Interview with the brothers Vasyl and Myroslav Ploshchak

Interview with the brothers Vasyl and Myroslav PLOSHCHAK

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V.V. Ovsienko: On March 19, 2000, in the city of Kolomyia, at the home of Mr. Myroslav Symchych, we are conducting a conversation with members of the United Party for the Liberation of Ukraine, the Ploshchak brothers—Vasyl and Myroslav. The recording is being made by Vasyl Ovsienko.

V.F. Ploshchak: I, Vasyl Fedorovych Ploshchak, was born in the village of P'iadyky on February 10, 1929, into a family of peasants. My father was the head of the “Prosvita” society. Therefore, we grew up in a Ukrainian family; my brother Myroslav and I had many books, and we were always under the supervision of our parents, who gave us a national education, as we attended the Native School, not the Polish one. The first through fourth grades were at the Native Ukrainian School. At the same time, we went to church, because there was a church right near us, next to our house, and our mother took us there and raised us in a religious spirit. We grew up to be good, wise boys.

I received my incomplete secondary education in the village of P'iadyky. Later, when the Soviet authorities came in 1939, we were moved back from the fourth grade to the third, and we studied in the Ukrainian language. Later, the Germans came, and we went to Kolomyia. Our father started sending us to the Shevchenko school in Kolomyia. We attended the Shevchenko school while the Germans were still there until 1943, even until 1944. Because when the Germans were fleeing, the teachers sent us home from Kolomyia and said, “Boys, don’t come back, because we are also fleeing from the Bolsheviks. So don't come to school anymore.”

In 1941, when the war broke out, we lived in P'iadyky. And we went to school in P'iadyky. Then we went to school in Kolomyia. My brother was two years younger, so he stayed with our parents, while I went to the Shevchenko school. Later, in 1944, after the Germans fled, I returned to Kolomyia and studied at the second school. It was a special school for boys, and I studied there in the eighth, ninth, and tenth grades.

After the tenth grade, I went to a pedagogical school. I studied there for two or three years, and when I was in my fourth year, I was sent to teach at the Turkivka incomplete secondary school.

From there, from the Turkivka incomplete secondary school, I joined the army in 1949. I served in the army for three years and six months. They served that long back then because it was the first post-war draft. We, from Western Ukraine, were always sent to the Far East, to the Chita Oblast. It was specially planned that way, but we didn't know it. There, in the Chita Oblast, I met my fellow countryman Bohdan Germaniuk. He was a warehouse manager, and we would sometimes approach each other.

While I was in the army, my brother also served, but he was sent to the Leningrad Oblast. They made him a deminer. So, he spent his entire service there demining the mines that the Germans had left behind, right up to the end of his military service, for which he was awarded a watch by the high command of the Leningrad District. When they arrested him, they asked where he got such an expensive relic. I've started talking about my brother...

I returned home. At home, a kolkhoz had already been established, and the conditions were different.

V.O.: What year did you return?

V.P.: I returned from the army… From 1949… In 1952, I returned home. My brother was still serving in the army. I came home, and the relationships there were completely different. The kolkhoz was already operating at that time.

But I worked near my parents and continued my studies. After returning from the army, I studied at our Kolomyia Teacher's Institute. At that time, the Kolomyia sector of the state institute from Ivano-Frankivsk had just been created. And I studied here. At the same time, I worked as the head of the Committee for Physical Culture and Sports of the Kolomyia Raion. I worked in the Kolomyia Raion for 10 years. And I sat in meetings with the bosses: Kozlov, Gusakov, and others…

V.O.: With animals...

V.P.: Yes, yes. I can list them all. They were very afraid of me because I was young and I wanted everything to be done as it should be. I was a strong athlete, I played football, I organized football teams in Kornych, P'iadyky, Voskresyntsi, and Gody, and I often invited these bosses of mine. They liked me because I was young. And I tried to have classes at school so that I could stay connected to the school, you know. So that I wouldn't lose my teaching seniority, I had a few classes, two or four physical education classes. I had classes in Gody, I had them in Tsyniava. I worked at the Tsyniava eight-year school until I got tired of that job. I got tired of the job because it was very hard work. There was a lot to do, and in those days, there were many shortages. There were no uniforms, no equipment, this and that were missing… And I decided to switch to a full-time teaching job.

They wouldn't let me go for a long time. They didn't want to let me go because it wasn't a very well-paid job. But they liked that I was involved in sports. I still managed to get their permission, although they wanted to send me to be a school principal. I didn’t want to be a principal, because they were sending me for a specific reason. They were already watching me at that time. Why were they watching me? Because I liked to wear an embroidered shirt, because I spoke Ukrainian, and because I had some influence on the population, on the children, on the youth. Because I myself played various instruments—the guitar, the accordion… I loved to conduct a choir. In Tsyniava, I organized a choir. A good, large village choir; we even won first or second place in the Kolomyia Raion.

I worked in Tsyniava for almost 24 years. The village of Tsyniava. I had already graduated from the teacher's institute and was a qualified teacher; I switched to teaching Ukrainian language and literature. But I knew I wasn't a fully qualified student because I had a degree from a teacher's institute, not a pedagogical institute. I never managed to start the pedagogical institute because I was arrested because of my brother, because he and his friends had created the United Party for the Liberation of Ukraine in 1958–1959.

In December, I was arrested along with Bohdan Germaniuk from P'iadyky, and with Myron, my brother—Myroslav Ploshchak, and with Yarema Tkachuk.

V.O.: On what date were you arrested?

V.P.: I was arrested... I need to look, I have all the documents here. It’s written here, what year... (Rustling of papers).

V.O.: Detained on December 4. And sentenced on March 10, 1959, under Article 7, point 26 of the Law of December 25, 1958, to two years of imprisonment.

V.P.: So when does it say it was?

V.O.: Aha!... “He served his sentence in places of confinement from December 16, 1958, to July 16, 1960, and was released on parole for a period of 5 months by the decision of the Supreme Court of the Mordovian ASSR dated 11.07.1960.” This is a “Certificate 060365, series B-1 issued to citizen Ploshchak, Vasylii Fedorovych. Head of the Administration of the division of colonies and prisons (signature), head of the department (signature), prison secretary (signature).” Ah, here it is: arrested on December 16, 1958, and was imprisoned until July 16, 1960.

V.P.: Yes. After I served my sentence, I returned home from the places of confinement...

V.O.: Wait! You've already returned home! But why were you arrested? What was your involvement with the UPLU?

V.P.: My involvement was that it was my brother with the boys... They organized the UPLU (United Party for the Liberation of Ukraine), which originated in the village of P'iadyky. I knew about their activities, but I didn't get involved with them. You understand, I had no relation to them. Well, what do you mean, no relation? I read and corrected their appeal, because there were many Russicisms in their appeal, so I corrected that. But they didn't include me because I had a wife and children, and they were all childless bachelors. I had a few friends with whom I communicated and showed them the matter, saying: “Boys, we need to hold on, we will act somehow to get out of this Union, to break away from it, like Poland, so that we have our own state, our own language, our own culture, so that we can break away from Russia.” Well, so the boys created such a United Party. And when they were arrested, I was arrested too.

Why was I arrested? Because in the left pocket of my blouse... And my brother and I had identical blouses, and we used to go around together… He said it was his blouse and all his documents, all his. But I was holding it in my hands, and I wanted to rewrite it. It's a pity I didn't rewrite it! If only I had rewritten it… It was just one black notebook. Bohdan Germaniuk gave me that black notebook: “Vasyl, look this over, see if we are doing this right or not.”

I wasn't their opponent! Well, I couldn't betray my own, because my brother was there. They told me: “Why didn't you report it to the KGB? You are being arrested for not reporting it to the KGB…” And I say: “Did anyone report on Lenin?” “Are you Lenin?! Are you Lenin?! Are you Lenin!?” Oh, there was no one to talk to! In short, I am guilty! I say: “You know how Judas Iscariot sold Christ for thirty pieces of silver and then went and hanged himself on a branch? So what did you want, for me to hang myself—to send my own relatives to prison and hang myself too?”

This was the first reason. And I was arrested along with them for not reporting on my own brother. But I had no intention of doing so. That's how I ended up on trial with them, although, in truth, I did not participate in it.

There is a book written about us, by Yarema Ivanovych Tkachuk. He writes everything in detail there, dissects everything bone by bone: what the judges were called, how they tried us, everything. (See: Yarema Tkachuk. Bureviyi. Knyha pamiati. – Lviv: V-vo “SPOLOM”, 2004. – 368 pp.). And it’s in the newspaper (I gave you that newspaper, you can read it). So I wasn't such a major figure, you see, there was nothing to try me for. Because I didn't participate with them. Those who participated and served in that party had to sign in blood. The boys had seen some Soviet film about a group whose members signed in blood. So who proposed it? Ivan Strutynsky? Yes? Ivan—the deceased. He said: “Boys, everyone will fight not for life, but to the death. If we are joining such a party, we must sign in blood—either we die, or we win!” I did not take part in that. My brother Myron was also not signed… No, Myron wasn't signed there. And he told them that. Then they said: “You are all bandits anyway: you, your brother, and your father, because you agitated.” He also had a neighbor there, who was with him all the time: “You agitated that neighbor. You agitated…” We didn't agitate anyone—it was a voluntary organization that believed we should separate from the Soviet Union, that we should have our own Constitution, let us even be red, but we must be Ukrainians. There must be a Ukrainian state, there must be a Ukrainian language in this state… That's how I ended up in prison.

V.O.: How were you arrested, what were the circumstances?

V.P.: The circumstances were very good. I will tell you.

It was on St. Catherine's Day—we have a sister named Kateryna. It was right on St. Catherine's Day, in December. So Myron went to our sister's, and I was at home. My stomach started hurting terribly from appendicitis. I ran around the valley there, near my house, and ended up in the hospital. They examined me: a fever, a temperature of almost forty [104°F]—an immediate operation was needed. They took me to the operating table, operated on me. And they couldn't arrest me until the appendicitis was stitched up. I was lying in the hospital.

