An Interview with Bohdan Ivanovych TYMKIV
On March 19, 2000, in the city of Kolomyia, in the home of Myroslav Symchych, Mr. Bohdan Tymkiv speaks. Recorded by Vasyl Ovsienko.
B.I. Tymkiv: I, Bohdan Ivanovych Tymkiv, was born on September 24, 1935, in the village of Sivka-Voynylivska, Kalush Raion, Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast. My childhood and youth were spent in my native village. I graduated from the Sivka secondary school. After finishing school, the military commissariat sent me to an officers' school. But I didn't pass, and when I returned, I was drafted into the army. I served in the air force in the Estonian Republic.
My childhood and youth passed amid turbulent events. The national liberation struggle under the leadership of the OUN-UPA was underway in our region. As a boy, I was an eyewitness to those terrible events, those tragedies. I saw people being killed, villages being burned, and people being deported to Siberia. This tragedy unfolded before my eyes. All of this settled in my soul and left its mark on the formation of my worldview and my national consciousness.
I was demobilized from the army early due to family circumstances. In 1956, I returned home and got a job as a worker at the Broshniv woodworking combine—the Broshniv timber combine. I worked there for almost two and a half years. In 1957, I was admitted to the Lviv Forestry Institute, in the mechanical faculty. I switched to the correspondence department because my family’s circumstances were very difficult, and I couldn’t study full-time. Before that, I had worked there as an inspector-receiver of export material and held other positions. In 1958, having moved on to the second year of my studies, I got a job at the DOK No. 9 woodworking combine as a labor and wages engineer.
In 1957, in Broshniv, I met Ivan Strutynskyi—a talented young man who was the conductor and musical director of the Broshniv choir from DOK No. 17. Ivan Strutynskyi introduced me to Yarema Tkachuk, who also worked at DOK No. 9. In these acquaintances, in our frequent meetings, we raised questions about the current state of Ukraine, about Russification, enslavement, and so on.
Later, Yarema Tkachuk said that there was such an organization, that there were people who were thinking about the fate of Ukraine, and that we, as young people, should also make our own contribution to this struggle. Eventually, we came to the conclusion that it was necessary to create youth organizations that would raise the issue of the national liberation of Ukraine.
And in the fall of 1957, a group, an organization, was created in Broshniv, Rozhniativ Raion, which was later formalized as the “United Party for the Liberation of Ukraine.” I later found out that there were cells of this organization in Kolomyia, in the village of Piadyky, and in Ivano-Frankivsk. I met some of its members later.
This organization had not yet been formally established; it had no program, no statute—it was just ideas. And I came up with the thought that it should be formalized, so that as an organization, it would have some kind of program, statute, and leadership. And they suggested that I try to create the program. And I took it upon myself. I wrote the program and the statute and proposed a name. There were various suggestions, I don't remember them anymore, but analyzing the history of our people and the liberation struggles, I came to the conclusion that the main cause of all failures is disunity. So I proposed the name “United Party for the Liberation of Ukraine.” This name encompassed the entire meaning—both the national idea and the unification of all forces. We had in mind the unification not only of national forces but also the unification of people with different worldviews who would stand for the statehood of Ukraine. I expressed this idea, and the majority supported it. In addition, at the meeting, which we called a congress, the statute was also approved. Later, I was informed that it was adopted with some amendments.
V.O.: And when did this happen? And where exactly?
B.T.: It was in the spring of 1958 in Frankivsk (I wasn't there, because I had gone for my academic session). The statute and program document of the organization were approved near the lake in Frankivsk.
V.O.: So you weren't there, but you probably know who was at that meeting?
B.T.: Ivan Strutynskyi was there, Yarema Tkachuk, Bohdan Germaniuk, Myron Ploshchak, and two others whose last names I don't remember. The organization set itself a clear goal: to recruit, agitate, and expand the organization so that it would achieve an all-Ukrainian scale. There were resolutions and instructions to travel to the eastern oblasts, to get acquainted with students, young people, and the intelligentsia, and to provide information about the events taking place in our western oblasts, and to expand the organization.
