IVAN MYKOLAYOVYCH POKROVSKY

I n t e r v i e w with I. M. P o k r o v s k y

(Edited December 10–15, 2008)

Listen to the audio files

V.V. Ovsienko: July twenty-fifth, 2002, the town of Horodnia, Chernihiv Oblast, ten twenty. We are at Ivan Pokrovsky’s home. Present here are Yevhen Sverstiuk, Oleksandr Suhoniako, and Yefrosynia Markivna Sereda. Vasyl Ovsienko is recording. Ivan Mykolayovych Pokrovsky.

I.M. Pokrovsky: They kept submitting my case for rehabilitation in Belarus, but the Belarusians didn't care at all. And since my record, of course, includes murder and similar things, they said very curtly: “Not subject to rehabilitation.”

V.V. Ovsienko: The Belarusian authorities?

I.M. Pokrovsky: Yes.

V.V. Ovsienko: And where were you tried, in Belarus?

I.M. Pokrovsky: Baranavichy, Brest Oblast.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: This photo of your father, what year is it from?

I.M. Pokrovsky: I couldn't tell you the year, well, before the war, I suppose, because he was killed during the war, and no one was taking his picture there. My mother had a small photograph, and I took it to Lutsk and made a few copies.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: Your father was a priest, right?

I.M. Pokrovsky: Yes, it’s written here.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: And what was your father’s father?

I.M. Pokrovsky: Also a priest. And my mother's father was a priest.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: And what was your grandfather's origin?

I.M. Pokrovsky: Oh, and look here, that's the church in Shtun, and over there is the grave.

V.V. Ovsienko: The village of Shtun is in which raion now?

I.M. Pokrovsky: Liuboml, as it was. Volyn Oblast. You see, those are the graves of my father and sister, right by the church. They were buried in the evening under heavy guard because Poles were nearby. This is the inscription on the monument.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: “Here lie the mortal remains of the priest Mykolai and his daughter Natasha Pokrovsky. From the brotherhood of the Saint John the Theologian Church of the village of Shtun.”

V.V. Ovsienko: Where is this monument?

I.M. Pokrovsky: Right there, in the village of Shtun, in the photograph. The people collected money and made this monument, a simple one from cement, they brought it and wanted to install it. The authorities didn't allow it, and there might have been some resistance from the church as well. And it stood there until the years of perestroika. And during perestroika, they finally placed the monument on the grave.

V.V. Ovsienko: Are the years of your father's life marked here?

O. Suhoniako: He was born in 1894 and was killed on December 19, 1943, in that village, along with his daughter Natalka.

V.V. Ovsienko: And who killed him?

I.M. Pokrovsky: The Poles. [Comment by Ye.M. Sereda is unintelligible].

V.V. Ovsienko: You were born in twenty-one—and what was the date?

I.M. Pokrovsky: September seventh.

V.V. Ovsienko: September 7, 1921. And could you recall your mother, state her name and maiden name?

I.M. Pokrovsky: No, I remember everything. It was underlined—see? [Unintelligible word]. My mother was Maria Pavlivna Kuzhil, from Zlazne village, Rivne Oblast, or maybe you don't know that one—Ivanova Dolyna, you know, where they quarry basalt?

V.V. Ovsienko: No, I don't know that area.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: Kostopil Raion, Ivanova Dolyna.

I.M. Pokrovsky: And there's a quarry there.

V.V. Ovsienko: Can you recall your mother's years of life? It would be good to have that recorded too.

I.M. Pokrovsky: Well, you know—I can't say for sure when she died. But she was born in 1904.

O. Suhoniako: So she had you when she was very young?

I.M. Pokrovsky: No, not really, why do you say that?

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: Well, if you were born in 1921...

O. Suhoniako: At seventeen.

I.M. Pokrovsky: No, something's not right.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: How many of you were there in the family?

I.M. Pokrovsky: There were four of us: I was the eldest, then came Natalka who was killed, then Oleksandra and Anna.

V.V. Ovsienko: Are any of your sisters still alive?

I.M. Pokrovsky: No one.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: They've all passed away?

I.M. Pokrovsky: All have passed. Now I can tell the story more or less in order.

V.V. Ovsienko: Yes, please do.

I.M. Pokrovsky: My father was from the Orlovshchyna region, on the border with Ukraine. His father, Oleksandr, was a priest. My father's mother, strangely enough, was also named Oleksandra, and my mother's father was Pavel, and his wife was Pavla.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: What was the last name?

V.V. Ovsienko: Kuzhil. My paternal grandfather had thirteen children. My father wasn't the oldest, somewhere in the middle. My grandfather wasn't from Orlovshchyna either; somehow, I remember being told he came from Kuban, maybe from a village called Pokrovske.

V.V. Ovsienko: Your surname has a religious sound to it. Clergy often had such surnames.

I.M. Pokrovsky: No, there's also a Pokrovske in Kuban.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: Yes, there probably is.

I.M. Pokrovsky: Well, he was already about eighteen when the war started. He had finished his secondary education, and of course, to make it cheaper, it was at a theological seminary. And he went on to study further. My grandfather said: “I don’t have the funds to educate you, you’re on your own. I’ll clothe you, feed you with what I can, but you have to make your own way.” And he enrolled in the university in Tallinn. He earned money by tutoring some people, even tried unloading train cars, and for the holidays he would travel somewhere. He once told a story about a man who decided to write his memoirs and had a lot of various notes, so he arranged for my father to write it during the holidays. My father looked and looked at those notes, read some old newspapers the man had—and wrote the book for him, earning a large sum of money. But perhaps that's not very interesting.

The war began. In 1915, they announced to the students that they would study for free, everything—if they joined the army. My father completed a six-month officer course and joined the army. There was a defeat of the Russian troops at the Masurian Lakes in East Prussia, but he managed to break out of there, fighting his way out with his unit. He was the commander of a reconnaissance battalion or sotnia. And after various vicissitudes, the Brusilov Offensive, he ended up in Rivne Oblast, and the revolution found him there. He happened to be at my maternal grandfather's place. The revolution caught him, they were already disbanding the army, and after some twists and turns, he ended up in Petliura's army. He was in Petliura's army for a while, until the collapse came in 1919, the Poles were advancing, and he left the army—they scattered. They scattered, and Poland established its border with the Soviets here. Well, what was there to do? It should be noted right away that he did not receive Polish citizenship because he was a native of Russia. It was here that he married Maria and was ordained as a priest, and he was given the parish of Shtun, on the border. He goes there—hunger, cold, because when the Russian army retreated, they evicted everyone, only a few individuals remained, and the rest were scattered across Zhytomyr Oblast and further on. People started to return, but there was nothing to eat or drink, the houses were overgrown with weeds taller than the roofs. And yet he stayed there, and I think in 1920, he brought my mother there, and they began to set up a household.

And so life in Shtun began. The church house was quite good. The people had started to recover a bit. My father was not a citizen, and I was also considered a non-Polish subject.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: And your mother—she wasn't either?

I.M. Pokrovsky: No, because the law was that if she married a non-subject, she would lose her citizenship.

V.V. Ovsienko: So, you were stateless persons?

I.M. Pokrovsky: Yes, and I still remember some kind of passports like that.

O. Suhoniako: Citizens of an independent Ukraine—neither Soviet nor Polish.

I.M. Pokrovsky: No, there were some kind of international passports, I don't know what they were called, for people without citizenship.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: Did that ever come in handy for you later?

I.M. Pokrovsky: No. Just when I reached the age where I needed it, Poland collapsed.

V.V. Ovsienko: You must have studied somewhere, obviously?

I.M. Pokrovsky: I'll tell you in a moment. My father, I must admit, was a bit restless. Already in 1927, he began to conduct services in the church in Ukrainian, for which he was a little... He was dissatisfied, but the people stood up for him, and he continued to conduct services that way until his death.

V.V. Ovsienko: So which Church did he belong to?

I.M. Pokrovsky: To the Orthodox Church, but the thing is, at that time the primate in Poland was a certain Dionisiy, who was subordinate to the Ecumenical Patriarch; he was in Warsaw.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: According to the Tomos of 1924, it was the Autocephalous Orthodox Church in Poland.

I.M. Pokrovsky: Then in Volyn, Polikarp became the primate, right?

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: Yes, yes.

I.M. Pokrovsky: And it became the Autocephalous Church, and my father belonged to it. When my father was killed, my mother was in exile in Siberia, and she wrote here, to the eparchy, about some kind of pension, and they replied that Pokrovsky belonged to the Autocephalous Church, so we will not be paying a pension.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: I see. And they figured out on their own that he belonged to the Autocephalous Church?

I.M. Pokrovsky: Who figured it out? What was the reply? The locals had exiled her because they knew very well.

V.V. Ovsienko: Was that the authorities or the church officials?

I.M. Pokrovsky: The church officials—what kind of pension would the authorities give at that time? So we lived like that until the war.

V.V. Ovsienko: And you must have studied somewhere? That's worth mentioning.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: Right from childhood.

I.M. Pokrovsky: I studied for four years in the village, then in the raion center.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: Was the school Polish or Ukrainian?

I.M. Pokrovsky: It was Ukrainian—it was a Polish school, but in the village, they taught in Ukrainian.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: And what subjects do you remember?

I.M. Pokrovsky: Well, what subjects are there in primary school—arithmetic, language...

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: And what language?

I.M. Pokrovsky: Ukrainian, of course. Four years of Ukrainian language.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: And Polish?

I.M. Pokrovsky: There was some Polish in there too.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: And then?

I.M. Pokrovsky: And then to the raion center, I studied for two more years.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: Which raion center?

I.M. Pokrovsky: Liuboml. I lodged there, studied for two more years, finishing primary school, and after six grades, I went and passed the exams for the gymnasium in Kovel.

V.V. Ovsienko: What year was that?

I.M. Pokrovsky: I started school at seven, studied for six years, that's thirteen, and twenty-one—so thirty-four.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: So you went to the Kovel Gymnasium?

I.M. Pokrovsky: Yes, the Kovel one.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: The Ukrainian one?

I.M. Pokrovsky: No, the Polish one. To be honest, there was a Ukrainian one in Lutsk, but we didn't have the funds for it.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: And the Polish one was free?

I.M. Pokrovsky: No, it wasn't much—two hundred zlotys a year, something like that. And only half of that.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: And were you prepared for a Polish gymnasium, having finished a Ukrainian school?

I.M. Pokrovsky: I was prepared, of course. There was more Polish language in the raion when I studied there for two years.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: So, you entered the gymnasium—do you remember what year?

I.M. Pokrovsky: I was just calculating...

V.V. Ovsienko: Around thirty-four.

I.M. Pokrovsky: Or if we subtract nine from thirty-nine... Oh no, that's not right, something's wrong.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: Was it during Piłsudski's time? But we can calculate it differently...

I.M. Pokrovsky: No, not nine—four: thirty-nine, subtract about four years, that makes it thirty-five. That's right. I didn't finish the gymnasium, because in thirty-nine, I was getting ready to go for my final year—and they announce: war. That was 1939.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: And who studied with you in the gymnasium—your friends?

I.M. Pokrovsky: There were no friends from the village or the raion. But all sorts of people studied there—some were Jews. I was even friends with—there was a guy named Ratner. There was a significant number of Ukrainians, the rest were Poles.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: And the Poles and Ukrainians, what class were they—peasants?

I.M. Pokrovsky: Townspeople, there were few peasants.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: Children of teachers, priests?

I.M. Pokrovsky: There were none of those with me—with me were townspeople.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: What do you mean by townspeople?

I.M. Pokrovsky: Well, residents of Kovel, inhabitants.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: Artisans?

I.M. Pokrovsky: I don't even know. I know there was one Jewish girl whose parents owned a large store. Ratner's parents also traded in something somewhere.

The year 1939 arrives, Soviet rule comes. But that's not interesting, you can turn it off.

V.V. Ovsienko: On the contrary, that's probably the most interesting part.

I.M. Pokrovsky: Soviet rule comes. True, before that, a German tank column had already reached the Buh River, crossed it near Volodymyr-Volynskyi, and entered Liuboml. They stopped in the market square, treating the people very cordially. They were young Germans from a tank unit, giving candy to children and saying that we won't be here long, the Soviets will come to you. So, on the seventeenth of September, they cross the border, and it takes them two weeks of marching to reach Liuboml. They arrived in Liuboml and stood in the same market square, in a quadrangle. Our people from the village rushed there to greet them. They run up—“Stoy, ne podkhodi!” [“Halt, don't approach!”] That's one fragment. Well, a week or so later, their agitators started going around the villages, a large archway was built for them, and there they were greeted, kissed, there was no more “halt, don't approach!”