But on the second day, I already knew that my brother had been arrested, that Bohdan Germaniuk had been arrested, that the KGB had come to the whole village. Cars drove in, you see? They were shaking down our friends, searching everyone's homes. There was a terrible commotion in the village. And then my wife comes to me. My wife was studying at the pedagogical institute, she arrived later, about a week later. And here they came to me—my grandmother came, my mother: “So and so, Myron has been arrested.” So I already knew that they would arrest me too. Why? Because they had searched the house and found that appeal in my blouse—it wasn't an appeal, but how to put it... the action plan of that organization.

V.O.: A program, of sorts?

V.P.: The program of that party. I didn't have time to hide that party program. I was supposed to hide it in a willow tree, or somewhere, just throw it away or even bury it. But I didn't have time, because that appendicitis got me, and in such a terrible form that—like it or not—the ambulance took me, straight to the operating table, they operated. I couldn't even lie down—everything hurt so much, I was so worried. “Oh,” I thought. “Now they'll say I'm the instigator of this whole organization.” Because I was supposedly the most literate one there, and they would say that I did it all, you know? I said: “Boys, this is all pointless. Such a small group won't achieve anything. But if it were with all the Komsomol members of all of Ukraine, then something could be done.” You understand, if everyone was for Ukraine. But such a group only in Ivano-Frankivsk... However, the boys had created separate networks almost throughout the entire Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast. But what about the boys? They had their own colleagues to whom they gave the program for safekeeping. And they immediately handed that program over to the KGB.

V.O.: And is it known who did that?

V.P.: It is known. You will read it in the newspaper, it's all there. What their names are: Kozak is there, and Halyavyi, and some others. You know? So they immediately took it to the KGB. So they knew every step of the organization. Every step! Although we held various events. There were meetings in P'iadyky, when they gathered by the Prut River. In Ivano-Frankivsk—they gathered somewhere in the forests. But the KGB already had it all in their hands. They quietly watched what we were doing, and then in December, they quietly came and took these boys away.

V.O.: So, all at the same time?

V.P.: To everyone at the same time. Only they didn't take me because I was in the hospital. But when they placed me—I'll tell you something very interesting. There was a Jewish man lying next to me, and there was no one on the other side. I look—a KGB agent comes in. As if he's also sick, that he's also going to be operated on. He's walking around. And I had an acquaintance, the doctor who operated on me. He opens the door and gives me a look. I understand. He signals to me: look, this one here is watching you! I went out and spoke to him: “Look! He told me not to tell anyone. They're supposedly giving him some drops, for his heart or something.” And he was on duty next to me all night, for as long as I was there. So I was under KGB surveillance right away, from the first day of the boys' arrest. So that was my arrest, even though I hadn't been arrested yet.

V.O.: There was probably already an arrest warrant?

V.P.: Of course, there was a warrant! Why else guard me? They were guarding me so the boys wouldn't steal me away. Because they could have told someone, and they would come at night with weapons and take me away—and who knows where I'd be taken. Well, that didn't happen. The doctor told me, I showed that I knew. So I didn't say anything like that anymore. Then I started to walk. You can't walk yet, with appendicitis, you have to use crutches. Although I didn't want to use crutches, I tried on my own. You know, I thought, I'm of Cossack blood, so I'll try to walk, as best I can. So I could go to the toilet, because I didn't use that bedpan, you know. I went to the toilet with difficulty, but I went.

I began to recover, but the wound wasn't healing well, because you're a nervous person and the wound doesn't heal. Although they made a small incision, not a large one. They detached the appendix from the liver. The boys showed me that appendix: it was so long and thick, it could have burst, it could have ruptured.

After that, some cheerful KGB agents arrive, they sit me in a car. Three KGB agents and me alone, we're being driven in a passenger car. We go straight to the Ivano-Frankivsk prison. They took me for interrogation eight times. They were interested in whether I knew any of those boys. Well, I didn't know anyone. I didn't communicate with them. I knew one, Yarema.

I asked about my brother. I say: “Tell me about my brother!” “There's nothing to say about your brother!” They asked me this and that—all the time. There was this one, Goncharov, with a lame leg. He hit me on the head with a revolver—from this side, from that side! I say: “Don't you try it!” I tried the chair—it was nailed down… So I can't do anything to him. I say: “I'm not going to talk to you!” “Why?” “You're hitting me—what did you hit me for? Am I a bandit? Did I kill someone or betray someone, or do something bad to someone? I'm not going to talk to you!” And so it went, several times.

And they gave me another, smarter KGB agent. This was Major Utkin. That Major Utkin spoke to me differently. He says: “Have you read *Chorna Rada*?” I say: “I haven't just read it. I know all the characters, because I'm a man of letters, and they taught me in the institute that I must know Panteleimon Kulish's *Chorna Rada*.”

Utkin knew that I had many books. Our father had a library, and I took it all. Myron didn't read as much—I read more. I had another friend who lent me books. I borrowed various books. I had a *History of Ukraine*—one, a second, a third. You know, we had a lot of books from my father's time. I had that “Chervona Kalyna” calendar, which contained the entire history of the Ukrainian army, the entire history of our Ukrainian cause. So I read all of that. There were many books, and such interesting ones. So those books were given to the Ivano-Frankivsk professors who had taught me, so they would give their review. They gave reviews on all those books, and the KGB agents said: “If he read all this, he could have gone mad.” That was the conclusion the KGB gave me.

Well, they kept me there for a long time. This UPLU case lasted for six months. I wasn't called for interrogation very often. But I wanted to see someone, but they wouldn't allow it. They brought me Myron's protocols and showed them to me. When the investigation was over, they showed them: look, they said, what your brother is like. He wrote: “I don't know anyone and I don't know anything. Bohdan, I don't know anything! Bring me Germaniuk, then we'll talk, but otherwise, I'm not saying anything!” He withstood eight interrogations. Then they beat him with that electric shock, you know, like they beat the Chechens now. He was on that electric table twice. He died twice. They turn it on—the shock hits you. You faint, and after you come to, he asks you again. And they torture you like that several times. It's called interrogation—it's not an interrogation where you answer, but they simply try to destroy you, try to take away your speech, take away your mind.

So six months passed. I lay there until the wound healed. The wound wouldn't heal because I was nervous, so the wound wouldn't heal. They applied various ointments, and I slowly began to watch how they interrogated the boys. I heard their conversations. You could hear it through the windows. We also listened by pressing a cup to the wall. And you could hear through the cup as if it were a telephone! Everything, everything could be heard! And if someone knew Morse code, we would communicate with each other through the wall. The boys would knock like this: “Boys in 77, don't talk to so-and-so, you're being listened to,”—that was from another prison cell. So we were there until March 10, 1959.

V.O.: So the trial had already taken place?

V.P.: Yes, yes, the trial was already happening. They started to try us. They sent someone to me... They sent someone and told me to pay him money—he would defend me. I say that I don't need to be defended, I don't need a lawyer—I will be my own lawyer, because I don't feel such heavy guilt on my conscience. What did I do there? I did nothing there, I wasn't in any organization. Well, the fact that I read things, that my brother was there, well, I'm not his keeper, he is his own man and he is responsible for himself. And I am not. I thought I would get out of it with this. I didn't get out of it. They told me that I was the same as my own brother—you are both apples from the same tree.

V.O.: And they weren't mistaken?

V.P.: No, not mistaken at all. Well, they confirmed that what was in the blouse was not mine, but his.

M.V. Ploshchak: The oath.

V.P.: And the oath, and secondly—the party program. There was both the program and the oath. They tried us in a closed court, they didn't let my wife, or mother, or children in—absolutely no one. The military is sitting there, the prosecutors: “All rise, the court is now in session,” and so on. The lawyer told me: “They will give you seven years!” I say: “If they give me seven, they give me seven. So what, I can't serve it? And how did my ancestors serve twenty-five? And how they were shot, destroyed in galleys, tortured, so what, they didn't endure? I'll endure it too, slowly.”

The trial came. They began to try us. Everyone was sentenced. I tried to distance myself from them. The boys said: “We will defend you, you had nothing to do with us, you weren't at any meetings, you didn't go anywhere with us, no one knows you—so why should you also be imprisoned?” Well, I tried to do that. But they sentenced me anyway.

V.O.: And how long did the trial last?

V.P.: The trial lasted three days.

M.P.: A week.

V.P.: They tried us for a whole week. Five were given ten years, Konevych and Yurchyk received seven years, and I got two. But two years of strict regime.

V.O.: What article was that? “Under Article 7, 26 of the Law on Criminal Liability for State Crimes of December 25, 1958, sentenced to two years.” So, that means it was the same article as for them? Only for you, it was for failure to report?

V.P.: Yes, yes. Because they had, supposedly, treason against the Motherland.

V.O.: They had Article 54/11?

V.P.: Yes. And mine was the same, only with a lighter sentence. But I got two years in a strict-regime camp.

They threw me into a death row cell with Bohdan, back in Ivano-Frankivsk. They thought we would say something. But we didn't talk about the case. We knew that's what interested them. When we went out for a walk for fifteen minutes, we would whisper a little in the yard.

And the prosecutor said that the instigators should be sentenced to death.

V.O.: And for whom exactly did he demand the death penalty?

V.P.: For Bohdan Germaniuk, Yarema Tkachuk, Myroslav Ploshchak, and Bohdan Tymkiv—for these four, the death penalty. (Also for Ivan Strutynsky. – V.O.). But the court decided otherwise: it gave them all ten years, two got seven, and I got two.

They immediately took me to the Mordovian ASSR, to the fifth penal camp.

V.O.: And what was the name of that settlement?

V.P.: The fifth penal camp. I forgot what the settlement was called... Barashevo...

V.O.: Barashevo is the third camp.

V.P.: Ah, so it's the third. Yes. Well, the fifth is closer to here. There was a penal camp there. I was traveling with the two Diyanych brothers, they were from Zakarpattia, and two Georgians, Pitskhelauri. Good lads. They liked us, we were athletes, played basketball, volleyball. They liked us and went everywhere with us, never without us. One found out about the other, that he was in that penal camp. So he went and beat someone up in the zone. Beat him up, beat him up good! And they—bam, threw him into the penal camp too. That's how the two brothers were reunited. And we were the ones who said: “The other Pitskhelauri is there.” And that one says: “Good! If he's there, we'll arrange it so I can be with him.”

