basement—it was tiny. Do you know what a punishment cell looks like, or have you never been in one? Were you imprisoned in Kyiv?
V.O.: No, in Kyiv, in the KGB, I was never in a punishment cell. I was in Mordovia.
L.V.-L.: And where in Kyiv?
V.O.: At 33 Volodymyrska Street.
L.V.-L.: I was imprisoned there too. I was in Lviv for three months. They interrogated me not by name, but by the number 22. Now, after so many years, it seems to me that they really wanted to make me their collaborator.
V.O.: An agent?
L.V.-L.: Yes, yes. And it just never seemed to work out. Well, what did I get out of that punishment cell? It was terribly cold, I caught such a bad cold that I got a middle ear infection. I’m lying there sick, with an impossibly high temperature. Since I was in the punishment cell for a week, I started having hallucinations. I was seeing and hearing things. There’s a little hatch where they pass food. The guard would slam it, and it seemed to me that someone was hit on the back and went—ah-ah. That’s what I imagined. And there’s nothing to sit on, nowhere to walk. I squatted down like this and leaned against the door. The guard looked in—he couldn’t see me. He got angry, opened the door, and swore at me using profanity. It was the first time I had heard it. Then he says: “Sit down!” And points to the latrine bucket. It was wet there, but I sat down. But there are humane people too. The next day, some guard on duty quietly opened the door and said to me, “Here!” And he threw me a small board. I sat on it and just sat like that.
That was December 24, and on January 1, for the New Year of 1947, they took me out of the punishment cell. They took me upstairs. I hadn’t eaten anything that week, only froze, and I had a fever. And my great luck was that no one beat me. They couldn’t beat me—there was no one to beat. They took me to the bathhouse. I listen—it’s Lviv, you can hear the traffic, and I don’t know what day it is. I thought they were probably torturing someone. And I think that my turn is next. The guard told me to strip naked. Some sailor was sitting in that bathhouse. I remember him fondly to this day because I sat down on the table like this, and he started talking about how he had studied, how he wanted to be [unintelligible], but ended up in prison and now works as a guard. He asks what I’m in for, and I say, for nothing. So I sat there, and then he brings me all my clothes, and takes me to the shower. I washed myself, got dressed. The guard on duty came to get me, they give me a mattress to take, but I can’t even lift it. And he says: “Eh, you’re only fit to be a loader!” And he took me to some cell, all by myself. People were in cells of 10–20, and I was all alone. I lay down and fell asleep. Do you know how long I hadn’t slept? They didn’t give mattresses to anyone, but they gave one to me because I was sick.
The next day they took me to a Major Delchenko. He looked at me and began a whole speech: “There is no better person than the Ukrainian and the Russian!” He could speak Ukrainian. And I say: “If you are so good, why did you shoot so many people?” And he says: “We didn’t shoot them, they shot at us.” And I say: “How could they not shoot at you when you come and take everything?”
And then they took me to the hospital to identify a corpse. I turned into the corridor and ran. I’m running, running down the corridor, and they are after me. When they were taking me back, they said: “Oh, what great technology we have!” And I say: “A person lay in a grave for two weeks, you dug him up, and now he’s like this… What did you smear him with?”
I was in Lviv for three or four months. One day, they call me by that number “22” and say my surname. But interestingly, they never mentioned Lemyk during that whole time. They call my maiden name, Vozniak, but without the number. They put me in a car—to go somewhere. Well, I think, this is it—the end! I’m probably going to be executed. They brought me to a train—not to the station, but somewhere in a remote corner. There’s no one around. They put me in a train car, then attached it to the “Lviv–Kyiv” train. I lay down and slept—all the way to Kyiv. And in Kyiv, a “Fresh Buns” truck arrived and took me to 33 Korolenka Street.
V.O.: Korolenka Street back then, 33, and now 33 Volodymyrska Street.
L.V.-L.: A terrible prison. But you could read a book there. Was there a library when you were there?
V.O.: There was. But that was in later times, the seventies.
L.V.-L.: But there wasn’t one in Lviv. I was imprisoned in Kyiv for up to a year. There were interesting dialogues there.
V.O.: What did they demand from you, what were you accused of?