Many members of the organization visited the eastern oblasts. For example, Mykola Yurchyk worked as a shipping clerk at DOK No. 9. He had the opportunity to visit various places in Ukraine. Yarema Tkachuk also had the opportunity to travel to various places in Ukraine due to the nature of his work. The organization had some success because the youth, where we were, were drawn to us. Through our behavior and our moral qualities, we served as an example for them. We participated in amateur arts, in all cultural events, to attract attention to ourselves. There we would observe the youth, certain individuals who could be members of our organization.
On December 4, 1958, at six in the morning, I was arrested by the Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast KGB. I was under investigation for 4 months. I was tried on March 10, 1959. The charge was: anti-Soviet nationalist activity, Article 54-1a and 11. That was the criminal case brought against me. I was sentenced to 10 years. In May 1959, I was sent to Mordovian concentration camp No. 7.
V.O.: But still, could you be a bit more specific about the organization's activities? What did you do? What actions were you accused of?
B.T.: As I already said, we often had meetings. The questions were always the same: to study the situation, what opportunities there were for agitational and organizational work. We knew that the KGB was not asleep. We conducted agitation among the youth. Everyone had an assignment to agitate, to awaken the national consciousness of young people. The issue of work in the army was also raised. In 1958, Ivan Strutynskyi was drafted into the army. And as a conductor and musician, he was sent to the Ivano-Frankivsk garrison as an artistic director. His task was to observe the soldiers and officers and to propagate the idea of Ukraine's national liberation. There were no physical actions—it was mainly ideological work.
V.O.: Did your organization have any printed materials? Any leaflets or brochures, or written texts?
B.T.: As far as I know, there were no printed materials at that time. Everything was in manuscript form. I created several local leaflets, but they were not printed. But there was a plan for the guys to acquire a typewriter, and it was almost arranged. But there were no printed documents, as far as I know.
V.O.: What about the program and statute? Were they only in manuscript form, then?
B.T.: In manuscript form.
V.O.: And in a single copy?
B.T.: No, in several copies: I had one copy, the Kolomyia organization had one copy, and the Ivano-Frankivsk one had a copy. My copy, along with all the documents, was kept in my apartment in Broshniv. During the arrest, they were all seized.
V.O.: So they are in the case file?
B.T.: They should be there. After the sentence was pronounced, the prosecutor presented me with a notification to sign, stating that part of the documents had allegedly been burned. I don't know how legal or illegal that was, but that's what I was told.
V.O.: Are you aware that you can now appeal to the court that tried you, with a request to have your materials from the case file returned to you, or to have copies made of them? You have that right now, and it could be done.
B.T.: When I applied for rehabilitation in 1991, I submitted an application to the then-KGB, and they allowed me to look at the case file. But not in its entirety, only some excerpts. I had a chance to look at the verdict. But I was not allowed to see the investigative materials.
V.O.: You could now find the time to simply copy or photocopy some things, at least you would have the verdict and the main documents. Has any researcher approached you for permission to review the case? No?
B.T.: No one has personally approached me about this.
V.O.: Because an outside person could be allowed access to the case file only with the permission of the convicted, and if they are no longer alive, with the permission of their relatives. If anyone asks you, don't refuse. Anatoliy Rusnachenko wrote about your OPVU in his book, but very briefly, and there are even mistakes: the names are listed as Harmatiuk, Pliushchyk instead of Germaniuk, Ploshchak. (Anatoliy Rusnachenko. The National Liberation Movement in Ukraine. Mid-1950s – Early 1990s. – K.: Vyd. im. Oleny Telihy, 1998. – P. 96. – V.O.).
B.T.: Now I want to briefly talk about my time in the concentration camp.
V.O.: And a little about the investigation. How were you treated during the investigation?