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: They had already baked korovais and started welcoming them with bread and salt.

I.M. Pokrovsky: There was something like that.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: You don't remember that?

I.M. Pokrovsky: I wasn't there, I didn't see it. I saw the archway...

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: And did you see the Polish troops retreating?

I.M. Pokrovsky: I did. There were also some paramilitary organizations, they also took up arms and burned seven Soviet tankettes. They chose a spot where the tankettes were moving along an embankment. They blew up a bridge and burned seven tankettes.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: Was that our people?

I.M. Pokrovsky: That was the Poles, they burned seven Soviet tankettes.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: So they weren't regular Polish troops?

I.M. Pokrovsky: No, not regular. Maybe some of them were regular troops.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: But seven tankettes—that must have been a battle?

I.M. Pokrovsky: What kind of battle, when they were in a swamp and surrounded by forest, and the others were on a hill, just bang-bang—and it's on fire.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: So, the Soviets suffered a bit during the “liberation”?

I.M. Pokrovsky: That's one such case I know of. Well, and then the agitation began. A rally every evening. A part of our house had been given over for a school—they held rallies in the classroom and explained things to the people. I remember a few such facts. The first fact—when they were talking about the constitution and explaining: here's our Soviet constitution, it's such and such. And we had this one church cantor, he was considered smart, so he says: “Can I ask a question?” “You may.” “And what's this article in the constitution that says Ukraine can secede?” “Well, since it’s late now, we won’t explain it—come back tomorrow.” And by tomorrow, he was already behind bars.

V.V. Ovsienko: That cantor?

I.M. Pokrovsky: Yes.

V.V. Ovsienko: And in what language did they conduct these lectures, these rallies—in Ukrainian?

I.M. Pokrovsky: Ukrainian, Russian—depending on the political instructor.

V.V. Ovsienko: So they were mostly military men?

I.M. Pokrovsky: Political instructors. And a second amusing incident, it's not interesting enough to record, but there was such a question. In the village, no one knew about buying tea or a kilogram of sugar a month. But some wise guy piped up and said: “Do you have tsytryny [lemons]?” And what are tsytryny? “Yes,” he says, “there's a factory that produces a million of them.”

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: A proper agitator.

I.M. Pokrovsky: And do you know what tsytryny are?

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: Of course. We never called them anything but “tsytryny.” It’s Polish, after all.

I.M. Pokrovsky: Here it’s “lymon,” of course. And not “koniushyna,” but as you heard, “klever” [clover].

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: You essentially finished the gymnasium.

I.M. Pokrovsky: Well, I was one year short.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: What was that like, in your estimation—a secondary school or more?

I.M. Pokrovsky: You know, in some respects, from what I know of how my daughter studied—it was more, the scope was greater. More history, more geography than in secondary school. True, less math than here. The math they taught my daughter here, she just couldn't get it in her head in the higher grades.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: What math—Polish, right?

I.M. Pokrovsky: No, why, here in the Russian...

O. Sereda: Good afternoon! I'm Lena. Did I interrupt you? Have you been here long?

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: No, no, we were waiting for you.

V.V. Ovsienko: We're glad you're here. We've been here for about an hour.

I.M. Pokrovsky: And what else—I studied a foreign language. I studied French.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: How well did you learn it?

I.M. Pokrovsky: Not perfectly.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: Did you read texts?

I.M. Pokrovsky: I did, but not much is left now.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: Did you study Latin?

I.M. Pokrovsky: I did.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: And did you study Greek? Or just Latin?

I.M. Pokrovsky: No, no, just Latin.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: And did you learn Latin well?

I.M. Pokrovsky: It was alright.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: Did you read Latin texts?

I.M. Pokrovsky: We read poems too. [Quotes a poem in Latin, Ye. Sverstiuk continues the quotation.] That’s all. I even knew it by heart. [V. Ovsienko quotes “Gaudeamus”].

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: Did you know anything about Ukrainian history?

I.M. Pokrovsky: No, Ukrainian history wasn't taught. In the state gymnasium in Kovel, there were two hours of Ukrainian language a week. And a ksendz [Catholic priest] would come, and an Orthodox priest would come—there were religion classes. By the way, I must admit that the priest was young, but he taught well.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: He taught in the gymnasium?

I.M. Pokrovsky: There were hours—separate for Orthodox, separate for Catholics. He taught well, it was as if he was preparing us for that Soviet rule.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: Meaning, he was against atheism?

I.M. Pokrovsky: Against atheism, for religion, how it originated, what its main tenets are, and so on.

V.V. Ovsienko: Well, and what was Soviet rule like in thirty-nine–forty-one?

I.M. Pokrovsky: What was it like for us? We didn't have time to properly figure it out, but there were the Polish osadnyks… I won't dwell on that. That was the population—Polish legionaries. They were deported, hauled off somewhere. After that, they started dekulakization. Even when the Soviet troops had just arrived, some agitators, some Red Army soldiers were milling about. They would come to our house, and my mother would treat them to food. I remember one incident. One says: “What kind of kulaks do you have here—half the houses are covered with iron roofs?”

O. Suhoniako: Lots of dekulakization to be done.

I.M. Pokrovsky: No, they weren't kulaks yet. It was such that even a small house, the owner might cover it with iron. In my opinion, it was even cheaper than re-thatching it with straw every time.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: Well, if a man managed to buy tin sheets, it wasn't expensive. But how many were actually dekulakized and how many were repressed from the village?

I.M. Pokrovsky: That I can't tell you. There were some, there were. I know of the Strikhars, they were wealthy, they were hauled off God knows where.

V.V. Ovsienko: And your father, as a priest, they didn't touch him?

I.M. Pokrovsky: They didn't touch my father for the time being. They imposed a large tax on the church, people somehow collected it, paid that tax. To be honest, my mother had already dried rusks. This was in forty-one, there was a lot of bread for Easter, she dried rusks, we were already expecting to hit the road.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: So you were preparing? Hadn't you been officially told you were being deported?

I.M. Pokrovsky: No, there were no such announcements at all. The announcements were like this: they drive up, you pack your things, and let's go. They deported the cantor's family that way.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: Well, of course, because he asked that question. But they didn't touch your father, they didn't get a chance?

I.M. Pokrovsky: Well, how can I say they didn't touch him. They did, they called him in for questioning, and they called me in for questioning too.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: And what did they ask you about during the interrogations?

I.M. Pokrovsky: About whatever they wanted.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: No, that interests me.

I.M. Pokrovsky: Nothing interesting. Who your acquaintances are, who you associate with, what conversations you have—that sort of thing, nothing serious.

V.V. Ovsienko: Were there any youth or party organizations in your village at that time, did you hear about their activities?

I.M. Pokrovsky: Yes, let's go back. My father, in addition to what I said, organized an amateur group in the village. In the room that later became the classroom where I said rallies were held, they occasionally staged plays, a church choir was organized, and it sometimes sang on stage. My father, true, didn't show himself, but he would strum the guitar behind the scenes. My mother sang quite well. And there was a “Prosvita.”

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: “Prosvita”—that means a library too, right?

I.M. Pokrovsky: There was no library.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: What kind of “Prosvita” is that without a library, what did the “Prosvita” do?

I.M. Pokrovsky: They brought books from the raion.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: What were you reading at that time?

I.M. Pokrovsky: You know, I can't quite recall.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: Did you read Lepky's trilogy?

I.M. Pokrovsky: We did.

V.V. Ovsienko: Well, and when the Bolsheviks came, they shut down the “Prosvita” and all that?

I.M. Pokrovsky: Shut it down, they shut everything down at once, it shut down on its own.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: Did you go to school under the Soviets?

I.M. Pokrovsky: No, what school could there be.

O. Suhoniako: Did you work somewhere?

I.M. Pokrovsky: I didn't work either.

O. Suhoniako: How so?

I.M. Pokrovsky: Just like that, very simple. How could I go to the gymnasium, who would have accepted me there?

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: Well, they took me, it was a school, I'm also from Volyn, I immediately enrolled in school.

I.M. Pokrovsky: Which one?

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: Well, I was in the fifth grade.

I.M. Pokrovsky: What, in elementary?

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: Yes.

I.M. Pokrovsky: Well, so what, they took everyone into elementary.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: First elementary, and then secondary.

I.M. Pokrovsky: Well, that happened gradually.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: So you practically didn't study from thirty-nine to forty-one?

I.M. Pokrovsky: I didn't study and didn't do anything of substance.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: But that was the age, you were almost twenty.

O. Suhoniako: Already over twenty.

V.V. Ovsienko: In forty-one, he was twenty.

I.M. Pokrovsky: Exactly twenty years old.

V.V. Ovsienko: And they didn't draft you into the Soviet Army?

I.M. Pokrovsky: They didn't draft anyone from our area, took no one. Only those few guys who were underground Komsomol members were taken. They were taken, they spent some time in that army, and somehow managed to return, how long could they have been there… They were drafted in 1940. They said they really didn't like it. He says, they gave us some herring, the food was bad—that sort of thing.

And I'll stop on one more thing. There was this Komsomol leader, Kyrylo. He had just gotten out of prison for communist propaganda and was very active. He used to drop by our place too, he didn't like everything. He managed to wait until the Germans came, and after the German occupation, as they say, he emigrated to America.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: Fled to the West, that is.

I.M. Pokrovsky: Well, fled, yes. I should also say that there was a family, the Muravets, a large family, and one of its members was also a communist, served a sentence, not a long one, probably five years, and went underground. And later, as the story goes, during the Moscow purge in the International, his bodyguard shot him—the wrong “line.”

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: So, the Germans. The Soviets retreated...

I.M. Pokrovsky: Yes, I'll tell you more, if I'm telling, I might as well tell it all. They were digging trenches everywhere, anti-tank ditches, building pillboxes, and they took people from the village, young men. They didn't touch me. And there they relocated many villages, created an almost eight-hundred-meter exclusion zone, but they would bring people out to mow the meadows so that the border would be clear. And there, across the border, we had relatives. Not me, but other people. And they would stand there. When the guards looked away, one would shout: “Mykolo, they'll be coming for you soon.” And also, at the outbreak of the war, at all the border posts, in the raion center—big balls, drinking parties—to celebrate the completion of the anti-tank ditch. And there at the post near us—dancing, an accordion. And a German, as I was told later, brought out a brass band on the other side of the Buh, also started up some music and was laying pontoon bridges. But the guards had no time, they were celebrating. And some people, he says, strangers, come up to me—a friend of mine was there—and say: “Get out of here as fast as you can.” And they gathered a group, and it was maybe ten kilometers, so they had a good walk.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: Who did he tell to “get out”?

I.M. Pokrovsky: Well, those guys who were digging the ditches, who were celebrating there to the accordion. And I'm sleeping, and I dream that they're threshing grain behind the wall. I woke up, the sun was just rising, and it was the artillery pounding. And then we all got up, planes, a “rama” is flying, launching flares. They aren't hitting our village, but they are hitting the cannons somewhere on the border, and the shells are flying over us. There were barracks there, they're hitting the barracks. Then that friend runs up, says, this and that is happening. We fled from there, the Germans had crossed. The battle there lasted for three days.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: Was there a defense?

I.M. Pokrovsky: There were soldiers as far as the eye could see, as they said, a soldier stood under every tree in the forest. But the artillery is firing, and from the forest, they ride on horseback, leading the horses to water, and they say: “It's just maneuvers.” But those maneuvers, maneuvers, after ten o'clock Molotov is already speaking, I think it was Molotov who spoke, that Germany had treacherously violated the pact, the war had begun. They bring 180 large-caliber tractor-drawn howitzers and long-range cannons into our village.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: The Germans?

I.M. Pokrovsky: Why the Germans? The Germans are still busy over there on the border.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: 180 cannons?

I.M. Pokrovsky: 180 tractor-drawn cannons are set up in several rows. We had a row of poplars there by the church, and they placed maybe 15 cannons there.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: The Germans bombed heavily too?

I.M. Pokrovsky: The Germans, you know, didn't hit our village much. No, they did, because our house was hit by shrapnel, shells fell here. But that was later, because when we saw what was happening, since we have large swamps, we took our cows, the rusks we had dried for the trip to Siberia, we took them and went into the swamp. We went deep into the swamp, as far as we could, and we only saw the flares. For three days the cannons fired, for three days we sat there, and one shell even plopped down near us, but in the swamp, so it just went in there somewhere, no trace of it was left. Not far from us, it just plopped.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: It probably didn't explode.