L.V.-L.: Nothing. They would show me someone, tell me to identify them. They didn’t beat me. But that didn’t mean anything… When was the death penalty abolished?
V.O.: On April 17, 1947. And it was reinstated on January 12, 1950.
L.V.-L.: There was a terrible investigator, with a big head, like a horse’s, I forgot his name… And then some Kyiv students were arrested. And a young girl, Raisa Haiduk, ends up in my cell. I still correspond with her. She was in the 9th grade, they arrested her brother and then came for her. They lived in Pereiaslav-Khmelnytskyi, somewhere near Kyiv. Her parents were teachers. She told me how they struggled, and then one day they come and take her. And she was also taking piano lessons at a music school, so she played Liszt’s “Rhapsody” for herself and left. I started telling her about all our affairs. She was a great support for me. There were interrogations at night, and during the day they wouldn’t let you sleep, constantly knocking and banging. She had such long braids. She would take a comb and pretend to be combing her hair, but in the meantime, she was sleeping, with her eyes closed. She told me about those student boys. One of them had a father who worked in the university library, so they stole books from there—“History of Ukraine” and something else, and distributed them. That happened too. Her own brother remained in Pereiaslav-Khmelnytskyi, but she got married and is in the Poltava Oblast. I still write to her. Her surname was Haiduk, but she got married. And what is it now? I’ve already forgotten. I’ll look for it and give you the address. She was a good cellmate, unlike the stool pigeons they kept sending me all the time.
One day they take me downstairs and read out: sentenced to death by a special council.
V.O.: To death? When was this?
L.V.-L.: I don’t remember the date. And they don’t write it in the release papers. Sometime in forty-nine, or maybe forty-eight. It was autumn… I don’t remember—so many years have passed, soon I’ll forget that I am me. Some chief reads it to me. I’m fine, just listening.
V.O.: There must have been some charge, if it was the death penalty?
L.V.-L.: No—“sentenced to death.” They put me in a box, and I’m sitting there. It’s a very small space. A lamp is shining, so you can’t tell if it’s night or day. I’m sitting there and waiting. The chief comes to me, asks: “How much did they give you?” I answered, and he says: “That’s right!” And I say: “You know, there’s a Latin saying, ‘homo homini lupus est?’” He says: “That was in the past, it’s not like that anymore.” And then the OSO commuted the death sentence to 25 years. Immediately. It was a period when there was no death penalty. When they were taking me to the camp, that chief, Guzeyev (oh, Guzeyev!), who conducted my investigation—have you heard that name?—he told me that I was late. And I said that it’s alright, it’s not too late yet.
I stayed in that box, got tired of sitting, I slid down and—thud!—I fell. They thought I had fainted, they took me by my arms and legs and carried me down to the basement. There’s a big cell there, you can walk around in it, wander about—but it’s wet. I’m sitting there, and in the morning, some deputy chief comes and says that I’m still wearing a vest. And when I arrived, no one took it off me. I took it off, rolled it up, and threw it at him. He dodged and left, and the next day he looks through the peephole and says: “A fine bird, you are!” I sat there for a long time, I was very sick. They would put people in the cell to get me to say something. Some girl from Dnipropetrovsk, neither Russian nor Ukrainian. She sat with me and talked nicely, and I listened to everything. And when she was leaving, because she worked for them somewhere—she had been in Germany, and the KGB recruited her, and then they imprisoned her. And when she was leaving, she said to me: “You know, Liuba, an informer doesn’t have a tail or horns, but is a person just like you.” Didn’t she put that well? I still remember that.
And then they put some woman in with me who had been tried in 1937. She came in, looked around, there were two other women there, sat down next to me, and wanted to tell me her story. And I say: “Don’t tell me anything, because I work for the KGB.” You know, those two got so angry! Then I wrote a statement to the prison warden to have me moved from there. They didn’t move me for a long time, I got sick. Actually, I got sick because of Raia: she started receiving parcels. I hadn’t eaten anything, and she gave me some salo and something else, and from that, you know… My liver is bad. They took Raia away from me. And they took me to Lukianivska Prison. I was sick there for a while, and from Lukianivska Prison I ended up in Mordovia.