B.T.: During the investigation, there were no physical measures, no violence of any kind. There was psychological pressure. They could summon you for interrogation in the evening, on a Sunday, and keep you late at night—that sort of thing.
V.O.: Was there any pressure in the cell, perhaps?
B.T.: I was in a solitary cell, in the basement. For the entire investigation, a month and a half, I was in a solitary cell.
V.O.: What was the address where you were—in Frankivsk?
B.T.: At that time it was Daduhina Street, and now it's Konovaltsia. The investigation lasted almost three and a half months. The investigative bodies and the prosecutor's office were very alarmed. You see, after Khrushchev's statement that nationalism was almost eliminated and that the national question in the Soviet Union was not an issue, suddenly such an organization appeared, with such a name, and among the youth, and so numerous.
V.O.: And how long did it exist?
B.T.: It existed for almost two years. More than twenty people were prosecuted in the case.
I already said that I got ten years. At first, they threatened us with the supreme penalty, but then they changed it to Article 54-1a. At that time, 25-year sentences were no longer given; the maximum was 15 years. And we hadn't committed any actions that went beyond ideological-agitational work, so they gave us 10 years each.
V.O.: So, who was tried and sentenced to how many years?
B.T.: Yes, Bohdan Vasyliovych Germaniuk, Ivan Strutynskyi… The ones I’m naming got 10 years each. Myself, Bohdan Ivanovych Tymkiv, Myron Fedorovych Ploshchak. Five of us got 10 years. Yarema Tkachuk also received 10 years. Two got 7 years—Mykola Yurchyk and Ivan Konevych. And Vasyl Ploshchak got two years. There were eight of us tried in the case.
After that, I was sent to Mordovian concentration camp No. 7.
V.O.: What is the name of the settlement there?
B.T.: I don’t remember now. The station is Potma, but I may have already forgotten the name of the settlement. I was in the seventh camp for almost three years. Well, of course, the KGB's goal was always to make you cooperate with them. Then I was sent to the 11th concentration camp. I don't remember the year. In short, it was like this: I was in the 11th concentration camp, from the 11th I was sent to the third concentration camp, and from the third concentration camp, I remember when Khrushchev was removed... I was in the third concentration camp when I heard on the radio that Khrushchev had been removed. That was 1964.
V.O.: Is that Barashevo?
B.T.: Barashevo, Barashevo. It was like a hospital station for all the concentration camps. There was also a work zone there. We made shipping crates. We cut wood on these circular saws. After the third concentration camp—I still had two years left on my term—I was sent to strict-regime camp No. 17.
V.O.: That would be Ozerne.
B.T.: That would be Ozerne. Yes. This strict-regime camp was located in the middle of a forest. A very small zone, with two barracks. There were about two hundred and fifty of us there.
V.O.: You were in the small zone?
B.T.: In the small zone, yes.
V.O.: I was there later as well. Do you know the name of this Ozerne in the Mordovian language? Umor.
B.T.: Umor! The regime was very strict. We sewed work gloves there. The authorities were very demanding, insisting on quotas and so on.
The days went by. In the days of captivity in the concentration camps, I met outstanding people. For example, I was on very good terms with the lawyer Horbovyi, who was the defense attorney at the trial of the Bandera group in Warsaw.
V.O.: What was Horbovyi’s first name? Everyone just says “Doctor, Doctor”—but no one says his first name.
B.T.: I've already forgotten. I've forgotten everything. (Volodymyr Horbovyi. —V.O.). I was also in very good relations with Mykhailo Mykhailovych Soroka for a long time. A man who ended up in a Soviet concentration camp back in 1940. He was a highly educated person; he graduated from Prague University. He was one of the leaders of the OUN. He was a very cultured, moral, and ideological man.
I was with Pavlo Vasylyk, who is now a bishop in Kolomyia. We were very good friends.