I.M. Pokrovsky: Probably didn't explode, because the swamp gave it no resistance. And on the night of the third day—we were sort of sleeping, sort of not—the flares went up-up in a circle—and everything fell silent, the tractors roared and pulled the cannons away. Well, they didn't pull them far, because the main road was already cut off, so they got stuck in the swamp. And, strangely enough, on the road to the raion center stood three T-34 tanks, fully operational, cannons loaded, one curious fellow even climbed in, pulled the cord, and it went—bang, right into his own house! And they abandoned perfectly good tanks.

When the Germans were advancing, the battle lasted for three days. The Soviets mobilized many civilians, even those who had never served in the army, and drove them out: dig in right here. They dug in, they lie there. They lie there for a day—it's quiet. Then the command comes—a friend of mine was there who told me about it later—the command comes: “Fire!” True, he had never served in the army, they issued uniforms, a rifle, a bolt, a bayonet right in the barracks, so he had to ask someone to fit the bolt for him, put it in, attach the bayonet, and he's lying there too. He says, I didn't shoot when the command “Fire!” came. When they started shooting at who knows what, it's unknown. And then the command “Cease fire!” but they keep firing, well, then they stopped. Evening came, he says, everything went quiet where they were, and I look at my neighbor—he's gone, only his rifle is left. Without a second thought, he also placed his rifle neatly, got up and left. And why he ended up, I don't know, in the raion center. And in the raion center, he says, there's a Soviet cannon, and only one Uzbek knows how to lift a shell, load it and—bang! He doesn't aim it, nothing. And here, he says, they're grabbing the archives and loading them onto trucks. And somehow, he says, I got caught up in it, they grab me, because I'm in uniform—a deserter! And to Kovel, and into the death row cell, they beat him up good there, in Kovel, in the prison. And then, he says, we're sitting there, waiting for the death sentence...

O. Suhoniako: This is him telling the story?

I.M. Pokrovsky: Yes, the deserter. And then, he says, German planes started buzzing and bombing, and at that moment, he says, some unknown people planted explosives, blew up the prison gate, rushed into the prison, broke the locks, and said: “Scatter, whoever knows where!” Those were the “Greens.”

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: Wait, were they conducting some military operations against the Soviets?

I.M. Pokrovsky: Apparently there were such people, because that's how he told it.

V.V. Ovsienko: Well, if they broke open the prison…

I.M. Pokrovsky: And so, he says, I ran out, where to go? There are concrete rings lying by the road, I climbed in there and lay there. I lay there until everything calmed down, the Germans started rattling by, I climbed out and came home.

Ye.M. Sereda: Alright, grandpa, you've had your breakfast, but people are hungry.

I.M. Pokrovsky: Well, let's go, why not.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: Well, alright, I just have one more question. Do you remember how the Germans entered?

I.M. Pokrovsky: The Germans? I remember.

V.V. Ovsienko: What did it look like?

I.M. Pokrovsky: It looked like this: a small German detachment came into our village without any fight, without anything. They gathered all the men into the school, posted a guard. And although I was 20, either I was small or something—they didn't touch me. I walked around with a German soldier—we couldn't really talk to each other—just walked around like that. The next day they let everyone go. The Germans, there were more of them by then, gathered and left. But they said that if there had been even one shot or anything, we would have shot you all.

O. Suhoniako: And were you in that prison when someone there...

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: No, he wasn't in prison. That was another man's recollection.

I.M. Pokrovsky: I wasn't, because I was hiding in the rye.

O. Suhoniako: And how did you return from that swamp afterwards?

I.M. Pokrovsky: How? It got quiet, in the morning some old women went out, they come back and say there's no one left in the village. The Germans arrived later. Everything was already heading to the front. One more nuance—well, this also isn't worth recording—that when the Germans were advancing, during those three days of fighting on the border, they even went on psychological attacks with music, the Germans. And the Poles cut the communication cable on the border. And they were so enraged that when they broke through, the first village they entered, all the communists and all that had hidden, but the priest, the cantor, and the village head, the sołtys—all of them came out, and they lined them up and shot them.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: The Germans?

I.M. Pokrovsky: And the priest.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: The Germans were irritated that the cable was cut.

I.M. Pokrovsky: That was in the village. That's how we lived. It got harder and harder, recruitment for Germany began.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: For work.

I.M. Pokrovsky: For work, yes. And slowly, slowly, the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists begins to form, and I end up there. I end up there, and in time I go underground.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: Is that forty-three?

I.M. Pokrovsky: No, that's forty-two.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: And were the Jews already in the ghetto at that time?

I.M. Pokrovsky: They were, they were in the ghetto.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: Was that simultaneous—the ghetto and the organization of the underground, or did it happen at different times? I.M. Pokrovsky: I must say, it was almost simultaneous. As soon as the Soviets retreated, a self-defense force was immediately organized among us, as it should be. There was as much weaponry as you could want, lying in piles everywhere. A self-defense force was organized in every village.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: So that was the Ukrainian militia.

I.M. Pokrovsky: The Ukrainian militia.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: Blue and yellow flags.

I.M. Pokrovsky: Well, there were no flags, there were armbands.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: There were armbands.

I.M. Pokrovsky: And then comes forty-two, the Germans liquidate it. The militia, whoever wanted to, they take to the raion, install their own commandant, and the Gebietskommissar starts running things. And we are undergoing all sorts of training...

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: Underground, away from the Germans.

I.M. Pokrovsky: Underground training. By the way, here's another fact. Again, my friends—I didn't make it—they gathered a training course for non-commissioned officers in Kovel, and it was right at the time when Stetsko was meeting in Lviv.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: The declaration of independence.

I.M. Pokrovsky: Yes, they were proclaiming independence.

O. Suhoniako: Well, that was June of forty-one.

V.V. Ovsienko: June thirtieth.

I.M. Pokrovsky: That friend runs from Kovel, tells us that, he says, they gathered us for training, organized us, and then people come running and say: “Quick, get out of here, not a trace of you in five minutes.” And we, he says, scattered, and the Germans were right there.

Ye.M. Sereda: Grandpa, it's time to eat.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: Well, alright, we'll put a comma here. [Dictaphone is turned off. Then his daughter Olena tells the story of how her parents—Ivan Pokrovsky and Yefrosynia Sereda—met in 1975.]

O. Sereda: ... And she keeps feeding him and feeding him, and well, they took a liking to each other.

V.V. Ovsienko: And where was this?

O. Sereda: In Horodnia, in the hospital.

I.M. Pokrovsky: In Horodnia, I was staying overnight at the dispensary, and there was a small booth there, my electrical workshop was there, and she would bring me food from the kitchen.

O. Suhoniako: And you worked in the cafeteria?

Ye.M. Sereda: I worked in the cafeteria. I had a friend, Maria, I went to see her, and she said: “Let’s go, let's take some food.”

O. Sereda: Food for Pokrovsky.

O. Suhoniako: Did you know he was a zek? That he was a political prisoner? Weren't you afraid?

Ye.M. Sereda: We knew, why wouldn't we know. He told me what would happen to me. And the KGB guys came, they came from Kyiv, Polunin from Chernihiv: “Do you know who you've taken in?” I say: “I know who I've taken in. There won't be a second punishment,” that's what I told him.

I.M. Pokrovsky: Polunin was just a “gofer,” but Gerasimenko...

Ye.M. Sereda: Well, I think, they won't try him a second time, they won't give him 25 years again, no. “He,” I say, “isn't doing anything, he's living peacefully with us and that's all.”

I.M. Pokrovsky: Gerasimenko was something else.

Ye.M. Sereda: He would arrive with rings, like five rings on his hand, like that gypsy woman Aza. Such a fancy man.

I.M. Pokrovsky: You know Gerasimenko, I think... Oh, no, you don't. The head of the Chernihiv KGB. That was already 1975.

O. Sereda: I ran from them, I was still afraid, my heart was pounding.

Ye.M. Sereda: They followed us on our heels.

V.V. Ovsienko: He, Gerasimenko, figures in the case of Levko Lukianenko, in the case of Petro Ruban.

Ye.M. Sereda: This daughter, who worked at the factory in Tolyatti—when she came to visit, they would escort her every evening, on her heels.

O. Sereda: A haystack burned down at our flax plant, and they come: that's it, it was Pokrovsky—his footprints, everything. They terrorize me at school, my sister at the factory—the same.

Ye.M. Sereda: “What time did he get up, what time did he leave, why did he go out?” I say: “He didn't go out,” I say, “I sleep on the edge of the bed, he didn't leave.”

O. Sereda: I say: “I was doing my homework with my father, math—it was hard for me. We were studying math.” “From what time to what time?”

Ye.M. Sereda: Until that man confessed that he had burned the flax. They gave him 13 years, that man who worked at the flax plant. They were drinking there by the haystack and burned this flax.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: He confessed?

Ye.M. Sereda: He confessed. There is a God after all.

V.V. Ovsienko: Otherwise you would have had a criminal case.

O. Sereda: Yes, we would have.

Ye.M. Sereda: And they put a boot print in plaster—his gait, his boot, all his.

O. Sereda: And then we have neighbors here who “worked” well in their time.

Ye.M. Sereda: They were watching. I thought, well, they've come for him... But my son-in-law from Kyiv arrived—my granddaughter, the child was living with us for the summer—well, her father and mother came to see the child.

I.M. Pokrovsky: A devout communist, to boot.

Ye.M. Sereda: Yes, my son-in-law was a devout communist, the third deputy minister of communal and housing services, Shelest was his last name, Tolik. We had just gone out, just a short walk from our house there's a forest belt, and berries grew there, Ivan used to take her, our little granddaughter, she would pick berries there in the woods. So we go there to take a look, and here comes a car, that “bobik” [UAZ-469], passes us and stops right across our path. He says: “Got a light?”—to Tolik, to my son-in-law. And he says: “I don't smoke.” The neighbor had reported that someone had come to our place, keep an eye out, someone has arrived. And it was my son-in-law.

And he also wrote letters... Who was it, Vaniu, who wrote you those letters, that there were two brothers?

O. Suhoniako: The Horyns?

Ye.M. Sereda: The Horyns. They came, turned the whole house upside down. There was some moonshine hidden on the stove, I got scared, I thought, well, that's it… We still had a Russian stove there. And there was moonshine in the pantry, because we were getting ready to marry off Pasha, the one in Tolyatti.

O. Suhoniako: But they weren't looking for vodka.

Ye.M. Sereda: No, they weren't looking for vodka, they took all the notebooks, books... My daughter says: “Those are my love letters, I won't let you read them.” There, in her room. She didn't let them read them. They turned over all the papers. “Is Horyn writing to you or not?” And what was it, that Horyn had written something to him?

I.M. Pokrovsky: He did. And there were photographs.

Ye.M. Sereda: Well, there were no letters.

I.M. Pokrovsky: They took all the letters.

I.M. Pokrovsky: By the way, I really regret... Give me those papers.

V.V. Ovsienko: They arrested Horyn in '81, on November 3rd.

Ye.M. Sereda: It cost some nerves, but I know he wasn't doing anything wrong. [Dictaphone is turned off].

I.M. Pokrovsky: I'll round out the story of what happened under the Germans. So, I went underground. The Germans were already looking at us sideways.

O. Suhoniako: And how did that happen, how did you go underground? Did someone agitate you, why did you go, what were your motives, how did it happen?

I.M. Pokrovsky: You know, it's hard to say. There was the Ukrainian militia, then it was disbanded.

O. Suhoniako: And were you in the militia?

I.M. Pokrovsky: No, I wasn't.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: And why not?

I.M. Pokrovsky: How should I know why—I just wasn't.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: And I'll tell you why. No decent person wanted to go there.

I.M. Pokrovsky: Why, decent guys went there. Well, my friends certainly didn't. In short, it just happened little by little. People came, they agitated. I went with a friend, we found the raion leader. I already had the literature, I swore an oath on the Decalogue and became a member, and it all started from there.

V.V. Ovsienko: And when was this?

I.M. Pokrovsky: In forty-two.

V.V. Ovsienko: More precisely, can you recall the month?

I.M. Pokrovsky: Autumn.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: On the Feast of the Intercession.

I.M. Pokrovsky: It wasn't the UPA yet.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: Well, it coincided.

V.V. Ovsienko: So you swore an oath to what, the OUN, right?