Then Myron was brought from Irkutsk to Mordovia. And what else can I tell you? After that, I was released.

V.O.: Wait, who were you with there, whom do you remember from the people, what were the conditions of detention, what did you do there?

V.P.: Oh! The conditions of detention were harsh. They gave 600 grams of bread and a watery soup that had nothing in it.

I knew a good lad there from Eastern Ukraine, Mykola Rubel. He liked me. He always shaved and cut my hair. When we arrived there, there were eleven of us Ukrainians (out of sixteen in total). So we came and established order there. Until then, the *suki* were in charge. You know, the ones with tattooed shoulders. Some dames. The Ukrainians came and established order in one night. Anyone who didn't escape by morning was caught the next day by that Diyanych—they were strong lads—and dragged to the guardhouse: “Take this scum away, chief, so we don't see him here.” They took those *suki* away from us, and we had peace in the camp, it became calm. The Banderite boys established order.

V.O.: Was it a large camp? How many people were there?

V.P.: Oh, there were about three hundred men.

V.O.: And what was the work there?

V.P.: No work. They just counted us and that was it.

V.O.: What? No work? That's a great wonder!

V.P.: It was a penal camp like that, without work! They didn't send us anywhere. Nobody worked. I was there for three months. I kept asking the chief: “Why was I put in this camp? I didn't do anything in prison or anywhere else.” So they didn't work. They just counted us. And those who can't count well, because sometimes one or two would hide, then you can't get a count.

We had educators there. Lectures were held all the time. They told me: “You sit quietly. You have two years. Sit quietly. It's none of your business. We will petition for you.”

I was in the penal camp for three months. After that, they take me in a transport and send me to the seventh camp point in Mordovia, 7/1. I met many Ukrainians there. There were only priests there, the vast majority were priests. So I ended up with Josyf Slipyj, with our current bishop Pavlo Vasylyk. But he was still a priest then. He was not yet so prominent. Where the Divine Liturgy was held on Sunday, we went there. Viter was there, a handsome lad from the Lviv Oblast. And many others. I have to recall all of them now. Vlodko Vasiuta. We often played volleyball, and those boys would gather. But most of all we gathered in the fourth section. There was a teacher from the Donbas, Oleksa Tykhyi.

V.O.: Oleksa Tykhyi? I know Oleksa well.

V.P.: Yes. Oleksa Tykhyi, he was a teacher. And I was also a teacher. So we had a common language there.

There was one man from the Lviv archive there. He was always complaining: “What did I do?” The Chekists were controlling him. He trusted them, and they sentenced him to five years. His name was Milko Levytsky. So we would always say: “Well, Milko, why are you so foolish? Don't you know they are controlling you?” “But I didn't do anything there, I didn't give anything to anyone.” “But you must have said something wrong, and they sentenced you.”

There was also the brother of a great artist there. But that artist absolutely could not help him in any way. No, not Krushelnytsky… Antin Krushelnytsky and his whole family were destroyed by the Bolsheviks, they were shot. So it wasn't them. This one created a youth organization in Lviv, so they nabbed them. He got ten years.

At 7/1 there was a school—not a prison one. There were teachers of Russian language, mathematics, so you could leave there with a secondary education.

From that camp point, we went to work. A man named Bandurka worked with me. We made frames for televisions, for radios, for watches. I went to work and learned a few things. I thought it would come in handy at home. And it did, when I worked at the school. I already knew how to handle different machines. There is no good that does not come from evil, and no evil that does not lead to good.

When I was there, I saw Cardinal Josyf Slipyj. He was very tall, like this door, a big man. A priest brought him food from the kitchen, he didn't go to eat himself. Various international organizations helped him, because he was a well-known person.

And a bishop named Potochniak was always with us, telling us young people the history of the Church.

I was there for a short time, just a few months. We often visited Oleksa Tykhyi. I liked him very much—he spoke so quietly, beautifully, gently. He only had four years in prison then. Somewhere in the Donbas, he had stood up for Hungary.

V.O.: Yes, for the Hungarian events. And he didn't participate in the elections. (Oleksa Tykhyi was imprisoned in 1957 for a letter to the Central Committee of the CPSU protesting the occupation of Hungary by Warsaw Pact troops, as well as for so-called “anti-Soviet agitation,” for 7 years of strict-regime camps and 5 years of disenfranchisement. Released in 1964. – V.O.).

V.P.: He spoke in such a pure, refined literary Ukrainian language, so I loved to talk with him. When there were holidays, we celebrated together, always gathering in his section.

From there, they transfer me to a high-security camp, the 11th, in Yavas. There was a man there named Mykola Noha. Why did I mention this Noha? Because Noha said that there were two hundred of them, whom our Ukrainian underground had sent to Georgia. He was wounded there, he even dragged his leg. He told me what they did there in Georgia. You know that the Ukrainian underground also helped the Georgians.

The boys at the 11th immediately gave us milk, got us gingerbread cookies. The canteens were open then, and whoever had money could buy something. I wrote home, and they sent me money. So I could buy myself some halva or soap to do my own laundry, not with that pig soap.

From that high-security camp, they send me to a low-security settlement in Yavas. Well, I didn't have any major offenses on my record, so they send me to a low-security settlement. They gave us horses, and we hauled firewood from the forest.

V.O.: And when exactly were you transferred to this low-security settlement?

V.P.: After I had served about a year and three months. I hauled wood. There was a Lithuanian there in charge of us. His father was some kind of prince, so we said that he had sold out, become their agent. They gave him some Russian wench, with a face scarred by smallpox. We laughed: look, you've got a sweetheart. I didn't like him for some reason. One day we went to the forest. He said something to me, and I told him: “Load it yourself!” I loaded my cart, the boys helped me, and we left him in the forest. And then he reported to the Chekists that Ploshchak had organized it. He came back without any firewood! What can he do by himself? Well, he gathered some small pieces. We hauled large logs and stacked them there.

After that, they send me to the Sasovo stone quarry in the Ryazan Oblast. We were on the Osha River, which flows into the Volga. There was the Osha River and another large river that boats sailed on. And we gathered stones there for construction. The stone had to be turned over and thrown into the valley. We had to complete three and a half cubic meters of that stone per day—that was the daily norm. There was a German with me, and a Russian. But that Russian was kind of useless. He was afraid to go into the water, couldn't swim. We swam, I even swam to the other bank. I wasn't afraid. And it was about three to four hundred meters across. You have to know how to swim. But I was physically developed, I swam across, sat there a while in freedom, where no one was watching.

My wife and her father came to see me in Sasovo. They gave me three days because I was a good worker, they liked me. I would do my work and then go for a swim.

V.O.: So what was the regime like in this Sasovo?

V.P.: In Sasovo, one guard watched us, just one. We were without convoy. There was no convoy, no one shot at you. We worked on our own. Various girls would run up to our guys, you know... The boys went courting, but I didn't, so I wouldn't catch some cholera here, I thought. When my wife arrived, we went into the forest, gathered some mushrooms. She came with her father and stayed with me for three days. And two months later, I came home—they released me 5 months early. And I didn't ask for it, I didn't write anything. There was a session of the Supreme Court of the Mordovian ASSR. They called me and asked: “What were you imprisoned for?” I say: “I don't even know myself what I was imprisoned for.” “And what was it that you had?” “I don't know what it was, because I wasn't interested in it. I'm not interested in such things here either.” I played the part of a simpleton, you know. So they laughed a little among themselves, whispered. They also brought two Iranians to trial. You know, those who fled across the Iranian border here, to the Soviet Union? “Why did you flee here,” he asks, “to the Soviet Union?” “We wanted to study here.” And they gave them 5 years each. So they tried those Iranians and me. And about me, they whispered, laughed: “That's all, you can go!” So I sat there and heard in the hall that the Supreme Court of the Mordovian ASSR was sending me home early by five months because there was no evidence against me. Well, in prison, I didn't look for trouble. I thought, if I look for something here, they'll give me another ten years here. And the boys protected me: “Don't say anything, you have to serve these two years on the down-low.”

So I returned home. And at home, there's no work, nothing. I sat around with my wife for about three months. My wife was working, and I helped out a little. And before my imprisonment, I had a choir at the shoe factory in Kolomyia. They knew me, that I love choirs, so they hired me. And I became a shoemaker. I had the first category, second, third, fourth. I sewed all kinds of shoes on a machine. I learned how to do it. The boys taught me, they always said: “Vasyl, come with us, with us.” True, no one oppressed me at that factory, so I worked there for almost four years. And I think: I'll go back to my studies, so they don't say I'm an unfinished, stupid student.

One day, an excursion came from the Kosiv Raion, from Pisten, from the secondary school. And they say: “And the principal told me: you take this teacher. He conducts a choir, he's a teacher from the school.” And Lieutenant Colonel Taran—he was a good man, always talked to me—says: “Go, if they're taking you to the school. Go to the school.” And I went.

I went to Kosiv from P'iadyky. The principal even gave me a room in his own house. I took my accordion, started playing there, started conducting a choir. He sent me to the Institute for Teacher Improvement. I was there for a month. I came back and conducted the choir. I made a good choir in the secondary school. The children love me because I played at school, and in the club, and at weddings too, so they love you. And if you don't have any specialty, who needs you, who are you useful to?

From there I went to Kolomyia. It was the holidays, the school year had already ended. And I had a friend there. We had worked together at the Gody school before he went into the army—Hryts, a principal, a colleague of mine from my year. He was in charge of agitation and propaganda for the raion committee. I went to him, I say: “Hryts, can you get me a job? I wasn't in the underground, I didn't shoot anyone, I didn't kill anyone, or wound anyone, nothing.” So he grinned and said: “I'll talk to the second secretary.” He talked to the second secretary, who said: “Write him an application and take him. We'll transfer him from Pisten to the school in Tsyniava. There's a choir there. So he'll be near his wife, otherwise he'll be wandering around somewhere.” Because I also say: “What do you want, for me to find some Hutsul girl there? I'm a young man!”