I was also friends with and spent almost all my time communicating with the son of Roman Shukhevych, the commander of the UPA, with Yurko. He is in Lviv now.
And many others, whom I cannot recall now. For example, in the seventh concentration camp, as far as I know, there were more than 2,000 people. And among those two thousand people, about 60% were Ukrainians. It must be said that in almost all the concentration camps—it was noticeable in conversation—the vast majority were Ukrainians, outnumbering all other nationalities.
At that time, in 1959–1960, I met Levko Lukianenko in the seventh concentration camp, with whom I was on very close terms. We were together for more than a year and a half. We worked at the same site.
In the ten years of camp life, there were all sorts of incidents, protests by the youth who would declare hunger strikes against the rude behavior of the guards, against the harsh working conditions, the very conditions of confinement. For this, they were punished with solitary confinement cells. I would also like to say that in the period from 1959 to 1961, a group of young people from the eastern oblasts arrived at the seventh concentration camp. They were from Kyiv, Dnipropetrovsk, and Kharkiv. I don't remember their names now, but they were very fine young men who burned with love for Ukraine. But they were not at the proper level of national consciousness. They were sentenced to various terms, from three to five years. In the process of communicating with our youth, they became conscious nationalists. I believe that when the processes of Ukraine's revival began, they took an active part in the events. Because, as far as I know, they came out of the concentration camps as conscious Ukrainians, ideological patriots. I personally communicated with them a lot.
V.O.: In 1965, the Horyn brothers and Moroz were arrested… Did you get to see them there?
B.T.: I was with Horyn at the 11th concentration camp. We met often, had evening gatherings. Mykhailo and Bohdan Horyn, Yurii Shukhevych, and my co-defendants—we often met in the evenings and discussed all sorts of issues, having interesting conversations.
V.O.: Before their arrival, very little information came out of the camps. But with this contingent from 1965, the flow of information began. How was this received by the older generation?
B.T.: When I met Levko Lukianenko at the seventh concentration camp, such an idea emerged. I talked with Levko Lukianenko; he was very interested in the national liberation movement in the western region under the leadership of OUN-UPA. We raised the question of how to inform the world community about the events in Ukraine and in the camps, because the Soviet authorities always said there was no national question. He told me that there was such an idea and that it would soon be organized.
When I was transferred to the eleventh concentration camp, Horyn approached me…
V.O.: Mykhailo or Bohdan?
B.T.: I don't remember exactly. Horyn came up and asked me to give him all the information about my organization. He told me that all this would be taken outside the concentration camp and beyond the borders of the Soviet Union. I gave a brief description. He approached others there as well, and other guys did too. After some time, we already found out—because relatives came to visit us and said that Radio Liberty and Radio Free Europe had data on those who were in the concentration camps, what they were convicted for, about the living conditions, and so on. This was done by that group that arrived in 1962-1965.
V.O.: I understand that it was still pleasant for you to hear that they were talking about you. But were there any repressions against you for this?
B.T.: No, there were no repressions. But there was this principled approach, they watched who walked with whom, who socialized with whom, and after that, they would arrange transfers to break up those friendships. The KGB operated on that principle. After all of this was published in the West, the transfers began. If they knew someone was friends with someone else, they would separate them, sending them to different concentration camps.
On December 4, 1969, I was released from the 17th strict-regime concentration camp. I came home to my native village of Sivka-Voynylivska. My elderly mother was there with me; she was sixty-nine years old. My mother—Paraska Semenivna Tymkiv. She was a peasant, semi-literate. But she instilled in me a love for Ukraine. Although she was a simple peasant, she saw all that injustice—both Polish and German. And I remember all this too. Especially this Muscovite-Bolshevik injustice, because all of this happened before our eyes. We saw all these repressions. My mother used to say: “Why is our Ukraine so unhappy, why do our people suffer so much?” I often heard these words from her; she said them almost in prayer. And all this sank into my soul as well. She was a simple Ukrainian peasant woman who loved her people, her Motherland, and worked her whole life, as they say, in that field.