I.M. Pokrovsky: To the OUN. Well, and it began. I started to agitate, to travel, to create cells. In early forty-three, we already set up a training course, we had military training in our forest. To be honest, a Petliurite officer was supposed to lead the training, but it so happened that he was accidentally killed, so, as luck would have it, I had to lead it, a snot-nosed kid like me who hadn't had military training, I had to lead that course. At first, the Germans bothered us as soon as we organized. They would drive around in some kind of squad, with one machine gun, maybe ten men or more, hauling out lumber. We met those Germans in a narrow spot: “Hands up!” we disarmed them, sinfully, stripped them of their uniforms, left their pants, of course, took their weapons, took their boots, because we needed boots too, and someone there knew a little German and said: “Go and don't poke your noses in this forest, we are not Reds, we are Ukrainian partisans, and we won't touch you.” One of ours was wounded—the Germans threw grenades. They walk away-walk away and keep looking back, and then they just run. And the Germans never showed up there again. They still drove by, well, not into the forest, but along the edge of the forest. And we took the man who was wounded in the leg. By the way, people recall that my father was not only a priest, but also treated a lot of people. He had been to university, and although he hadn't studied to be a doctor, he understood healing, and people are still grateful to him for that to this day.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: How did he treat people, with what?

I.M. Pokrovsky: Well, with medicines, he would write proper prescriptions through an acquaintance at the pharmacy.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: Not herbs?

I.M. Pokrovsky: No. The pharmacist would dispense them to him, as long as there was a profit. He would check if it was correct or not—everything was correct. I even know of a case where a woman had something wrong with her spine, she went to doctors, and my father told her she had a spinal relaxation and should go to a professor. She went, the professor prescribed treatment and sent her back to my father so he could give her injections and other procedures. And the local doctors didn't diagnose anything properly.

V.V. Ovsienko: So, your training course, what about it?

I.M. Pokrovsky: Well, the training—it was military matters: how to shoot, how to handle weapons, how to advance in skirmish line. I taught as much as I knew... We set up a shooting range, we shot there. And at the end, we marched in a column with songs through one village, then another, and then dispersed to our homes.

V.V. Ovsienko: To your homes?

I.M. Pokrovsky: To our homes.

V.V. Ovsienko: Then what was the training for, if you went home?

I.M. Pokrovsky: There was already a combat unit in every village, we were preparing for the organization of the UPA. Where there were state estates, which later became Soviet farms, the Germans established their own farms. We dismantled these farms, drove them out, gave the livestock and all sorts of food to the people, and kicked the Germans out. They didn't dare venture into our forests after that. It just so happened, unfortunately, that one of them... We came in, he's lying on the bed, he has a pistol under his head, a grenade, we quietly: “Hands up!” He raised them, we took the weapons and said: “Run to the raion.” We didn't touch the Germans, because the order was, if possible, not to touch them, because for every German killed there was a punitive operation. They could burn a village, burn houses. Our raion OUN leader at the time was Vykhor. And it so happened that about three months later, that leader was walking down the road, a civilian, and a wagon with Germans is coming towards him. And among them was the German he had disarmed. So Vykhor pulled out that German's pistol, started shooting back, and they killed him right there. And he himself lived in Liuboml near the railway crossing. His parents took him and arranged a funeral. The Germans came to the funeral, beat his parents, and burned down their house. But still, at night, the boys put up a cross on that spot and commemorated him. His parents and him.

Ye.M. Sereda: He spared the German, but the Germans didn't spare him.

I.M. Pokrovsky: I'm telling you a fact, that's how Vykhor was lost. I'll continue, maybe not chronologically. After that, a boy from Stara Huta, the son of a poor widow, was the raion leader. And at that time, this was already forty-three, Fyodorov's and Kovpak's partisans were passing through our raion from Belarus. And there was this talk: they called for negotiations. That leader went to the negotiations. At the negotiations in the forest, they tied him by his hands and feet between two birch trees and roasted him over a fire. Those were the negotiations. So that was the second such leader. At that time, there was already a head of the security service, the SB, in the raion, and some other guy. They took the SB leader, carved a trident on his shoulders, and killed him, of course.

O. Suhoniako: Those partisans?

I.M. Pokrovsky: Kovpak's or Fyodorov's men, who can tell them apart now. Maybe it's not very delicate, but I remember, they sang: “Мы ебем фашистов в сраку, повернем Европу раком и до смерти всех фашистов заебем.” Excuse my language.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: Well, the Soviet anthem.

O. Suhoniako: Russian speech.

Ye.M. Sereda: I've never heard anything like that.

I.M. Pokrovsky: They crossed the Buh or wherever, went to Galicia. They were defeated there, they fled one by one, no one touched them anymore. What else?

V.V. Ovsienko: Well, you should talk about yourself.

I.M. Pokrovsky: Alright. On the Feast of the Intercession, across the Buh, the Germans were preparing a second line of defense, it was already forty-three. The SS “Galicia” units were stationed there. By arrangement with some people, we crossed the Buh River on the Feast of the Intercession, went in there, killed the German who was commanding them, took that unit, and brought them over to the partisans. They all joined the partisans. After that, in our raion, the leader of the SB service, who was from that “Galicia” battalion, was killed. And there was a sotnyk, at that time they organized a sotnia in our raion, but unfortunately, the Poles defeated it. They went towards the Buh and missed something, the Poles attacked them in the morning and defeated that sotnia, and the commander of the sotnia, who was from the SS “Galicia,” was killed there.

O. Suhoniako: And the Poles—were they another force, on their own? They weren't with the Germans?

I.M. Pokrovsky: No, they were against the Germans.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: But they had contact with the Soviet partisans.

I.M. Pokrovsky: They had it later, but at that time they didn't yet. And later they did, because they had nowhere else to go. And in Volyn there were many Poles, we had Polish villages, like Chvykivska Kolonia, Polovyno-Zamlynnia, Rymachi, Yahody, and others. There were many of them, they organized a partisan movement, or self-defense.

There was another incident. When Kovpak was passing through, there was a guard on the railway. We were strictly forbidden to touch the railway—let them go to the front and fight as much as they like. There was a post there. Lukiv, now a town not far from Liuboml—there was a post of Lithuanians there. Some of the Lithuanians mobilized by the Germans—there were such people too. Kovpak's men surrounded it, shot and shot, and the Germans were right there. They got tired of it and left. Our men came for negotiations, made an agreement with those Lithuanians, and these Lithuanians joined our partisans, and for some time they were with us. And then they were sent to Lithuania through some connection, through Belarus, the Bila Vezha.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: We always had an understanding with the Lithuanians.

I.M. Pokrovsky: That's how it was with the Lithuanians. At that time, I happened to be an agitator-propagandist in Shatsk Raion, and then they sent me to Zabolottia Raion—those are the northern raions of Ukraine. There were even red partisans nearby, they spread such rumors: don't associate with them, they have tridents—they're horns on their heads.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: The same thing the priests say now.

Ye.M. Sereda: They don't say that here.

V.V. Ovsienko: Let's continue about the partisan movement.

I.M. Pokrovsky: So during the partisan movement, I was also in Zabolottia. The red partisans were already starting to advance there, things were getting tough. They even burst into the village of Kryvno, where we were based, we barely escaped from there. And after I left, people were hiding in farmsteads. After me, there was a leader there—I don't remember his name—the red partisans caught him and crucified him on the barn doors, nailed him up. That's how he died. I had already returned from there to Liubomlshchyna. There was a big pogrom here, the network had to be reorganized, because many people were killed, and completely innocent people too.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: That was forty...?

I.M. Pokrovsky: Forty-three already.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: And was it mainly clashes with the Germans or with the Reds?

I.M. Pokrovsky: With the Germans and with the Reds. In the spring with the Germans, and then the Germans gave up on that.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: And with the Poles too?

I.M. Pokrovsky: And with the Poles. Like I said, our sotnia was defeated.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: By the Poles?

I.M. Pokrovsky: Yes. Well, that was due to carelessness, due to...

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: Well, that's another question.

I.M. Pokrovsky: Yes. It wasn't very organized yet, it was just being formed. And so I returned here, to Liubomlshchyna, to patch up that network.

O. Suhoniako: Patch up the network, I understand—but what was your role there, in the partisans? Did you have a position?

I.M. Pokrovsky: I wasn't in the partisans, I was in the OUN network.

O. Suhoniako: I understand, but what was your role there, in that network?

I.M. Pokrovsky: I was mainly the referent for agitation and propaganda, and in many cases, I deputized for the raion leader. One was killed, another disappeared, and I somehow... There was another incident where the Germans also raided our village. Our village is about a kilometer from the forest, and the road from the town goes through the forest, so everything was visible. German trucks appear. I wasn't at home, and my family quickly ran into the rye, into the rye fields. And the Germans rushed here, to be honest, they didn't burn anything, but we had rabbits, a piglet, some things in the house, I don't remember what—they grabbed it all, loaded it onto a truck, and drove back. In the evening, my family climbed out of the rye and went back to the plundered house. That was one incident.

Ye.M. Sereda: Well, they took whatever they wanted. They'd come to us and say: “Matka, yaitsa, mleko yest?” [Mother, got eggs, milk?]

I.M. Pokrovsky: And then the conflict with the Poles began, a major conflict. There were Polish villages in Ukraine, over there past Kovel, and in those villages our people fought with the Poles. The Poles held the defense for maybe a month and a half, and then they abandoned them and came here as partisans.

Ye.M. Sereda: They slaughtered a lot of people.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: They abandoned—what?

I.M. Pokrovsky: They abandoned those villages and came here, closer to the Buh.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: And do you remember the massacre in those villages?

I.M. Pokrovsky: I'm telling you, they were under siege for a month and a half, then they left there. But we had a case where in a clash, our sotnia destroyed the village of Chmykivska Kolonia, destroyed it, killed everyone, plundered everything, dismantled it, and burned it down—our sotnia, there’s no getting away from that. And that's when the conflict with the Poles began. Here the Poles started to attack. A sotnia was based with us, it went there, they shot and shot, didn't achieve anything, and returned. Another time our combat unit met with the Poles, and my friend was hit by a bullet that passed three centimeters from his heart, and he still ran about four kilometers home—oh, he was strong!

Ye.M. Sereda: Did he die or did he survive?

I.M. Pokrovsky: He was later mobilized into the Soviet Army and SMERSH dealt with him there. He was taken for interrogation on the Vistula—and that was the end of him. So we went, there were regular meetings, gatherings in the raion, we had to cross the railway. We went there and are coming back. I'm in a hurry, because I know that December 19th is my father's name day. And my family was no longer living in the village of Shtun, but had gone out into the forest, to a small village called Vyzhhiv, and they were living there. There were many other families there, hiding from both the Germans and the Poles. And so on the 18th, our combat unit only reached the neighboring village and spent the night, it was late, we needed to rest. Early in the morning, at dawn, we jump up—there's shooting across the river. We quickly gathered and rushed to the river, it's about a kilometer and a half away. We run to the river and are met by my middle sister, Oleksandra. Her leg is bloody, the river isn't deep there, she waded across, and says: “The Poles are killing people. When I heard it, I jumped out through the back window and into a haystack. And some stray bullet grazed me.” Or maybe she just scratched herself somewhere, I don't know, because the wound wasn't deep. We went on, we couldn't hear the Poles anymore, they were quick, one-two, it was about eight o'clock, they were already gone. We enter the village—a child is impaled on a picket fence, then a corpse here, a corpse there. Further on, in the center of the village, lies my sister Natalka—she was also in the OUN, in the women's network. There lies my Natalka, shot, someone had shot her right in the heart, with a pistol to the heart.

Ye.M. Sereda: They killed her on purpose.

I.M. Pokrovsky: Well, God knows, no one saw, no one knows. We went on, we meet my mother and my youngest sister. They say they came dressed in the uniform of Ukrainian partisans. The first ones who came, with tridents, told my father: “Let's go to a meeting.” They went to a meeting, and then, they say, the shooting started. There was a small village school there, it even had a stove, five or seven families were hiding there. We found my father in the yard with his head smashed in, we found children, two baby carriages, children stabbed with bayonets, a man groaning on the stove, also stabbed with a couple of bayonets. As he was dying, he told us: “They were interrogating the priest in the next room, beating him terribly and singing: ‘It is not time, not time to serve the Muscovite and the Lyakh [Pole].’” Well, we found him already dead. But I can't say they killed everyone, many people survived. And the hosts where my parents lived, they were also alive. That's how we returned. My father and Natashka... And my family went to Olessk, because it was terrifying here...

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: There, where Olessk Castle is?

I.M. Pokrovsky: I don't even know.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: In Volyn?

I.M. Pokrovsky: In Volyn, right there, not far. Somewhere from Liuboml towards Volodymyr-Volynskyi. There they prepared the bodies, made coffins, held a service in the church, and on the evening of the 24th, they brought them to Shtun. They brought these two coffins...

Ye.M. Sereda: And how far is that from there?

I.M. Pokrovsky: Maybe twenty kilometers.

