From the Frying Pan into the Fire
An Interview with the Insurgent Myroslav Symchych
Recorded by Vasyl Ovsiyenko on February 8–9 and March 20, 2000, in the city of Kolomyia, Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast.
The text was corrected and edited in October–November 2001, taking into account M. Symchych’s reservations.
Preamble for the journal “Suchasnist,” No. 2-3, 2002:
A nation’s history is composed of the lives of specific individuals. Especially those who consciously laid down their lives to defend their people’s natural right to a free life, to their very existence. Myroslav Symchych joined the ranks of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army at the age of twenty. He has 6 years of heroic partisan warfare behind him. In one of the battles, in January 1945, Symchych and his Berezivska company crushed a punitive regiment (405 NKVD soldiers), which, under the command of Major General S. Dergachov, was heading to the “Banderite capital,” the village of Kosmach. (This was the same General Dergachov who, on May 18, 1944, deported the Crimean Tatars from Crimea). Symchych calls this his crowning battle against the Moscow imperialists.
Symchych returned from that war tortured but unbroken after 43 years, having spent 32 years, 6 months, and 3 days—that is, 11,775 days—in the prisons and concentration camps of the most brutal regimes.
Even against the backdrop of the dozens of autobiographical accounts of former political prisoners I have recorded for the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group’s program, this one stands out for its particular power. The Lord led him through the most difficult paths and preserved him as a witness so that words about the unbreakable spirit of the Ukrainian people would not sound banal. Myroslav Symchych’s life is a living example of this.
From the stories of the insurgents, who dared to stand against the occupier a second time—no longer with weapons, but with words—our future book will be composed, which we will probably title: “From the Frying Pan into the Fire.”
Vasyl Ovsiyenko, program coordinator
of the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, former political prisoner.
Ancestry
M.V. Symchych: I, Myroslav Symchych, son of Vasyl, was born in the village of Vyzhnyi Bereziv in the former Yabluniv, now Kosiv, Raion, on January 5, 1923, into a family of middle-class peasants.
My origin is not particularly grand, but of simple peasant stock. I don’t remember my great-grandfathers. Both of my grandfathers were peasants.
In the Carpathians, right up until the First World War, there were small groups of `opryshky` [a term for Carpathian rebels or highwaymen]. What they did there, I can’t say. I would have to look through the archives in Ivano-Frankivsk, as there were some trials against those `opryshky`. But I know this from my maternal grandfathers stories. I don’t remember my paternal grandfather—he died before I was born, sometime before the First World War, in a skirmish between `opryshky` and the Austrian police, who were still scouring the mountains. My paternal grandfathers name was Mykola Symchych, with the village nickname “Mykhalychkiv.” And my maternal grandfather was Mykhailo Holynskyi, son of Vasyl. Both of my grandfathers—maternal and paternal—were friends and belonged to one of the `opryshky` bands. When the last band was defeated and my paternal grandfather, Mykola Symchych, was killed, my maternal grandfather, Mykhailo Holynskyi, survived and fled to America.
The First World War ended. Austria was no more, the `opryshky` in the Carpathians were gone, and no one continued the old traditions. My mothers father, Mykhailo, returned from America. I don’t know exactly in which year, but when I was a boy of about nine or ten, he would tell me things from time to time. Always in secret, because he was also afraid of the Polish authorities. Because no matter what imperialists come, they just replace one another, but they continue the same policy and persecute the same people. For instance, the same people the Bolsheviks persecuted in 1939, the Germans persecuted in 1941. Those the Germans beat from 1941 to 1944, the Bolsheviks did too, when they came. These imperialists dont destroy each other they complement each other. So my grandfather was afraid of the Poles too. He told me that he—Grandfather Mykola and Grandfather Mykhailo—were brothers-in-arms in the `opryshky`. Grandfather Mykhailo had a daughter—my mother, and Grandfather Mykola had a son—my father. And while they were still in the band, they agreed to have them marry. And back then we had an unwritten law that you married not the one you loved or wanted, but the one whose field bordered yours, or whoever your parents told you to marry. As the parents said, so the children—whether they wanted to or not—had to do. Such was the law until recently. I remember this tradition was observed until the Second World War only now have the Bolsheviks broken it. But some things are still preserved. For instance, in Galicia and Bukovyna there are several villages of so-called Ukrainian `shliakhta` [gentry]. Back in the time of King Danylo, he rewarded his distinguished warriors with noble rights. A warrior who received noble rights was granted large landholdings. He did not pay taxes to the state for his land. Here in the Carpathians, we had saltworks, mills, and so on. The `shliakhtych` [nobleman] didn’t pay taxes on them either—he enjoyed such privileges. That’s what noble right was. So these were not people of a different origin—they were the same Ukrainians, just valiant warriors who had served the king well.
King Danylo gave this entire Bereziv valley to such deserving warriors who, as one would say now, had retired. According to old stories, seven of them came here. The eldest among them was called Bereza. And since the elder was called Bereza, the village is still called Bereziv. To this day, our village still preserves a tradition where, among the church brethren who go Christmas caroling for the church, the elder—the one who leads the group and collects the money—is called a Bereza. Following the old royal tradition, any elder, leader of a group, or organization is still called a Bereza.
The village of Bereziv subsequently grew, so it was divided into four parts. We have another huge village—Zhabye. It’s about a hundred kilometers long and just as wide. It was hard to manage with one village administration, so Zhabye was divided into seven villages, I believe. And our Bereziv was divided into four—Nyzhnii, Vyzhnyi, Serednii, and Bania Bereziv.
I know that our family came here during the time of King Danylo and founded our village. But about my great-grandfathers, I know nothing, as I cant find anything anywhere. I found in some book that there was a boyar Symchych under King Danylo. Perhaps that boyar came in that group of seven.
So my lineage is of peasant stock, but it traces back to an old noble root from the times of King Danylo. And the whole village is `shliakhta`. Thats why, until the Second World War, we had an unwritten law that someone from a noble family had no moral right to marry a commoner. For example, the neighboring village is called Tekucha. It’s full of fugitives from serfdom. They settled here in the Carpathians because there were always `opryshky` here. In the Carpathians, until the collective farms, no one knew serfdom. We had all sorts of rulers—Poland, Austria—but we never knew serfdom. Why? Because we always beat those landlords and Jewish moneylenders and didnt know what it meant to bow our heads. The Carpathians never learned to bow their heads! And this royal `shliakhta`—even less so. Such is my ancestry.
On my mothers side, there is one particularly special name—Hryts Holynskyi. He is the real brother of my grandfather, my mothers father. A captain of the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen, commander of the formidable Hutsul Kurin [Battalion]. He organized it, joined the corps of Sich Riflemen, and fought throughout the entire war until the retreat to Czechoslovakia. This individual is recorded in the “History of the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen.” He is my great-uncle, my mothers fathers brother—in Eastern Ukrainian, an uncle—a captain of the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen.
So thats my origin, where a person like me came from.
V.V. Ovsiyenko: From the `opryshky`.
M.V. Symchych: Yes, from the `opryshky`.
Schooling
Like all children, I grew up to attend primary school, and later, since our village didnt have a “Ridna Shkola,” which would educate children in a national spirit, I was sent from the 1st grade to a school three villages away, walking 5 km there and back every day. I finished 4 grades there, and then my father died. I stopped going to school because it was a private school and required payment. My mother couldnt afford to pay for me on her own. From 1933 to 1939, I didnt study anywhere, but with the arrival of the Bolsheviks, I enrolled in the Bereziv evening secondary school in a neighboring village. I studied there from 1939 to 1941, until the arrival of the Germans, and for another year during the German occupation.
During that time, with the help of a good school principal, Director Ivan Kuzych, we covered the material up to the 8th grade, which allowed us to take exams. Some even enrolled in gymnasium, while the rest, the majority, went to technical schools in Lviv and Kolomyia. After finishing this 8th grade in Bereziv, I enrolled in the Kolomyia Architectural Technical School, from which I graduated in March 1944.
V.V. Ovsiyenko: And somewhere in your file it says you dreamed of being a Cossack...
M.V. Symchych: Indeed, I had forgotten about that now. But it came back to me—I just mentioned that I walked to a Ridna Shkola three villages away. There, starting from the 2nd grade, we began to study history, and by the 4th grade, we had covered the Princely Era and were studying the Khmelnytsky Uprising, which highlighted all of Khmelnytskys victorious battles. We were little boys, and we wanted to be Cossacks so badly! The village had three schools: one was a state school, one was a “Ridna Shkola,” and one was a Polish school, so chauvinistic that no one but ethnic Poles was admitted. So we, from the “Ridna Shkola,” considered ourselves descendants of the Cossacks, and the Poles our enemies. From time to time, we would set ambushes in the cemetery, jump out with our sabers, which were just sticks, and fight the Poles. But that wasnt enough for me. In one such fight, a much stronger boy attacked me and wanted to beat me. Seeing that I was in a tough spot, I used another weapon. I had a pen with a rusty nib, so I wanted to gouge out my opponent’s eye with a spear. But there was no spear, so I used the pen! I didnt hit the eye, but I struck above it, in the eyebrow, and I drove it in with all my might. The nib broke off in his eyebrow, it got infected, and my father had to pay a hefty sum to the hospital for treatment. For that Cossack escapade of mine, my father gave me a good thrashing, as we almost had to sell a cow to cover all the expenses. As a result, the Polish school complained to the Polish authorities in the district, and I was expelled from school. So I was kicked out of school for a whole three months.
Thanks to my great-uncle, Hryts Holynskyi, I was reinstated in school. Great-uncle Hryts Holynskyi was a former captain of the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen, commander of the Carpathian Kurin. He had authority and managed to get me accepted back (because it was considered hooliganism—I, for my part, didnt think I was being a hooligan, but thought I was continuing the Cossack cause...). Subsequently, at my great-uncles request, I was allowed to return to my studies and finished the fourth grade. After that 4th grade, my father died.
Ill say one more thing about my Cossack phase. When the events in Zakarpattia were unfolding in 1938 and 1939, we had one or two newspapers in our village. People from all over the area would gather to listen: one person would read aloud, and everyone else would listen. I also sat with the men and listened intently. Then a thought struck me: why are we just reading and listening? We should gather a band and go fight the Poles. Because there, on our border, when the Zakarpattian war was going on, the Poles brought in their troops to block Stanislav Oblast from Zakarpattian Oblast. So I tried to persuade the men: Lets organize a good band and go help the Zakarpattians, break through the Polish border. Well, all the men agreed with me that we should, nodding their heads, but they decided they didnt have enough strength, that nothing would come of it. This was my first thought of organizing a Cossack force, of organizing our own armed force with which we could fight, not cry.
So, in 1933 my father, Vasyl Mykolayovych Symchych, died. He was born in 1901, and my mother, Paraska Mykhailivna Halynska, born in 1905, died eight years ago, in 1992. I cant say for sure what year they married, but I know I was born a twin there were two of us, but after a year we both fell ill with typhoid fever. I survived, but my brother couldnt withstand the fever and died. I was left as an only child to my parents, and I remained an only son as long as my father lived. After my father died, my mother remarried and had another child, a girl, my sister Yulia.
As Ive already said, my mothers father and Hryts Holynskyi, the commander of the Hutsul Kurin, were two brothers. I was raised under his influence, and with what he instilled in my soul, I have gone through my entire life, to this very day. My physical strength is gone, but my moral strength remains, and I believe God will help me until the last minute, as they say, until my last breath.
I have no relatives left now. This Hryts Holynskyi had two brothers, Fedir and Dmytro, but the Germans shot them. And the great-uncle himself, the captain, commander of the Hutsul Kurin, was shot by the Bolsheviks right here near Frankivsk in Demianiv Laz. His skull was only found now, during the excavations. And how was it identified? It was quite simple. Somewhere on the eastern front, when the Sich Riflemen went to take Kyiv, a piece of his skull was torn off by Bolshevik shrapnel, and surgeons patched that skull with a platinum plate, sewing the skin over it. He lived like that until he fell into the hands of the Bolsheviks. When they were excavating, they found a skull with a platinum plate.
For the most part, all my relatives were simple peasants. For example, Hryts Holynskyis father was also a simple peasant, he ran a farm, but he was conscious and managed to have his son graduate from the Kolomyia gymnasium. From the gymnasium, when the First World War began, he went into the Austrian army, and from there he transferred to the Corps of Sich Riflemen and rose to the rank of captain. I wont tell the history of the Hutsul Kurin—its well-known to everyone theres even a special book, The Hutsul Kurin, and in the History of the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen, theres a lot mentioned about my great-uncle. After the Bolsheviks came for the first time, I enrolled in night school. I already said we covered the material up to the eighth grade, and with this knowledge, I passed the entrance exams for the Kolomyia Architectural Technical School, and I graduated from it in 1944, right before the front line arrived. We passed the exams for the final year in such a rush because the Bolsheviks were pressing so hard that some fled to Lviv, while others managed to pass them here in Kolomyia.
In the Officers School
From here, after graduating from the technical school, I immediately went into the underground. But back in the fall of 1943, when the Kovpaks [Soviet partisans] arrived, I received an assignment to join the first `kurin` [battalion], which was then called not UPA, but UNS—Ukrainian National Self-Defense. It was above Kosmach, in the Yabluniv Raion, village of Kosmach. I was there until the second battle, until the German attack. After that, the district commander, Orel, sent me back to Kolomyia to conduct reconnaissance and provide him with direct information about what was happening here. Because after the second battle of Kosmach, the entire `kurin` retreated to Chorniy Lis, but one platoon under Skuba was turned back, and Skuba organized a company out of it, so it was necessary to have fresh intelligence from here, from Kolomyia, about what was going on. So I was here until March, until the Bolsheviks came again. Then I reported to district commander Orel, who sent me to Skuba, and Skuba, in the spring, after Easter, sent me to the officers school, which was organized near Kosmach at Zavayaly.
I graduated from this school in 1944 and received the rank of platoon leader, because they didnt award us degrees then, only ranks. What does a rank mean? It’s the position you have the right to hold after graduating from the school. Because not everyone was given the rank of platoon leader—some were made squad leaders, some standard-bearers, and so on. I received the rank of platoon leader and was assigned to the Bukovynian Kurin. There I ended up in Kryhas company, where I stayed almost until Philips Fast, until late autumn 1944. Later, at the request of company commander Moroz, I was transferred by our command to the Yabluniv Raion, to Morozs company.
Moroz, seeing me as a boy who had gone through military training, immediately entrusted me with training the company. At that time, we had many boys, a lot of human material, but no one was trained in military affairs. It was necessary to teach them marksmanship, field service, guard duty, and at least a little topography so they could orient themselves. An army had to be organized in a hurry. For a soldier to be even somewhat effective, he needs to have some orientation. So I took up training the company, and after the training, we went on a raid to the Sniatyn and Zabolotiv districts.
Against the Destroyer Battalions
During the time we were in the Carpathians, the Bolsheviks managed to organize all sorts of destroyer battalions. Their own forces were still busy at the front, so they organized these destroyer groups here from all sorts of dregs to fight against us.
So we went on a raid here and in one night routed all of Sniatyn Raion and Zabolotiv Raion, broke up some collective farms, and plundered warehouses wherever we found them. Everything we plundered from the Bolsheviks was sent to Kosmach, which was our base of operations, and we ourselves went on a raid into Bukovyna, because the whole of Bukovynian Podillia was similarly infested with all sorts of destroyer battalion posts. The population was so intimidated that when we arrived, people knew they were supposed to say Glory to Ukraine! but didnt dare to say it—they would say: Glory to your Ukraine! To lift the national spirit a little, to show that we too had strength, we went through all of Bukovyna and returned to the Carpathians through Bukovyna.
We never returned to Galicia from Chernivtsi Oblast but went into the Carpathians—to the Berehomet Raion of Chernivtsi Oblast. I dont remember the names of the villages precisely now much time has passed. During the operation in Bukovyna, we destroyed all the posts of the `strybky` [members of the destroyer battalions], the local authorities, and even one coal mine that the Bolsheviks had started to organize. We scattered and destroyed all of it. Then, after resting in the mountains... And why did we decide to rest in the mountains? Because in the mountains, its difficult for the Bolsheviks to reach us. On the Podillia plain, they can quickly surround us with vehicles from all sides, but you cant surround us in the mountains, because there, both the partisan and the Bolshevik have to cover the territory on foot, on equal terms.
The Battle for the “Banderite Capital,” Kosmach
Then, just before the Christmas holidays of 1944–1945, we moved to Kosiv Raion, on the Galician side, to the village of Biloberizka. We celebrated the holidays there, and after the holidays, we received an order to head towards Kosmach. On the way from Biloberizka to Kosmach, there is a hamlet called Shypit. Its now a separate village, but back then it was a hamlet, part of Brustury, I believe. We approached that Brustury from one side of the village, and from the other side, from Zhabye, a battalion of border guards approached. They didnt notice us, and the Bolsheviks decided to spend the night in that hamlet of Brustury. We saw them approach, so we didnt enter the village but stopped in the thickets on the approach to the village. We stayed there overnight, and at dawn, we completely surrounded the hamlet and started to pound that battalion.
You know, the border guard units werent just made up of randomly drafted people. They were mainly Komsomol members, raised in the Bolshevik spirit. Theres a big difference between NKVD troops, border troops, and the regular Soviet Army. And why? Because in the army, nobody really tried to fight for ideological reasons, except for a few individuals. But in the border detachments, in the internal troops—here, the people were hand-picked, ideologically prepared by the Bolsheviks, and it was hard to fight them.
So, we fought this border battalion for a whole day. Towards evening, they tried to break through, and in one spot, on Hontas companys sector, they did manage to break through. At that time, I was commanding a platoon in the Berezivska company and received an order from the company commander to close that breach. I left two squads in my position, so they wouldnt break through here as well, took two squads, went on the attack, and closed the breach. We caught up with those who broke through, and from there—maybe I didnt notice, but in my opinion, not a single one escaped, because they were retreating towards the riverbank across an open field, and they were all clearly visible on the white snow, so they were picked off there, every last one of them.