The first stage was the transit prison at Potma station. I was in the third, the sixth, the fourteenth, then back to the sixth, and finally in the sixth. My first impression from there—I don’t know what yours was… I arrived just as they were taking the girls for transport. I look: there’s my neighbor from Volyn, another one… It struck me. And a lovely girl was sitting with me—I should find her, but how to find her—from Belarus? She was imprisoned for a Belarusian organization. An intelligent girl, her father was a teacher. She had very beautiful handwriting. I take a scrap of paper from some notebook and write a little leaflet… That was my first act, as soon as I arrived at the third camp—that Ukraine is one, we are all one and cannot be divided into easterners and westerners, Volynians—that’s not why we are imprisoned here. And I passed it among the girls, spread it around. They went to other camps, and we were transferred from the third to the sixth. And suddenly, in the sixth camp, a woman named Mariika Baran comes to me and says: “Liuba, don’t be angry with me—I liked your leaflet, and I took it and hid it.” And when we were being transferred from one camp to another, there was a search. She was holding all her belongings, but she took that leaflet and hid it. But a guard saw it, took it, and put it in his pocket, but didn’t read it, just asked for her surname. She said it was Baran. And when we arrived at the sixth, she says that they are rounding up all the Barans. And I say: “You’re funny! Let them round them up!” And the leaflet was with Shurochka, the Belarusian girl. No one would have bothered her—they were looking among our people, the Ukrainians. And so it passed. Mariika Baran said she didn’t know where it came from.
And then we had various actions there. I wrote another leaflet once. Some of our own people became brigadiers, shop foremen. For example, I can’t work—but it wasn’t about me, but about others—go to the medical unit if you can’t, because the work has to be done! No one pays us anything for the work, and even if they did… I wrote that we, Ukrainian political prisoners, cannot be a whip over others and over our own—that this is a worthy punishment… I took the leaflet and read it to some illiterate women at work. I wanted to see what the reaction would be. And suddenly a guard comes. He called the guard post and is coming towards us. Those old women and women ran away, and I held the leaflet in my hand like this. He came, grabbed my hand and squeezed, and it hurt. And so we walk past the barracks, where those who don’t have to go to work are standing. My friend is standing there (she has since died in Kolomyia). She saw that I had turned pale. I very gently opened my hand and dropped the piece of paper on the ground next to her, so that no one would see. And she stepped on it. At the guard post, they stripped me naked—I had nothing on me. To the operative. “Why were you running away?” I say that I lost my knife. You know, we made simple little knives to cut our bread ration.
They brought people from Norilsk, and they struck fear into our people. A new female commander came to us, who demanded that we work for three months without a day off, and in return, they would give us whatever we wanted. We say, fine, we will work for three months without a day off, but for the Latin Christmas Eve and for ours, let them give us a day off. They agreed. The Latin holiday came—no day off. We didn’t go to work, we supported the believers of the Latin rite. They swallowed it, said nothing. But when the Ukrainian holidays came, the commander arrived and started saying that under our good work performance, we were hiding our hostility. And we had already gathered to celebrate. The girls are dragging tables from the dining hall and laying out everything they had prepared, whatever anyone had, a drop of this and that, symbolically for Holy Supper…
V.O.: What year was it that you celebrated Holy Supper like that—was Stalin still alive or not?
L.V.-L.: We did this in 1955. Ms. Barvinska, Olena Stepanivna, was with us then. We walk around, singing, carols echo. And from Norilsk, they brought a very interesting young woman—if you want, you can go visit her.
V.O.: As if one can just go to Norilsk…
L.V.-L.: Goodness, not to Norilsk—to Dubno, it’s not far. She writes beautiful poems, I’ll tell you a little piece of one. The guards are walking around, driving people to work, the gate to the work zone is open—we can go to the factory. We don’t go. And do you know who went? The ones we had supported before—the Latvians, Lithuanians, Poles. They went, they were afraid. And we had supported them. Later, they gathered about 20 of us women—and into the punishment cell. Including me, of course. In that punishment cell with us were believers—“true Orthodox Christians”? They were great. They did not work for this regime. That’s how we celebrated.