V.V. Ovsienko: You said the date, the 24th—what year and month?

I.M. Pokrovsky: December, it was December, on the 19th, forty-three. They dug graves by the church, where else could they go, and laid them to rest. We are standing with our rifles at the ready, the only thing was, thank God, it was Polish Christmas, the 24th, so the Poles were celebrating. And they buried them here, put up an oak cross. And my family left, they were hiding in Radekhiv, closer to Liuboml. The Poles were roaming everywhere here, they occupied Shtun, burned a lot.

So, they were hiding there, and we gathered the whole combat unit, headed north, crossed the railway, there was an order to gather to cross the front, because a front line had already been established here. By the way, Kovel was under siege by red partisans for 52 days, and still the German garrison held out, the Germans broke through in a column and established a front along the Turia River.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: Was that against the red partisans?

I.M. Pokrovsky: For the time being, there were all sorts—regular units, and even some cavalry unit broke through into our forest. When the Germans pinned them down here, the commander of that unit tucked the regimental banner under his shirt and said: every man for himself. And they scattered there in the swamps.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: He let them go to the four winds?

I.M. Pokrovsky: Of course, it was impossible to break through as a unit. So we also gathered in a large convoy, with horses, and headed to cross the front. We were walking and walking, and somehow the front crossing didn't work out.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: And in which direction—deeper into Ukraine?

I.M. Pokrovsky: Well, to the east, to the northeast, to be precise.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: So, into the territory of the Soviet Army?

I.M. Pokrovsky: No, to the territory liberated by the Soviet Army, that's where we were supposed to go. Why it didn't work out—I don't know. In short, they say: disperse. The order to disperse. Well, where to go? We climbed into a swamp, there was a small island, we set up there, took some food from the wagon and spent the night. In the morning, we hear red partisans coming, walking down the road, and we are maybe two hundred meters from the road, in the bushes, just peering out.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: And how many of you were there?

I.M. Pokrovsky: Maybe 25 of us.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: What kind of weapons?

I.M. Pokrovsky: Well, some light machine gun, rifles. We had a lot of a weapon, you know, called the SVT—have you heard of it? Similar to the modern Kalashnikov rifle, similar in design, just the length of a rifle and a ten-round magazine. That SVT could fire single shots, semi-automatic. And our guys figured out how to move the trigger to the other side, so it would fire in bursts. That was the kind of machine gun we had.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: And how did the red partisans pass by? Did you not touch them?

I.M. Pokrovsky: Of course we didn't touch them, there were maybe hundreds of them. And when they passed, we quickly gathered up—and back there, to our raions. And Germans are all around here. We moved quietly-quietly, by various back ways, until we reached the main road. All sorts of German armored personnel carriers are driving by. We waited it out, and when it got quiet, we dashed across the road—and onwards. There was a wretched village there called Zapillia, not far from Liuboml. It was wretched because many Ukrainian policemen were from there, they had been in Liuboml, and then they went into the forest, all the Ukrainian police from our area went into the forest as partisans. And the Germans took revenge, they killed the families in Zapillia, burned their houses—maybe twenty houses there. People were already living in dugouts. Well, they sheltered us as best they could, fed us potatoes. We spent the night there and in the evening went to cross the railway at night. But we walked and walked and ran into a German post, because the railway was guarded. We ran away, true, they didn't do us any harm, the Germans were firing and firing, but it did us no harm—we jumped into an anti-tank ditch and ran back.

The next day, we decide to go anyway. But we won't go where they shot at us near the woods, but right by Liuboml itself. And so in the evening we crawled up to the railway, dashed across the railway, there was no post there—and into the next village. We came out into the village on the outskirts, hid our weapons, because people said that Germans were swarming everywhere here, and we lay down to sleep. At dawn, a knock. A Pole comes in: give me something to eat, he says in Polish. He took some salo, something else, and we look through the window—a whole sotnia of them is marching by. We are heading east, and they were crossing the railway to join up with the red partisans. Well, however it was, these Poles had already passed, we left that host's house (we weren't at just one host's, but at several, in groups of 3-5 men) and went into the village, now without weapons. We went into the village—and here come the Germans. We're already among the peasants, nothing suspicious about us. The Germans are driving in with trucks, with all sorts of mortars, and they are setting up in that village. The Poles are gathering for a breakthrough across the railway. And a battle began between the Poles and those Germans. The Poles attacked, shouting urra-urra, the Germans fired heavily at them, but they crossed the railway past the village. And by the next day, German rule was established all around here. I was already getting ready...

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: What year is this?

I.M. Pokrovsky: This is forty-four already. I got ready and went along the roads by the rye fields, didn't meet anyone—I went to my village. And my family had already returned from their wanderings, the house was already burned, so they were living in the watchman's hut by the church. A small watchman's hut, and I moved in there with them, slept in the attic on the hay. And so around May 1st (and the front line stands along the Turia River near Kovel and all the way to Volodymyr-Volynskyi) the Soviets decided, as with every holiday, to celebrate—they went on the offensive, broke through the German front. But the Germans managed to close the breach. And there was all sorts of, as they say, rabble there, so when the front was closed, they scattered. And they were all shorn, lousy. So the Germans conduct a big roundup and gather all the shorn men. And they dragged me down from the attic too (I was also shorn, because there were a lot of lice) and to the barracks, and from the barracks the next day onto a train—and to Germany. It's here that I say that sometimes I lacked decisiveness. It was possible to escape from that camp.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: And where was the camp?

I.M. Pokrovsky: In the barracks—old barracks, fenced with wire.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: And the location?

I.M. Pokrovsky: In Liuboml, actually, in Vyshneve.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: And how did they take you there?

I.M. Pokrovsky: They took us along that route through Chełm and to Kraków. And in Kraków, there was a large transit camp, you couldn't get out of there. It was possible to escape, but the Poles were scary. [Short unintelligible question]. And another foolish thing that now prevents me from receiving Ostarbeiter compensation. They say at the distribution point that such and such people will be sent to Czechoslovakia, and such and such to Germany. And a friend from a neighboring village ends up alone, and I'm with his group. He says: let's swap surnames. Fine, from that moment I was Tikhon Sheremeta, and he went to Czechoslovakia.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: And why swap?

I.M. Pokrovsky: To travel with people from my village. The German divided the contingent—those to Czechoslovakia, those to Germany, and I end up alone in the group where his fellow villagers are. And so I, Tikhon Sheremeta, went to Germany, I was in Germany for nine months, and always Sheremeta. And now try to find what kind of Ostarbeiter I was.

V.V. Ovsienko: Where were you there?

I.M. Pokrovsky: It was Hamburg, and near Hamburg, Ahrensburg or something, a small town. There was a factory there, they made torpedoes. There they assigned us. A pigsty, and next to it a barrack, and all of it behind wire and guarded. They settled us there, we started going to work, we were Ostarbeiters, they had already sewn “OST” patches on our clothes here. True, the food was not great, in the canteen. Upstairs in that factory was the Germans' canteen, and a meter and a half below was our canteen. We were mainly fed rutabaga and a small piece of margarine like this, that was our ration. At first, they gave us about 300 grams of bread, and then the bread got thinner and thinner. And so I was there for 9 months. And here the Soviet Army is advancing, you can already hear the cannon fire. They gather us, load us onto trucks—why they needed to do that, I still don't understand—and to Kiel, you know, there's such a city in Germany. Kiel, to the same owner, Walter Werth, and also locked in a camp, and now they make us work clearing up after the bombings. We were there for maybe 2-3 days, and we hear—some shooting, the British are already coming. They burst into the factory, put the Germans on one side, and us, those with “OST”—on the other side. I saw that the British also weren't very honest, they were ripping watches off the Germans, one British soldier had 5 watches on his rolled-up sleeve. After that, they put the Germans in that lower canteen, order them to bring our swill, and us upstairs. There was some sausage, something else, but I didn't get there. That British soldier stood there and was just throwing out the food products. And that was the end of it. From that time on, we're in the camp, we don't go to work anywhere. Maybe this goes on for about 10 days, and here again I lacked decisiveness—my fellow villagers from that camp all escaped. Where they went, I don't know. And I was already feeling weak, so I would calmly go out, there was a canal there, lie on the bank, swim. Maybe ten days passed like that. They're feeding us well now, not sending us to work anywhere, we can wander around as much as we want. It's not nice to say, but some guys found a bombed-out house somewhere, and in the basement a warehouse with barrels of wine and vodka—they got into that too. Then they say: there's a food warehouse over there. And some British soldiers come to us, we find a common language with them, and we take one British soldier—let's go to the warehouse. He agrees. We went there, and there's a wagon with a German guard, they're sitting in the wagon. We put that British soldier in front and shout: “Hände hoch!” I don't remember well how it ended, but we got to the warehouse, grabbed some boxes, and are dragging them back to our camp. We brought them back—and there's a whole box of canned rutabaga.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: You hadn't had your fill yet? They were preparing it just for you.

I.M. Pokrovsky: If only there was something better, but it didn't matter. But there were different people there, there were people like us, and there were all sorts of Soviet lowlifes, they went and started robbing Germans on the street and in their homes. The British, without much thought, one morning set up machine guns, bring in “Studebakers,” load us onto the trucks—and nach Ost, to the Soviet zone. And on that note, it ended… They brought us, and here the Soviets received us, lined us up, unloaded us from the trucks, women with children to the right, men to the left, lined us up, then “Close ranks! Forward march!” They led us to the sorting point. They conducted interrogations there. Even though there were people from my village, no one said anything about me, except that I had taken back my own surname, because someone might give me away—why are you Sheremeta? Straight into a pit without any discussion. But no one said anything, so after “Close ranks!” they march us in companies, we are already servicemen, they enlist us in the Soviet Army and send us to gather the harvest. The Germans have been evicted from here, only a few of them remain here and there, a few Poles here and there. This is on the territory that now belongs to Poland. We are gathering the harvest, threshing it, and then they appoint us to guard a sovkhoz—there are sovkhozes in the villages, lots of cattle. So I was a guard. I walk around, graze the cattle, and there's a distillery working there too.

I stayed there like that until the spring of 1946.

O. Suhoniako: Were you in the uniform of a Soviet soldier?

I.M. Pokrovsky: No, in a different uniform. I threw off that “Ost” robe, and I got a German sailor's uniform from a basement, put on a striped shirt, and I got some kind of hat. And when I got into the Soviet Army, they cut that hat into the shape of a garrison cap (Laughs). They give us some kind of uniform, they give us one wagon for two men, four horses. And they give us some cattle. And where to go? To the Soviet Union, on a wagon. We are escorting the cattle, the horses...

O. Suhoniako: So you're driving a whole herd?

V.V. Ovsienko: What time of year is this? Forty-six, you say.

I.M. Pokrovsky: Forty-six, it's already spring. They take us to Białystok, in Białystok there's a small procedure, we're delayed there for about two weeks, they're already processing our discharge from the army and loading us onto a train, they'll be distributing us to the raions. I don't really want to end up in my own raion. I go to the commandant and say, it's closer for me to get to Brest from here—give me my papers, I'll go myself. He gives them to me. I got on and I'm on my way. I arrived in Kovel, then came to Liuboml, where I spent the night, but my hosts warned me not to go out on the street. I somehow didn't understand—I went out onto the street in the morning. People from my village are walking by. I asked around—they say: your family has been deported. I say: “Give me their address.” “We'll think about it.” Well, they didn't give me the address. And those hosts say: “Get out of here as fast as you can.” Where was I, a poor wretch, to go?

O. Suhoniako: Did the Reds know you were in the OUN?

I.M. Pokrovsky: They knew. I gather my rags, back to Kovel, where they gave me the papers, to Baranavichy. I saw an announcement at the station there that they needed workers for the railway. I trudged over there, go to the information bureau, and there's that same host I showed you, and he says: “Come to my place, I'll put you up.” I got a job in the ticket office, living with him. That was 1946. And so I was there until forty-nine.

And in 1949 on December 7th—I was just about to go on vacation, I had submitted my request, was already packing my things—there's a knock on the door. There were ticket cashiers there, several booths. A cashier answers, I open the door—“Hands up!” And that was the end of it.

V.V. Ovsienko: Why the end—it was the beginning?

I.M. Pokrovsky: I was arrested.

V.V. Ovsienko: And where did they hold you—in Baranavichy?

I.M. Pokrovsky: In Baranavichy. It was the center of the Brest railway. The KGB was there, they held me there, until New Year's or longer. They interrogated me there. I can't say anything. First of all, they already had a lot of material. “Were you there?” “I was.” “And were you there?” “I was.” And at one interrogation he says: “And what can you say about the machinations in the ticket offices?” And I say: “You know what (they weren't taking notes), your wife and daughter work there, so it's better we don't touch that question.” “Alright, no need.”