But during that time, company commander Moroz was seriously wounded in the shoulder. In the collarbone, I dont remember which one now—right or left. I think the right, but that might not be accurate. At that time, company commander Moroz was commanding the `kurin`, because our `kurin` commander, Lisovyi, who was a native of the eastern oblasts, more precisely from Chernihiv Oblast, had been summoned to the command post in Kosmach, so Moroz, the commander of the first company, took his place. So Moroz handed over command of the `kurin` to me to finish the battle, while he himself withdrew deeper to get bandaged. By dusk, we had liquidated this entire battalion.
What did they do? For the first time in my life, I saw how those Bolshevik border guards, to prevent us from getting the captured weapons of their dead soldiers, would drag everyone into houses, fill the house with corpses, and burn it. They fried themselves right before my eyes... That stench of human flesh, the smoke—that’s when I saw what it was. It was only then that I began to understand what a Russian man is. Because among our people, in all my life, I had never heard or seen anyone capable of burning each other. They burned their own corpses and everything they could gather. The terrain there was varied—some parts were densely wooded, others were covered in thickets, so maybe some wounded or dead were left unburned in the thickets, but we dont know that, because in the evening we received an order to go to Kosmach.
We arrived in Kosmach—and it was full of our troops, right after the holidays, they hadnt yet dispersed on raids. The whole village was packed with our companies and `kurins`. There was no room for us, so we were ordered to go from Kosmach about 17-20 km to the village of Bereziv. We withdrew to Bereziv to rest after those raids, to replenish our ammunition, because during the raid we had used up all our supplies, and there was little ammunition left. And almost everyones clothes were torn, and our shoes were of various kinds. Mostly, the footwear was bad, so we needed to change, fix things up a bit, patch ourselves up and rest.
But we didnt get to rest for long. Two days later, on the third day, an order came for our company to go to Rushir to set up an ambush, which we did. We hadnt even fully dressed, but one thing we managed to do was to replenish our ammunition, our combat supplies, so we had something to shoot with.
By the time Moroz was wounded in Shypit, before leaving for Bereziv, the command had sent company commander Yurko from Kosmach—a young boy who had come from Podillia, unfamiliar with the tactics of fighting in mountainous conditions with all the broken and rugged terrain. We stopped about three or four kilometers before the ambush site, and he saw that a place for the ambush needed to be chosen, but he was inexperienced in the mountains. He called me over and said: Kryvonis,—and by that time I already had two years of military experience, of fighting in the mountains—you were born in the mountains yourself, you have experience, take command. I think he entrusted it to me because in the previous battle, where he himself was wounded, company commander Moroz wasnt afraid to entrust me with the whole `kurin`. That is, he saw that I could handle it. He said: Take over the `kurin`, because you know the men, how to deploy them. I dont know how to position men in their respective positions. You need to know who is capable of what.
You cant make a mistake here. Because one soldier may fight well in defense, but its hard to send him on the offensive, while another is hot-headed. This one gets nervous in defense. So you need to know what each squad leader, platoon leader is capable of you need to deploy them in a way that avoids any mistakes. He said: You know the men, you know your way around the mountains—take charge, choose the ambush site, and command. We didnt know if they would come or not. They could have advanced on the road we were waiting for them on, or they could have taken another road. Take the responsibility, take command, and lead the battle.
What did I do? We moved into an area where a road runs along the bottom, with mountain slopes on both sides and, at a bend where the river turns, there is a bridge. And near that river is a small plateau, convenient for taking up positions. So our combat positions formed a horseshoe shape. This allowed us to let the Bolsheviks into an almost complete sack. To prevent them from retreating, I assigned two machine guns to cover the road from behind. We waited for them there after midnight—but they didnt come.
Meanwhile, major battles were raging in Kosmach for the so-called Banderite capital. I have described this battle in detail in my article The Battle for the Banderite Capital, which I can provide. Kosmach at that time, as Ive already mentioned, was the operational base for our detachment of the Kolomyia district. Thats why the Bolsheviks called this village the Banderite capital. We would go there to rest, to be reinforced with men, weapons, and food. Back in the autumn of 1944, Skubas `kurin` had attacked Kolomyia and held it for three days. During that time, all the warehouses were emptied and the contents transported to Kosmach. The Bolsheviks tried to pursue them, but their pursuit was crushed, and they couldnt take Kosmach until 1945, until after this battle. Our units always guarded Kosmach in such a way that they never let the Bolsheviks get there. In connection with this, I think, the Bolsheviks named it our Banderite capital. But ever since autumn, when Kolomyia was plundered, they had been threatening us, saying they would come to celebrate Christmas with us. That is, they would come to liquidate us there. We were prepared for this, but they didnt come for Christmas.
They came later, after the Christmas holidays—I dont remember the exact date now. Sometime around January 17, 1945. But it could have been the 19th... Between January 14th and 19th. And what happened? The place was full of our troops, but we didnt want to engage in battle in the village, so the village wouldnt burn. So we withdrew from the village. On the outskirts of Kosmach, in a wooded area, the Bolsheviks entered triumphantly: they expected resistance, but here there was none. They relaxed a bit, and then Vanka started to have his fun: robbing people, raping women, and so on, what they were good at—no need to describe it, everyone knows.
When the Bolsheviks relaxed, our units surrounded Kosmach and started hitting them, but no longer from inside the village. They started to defend themselves, and the battle raged for three days without a break. Having used up all their ammunition, they sent a radiogram to the division headquarters in Stanislav, asking for reinforcements, because they were on the verge of capitulating. But our intelligence intercepted this radiogram. They were told from Stanislav that help was on its way. Our command decided not to let the reinforcements through.
The Rout of the Punishers
So, our command immediately set up blockades on the three sides from which Kosmach could be approached. One approach was possible via the highway from Kolomyia to Yabluniv, which goes to Kosmach. A second approach was towards Mykulychyn from Stanislav, and from there one could get close to Kosmach by railway. A third possible approach was from Zhabye, where the border guard posts were coming from. So, blockades were sent to all possible approaches to prevent the Bolsheviks from getting help, and to allow our troops who were there to finish them off.
And so it happened. From the other two directions, from Mykulychyn and Zhabye, no relief came—apparently, they had no available reserves there at that time. The division commander, General Sergiy Dergachov, went to rescue the encircled men in Kosmach with his regiment—and he happened to go through Kolomyia, right here, where our company was. Thats where we caught him.
I will now describe in detail how it happened. We set up an ambush in a horseshoe formation and camouflaged ourselves. A big help in this was that it was snowing heavily. We sat in the ambush, having checked our camouflage twice, so that, God forbid, no one would discover us there. Because premature detection would have certainly led to our defeat. Because there were many of them, and few of us. If the first vehicles that approached had spotted us, then even if we had struck them, there were so many behind them that they could have flanked and surrounded us. It would have turned out that they were not in our ambush, but we were in theirs. So we camouflaged ourselves very carefully and waited.
The frost was biting, 17 degrees Celsius or even more—the beech trees were cracking from the cold. We were frozen, numb, but we waited—and nothing, no one. Nothing. It had already dawned, the sun was beginning to rise—nothing. The sun was up—nothing. We waited impatiently. Only when the sun was high, as we say in the Carpathians, like a good poker, we heard the roar of engines—oh, thank God, theyre coming!
The roar of the vehicles grew closer and closer. I gave the order via liaison to prepare for battle. The boys prepared for battle, set up the machine guns. Just as they set up the machine guns, all weapons ready—we saw a single truck appear at the front. And here, where we had set the ambush, there was a small bridge at a turn. What did we do? We didnt blow up the bridge, to avoid an explosion, because Yabluniv was not far and they could have heard a mine explosion and guessed that someone was there. We dismantled that wooden bridge by hand, scattered the parts. And the first truck slammed right into the dismantled bridge over the ravine. Apparently, their reconnaissance hadnt reported that the bridge was gone, and it couldnt have been otherwise, because we had dismantled it just a couple of hours before they arrived.
The truck stopped right at the edge of the bridges ravine, followed by a second, then a third, a fourth pulled up, and behind the fourth—a passenger car. We understood that someone from the command was in the passenger car. Who was in there—God only knows. That car also stopped. Twelve Studebakers arrived, fully loaded with Chekists, packed like herrings in a barrel.
And how do I know they were Chekists? Because in 1968, when I was taken in for re-investigation, it was revealed who they were: it was a regiment from a punitive division commanded by Sergiy Dergachov. Who was he? Before the war, he worked in the Kremlin guard. He was sent to the Finnish War, returned from there as a Hero of the Soviet , and was made a Major General. He was the one who led the punitive division that deported the Crimean Tatars, Chechens, and Ingush. He deported the Tatars, and then the Chechens and Ingush, but they didnt disband this division. It was fully manned and sent to us in the Carpathians to destroy our underground.
So thats who General Dergachov was, the one who fell into our hands—I learned the details of this in 1968. Because in 1945, we set an ambush, killed a lot of Bolsheviks there, but didnt know whom. And I myself, during the investigation in 1948, when I was caught, didnt confess that it was my work. I was caught alone, there were no accomplices, I was the only one in the case, and God helped me withstand the torture: I didnt betray anyone or anything. Where I could, I took everything upon myself so as not to involve anyone else, and completely denied the rest, even though I knew I wasnt telling the truth, and they knew it too, but what could they do? They beat me, one could say, to death, but I withstood those tortures...
But well continue the conversation about the investigation later for now, Ill finish this account of the battle—the greatest success of my life.
So the passenger car pulled up, followed by the others, and in total, 12 trucks arrived. I gave the command not to fire without an order, because if we opened fire on the head or the middle of the column, the rear could turn around and flank us. But our nerves held, we waited until they had all gathered together, bunched up—it seemed the Lord God himself had packed them together for our benefit. When the last truck arrived, I gave the command: Fire! The boys opened fire with such intensity! Even today, when I just recall it—it was worse than any hell. And why? Because our company was quite well-armed, with 22 light machine guns, a regimental mortar, about two dozen submachine guns, about fifteen semi-automatic rifles, and the rest were bolt-action rifles. We had grenades. When we let loose with that volley of fire, they darted this way and that, but surrounded on all sides, there was nowhere to go. They rushed to the left—and were hit by those on the right and those on the left. They rushed to the right—and were hit by everyone again. They rushed forward—they were hit from the front backward—the road was also blocked by two machine guns. They had nowhere to go, so they lay down and began to return fire. But our fire was so intense that we didnt let them raise their heads.
I think it was in 1991 that Vasilevsky published an article in a Lviv newspaper about this battle, and an officer who was in that battle responded to his article. He wrote to Mr. Vasilevsky that he had given incorrect information about that battle. And Vasilevsky said that it might be incorrect, because its war—things happen. He said, not 200 men were killed, as Symchych reported, but 370, and another fifty were seriously wounded and shell-shocked. They were taken to Kolomyia and Stanislav and died in hospitals.
And in total, as written in my criminal case file, 405 people died, including the commander of the punitive division, Sergiy Dergachov, about whom I have already told you. This division was specially organized from Komsomol members, mostly from those Asian nations.
Wounding
The battle lasted about two hours. In two hours, we ground them down there, until there were none left. But during this battle, I was wounded in my right arm—an explosive bullet shattered my right arm above the elbow. So that the boys wouldnt see that I was wounded (because when a commander falls wounded in battle, the fighting spirit falls), I took my `kozhukh` (a Russian border guard sheepskin coat I had) and tied the sleeve at the bottom, so the blood wouldnt run down and be visible, and I didnt tell anyone that I was wounded, in order to see the battle through to the end. And just before the end of the battle—I cant say whether it was from blood loss or, perhaps, from nervous tension—I lost consciousness as I was moving to another position. Because one has to monitor the entire battle, and you cant see everything from one spot—I was moving from one position to another and I fell. I remember my legs somehow gave out from under me, they wouldnt hold me, and I fell. The boys then realized what was wrong with me, ran over, dragged me to a safe place, and started to lead me out of the battle to a quiet spot to give me some kind of bandage. They bandaged me, took me aside, and company commander Yurko gave the order to retreat.
Thats how this battle ended. We crushed that entire regiment there. Of course, some remained alive, but there were bodies lying on top of bodies. It was hard to make sure not a single one survived. A few remained alive, but 405 men died, including the seriously wounded who later died in hospitals.
After this, I was under treatment for two months. We had a decent surgeon from Bukovyna and a female doctor who was the wife of the regional commander, Robert. I dont remember clearly now if she was Roberts wife or Mytars wife. The two of them set my arm, put the bones back together so that I still have my arm today, splinted it with boards, and it started to heal after two months. But when I was wounded, I went without a proper dressing for a long time, so the wound was a bit neglected, as they didnt do a good job on the move. By the time I got to a place where they could set my bones, three days had passed, and the arm had started to turn black. The doctor said it was probably gangrene and the arm needed to be amputated, or I would die. I thought to myself that if I were to live as a partisan without an arm, what good would I be—better to die with an arm than to live without one. Because with only my left arm, I would be of no value to a combat unit. I thought, its better that I die.
I was once staying in the village of Kryshori in Yabluniv Raion with a certain man, and he told me: Son, I see your arm is turning black—thats trouble! Steam it in `tryna`. And what is `tryna`? Hutsuls feed their cattle hay, and in the hay, there are these little flowers. So he advised me to steam my arm in `tryna` and said it would help. I thought, when a person is in trouble, theyll clutch at a straw. Let me give it a try—maybe it will help? The man went and gathered some `tryna` for me from the cows manger, steamed it in a large pot, they made a kind of bath for me, I steamed my arm once, and I felt a sort of lightness. Then a second time the next day, then a third—and that man, without any surgeons, saved my arm. It started to get paler and paler and finally, after two months, it healed. After that, I was in treatment for over two months and my arm recovered.
During that time, company commander Moroz, who, as I mentioned, had been wounded in the shoulder in the previous battle, also recovered. The company commander took over the company, and after this battle, the detachment commander Kozak appointed me as the deputy commander of Morozs company. I served in this position for the entire year of 1945, until Morozs death in the autumn of 1945.
The year 1946 was approaching, winter, and for partisans, winter is a very difficult affair. And what did we do? When there were major dragnets in the Carpathians, in the forests and mountains, we would relocate to Podillia, and when there was trouble in Podillia, we went to the mountains. We discussed how we would survive the winter, where to find refuge. Because our company consisted of about 180 men, and this mass of people had to be fed and quartered somewhere, so we had to think ahead. Company commander Moroz and I decided that we needed to go down to the valleys, contact the local organization, the network, the people, get to know the people, and study the terrain in advance, during the summer, before winter came. So that when winter arrived and we relocated to the valleys, we would know where to go and what was what, and not arrive in unfamiliar, unaccustomed territory.
I went with a small group to the area here, to Horodenka Raion, to Obertyshyn. In the village of Tyshkivtsi, I received news from Bereziv that company commander Moroz had fallen. I received this news by chance—a man from Bereziv was passing through Tyshkivtsi. He used to travel through villages exchanging bread for apples, and he told me that company commander Moroz had fallen. I immediately decided to return to the Carpathians, to the company. Because at that time I had been appointed deputy commander of the company. I was in Horodenka Raion, and the company in the Carpathians was left without a commander, so I decided to return as quickly as possible to prevent the company from falling apart.
We returned from Horodenka Raion to the Carpathians. At that time, our detachment commander Kozak and a representative from the regional command, from Shukhevych—Dzvinchuk—were also in the Carpathians. I dont know his real name that was his nickname. During my absence and Morozs non-existence, Pidhirskyi was appointed commander of the company. A few days later, I fell ill with relapsing fever. The company remained under the command of Pidhirskyi. The relapsing fever kept me down for a long time. Its the kind of fever where after a month and a half or two months, the temperature drops for a few days, as if youve started to recover, but then it returns again. It recurred three times for me, so I was bedridden until the spring of 1946.
During the period I was ill with fever, Pidhirskyi failed to hold the company together—the company was broken up during the winter. Those who fell, fell, but the scattered fighters did not surrender to the Bolsheviks, but hid wherever they could.
As Commander of the Berezivska Company
In the spring of 1946, when I had recovered from the fever, the district commander Borys and the detachment commander Kozak summoned me to reassemble the scattered company that Pidhirskyi had failed to hold. But they looked at me and saw my physical condition—skin and bones, the winter had dried me out so much—so commander Borys told me to take another month off to rest, to regain some strength so I could reassemble the company. Its easy to say in two words, reassemble the company, but to reassemble it, you have to walk, to search, you need to be physically healthy, which I still lacked at the time.
I went for another months rest, and a month later I returned and was appointed by commander Kozak and the district leader to replace company commander Moroz as the commander of the Berezivska Company of the Carpathian Kurin. But I was appointed commander of a company that no longer existed. The company had been broken up it needed to be reassembled. I carried out the order within a month, a month and a half at most I dont remember the exact days and dates now. I gathered all the fighters who had previously been part of the Berezivska company, and even some from other companies that had been broken up earlier but whose members had not surrendered, and I restored the company. It was called the Berezivska company because most of the boys in it were from three villages—Vyzhnyi, Nyzhnii, and Serednii Bereziv, and a fourth, Bania Bereziv. And the commander of this company was also from Bereziv, Dmytro Negrych—Moroz. And the deputy was also from Bereziv. Thats why our Leadership also named it Berezivska. That was then the Yabluniv Raion, now the Kosiv Raion. The Bolsheviks later enlarged the districts. During the war, the districts were small, to make it easier for them to administer they had a dense network of their authorities that put pressure on the people, and after the war, it cost a lot of money, so they enlarged them to reduce expenses. Thats my opinion.
So, by the autumn of 1946, I had gathered the company and began to operate with it, carrying out several ambushes against the Bolsheviks. But autumn was approaching, and we needed to prepare for winter, so we ceased combat operations in the fall and began to prepare winter hideouts, supplies, clothing, gasoline for cooking food in the hideouts, started buying primus stoves, and so on—in short, we were preparing for winter. And we overwintered very well: throughout the entire winter of 1946 to 1947, we did not lose a single fighter there were no casualties. There was never such a successful winter, neither before nor after.
We had a custom that in the spring, after wintering, there were so-called dispatches—the high command would come down to inspect how the men had come out of the winter. Because we werent the only ones wintering in the Carpathians—at that time there were four other companies here. Mine—I can now rightly call it mine, as I reassembled it—and there was Bylyis company, Vykhors company, Spartans, and Yurkos. But in the spring, the same Dzvinchuk came again for an inspection.