Hey, so it happened that I came to Tsyniava from there. And he was in charge of agitation and propaganda. But look what it means to have your own person! Your own person, a local, he knows me, he wasn't afraid to hire me. But everyone else was afraid—a nationalist, might create some organization, an underground.

So I created a large choir. I worked there, you hear, for twenty-four years. I created a school choir. I had an adult choir in the club. There had never been a choir there before. Such a large choir. I took first, second places in the raion. They loved me there.

I think, since I'm in school now, I have to finish my education. I went and enrolled in the Ivano-Frankivsk Pedagogical Institute, which was later transformed into a university. In the department of language and literature.

V.O.: Was it called Ivano-Frankivsk or Prykarpattian?

V.P.: No, no, Prykarpattian. I started working together with my wife, and we started thinking about moving away from our parents, having our own house. And I started to build. There, near my parents, I began construction. But they didn't want to allocate me a plot for construction. They didn't want to. I appealed to them, I wrote to the newspaper: “How can I get you to give me a plot to build a house? What, am I supposed to attach a house to a satellite or what?” “Build in Tsyniava!” I say: “I can't build in Tsyniava, because everything I bring there will be stolen in one night. I'll have to stay there day and night.” And here it's close for me—two kilometers to walk to Tsyniava, so what's the big deal. They thought and thought and came up with nothing. I went to our P'iadyky village council to get a certificate saying I want to build next to my parents. The head of the village council gave me that certificate. She gave me the certificate, and when they saw it, they ordered the household registration book to be rewritten to cross me out. And my name was no longer there. But I had made several copies of that certificate so that I would have proof that I wasn't building without permission, but on the basis of an agreement. I have a document here: “The Executive Committee of the Kolomyia Raion Council of Working People's Deputies informs you that by decision of the Raion Executive Committee No. 176 of 13.06.1964, you are prohibited from carrying out the construction of a residential building on the site where you have started construction, and within one month you are obliged to move the building to a new construction site allocated to you by the kolkhoz board and the village council executive committee.”

I had a certificate from the executive committee, but they forced the head of the village council to rewrite it and kick me out. There was this Moiseyenko there, the head of the raion executive committee. A Jew. I hated him. I slammed the door, and he says to me: “Panok!” [a derogatory term for a gentleman] “You're the panok yourself!” We didn't stand on ceremony with him for long. I went to Ivano-Frankivsk. There was a man named Попеченко there. I told him the whole story, that they were hounding me, that I had served two years, I'm telling you the truth, just as it is. I didn't offend anyone, nowhere, anyone. I'm already studying, and this guy is hounding me about the house, I don't want to be crammed in with my parents, because parents are parents. He said: “Go home. I will tell the raion executive committee.” They gave me this:

“Having reviewed the case of Vasyl Ploshchak, a resident of P'iadyky, regarding the prohibition of his construction of a residential building, and taking into account the letter from the regional department of construction and architecture stating that it allows the builder to carry out construction of a residential building on the site he has started, the Executive Committee of the Raion Council of Working People's Deputies resolves: to cancel the decision of the executive committee No. 176 of June 13 prohibiting Vasyl Fedorovych Ploshchak from constructing a residential building in P'iadyky. To permit, as an exception, citizen Vasyl Fedorovych Ploshchak to carry out the construction of a residential building on the site where construction has begun. To warn the head of the P'iadyky village council for his frivolous approach to resolving the matter.”

They blamed everything on that head of the village council, but they gave me permission. I'm showing you this to show that it was persecution. It shouldn't have been like that.

They sent a man to me—he worked at “Silmash”—to watch over me. He enrolled in the Russian language department. He watched me all the time, saw what I was doing, even participated in the choir. But one time we both got drunk and he says: “Vasyl, I'm watching you. But look, we are both Ukrainians, let's be smart, you say nothing to me and I'll say nothing to you, and everything will be quiet. I'll write that everything is fine, and you be cunning, be wise.” And so we quietly went wherever we wanted. And the principal even joined us, everything was fine with us. So for some time, I was under KGB surveillance. But it's good that it was him. I still respect that teacher to this day. When we meet: “Hello, Vasyl!” “Hello, Slavko!” He's in Matiiovychi, not far from here. And he still remembers: “Remember how we would get drunk and talk about whatever we wanted, go wherever we wanted.” But then God punished him anyway. Apparently, he was punished for me, because they beat him up so badly… One time I didn't go drinking with them, and they beat him so badly that they broke his nose, his nose even became crooked. So he was in intensive care. So, God probably punished him for me.

It's written here: “In 1965, he entered the Ivano-Frankivsk Pedagogical Institute and in 1968, he completed the full course of the said institute with a specialization in Ukrainian language and literature. On July 26, 1968, Vasyl Fedorovych Ploshchak was awarded the title of teacher, instructor of Ukrainian language and literature.” So I have an institute diploma and I proved that I am a teacher, not an unfinished student.

I had a falling out with the principal of that Tsyniava eight-year school. I tell him: “You don't appreciate me and don't respect me—I'll go work in my own village, in P'iadyky. If not as a language teacher, then as a music teacher, with the choir.” And so I went to P'iadyky, and in P'iadyky I worked for another seven years, I created a Hutsul ensemble. I have photographs, the children know me. We performed everywhere with that Hutsul ensemble, but they never gave me a good evaluation, even though I performed excellently. They always belittled me. They also watched me. A policeman who had been my student, from Gody, told me: “Vasyl Fedorovych, so-and-so is watching you. Watch out, Vasyl Fedorovych, that you don't sell me out.” So I knew. God somehow arranged it so that someone would tell me: so-and-so is watching you, watching what you're doing. So I knew where to say something and where not to.

I worked there for seven years. I got tired of being constantly belittled. And I was in the club, and in amateur arts, and here, and there. I'm leaving all this science and asking for 40 percent. I had already worked for 25 years, even more, something like 39. I asked to be released and went home. I started working at home—I took to raising a bull, a pig. My wife works, and I'm at home, on 40 percent.

V.O.: What is “on 40 percent”?

V.P.: That's when you haven't reached retirement age yet, but they let you go at 40%. It's at your own will.

V.O.: Ah, so 40% of your pension?

V.P.: Of the pension, yes. I went on 40%. And then no one watches me anymore. And if some neighbor or someone is watching, well, they can watch. The neighbors would come, see what I was doing, who I was drinking vodka with, who I was singing with, what I was doing where. I have a pond on the side, so we sat by that pond—the water has broken it now—and sang. Bohdan Mokrytskyi would come, the one who lived near you, Myroslav. And Mykola Semeniuk, who has already passed away. And Bohdan tells me: “Mykola is coming and says: Vasyl Fedorovych, they called me from ‘Silmash.’ Are you teaching something there, are you telling us something?” And I say: “And what am I supposed to tell you?” “Are you not passing on your knowledge, your ideas to the younger generation?” So I say: “You've found me here too, at home?” You understand? All the time, whether Mykola Semeniuk is coming, or Bohdan Mokrytskyi, it's a whole comedy, man!

Mokrytskyi gave me a book to read, Yevhen Hrytsiak's *Kriya Yoga*. A very good book. He raised an uprising in the northern camps, Yevhen Hrytsiak. He translated it from English, about Indian yogis. *Kriya Yoga*. I read it, gave it to Bohdan, and Bohdan gave me Alliluyeva to read. And then such Russian books were circulating. I read it, man, and that's already known to the KGB. They summon me to the KGB again: “What are you doing here?—he's holding a folder.—Did you read this?” I say: “I read it!” “And what is this, where did you get it?” I say: “From Bohdan Mokrytskyi.” “And him?” “He gave me Alliluyeva to read, and I gave him *Kriya Yoga* to read.” And then I tell him: “Bohdan, here's Alliluyeva, and give me back *Kriya Yoga*.” And they wanted to read *Kriya Yoga*, the Chekists, but I didn't give it to them. And it's a good book, about seven hundred pages. Bohdan Germaniuk gave it to me: “Vasyl, read it, it's an interesting thing.” Yevhen Hrytsiak used to visit me, and him, but in a way that no one knew. And we would walk through the village all together. I gave Yevhen some of my raspberries, I had raspberries. He told me how they took him to the KGB in Ivano-Frankivsk, how they lined up all the KGB agents. The colonel was with him in the middle: look what a Cossack you have from here! And he organized an uprising in Norilsk, man, he's a famous person, so interesting. So he used to visit us in P'iadyky. Bohdan knows him too.

So they're dragging me to the KGB, dragging Yurko, where's his house, where's his this… Well, but these aren't those years anymore! No one had much influence on them anymore, Ukraine was beginning, the nineties. There was also one—lived near Myron—the brother of that Chekist. What's his last name—Andrusiak, or what? His brother had a Russian wife, worked for the KGB. And he wanted some kind of promotion, for finding such great criminals who read forbidden literature, distribute it. But nothing came of it, they took him to Karabakh. And there he got seven knives, they killed him there because he was Ukrainian. I say: “And you, don't spy!” “But I have nothing against you!” And he was spying on us—on Myron and on me, you know. Look how God gives, man, how He punishes. See, He punished him so quietly, and I got rid of all those Chekists. And he calls me to the KGB for questioning. Why are you calling me for questioning? For what? Well, I read Alliluyeva. And all of Russia read it! Do I need that Alliluyeva, who married some Indian, and then some other one, Stalin's daughter. It's such…

And that's how it ended. I was already sitting at home, no one bothered me anymore. I continued to participate in the choir, I went with the choir. In 1987, I created a good choir “Hamalia,” I gathered forty men and wrote “Hamalia.” I have it at home. I wrote it myself, regardless of the fact that Lysenko wrote it and a few other composers. I wrote my own version for the village amateur arts. I introduced a mixed choir and the “Hamalia” choir. Even today that Knyahynytskyi was remembering me: why didn't you teach us? Well, the choir continues to work, I continue to sing in the choir, I sing in the church choir. I was supposed to be at the Divine Liturgy today, because today is Sunday, but I came here, and didn't go there. That's my whole life.

V.O.: Today you showed us a video film of how you were honored. When was that?