Ye.M. Sereda: And were there machinations?

I.M. Pokrovsky: Well, of course there were. That was after the currency reform. They—trimmed the tickets, accounted for them, and then sold them for the new money. And not only that, but also, sin to say, in the financial department of the railway they also set aside tickets—sell these, and give us the money. There was plenty of that.

V.V. Ovsienko: But they didn't charge you with that.

I.M. Pokrovsky: They charged me with whatever they wanted. With organizing the OUN, with murders, executions, and whatever else you want.

V.V. Ovsienko: Was any of it even close to the truth?

I.M. Pokrovsky: Close, of course.

V.V. Ovsienko: And how long did the investigation last? And then there was some kind of trial?

I.M. Pokrovsky: And then—the trial. Then they tied my hands with a cord, put me in a truck, took me to court, where there was no defender, nothing, only that famous “troika.”

V.V. Ovsienko: So this was in Baranavichy?

I.M. Pokrovsky: In Baranavichy, a troika. “Do you confess to the investigation?” “I confess.” Then after deliberating they come out: “Sentenced to the supreme penalty.” To be honest, I felt a chill, but then he says: “And in connection with the abolition of the death penalty, it is replaced with 25 years.”

V.V. Ovsienko: And the date of this trial?

I.M. Pokrovsky: You know, I don't remember.

V.V. Ovsienko: Well, at least the month, approximately.

I.M. Pokrovsky: Sometime after New Year's, in 1950. I then spent the whole winter in prison in Grodno.

Ye.M. Sereda: And did they gather people like you there?

I.M. Pokrovsky: God knows why they gathered them. My boots fell apart, they put me in bast shoes, real linden-bark bast shoes, and in the spring they sent me on a transport. I pass through Baranavichy, my cashier acquaintances saw me, came out, we saw each other. They say: “A parcel, a parcel.” But the guard says: “We don't accept parcels for bandits like these.” And they took their bundles and left. Just like that.

They took us further. In Orsha they unloaded us, we lay around there for a bit. Then they loaded us up again. At Krasnaya Presnya we lay around for a month, then loaded up again. To “construction project 500”—have you heard of such a thing? They wanted to build a railway from Vorkuta through Dudinka. Shelest said that there are places where it collapsed, but there are embankments and trees where it was laid, but nothing came of it. They built it and built it, and then a flood—and it vanished into oblivion.

For now, they were taking us on the Moscow-Omsk train, but the navigation season was ending, so they turned us back to Karaganda, to Karlag.

V.V. Ovsienko: Karlag is in which oblast?

I.M. Pokrovsky: Karaganda, southern Kazakhstan. What's interesting that I can say about that—is that they took us to work, they didn't let us underground. We built on the surface. I remember we were reading a newspaper, we look—a photograph, that building we're constructing, some office. And there's a red banner: “Komsomol construction project,” and Komsomol members are standing there. When they take us away—the Komsomol members are there.

In short, the wandering through the camps began, nothing interesting.

V.V. Ovsienko: But at least where have you been?

I.M. Pokrovsky: Where have I been? From Karaganda they send us to Mezhdurechensk, that's in the Altai. This is the route that runs before the Trans-Siberian Railway to the Lena River, the Tayshet route. We work there. No, Mezhdurechensk is to the south, and here we are working, building. There was supposed to be a large settlement for zeks here. But at that time Stalin dies, the camps are being liquidated, and we are converting that settlement into dormitories, apartments, and so on. We were there for some time in Mezhdurechensk. The climate is good, up to two meters of snow in winter, on May first all the snow melts, and the ground isn't frozen. Because the snow piles up, and water trickles underneath. After Stalin's death, we worked there for about a year. They gather us up, and people are being driven here from Moscow. There was some conference or something in Moscow, and from there they gathered all sorts of, excuse the word, prostitutes and other unworthy elements and are driving them here, to Mezhdurechensk, cleansing Moscow. And they gather us—and to Omsk. In Omsk there's a large construction project—a power station and an oil refinery, which is still working to this day. And we are building it very diligently.

O. Suhoniako: So they used you as construction workers?

I.M. Pokrovsky: As construction workers—and Karaganda, and Mezhdurechensk...

O. Suhoniako: Komsomol construction projects?

I.M. Pokrovsky: Yes, that was a glorious project, that oil refinery. It's still working to this day. We build, time passes, a commission comes—who to rehabilitate, whose term to shorten. I go in, they look at me, and I had some other black marks, we had organized a strike in one place. At first they started giving us money, and then they canceled the money, so we went on strike, but somehow we agreed that they would pay our wages, and then they started transferring it to an account, you could buy 5 rubles worth of groceries a month in the store.

V.V. Ovsienko: And why weren't you released or your term shortened?

I.M. Pokrovsky: First, there's that. Second, apparently, this reputation that I'm a bit of a troublemaker, so they didn't even talk to me.

V.V. Ovsienko: They didn't shorten it at all?

I.M. Pokrovsky: Not at all, not one bit.

O. Suhoniako: But they knew everything about you at the time of the trial?

I.M. Pokrovsky: Even more than necessary, more than there was. Because, by the way, the one who conducted the investigation told me—I won't say he treated me badly—he said: you confess, because if we take you to Volyn, they'll do much worse to you there. That's the honest truth.

V.V. Ovsienko: This commission, in what year did you go before it and where?

I.M. Pokrovsky: No, I don't remember. And after all that, I end up in Tayshet at a sawmill, I worked there for some time too, and I found a fellow countryman who taught me electricity, so I became an electrician. And on the Tayshet route, the chief power engineer at the enterprise was Tarnavsky—the son or someone of that Tarnavsky, the commander.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: Ah, the general's?

I.M. Pokrovsky: Yes. Well, I was there, maybe it wasn't so bad, I was already working as an electrician. Trains had already started running to the Lena, to the BAM, and above the railway were our camps and watchtowers. They had already taken down the watchtowers, lowered them, but still, people are riding by and looking at what it is. And they take us from there—to Yavas.

V.V. Ovsienko: What year was it to Yavas, to Mordovia?

I.M. Pokrovsky: Well, sometime before '70.

V.V. Ovsienko: Really, that late? Not in the late fifties?

I.M. Pokrovsky: No, because Stalin died when we were still in Mezhdurechensk, and after that there was Omsk, and after that Tayshet...

O. Suhoniako: They moved you around, didn't keep you in one place?

I.M. Pokrovsky: Well, it was all determined. First, they brought those exiled Muscovites to Mezhdurechensk. They took us out of Tayshet, and foreigners are traveling there, and some American was flying over in a plane, or something, and says: “And what are these clusters of lights you have here?” And those were the camps, the work zones.

V.V. Ovsienko: So, to Mordovia, to Yavas, in what year were you transferred?

I.M. Pokrovsky: Well, maybe in 1969, something like that.

V.V. Ovsienko: Which camp were you in there?

I.M. Pokrovsky: In Yavas itself. I worked at the furniture factory.

V.V. Ovsienko: What was the number there—the first one or which one?

I.M. Pokrovsky: God knows, I've already forgotten. By the way, an interesting detail. Mordvins are walking by and speaking Mordvin, and Estonians are standing on the watchtower and saying: “What's this—I understand what they're saying.”

V.V. Ovsienko: It's the same language group, Finno-Ugric.

I.M. Pokrovsky: The same language group. Well, and I was in Yavas… You know, our barrack was set on fire, whether on purpose or not, we were on fire there, barely jumped out.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: And in which camps, which people do you remember?

I.M. Pokrovsky: I must say that all those I mentioned—they all journeyed together with me.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: Well, for example, in Yavas, which people were you close to?

I.M. Pokrovsky: Karavansky was in Yavas, and Horyn was there, and the other Horyn, and Zalyvakha, and that guy from Crimea...

V.V. Ovsienko: Masiutko?

I.M. Pokrovsky: No, Nazarenko, and many, many others. I gave you that postcard… We sang “Shche ne vmerla Ukraina” [“Ukraine Has Not Yet Perished”]—even though the regime was…

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: So, how many camps are there in your memory?

I.M. Pokrovsky: Karaganda, Mezhdurechensk, Omsk, Tayshet, Yavas.

V.V. Ovsienko: What was the atmosphere like there, in Yavas, during the Mordovian period?

I.M. Pokrovsky: What was it like? Well, I'm explaining to you what it was like—we celebrated, we communicated with the Lithuanians. Maybe someone knows, there was a group of Jews who were planning to escape to Israel by plane, they staged a wedding and bought all the tickets on the plane...

V.V. Ovsienko: Those were the “hijackers,” a well-known group.

I.M. Pokrovsky: And they were caught there. That whole group was there. Yakiv Suslensky was there. By the way, I met him twice in Kyiv.

V.V. Ovsienko: Yes, he used to visit.

I.M. Pokrovsky: That group of Leningrad monarchists wasn't very friendly to us.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: When were they arrested—in the seventies?

V.V. Ovsienko: In 1969.

I.M. Pokrovsky: Just so. From there, from Yavas, by the way, there was an escape—one escape that I remember. It was Anton Oliynyk. I had a photograph somewhere, I'll give it to you.

V.V. Ovsienko: And Roman Semeniuk.

I.M. Pokrovsky: Yes, and Roman Semeniuk.

O. Suhoniako: So what, they just escaped like that?

I.M. Pokrovsky: They escaped, successfully escaped. But, you know, they were found quickly. They escaped like this. There was an old woodworking plant there. And there was a canal through which they floated logs, and here a basin where the logs were soaked and fed to the sawmill. And when they settled criminals like us there, they drove piles into that canal, where the forbidden zone was. So they figured it out: Semeniuk is sitting at the water pump and singing songs from time to time. And Oliynyk climbs into that canal and saws those piles. He sawed off those piles, they gather their clothes in a cellophane bag and calmly walk out on the bank of the Yavas, change their clothes, get in a car and drive to the railway. They arrived at the sister's of Oliynyk or Semeniuk, I don't remember anymore...

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: Oliynyk's—they were already waiting for him there.

I.M. Pokrovsky: And they had even prepared hiding places for them in Galicia, everything, but something didn't work out. They were nabbed there! Oliynyk was shot, and Semeniuk was brought back, three years were added. In Yavas, another escape was ready—they were digging a tunnel near the bathhouse through the forbidden zone. But it so happened that a convoy was walking by, making rounds of the zone, and one of them fell through. And it all ended. I think he's arrested again, Semeniuk, I don't quite remember.

V.V. Ovsienko: Semeniuk served three years in Vladimir Prison. He served 28 years in total.

O. Suhoniako: And he was released?

V.V. Ovsienko: Yes, he was released around 1978, lived to see independence, and was even the head of the Sokal raion organization of the URP. In 1992, he was walking down the street during a rainstorm, and a car hit him. That car took him to the hospital, but he died an hour later.

Ye.M. Sereda: Was he hit by the car on purpose?

V.V. Ovsienko: I don't know. So, continue about yourself. Were you in Yavas the whole time until your release?

I.M. Pokrovsky: No. From Yavas they kicked us out to... where that women's camp is...

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: Sosnovka, no?

V.V. Ovsienko: No, not Sosnovka, but Barashevo.

I.M. Pokrovsky: Barashevo. I was released from Barashevo... No, not from Barashevo, I'm lying.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: They were taken from Barashevo in 1971 to Perm.

I.M. Pokrovsky: That was later. I was there in Barashevo for some time. I also had to work as an electrician. I remember one fact. There was one British subject there, but he was Ukrainian by birth—you know him?

V.V. Ovsienko: That's Mykola Budulak-Sharygin.

I.M. Pokrovsky: Yes. They were digging a trench there, and there used to be a women's camp for nuns, the KGB wouldn't let anyone in, beyond that was the forbidden zone. They dug up skeletons of children and women with bullet holes in the back of their heads, women's braids. That Sharygin took a skull and brought it to the chief: “And what,” he says, “is this?” That was one incident. And the second incident—on the United Nations Human Rights Day, December 10th, they hung an OUN (or UN—unintelligible.—Ed.) flag in the camp on a tree. Panas Zalyvakha sent me a parcel there. He had the bright idea—a parcel of tea. They called me in, opened the parcel and said: we won't give you such a parcel. They gave me three packets of tea and said: go.

V.V. Ovsienko: And the transport from Mordovia to the Urals was in 1972?

I.M. Pokrovsky: Probably, I don't remember.

V.V. Ovsienko: That's when they opened three camps in the Urals, and you ended up in Kuchino, in the 36th camp?