I remember word for word my last conversation with the regional Commands representative Dzvinchuk in the autumn of 1946. He gathered the five of us company commanders of the Berezivska Company—Bylyi, Vykhor, Spartan, and Yurko—and announced: “Boys, the days of bravura campaigns are over. We are going deep underground due to the fact that after Churchills speech in Fulton, there is no hope for any imminent clash between the West and the East. We are going deep underground for long decades, a minimum of 40-50 years, until the next war resolves our issue. And we, as Ukrainians, must show the world that Ukraine fought, Ukraine is fighting, and Ukraine will continue to fight for its independence until complete victory, that we are a nation-state and we will not retreat from this. And to prove this, we must preserve our manpower, which would continue to act, for as long as possible. So, boys, preserve your manpower. We are going deep underground for many years and will fight to the end.”
V.V. Ovsiyenko: Please tell me, when Dzvinchuk said that after Churchills speech in Fulton, the situation was such that the West would not confront the East, what were your feelings? Was there not a state of hopelessness in your soul and among your comrades?
M.V. Symchych: To fight to the end meant that we were to be martyrs, fighting for history. Before that, he had said that anyone who was not capable of such actions could leave.
None of us even thought of leaving we understood who we were, what we were, and what we were for. Before that, we had various thoughts, but no such concrete, official statement had been made from above. When they told us this in 1946, we accepted it consciously. We tried to somehow legalize all the rank-and-file members who were ill. We forged documents, sent them to distant regions. We saved people who couldnt fight. The chosen ones remained, because by 1946, all those who were weak in spirit or body had been weeded out only the healthy remained. We decided to die rather than disgrace our Motherland, and thereby carry our history forward for future generations.
V.V. Ovsiyenko: And there were also appeals from the Soviet government, signed by Khrushchev and others, for you to come out of the underground and legalize yourselves.
M.V. Symchych: There were many such appeals. I dont know about other oblasts and districts, but in our district—here there are three districts: Bukovyna, Stanislav, and Kolomyia—almost no one responded to those appeals. How did we respond to their calls to surrender? We responded with attacks on their garrisons and beat them. Thats how we surrendered.
Dzvinchuk then said that we would now try to disperse throughout all territories, operating in small groups, preserving as many people as possible, and not getting drawn into prolonged battles. But since in Bukovyna, from 1945 to 1946 and from 1946 to 1947, we had suffered heavy casualties and few people remained, we had to, at all costs, morally uplift the people and make the Bolsheviks feel our presence we had to raise Bukovyna. An operational-propaganda raid was necessary.
The Bukovinian Raid
The choice for this Bukovynian raid in 1947 fell to our Berezivska company. But since the company was no longer as large as it once was, with over two hundred men, but numbered only 45 or 46 men, they gave me another platoon from Yurkos company for reinforcement. I received orders to raid from the Carpathians all the way through Bukovyna and return. To conduct an operational-propaganda raid. Everywhere possible, in the villages, we were to hold rallies, meetings, to speak and explain the situation to the people, so they wouldnt lose heart, and to physically disperse the destroyer battalions, which were organized in almost every village. So that the population would see that our underground was still holding on, that we still had people in the underground, and that we were continuing the fight.
I traveled all over Bukovyna from the Carpathians almost to Bessarabia, and returned in early August to the Carpathians, to this same Kosiv Raion, then Yabluniv Raion. And we began preparations for the winter. It was necessary to find a place to build hideouts, because you could never spend two winters in the same hideout, because during the summer—who knows—some people walk in the forest for mushrooms, others were foresters, and foresters were very often recruited. Anyone who tried to winter in the same bunker for a second time could be discovered by someone, and the people there could perish. So we built hideouts in fresh locations. We began winter preparations by searching for a place for a hideout, finding materials, and again, finding food. And the same old song repeated every autumn, every year.
V.V. Ovsiyenko: And were there any clashes, any battles during that campaign?
M.V. Symchych: There were battles, because even if you didnt want them, you couldnt get from the Carpathians to Bessarabia and from Bessarabia back to the Carpathians without the Bolsheviks noticing us somewhere. We had a dozen or so battles. I remember the village of Karabchiv—we had a battle there. I think you wont hold it against me too much that after more than fifty years Ive forgotten the names of those villages... I remember that there were coal mines there, in Bukovyna. We attacked those mines, destroyed them. And the mines had their own food and clothing warehouses, so we distributed the supplies from those mines to the hungry people. There was a village called Chereshenka right at the foot of the Carpathians—there was a battle there too. In total, there were over a dozen battles. We dispersed many of those `yastrebky` [destroyer battalion] posts without much difficulty. In one of the battles, I lost two fighters. One was captured, seriously wounded, Petro Lutsenko, and squad leader Vasyl Syniatovych, nickname Boytor, was seriously wounded in the leg, but somehow managed to break away from the Bolsheviks, so I left him with a local sympathizer to recover. He returned after some time, but again got caught in a dragnet and was killed there. So we lost two fighters on this raid, but all the rest returned alive and well. The mission was fully accomplished. We prepared for the winter of 1947-1948 and overwintered well again.
V.V. Ovsiyenko: And in which areas did you overwinter?
M.V. Symchych: In the Yabluniv Raion, where we were from—where the company was formed. Our hideouts were near several villages—Sloboda, Bania-Berezova, Vyzhnyi Bereziv, and Nyzhnii Bereziv. We didnt go as deep as Hoverla, because although it was safer there, it was difficult to transport provisions, it was a long way to carry them—fifty kilometers or more. It was difficult to secure provisions there for the winter, so we tried to stay closer to our own villages to make it easier to supply ourselves with food.
V.V. Ovsiyenko: You talk about battles, campaigns. But what was your daily life like in the underground? You were living people, after all...
M.V. Symchych: Mr. Vasyl, the rain washed us, and the wind dried us. There were periods during the big dragnets, during those autumn rains, when it would rain and rain—rain today, rain tomorrow. And in the Carpathians, it rains whenever you dont want it to. We were wet, frozen, hungry, and the lice were so thick you didnt have to look for them, you just pulled and pulled and youd have a full handful. Because in such misery, in such want, lice attack people fiercely. I dont know how they sense our misfortune, but when things are a bit easier, theyre not there, but when theres such great hardship, the lice are like in an anthill. And as if that werent enough, typhus started to cut us down—oh, my God!
V.V. Ovsiyenko: Typhus is a disease of periods of great social upheaval.
M.V. Symchych: Eczema tormented us greatly here in the Carpathians. We often forded the Prut and Cheremosh rivers in the winter. You cant go over the bridge, because there are always checkpoints on the bridges bridges were always guarded. The only option was to find a place to cross by wading. And winter is winter—the water in the Cheremosh is cold, and you get your feet so cold... And if only you could get out of the Cheremosh and go straight to a house to warm up, dry off... But youd get your feet wet in the evening and march until morning, because you have to get far away to some quiet place where you can stop for the day. Morning comes—in the forest or in the thicket, you cant build a fire to dry off, because the smoke rises and gives away your location. You walk freezing all night, then you sit all day until by evening youre somewhat dry from your own body heat. In such crossings, those with stronger constitutions could withstand it, but the weaker ones got eczema. Their legs would rot from the feet almost up to the waist—the entire legs covered in eczema. These were purulent sores. Perhaps you dont even know what eczema is? They are such purulent sores. The whole legs in those festering sores...
The March into Hungary
V.V. Ovsiyenko: Were there ever opportunities to go abroad, to emigrate?
M.V. Symchych: I had such an opportunity. And at the very last moment, without any harm to my reputation. We were crossing the front in the autumn of 1946, with a whole `kurin` on the southern stretch of the Carpathians, in that corner where the Hungarian and Romanian borders meet. We had 16 seriously wounded fighters. Taking them with us into the Bolshevik rear was not a sensible option, as we didnt know what we were heading into. These were seriously wounded men—what were we to do with them? To hand them over to the Bolsheviks—no. What did the command decide? At that time, after we had given the Hungarians a thrashing, they sent parliamentarians to us—lets agree that you wont touch us, and we wont touch you. And so we agreed. The Bolsheviks were already coming, we had nothing left to divide. Our command arranged with the Hungarians that they would take our wounded into their hospital and treat them. But that hospital was deep in their territory, so we had to take them there. We loaded 16 horses, saddled them, tied one wounded man to each as best we could, and took them to the Hungarian hospital.
I was entrusted with escorting them. I escorted them there. And I had an order from Colonel Kropyva, who was the highest-ranking officer on our South sector at the time, to this effect: take the men to the hospital, hand them over to the Hungarians, and pass on the documents from our command. If you can, return if you cant, retreat with the Hungarians to the West. So, I could have pretended that I couldnt make it back and retreated.
I had an acquaintance there, Fenrikh, a Hungarian officer, with whom I had gone on combat reconnaissance missions at the front on this sector. He didnt know Ukrainian, I didnt know Hungarian, but he spoke perfect German, and while I wasnt perfect, it was enough for us to communicate in German. And he said to me: Come with me—my father is a capitalist, he owns several large mills, we are financially secure, he said, beautifully, come with me. He hoped that they wouldnt let the Bolsheviks capture Hungary. He said, retreat with us, you will live with me without knowing sorrow. But I refused. I said I joined the UPA not to flee, but to fight.
When we handed over the wounded, I lined up the platoon, there were 45 boys, and explained the order. The order is this: hand over the wounded if we can return—we return, if we cant—we retreat with the Hungarians. Boys, think about what well do—retreat with the Hungarians, or go back? And I explained: I personally joined the UPA to fight for Ukrainian land, for the Ukrainian people, and I have no intention of fleeing from it. I am returning. And you, I said, think it over, I give you ten minutes to think. They started talking amongst themselves, I stepped aside and gave them a chance to think. Then I gave the command: Those in favor of returning—first rank, three steps forward! And all of them—one, two, three—every last one. Second rank, those in favor of returning—three steps forward! The third rank did the same—and again, every last one. Not a single boy even hinted that he wanted to retreat.
And we went, we really went... When we were passing through with the whole `kurin`, we had 16 men seriously wounded and I dont remember well how many killed, but there were no fewer killed either. With such losses, we broke through the front. But on the way back, with just one platoon, I got through without a single shot. I went all the way to Chernivtsi Oblast, through that corner, and conducted reconnaissance the whole time. Because the Bolsheviks were moving from east to west, they had broken through the front and were pushing towards Bulgaria. All those roads were choked with Bolshevik troops. So we picked our way through them, through all sorts of small forests, woods, and steep slopes, heading east, into the Bolshevik rear—and we made it! We wove our way between those troops—we couldnt enter any populated area because they were all full of Muscovites, there was nothing to eat. We were hungry, cold, and unwashed—we arrived barely alive. Without a single shot, without a single loss. Thats how the Lord helped us.
After a week and a half, I was able to contact my `kurin`, which had broken through here, into the Bolshevik rear. We arrived, rested a bit from all that, then contacted the territorial OUN-UPA network, and through it, we contacted our unit.
So if I had wanted to, I could have fled and not returned here to my death—I didnt know if I would even reach my `kurin` or fall along the way. I didnt even know if I would make it to my own people. Such a tide of Muscovites, of those Mongols, was sweeping west, occupying all of Europe...
V.V. Ovsiyenko: From Zakerzonnia, UPA companies did manage to break through abroad...
M.V. Symchych: Because three states—the Muscovites (Russia), Poland, and Czechoslovakia—pounced on that small patch of land. Three states squeezed them, and they couldnt break through here, deep into Ukraine. They broke through wherever they could. And once they broke through into the territory of Czechoslovakia, you couldnt just stop in the middle of Czechoslovakia and set up camp. They had to push further, not because they wanted to, but because circumstances forced them to, as there was nowhere else to go. From there, they broke through into Austria, and there the Americans interned them. Because starting a war with the Americans as well—that made no sense, neither diplomatically nor legally, and would have been completely absurd.
V.V. Ovsiyenko: Yes, because from Lemkivshchyna, Kholmshchyna, and Pidliashshia, the Poles and Russians had deported the entire Ukrainian population, so the partisans had no one to rely on.
M.V. Symchych: Yes, our population was deported from there, so they had absolutely nowhere to go. They went not because they wanted to flee, but because circumstances forced them to. But they did not go in vain. They took all the documents and archives with them, and we now have a lot of history from those documents they carried out. We now have 24 or however many volumes of the UPA Chronicle from that. I have 24 volumes. Now, I believe, 28 have been published, but I dont have the money to buy them. Maybe someday Ill get rich. I kept hoping that if my pension wasnt enough this month, I would save up for the next and buy them. And so, month after month I save, but I havent saved enough yet. But still, someday I must buy all the volumes.
There was never any talk of going abroad from Lviv, Ternopil, Stanislav oblasts, or Bukovyna through Zakarpattia. We decided to lay down our lives on the altar of history, to fight to the end, not to run away. Those who wanted to run away fled in 1944 with the Germans. Those patriots who loved Ukraine from around the corner, they fled into exile and are still playing patriots there, yelling at us that we are doing nothing here, that we are not building Ukraine, but destroying it. But I dont see a single one of them returning from there, from emigration. He used to be afraid of the Bolsheviks. Now the Bolsheviks are gone, he could return and try to build the state with us—no one is coming. Each one has acquired a good estate there, has settled down, has a well-provided-for old age and is living out his days there, raising his grandchildren, but no one is coming here to build Ukraine. Take Sviatoslav Karavansky, for instance. We were in prison together, I know him inside out, as they say. Hes such a great patriot, but hes not coming here.
V.V. Ovsiyenko: Well, he is engaged in linguistics there. He compiles good dictionaries...
M.V. Symchych: We have plenty of scholars to compile dictionaries, but there is no one to build the state. I dont excuse him at all for compiling dictionaries there. To hell with his dictionaries! There are people here for that, we have more linguists and scholars of all kinds than we need, but we have no state-builders. And he should be among those who build the state. The dictionaries can wait another ten or twenty years, but if we wait ten or twenty years to build the state, we could lose it forever. Thats what I think. I have no praise for those who are writing dictionaries today but not building the state. You can write dictionaries in fifty years and it wont be too late, but if we mess up the state, in fifty years no one will give us the chance to build it again. We will be plundered. The state must be built today, and the dictionary can be written tomorrow.
But weve gotten a bit ahead of ourselves.
The Last Battle
In the spring of 1948, a new order came: to break up into small groups and prepare to transition to territorial work. Some could work in security, others in propaganda—we had to sort people according to their abilities, to replenish the territorial organizational network: to assign people to propaganda, security, the territorial network. But they had to be prepared for this. People took courses, they prepared. The biggest headache was with the security service, because its a responsible field, especially in underground work. The sub-district security leader Nedobytyi conducted courses in the summer, and from time to time we carried out small combat actions with these groups. And by 1949, our company was supposed to fully transition to territorial work. Because not only ours, but all companies were already transitioning from purely combat operations to general political ones.
In the autumn of 1948, when we were already well prepared for the winter of 1949, a friend and I were walking from the village of Sloboda towards the village of Vyzhniy Bereziv to check on the second group. The night was like tonight—a blizzard. It was good weather to move from one hideout to another, because the snow covers your tracks and no one can see who went where. And why did I check the hideouts from time to time? Because they are living people—someone might get sick, someone might argue with someone else, something else might happen—problems always arise among living people, so the one who leads these people cannot leave them for long without knowing whats going on. So I was moving from one group to another with a friend of mine (named Petro Chernets). As we were walking, a blizzard started, but before morning the snow stopped falling, the wind died down, and that was it—it became clear that we had to stop, because we couldnt leave tracks in the fresh snow leading to the hideout. At dawn, we stayed in a house to wait out the situation until it became clear. No one knew when the next snow would fall.
We sat in the house until one oclock in the afternoon. But at around eleven-thirty, a girl came to the house—the daughter of the landladys sister. She came to her aunts house, not knowing we were there. She talked with her aunt about whatever she needed to, and then got ready to go home. I didnt let her leave the house, because she might tell someone somewhere, and that someone might tell someone else, and it would reach an informer, and the informer would tip them off and we would have a disaster. I didnt want to let her go, but the landlady told me: This is my sisters daughter, I vouch for her as I do for my own house, for all of us. You can be sure—let her go. Nothing terrible can happen. These are people just like us, they wont betray us.
You know what our Ukrainian soul is like? I thought: let her go. The girl left, and an hour or maybe more later—I remember exactly that they surrounded us at one oclock. We started the fight. We fought from one oclock in the afternoon until ten oclock at night.
I cant say to this day whether it was a tip-off from that girl, or maybe she went home and told her mother and father in the house, and they sold us out, or if it was just a coincidence. It was impossible to clarify this matter, because the girls mother went mad and died two years later, her father then died too, and I was in prison for 32 years and 6 months, and in that time, the girl also died. So it remains unresolved to this day who was to blame.
So we defended ourselves. Why did I drag out the fight for so long? Not far away, maybe 4-5 kilometers, I knew that our SB combat group was quartered. So I had hope that we would hold out until evening. The Bolsheviks machine guns were rattling for half a day, and you can hear that for tens of kilometers, not just 4 km, so I hoped that in the evening the boys would come to our rescue. We always did that: if one group was attacked somewhere, if there was another of our groups nearby, we tried to hit the Bolsheviks from behind and thus rescue our own. I thought reinforcements would come for us, so we held on for a long time.
But my comrade was seriously wounded in the abdomen, his spine was severed. And the Bolsheviks really wanted to take us alive they kept shouting: Surrender! Surrender! Nothing will happen to you. But it turned out to be a tip-off, because they were shouting my nickname: Kryvonis, surrender! I think if it had been by chance, they would have just shouted Bandit! My nickname was Kryvonis, and my friends was Chernets. He was seriously wounded, I tied him up with some sheet, shoved him under the bed so a bullet wouldnt reach him, and I defended myself at all four windows of the house, not letting the Bolsheviks get close enough to throw grenades into the house. They saw that we had decided not to surrender, and they set the house on fire from all sides. And a Hutsul house is easy to set on fire: just fire a burst of tracer incendiary bullets at the roof. The house is on fire, smoke has already entered through the windows, the fire is already in the house. And I suffocated in that smoke. But when the Bolsheviks heard that I wasnt shooting, they blackmailed a neighboring man into going into the house. The man dragged us out, suffocated by the smoke. I lay on the snow—I cant determine for how long now, but apparently, I hadnt completely suffocated, because after lying in the fresh air, I came to. When I came to, I understood what had happened to me. I was bound hand and foot. They took both of us, my seriously wounded friend and me, threw us, bound, onto a truck and took us to the district center.