V.P.: On February 14 of this year.

V.O.: They organized such an evening for you.

V.P.: A 70th birthday evening. So nice, everyone took part. I didn't even know they were preparing so much. And besides that, they also passed on to me—I'll give it to you to read now—where my family line came from. The head of the village council gave it to me. He himself went to Lviv, they got money, paid to find information about P'iadyky in the Lviv archive. And it was written there, where my family line came from. They wanted to console me with this. And they succeeded, they succeeded. I'll give it to you to read, where my family line came from. And I want to publish it.

V.O.: Will you read it or shall I? Is it handwritten?

V.P.: Handwritten. You can read it, it will be clearer.

V.O.: “A brief study of the appearance of the Ploshchak surname in the village of P'iadyky.

In the autumn of 1648, Semen Vysochan led a popular movement in the Galician land. He maintained ties with the envoys of Bohdan Khmelnytsky, whose detachments were also active in Pokuttia at that time. Bohdan Khmelnytsky dispatched several well-trained Cossacks to provide practical assistance in organizing and conducting the military operations of Semen Vysochan.

One such envoy was Ivan Ploshcha, son of Myron. The roots of his family are lost in the territory of present-day Cherkashchyna, from the side that gave Ukrainian history its most prominent figures—fighters for the freedom and independence of Ukraine. In December 1648, during the uprising of the peasant-Cossack army under the leadership of Khmelnytsky, the army of Semen Vysochan also rises.

During one of the clashes in the capture of the Potocki fortress—Yezupil (V.P.: Now Zhovten), Ivan Ploshcha was seriously wounded and could not continue the campaign with the army. Fearing that his enemies would recognize him, because of the reason for his injury, his brothers-in-arms from Semen Vysochan's detachment arrange with a middle-aged peasant, also a participant in the hostilities, originally from Otynia, Mykola Melnyk, son of Kyrylo, to deliver Ivan Ploshcha to a safe place and to care for the Cossack's treatment. This fighter was given a pair of good horses and a wagon with the condition: at his discretion, he would leave Ploshcha with reliable people and in return, keep the horses and wagon and could stay at home with his family and run the household. His comrades-in-arms collected a significant sum of money and gave it to this peasant to give to the people who would undertake the treatment of their brother-in-arms.

Melnyk was very pleased. He was an honest man, he fulfilled his obligation. Since it was winter, the wagon was loaded with hay, and a place was made inside for the wounded man so that no stranger would see him or guess his presence, but his guardian would have access to give him food. Under this cover, they reached home. In Otynia, the peasant stayed overnight, gave the horses a rest, rested himself, and dressed his brother-in-arms' wounds. The next morning, they set out.

Mykola Melnyk had an acquaintance from P'iadyky, a good farmer who had very beautiful high-yielding pedigree cattle, from whom the man from Otynia had bought a cow. This was Vasyl Semeniuk, son of Ivan, who lived in the territory of the present-day Semenivka street. His farm was located somewhere in the area of the present-day Yaremchuk estate or nearby.

From the history of our village, it follows that Semenivka street got its name from the surname of this fine and decent farmer. He was an intelligent man, quite nationally conscious, a father of many children. He had four sons: Ivan, Mykola, Stepan, Fedir, and a daughter, Mariika. It wasn't even noon when he drove up to Semeniuk's yard from the village. The host recognized his guest, they started talking, and he invited him into the house. But the guest began to hesitate, not knowing where to begin and how to entrust his secret. The perceptive Semeniuk sized up the situation and said: “Tell me straight, what's in there, don't be afraid!” He received the news with understanding. The wounded man was carried into the house, and the Semeniuk family took up the Cossack's treatment. The man from Otynia unloaded the hay, as if he owed it to Semeniuk, although he had plenty of his own, but so as not to arouse suspicion. M. Melnyk left all the money that the Cossacks had given for Ivan Ploshcha's treatment, as he was a very devout and honest man and considered the gift—a pair of horses with a wagon—to be a very huge payment and therefore had no thought of appropriating the money.

Since Ploshcha was young, twenty-four years old, good care and hearty food yielded their results. Only twice did V. Semeniuk bring a doctor from Kolomyia, who cleaned the wounds, stitched them up, and later removed the stitches. The Jewish doctor had to be paid more for his silence than for the treatment. But money was not an issue.

By Easter, the Cossack was back on his feet. He couldn't sit idle. And since he was a literate man and also knew a craft that was very necessary for people at that time (he was a wheelwright), work was found for him. He repaired the wagon for the master of the house, his benefactor, and all the agricultural implements. He began to think about how to return to his brothers-in-arms, but further events postponed his intentions. The host's daughter, Mariika, cared for him the most, thanks to whom he recovered so quickly, and their relationship became serious. The parents saw this, but did not object much, because they could not wish a better fate for their daughter: a young, handsome, educated Cossack, which was a great rarity for a village at that time. He had the trade of a wheelwright. There was enough money left from what the Cossacks had given for his treatment to buy ten morgs of land (1 morg = 75 ares). The only problem was how to make public where the boy came from, because Semeniuk valued both the Cossack and the honor of his family and children.

Semeniuk had an acquaintance, a Jewish lawyer in Kolomyia. He consulted with him, and for a corresponding sum of money, which the lawyer requested (for that money one could buy two good cows), the Jew prepared documents stating that Ivan Ploshcha was a resident of the city of Kolomyia, had been orphaned as a child, was raised in the family of the childless townsfolk, the Ozarkevychs, who gave him an education and sent him to an industrial school, where he acquired the trade of a wheelwright.

The document passed inspection, and in the autumn of 1649, V. Semeniuk holds a wedding. The couple was beautiful and worthy. The sons went their own way with a corresponding dowry from their father, and the parents kept their daughter with them. The young family lived in harmony, to the joy of the old parents. They had three children—two girls, Paraska and Hanna, and a son, Myron. Ivan Ploshcha was very useful to P'iadyky and the surrounding villages, working as a wheelwright, bringing benefit to people and a normal, comfortable life for his family.

Research conducted by R. Sikorskyi as a gift to V.F. Ploshchak on February 10, 1999, in honor of his 70th birthday.”

Oh! So you have such a glorious lineage!

V.P.: Count how many centuries that is! That's seven generations, if you take seventy years per generation. Or let's take it this way: 1649, and now it's the year 2000, so we count that if it's seventy years per generation, that's already three hundred and fifty years. So my generation is exactly the seventh—seventh, eighth, or ninth.

V.O.: A generation is considered to be about thirty years. 25-30 years. A century is considered to have about three or even four generations.

V.P.: Look, these are our grandfathers. (Shows pictures). This is our house. Two brothers. We had other Ploshchaks, but only he, Myroslav, and I are left. He has all girls. But I have a son. My son has now become a priest in P'iadyky.

V.O.: State your son's year of birth and name.

V.P.: My son is Roman, he is now 35 years old. He is already married, has a wife, and a son was born to him, Taras Ploshchak. He's in the first grade. That's how my family line continues.

V.O.: The story will be continued by Mr. MYROSLAV PLOSHCHAK. January 19, 2000. Recorded by Vasyl Ovsienko in the city of Kolomyia.

M.P.: I, Myroslav Fedorovych Ploshchak, was born in the village of P'iadyky on October 31, 1931, into the family of a middle peasant, Fedir Ploshchak. My childhood years were spent at home, I studied in the village of P'iadyky and finished incomplete secondary school.

During the war, I really loved weapons, loved to have submachine guns, carbines, machine guns, grenades. I was involved with all that, because I was connected with the underground, with the OUN raion Security Service—with Bystryi—and also with another group, which was called... He was from Lemkivshchyna (I forgot, Vasyl, what he was called)—the late Zenko, the commander of the group, who died in 1948 or 1949—there was a battle in Tomachyk. They happened to be staying with us. They were staying, I was on guard duty for them near the house, walking along the railway. Because a whole garrison of the NKVD was stationed with us. So I was on duty for them during the day, brought them food. And when they left us, we heard a battle. From that battle, one wounded man, Morozenko, was left—he was wounded in the thigh. A month later, or maybe more, he came to us to finish his recovery. He came without a weapon, without anything. He managed to escape death in that battle. He lived at our aunt Kateryna's, and also with us. During that time, I managed to arm him: I gave him a ten-shot rifle, a hundred rounds of ammunition, and grenades. My brother gave him a Belgian pistol. So we armed him and, through our secret network, passed him on to Bystryi. My father told my uncle about it, and my uncle passed it on. And Bystryi came—not on that day, but on another, after they had checked whether he hadn't surrendered to the NKVD, whether he hadn't fled from the battle. They checked, and then he came and took him into his combat unit.

V.P.: He fled from the battle.

M.P.: He had fled from the battle, but he was wounded, so he couldn't walk. After he went to Bystryi, he would come with another combat unit, with other people, to stay with us. Sometimes my father was the head of the kolkhoz, I remember. My father commanded the Budyonny kolkhoz. This Bystryi, the sotnyk, had nothing against my father, because the village had elected my father, not the party that appointed him.

V.P.: Our father was in “Prosvita,” he was a wise man, and he spoke German as well as he spoke Ukrainian.

M.P.: After that, in the 1950s, I lost contact with the underground, because I went into the army in the spring of 1951. I served in the Leningrad Military District in the town of Luga, at the largest Leningrad military training ground. There I learned to demine the area. They sent me for one year to demine the Novgorod Oblast. From spring to late autumn, we demined—where the Germans and Russians had been stationed. I found a great many mines, more than anyone else in the division. I've already forgotten how many. And there was another one there. Well, I found the most, so they decided to award me the Order of the Red Banner of Labour. Colonel Medvedchuk came up to me with a flourish and says: “Although the high command didn't give you permission for the order, Commander Zakharov has awarded you with a watch.”

V.O.: Do you still have it?

M.P.: No. It's gone. The KGB agents took it.

V.O.: And was there any inscription on it?

M.P.: There was an inscription: “From Zakharov, Commander of the Military District.” I could get a certificate from them now and would be a combat veteran.

V.O.: Equivalent to a combat veteran.