I.M. Pokrovsky: I ended up in Kuchino.

V.V. Ovsienko: Who was there with you in the 36th?

I.M. Pokrovsky: I don't remember.

V.V. Ovsienko: Perhaps Mr. Yevhen was there too, right?

I.M. Pokrovsky: Maybe he was, I don't remember.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: I was. But was Lukianenko there with you?

I.M. Pokrovsky: He was.

V.V. Ovsienko: And you didn't meet Lukianenko in Mordovia, only in the Urals?

I.M. Pokrovsky: I don't remember, I can't say.

O. Suhoniako: And did you know about your other colleagues, who were also in the OUN, in other camps?

V.V. Ovsienko: And who else from the insurgents was with you?

I.M. Pokrovsky: Solodky was there, Besarab was there. Strotsen was there.

V.V. Ovsienko: Was Myroslav Symchych there?

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: Symchych was in the thirty-fifth.

V.V. Ovsienko: You mentioned Vasyl Podhorodetsky...

I.M. Pokrovsky: Podhorodetsky was there, I remember well.

V.V. Ovsienko: And what was the atmosphere like there, in the 36th?

I.M. Pokrovskyi: It was such that we didn't really feel the oppression all that much.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: But in 1972, at the 36th [camp], it was much harsher than in Mordovia.

I.M. Pokrovskyi: Harsher, much harsher. Well, so what? That’s where I was released from.

V.V. Ovsiienko: When were you released—do you remember the date?

I.M. Pokrovskyi: December 5, 1974. Before that, I think, at the 36th… I can’t remember anymore where that punishment barrack or punishment cell was…

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: That was the “fifth corner.” It’s small and still standing—a cell-type unit. Tell us, what did they put you in there for?

I.M. Pokrovskyi: What for? For holding various meetings. On some holiday, I don’t remember which, I read a prayer and offered greetings. There were about ten of us in the barrack. The guards came and took me away. They asked, “Where’s the paper you were reading from?” I told them I recited it from memory. They took me to the guardhouse, stripped me naked, searched me, and let me go without a word. The main offense was that the political prisoners had written an appeal to the UN. I had copied that appeal into my notebook, and I copied it using the old conspiratorial method. I wrote something about electrical work, and then the text of the appeal. They searched my things and found it; they figured it out. Then there was another thing. At work, fool that I was, I compiled a list of supporters under the heading “Subscription to the newspaper *Literaturna Ukraina*.” That’s where they dug up that it was a list of supporters.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: What was this list of supporters?

I.M. Pokrovskyi: Well, the heading said it was for people who wanted to subscribe to *Literaturna Ukraina*.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: But what were the names on it really?

I.M. Pokrovskyi: The names of all my close acquaintances. And not all of them were real names—most were pseudonyms. When I saw they’d figured it out, I grabbed it, ran, and tore it into tiny pieces. They collected the scraps and glued them onto a sheet of paper.

V.V. Ovsiienko: And what was your punishment for that?

I.M. Pokrovskyi: None. But later, the punishment came: after all that, they summoned me—and put me in the internal prison for half a year.

O. Suhoniako: So, that was in—seventy-two?

I.M. Pokrovskyi: In seventy-four.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: But there was some kind of hunger strike you took part in, wasn’t there?

I.M. Pokrovskyi: The hunger strike was already in the internal prison. There was a hunger strike, there was the internal prison, there were punishment cells.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: But do you remember what the hunger strike was for?

I.M. Pokrovskyi: I believe it was for the rights of political prisoners.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: So, for the Status of a Political Prisoner?

I.M. Pokrovskyi: Yes, that’s right.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: So you joined those who were on a hunger strike for the Status of a Political Prisoner?

O. Suhoniako: And how long were you on the strike?

I.M. Pokrovskyi: How would I remember? I think we were on strike for seven days…

O. Suhoniako: So, they locked you up in 1950. You were politicals, so to speak. Then in 1965, a new group arrived—the Sixtiers. How did you find out about them, when did you make contact?

I.M. Pokrovskyi: First of all, we would save our sugar rations. I rarely ate sugar myself—we’d collect it, and whenever someone new arrived, we’d welcome them into our circle and immediately offer them a treat.

O. Suhoniako: The Sixtiers?

I.M. Pokrovskyi: Yes, yes, as I said: they brought the Horyn brothers and dragged many others to us.

O. Suhoniako: And how did you receive them?

I.M. Pokrovskyi: With tea right away, conversations, and so on. There was this fellow, Bohdan Rebryk…

O. Suhoniako: I know him well. He was a People’s Deputy.

I.M. Pokrovskyi: To this day, I still don’t know for sure, but there was an incident where someone informed on us to the KGB. I was teaching a course for electricians, and during those classes, we discussed all sorts of political issues. Someone informed on us, and there was strong suspicion that it was Rebryk. But even today, I don't really believe it. They broke up our classes. Apparently, there was no direct evidence.

V.V. Ovsiienko: And what was the release procedure? Were you released right there in Mordovia, or were you transported home under guard?

I.M. Pokrovskyi: No, they released us right there. Wait, there was something else I wanted to add. I want to go back a little, since we’ve already reached my release. So, in forty-five, while the war was still going on and I was somewhere in Germany, carts pulled up, loaded my poor family—my mother and two daughters—and took them to the Lyuboml station. They threw them into barbed-wire wagons, rounding up six hundred people. The war was still on, and the journey was long. I must say, though, my mother always boasted that while other people had no food, the villagers had collected a lot of food for her on a cart, and in Lyuboml, they gave her two sacks of flour or grits, something like that. And so they were taken away, a long journey. People died on the way; at stops, they were thrown out without a word, the wagons were locked, and the train moved on. And they took them to the North, to Kotlas and even further, and unloaded them in Motma, a former camp. Just like that. They were there for a long time. Did I tell you how they forced my mother to go to work? I told someone. My mother had been interrogated because of me, and her leg was injured somehow—to this day I don’t know how. She limped. When they were brought there, the commandant came and said she had to go to work. And there was my mother, limping, with thirteen-year-old Oleksandra and eleven-year-old Anna. My mother thought and thought about it, and then went to work. They were taken there on a narrow-gauge railway. The snow was waist-deep, and my mother, with her limping leg, went out and lost her felt boots. Her own people, who were also there at work, picked her up, warmed her by a fire, and she came back.

A day passes, the chief comes again—you have to go to work. “But I can’t.” “Then let the thirteen-year-old go.” So she went to work, Oleksandra. She went, and the people thought about it and said, “Here, take this horse, he knows everything. You just walk beside him, and you’ll be hauling timber.” And so she would walk to a log, they would hook it up for her, and she would walk back with the horse to where the people were stacking it—not her—and then she’d take the horse again and go for the next log. She did that for some time, and then they assigned her to be a limber—people would saw the trees, and she would chop off the branches. And she worked there like that for a long, long, tedious time. My mother stayed at home, and the younger one, who wasn’t fit for any work, went to the kindergarten on her own initiative, helped clean up, and they fed her there. That’s how they lived.

V.V. Ovsiienko: And how long were they there?

I.M. Pokrovskyi: They were there… Let’s see, from forty-five, and after 1970, their exile was lifted. My sister’s was lifted earlier because she was a minor, but she wouldn’t leave our mother. Well, I’ll tell you more…

V.V. Ovsiienko: And where in Ukraine did they return to?

I.M. Pokrovskyi: Wait. I had written to them from the camp earlier, telling them to try to move from exile to Shtun. But that was later. Sometime in the seventies, my mother’s father, my grandfather, passed away, and she went to the funeral. She went there for the funeral and complained to all her relatives—her sister was there, other relatives—saying she hadn’t even gathered enough for the journey. So the people in Shtun collected money for her trip, and she went back. Later, in 1970, I was in Yavas, and my mother came for a visit. The chief summoned me. I had given up all thought of being released; it never even crossed my mind.

Ye.M. Sereda: What, did you think you would die there?

I.M. Pokrovskyi: Who knows, I wasn’t thinking about anything. People had already bought themselves suits that were sold in Yavas. The chief calls for me, and I show up in my coveralls. “You have a visitor, go get changed.” “I have nothing to change into.” “Then go borrow something from someone.” So they got me dressed, and I went, late, around seven o’clock or even later. They took me to the meeting, and my mother was crying. She started offering me this and that, whatever she could. We talked a little and then went to sleep. In the morning, it was reveille, and they told me to go back to the zone. Visits were generally for three days, but they could give you just one. I said a hasty goodbye to my mother, and they led me back to the zone. In the zone, I went straight to the chief. He puts a large sheet of paper in front of me and says, “Write.” This chief was a civilian, not the one from before. “Write a letter of repentance.” “I don’t know how to write one.” “Well then, go. No visit for you.” My mother was wandering around Yavas, between the work zone and the camp, while I sat on the roof of a barrack. My mother was crying, and I was sobbing. That was some visit. By the way, a woman who worked in the accounting office in Yavas was the wife of the Motma commandant; he had been transferred here. She tried to console my mother, but it was no use. My mother went back and died soon after. And that sister, the one who was eleven when they were deported, had managed by then to find a husband from among her countrymen, from Volyn, and had a child, the eldest, Mykola. She died in childbirth, because there was no medicine there, hundreds of kilometers from any center, so she died from childbirth. And my mother died soon after. They were buried right there. I won’t go into those details.

My release was very simple. After they washed me in that barrack—one guy said he’d take me to the bathhouse, promised to, but it didn’t work out—they wiped me down a bit and led me to the guardhouse, out of the zone. They gave me my documents, took me to a store where I bought a small suitcase, packed some of my things (the censor checked some of it), packed everything together, took my electrician’s tools, which I still have to this day.

V.V. Ovsiienко: And where did you go?

I.M. Pokrovskyi: Ah, let me get back to that. When they asked where I would go, I said Kharkiv, to Zdorovyi’s place. Then I named a few other addresses, first of all Shtun, but they told me, “That’s a border zone—are you crazy?” So that didn’t work. But I had been given addresses, Lukianenko gave me one, so I said, “Chernihiv.” Well, they looked it over and decided Chernihiv would do. They took me from Kuchino to the Vsesvyatska station, or maybe Chusova, and there, under the supervision of these “guardians,” I bought myself a ticket, forgot my warm gloves, they put me on the train, and I left. And here’s where a certain procedure begins. I had heard stories in our camp that many were simply “released” from the train—thrown down an embankment. I sat down, there were some women there, I sat on the edge. And then people start coming over. They approach me: “Well, come on, let’s have a drink with us.” “I’m not going anywhere.” They grab me by the arm, but the women defended me and then made room for me further away. After that, when others came by saying, “Come on, what are you sitting here for!” the women sent them away.

So I made it to that stop, I don’t know where, somewhere near Kotlas or something…

O. Suhoniako: They’d get them drunk and kill them, is that right?

I.M. Pokrovskyi: Whether they got them drunk or just did it—they’d open the carriage door, throw them out, and that was it. After all that, another railway worker comes by—a railway officer or something, I don’t remember—and says, “Where are you headed?” “I’m going to Chernihiv.” “Here’s an address, my son is there, stop by and see him.” And that was the end of it. I got off at some station, maybe it was Kotlas, I don’t remember well, had my ticket stamped for a five-day stopover or something like that, and I took a train to Motma. I arrived, there was a lot of snow. I stayed there for three days. My sister Oleksandra gave me goat’s milk to drink; she had two or three big goats. A couple of days passed, and I met that Petro Ivanovych, the one from the photograph.

V.V. Ovsiienko: And what oblast is Motma in?

I.M. Pokrovskyi: Arkhangelsk Oblast, somewhere in the forests past Kotlas, there’s a narrow-gauge railway there. In short, that Petro was still a little boy, in about the eighth grade. He’s in a photograph somewhere. I had already gathered my things, it was hard to carry everything, because I had a pea coat, quilted trousers, and a whole sack of other stuff I’d brought with me. I went back by the narrow-gauge railway or by bus, I don’t remember. You had to cross a frozen river, maybe 150 meters wide, to get to the railway. And that Petro, twelve years old, catches up with me, takes my sack, and we carry it across the river together. I even gave him a three-ruble note then. In fact, when I was released, I had something like six hundred-odd rubles in my account. And I’m thinking: I’m heading into the unknown, what if someone stops me somewhere. Did I tell you how they locked me up in the tuberculosis dispensary? I’ve told that story already.

In short, I arrived in Chernihiv. And from Chernihiv, where they didn’t want to issue me a residence permit, they said, “Go sign up for a work assignment—either in Dnipropetrovsk or Zaporizhzhia.” I went to a medical commission, they diagnosed me with tuberculosis and sent me to a TB hospital. And there I served out those six months, with my guardian from Chernihiv, Polunin, visiting me every month.