This was on December 4, 1948. My friend died by morning. They brought us there at two or three in the morning, and in the morning, around eight, a truck came from the oblast. Whether they had that truck in the district, I cant say. They threw me, again bound, onto the truck—and straight to the oblast.
Interrogation
They took me to Ivano-Frankivsk (it was called Stanislav then), and immediately took me up to the fourth floor of the KGB building. There, they took me into the office of the KGB chief—a Colonel Saraev. And the head of counterintelligence, Major Furmanchuk. They met me there: Well, hello, Kryvonis! See! And they started talking to me not as an enemy, but as if we were some old acquaintances. With such smiles, with feigned friendliness: At last! You know how well your friends who surrendered to us are living, how well they are set up? And you have delayed for so long!
And they started recruiting me to work for them. I refused. They didnt insist that day, they took me to another room. They kept me in the KGB building like this for a week, without putting me in a cell. Every day they called me in and kept trying to recruit me, kept persuading me that I should start working for them, because they knew I was a good warrior, a good soldier, well-trained, with practical experience, and they needed people like me. He says: Come with us to the regiment, choose a company of soldiers for yourself (now it will be called a company, not a `sotnia`), and it will be an operational company for the destruction of the Banderite underground. Help us destroy the Banderite underground—after that, well send you to the Moscow Military Academy, and youll be a somebody with us! Dont be a fool!
I, of course, refused this. On the last day, I couldnt take it anymore. Because when someone is rough with you, you can also respond roughly, but when they speak to you politely, you cant be rough. I refused, but without any argument. I said I wouldnt go, I didnt want to, and so on. But finally, they pushed me to the point where my nerves couldnt stand it, and I said to Colonel Saraev: Do you really think, Mr. Colonel, that a Ukrainian insurgent could stoop to such villainy as the NKVD? Never! (It was still the NKVD then, not the KGB). He then understood that this was the end, slammed both fists on the table and yelled: Get him out of here right now and give him the Zaporozhian knouts!
And so it began. They immediately took me and started torturing me. They tortured me for about three months. They would take me out of my cell, tie me up... Four huge brutes always came for me. One under one arm, the second under the other, theyd lead me out, tie me up like this—and then with a ramrod on the shins, right here, on these bones. They didnt rush: tap... tap... tap... tap... Well, are you going to talk? I kept silent. Again: tap... tap... tap... They didnt rush. The first day they tapped, it just left bruises. The second day, my legs turned blue. The third day—my legs swelled up like buckets, all blue. When my legs swelled, I no longer felt pain from the blow where they hit, but the pain shot through me like an electric current, striking my heart. They beat me until I was unconscious. When they beat you crudely, its not so bad, but this professional torture... If they had wanted to kill me, they could have, because I was in their hands. But they kept hoping to beat something out of me. And what did they do? To prevent a person from dying, but to extract something from them, they measure the temperature. Because when a person is tortured, their temperature rises. Im tied hand and foot, they stick a thermometer under my arm, measure the temperature. And when the temperature exceeds 41 degrees Celsius and is heading towards 42, when a person is dying, then they stop beating. They carry you away and throw you into the `kartser` [punishment cell]. You lie there in the `kartser` until you regain consciousness, until you recover a little, so they can start torturing you all over again. After lying there for two or three days—and once, I remember, I lay unconscious in the `kartser` for seven days after being tortured. How do I know it was seven days? Because in the `kartser` youre supposed to get 200 grams of bread and 14 grams of sugar per day. Although I was unconscious, I was still entitled to my ration. There was a little nightstand there, and on that nightstand, every day the guard who brought the food would place 200 grams of bread and 14 grams of sugar. So later, when I came to my senses, I counted seven rations of bread and seven rations of sugar. This means I had been lying there unconscious for seven days, as I had no other way of keeping a calendar. No one would tell you anything, how long I lay there, whether anyone came and looked at me or not—God only knows, you know nothing.
During such tortures, what was I thinking? “Dear Lord, help me to die with honor!” Because there was no thought of life then, not a word about life. There was only one issue: to endure, to die with honor. Because to drag even one person into the investigation, and that one person might not endure and betray someone else—and so it would go down the chain, and everything would be exposed. And many of our people had relatives, had families, some of whom had been discovered, and some not—this would have dragged in a mass of people.
During the investigation, they brought me as an example of someone who had already repented—the former sub-district head of the security service, Oles. He had been caught and had made a compromise with them. So they brought him to show me: look, they said, your former friend, and see how well weve set him up—they brought him for a confrontation with me, and the investigator said: Oh, you two are old colleagues, Ill leave you to chat, Im going out.
He left, closed the door, left the two of us alone. When he came out, I said to him: Oles, why have you come here—do you think its not bad enough for me without you, that you had to come too? He looked at me and said: Kryvonis, what I did—I had my reasons for it, but you do as you see fit. And I told him: Fine, then you get out of here! He turned and left, and I havent seen him to this day.
The last time I was lying in the `kartser`, having regained consciousness but still unable to get up, with no strength, I heard a key scraping in the door, the door opened, and some general appeared, a man in a papakha hat. I saw that general, he looked at me. I lay there silently, because I couldnt even turn over, I just turned my head a little. He looked at me. I must have looked... I cant even tell you myself what I looked like... And behind that general stood the prison warden. He glanced over his shoulder at the prison warden and asked: Что с ним? [Whats with him?] And the warden just shrugged and said nothing. That general must have understood, he turned back, the guard closed the door, he left, and I remained. I lay there for a long time after that. They had beaten me so badly by then that I dont remember now how much longer I lay there before they took me for questioning again.
But after that incident, they never tortured me again. I dont know if that had an effect, maybe he was some kind of supervising prosecutor, or who knows. To this day, I dont know who he was. Or maybe they themselves became convinced that they would get nothing out of me and stopped beating me, and instead started writing down whatever I answered to their questions. And if they wrote something different from what I said, I wouldnt sign the protocols.
The Trial
And shortly after that, the investigation ended, and the case was sent to court. On March 13, 1949, I was summoned to court, and they gave me 25 years of ITL (Corrective Labor Camps) and 5 years of disenfranchisement. I was then taken to the section for convicted prisoners. I never returned to my interrogation cell.
At that very time, the death penalty had been abolished—otherwise, I would not have escaped the firing squad. There was no doubt about it. There was no death penalty from 1947 until 1950, approximately until March or maybe April. I was already in Kolyma when the Korean-American war began, between South and North Korea—then the Soviet reintroduced the supreme measure of punishment.
I was tried under two articles—54-1a and 11, which is treason to the Motherland. The trial lasted no more than 10-15 minutes. What was good for me at the trial? My first criminal case was very short—I was caught alone, my friend and comrade had died, there was no one to confuse things for me. God gave me the strength not to say anything. They threw a lot of accusations at me, but I denied them. And there were no witnesses—it was very difficult to find witnesses back then. So, there were no witnesses, my case was very small—just one small volume. So they sentenced me in about 15 minutes. They formally read it out, because they had everything prepared in advance: 25 and 5—and get out.
V.V. Ovsiyenko: So what did they end up charging you with? That battle, perhaps?
M.V. Symchych: No, that battle wasnt mentioned. They charged me with attending the military officers school, that I was a cadet there in the underground. It was located in the village of Snidavka near Kosmach, now in Kosiv Raion. I didnt tell them the truth, that I joined the UPA in 1943. I said it was only in the spring of 1944, when the school started. I couldnt hide the school, because there was a Colonel Kropyva, our schools commandant, whom they had captured alive, and he told them about all the cadets, including me. Even though I denied it, there was already a witness, so they recorded it in my file. And, well, my participation in the UPA until the day of my arrest. I tried to downplay things to have as few charges as possible. And why was I afraid of having too many charges? Because I was in a command position, and when you did something, the question arises, who did you do it with. For example, if I commanded a battle, they ask who I commanded: Give us the names of those who were there.
And most of the people in 1948 were already legalized, but in a way that the NKVD didnt know: one was sick with typhus and managed to hide, another was wounded. But many remained in the underground. There were those who came with a confession and said they were here and there in a company, and brought their weapons. But there were also those who got sick and then hid somewhere, didnt surrender their weapons and didnt confess to being in a company, and no one from their neighbors or the village betrayed them, so they remained undetected. There are still people like that today who were in the companies and got away with it they were not tried. Such people exist.
So, since I was always connected with people, I couldnt take anything upon myself simply because as soon as I took responsibility for something, they would press me to give up the other participants. To have less trouble, I minimized everything. I admitted to a few minor operations, but denied everything else, including the Rushir battle. Everyone who was in it was so terrified of the Bolsheviks, because a huge number of them had died on their side, that even those who came with a confession did not admit they were there. Everyone talked about something insignificant, but no one mentioned the Rushir battle, and until 1968 the Bolsheviks didnt know who had beaten them there. And I, with my company, also didnt know who we had beaten. It was only in 1968 that they began to investigate that case. When they arrested me again... I didnt compromise with them then, didnt agree to an open trial. So they did it to me another way...
My first case was small. I fell into the category of those who had a camp conviction, and they left me with 10 years. But I had to serve 15 years for my 10 years, because the first 5 years I served from the first to the second conviction were already gone. The term was counted from the second conviction. They tried me for the second time on December 7, 1953, so the commission of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet left me to serve until December 7, 1963. I was released then. I was not allowed to enter here, the western regions of Ukraine. They gave me a small piece of paper, the size of my palm, on which it was written: Entry into the Western Ukrainian oblasts, the Baltic states, and Grodno Oblast is forbidden, violation will be prosecuted. Sign here, is that clear? I said: Clear. Whats not clear about it? So I didnt even try to come here, because not only would they not give me a residence permit, but entry is forbidden, I wasnt even allowed to show up here. So I thought: where should I go?
Magadan
V.V. Ovsiyenko: But wait, it sounds like you were released immediately, as if you hadnt even served time. Please tell us about the first imprisonment.
M.V. Symchych: About the imprisonment? Yes, well, well get back to that. Weve skipped ahead, weve gotten ahead of ourselves. After I was sentenced on March 13, 1949, to 25 years of imprisonment and 5 years of disenfranchisement, I was sent to Kolyma, to the Magadan Oblast. I arrived in the Magadan Oblast in the same year, 1949, right around the October holidays. To the final point—the camp.
V.V. Ovsiyenko: And what was the name of that place?
M.V. Symchych: Ill name all the places for you now. From here, from the Stanislav prison, I ended up at the Lviv transit prison, from the Lviv transit prison I was transported in a convoy to Port Vanino, from Port Vanino I was sent by the ship Nogin to Magadan, from Magadan—by truck for 600 kilometers into the taiga, I think it was Tenkinsky Raion of Magadan Oblast, to the settlement of Spokoyny, into a concentration camp.
V.V. Ovsiyenko: Vasyl Stus was also in Tenkinsky Raion, in the settlement of Matrosovo. In exile, in 1977–1979. After him, Zoryan Popadiuk took over that same warm spot...
M.V. Symchych: So I ended up there back in 1949, at a `priisk`—a mine. I was there until 1950, until April 27, and then they took me to Magadan for re-investigation. Another re-investigation. And why was I so lucky with re-investigations? When I was caught alone and withstood the torture, the case was small. But after some time, the former quartermaster of our company, Skala, came in with a confession. This Skala gave a lot of additional material on me. They wanted to take me to Stanislav for re-investigation, but for some reason, they thought it was too far to transport me—so what did they do? From here, they sent all the materials on me to the KGB in Magadan, and I was summoned from the colony to the regional center, where a KGB officer re-investigated me. But there was no point in trying me further, as I had just received 25 years. There was no sentence longer than 25 years, and I hadnt committed any new crime. Although there was new material, it was related to the old case. They couldnt charge me for not telling them everything, because according to their law, they were supposed to investigate everything themselves. If I concealed something, it was not only my fault but also theirs for failing to uncover it. So they had no grounds to try me, they just supplemented the case file.
I stayed in Magadan for another three years. We arrived at that first colony for the October holidays, 1200 of us, and half a year later, on April 27, 1950, when they were taking me away from there, only 700 remained. 500 had died. Why? Cold, hunger, and hard labor took 500 people in half a year. And the 700 who were still alive, including myself, though we had survived, were already in such a state that we had one foot in the grave—already swollen. I too had swollen legs by that time, I was already in the hospital as a dystrophy case.
V.V. Ovsiyenko: Did they not bring in food supplies, or what?
M.V. Symchych: This was all done intentionally. It wasnt far to go for those supplies. Our camp was 40 km from the main road, in the tundra. Its not taiga there, the forest is quite sparse.
V.V. Ovsiyenko: Because of the permafrost there.
M.V. Symchych: Yes, the permafrost is such that the roots dont go deep, theres nothing for them to draw nutrients from. Only small, stunted trees grow, about two meters tall. At first, for about two or three weeks, they gave us a daily ration. Then it started that they would give a ration—but there would be no bread. They would say there was no flour, so they didnt bake any. A day or two without bread. They went for flour. By the time they traveled the 40 km to the base—the tractor broke down. Then the unen-scorted prisoners would go to repair it. While they repaired it—a week would pass. After a week, they brought flour, baked bread, gave us bread for a day or two. But the bakery was shared—for the prisoners, as well as for the soldiers and the administration. They couldnt leave the free people without bread, and if they had any stock, they kept it for the garrison and the free workers, and we got nothing again. The tractor went again. So for a day, two, three, there would be bread, and then for three, four days, or a week, there would be none. And they herded us to work every day. They would say: go to work, when we bring the flour and bake bread, we will give you back pay for these missed days. But when they brought it and we demanded our bread, they would say it was already lost. So people swelled up and died of hunger. Most died on the spot, in the camp, and a small number were taken to the hospital. There was a central hospital 40 km away, where they brought people from all the camps. There was a bridge over the Kolyma River there. Some of our people were taken there, but not many. Most died here. And no one buried us one by one or two by two they would just pile us up near the watchtower, and when a large enough pile had formed to fill a truck (the camp didnt have its own truck, just one gray mare that hauled a water barrel—that was all the transport) —so when a large pile had accumulated, the camp commander would ask the mine director for a truck. And the mine director had a truck that transported the gold-bearing quartz from the mine to the processing plant. They extracted gold there in two ways: in an open pit and in a mine. In the open pit, they would dig shafts, remove the top layers of peat and rock, and below that was a layer of sand with gold.
V.V. Ovsiyenko: At what depth?
M.V. Symchych: It varied—one and a half, or two, or even three meters. You had to remove this layer of soil—peat bogs and all sorts of mounds—completely, and deeper there was this nice, white sand, as if someone had sifted it. The second method was in the mine. I dont know if its like this everywhere: a cliff of quartz rock, and between that rock there are these quartz veins with gold. But to extract that vein, you have to dig a whole mine. They drill the mine, blast it, then that rock, both the gold-bearing and non-gold-bearing—all of it is ground at a processing plant and washed. Gold is heavy it has a specific gravity of 1.19 [correction: specific gravity of gold is ~19.3]. So the quartz dust separates, like chaff from wheat grain. There was a washing machine there, lined with velvet cloth: the gold falls onto the velvet and stays, while the water washes away the sand.
In the mine, it was better in that there was no frost. But the trouble was that there was no protection from the dust. In later years, I heard they gave those drillers respirators. But back then, there were no respirators, no water spraying, the boys just drilled that rock, and the dust flew. You drilled for a month, a month and a half, or two—and you already had silicosis. Silicosis cements the lungs. Then blood starts coming from the lungs, the person spits blood, the blood flows, just like it did for me after this stroke.
As I said, after half a year, only 700 people were left alive 500 had died. I remember one day, at the morning line-up, the camp commander, Senior Lieutenant Isayev, Ive forgotten his first name, came and said: Heres the deal: lately, production figures have dropped to an impossible low. This cannot be tolerated any longer! Whoever works well will be buried in their underwear, and whoever shirks will be buried without! And you could choose what you wanted—either work well and be buried in underwear, or work poorly and be buried without. And at that time, Im telling you, I was saved by the fact that they took me for re-investigation... Write down the name of that monster, Isayev. So, when the truck was full of the dead, they would take them between two hills—the place was called Chortova Shchel [Devils Gorge]—and there, in that Devils Gorge, they would dump them, the dump truck would empty them out, and nobody buried those people. It wasnt until 1954, I remember, that our boys started to be released... There were short-termers there, and some, after Stalins death, began to be released after various complaints (parents started writing complaints). They released our boys there, but they werent allowed to leave Kolyma. They stayed there and worked. And they would approach us. They werent allowed in the zone, but when prisoners were taken to some separate sites, for construction or to repair some house in the settlement, the released men would give the guard a bottle or two—and the guard would let our free boys talk to the zeks. So they said they went to see if anything had been done with those bodies. As of 1954, all those bodies, those bones, were still lying there where they had been dumped no one had buried them. I dont know—maybe someone buried them later, or maybe theyre still lying there to this day, I cant tell you that, because I couldnt establish it. That camp was disbanded it no longer exists.
In Magadan, at a transit camp, when they were taking us to that investigation site, I met Vasyl Hrabovetsky. He was from Kyiv, and he taught Ukrainian language and literature at Kyiv University. I dont know what he was in for, but he got swept up by “Yezhov’s broom” in 1937 and stayed there for the entire war. In the Magadan transit camp, he was a foreman.
And there was another man from Kyiv, Captain Ravich—the head of construction for the Magadan Oblast. How did he end up there? He was a Communist, but not a KGB man he was educated as a construction engineer and ended up in the army. I dont know what he did in the army, but after the war, as a Communist, he was sent to Dalstroy and made the head of construction for the Magadan Oblast. He appointed foremen and supervisors from among the prisoners because there was no other staff available.