Then comes 1956—everyone is talking about the Thaw, that Khrushchev will be releasing prisoners. We were in the 14th camp then. There’s a corridor to the factory, and the court was held there. We talk among ourselves: “Girls, we have to hold ourselves with dignity.” There was a very beautiful woman there, I wrote to Proniuk about her, so it would be published in the magazine “Zona,” but they didn’t publish it, probably threw it out. Ms. Fardyha, she served a lot of time in Kharkiv. I know she’s from Stryi. And also a Ms. Mishniak—they ran to me and asked: “Liuba, what should we do, we don’t want to go to that court—let’s write something quickly, something impromptu.” I quickly wrote: “I will not go to your court, because your court is a humiliation of human rights and of my people.” And the other one wrote: “I will not go to your court—it is a humiliation of God’s rights and of my people.” A good position. They didn’t go to the court. Everyone is being led out, everyone is going, but they are standing there. And they don’t know if they will be released or not.
I also wrote a statement. Ms. Halia Fardyha is being released and says to me: “Liuba, write something. I’ll go and drop it in Kyiv—just write.” I sat, thought and thought, and wrote something like this: “To the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine. I appeal to you as defenders of the rights of the Ukrainian people, yet you do nothing to protect the Ukrainian people from complete ruin. Our relatives have been deported to Siberia—deported and are losing their native language there, [unintelligible], they are dying, and you do nothing to protect them. The review commission left me with a term of 25 years, which for me is equivalent to a death sentence. And Ukraine was the most destroyed by the war. We would work on its reconstruction even as political prisoners. I ask that the remainder of my term be allowed to be served in Ukraine.” I signed it and gave it to that Ms. Halia Fardyha. She was released, left, and she had a transfer in Kyiv and sent my statement.
By then, they had already moved me to the 17th camp. We went to saw firewood. There are small settlements there. I wasn’t very good at sawing: back and forth, back and forth. I’m returning from work, and they call me to the commander. He says to me: “I’m about to tell you something—you will be pleased.” And he says that I am being released, based on my statement.
V.O.: And when did that happen?
L.V.-L.: What day, I don’t know. My certificate was stolen. It was the spring of 1957. I am released, I’m going to Ukraine. They don’t register me there, they don’t register me here, and they don’t register me over there. It was right when “our” troops were going into Hungary.
V.O.: But that was in 1956?
L.V.-L.: Well, yes, 1956, not 1957. I had an aunt, she took me to the sea—she had some kind of voucher. I went for a swim, came back, and I’m going around—they won’t register me anywhere. In Drohobych Oblast—some man is sitting and crying—he came all the way from Magadan, with his family, it cost so much money, and they tell him to go back. And in Lviv, there were points where you could sign up if you wanted to go to Crimea. I went, and they looked at me and said: “We don’t need people like you.” I went to Kyiv, they sent me from one place to another, I called the KGB, everywhere. They all say the same thing: “Go back where you came from.”
But on the train, I met a woman, she was a gynecologist, imprisoned for an abortion or something. Her niece’s husband, Fedchenko, worked in Kyiv, and he also worked in Moscow in Khrushchev’s office. And before that, he was the head of the city of Rostov—a big shot! So she tells me: “If they don’t register you, come to my place.” And I went to her in Taganrog. At first, they didn’t want to register me there either, but then I went to the mayor of the city, and they registered me. I’m already working. My father writes to me from exile: “Come, we haven’t seen you for 10 years—well, at least to see you, and then you can go back again.” That woman tells me: “Liuba, don’t go anywhere, I’ll sign my house over to you. You’ll live here, you’ll take care of me until I die—but stay!” I got a job there, but when my father wrote, I packed up and left. She even gave me the Fedchenkos’ address. I thought he was Ukrainian. You know, the fate of Ukrainians is interesting… They lived there near Rostov, worked hard on the land, started a vineyard. And others saw how nice it was and took the vineyard away from them. And only later did he work as the mayor of the city, graduated from an institute, and Khrushchev takes him to Moscow. The Fedchenkos told me not to leave Taganrog, but to take care of their grandson. But I thought to myself, I don’t want to. Fedchenko says one day: “You, Liuba, are so small—and I thought you were big,”—he had heard about me from his wife. “Ukrainians always say ‘we’ and ‘we.’ Let’s go, wife, let’s travel to the old Russian cities! Odesa, Kyiv…” She went to prepare breakfast, and I turn to him: “Ukraine will never have its own state, because Ukrainians have no national pride.” He looked at me and said not a word.