M.P.: I was a sapper. Sometimes I would blow up mines so that we just ducked our heads as it all whistled over us. And shrapnel would get into our hands. Yes, you know, I got so used to it that I wasn't afraid anymore. Because as a child, I loved to do that.

V.O.: So that's where it comes from!

M.P.: We had a lot of weapons in our childhood. I could have armed fifty men. I loved to shoot more than life itself, it was in my blood or something, I don't know. I couldn't be without it. I walked around with the boys with a revolver, always with a Nagant. The Nagant was so reliable with me, you know. I loved it. I wanted to join the partisans and asked to, but the partisans refused me—they said I was too short. I was shorter than my brother. They said: “It's too early for you! When you grow up—then.” I served in the army. In the army, a major—he was Jewish—Major Marat Solomonovich Marder, would come up to me and say: “You're a Banderite!”—to me. You know, jokingly, with a smile. “Because you walk around so smartly.”

After I finished my service, I came home, couldn't get registered. At home, what—go to the kolkhoz? There's no money, nothing. I had to register in the city, then I stayed with my brother. Then we somehow managed to get a passport.

V.O.: Where, in what city?

M.P.: In Kolomyia. I got a passport and got a job at the post office. But I was a football player, I was a strong football player, not just some ordinary one.

V.P.: He was the strongest football player in P'iadyky and in Kolomyia.

M.P.: I was the strongest. I worked at the post office for a while, then I got into a weaving factory. There I learned to be a machine adjuster. And that's where they arrested me from, from the weaving factory. I came home on December 5th or 7th.

V.P.: On St. Catherine's Day? The seventh.

M.P.: It was St. Catherine's Day, and the next day they came to arrest me. I wanted to run out of the house, but my father was lying sick in bed—he was sick, he had high blood pressure due to his illness.

V.P.: He was shell-shocked on the Japanese front.

M.P.: Yes, he was shell-shocked on the Japanese front. But it wasn't that he was crazy, or anything—his blood pressure was such that he... So I felt sorry for him—I won't run. Because officers rushed in, pulled out their revolvers, and said: “Hands up!” I didn't raise my hands, I said: “I'm unarmed, I won't raise my hands.” And that was it. They searched the place, found a Lviv journal on me. It was written there how Khrushchev shot 40,000 Ukrainians in Vinnytsia, and they did it in Poddorogiv—a place where they dumped them, covered them with lime…

V.O.: These shootings were before the war, right? And the Germans discovered them later, right?

M.P.: Yes, they discovered them. And I didn't know about it. “Where did this journal come from?”—they ask. I say: “It's written there, I didn't publish this journal. It's there—the city of Lviv, the printing house.” I say: “I didn't even read it, what am I going to say?” They put me in a car—to Frankivsk, took me to the KGB, 3 days of interrogation, a different officer every 4 hours, they rotated. They interrogated me, I said nothing—I know nothing, heard nothing, saw nothing. That's it. So I didn't eat for three days. Then some officer told me—the chief of the directorate himself, a general, as he called himself, came in—and says: “Ploshchak, if you tell everything, I'll let you go free.” I say: “I don't know anything and I have nothing to tell. What am I going to talk about?” He says: “I give you my word. If not—you'll go to prison.” “So what's the difference to me. I have nothing to tell.” So they grabbed me and threw me in prison. From the directorate, they threw me into prison, into an isolation cell. I hadn't slept for three nights before that, so when they put me in the isolation cell, there was some kind of bench there, I put it against the radiator, and my flesh was seared, I didn't feel it. I was physically and nervously exhausted, you see?

The interrogations there happened every other day. Major Meshcheriakov was in charge of my investigation. A cruel man, a Mongol, so vulgar, used such words, always said that if you had fallen into my hands during Stalin's time, you would be singing here. I say: “I know what you did during Stalin's time without you telling me.” The boys had already signed the ‘200’ [confession], and my investigation hadn't even started yet, I wasn't admitting to anything.

V.P.: He said: “If Germaniuk isn't here, I won't talk.”

M.P.: And then they brought Germaniuk.

V.P.: Bohdan says: “Myrosiu! Let's tell them to their faces!”

M.P.: To their faces, he says, there's nothing to hide, because they already know everything, because those agents Myros Maslovsky—he was from Frankivsk,—and another one, the one who is still alive, and the others have all died.

V.P.: Well, Hayovyi, Kozak.

V.P.: Hayovyi and Kozak—they were also KGB agents.

M.P.: How did we know they were agents?

V.P.: We didn't know, but all the documents they took for safekeeping—they gave everything to the KGB. All the documents that our society accepted—they gave them to the KGB for safekeeping. So the KGB was already protecting them. But these weren't weapons!

M.P.: They took me, sat me in a chair, told me not to get up from the chair. The chair was fastened—I felt it when I sat down,—and one of them plugged something into the wall, and I got a current. I jumped up when the current shot through me.

V.P.: That's what I said, it's called “electric shock.”

M.P.: And then I get drowsy, drowsy, sleepy, and they're swearing at me: “I'll give it to you!” A tall brute to me: “Talk! Talk!” I say: “I have nothing to tell you, what will I tell you? What I've said so far, I'll say now.” So they trained me on that shock, let me go, took me back to the cell, so I lay in that cell for a long time.

V.O.: And what are the consequences of that shock, how does it work? Because I've never heard of such a thing.

M.P.: A current shakes you, a current flows.

V.O.: Does it last long, or is it instantaneous?

M.P.: As long as I'm sitting, for as long as he turned it on.

V.O.: And you can't get up, jump off?

M.P.: You can get up, you can jump up, but those beasts are standing over me, ready to beat me right away. And I'm so sleepy, I'm about to fall over. They to me: “Hold on!” It was terrible! When they took us to the prison, I told my brother that they put me on an electric table.

V.P.: They took him twice!

V.O.: And that was twice? In the same room?

M.P.: Yes, yes. I still remember, a Russian woman was sitting in the corridor, she looked at me so frighteningly.

V.O.: She was probably a doctor?

M.P.: No, no, she was sitting at some apparatus. And they plugged it into the wall. An officer plugged it in. But they were all in civilian clothes. And I wasn't just silent, I talked back to them, argued with them. They wanted to beat me—they really wanted to beat me, but for some reason, they didn't—I don't know why, what the reason was. Because that one told me, if it had been Stalin's time, you would have been...

V.P.: If he had hit him—Myros would have hit back.

M.P.: I would have hit back—I was an athlete, I was nimble at that.

V.O.: Like Symchych?

M.P.: Yes. Well, they tried us in court.

V.P.: Tell them what, where, how.

M.P.: In Frankivsk, after they brought me together with Bohdan Germaniuk, I had to confirm what the boys had signed. I had to retell it. Bohdan told me that it was all over.

V.O.: Did they arrange a face-to-face confrontation with Germaniuk for you?

M.P.: Yes, they photographed it. We were photographed, there was a special KGB agent there—how we greeted each other, how we approached each other, what we said—he filmed it all. They should have all of that at the KGB. Only it's not our KGB that tried me.

V.P.: It was the Moscow KGB, they weren't locals.

M.P.: What locals? I don't find a single KGB agent there who was Ukrainian. The fact that he speaks Ukrainian—but whose interests was he defending…

V.P.: Goncharov, Utkin, Meshcheriakov...

V.O.: And did they conduct the case in Ukrainian?

M.P.: Yes, they conducted it in Ukrainian.

V.P.: Everything was in Ukrainian—we didn't want to, because we didn't speak Russian.

M.P.: I could speak Russian, but what business was it of mine?

They sentenced me, gave us ten years each. We even laughed about it.

I arrived there... I remembered my uncle, who was at the White Sea Canal and wrote from there...

V.P.: Father's own brother.

M.P.: Yes, father's own brother. He always wrote to my father: “Here, little brother, there's food to eat—eat water and drink water.” I ended up in prison, and I saw for myself that it was eat-water and drink-water. Tea without sugar, some kind of porridge from foxtail millet, just floating—not thick, but a watery soup. They gave us that low-quality bread—I forgot—the prison norm was 700 grams. One and a half sugar cubes a day. That was the whole norm.

V.P.: Pressed sugar.

M.P.: I traveled in those transports, was in Kharkiv, saw enough of them.

V.O.: Were you at Kholodna Hora?

M.P.: Oh, what I saw there! The people there, the prisons are packed—God, thousands of people!

V.P.: Also tell about how you were in Siberia.

V.O.: Where did they take you?

M.P.: In Siberia, I ended up in a transit prison in Irkutsk. We declared a hunger strike there. It was hot inside from the morning—it was spring—there was nothing to breathe. There were two tiers of people—a room this size, smaller than this one, there were two tiers of people. My God! One guy was spitting blood, we demanded something for him, we gave him air. Then they put Yarema in solitary for 10 days. A major flew in and said: “Why are you not taking food? What are the reasons?” I told him— “Ten days!” They took me away, led me to an isolation cell. Such a misfortune happened.

Then they took us to the camps. They put me with the boys together. Wait, who was there? Bohdan, Yurchyk—there were three of us. Yarema, Yurchyk, and I ended up in the fifth camp in Siberia. The fifth was a non-working zone.

V.O.: Which oblast or krai was that?

M.P.: It was the Irkutsk Oblast. Vikhorevka. It's the end of the line there, pine forests. They took us there—I didn't work anywhere. We played volleyball there. There were gnats there, so many gnats that you couldn't go out until the sun warmed up. People wore nets on their heads, gloves on their hands, because there were billions of gnats that bit us. So I was always running after a Korean, so we could go play some volleyball—the Korean played very well. So I would go into that Asian barrack. Because there was a Ukrainian barrack, a Baltic barrack, a barrack for “holy people,” as we called them—Jehovah's Witnesses, Baptists, Pentecostals, Stundists, and whatever you want,—and an Asian barrack. That Korean and that Japanese man were there, in that Asian barrack. “Kim, let's go play!” And there, my God, you go in—they're playing cards, they're injecting themselves—shooting up drugs. Where they got it from—who knows. They drank chifir, smoked weed, that if you smoke it, one man becomes two—all sorts of things, because Asia is Asia, it's a terrible thing.