This Vasyl Hrabovetsky and Captain Ravich found a common language. Vasyl Hrabovetsky recruited our good lads into his brigade. Ravich would always credit him with whatever percentage was needed it was always 150%. They had a system—one would write up the report, and the other would sign off on it. So this Vasyl Hrabovetsky didnt push us too hard with work, and they fed us like this: whoever fulfilled the quota by 121% got one extra ration, which meant 200 grams of bread, 200 grams of kasha, and, I think, 10 or 12 grams of sugar per ration. Anyone who fulfilled it by 141% got two extra rations, and 151% got three. So, Vasyls brigade always had a fulfillment rate of 151-157%. In his brigade, we received three rations and didnt have to work too hard. And this was all thanks to Captain Ravich. I was in this brigade for three years. It was famous for being a top-performing one, even though we worked much less than the others. But Ravich didn’t pad the percentages for the others I think it was because he was afraid to. In the spring of 1953, Vasyl developed throat cancer and died within two months he suffocated. When Vasyl was gone, they appointed another foreman. Ravich didnt support that one, probably fearing he would be sold out. So our once-famous brigade went bust once Vasyl was gone, the padded percentages disappeared. We plummeted from our 150% down to 50%, and our brigade was disbanded.
War with the “Blatnye”
I end up on a transport to the taiga, 820 km from Magadan, to a settlement called Myaundzha. They were building a large power station there, for its time. The first phase had a capacity of 150,000 kilowatts, and then there were two more—so it was supposed to generate up to half a million kilowatts. They brought us in a new transport of 3,500 men. There was total lawlessness there—they had brought in a ton of those *blatnye* (professional criminals). The *blatnye* were scattered throughout all the brigades, 3-4-5 men in each. They did absolutely nothing, but the foreman was forced to report their percentages as fulfilled. They got high percentages, received those 2-3 extra rations for doing nothing, and beat our guys to make them work—because if the men didnt work, there would be no percentages for them to report.
I arrived, saw the situation, saw our miserable people, many swollen from hunger—it was extreme misery. But I also saw that there were good lads with whom we could take on those thugs. But they were scattered, disorganized, not united. I was there for about a month, and during that month I gathered a good group of our boys. I said: “Lads, are we going to die here? For what? Lets do something!” So one day we let those thugs have it, breaking the ribs of fifty men in broad daylight, right in the camp zone. People worked in three shifts there—one at work, one sleeping, one preparing… After that, they locked us up—both those who did the beating and those who were suspicious, about 200 men in total. They rounded us up into a separate barracks, made it a punishment block, and took us to work separately in a restricted zone. And nearby, in the BUR (I dont need to explain to you what a BUR is), sat many of these *blatnye* who had fled the zone because they were being beaten. So the zone ended up with two high-security barracks.
At first, they took us to work separately. But then, one fine day, they led us out together. I think the operative, Vorontsov, intentionally brought the two warring groups together to build a case against us. But we thought: a case is a case, but the thugs need to be beaten. So we finished off those thugs right there at the work site. They opened a case against us for that uprising because we had stirred up the whole zone. For this, 8 of us were tried on December 7, 1953, and I was given an additional 10 years under Article 59-3-16. They added 10 years to my 25, which still came out to 25, but the sentence now started over from the date of the second conviction.
Strikes
After that, a decree came from the Minister of Internal Affairs stating that anyone convicted in a camp was to be given a year in the BUR. So I served a year in the BUR. Its a separate cell in an isolation block. After that, they sent me to an especially strict regime in the Izvestkovy settlement. There was a factory there that produced lime for all of Kolyma there wasnt another one like it. They brought about 700 of us there from all the camps. We conferred: well, are we going to go to work? To hell with it!… And here they had gathered the strongest-spirited lads, none of whom were trembling, afraid, or looking for a way out. So we discussed what to do. The decision was not to go to work.
We didnt go to work for one day, a second day, a third day. And so it went for a week. We observed the Sunday holiday, and the following week we didnt go again. We didnt go to work for a month. A month later, Ababkin, the secretary of the oblast party committee, arrived from Magadan. I remember his name: Ababkin. He started trying to persuade us to go to work, because the oblast had no lime, and it was a long way to transport it to Magadan from Khabarovsk.
We didnt go to work. Sometime later, not even a week and a half passed, the secretary of the oblast committee from Irkutsk arrived. He also came to persuade us. We sat tight. If only a small part hadnt gone to work, they might have started throwing people in jail, but all 700 of us, as one, refused to go, so what could they do? Nothing. After Ababkin, they decided to “behead” us. I, as luck would have it (because such luck never passed me by), was in the first batch of 20 men. They brought a truck, a convoy, and called us for transport. They didnt say they were taking us to prison. They said it was to a general-regime camp. *(He laughs)*. We knew it was a lie, but there was no other way out—so we went “to a general-regime camp.”
They brought us from Izvestkovy to the district center of Elgenugol. There, they threw us into prison. They held us in that prison for a while, then transferred us to a second one. In the two months they spent dealing with us, they organized another especially strict regime—in the Sluchainy settlement in the Susuman district—and they transferred all 20 of us there. We were there for a little while and again, we didnt go to work. It was a gold-bearing mine. They transferred all of us to a third zone, Shiroky. There was some construction and some mining. Half the men were assigned to the mines, and the other half to construction. We didnt go to work there either. They held us there for a bit, then began trying to persuade us to go to work—we refused.
The Uprising
Then they surrounded the zone with dogs to drive us out. They began to force their way into the zone. There was one new barracks, still unplastered. We dismantled that barracks and split the wood—because there was nothing else to defend ourselves with in the zone. If you dismantled all the stoves, there would be nowhere to cook. And there were no bricks. So we armed ourselves as best we could from that barracks: we took the boards, split some of the logs, and made clubs… The first day, we didnt let them drag us out of the zone the second day, we didnt but on the third day, in the area where the Lithuanians were… Because we were quartered by nationality—Lithuanians separately, Ukrainians separately we were friendly with the Lithuanians and all the Balts, but we couldnt get along with the Russians, as they always, as they say, betrayed us: when there was no danger, they were heroes, but when it was time to stand to the death, they were nowhere to be found, they would surrender so we kept them separate. And somehow, on the stretch of the Lithuanian barracks, they broke through the defense, burst into the zone, and drove out a part of the Lithuanians and Latvians. We had already barricaded ourselves inside and didnt let them drive us out.
V.V. Ovsienko: And were they armed, did they shoot?
M.V. Symchych: They didnt shoot—they had dogs, sticks, and rods. If they had come with weapons, theres no telling I wouldnt have snatched an automatic rifle from one of them. But when its hand-to-hand combat, people arent thinking about whether the other person will live—they’re thinking its either him or me... So they didnt come with weapons. It would have been to our advantage if they had come with weapons, because we could have seized them—some would have been killed, maybe even half would have been killed, but the other half would have remained alive, taken the automatic rifles, and driven them out of all of Kolyma.
So they took those Lithuanians and Latvians, but we still held our ground and remained in the zone. Then what did they come up with? They held the Lithuanians until dusk, then at dusk led them out into the tundra, and then turned them back. But most of us remained—the ones they needed most. Then they brought back those Lithuanians as well.
The next day, they announced: that’s it, the strict regime is canceled, we will be distributing you to all the general-regime zones you came from. Again, I was first in line for the “general-regime camp.” They took 17 of us for the first truck. But we saw—they werent taking us in that direction at all. They brought us to the Susuman district prison, about 800 kilometers from Magadan. They held us there for three weeks and drew up a case file. They sentenced us to five years in a “krytka” (closed prison) and took us to Magadan. I dont remember the date of the trial, but it was late autumn of 1955… If only I had written something down or tried to remember… I never thought I would live, that I would live to see a time when this would be needed and when I could tell someone about it. Back then, we lived one day at a time. But if you have to die, you die standing.
V.V. Ovsienko: So those 5 years werent added on, but…
M.V. Symchych: There was nowhere to add them, because I already had 25—so they gave us 5 years of closed prison out of our existing sentence. They changed the regime. Didnt you have something like that?
V.V. Ovsienko: We did, we did—only they were already giving 3 years of prison.
M.V. Symchych: Well, it was the same for us, they would give a year in a “krytka,” or two, or five. So we got five years of “krytka” out of the same sentence.
They took us to Magadan. In Magadan, in cell number 20, I met a very interesting man—Antonovych, a historian, who died in our cell. This was already at the beginning of 1956. We found him by chance. The 17 of us had been brought to the Magadan isolation block. We were waiting for flying weather, because in winter there are no roads and you have to fly to Khabarovsk, and from Khabarovsk there’s a railway. One time, Petro Kobylyansky was taking out the latrine bucket and on his way back, he met the historian Dmytro Antonovych. Antonovych was in a cell not far from ours they were also taking him to a closed prison. But they didnt put him in with us he didnt know we were there, and we didnt know he was. They met by accident. And those two knew each other from Norilsk. They recognized each other. As soon as Petro came back to the cell and said hed met Antonovych, all 17 of us immediately raised a ruckus, because by that time there was an order not to keep political prisoners with common criminals. We demanded to see the head of the isolation block and managed to get Antonovych transferred to our cell. I happened to have a copy of the *New History of the Ukrainian SSR*, which had just come out. I dont remember now how I got it. When we succeeded in getting Antonovych moved to our cell, I settled him next to me on the lower bunk. He was an older man, so he wouldnt have to climb to the top bunk. Because there were no cots, just solid wooden platforms. We were together for maybe three weeks. We were there for a long time, waiting: either the weather wasnt suitable for flying, or there was no plane. They delayed our departure for a long time. We werent in much of a hurry either, because it was prison here and prison there for us. If something better than prison was waiting for us, we might have been in a hurry, but since we knew we had a solid five years ahead of us, there was no rush.
One morning, the guys were still asleep, but Antonovych had slept poorly his nerves were shot. He took that book and started reading. I was already awake, lying next to him, and he sat up—a lightbulb burns in the cell all night. He read and read—and then suddenly he gasped for air—hhh, hhh. The book fell from his hands, and he did it again—hhh, hhh… I grabbed him, laid him on the bunk, shouted, and all the guys jumped up. Some started banging on the door to call a doctor, others brought water, this and that… He took a few more of those heavy breaths and then fell silent, to this very day. He was the grandson of the old historian, Volodymyr Antonovych. He was also a historian. He looked to be about 45-50 years old.
V.V. Ovsienko: Someone on my own “transport” already told me about him. That they attended his lectures in prison. I think it was Myroslav Melen in Morshyn.
M.V. Symchych: Thats how I met Dmytro Antonovych, by chance. I am still alive, and Hrytsko Chmelyk is still living somewhere in the Lviv region or in Lviv—he was in the cell with us then. He also wrote something about him, but very little—apparently, he forgot.
V.V. Ovsienko: So Dmytro Antonovych died at the beginning of 1956?
M.V. Symchych: Yes, at the beginning of 1956, around March, maybe the end of February. In the Magadan prison, in the isolation block, cell number 20. After Antonovych’s death, we started a hunger strike, demanding to know why they werent sending us out. We were on hunger strike for seven days, and then the regional prosecutor was called in. He promised we would be sent out, which they did. They took us to the airfield, put us on a Douglas plane to Khabarovsk. The Soviet still had American planes at that time. The Americans had given Russia both transport and combat planes during the war. So they took us to Khabarovsk on a Douglas, from Khabarovsk to Novosibirsk. No—to Irkutsk, and from Irkutsk to Novosibirsk, from Novosibirsk to the Urals, from Sverdlovsk to Chelyabinsk, from Chelyabinsk to Moscow, and from Moscow, from “Krasnaya Presnya”—to the “merchant city” of Yelets.
When we arrived there, we woke up in the morning—it was already breakfast. The female guards who brought the *balanda* (thin soup) gave us each a bowl of cabbage, well, *shchi*. I had been in Kolyma for eight years—I hadnt just not seen a potato or a cabbage, I hadnt even smelled them. Nothing grows there in Kolyma, so even if they managed to bring some in the autumn, it was for the free workers. But in the camps, there was no cabbage, no potatoes. No one saw anything but kasha made from millet, oat, and barley groats. Having not seen cabbage for eight years, we pounced on it and ate it all. The guard came to collect the bowls—we handed her clean bowls. She was used to some eating and some leaving food behind. People who hadnt seen Kolyma… But we ate everything, scraped them clean. “Hey guys, you ate everything?” “We ate it.” “Would you eat more?” “Bring it on!” So she gave us two more bowls each. And I thought to myself: “What a fool I am! I should have been sitting here five years ago, not in Kolyma, where I never saw cabbage, where the ground never thaws, where theres permafrost, where I suffered so much, and here—theres cabbage! Im a fool, a fool. Why did I endure it for so long? Why didnt I rebel sooner so I could have been here long ago!” *(He laughs)*.
The Commission
It was 1956, just before spring. Well, we ended up in prison—prison is prison! Youve been in prison, so you know. We ended up in prison and we were sitting there. But around August 2, the doors open and the senior block guard comes in: “Get ready.” “For what?” “For the bathhouse.” “But we,” we say, “were at the bathhouse two days ago.” “Get ready, youre going to the bathhouse.” “Why?” “Youre going to be tried!” Well, we all burst out laughing—we were all just recently sentenced, and he’s saying we’re going to be tried again. Hes not in the know, he doesnt know how to explain that its a commission, that theyre going to review our sentences. “They’re going to try you,” he says. Well, if theyre going to try us, so be it. We went to the bathhouse, there was a barber, and they were shaving us. Until then, they hadnt shaved us with a razor, only clipped our hair with shears. We went into the bathhouse, and barbers were sitting there. Each of us went up in turn, and they shaved us. Two days ago they had given us clean underwear—now they were giving us clean stuff again. They shaved us, changed us into clean underwear.
We come back to the cell. A few minutes later, a guard and the block guard run up, calling us out alphabetically. “Where to?” “To court.” To court, then to court, what difference does it make to me? They called five or six men, and there were 17 of us in the cell. Five men were called. Theyre gone, gone, gone, but after about an hour they return. “What happened?” Five were called—all five to be released! They passed the commission. They call the second batch—release them too! I ended up in the third batch, with Hrytsko Chmelyk. Everyone else was released, but the two of us were left. They left Hrytsko with two more years to serve, and me with seven. They reduced both our sentences to ten years, but he was already credited with eight years served, while I was only in my third year after the trial. So I had another seven and a half years to serve to make ten. Of those 17 men, the two of us were left, two were released with “time served,” and the rest were to be considered not previously convicted.”
So the next day they processed the documents, on the third day those who were released were called out, given passports, and they went home, while Hrytsko and I stayed behind. There had been 17 of us in the cell, and now only two remained. The cell was large, the guys were gone. There had been noise, hubbub, some playing chess, some reading, some doing whatever—and now it was just the two of us. We walked around the large cell, so sad—God forbid. So after the commission, the two of us sat there for another two months. Then we wrote a complaint: if our old convictions were overturned, why were we being held in a closed prison? Our second conviction was now considered our first.
The response to these complaints came—transfer us to a camp.
Taishet
They didnt take us back to Kolyma, but to Taishet. In Taishet, I was at the 19th camp point at a lumber mill for a few months, maybe five. They brought about 100 big-shot criminal bandits into the zone, the worst kind of murderers and scum. Why? They gave them a separate barracks to terrorize us. And in the camp, only those who hadnt passed the commission remained. The main mass of the camp population had been released. They had gathered us from all over—some from Norilsk, some from Karaganda, some from Kolyma, some from prisons, from everywhere. Not many were left after the commission. And they threw these thugs in with us to help finish us off.
We started talking to them, thinking maybe we could find some compromise with them, to avoid a scandal. We talked once—it didnt help, a second time—it didnt help. One day at lunch, we went to the canteen at the mill. Our guys would come in, get in line one by one, each quickly got their food, went to a table. Then two from that gang came and cut the line. Someone pointed it out: “Lads, that’s not right, you have to get in line.” Without thinking, one of them turns around and punches the guy in the face. Well, of course, they didnt let us beat them up there they separated us. But we decided: we had to put an end to them, because this was going nowhere.
What did we do? We gathered whatever we could find: diesel fuel, gasoline from the garage—whatever anyone could get. We brought it with us into the zone, surrounded their barracks, and set it on fire. Anyone who tried to jump out got a club to the forehead. And they burned in there. An investigation began, they started dragging us in for questioning, but there were no witnesses. Because only the kind of guys who wouldnt say a thing even if you killed them were left. They opened a case “by analogy”: whoever had a prior conviction for something similar. They found three men by analogy, gave them 10 years each. Because there was no proof—they couldnt find a single witness in the whole zone who would say that so-and-so set the barracks on fire or so-and-so hit a thug with a club.
And after that, 40 of us from the zone… My luck—40 men from the zone end up in an especially strict regime, at colony No. 307 in the same Taishet. I sat there for three years. But it wasnt worse for me, but better. Why? I met people there whom you rarely meet anywhere else. I met Doctor Volodymyr Horbovy—the lawyer who defended Stepan Bandera at the Warsaw trial. Petro Duzhy—the head of propaganda—was also brought there. And Mykhailo Kolesnyk. Ah, and I was especially fond of Mykhailo Soroka. So I found Horbovy, Duzhy, Mykhailo Soroka, and a number of other intellectuals there. Although it was an especially strict regime, we didnt go to work there either. We had eventually taught them so well that they didnt even try to force us to work anymore, because it was pointless. We didnt go to work, so there were no earnings. If someone had a family or some acquaintances who could send something for tobacco, that was good, but if not, then not. So it was like this: hungry, with only the bare ration, nothing to smoke, but we didnt go to work. But what great people had gathered in the zone! Quiet, peaceful, calm, we occupied ourselves, read, and whoever could, wrote. So instead of being worse off, I felt like I was on cloud nine for those three years on that especially strict regime. As for being hungry or half-hungry—I had gotten used to that over the decades, it was nothing new to me!
Mordovia
We were there for three years—and then they moved all of us from Taishet to Mordovia, every single political prisoner. This was already 1960, I think, in early April or late March.
In Mordovia, I end up in the fifth zone. At that time, it was an especially strict camp point. I was there until the autumn. And in the autumn, they disbanded this especially strict regime in Mordovia and scattered us among all the camp points—to the 7th, the 11th, the 2nd, I think there was a 4th, where the hospital was.
V.V. Ovsienko: Thats Barashevo, the 3rd.