In the evening, I say that I bought a ticket to leave, and he says: “I got you tickets to the Armory Chamber—you won’t see that anywhere else.” I say: “Thank you very much!” And so we parted. I went to Anzhero-Sudzhensk. I stayed with my father, went to work in Anzhevka. In 1964, they release my father, and a day or two later, they release my sister Darka, who worked at a music school. Well, and we’re packing our things. Everyone has already been released, and they took me, the fresh one. I think to myself: why should they suffer because of me? I send my sister, send my father to Kolomyia, to my friend, but my sister is wandering everywhere, they won’t register her anywhere. Then she found someone who registered her in Horlivka. And Darka and I pack up and go to our sister in Horlivka. I worked there in a boarding school. And somewhere around 1968, we exchanged our Horlivka apartment for one in Ivano-Frankivsk. Here I met Viacheslav Chornovil (24.12.1937–25.03.1999. Imprisoned 3.08.1967 under Art. 187-1 for 1.5 years, a second time on 12.01.1972 under Art. 62, Part 1, for 6 years and 5 years of exile, a third time in April 1980 for 5 years, released in 1983. Returned to Ukraine in May 1985. Editor of the journal “Ukrainian Herald” 1970–72, 1987–90).
V.O.: This was after his first imprisonment?
L.V.-L.: He came here, we met. There was no one—me and two other friends, very few people… Then Bohdan Rebryk (Born 30.07.1938, imprisoned 6.02.1967 for 3 years under Art. 62, Part 1, a second time on 23.05.1974 under Part 2, Art. 62 for 7 years and 3 years of exile.—Ed.) and others came. One day Chornovil came to me under this window and said: “Listen, there’s an artist here, he got out of prison, could you take him into your house for 2 weeks?” I say: “But you know we’re under surveillance…” (This refers to Panas Zalyvakha. Born 26.11.1925 in Kharkivshchyna, imprisoned in September 1965 under Art. 62, Part 1, for 5 years. Served his sentence in Mordovian camps. Artist, winner of the Shevchenko Prize in 1995.)
Odarka worked in a music school in Horlivka, but we were always drawn back here. If I had known how times would change, I would have stayed there. It was more interesting in Eastern Ukraine. Well, at least for Mykola’s sake. But we are drawn here, our father is old, he wanted to be here. We are not from here ourselves, we weren’t particularly drawn to Frankivsk. We walk around here, looking for someone to exchange apartments with, and we found this house. And my father had some house there, sold it for a pittance, and Odarka and I found this house for an exchange. And when the KGB found out, they wanted to take it away. It even went to court. And then we had our first search.
V.O.: When and in connection with what?
L.V.-L.: In connection with Valentyn Moroz (Born 15.04.1936, historian. Arrested in September 1965, 4 years under Art. 62, Part 1; a second time on 1.06.1970, under Part 2, Art. 62 for 6 years in prison, 3 years in special-regime camps, and 5 years of exile. On 29.04.1979, released and expelled to the USA. Currently a lecturer at Lviv University.—Ed.).
V.O.: He was released in September 1969 and arrested again on June 1, 1970.
L.V.-L.: Yes, we were acquainted with him. I always tried to get to know such people, it interested me. He often visited us.