V.O.: Her years of life, please?
B.T.: My mother was born in 1901 in the village of Perlivtsi, Halych Raion. In 1934, she married my father. My father had already had two wives before that. They had died, and my mother married a widower. I was her only son. My father died in 1956, just when I was serving in the army. My father was born in 1887, Ivan Fedorovych Tymkiv. His roots are in the village of Sivka-Voynylivska, and my mother is from Halych Raion.
V.O.: Is your mother perhaps still alive?
B.T.: No. My mother died in 1987. She lived to be almost eighty-seven.
I returned home in 1969. The conditions were very difficult. My mother was a person without rights; no matter whom she turned to, no one helped her. All the local authorities treated her with contempt, saying that she had a nationalist son. The head of the kolkhoz never gave her a horse and cart, or anything. My mother was in great hardship. When I returned, I couldn't get a job for a very long time. Nobody would hire me. I had the qualifications of an engineer and a mechanic, and a tractor driver, and an electric welder, but I couldn't find a job. As soon as I submitted my documents to the personnel department, they would tell me that they didn't need anyone for now. So for almost three months, or even longer, I couldn't get a job. It was only thanks to an acquaintance, a fellow villager, that I got a job as an electric welder at the Burshtyn housing construction combine.
And when, starting in 1970, they wanted to build a monument in my village to the victims of the Banderites and the Great Patriotic War, they summoned me to the KGB and wanted me to give a speech. I categorically refused, saying that I had nothing to do with it. Immediately after that chat with the KGB, about a week later, I was fired due to staff reductions. I became unemployed. And again, thanks to an acquaintance, I got a job at the Ivano-Frankivsk armature plant. It's true that by 1973, I was already married. My wife worked as a teacher. And she still works in Ivano-Frankivsk.
V.O.: What is your wife's name?
B.T.: My wife's maiden name is Nahorniak, Maria Mykhailivna. Her father was a very conscious old intellectual, a Ukrainian. Often in conversation with me, he sympathized—not only sympathized with me but also told me about his cultural activities in Prykarpattia. Because he was born in the village of Ternovytsia.
In 1978, I started working at the Armature plant as a mechanic-auto welder. I worked there for almost 13 years, with changes in profession—I worked as a mechanic, as a foreman, as a team leader. I want to say that the atmosphere at the Armature plant was good; everyone treated me with sympathy, from the foremen and shop supervisors to even the secretary of the party organization. They treated me with some sort of sympathy. They knew about my case, because there were many of those—I knew—who were recruited to keep an eye on me.
When the awakening of the Ukrainian spirit began in 1989, I was one of the first at the plant to start creating a Ukrainian Language Society. And that's how it began. Then the Rukh was created. We acted with our friends at the plant with whom we shared a worldview. There was this Oleh Ozarkiv, who had also been convicted. He and I worked a lot to create that Society. Then we created Rukh. Then, starting in 1990, such a wave had gathered that even the director of the plant and others had to make concessions to us. Because such a mass was coming over to our side, this idea gained such momentum that they had to reckon with us. We often held meetings in the square during lunch breaks, and workers would gather. I would speak, others would speak, explaining the issues facing Ukraine at the time, what needed to be done next.
Ivano-Frankivsk had one of the strongest Rukh organizations. It took a very active part in all events in the oblast. We traveled to villages during elections, distributing proclamations, the statute, and the Rukh program. We played a major role when everyone united for the organization of the "Lviv–Kyiv" human chain.
The revival of Ukraine began. I personally (this was such happiness for me, such a spiritual uplift!) took an active part in all those events.
When Levko Lukianenko was nominated as a candidate for the Verkhovna Rada, I was his trusted representative and traveled with him.
V.O.: In the Zaliznychnyi district, it seems?
B.T.: Yes, yes. He was running in the Zaliznychnyi district. I traveled around the factories, gave speeches, introduced him, as someone I know personally. And he was very successful.