M.V. Symchych: Yes, the 3rd is Barashevo. To the 3rd, to the 19th. Thats how they scattered us across all the camps. I ended up in the 7th. They assigned me to the sawmill to saw logs. I went there, looked at the heavy logs. Roll them, saw them, I thought, and I already had an ulcer. I refused to roll those logs. The squad leader looked at my file… And a file follows each of us—where you were imprisoned, what you were imprisoned for. He looked at it and, apparently not wanting to bother with me, sent me on a transport. I end up at the 2nd. There was a sewing factory there. Well, I started sewing on a machine there. At first, I was stitching cotton batting onto padded jackets, and then I acquired a higher specialty: they transferred me to sewing pockets onto railway greatcoats.
V.V. Ovsienko: A higher qualification.
M.V. Symchych: They transferred me to a higher qualification, to sew pockets. But my ulcer flared up, it started to bleed. I ended up in the hospital at the 3rd again, lay there for almost two months. From the hospital, I was sent to the 11th. They gave me disability group three, which gave me the right to choose my work. With group three, I ended up in the greenhouses, planting seedlings.
In late autumn 1961, before the New Year, a new directive came: everyone who had been tried twice and everyone sentenced to the maximum penalty was to be sent to a special-regime cell block. There, in Mordovia, the 10th was the especially strict one. As soon as the order came, I once again ended up on the first truck. Later, another decree came: anyone who had served half their term had the right to be transferred to a strict regime. So after about a year, I ended up on a strict regime again, back at the 11th camp point. There, in the same gardening brigade, I served until December 7, 1963, until the end of my term. I was released from there.
V.V. Ovsienko: Did they release you straight from the zone or did they take you somewhere?
M.V. Symchych: They didnt take me anywhere. They released me right outside the zone—go wherever you want. Go where you wish, with the exception that the head of the special section had me read a form: the western Ukrainian oblasts, the Baltics, and Grodno Oblast—“entry forbidden, violation punishable by trial.” I read it, signed it, and left.
Zaporizhzhia
I arrived in Potma, and from Potma to Moscow, and from Moscow to Zaporizhzhia. What was in Zaporizhzhia? I struggled for two months until they registered me. From the zone, they gave me a referral, because when they release you, they ask where you are going. For the western Ukrainian oblasts, they told me straight away—“entry forbidden,” so I took a referral to Zaporizhzhia. I had an acquaintance there. Not him exactly, but the brother of an acquaintance I was imprisoned with. That man took me in. But they wouldnt register me in Zaporizhzhia, saying: “Go back to where you came from. Why did you come here?” I went around for two months, back and forth, back and forth… This was 1964, during that crisis when all the bread was made of corn, there was such a panic, near-famine. I stayed with that man for about a week or a week and a half and thought: how long can I stay with him, who am I to him? So I went to get registered and didnt return to him, but went to the train station, sat on a bench and dozed off to spend the night. But as soon as I fell asleep, a red-headed policeman came up: “Hey, citizen, get up, no sleeping! You cant sleep at the station!” So I hid—there was a large palm tree in the corner. I would get behind its leaves, lie down, curl up and try to sleep a little, to rest. But you cant sleep for long because the floor is cold, you start to freeze. Its just like being in a punishment cell.
I walked around like that, and I was everywhere—in all those party committees and district committees. They wouldnt register me. But somehow on a tram, someone recognized that I was a camp prisoner: all my camp clothes were filthy… We got to talking and I told him that I’ve been trying and trying but cant get registered. And he says to me: “Why dont you go to the executive committee of the City Council—theres a commission for registration and de-registration in the executive committee. Go there—they will help you.”
I had nothing else to do, so I thought Id go and try, because Id been struggling for two months, sleeping at the station, with the policeman not letting me sleep. I was down to skin and bones. I went there and found the place. You had to sign up for an appointment to be seen. I signed up, but the waiting list was for ten days. I came back in 10 days, but in that time I had thought things over. I arrived, opened the door, and saw—three big, beefy brutes sitting there. I said: “Good day!” They replied: “He-ello! He-ello! What have you come for?” “I came for you to put me in prison.” They looked at each other—they hadnt encountered anyone like me: “What do you mean—put you in prison?” “Just like that—put me in prison!” “And who are you?” “That’s a completely different question. I am a former political prisoner who served 15 years, and in the worst conditions I had a subsistence minimum. The proof of this is that Im alive. As for being a political prisoner and having served my time—here is my certificate of release.” I gave them the certificate and said: “In the worst conditions, I had a subsistence minimum. What did that mean? 300 grams of bread, a cup of cold water, a ladle of warm soup every third day, and for eight hours the iron-clad bunk would be unlocked, and I could lie down for at least half an hour until I froze, to rest, and then I would run back and forth in the cell to warm up again. But here, in your so-called freedom, I don’t even have what I had in prison. I spit on this kind of freedom—put me in prison!” None of them said a word to each other, they were sort of dumbfounded and said: “Have you made an attempt to register?” “Ive been struggling for two months already, Ive been to all your district committees, all the committees, and they just bounce me from one office to another, no one wants to register me. They wont give me a job because Im not registered, and they dont want to register me. Im being eaten alive by lice, Im hungry, and I tell you once again: put me in prison!” “We don’t have the right to do that.” “If you don’t have the right, then Ill leave here right now and give you that right.” “And what will you do?” “Whatever comes to my mind—thats what Ill do! I’ll go downstairs now, and whatever comes to my mind, Ill do it, to give you the right to imprison me.” “Do you have a housing registration book?” “I do.” “Is form 15 filled out?” “Its filled out.” “Give them here.”
I gave him the housing registration book—the one that my acquaintances brother had given me. He gave me the book for his own house—register yourself. The man looked at it and wrote on form 15 to the chief of police: “Comrade Ryzhenko. Register him.” I had been to this Comrade Ryzhenko dozens of times, but he wouldn’t register me, just bounced me back and forth. “Go on, theyll register you now.” I thought: the Russian tricked me! Who trusts them? But I couldnt say he tricked me, because that might...
I took that form 15 and the book under my arm and went straight to the police station. I arrived at the police station, didnt even knock on the door, just opened it and went in. I found the chief of police at his desk and handed him the form 15. He glanced at the signature “register him” and said: “Go to office 7, they’ll register you there.” And office 7 was right there, across the hall. I went there and in about 20 minutes they registered me. They sent me to the military enlistment office, because I was still eligible for military service, I was 41 years old. And the enlistment office was right there. I went to the enlistment office, and there you needed a photo—but I didnt have one. They sent me to get a photo taken. I went, had it done, but by the time I brought it back, there was no one there, the workday was over.
I come back to the enlistment office the next morning, and they quickly issued me a military ID—the girls wrote it out, and the military commissar gave me instructions: if theres a war, here is the assembly point, and you should have a mess kit, two pairs of underwear, and three days worth of food with you. And so they designated me a reserve soldier of the 41st Ural Regiment. In an instant, I went from being homeless and a prisoner to a soldier of the 41st Ural Regiment of the city of Zaporizhzhia. And the chief of police also warned me to get a job the very next day.
I had nothing else to do but get a job, since I was broke and hungry. I returned to this Pavlo and told him I was registered. He says to me: “Great, tomorrow Im taking you to the factory and getting you a job as a steelworkers assistant! Youll earn good money, everything will be okay!” This Pavlo used to work as a steelworker but was already retired. But what does he immediately push on me? His sister has a daughter, and the sister is married to a Russian, a man named Khrulyov. And they’re already trying to set me up with this daughter! I thought: My God, where have I landed—what do I need a Russian girl for? How could I allow myself to do that? So I thought to myself, I need to get out of here, because I just got registered, and they’re already pushing this on me... He says: “Come with me to my sisters, they have a large temporary cottage. You can live in the temporary cottage for now. It has everything, you’ll be comfortable. Tomorrow we go to the factory, Ill get you a job.”
So, Mr. Vasyl, after sitting in the house for maybe half an hour, I bolted. “Where are you going?” “Im going to the city, Ill be right back.” And I left—and went straight back to the train station. I spent another night at the station, and the next day I went to look for a job myself and to ask people where I could find a room to rent.
A Two-Word Courtship
So, going from house to house, I came to my future wifes mother. She worked as a block warden. It was some kind of unpaid position. Someone had advised me to go to her. Raisas mother found a neighbor who would take me in as a lodger. That neighbor, Maria, was a widow. I went to her with Raisas stepfather, Vasyl. She took one look at me, in that camp jacket, that hat, so worn out from those two months—I looked like the devil! And she says: “Oh! No! No! No! I dont have any space, I dont want to take anyone in! I dont need it!” Well, the other guy says: “Let’s go!” We turned back. “Well, did Maria take Myroslav in as a lodger?” “No, she doesn’t want to.”
But the mother looked at me and said: “Well then, live with me until spring, and in the spring you can find something else.” And we immediately agreed that I would pay her 50 rubles every month. For those 50 rubles, she would cook me breakfast and dinner, and I would have lunch at the factory.
So I lived with them until spring, and in the spring she tells me: “Were starting renovations. We agreed you’d stay until spring. Look for another place, move somewhere, because its inconvenient for us with you here, and for you with us during the renovations.”
And Raya, my current wife, had just come home from work early—she was feeling unwell. I went up to her and said: “Raisa Andriivna, your mother has given me notice to leave your apartment. Do you know anyone with a temporary cottage or a room I could rent?” And she says: “As a matter of fact, I do—my friends tenants just moved out of her temporary cottage.” “Could you take me there?” “I will.”
Were walking to her friends house, and on the way Im looking at her—shes a girl like any other girl. I wonder if shes a decent person or not, but either way, I dont know anyone here. And I say: “So youre taking me to find a room. And if I find one—will you come with me?” “Where?” “Wherever I go, you go too!” She blinks a few times and says: “I will!” And I say: “And do you know what the road with a partner like me could cost you? You don’t even know who I am.” Because I hadnt told her I was a political prisoner. That I came from prison—I didnt hide that, it was obvious to everyone. But why I was in prison, I didnt tell anyone. I say to her: “Im a former political prisoner. If you tie your fate with mine, you could end up in exile with me, in prison, in Siberia, anywhere. I cant promise you anything good in advance, because I dont expect it myself. I dont know how things will turn out. Think about it, so you dont have any regrets later, so you cant say I didnt warn you, didnt explain.” And without much thought, she says to me: “Whatever God gives, that’s what will be!” “Well, if that’s the case, let’s go.”
We went to her friend, Tamarka. She took us in, let us rent the temporary cottage. We didnt move in that evening, because I was going to work the night shift. But the next day, when she and I both returned from work, we moved into Tamaras place, and weve been together ever since. Thats how I got married—I proposed in two words and got married. But I explained to her what she could expect…
A little over three years later they take me for a second time, and shes left alone, now with a child. She lived without me for seventeen and a half years with two children. One is Ihor, the older one, who called today he was just over two years old, and the younger one hadnt been born yet. The younger one was added during a visit in Mordovia, at the 19th camp—hes a product of the camp, you might say. And when I returned to freedom for the second time—I hadnt even made it home yet when a policeman was already waiting for me to put me under supervision. They gave me another year of administrative supervision: be home after 6 p.m., not allowed to step outside until 6 a.m.
Socialist Way of Life
What else have I not finished telling?
V.V. Ovsienko: About Zaporizhzhia.
M.V. Symchych: Yes, this is about Zaporizhzhia. We got married here, were together for three and a half years. I got a job at Zaporizhstal as a bricklayer, repairing open-hearth furnaces. I had never laid bricks for those furnaces before, but necessity is a quick teacher. I was hired at the fourth skill grade, and I worked for about a week. The chief engineer, Chyrva, watched me and said: “Listen, Symchych, I see you work in a way that deserves a better grade. Youre on the fourth, but you deserve the fifth.” “So whats the hold-up? If I deserve it, then give it to me.” He immediately promoted me, so my first months salary was at the fifth-grade rate. I worked on repairing metallurgical furnaces for a year and a half. But soon the KGB came and gave this chief engineer the task of keeping an eye on me. I worked under his supervision for three months. This was already the spring of 1964. And he was not only the senior engineer and head of the repair department, but also the secretary of the party organization. One day he says to me: “Listen, Symchych, tomorrow theres a trade meeting, so you absolutely must be there. Dont you dare not show up, like you usually do.” I was so fed up with those squad leaders and meetings in the camps, so I never went to the trade meetings. But he told me I “absolutely must come.” So I went. I sat in the last row, picked up some newspapers and magazines. I dont know what they talked about, because I never went to another meeting before or since.
When the meeting ended, everyone left, and I, being at the very back, left too, and headed for the gatehouse. I hear a car horn. I looked back—it was him, calling me from his car: “Symchych, come here!” I walk over. “Get in the car.” “Why?” “Well go,” he says, “to the Dnieper, to the beach.” “What for?” “We’ll relax.” “But I,” I say, “am not tired.” “I,” he says, “want to talk to you. Get in the car. I have a bottle of cognac, some snacks—get in, lets go.” Well, I thought, what do I have to lose—I got in, and we drove off.
We arrived at the Dnieper, drove far away from the sunbathers on the sand. We got settled, he pulled out the bottle, we had a shot of cognac each, had a bite to eat. He says: “Symchych, whats going on?” And he tells me that he had been watching me and became convinced that I worked no worse than the old hands, and he immediately raised my skill grade. He says: “The third day after you arrived, the KGB came and described you to me as a devil, that you are this and that, God knows what, and that I should watch you and report on you to them. And from time to time they come by, asking what you do and how you do it, where you go, who you talk to, what you talk about, and so on. They question me about everything, so I can give them information. Ive been watching you for three months and I see nothing bad in you. If,” he says, “all my workers were as ‘bad’ as you, our factory would be famous throughout the whole , it would have first place! What do they want from you?” So I explained it to him in detail, from my point of view, not the way the KGB explained it, but as it really was. He was an intelligent man, he understood, and he asks me: “How do you live?” “How do I live…” “Where do you live?” “I live in a temporary cottage.” “Ill give you a one-room apartment.” “Mr. Chyrva, thats impossible.” “How is it impossible? Im the secretary of the party organization, Im the head of the repair department, whatever I say, goes. Whatever I want, I’ll do.” “That may be so, you are the secretary of the party organization, you are the head of the department, and what you say goes, but you just told me about those guys who came to you… You have people here who have been on the waiting list for an apartment for five or six years, with the same red party cards as you have. So if you give an apartment to me, who has been working here for less than six months, and not to the one whos been on the list for five years, your own guys will eat you alive right here. And you wont be the head of the department or the secretary—your whole career will go down the drain. Youll be left with nothing, and so will I. I wont have an apartment, and you wont have anything. It cant be done.” “Well, what should we do?” I said: “We, Ukrainians, shouldnt be dumber than the Jews. A Jew always, in every situation, finds some way out—why cant we? Well find a way too.” “And whats the way out?” I say: “Do you have cooperative housing here?” “We do.” “Give me a cooperative apartment. Ill somehow scrape together the money for the down payment. And Ill have a place to live, and no one will bother you, because youre actually short 20 people to form a cooperative building. No one will check on you for this—and Ill have an apartment.” “Write an application.” Well, youre not going to write an application on a riverbank. I came home, told my wife. She was overjoyed and immediately shouts at me: “Write it for a three-room apartment.” Women are always greedy… I wrote it. The next day I bring it and give it to him. I say: “I wrote it for a three-room apartment, because youre short 20 people anyway, so maybe itll go through.” He says: “Itll go through.” But theres some kind of factory committee, or whatever its called, that reviews it: for a three-room apartment you need to have two children, and I only have one—Ihor was just born, the second one wasnt even a thought yet. They rejected my application, called me in, and said its not possible. I come to Chyrva with the application: “Heres the situation, I have one child, and I need two.” He says: “Write two!” “How can I write two, when I only have one child?” “Write two, whos going to check?” I sit down and rewrite the application: “Symchych, Ihor Myroslavovych.” And my wife always wanted to have a daughter, Oksana, so I write: “Symchych, Oksana.” I make her a year younger. *(He roars with laughter).* I hand the application directly to Chyrva—I dont take it to the factory committee myself this time. He took the application. Three months later, I went to Western Ukraine to borrow money. I had old acquaintances there, my mother gave me some money, we had saved a little of our own, and I borrowed 700 from acquaintances. In three months, I collected the down payment, and six months later I received the keys to the apartment. So when they took me, my wife was left with our child in her own home, not in someone elses temporary cottage. To this day, the housing order says: “Symchych, Myroslav Raisa Symchych, Ihor Symchych, Oksana.” But that Oksana was never born! *(He laughs)*.
“Nobody is Forgotten, Nothing is Forgotten”
So on January 28, 1968, the KGB came from Ivano-Frankivsk and arrested me “based on newly discovered materials.” They began trying to recruit me to participate in a show trial. I didnt agree to that. They started piling on me everything they hadnt yet been able to close, and used false witnesses against me.
V.V. Ovsienko: Was there any pretext for the arrest?
M.V. Symchych: There was one pretext: at that time, the Bolsheviks had started the campaign “Nobody is forgotten, and nothing is forgotten!” because a Western campaign against Bolshevism had begun, about the lack of human rights here, that many of our Ukrainians were imprisoned for nationalist causes. Khrushchev had already started snapping back. When the West shouted that fighters for freedom were imprisoned, they began to portray them not as freedom fighters, but as common bandits, and started re-trying old underground fighters. It wasnt just me then—in every oblast, someone was being re-tried. They held public trials, filmed them, sent the films to the West, and showed the Ukrainian diaspora that we were not political prisoners, but bandits. That they, the bandits, say so themselves.
For instance, in the Kosiv district, in Kosmach, in 1944, a Bolshevik paratrooper group was liquidated by the company of Skuba and platoon leader Lozhka. This was kept secret until 1967 no one knew who did it. But in 1967, someone revealed it (I dont know who). The Bolsheviks found that platoon leader, Lozhka, and opened a trial. He himself was from Bukovyna. They convinced him that if he honestly confessed and told everything, then for his honesty they wouldnt sentence him but release him from the courtroom. And he fell for it. They held a public trial in that same village, on some holiday, and herded people in from the whole district. Lozhka spoke before the people, saying: here I am, good people, so-and-so, in 1944 I committed a terrible crime, killed Soviet paratroopers, and so on. He said that under the influence of Ukrainian-German nationalists he committed a great sin against the Soviet , against the Soviet people, but years have passed, I have now come to my senses, I deeply regret it and I swear before all the people, before the entire Soviet , that I will be an honest, loyal Soviet citizen—forgive me, good people! He gave such a speech at the public trial. Right there, they sentence him to the highest measure of punishment, and he was executed by firing squad in the Ivano-Frankivsk prison! He was shot soon after the trial.