It’s interesting about Easter in Kosmach—you won’t hear this anywhere else, but it says a lot about our people. Someone told me that Easter in Hutsulshchyna is very beautiful, that they ride on little horses, the Easter eggs… I say: “Let’s go to Oksana Popovych (2.02.1926–22.05.2004. Imprisoned 12.01.1945, released in August 1956. A second time on 2.10.1974, declared a person under special surveillance. Member of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group from 3.02.1979. Released 2.10.1987.—Ed.). and go with her to Kosmach for Easter. What do we have to lose? We don’t have any family there, let’s just go.” And so we went. My sister Darka, I, and Oksana Popovych went to Kosmach. The priest there was Vasyl Romaniuk (In 1992-95—Patriarch Volodymyr, 9.12.1925–14.07.1995, imprisoned in 1944 for 20 years, served 10, a second time in January 1972 under Art. 62, Part 2, for 7 years and 3 years of exile. Served his sentence in Mordovia and Yakutia.—Ed.). He visited us later. Well, we arrived. It’s so beautiful there, Easter eggs of all kinds—all beautiful. Hutsul women ride on little horses with those flatbreads—even Muscovites came to film, correspondents. And suddenly this Moroz—he was very unconspiratorial. He went and wrote on our house: “Comrades, we are going to Kosmach. Whoever is around—follow us. Meeting point at Oleha Koshovoho.” Listen, we ourselves were “seditious,” you understand? And he was living in a dormitory. We arrive in Kosmach—he is following Father Romaniuk with a tape recorder and says: “Repeat ‘Christ is Risen!’ one more time.” And right then, KGB agents suddenly surround him. And he, you know, cries out a bit desperately: “People!…” And then a Hutsul woman, a grandmother, not sent by anyone, approaches the crowd and says: “People, no one leave the square!” They stand as if rooted to the spot. They don’t go to have their Easter bread blessed. They stand and wait. We were ready to defend Moroz, but an old woman approaches, takes him by the hand and says: “Come…” She leads him away from the KGB agents and says: “This is my guest. He came to visit me, I will not let him go.” And they—backed off. You know, a crowd of people, and they let him go. We then went to Father Romaniuk’s, there was a breakfast, then we dispersed to our homes, and later returned to Frankivsk. Raia Moroz (Born 1.04.1937, married V. Moroz in 1958.—Ed.) still had some conference in Chernivtsi, but she came later.
And soon after that Easter, they take Moroz. They were chasing him…
One time I’m sleeping and I hear (I was working at the power station)—someone is coming, a lot of people. I look—it’s the police. They come, ask who the Lemyks are. I say: “That’s me.” They came to search my place. Then there were many more searches. Little Valik comes to Raia (he was with us, Raia had left him) and says that they took his dad. And when Moroz was on trial, it was like a wake in our house. Everyone came, we had the Kalyntsi (Ihor Myronovych Kalynets, born 9.07.1939, imprisoned 11.08.1972 under Part 1, Art. 62 for 6 years and 3 years of exile; Iryna Onufriivna Kalynets, poet, born 1940, imprisoned 12.01.1972, 6 years imprisonment and 3 years exile), Antonenko-Davydovych (Borys Dmytrovych, 05.08.1899–09.05.1984. Writer, political prisoner 1934–1957.—Ed.), Dziuba (Ivan Mykhailovych, born 26.07.1931, author of the book “Internationalism or Russification?” (1965). Arrested 18.04.1972, sentenced under Art. 62 of the Criminal Code of the UkrSSR to 5 years of camps and 5 years of exile. Pardoned 06.11.1973.—Ed.), Chornovil—everyone, everyone was there.
V.O.: Did Lina Kostenko come here?
L.V.-L.: No. She was at the trial when the Horyns were tried (Bohdan Horyn, born 10.02.1936, imprisoned 25.08.1965 under Art. 62, Part 1, for 3 years; Mykhailo Horyn, born 17.06.1930. Imprisoned 26.08.1965 under Art. 62, Part 1, for 6 years, a second time on 3.11.1981 under Art. 62, Part 2, for 10 years and 5 years of exile, released 2.07.1987.—Ed.). And the KGB was walking around our house, but they didn’t come in. And Zenko Krasivskyi visited us too (12.11.1929–20.09.1991, political prisoner in 1948-53, 1967-78, 1980-85. Founding member of the Ukrainian National Front (1964–1967). I feel sorry for this house, sometimes I think it should be repaired somehow, so it remains. For now, Iryna will live here. We also need a place to be, we don’t have anywhere.
V.O.: But a museum is supposed to be here one day.
L.V.-L.: When Panas Zalyvakha got out of prison, Chornovil brought him to us.
V.O.: He got out at the end of summer 1971, right?
L.V.-L.: Yes, the trial of Moroz hadn’t happened yet, but by the time of the trial, Zalyvakha was already here. No one was allowed into Moroz’s trial—everyone stood outside the courthouse. They let Raia in, and Moroz spoke there—he behaved well at the trial. Then something happened… I think they do something to people.