All the time I worked at the plant, my work was associated with harmful working conditions. And the years I worked before my arrest were not counted towards my seniority. So I had to work until I was 60 to retire. But already in 1991, the management of the armature plant reviewed the case themselves, and I retired almost three years earlier. But this was based on the hazardous work schedule, as required by law.
V.O.: What year did you retire?
B.T.: Since 1991. After retiring, they offered me to continue working and asked me to stay. But since I was doing a lot of work in my village, in Sivka-Voynylivska, the village community offered me the job of chairman of the executive committee. The village was very neglected, the church had been burned down in 1962, and there was almost no uplift: neither cultural nor spiritual. There is a secondary school. I created a Rukh chapter in the village of Sivka-Voynylivska. A teacher from our school headed it. I agreed with the citizens of my village that I would work as the chairman of the executive committee. And in December 1991, I was elected chairman of the executive committee of the Sivko-Voynylivska village council.
I worked there for almost five years. I tried to raise consciousness, culture, everything that was in my power, as much as funds and opportunities allowed. A new brick church was built; it was consecrated in 1993. It was consecrated by the bishop who had been in the concentration camp with me, Pavlo Vasylyk. He was invited along with other priests. A large memorial mound was erected near the school, and on that mound, a stele was placed with the names of all who died for the freedom of Ukraine, with photographs of those boys. These were mainly our fellow villagers, young boys who participated in the UPA, and from nearby villages who were in the units that operated in our area. A choir was organized in our village, which held one of the leading places in the Kalush Raion.
I would also like to say that the intelligentsia of our village, the youth, traveled to Donbas. We provided material assistance there, brought things there. We were very well received. This was a contribution to the revival of our spirituality, of the Ukrainian idea of independence.
I would also like to note that when I was working as the chairman of the executive committee, there were also conscious people among the district leaders who supported our ideas and proposals. I personally often proposed and introduced such things. And they were also initiators of various such events—both cultural events and holidays related to the national revival. I especially remember when the monument to Bandera was unveiled in his native village of Uhryniv, a large delegation from the entire district was assembled. And not only the entire district but the entire region. There were many representatives from Rivne, Lviv, and Ternopil regions, and even from the eastern oblasts. The choir from our village participated in this unveiling of the Bandera monument.
In 1997, I retired. I submitted my resignation and left the post of chairman of the executive committee. I have two children.
V.O.: Name them and tell me when they were born.
B.T.: My son, Yura, was born in 1975. He graduated from a technical college of electronic devices. After graduating from the technical college, he was drafted into the army. Fortunately, he served the Ukrainian state, for two years. He served in the rocket forces.
I have a daughter—Olha Bohdanivna Tymkiv. She graduated from school with a gold medal and is now studying at the University of Warsaw in the Faculty of International Relations. Born in 1978.
My wife is a teacher. She still works at school No. 21 in the city of Ivano-Frankivsk.
V.O.: Please give your current address with the postal code and phone number.
B.T.: I don't have a phone. But my address is: Ivano-Frankivsk, 5 Polotniukiv Street. I don't remember the postal code.
V.O.: Is it your own apartment?
B.T.: It's my own place, inherited from my parents. There are actually four families living there in that home.
Now I'm engaged in farming. I spend more time in the village. I keep a garden, work in the garden, and partially support my family. I grow my own food. That's my life now.
V.O.: Have there been any publications about you or your own—of an autobiographical nature?
B.T.: No, there haven't been. I don't know of any. I had some information that something about our organization and about each of us individually had supposedly been published abroad, because we gave such a summary about ourselves back in concentration camp No. 11, a brief autobiographical summary. They said it was published somewhere in the West. But we haven't seen it here, it seems there was nothing like that. Maybe it's out there somewhere—I don't know. Maybe my friends know.
V.O.: Some of your co-defendants are no longer with us. For example, Ivan Strutynskyi is gone.