They thought they could do the same with me… When they took me for the second time, my old case wasnt enough for them. They had “built up” that platoon leader Lozhkas case with just that one paratrooper incident. But my case file has 42 episodes. I was under investigation for 25 months and 13 days: they were constantly trying to persuade me in every possible way—both materially and however else you can imagine, and they threatened me—to get me to agree to a public trial. You, they said, served 15 years our Code used to go up to 25 years, but now weve changed it to only 15. Youve already served them, so cooperate with us: take this case on yourself, and a number of other cases we cant close because we have no one to pin them on. It’s all the same to you… They said, were getting pressure from Moscow, why cant we find the culprits? We dont have anyone to blame—you help us close those cases so we dont get flak from Moscow, and well let you go home from the courtroom, because youve already served 15 years.
I didnt agree to compromise with them then, didnt agree to a public trial. So they did it to me another way… Under the 1949 verdict, I had 25 years. In 1953, while serving my sentence in the Magadan Oblast, for a camp riot and for beating informers (or *stukachi*, as we called them), they tried me under Articles 59-3 and 16 and added another 10 years to my 25, but a sentence couldnt be longer than 25 years. So the new term started not from the first conviction, but from the second one, 25 years again. And in 1956, during the “Khrushchev Thaw,” all political cases were reviewed, and about 90 percent of political prisoners were fully released and had their convictions expunged. A small number had their sentences reduced to 10-15 years. Some had them reduced to time served. There were three categories: expunge the conviction completely, reduce to time served, or leave part of the sentence. Or do nothing at all. They reduced mine to 10, and I sat until 1963.
That Lozhka—he incriminated himself, saying that in his youth he fell under the influence of Ukrainian-German nationalists, committed great crimes, and was asking for forgiveness. And they shot him like a dog, and that was that. They wanted to do the same thing with me. From Zaporizhzhia by plane to Lviv, then by car to the Ivano-Frankivsk prison, they put me in cell 86. They brought 42 counts of accusation. And witnesses for me this time!… If there were no witnesses the first time, now there were as many witnesses as you could want! They bring me such devils, accusing me in 42 episodes. And there are witnesses for all of them. Perhaps I saved myself by completely refuting many of them. How? They accuse me that on such-and-such a day, in such-and-such a month, of such-and-such a year, a certain incident occurred and that I committed this crime. But I wracked my brain, remembered where I was then, who I was with… And for every episode, I had at least 8 witnesses, and for some, even 200. For example, in one episode, they accuse me of killing an operative. And this happened on a Sunday in broad daylight at a dance. All those young people were still alive because only 15 years had passed. There were two witnesses saying I did it. I wrote a statement, summoned the prosecutor, and forced him to attach this statement to the case file, because the investigation discards inconvenient statements. In that statement, I wrote that I would not name defense witnesses myself, because they might suspect that I was picking my supporters. In that village, there are two main streets, so I asked them to summon the residents of one street, which has a minimum of 200 households. Let the people testify. Among those 200 households, there would surely be at least 20 people who were at that dance and remember who did it.
They did just that—they had no choice. They summoned not only the two streets I named but sifted through the whole village. There are 720 households in the village, and no one, except for their two false witnesses, said it was me. Because it really wasnt me. In this way, I refuted all 42 episodes. And what could they do to me? I fought not because I was terribly afraid, but simply because I didnt want them to triumph over me, to feel they had tricked, entangled, and destroyed me like a fool. I thought to myself: I am no Lozhka for you, I wont let you legally trap me.
They held me under investigation for 25 months and 13 days. That is: 2 years, one month, and 13 days I sat in a solitary cell under investigation in Ivano-Frankivsk. They sent the case to the regional court. There were one or two witnesses that I was guilty, and 10-20 witnesses that I was not guilty. Or even the whole village. And the regional court did not accept the case. They sent the case to Kyiv, to the republican court. They held it there for about three months, then sent it back: the republican court didnt accept it either. Then they sent it to the Moscow court, to the Supreme Court of the USSR. They held it for almost a year and didnt accept it either. Then they sent it to the Prosecutors Office of the USSR. And the Prosecutors Office also returned it. There were no grounds, no grounds to prosecute!
And there were also confrontations. They would call me and their witnesses for a confrontation. Theyd seat me in the middle, one official witness on the left, one on the right. Theyd bring in the witness: “Identify who you know.” And the witness had already been told in advance where I was sitting, theyd show him a photograph: this is what he looks like—so the man would recognize me. Then he comes in and points: I know this one, on such-and-such a date, under such-and-such circumstances, he committed this crime. And what did I do? They would seat me, say, in the middle. The guard would go out to call the witness, and I would switch places with one of the official witnesses. The witness comes in—and stubbornly points at the one sitting in the middle: I know this one, this is the one who did such-and-such… The official witness denies it! And for the role of the official witness, they take any prisoner. Some old fellow was scared to death! His last name was Vasylyk, like our bishop.
V.V. Ovsienko: Because they would have to prosecute him!
M.V. Symchych: Yes. He got scared and said: “But I wasnt there, I dont know anything, I was serving in the Red Army at that time! Call my regiment, where I came from…” The old man was terrified! Because the witness said he saw him kill a man.
Thats how I dismantled their evidence. I just didnt want them to celebrate a victory over me. I didnt let them trap me.
So what did they do in the end? They saw that no one would take the case to trial, and I wasnt going to compromise, so they wrote to the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR to have the 1956 commissions decision, which had reduced my sentence from 25 to 10 years, annulled. What did that mean? I had served ten years, and I still had 15 to go, because the first five years I served were lost, they didnt count. Because, although the commission reduced it for me, the sentence still wasnt counted from the second conviction. So I had served 15, and I still had 15 to go. The Supreme Soviet granted this petition from the regional KGB: they annulled their own commissions 1956 decision, reinstated my old 25-year sentence, and took me to Mordovia to finish it.
The Urals
I was in Mordovia for two years. And then, in 1973 or 1974, a part of the prisoners was transferred to the Urals, to the Perm region. All those wartime collaborators were left in Mordovia, while the old OUN members and the active dissidents of the Sixties and Seventies were taken to the Urals. In Mordovia, I was in the 19th camp, and in the Perm region at the Vsesvyatskaya station, in colony No. 35, I stayed for seven years. Thats where I met these Sixtiers. Ivan Svitlychny, Ihor Kalynets, Valeriy Marchenko, Yevhen Proniuk, and many others arrived there. We got to know each other there. From the very first day, I struck up a friendship with Valeriy Marchenko. Even after he was released (all one can wish for him today is the Kingdom of Heaven), he never forgot me. There was hardly a week, two at most, that I didnt get a letter from Marchenko. I saved many of his letters and brought them out of the camp. Why did I save them? I think they have both literary and historical value. If not for me, then for my children or one of our own who studies history and literature, they will be useful. I also have letters from the Kalynets family…
I finished my 25-year political sentence in the Urals, but the remaining 5 years I had were for a common criminal charge! So they transferred me to the criminals.
V.V. Ovsienko: And where was this zone?
M.V. Symchych: Its in the same Perm region, here in Valeriy Marchenkos book in the essay “Once 15, Twice 15!!!” its recorded… But I cant see anything, I need to get my glasses… “City of Kizel, post office Goshkovka, settlement Verkhnyaya Kosva, p/ya 201/20” (Note 1). They transferred me to the 20th camp point…
V.V. Ovsienko: Together with Vasyl Pidhorodetsky?
M.V. Symchych: Yes, together with Pidhorodetsky, because he, like me, was convicted in the camp on a common criminal charge. Because when they tried us the second time, they tried not to give us a political article. They considered it camp banditry.
V.V. Ovsienko: What was your relationship with Valeriy Marchenko like?
M.V. Symchych: How can I put it… We wrote various statements, and they sent those statements abroad. The old OUN members—how we differed from the younger generation—was that we had no connections with the West. When we were in the hundreds of thousands, millions… Probably no less than a million Ukrainians were imprisoned after the war—no one paid any attention to us. We were starving to death there, and no one cared. In general, the West paid no attention to the internal political situation in Russia because it was on its knees before Stalin. And they thought Russia was a joke. But when they saw that the Bolsheviks had placed their SS-20 missiles with nuclear warheads 200 kilometers west of Berlin, they realized what that smelled like for them, and then they started looking for allies in the Soviet . Then they saw that there were forces in the Soviet fighting against it and started looking for their own salvation. But as long as they thought Russia was weak and could be ignored, they didnt notice us, that there were some forces here that wanted Ukraine, that were suffering, that were dying. We were dying every day just like the Chechens are dying today. The West paid no attention to the insurgent struggle of the OUN-UPA. Even after living witnesses broke through with weapons in hand from the Zakerzonna Oblast to the West in 1947, no one paid any attention. Everyone thought: let them be… Just as we look at Chechnya now. When someone steps on a single Jews toe, everyone screams, oh-oh-oh, human rights are being violated! But when the Russians are killing the entire Chechen people for no reason, dropping three-ton bombs into those gorges, turning the capital, Grozny, into a pile of rubble, that whole Clinton lot says its Russias internal affair. A whole nation is being killed—let them kill, no one pays any attention. It was the same with us back then. It wasnt until they saw Moscows nuclear-tipped missiles threatening them that they started looking for allies. They began to meet with this younger generation.
I remember, in 1947, General Shukhevych sent couriers to Warsaw, asking the American embassy for help, he wanted to establish contact. But they said, oh-oh-oh, go away, God forbid the Bolsheviks find out you were here, that we talked to you. They didnt even want to talk. But now, when Moscows nuclear warheads started stinking under their noses, they started seeking you out, the Sixtiers, establishing connections with Ukraine, distributing some things, and propagandizing.
Another Two and a Half…
So, I was writing statements. I was literate enough to write them, but I didnt know who to give them to, how to send them. We were taken after the war, and no connections remained. But you guys, even though you were taken, your friends who had connections remained free. So you, the new generation, managed to take advantage of the political situation that had developed between the West and the East.
Valeriy and I would from time to time submit statements to the West on various topics. For one of those statements, I received another two and a half years after already serving 30. I wrote that statement, and Valeriy edited it a little. We sent it out. I wont tell you how it was done, because you did it yourself, so you know. If it were someone else, I would have to explain. But to this day, I dont tell anyone how we did it.
V.V. Ovsienko: Things like that shouldnt be told, because those people remained in Russia. Its a hostile state it could punish those people.
M.V. Symchych: Thats right. I wrote that statement and sent it in Brezhnevs name. In it, I described my whole life, starting from the day I joined the UPA, what prompted me to join, how I fought there, what I received from the Soviet authorities for it—up to the last day I was in the camp.
V.V. Ovsienko: How long was it?
M.V. Symchych: It was long, at least ten handwritten pages. I submitted it to the special section, the special section gave me a receipt that the statement was registered and sent. Some time later, an operative from the KGB of the Ukrainian SSR, Colonel Honchar, arrives from Kyiv.
V.V. Ovsienko: Honchar? I know Honchar.
M.V. Symchych: So, Colonel Honchar summons me and says: “Symchych, …your mother, what have you done!” I say: “Good heavens, did I do something…” “You,” he says, “have made a noise that’s been heard all over the world!” “What kind of noise?” “You wrote a slanderous complaint and it was published by the German magazine *Der Spiegel*, or whatever its called, and from there it was reprinted in all the countries of Western Europe and America where the Ukrainian diaspora lives, it spread all over the world!” “Listen,” I say, “if someone else who doesnt understand said this, you might believe it or not, but you know very well that Im sitting behind seven fences… We have it like this: one big fence, then three pre-zones—one smaller, then a second, then an even bigger one. And beyond the zone—another three pre-zones. Just look for yourself,” I say, “behind seven fences, could I pass anything to anyone from here? I have never been outside the zone. How could I have passed it? Furthermore. I submitted the statement to the special section, here I have the document. I bear full responsibility for every word I wrote there. If there is even one false word, even one letter wrong—I checked it thoroughly, even where the period is, where the comma is, everything is done from A to Z, because I knew who I was giving it to, I calculated everything in advance—if you find anything wrong there, then you can prosecute me. But if theres no lie in it, you wont be able to prosecute me. As for sending it to the magazine, I didnt send it, I sent it to Brezhnev. Why Brezhnev passed it on, I dont know. How it ended up there, ask Brezhnev. He has a direct line to Washington, a direct line to London, and to Bonn too—ask him, hell tell you. Why are you coming to me? Listen, youre a grown man, and you came to ask me. Only Brezhnev can answer that, I cant tell you.” He says to me: “Dont play the fool, your wife did it.” “And how,” I say, “could my wife have done that?” “She was on a visit, you passed it through her.” I say: “Listen, Mr. Colonel, again, dont be a child. You know that for the women who come to visit us, you have a special female guard who inspects every piece of paper, opens every jar and stirs the jam, cuts the sausage or lard into small pieces and looks into every little hole. Your women look into every little hole of our women. Nothing can be brought in here to us, or taken from us. If you are of sound mind and not a mentally ill person, you will understand this.”
He thought about it for a bit and says: “I know, youve been imprisoned for 30 years, you havent written anything and you wont write anything, I know that well. But you must persuade your wife to write a response to those Western anti-Soviet slanderers.” He wanted my wife to write that it wasnt my article, that I didnt write it, that it was a lie, that someone wrote a forgery in my name… That was the kind of response he thought my wife should write. And I say to him: “Mr. Colonel, youre right that I wont write anything, and you know that well. As for whether my wife will write for you or not, I dont know, but try to figure it out yourself. My wife was a Little Octobrist, after that she was a Pioneer, after that a Komsomol member, and on top of that, she was the secretary of the Komsomol organization of her factory workshop. Her father is an active Communist, a steelworker by profession, he made steel for the Bolshevik tanks with which you crushed and brought all of Europe to its knees. This family is completely yours. Go and talk to her.” I say: “She is your person. I married my wife by chance. You didnt let me go to my native land… Im sure its still noted somewhere in your files that I couldnt even show my face in the western oblasts. And I never went there. I didnt choose, I just ended up in a house and married the first woman I met, because I wanted to live like everyone else. I had that right even under your laws. But,” I say, “shes your person, you go to her and talk to her. Let her write it for you. If she writes it. Because I wont write such a thing for you, and I wont persuade my wife to.” And I knew, she wouldnt write a damn thing for them. *(He laughs)*.
V.V. Ovsienko: And when was this statement written?
M.V. Symchych: Around 1978 or 1979. I dont remember exactly now, because I was doing it at the time, but I swear to God, I never thought I would live to talk about it with you.
Then I say to him: “Go to my wife, if she writes it for you, then youll have it.” He tells me: “In that case, you will get ten years.” And I say to him: “Mr. Colonel, if someone else were saying this, it wouldnt be surprising to me, but you know very well that I have already served 30 years. Is that true?” He says: “True.” “I,” I say, “will serve another ten.” I stood up—he was sitting at the table like this, and I was like this—I stood up, turned around, walked out, and slammed the door behind me so hard that the windows rattled. After I left, I never saw that colonel, that Honchar, again. He was a man of medium height… And he, Im sure, never saw me again, and we will never see each other again, but after that, they transferred me to Tokmachka, in the Zaporizhzhia region. The KGB arrived, started questioning people: where I live in my section, where I work, who I walk with in the zone, and so on. They started gathering materials on me. Over three months, they gathered 42 witnesses. They put me in the punishment cell. A senior justice advisor from the Zaporizhzhia region, Captain Tyshchenko, arrives and presents me with a warrant for my arrest as an anti-Soviet slanderer. He presents me with materials stating that I had spoken out in support of the Polish “Solidarity” (Solidarity was making noise at that time), that I criticized the economic and national policy of the Soviet , that I said all the wealth created by the people was being exported to Africa and Asia, while our people lived haphazardly, and so on. They gathered all that material, all those witnesses, and wanted to give me the promised ten years.
But while I was in there, someone got word to the West—I still dont know who. That a man has already served 30 years, and so that they dont release a living witness from the zone, they trumped up a case. So they backed down: they didnt want to release me, but they didnt want to try me on a political article either. So they reclassified article 62 to 187-1: “slander against the Soviet reality.” They try Pentecostals and Jehovahs Witnesses under this article, and they threw me in with them—and into a criminal camp. The sentence ranges from 6 months to 3 years. They gave me two and a half years, but in a closed cell, especially strict regime, as a persistent repeat offender, because this was my third conviction. They did a medical commission for me, as they usually do for a prisoner when they send him to prison. What was lucky for me here was that the head of the prison in Zaporizhzhia turned out to be a very decent person, and the chief doctor, Ivan… I keep forgetting surnames…
When I was brought to the prison, a rumor went around: whoa, they brought such a bandit, he’s been in for 30 years. Apparently, someone from the KGB had said something to the head of the medical unit, just like they did to engineer Chyrva. She became interested in me and one day called me in and started talking to me. I began to tell her—who I am, what I am. Because such prisoners were no longer seen in Zaporizhzhia in those years. She looked at me as if I were some kind of marvel. *(He laughs).* She talked with me and became convinced that I was a completely normal person, not the demon they had presented me as. The first time she didnt say anything, just that I should sign up for appointments with her (I was suffering from hypertension and an ulcer), and she would try to give me medicine. So I would go to her and she would give me medicine herself in her office (they are usually distributed by nurses) and told me to sign up often. Even if she didnt understand, I understood that if I started visiting her too often, they might figure us out. So I signed up for her appointments rarely. One time I came, and she said: “They want to torture you to death.” Apparently, someone had told her something… I didnt ask why she thought so. She says: “They want to torture you to death, but we wont let them.” “How?” I ask. “We’ll send you to a disabled persons camp. With disability group two, they have no right to force you to work. You will lie quietly in your cell and thus survive these two and a half years. Because if they send you to a camp with a work group, you wont survive the labor there. Your health is in such a state that you wont make it. But without working, without walking, you will survive in the cell.”
She told me to complain about my health more often, so there would be a lot of material. I did as she said: whether it hurt or not, I screamed that it hurt. They set up a commission (they didnt even call me to it) and gave me disability group two. They took me to the Voroshylovhrad region, where there was an especially strict regime for the disabled. I served half my sentence there, and after half, according to their law, anyone with no violations is transferred from an especially strict to a strict regime. They transferred me to colony No. 45 in the Dnipropetrovsk region. I served out the rest of those two and a half years there.