V.O.: Could be.
L.V.-L.: I’m very afraid… You go for tea with Yushchenko, so I want to say: I’m very afraid for Yushchenko.
V.O.: I was just kidding when I said I go for tea with Yushchenko!
L.V.-L.: But you do meet?
V.O.: Of course not! (Laughs).
L.V.-L.: And do you know why I’m afraid? I heard a radio program about a hitman, how they kill people. He had some substance in a lighter that guarantees a heart attack. They gave something like that to Chervoniuk…
V.O.: Did the arrests of 1972 affect you? There were probably searches here too?
L.V.-L.: Oh, we had them all the time. Constantly. Then they started breaking our windows. For a whole month—on Thursdays.
V.O.: You say Panas Zalyvakha came to you—what does that mean?
L.V.-L.: He married Darka somewhere around the end of 1971, I don’t remember the date anymore. And we had searches all the time. Because whatever anyone needed, it all came to us. It might still be bugged even now. Here, in the Ukrainian state, we have no intelligence, and that’s very sad.
I’ve told you so much—now you tell me something.
V.O.: I’m curious, this was the very place where all the dissidence, the Sixtiers, gathered. What specifically was done here?
L.V.-L.: Back then, Slavko Chornovil was publishing his journal, “Ukrainian Herald.” We helped organize it a little.
V.O.: And who retyped it? You too?
L.V.-L.: No, we received it ready. And then there was his letter to Gorbachev.
V.O.: That was already 1987. (See “Ukrainian Herald,” issue 7.—Ed.)
L.V.-L.: Here’s something else I want to say. Yushchenko says he is Ukrainian. If only the majority had national consciousness, if the majority, not the minority, cherished Ukraine in their hearts…
V.O.: But let’s return to 1971-72. You mentioned Vasyl Dolishnii—did you know him? (Vasyl Mykhailovych Dolishnii, born 13.11.1930. From the age of 13—a UPA courier, arrested at 16, sentenced to 10 years in prison and 5 years of disenfranchisement. Released 4.09.1954. Arrested a second time on 21.02.1972, 7 years in prison and 3 years of exile under Art. 62 of the Criminal Code of the UkrSSR. In July 1984, accused of “malicious hooliganism,” 3 years in prison.—Ed.)
L.V.-L.: Oh, my dear God, Vasyl Dolishnii? Yes. I worked at the power station. After Stalin’s death, they released him from Norilsk as someone convicted as a minor. He graduated from the Institute of Oil and Gas, he managed that. And suddenly, he’s gone. I hear in the laboratory they are saying that Dolishnii has been arrested. I ask the workers: “Can you tell me who Dolishnii is?”—“He’s from Pidbuzh.” So I started looking for someone from Pidbuzh. I found one woman who worked at the factory. I talked to her, she brought me Hania, his sister. I was afraid to bring her to my house, so as not to bring trouble upon her. Our family already has enough troubles because of me, and I didn’t want to bring it upon Dolishnii too. I arranged to meet at someone else’s house. I went there, and the woman started scolding: “Who did you bring to me?” Well, so Hania comes to our place. We spoke in whispers. And then he was imprisoned a second time.
V.O.: Excuse me, not the second, but the third time. The second was on February 21, 1972, and in July 1984, he was accused of “malicious hooliganism,” a fabricated criminal case.
L.V.-L.: And do you know how? He used to visit us here, sometimes helped us buy some potatoes or something. He took some sacks and wanted to go arrange something. He had just left a colleague’s place, he didn’t even come to our house. He came out, and some big thug jumped him, grabbed him and threw him to the ground. And the police were already there, and it looked as if Vasyl had attacked him…
And before that, Vasyl was walking down the street, and some glue had been spilled. Some men were sitting there and said: “This one will fall too.” But he didn’t pay any attention to it. He walked, stumbled and fell, dislocating a nerve in his arm. That actually turned out well for him. Because they took him to the police station and accused him of tearing the epaulets off a policeman. And he says: “How could I tear off epaulets when my arm doesn’t work?” And they let him go. He ran here in the early morning, and I say: “Wait, a neurologist lives here.” I grabbed Vasyl and took him to that doctor, and she says that it’s a damaged nerve and it can only be treated in a hospital. They admitted him to the hospital, and a few days later the doctor comes and says: “He can be treated as an outpatient now—he doesn’t have to stay, he can just come in. You should go, because we need to free up the bed—a sick patient has arrived.” Vasyl left, freeing up the bed, thinking he would come back the next day, but that “bobik” [police van] was already waiting, and they took him. The doctor was one of ours, a Ukrainian, and there were many such cases.