We were there for a while, and from there, towards spring, or something, they threw us into the 11th camp. We weren't there for long, at the 11th. There were many unpleasant moments there, but what's the use of remembering. We settled in there, and after a few months, they put us on a transport—and sent us to Mordovia.

V.O.: What year?

M.P.: I don't know, brother.

V.P.: I was already in my second year then.

M.P.: You were in your second year? So that means it was 1960. They brought us there when Vasyl was finishing his second year. They immediately threw me into the 10th camp in Mordovia, it was a non-working zone—a brick factory stood there, we didn't work anywhere. We weren't there for long. Recruiters came, a major, asking if I would go to work. I said that if it was some light work, I would do a little. So they took me to the second camp—where they sew coats, blouses for a boarding school, or whatever it's called. They brought me there.

There I met many of my boys, there were mostly Ukrainians. The Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast always had the most. After that—either they wanted to close it, or what—they transferred us to the 11th, in Yavas. Then I somehow broke out of the 11th—I asked one officer, told him that I would like to go to the seventh. There's a fine stadium there, and I wanted to play a little football. And they sent me there. How they sent me—I don't know myself. But they sent me to the seventh camp very quickly. At the seventh, we created a Ukrainian team, a Russian team, a Baltic team, a German team. I have all those pictures—I have the Germans, I have the Balts...

V.O.: And was it still possible to take photographs back then?

M.P.: It was possible at that moment, it was still 1960-61, it was still “democracy.” We still wore civilian clothes, embroidered shirts, I wore my own shoes, everything. And then after that crisis, that was...

V.O.: The Cuban Missile Crisis?

M.P.: The Cuban one, yes.

V.O.: 1962, sometime in the fall, in October, probably?

M.P.: I don't know. I come back from work to the living area—I was working the night shift somewhere—I look: Lenin, all those posters—it's all on the ground. The NKVD or KGB tore it all down. I ask the boys what's going on. They say they don't know. And then the next day, the soldiers who served on the watchtowers, who were acquainted with some of us, they said: “Boys, they were digging pits for you.” They were digging pits to shoot us all there in case of war. Myron knows about this too. So we were already preparing and thinking that... When I saw that in the Lenin room that Lenin was torn down—from a child to an old man, man… Everything on the ground.

After that, I ended up in the 11th, was with Levko Lukianenko, Stepan Virun from Lviv, who worked at the city party committee. But he had some connections with the KGB, so he told the boys that he was being released early—he had served 8 years, but had 12. So I had a colleague like that. He was a smart guy, very smart, very capable, but there was something about him...

V.P.: And you protected him, because they could have knifed him there, but you didn't let them.

M.P.: Yes, they were going to knife him, so I jumped on the one who was about to do it. Because of that, Stepan treated us well. There were many good people there.

V.P.: He saw what was what. He himself was for communism—he wrote reports for the bosses. But he saw that it was all false, all a lie, so he left.

M.P.: This Virun—he is an accomplice of Lukianenko, and not only Lukianenko, but these...

V.O.: Ivan Kandyba...

M.P.: These brothers—what are they called? Bohdan and... Who were deputies of the Verkhovna Rada of the first convocation.

V.O.: Ah, so you're talking about the Horyn brothers, right? But that's a different case, that's from 1965. Were the Horyns there too?

M.P.: Yes, I was with Bohdan. I saw how Bohdan recited a poem by Lina Kostenko to us. He would gather us and recite some fine poem. And Mykhailo Horyn was at the 17th. I know Mykhailo Horyn, because we were together at Hlyva's wedding in Kamianka Velyka. Hlyva lives here, our camp colleague, served 27 years. He can't even see anymore. It's a terrible thing.

What's next? After they released me...

V.O.: Wait. I'm interested in what the relationships were like with these people, when after Levko Lukianenko, the Horyns and other Sixtiers came in 1965-66. That's when information started to get out of the zone to the outside world. Because before that, very little information got out. How did you perceive this? I'm interested if you passed information about yourselves to the outside world then?

M.P.: Our boys passed this information abroad. I know how it was done. When the KGB from Frankivsk came to the 11th, I told them: “What, did my father send you as a delegation to me?” Then Radio Liberty broadcasted these words. So I told the boys, the boys wrote down what I said to the KGB, recorded it and passed it on to Radio Liberty through a secret channel. It wasn't so easy to get it out of the camp. But they managed and passed it on. I also transported a recording from the third camp, when I was in the hospital there.

V.O.: That's from Barashevo?

M.P.: I had an ulcer and went there for a month to improve my health. They gave me injections there. They gave me bromide and some other sedative. They did give it, I can't say otherwise—I did get injections. Sometimes they even gave vitamin B-12, I won't lie—sometimes, rarely, but they did. Either they stole it, or we weren't entitled to it, they didn't want to give it. Suffice it to say that I know this doctor... Our doctor, what was his name, he's already been buried, in Dolyna or where?

V.O.: Vasyl Karkhut?

M.P.: No, no, Karkhut died in Kolomyia. I was on good terms with Karkhut, he treated me. This was a Banderite doctor, whose eye the Poles gouged out in Poland when he was defending Bandera.

V.O.: Ah, so that was Dr. Horbovyi?

M.P.: Yes, I was with Horbovyi.

V.O.: What was his first name, by the way?

M.P.: I've forgotten his first name!

V.O.: How is it that no one remembers his first name? Dr. Horbovyi—and that's all. (Volodymyr Horbovyi. – V.O).

M.P.: When I came to the third camp, I always met Dr. Horbovyi. I say: “Mr. Doctor, you must write your autobiography and pass it to me.” He wrote it all down, and I barely managed to transport it—I was so afraid the KGB agents would catch me! I put it in a forbidden place, but I transported it and passed it on in the zone. And whether they passed it abroad or not, I don't know. After that, it didn't concern me, the main thing for me was to transport it. And that's not so easy, because they search all the seams. I did this.

Well, I served my time... True, they arrested me again in the zone. A Black Maria came, took me, Viter, and Mykola Bilokobyla from the Kharkiv Oblast—a guy I was teaching to play football—they arrested us and threw us in where the female guards were. We were so weak when we got there, the food was “eat-water,” terrible acidity, a doctor comes, we say: “Give us medicine.” “We don't have that.” “Well, if you don't have it, we don't need it.” It was so hard, because of that food, and my ulcer hurt badly, constantly. But even with an ulcer, I played football, I was a football star there. When I played at the seventh camp, even the Chekists from outside the zone would come to watch the football. It was still “democracy” then—civilians were allowed into the zone, they would sit on the benches, those who came to visit their prisoners—husbands, relatives. So they would sit and watch us play. And we had competitions among ourselves—Russians against Ukrainians, then we'd play the Germans, then the Balts. There were strong basketball players, handball players. The Baltics were heavily involved in this, students from there ended up there—both from Moscow and the Baltics. And they held competitions with each other. Even though we were hungry, when you're young—you want to move.

V.P.: And the Balts didn't beat us, they always followed us...

M.P.: Yes, the Lithuanians are very sincere towards Ukrainians, Estonians, Lithuanians. The Latvians—not so much.

V.P.: But not with the Muscovites.

M.P.: No one with the Muscovites. We celebrated holidays there, I remember, in the spring we sang “Christ is Risen.” They prepared some snacks nicely in the kitchen, set out the tables. We didn't have any Catholic priests, because the priests were behind the fence, at 7/1. And the boys sang for the whole settlement, it came out nicely. So the foreigners watched how the Ukrainians celebrate.

V.O.: And how did the guards and supervisors react to this?

M.P.: They warned us that nothing should happen here. Nothing is happening here—it's our holiday, and that's it. It wasn't like they would disperse us. But it never went that far—what could they do about it? It was easy for them to do. That's how it was. I served my time... V.O.: Where were you released from?

M.P.: I was released from the 11th.

V.O.: Did they release you straight from the zone or did they take you somewhere?

M.P.: No, they took me.

V.O.: How did they take you? Under guard or in a Stolypin car?

M.P.: Yes, under guard, because my term wasn't up yet, I still had two days left. So they brought me there, the cashier wrote me a check for the money I had earned. I earned some money for myself in the camp. I worked on television boxes—you know, those boxes. I cleaned them nicely, turned them in and got money. I didn't get much—30 rubles, and they deducted 15 rubles for food.

V.O.: So that was 15 rubles a month?

M.P.: No, no, I earned up to 60 rubles a month. A civilian earned twice as much—120 or 140, but I only got up to 60. I worked so they wouldn't deduct, because if it was more than 60, they would take some tax. So that's how I earned, because you couldn't earn more. The work wasn't hard for me. Because I simply refused hard work. They once threw me on the sawmill to throw off boards, and I looked, I'm throwing them off for an hour and then another hour… What, am I chained here? I spat, threw it down, and walked away. I'll die here. Those boards are coming, and am I supposed to be able to throw them off? So they even drew me on the board, that I was this and that... They drew me on the wall newspaper as a bad worker and threatened me that they would put me in the punishment cell if I didn't meet the norm. I started meeting the norm by 30 percent. When I gave 30% of the norm, they didn't touch me, because it just about compensated for food and everything. And that's it. I cut some small boards and stacked them with a major—he was from the Lviv region, or somewhere, a Jew, a big man, a former KGB major. We were both such workers, we did 30%.

Well, the time came to go home. They shaved my head, they searched me...

V.O.: Before release?

M.P.: To the last thread.

V.O.: But they don't cut your hair 3 months before release!

M.P.: They cut my hair on the last day before departure. The KGB agent himself called me, searched everything. Panas Zalyvakha gave me a little clock as a gift, for me to transport—there was a whole story with that little clock. The KGB agent broke it to pieces, so there wouldn't be any piece of paper in it—that's how they checked me.

When I arrived in Moscow, KGB agents, informers—after us. I stayed in the train car. Everyone got out, and I just watched from the side, how they operate, where the informers are. And they're searching with their eyes, brother, like... But I have to get out of the car anyway. So I got out, and they were right in front of me: “Quickly to the Kyiv station, quickly!” I say: “I'm going! I'm going!” Some driver picked me up: “Let's go!” So I got in a taxi and sped away.