Still, they didnt want to release me alive. So what did they do? I had about a month left until freedom. I was returning from lunch one day, and by my bunk stood two guards with huge knives, saying they found the knives under my pillow. They arrest me, take me to the operative, who immediately gives me 12 days in the punishment cell. They bring me to the punishment cell, strip me, and put me in a cell with broken windows. The weather was nasty, with snow blowing in through the window. How I survived those 12 days, I dont know. To lie down… For 8 hours they unlock the bunk so you could lie on it, but it’s freezing. And I was only in my work clothes. On the general regime, they dont take your padded jacket, but here they took it. An undershirt, a shirt, and a light jacket. Thats it. How I didnt die in those 12 days, I dont know. Theres nothing in the punishment cell: a cement floor, a latrine bucket—thats all. For 8 hours they unlock the bunk, but you get on it, sit for a bit—and you start shivering, so you have to get off and walk around again to warm up. My feet swelled up, turned blue, then black, just like when they beat me with a ramrod during torture. How I didnt die there, I dont know.
For the last two days, I was freezing to death on the floor because I couldnt stand on my feet anymore. When the 12 days were up, two guards came, took me by the arms, lifted me up, led me to my section, and threw me onto my bunk. This was with only 4 or 5 days left until my release. I couldnt walk, the guys brought me soup from the canteen and fed me right away. I recovered a little…
Freedom on a Leash
The day of my release arrived, and I couldnt believe they were letting me go. A guard came: “Symchych, get your things, youre free.” But I hadnt gathered anything. *(He laughs)*. Just as it was, I left everything, all my bags. I only went to the storeroom to get two suitcases of letters. One was huge, the other smaller—both full of letters. The guards helped me carry them to the watchtower, because I couldnt manage. They took the two suitcases outside the zone, led me to the headquarters, wrote me a certificate of release, and my wife was already waiting for me there. I remember the date: April 30, 1985.
My wife met me—like a free supplement to a magazine *(he laughs)*, took me by the arm, led me into some room, stripped me of that camp clothing, dressed me in clean clothes, and led me to the bus, because I couldnt walk on my own. She brought me home to Zaporizhzhia, and there we found Orysia Sokulska—Ivans wife. Orysia Sokulska, Olenka Antoniv were already my colleagues, because their husbands were imprisoned…
We hadnt even had a chance to talk when the doorbell rang. My wife opened it. We look: a senior lieutenant of the police and another one with him. They came to place me under administrative supervision. They took me away. My younger son Myroslav wouldnt let me leave the house (my older son, Ihor, was in Pskov, finishing at the electrotechnical institute). He clung to me—and they brought us both to the police station. There, they put me under supervision for a year. After that, either civilian patrols or the police would come to check if I was home, if not every day, then at least every other day.
V.V. Ovsienko: What were your restrictions?
M.V. Symchych: It was forbidden, as they said, to visit any public places: no going to the cinema, nowhere. I asked if I had the right to go to a demonstration—they said “no.” They defined my route: from home to work, from work to home. It wasnt until six months later that I managed to get permission from the police chief to help my wife weed the garden at our dacha they wouldnt even let me go there.
Sometime later, an article about me appeared in the regional newspaper “Industrial Zaporizhzhia,” taking up the entire front page: such-and-such a murderer, killed 42 people. That correspondent, whose name was Leheida, wrote God knows what… That I killed many people… This was done, I think, to turn people against me. But the opposite happened. One time, when I already had permission to go to the dacha, my wife and I agreed that after work we wouldnt go home but go to the dacha instead. Theres always work to do there. We were there on Saturday and Sunday. And on Monday morning, we took a trolleybus nearby and went to work—my wife to hers, and I to mine. I never went to the morning “five-minute meeting.” Because I worked as a lathe operator, I always knew my job it was the same for me today and tomorrow. For the drivers—today they go here, tomorrow there—they need a work order every day, but I didnt go for a work order. So on Monday, I went straight to the lathe shop. I managed to grease and start up the machine. Because when you come in, you first have to check the machine, see how everything is. I started working.
Then I see: all the drivers are running from the work order meeting to my lathe shop. I wonder, whats going on? They shout: “Grandpa, …your mother, why didnt you kill all the communists? Look how many of those bastards are still walking around!” Some rush to kiss me, others… Because until then, they didnt know who I was. I just came to work, got a job, and was working. They suspected I wasnt like everyone else. Why? There was a lathe operator before me. Almost every driver, besides the state vehicle, had his own private car. If something broke, where did he go? Hed go to the lathe operator to have something machined. My predecessor would charge three rubles or a bottle of vodka for a job. They came to me in the same way. I started doing the same work, but I didnt take any three-ruble notes or bottles. Theyd come, place an order, and I would do it for them little by little, in turn, in between my state work, doing their “side jobs,” as they call it, but I didnt take money from anyone, and no drinks either, because I dont drink. They would say: “...your mother, what kind of grandpa is this? Doesnt drink vodka, doesnt take money, but gets the job done.” They thought about it and decided I was a Jehovahs Witness. He must be a Jehovahs Witness. And so they considered me a Jehovahs Witness until that article came out. So Im telling you what its result was: “Why didnt you kill all the communists…”
After that, no more articles appeared. And the guys treated me well, not just the drivers, but everyone around me. Except maybe the secretary of the Komsomol organization. At first, he said I was a collaborator, but after the article, even he fell silent. Everyone treated me not as a comrade, but as a dear father: “Grandpa, you just say what you need!”
While I was imprisoned, someone sold my wife a small plot of land for 80 rubles, where a dacha was supposed to be. My wife fenced it with a few strands of wire, but couldnt build any kind of cottage, because its expensive. So she dug in four posts, wrapped them with tar paper, just to have a place to go when the sun was scorching or when it rained. And she wrote to me about it. I reassured her: sweetheart, be patient a little longer, when Im released, Ill build you a cottage there. After my release, I started building. So I would tell those drivers that I need bricks—they would bring them. Theyd dump them and leave. When I wanted to pay—no one took a single kopeck from me, just as I hadnt from anyone. I needed planks for the floor and had to plane them—they brought the planks, but how to plane them? I said to my section chief, a guy named Morzh: “Mikhail Artemovich, I need to plane the planks, but I dont know how.” “Nonsense,” he says, “the head of the carpentry shop is a friend of mine.” He took the key to the shop for the weekend, ordered a truck, took another man—and we planed all the planks ourselves. And that was a whole truckload of planks. I ask: “But how will we get them out of the factory, theres a militarized guard there?” He says: “Grandpa, not your business. If we have to, we can get a drunk director out, not just your planks.” I was wondering how that would work. But he went. We were finishing planing, and he went to the gate to see who was on duty. And they all—those drivers and the guards on duty—theyre all connected. The drivers steal—the guards let them pass, the guards steal—the drivers haul it out for them. Everyone steals. He came back. “Well, how is it?” “We load up now, we go.” We loaded the planks, I get in the cabin with him, we drive up to the gate, he showed the guard his face, the guard saluted him, pressed a button, the gates opened, we drove out, he closed them—and we drove to the dacha.
Kolomyia
So I worked at Zaporizhstal in the garage until 1996, until I received a message from here, from Kolomyia, by phone: “Come back to Kolomyia, they have allocated a one-room apartment for you, so you can finally have a chance to return to your native land.” A colleague from the UPA informed me.
When the collapsed, I was allowed to come here. I would visit and dropped in on this friend of mine. His daughter, Nadiia Suyatytska, worked here in the City Council. She said that some people were leaving the city, some were dying. Sometimes apartments became vacant. She asked why I didnt return. Well, I said, I have nowhere to go. So she spoke somewhere with the head of the City Council, and he promised he would give me an apartment. Only, he said, let him write an application. I wrote an application, gave it to this girl, but I didnt go to see that mayor myself I didnt really believe it. That was the first mayor, Mashtaler. He promised but didnt deliver, he kept stalling. I was twelfth on the waiting list, and a year later I was twentieth. Instead of moving forward, the line went backward. Well, I gave up on it. But then a second mayor came… What was his name… Now theres a third, the communist Korchynsky. That second mayor, after three months, told the girl to call me: let Symchych come to Kolomyia on March 27, 1996, and he will receive a one-room apartment. I came here, and they gave me this one-room apartment, the one were talking in right now. As soon as I got it, I left everything that was in Zaporizhzhia—the dacha, the apartment—and Ive been living here since.
V.V. Ovsienko: This is the second time Ive been here, and I havent seen your wife—where is she?
M.V. Symchych: My wife is in the village. She has a farm there: she has ten chickens, three geese, and a piglet, two cats, and two small dogs. She absolutely loves farming.
V.V. Ovsienko: And what village is that?
M.V. Symchych: Nyzhnii Bereziv, my home village. She has to feed that farm. Because we have no income other than our pensions. My pension is small, for old age, because I dont have enough official work history. And my wifes earnings were also not high, so her pension is small. Our children cant help us because both sons are currently unemployed. You cant get very far on a pension, and we still have to pay for this apartment. And those chickens… Were about to fry some eggs now. And to feed those chickens, what do we do? We buy barley with our pension and feed those chickens and the piglet. Then we have a piece of meat, a piece of lard, and an egg. And when a hen gets old, we have to slaughter it. Thats how we survive with the village. Its hard to survive without the village.
V.V. Ovsienko: And what, so to speak, public duties do you have now?
M.V. Symchych: While I was young, I worked more actively, but today—as much as my strength allows. When I arrived in Zaporizhzhia, I organized the Brotherhood of UPA Warriors and was the head of the Zaporizhzhia district administration. When I came to Kolomyia, old acquaintances and friends started coming and asked me to lead the Kolomyia City and District Brotherhood of OUN-UPA Warriors. This is my third year as its chairman. And besides that, I plant potatoes and beets, so we can somehow get through the winter.
We Not Only Cried—We Also Fought
M.V. Symchych: Thats a brief summary of myself, because thats not even half of what Ive been through. Im just telling it like this so as not to tire you for too long. But when you start to remember—oh-oh-oh. You touch on one thing and leave the rest out.
V.V. Ovsienko: We can always add more, as Ill be in Kolomyia for another day or two. I want to ask, have there been any publications by you or about you?
M.V. Symchych: There have been articles about me. A two-volume narrative of my life is currently being prepared.
V.V. Ovsienko: So you wrote it?
M.V. Symchych: I wrote it just like Im talking to you. I told my story to the editor of a newspaper in Kolomyia, Mykhailo Andrusiak. He has already prepared the first volume and gave it to me to check and correct. I returned the first volume to him about a week ago, already checked. I dont know when it will be published because there is no money. The second volume is also recorded but still needs to be transcribed onto paper.
V.V. Ovsienko: What will the title be?
M.V. Symchych: The book will be called “Brothers of Thunder” (Note 2). I come across memoirs—sometimes they are so weak that you dont even want to read them. But this material is substantial, the book will be very interesting.
V.V. Ovsienko: But you are an excellent storyteller.
M.V. Symchych: I praise it not because its my book. But even there, I didnt include everything. To collect everything, you would need to write 3-4 such books. It was six years of partisan warfare and 32 and a half years of camp torture and struggle. Because we didnt just cry in the camps, we also fought. If there had been slightly better conditions, so I could sit down calmly and describe everything year by year…
V.V. Ovsienko: You know, in 1996 I was preparing a booklet by Oksana Meshko for publication, I called it “I Testify” (Note 3). It’s also an autobiographical narrative, recorded by Professor Vasyl Skrypka in the last year of her life. I wrote a small preface to it. And I mentioned Patriarch Volodymyr, in the world Vasyl Romaniuk, also a political prisoner. On the last day of his earthly life, before lunch, he consecrated an exhibition by the Uzhhorod artist Stepan Usenko at the Shevchenko Museum and said something like this: “Spiritual feats do not perish in vain. Someone will always be found to bear witness to them.” And in the afternoon, the Patriarch died. In the same way, you are a witness to the national liberation movement.
M.V. Symchych: There are three of us who endured more than 30 years. Well, some include exile. But exile—that’s not the camps!
V.V. Ovsienko: Danylo Shumuk—42 years, 6 months, and 7 days, including 5 years of exile.
M.V. Symchych: I, out of 32 years, 6 months, and 3 days, was never on any kind of relaxed, general regime, not for a single day. I went through three regimes: strict, especially strict, and prison. And the punishment cell. If you count all those punishment cells, how much time I spent in them—my God! Thats a lot to talk about, so I skipped over all of that.
V.V. Ovsienko: And who else did you want to mention that had over 30 years?
M.V. Symchych: Well, besides Shumuk, Yuriy Shukhevych and I had over 30 years. I have no exile, not a single day I never fell into any kind of favor. I went, as they say, from the rain and under the gutter, escaped from the wolf only to run into a bear. Three regimes: 32 years, 6 months, and 3 days… And now the deputies in the Verkhovna Rada vote against us, as if against bandits, and dont recognize us as equal combatants who fought for the Ukrainian state. Those NKVD men who shot our people, exiled them to Siberia, destroyed them—they have all the privileges, while we are still considered criminals.
V.V. Ovsienko: Yes, they have good pensions from the state they fought against their whole lives. Even the very recent ones. For example, around 1995, I heard that the head of the SBU in Zhytomyr died and they were appointing a new one. And who do they appoint? Leonid Ivanovych Chaikovsky—the very same Chaikovsky who handled my case in 1981, he was a major then, and now he’s a colonel. I appealed to the head of the SBU—who are you appointing? And I tell my specific example, that he handled a case for which I am now rehabilitated. Well, I received a polite response from the SBU, saying, well, we sympathize with you, but he did not violate the laws of that time. But he did violate even the laws of that time! Still, they appointed him to head the SBU of the Zhytomyr region. Then I write to the President, saying, this man fought against the creation of the Ukrainian state, and besides, he defended that fortress called the USSR poorly, because it fell. So, you probably are appointing him now so he can bring down Ukraine too? He is a bad specialist. Ukraine does not need such specialists, who were called “torturers and executioners” in Muscovy, the butchers of Ukraine. We need doctors, we need engineers, we need teachers, but every new state changes its security service completely. I also wrote that I dont demand they be imprisoned where I was, but let such specialists earn their bread now with a sickle or a hammer. A real one, not a paper one. I received a response, but it was not so polite. And Chaikovsky held the post for about three years, then he was dismissed, and that was that. And the judge, Kovalenko, who tried me in Radomyshl (I was accused a second time of allegedly tearing two buttons off a policeman’s uniform)—that judge is still presiding. And the judge who tried me, Proniuk, and Lisovyi back in 1973—he was a judge until 1992, he was the first deputy chairman of the Supreme Court—P.H. Tsurenko. He just retired…
M.V. Symchych: And has a large pension…
V.V. Ovsienko: He has passed away already, but he lived for another two or three years after retiring. This is the same Tsurenko who used to send us, political prisoners, responses: “Convicted correctly, the appeal is unfounded.” No matter what you wrote—the answer was the same. By the way, he became the First Deputy Chairman of the Supreme Court precisely by convicting us—Lisovyi, Proniuk, and me…
M.V. Symchych: I look at myself, I ask myself, why am I alive? I never thought I would live to this day. I think: why am I alive? Can a human body withstand as much as mine has? Others beside me perished… Why did that Valeriy Marchenko, a young man, arrive at colony No. 35 in Vsesvyatskaya in the Perm region—he arrived as healthy as an ox, and after 6 years his body completely gave up? And mine, at that time, had already held on for 25 years, and is still living now. Why?
V.V. Ovsienko: No, Marchenko had had kidney problems since he was seventeen.
M.V. Symchych: And what about Ivan Svitlychny? Svitlychny declined before my eyes. We were in the same zone—Svitlychny, Valeriy Marchenko, Yevhen Proniuk, Yevhen Sverstiuk, other guys. The one who held up well physically was Ihor Kalynets. Kalynets arrived healthy, and he left physically healthy. He is, however, a bit arrogant, thinking, “I am Yarema—a wise head,” and no one is smarter than him. Well, everyone has their flaws… I never judge anyone for their character. But all the rest declined. By the time the Sixtiers and Seventiers came to the camps, they were already getting a daily bread ration. They didnt know what we experienced: every fourth day theyd give two or three rations, then nothing for a week. We would swell from hunger and no one even buried us. Here everyone has a grave, but ours were just dumped in a pile, and their bones are probably still unburied to this day.
V.V. Ovsienko: Perhaps so that you could testify about it?
M.V. Symchych: I also ask myself, why am I alive? Then I look back at history, and I think that there has never been a war, never a revolution, where everyone perished, where the Lord didnt leave a small group as living witnesses to carry the past history to the future generation. I think, maybe the Lord left me for that purpose, so that someone could tell that bitter, holy, and cruel truth, all that misery. If it werent for this, I wouldnt even speak anymore. Im tired of telling the story. I think to myself, maybe God left me as a living witness, to tell you all this here, and you will carry it to the people, so they know that Ukrainians were once human beings. Although a part was bent, there still remained in the Ukrainian people a small group of people, that core, which held the Ukrainian nation, did not let it bend, did not let it perish.
Notes.
1. See pp. 366-373 in the book: Valeriy Marchenko. Letters to His Mother from Captivity. Oleh Olzhych Foundation. K.: 1994.— 500 p.
2. The book has already been published: Mykhailo Andrusiak. Brothers of Thunder. A documentary-fiction narrative. Kolomyia: “Vik” Publishing and Printing Company, 2001, 800 p. The book contains essays on several insurgents and about a thousand photographs.
3. Oksana Meshko. I Testify. Recorded by Vasyl Skrypka. Library of the “Republic” journal. Series: Political Portraits, no. 3.— K.: Ukrainian Republican Party, 1996.— 56 p.
160,350 characters.
Published:
Out of the Fire and into the Flames. An interview with the insurgent Myroslav Symchych. Recorded by Vasyl Ovsienko on February 8 and 9, and March 20, 2000, in the city of Kolomyia, Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast. / Suchasnist, 2002, No. 2 (490), pp. 132–148 No. 3 (491), pp. 57–80.
Photo by V. Ovsienko:
Symchych Film 9629, frame 1A. March 20, 2002, Kolomyia. Myroslav SYMCHYCH.