V.O.: Sometime around 1987, when the regime began to soften, they started letting letters through to us in the special regime camp, in Kuchino, in the Urals. I received a letter from Vasyl Dolishnii. He had served 10 years, then another 10, and here he writes to me: “So in my old age, I decided to act like a hooligan. They wanted to frame me for rape, but given my respectable age, they framed me for hooliganism instead.”
L.V.-L.: Yes, yes, he was going to the train station to meet me, and some girl was constantly hanging around and following him. And then they reported him for hooliganism.
V.O.: And for that “hooliganism” they gave him three years. As if he needed that too.
L.V.-L.: I even wrote to him. He had terrible bronchitis attacks, he was coughing. That’s why I wanted you to write about Vasylko. He went to work as a courier when he was a little boy. He was 14. One night, when it was raining, he was carrying some mail, and he sees an old hideout. He knew it, he thought he would wait out the rain and then continue. But the Bolsheviks were passing by, they saw him, pulled him out of that hideout and started on him. He managed to destroy everything. They started torturing him and hanging him by the neck. They would hang him, and he would grab onto a branch so he wouldn't be fully hanged. So they beat his hands with iron bars. And they took him away. And the partisans actually wanted to send him to school to study, so he wouldn’t be a courier, they felt sorry for him. But he said: “No.”—“But if you get caught, you’re still little, you might betray us.”—“No, never!”—Vasyl said that in prison he didn’t receive a single parcel from anyone, and then he gets a parcel and money, and there the leader writes: “Vasylko, we are proud of you.” “That,” Vasyl said, “was the greatest reward I could have ever received.”
V.O.: He also said they threw him face down in the mud and shot past his ears.
L.V.-L.: Yes, that too. And they hung him. You know what I was thinking—if someone who writes children’s books wrote about a boy like Vasylko for our children. To awaken national consciousness. Because how else? You know, that Rukh movement that split up makes me so angry, that Cherniak, that Kostenko hurt me so much. You know, I keep thinking about writing to them. Because I saw that spectacle on television, how Kostenko was laughing, how Cherniak proclaimed against Chornovil in such a loud voice, saying that Rukh would not split. I thought he was crying, but he went to the Shevchenko celebration, and they didn’t sing either “The Testament” or the anthem there. Chornovil was standing there, and everyone was shouting: “The Testament! The Testament!” But they didn’t sing it. And all those people went to the Rukh hideout…
V.O.: The hideout, yes, yes!
L.V.-L.: And in the meantime, they ransacked the Rukh office, that one is dragging some slippers and throwing them out… They didn’t destroy Rukh—they stuck a knife in Ukraine’s heart. How could that grey-haired man run for office in Lviv after that… Chornovil said out loud: “I have never faltered in my service to Ukraine, I only made mistakes in my choice of people.” So I decided that in memory of Chornovil, I would vote for Udovenko. If I could walk, I would go out and campaign again. But they talk to children about Shevchenko, and they just laugh.
V.O.: But no more than three days ago, I was at the university in Drohobych telling students about Vasyl Stus—and they weren’t laughing. It depends on how you talk.
Thank you for the conversation.
End of the conversation with Ms. Liuba Vozniak-Lemyk on February 6, 2000, at 10 Oleha Koshovoho Street, in Ivano-Frankivsk. The conversation lasted approximately two hours.
[ E n d o f r e c o r d i n g]
Photos by V. Ovsienko:
Film 9059, frame 2A, 6.02.2000, Ivano-Frankivsk. Liuba Vozniak-Lemyk.
Film 9059, frame 3A, 6.02.2000, Ivano-Frankivsk. Former political prisoners Vasyl Ovsienko, Liuba Vozniak-Lemyk, Panas Zalyvakha.