V.P.: And where was the P'iadyky man in Moscow?

M.P.: I gave the address, and the driver took me there. He gave me clothes to change into, but the KGB still knew where I was. They knew, because the next day they sent Germaniuk's wife. For some reason, she came to Stefan the next day—why? I had my suspicions, but it made no difference to me. Stefan went with me, I bought myself a suit, bought clothes, shoes.

V.P.: Bought a jacket.

M.P.: I bought everything for myself, changed. I was in Moscow—I don't know, for 2 days, or 3. His mother was there, so I got on the train with his mother, he saw us off. The informers traveled with me. I don't know where they got on, in Moscow or later—but I recognized the informers right away. I recognized the agent immediately, because he came up to me, looked at what I had bought. I arrived all the way in Kolomyia, where my brother was. I don't know, were you at the station?

V.P.: Of course I was! And Mykola Paliy, our brother-in-law.

M.P.: My brother-in-law drove up, the KGB was there to meet me, Vasyl, my brother. And the KGB came out to meet me. My brother-in-law put me in the car and they brought me home.

V.P.: We got in the car, and the KGB agents were left behind, they went away.

M.P.: Yes. Then it was hard with work, no one would hire me anywhere. But they did hire me at the factory as some kind of mechanic.

V.O.: At which factory?

M.P.: The weaving factory, where I had worked before, that's where they hired me. I worked for a bit, then became an assistant foreman, an adjuster.

V.P.: He adjusted all those weaving looms.

M.P.: I adjusted the looms, the ones that cut the cloth.

V.P.: Without him, the cloth doesn't run.

V.O.: And where is that factory? In Kolomyia, right? That's close to P'iadyky?

M.P.: This one is here, and the other is behind the town hall in the valley. There were two factories, but now there's only one. I started work, and the KGB constantly bothered me at work. A KGB agent would always come to me, looking for something, summoning me to come to them, asking what I was doing, they placed agents all around at work—to see what I was saying, who I was talking to. I signed a statement that I wouldn't say anything, wouldn't tell anything. And I had to sign this statement that I wouldn't say anything. What was I supposed to do? Because they wouldn't give me a job, they wouldn't give me anything. And so it dragged on, dragged on until the very end, until the end of Brezhnev's era, until independence came. And they asked my daughter why she was corresponding with an Italian? She saw an ad in the newspaper and wrote.

V.P.: An Italian was corresponding with her.

M.P.: She wrote, and he responded, and at the KGB they ask why she's corresponding with a foreigner—you understand? Well, for the girl to get married. That foreigner responded to her. It was a whole story with the Soviet Union...

V.O.: And when the revolution, so to speak, began—did you take part in it?

M.P.: Of course!

V.P.: We were the first!

M.P.: The first, because Bohdan Germaniuk was organizing, he went to get the boys from Lviv, from Dolyna, from Kalush, Frankivsk, gathered everyone on the road to get things moving in Kolomyia. And Hlyva was there, helped in this matter. They organized people here—and they gathered at the station, unfurled banners and it all started moving, on the way a thousand people gathered, then two thousand.

V.P.: They built a memorial mound in P'iadyky. And on the mound, Myron falls, pierces his hand right through. So he shed his blood on our mound.

V.O.: So in which organizations did you participate?

M.P.: I am now in the Brotherhood of OUN-UPA. He, brother Bohdan, all of us. Pryshliak is here—do you know Pryshliak?

V.O.: Not personally, but I know he's here.

M.P.: Eh, he's the regional head of the Security Service. I was imprisoned with him. I was also imprisoned with Duzhyi, from Lviv. Do you know Pavlo Duzhyi?

V.O.: Not personally, but I've heard a lot about him.

M.P.: There are two Duzhyis, I think. No, one Duzhyi, and two Pryshliaks, because I know that one, and this one. This Hryts, who's in Kolomyia. I see him sometimes, just not now, because I don't go anywhere, I'm tied to the child, I have to sit with her. I'm already retired, I have a second-group disability for life.

V.O.: And since when have you been retired?

M.P.: I've already forgotten. In '82 I got sick, had an operation in Kyiv...

V.P.: I was with him in Kyiv then, at Kolomiychenko's. You know, there's a cancer hospital there. We were both there... They cut my throat. I have one vocal cord. This part is cut off.

V.O.: So it's difficult for you to speak?

M.P.: Yes, yes, it's difficult for me to speak. It's a misfortune, but what can you do, when such a misfortune befell me.

V.P.: But he has Cossack health and endures.

V.O.: He has to, of course. And just as you didn't tell anything during the investigation, you haven't told anything here either. What did you do in the party?

M.P.: We were looking for like-minded people. We looked there, we looked there... Those who were nationally conscious. Because everything had fallen into decay. The intelligentsia had degenerated to such a degree that it was not interested in the national question at all. At school, you listen when the children perform...

V.P.: It was Lenin, Stalin—and that's all.

M.P.: And not only that: Russian songs—first, Russian poems—first, and nothing Ukrainian. I say to my Lyuda (I married a woman with a child): “Lyuda, don't perform for me—what are you doing in Russian there? What is this? Are you Ukrainian or who?” And she says: “Dad, that's what they assign us—what can I do?” “Leave it! How can it be that you start speaking in a foreign language?” You see, it was like that everywhere—the intelligentsia was so downtrodden, so intimidated, that nothing interested them. And this began to pain us. What is this, in our own land?

V.P.: But despite this, we formed choirs, sang Ukrainian songs, folk songs, Shevchenko’s songs. We weren’t allowed to sing *“Як умру, то поховайте...”* [“When I die, then bury me…”], but we sang it. They forced us to start with “Reve ta stohne” [“The mighty Dnieper roars and groans”], but we would sing *“Як умру, то поховайте,”* and the whole hall would stand up. Only the teachers, Kateryna Romanivna and the others, would remain seated, and people would say: “Get up! Don’t you respect such a great man? You honor such a great man by standing!” Then she, too, would have to get up, whether she wanted to or not.

V.O.: And did the party have any printed materials—or only manuscripts?

M.P.: It was still in manuscript form; we didn’t have time to get properly established—there was no money. We started out of idealism, but we didn’t have any money yet. They wanted to convict me for money matters, too, because I was supposed to collect money; they pinned that on me at the trial. I refused, but what did it matter.

V.P.: Supposedly, you were supposed to take the money.

M.P.: Yes, I had a revolver, so we supposedly wanted to rob the post office to get money to start the organization.

V.O.: Some of the OPVU members are already gone. For instance, Ivan Strutynskyi is no longer with us. What can you tell us about him?

M.P.: He was an exceptionally talented young man. He had a voice like a nightingale. He was a musician in every way—from the sopilka, violin, accordion, to the bayan. In the camps, he would get up at three in the morning and run because there was a grand piano there. The guards would catch him at night by that piano. He was so passionate about it! He improved himself so much; he had many colleagues from the Baltics. Everyone loved him. It’s a shame about such a man.

V.P.: And he always brought white bread. He worked in the bakery there at 7/1.

V.O.: And when did he die?

M.P.: He died a long time ago. In Kalush.

V.O.: You don’t remember the date?

M.P.: How could we have known? We didn’t even know he had died.

V.P.: When his brothers died, both the first and the second brother. His brothers died, and his father, and his mother. Bohdan Tymkiv told me this.

V.O.: And where is Yarema Tkachuk now?

M.P.: He’s way out in the Lviv region.

V.P.: Near the Polish border.

M.P.: It’s a village where the Polish border runs right through it.

V.O.: Does anyone know his address?

M.P.: I don’t know it now. I visited him once, I traveled there, but I don’t know the address.

V.O.: And it’s also unknown where Ivan Konevych is, right?

V.P.: They say he was somewhere in Kazakhstan, came back from there, and then went back again. He didn’t want the KGB to persecute him, so he fled.

V.O.: So the least is known about him. I suppose Yarema Tkachuk knows the most and described it in his work, right?

V.P.: Yes, yes, only Yarema wrote it all down. It’s a large work, up to 700 pages. If Bohdan gave it to you, you’d have the whole picture. He wrote it well. If that book were published, it would be a fine memoir of it all. (See: Yarema Tkachuk. *Bureviyi. Knyha pam’iati* [Storms. A Book of Memory]. – Lviv: Vyd-vo “SPOLOM,” 2004. – 368 pp.).

V.O.: The complete history of the organization?

V.P.: The whole history, complete, one hundred percent.

V.O.: Because, for example, Rusnachenko’s book says very little about your party—literally a paragraph or two, and even Hermaniuk is called Harmatiuk, and the Ploshchaks are called Pliushchyks. Mistakes like that. Well, he hadn’t seen your case file. (Anatoliy Rusnachenko. *Natsionalno-vyzvolnyi rukh v Ukraini. Seredyna 1950-kh – pochatok 1990-kh rokiv* [The National Liberation Movement in Ukraine. Mid-1950s – Early 1990s]. – Kyiv: Vyd. im. Oleny Telihy, 1998. – P. 96). And do you know that you can look at your case file and even take some materials from it or demand that they make copies for you? At the very least, the verdict—if at least one of you wrote to the regional court to get a copy of the verdict. Even just one, because everyone should be given one.

V.P.: We need to set Bohdan on it—he’ll go to the KGB himself. You should get a copy made, too.

V.O.: And they didn’t give you a copy of the verdict after the trial?

V.P.: No, no—not to me, not to him. They only gave me a certificate when I was released, and nothing more.

V.O.: A certificate of release? Well, okay, the picture of the organization is more or less clear now. And what is your address?

V.P.: I’m at 3 Kozachivka Street, Piadyky.

M.P.: And I’m at 28 Petliura Street, Piadyky.

V.O.: Oh, so you’re a real Petliurite! Well, be well, God be with you!

V.O.: These were Vasyl and Myroslav Ploshchak. March 19, 2000, in Kolomyia, at the home of Myroslav Symchych. The conversation was conducted by Vasyl Ovsienko.

Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group.

Vasyl and Myroslav Ploshchak. March 19, 2000. Photo by V. Ovsienko.