B.T.: That's what I wanted to talk about, to give some information about my co-defendants.
Ivan Vasyliovych Strutynskyi. I already said that we met him in the settlement of Broshniv-Osada, when I was working there at DOK No. 17. He was a young man who had studied at a vocational school and graduated from night school. He was born in 1938, from the village of Pidmykhailia, Kalush Raion. He was a very talented young man. He had a gift from God, especially for music. He played almost all musical instruments, self-taught, without any musical education, and he conducted a choir. He even wrote music. He was a very talented, intellectually developed person. He had stomach cancer and died in 1985. He worked as a lathe operator at "Khlorvinil" in Kalush.
V.O.: Does he have any remaining family members?
B.T.: He didn't have any brothers. He had a sister among his relatives. I don't know if she's still alive now. He had one sister. He would come to the village, but he wasn't very connected to it.
I would also like to say something about Mykola Stepanovych Yurchyk. This is a man whose family suffered back in the '40s and '50s because his brother took an active part in the OUN-UPA. His family was deported to Siberia, and when he returned to his village of Broshniv in 1955, he became a member of our organization. He worked as a shipping clerk at DOK No. 9 in the settlement of Broshniv-Osada. He is very ill now; he has throat cancer. He currently lives in the settlement of Vyhoda. That's in the Dolyna Raion.
Well, what can I say about all the others? Yarema Stepanovych Tkachuk was an active organizer of our party. A man dedicated to his idea, to his cause. He now lives in the Mostyska Raion. I don't know the name of the village there. A very active, energetic person. We were with him in the concentration camp. At the seventh and the eleventh. After that, we were separated.
Also Bohdan Germaniuk, who was number one in the case file, as an organizer. A very active, dedicated, and responsible person. When a task was entrusted to him, he tried to do everything, which sometimes even amazed me, how it was possible to go somewhere and get something done in those conditions at that time. I hold this friend of mine in very high esteem.
I also want to say something about Myron Fedorovych Ploshchak. They were two brothers; Vasyl Ploshchak is his brother, he was in the same case with us. Myron Fedorovych Ploshchak was a great football lover. He was a talented football player here in the Kolomyia region. If such a fate hadn't befallen him, perhaps a great future in football awaited him. A man very dedicated to the idea and the cause. He was responsible in carrying out the assignments given to him by the organization.
His brother, Vasyl Fedorovych Ploshchak, a teacher, was sentenced to two years in our case. A talented man, a music and singing teacher in school, and a teacher of the Ukrainian language at that time. He has a poetic and musical gift. He creates songs, writes poems, even creates literary compositions. A very talented man, he is still actively working in his village of Piadyky to this day.
V.O.: Mr. Bohdan, Mr. Germaniuk told me that you all went to great lengths to shield Mr. Vasyl Ploshchak during the investigation and trial. Everyone argued that he, so to speak, had nothing to do with it and was not guilty. Why did you choose such a tactic?
B.T.: We wanted to save that man. I didn't personally know Ploshchak that well. I came here once at the invitation of his brother and Bohdan Germaniuk. They introduced me to him. They introduced us informally. They tried not to let us know too much about each other, because there was some level of conspiracy, after all.
Since the charges about each person's involvement in the organization were read to us, we agreed on the bench during the trial that we had to save him somehow, so that he wouldn't be convicted. We all tried to say that he was just a random person who only knew about this Statute and this Program, he knew about the organization, but took no part in it. We wanted him to be acquitted by the court and released. Obviously, we wanted at least one person from our circle to be at liberty to continue spreading information. That was the goal.
V.O.: And how did you manage to agree on this? During the trial or before?
B.T.: During the trial. When the prosecutor and the judge presented specific accusations against each of us, our lawyer tried, and each of us seven tried, to arrange it so that he would be released from court.
V.O.: You mentioned about someone that his current whereabouts are unknown. Who exactly was that, who was released and left for an unknown destination? Who are we talking about? Was it Ivan Konevych?
B.T.: Ah, about Ivan Konevych. He is our co-defendant who was sentenced to seven years. Also a resident of the village of Broshniv. He worked in the Consumer Cooperative Society system in the village of Broshniv. His family had also been repressed, deported to Siberia, because his relatives also took an active part in the liberation movement that was in our western territories. He was one of the participants, perhaps not very active, but he was a participant in our organization and knew about all of this. He performed certain work. He got seven years, maybe because his family already had such an anti-Soviet label. I do not know where he is now. His family once lived in Kazakhstan, and it was said that after his release, he couldn't find a job, couldn't get registered, and apparently left somewhere. So I don't know anything about him now or his whereabouts. There's no photograph of Konevych here. (Ihor Mardarovych. The Voice of Memory // Visnyk Kolomyi. – No. 63 (457), 1994. – November 10. – V.O.).
V.O.: It seems we've talked about everyone. And the verdict, unfortunately, was not preserved, right?
B.T.: The verdict was not preserved. The verdict stated that a group (so-and-so, and so-and-so, they listed us) of five people received 10 years each. We were all sentenced under one article—54-1a and 11, which is anti-Soviet activity and organization. We all got 10 years. Konevych and Mykola Stepanovych Yurchyk got 7 years each. And Vasyl Fedorovych Ploshchak got 2 years. He was charged with knowing about it but not reporting it to the KGB. That's some 10th point.
V.O.: And there must have been quite a few people brought in as witnesses. And it probably wasn't a coincidence that those people were witnesses. Perhaps they were also involved in something?
B.T.: I'll try to recall now. Even those who were members of our organization came as witnesses. There was Myron Myslavskyi, who had been convicted before and was an active participant in our organization, but maybe he was sent by the KGB. Because after that, almost no one mentioned him. And the KGB tried not to mention his name. But I personally know him, that he took an active part, I personally met with him. He had been convicted before, and we, young people, trusted him, believed him. But from all the consequences of that trial, it turns out that he was recruited by the KGB.
And there was another one, he worked as an engineer at the Vyhoda timber combine—Stepovyi (I don't remember his first name). He worked as an engineer, studied by correspondence at the Lviv Forestry Institute. I had to meet with him personally, but he wasn't prosecuted in the case either, and the KGB also tried not to mention him. As we understood, he also went on to cooperate with the KGB. He also contributed to all of this. They appeared as witnesses, but not as witnesses in person, but during the drafting of interrogation protocols.
V.O.: And they weren't summoned to court?
B.T.: They weren't summoned to court.
V.O.: Ah, so that was on purpose.
B.T.: Yes. We understood that. They were recruited people.
V.O.: But there were also people against whom there was simply not enough evidence, and that's why they were passed off as witnesses, right?
B.T.: There were almost no witnesses in the courtroom. Almost none.
V.O.: Well, you have told me everything, so let's conclude our conversation. I sincerely thank you.
B.T.: And I thank you. But if I had been prepared for the conversation, I would have written some things down.
I would also like to mention from my camp life a person from the Sumy region—Serhiy Davydovych Serhiyenko. He didn't want to tell me what case he was convicted for, but I know he was an officer in the Soviet Army. My communication with him in concentration camp No. 7 lasted for almost three years. I continued to communicate with him after I was released. He is a highly nationally conscious person who stands on pro-statehood positions, perhaps even more so than I understand it. He now lives in the Sumy Oblast, Lypova Dolyna Raion, village of Lypova Dolyna, 17 Komsomolska Street, Serhiy Davydovych Serhiyenko.
V.O.: Thank you. This was the account of Mr. Bohdan Tymkiv. Recorded on March 19, 2000, in Kolomyia. Recorded by Vasyl Ovsienko.
In the photo by V. Ovsienko: Bohdan Tymkiv. March 19, 2000.