V.V. Ovsiienko: And where is this tuberculosis dispensary?

I.M. Pokrovskyi: Right here, near the forest.

V.V. Ovsiienko: So it’s here in Horodnia?

I.M. Pokrovskyi: Yes. It’s not there anymore; the TB dispensary is in Chernihiv now. I’m lying there peacefully, my guardian comes every month, concerned about me, my health, and my views. And the head nurse or matron, or whatever she was, keeps an eye on me to make sure I don’t go anywhere I’m not supposed to. After that, as I already said, they set me up with a job as an electrician, with a salary of 65 rubles. Or 68. And I received those 68 rubles for a long, long time. I was already out of the TB hospital and living here. I serviced the entire hospital—both here in town and out there. I’d get up in the morning, get on my bicycle at seven o’clock to get home earlier. I’d make my rounds, check the light bulbs, then ride into town, and then get on my bike and head home. That’s where I met my wife. She would bring me food, to supplement my diet, and then I told her my time was running out. And when my term in the TB hospital was ending, an order came, the doctor calls me in: you’re going to a sanatorium or something, somewhere God knows where. But I said, “No, my friend, I’m not going anywhere, because if I go to a sanatorium, I’ll be wandering my whole life again.” And Lukianenko’s brother lived here. I visited him once or twice, and he brought me here, to Pronia’s place.

V.V. Ovsiienko: Excuse me, what is your name and surname?

Ye.M. Sereda: Yefrosyniia Markivna Sereda.

I.M. Pokrovskyi: And I’ve stayed here ever since. This Sereda here went… There was this communist, Volochok, who was on the city council or something. He, by the way, was the one who tore down the last church in Horodnia. Or it was torn down with his participation. He refused to grant me a residence permit, but Pronia said, “No, you don’t have the right, register him.” So they registered me, and that’s how I came to live here.

By the way, Kuryliak came to visit me in the hospital, and as soon as anyone came…

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: And Kurchyk came to visit? [Remark by Ye.M. Sereda is unintelligible].

I.M. Pokrovskyi: No, Kurchyk—I don’t remember that.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: Mykola Kurchyk?

I.M. Pokrovskyi: I know him, but he didn’t visit. You know who did visit—Tykhyi came.

V.V. Ovsiienko: Oleksa Tykhyi came to visit? And where did you know Oleksa from?

I.M. Pokrovskyi: To be honest, I don’t think we ever met in the camps. He came and visited me. And I’m still ashamed to this day—I was still in the TB hospital… We sat in the forest, I told him more or less everything, but you know, cautiously—what if he’s an agent? If I had been imprisoned with him, I wouldn’t have thought that. But after he left me, I got on Pronia’s bicycle and rode down the road, and I saw that he had flagged down a passing car and left. I thought: if he were an agent, he wouldn’t have done that. That was our meeting.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: That’s extraordinary behavior for a man of principle like Tykhyi.

V.V. Ovsiienko: He visited many people.

I.M. Pokrovskyi: Later, Pronia and I went to visit Meshko.

V.V. Ovsiienko: Oksana Yakivna?

I.M. Pokrovskyi: Yes. I told her everything. She was very cautious; she had this slate where she would write and then erase, and I would answer.

V.V. Ovsiienko: In Moscow, they called that a “Russian-Russian phrasebook.”

I.M. Pokrovskyi: That’s how we talked.

Ye.M. Sereda: She wanted to recruit him for something.

V.V. Ovsiienko: Into the Ukrainian Helsinki Group? What year was that?

I.M. Pokrovskyi: The Group didn’t exist yet. Levko wasn’t in Chernihiv yet.

V.V. Ovsiienko: So that was before January 1976.

I.M. Pokrovskyi: In short, they put together a paper from my stories and gave it… And who did they give it to? Not Tykhyi? Or Rudenko? I don’t know. When Rudenko was arrested, they found my stories about the camp and all that in a hiding place of his. And I was interrogated again, but I said I had never seen Rudenko in my life and never told him anything.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: But you could have told Tykhyi.

I.M. Pokrovskyi: I did tell Tykhyi, but only in general terms, without details.

O. Suhoniako: Here’s something I’m curious about. Did they try to persuade you to write a letter of repentance?

I.M. Pokrovskyi: Every month, when I was in the TB hospital, and later, when I worked as an electrician at the hospital, they would come to re-educate me. And they summoned Pronia many times.

Ye.M. Sereda: They would show me letters, claiming he wrote them to Horyn. I’d say, “Show me closer, I’ll recognize the handwriting.” But they wouldn’t show me, only from a distance, so I told them it wasn’t his handwriting.

I.M. Pokrovskyi: So there were many, many incidents like that.

O. Suhoniako: And in the camps?

I.M. Pokrovskyi: In the camps, a whole commission from Volyn came to Yavas a couple of times. And they held discussions not just with me, but they summoned others as well.

V.V. Ovsiienko: So those were interrogations about Mykola Rudenko, and then about Mykhailo Horyn’s letters. Horyn was arrested in 1981, on November 3.

I.M. Pokrovskyi: And there was a search then.

V.V. Ovsiienko: Did they find anything at your place?

I.M. Pokrovskyi: They didn’t find anything that was in the case files. Only photographs and letters where nothing of the sort was written. They only confiscated a postcard from Panas (Zalyvakha. – Ed.), which had signatures of Lithuanians on it. What did they need it for?

V.V. Ovsiienko: So that you wouldn't have it.

I.M. Pokrovskyi: Herasymenko came here…

V.V. Ovsiienko: The head of the regional KGB, right?

I.M. Pokrovskyi: Yes, with Polunin. Levko Lukianenko wrote me a postcard saying that when I write to Yakiv Suslenskyi, I should pass on his regards. We had a prior arrangement about what to write there. So, there was no postcard, none at all, until Herasymenko came. I went out into the hallway, and there was the postcard, lying on the refrigerator. And, I confess, after that, I didn’t write anything to Suslenskyi.

Ye.M. Sereda: And the house keys disappeared somewhere. This was back when we didn’t have gas. A teacher used to come by, and after he left, the keys were gone. I had to go to work, and no keys. We installed a new lock, and a week later, the keys reappeared. A man once came here with a flask: “Oh, Ivan Nikolaevich, such a good man…” Another time, I came home from work, and he was here. And it really got to me: why are you always snooping around? “How are you living?” he asks. “I’m living very well, just very tired of you people tailing me.” “So you suspect me?” “No, I didn’t say you, but there are some who follow my every step.” And he stopped coming.

I.M. Pokrovskyi: In short, there were many—starting with that neighbor, the railway worker, who, as soon as anyone visited me, then, as if by magic, this fellow Ploskyi would show up. He had served as an officer under the Germans, came here to Horodnia during the German occupation, and then served some short sentence and lived here. But as soon as any stranger came to see me, it was clear someone would call him, and there he was, right on cue.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: Do you remember who you were in the internal prison with before your release? Who was in the same cell with you? I want to say here that there were several electricians in zone 36, but among them, I remember one Estonian, then Levko Lukianenko, and Mr. Ivan Pokrovskyi—and only he understood the diagrams, and only he was entrusted with skilled tasks. All the others could only do minor repairs. So, he had a reputation as a good professional. That's one thing.

Ye.M. Sereda: And he got in trouble for the light bulbs. Tell them.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: And one more thing. That hunger strike and the internal prison, right before his release, made a very big impression on the zone. There was a big movement in the zone to stop them from killing Pokrovskyi. Many petitions were written to the prosecutor's office and wherever people could, and it was a whole international effort—it's very characteristic that he was supported not only by Ukrainians but also by Lithuanians, Jews, and Russians as well.

V.V. Ovsiienko: So Mr. Ivan had such a reputation?

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: He had a reputation as a very consistent, principled prisoner, of which there were few among the old-timers. There were many decent men, but few who remained active to the end—there were not many like that left by their twenty-fifth year of imprisonment.

I.M. Pokrovskyi: Although it may be boasting, I must say that in many such actions, like welcoming newcomers or celebrating various anniversaries, I took an organizing role. I socialized with the Jews… By the way, I forgot to mention, I was imprisoned for a time with Leonid Martynenko, the brother of that Oleksandr who served a long sentence. I remember that our guys were a bit wary of this easterner, but I brought him into our circle. He was released much earlier than me, and from his letters, we learned about his brother Oleksandr. He arrived with a recommendation to turn to me. I looked after him. Poor Oleksandr was released, developed cancer, and died after a couple of operations. Martynenko, it seems, has a gift for words; he writes. He’s here in the Poltava region, in the town of Hradysk.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: I brought you some newspapers.

I.M. Pokrovskyi: Which ones?

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: Do you receive *Nasha Vira*?

I.M. Pokrovskyi: I do.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: Well, you can give them to someone else; I forgot that you receive it.

Ye.M. Sereda: We receive it; it’s a very good newspaper, we read it.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: And here is *Ukrainske Slovo*.

I.M. Pokrovskyi: No, I don't have that one.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: I brought a few issues, whatever was at hand. Is there anyone else to give them to?

I.M. Pokrovskyi: Yes. I receive the Chernihiv paper *Sivershchyna*. Levko subscribes for me, what’s his name...?

V.V. Ovsiienko: The newspaper *Samostiina Ukraina*.

I.M. Pokrovskyi: *Samostiina Ukraina* and *Nasha Vira*.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: But this one is about the “Great Patriotic War,” about the beginning of the war, it’s a very interesting thing.

Ye.M. Sereda: Very.

V.V. Ovsiienko: And when perestroika and the independence movement began, were you politically and socially active? What organizations were you in? Just briefly.

I.M. Pokrovskyi: I can tell you briefly. I’m not much of an organizer. I had a group of three or four people with me. That was the URP, of course.

V.V. Ovsiienko: And were you in the Helsinki Union?

I.M. Pokrovskyi: Well, maybe unofficially.

V.V. Ovsiienko: That was eighty-eight, eighty-nine…

I.M. Pokrovskyi: Levko returned in seventy-six.

V.V. Ovsiienko: He returned for good in January of eighty-nine.

I.M. Pokrovskyi: That was the second time. I supported him. When he was about to be tried for the second time, they wanted to declare him insane. And my wife and I signed a petition so the psychiatrists wouldn’t touch him.

V.V. Ovsiienko: Were you interrogated in his case?

I.M. Pokrovskyi: Of course. He was tried right here, in Horodnia. I was a witness.

V.V. Ovsiienko: Oh, that’s interesting.

I.M. Pokrovskyi: The trial was here.

Ye.M. Sereda: It was a closed trial.

I.M. Pokrovskyi: And they summoned… I didn’t even know the trial would be here, but then Zatvarskyi showed up. They found me and said, “Levko is going to be tried here.” He and his wife stayed with us for a while.

V.V. Ovsiienko: Well, and what about eighty-eight—were you in the Helsinki Union? When Levko returned the second time.

I.M. Pokrovskyi: When he returned the second time, I was in the URP.

V.V. Ovsiienko: Well, the URP was from 1990, but before that was the Helsinki Union.

I.M. Pokrovskyi: I was not officially in the Helsinki Union. But I did travel with Levko’s former wife to Siberia to see him.

V.V. Ovsiienko: You went to Tomsk Oblast?

I.M. Pokrovskyi: I went to see him, stayed there for a couple of days.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: That was Nadiia, right?

V.V. Ovsiienko: Nadiia Nykanorivna.

I.M. Pokrovskyi: I went with her. True, she wasn’t there long, but I stayed for maybe three days and then went back. We talked.

V.V. Ovsiienko: So, you were in the URP—were you part of the Ethics Commission?

I.M. Pokrovskyi: I was.

V.V. Ovsiienko: Were you active as long as your health allowed?

I.M. Pokrovskyi: Well, I wasn't very active, because it's not so easy to get to Kyiv. We examined some cases, I don't remember anymore… We examined the RUNVira case, by the way. That was in Kharkiv, that Krawciw fellow…

V.V. Ovsiienko: Ihor Krawciw.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: And Levko later, too…

I.M. Pokrovskyi: Levko just recently. By the way, Zalyvakha also had an inclination towards this; he wrote to me, and I gave him an example, saying, first, there's no point in reviving or building something you don't really know. Second, I said, the Christian church has stood up for the nation. Take that French heroine, what's her name?

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: Joan of Arc.

I.M. Pokrovskyi: Joan of Arc. Take others who stood up for the national cause—do we really need to search for or revive some RUNVira? After that, Panas didn't write anything like that to me.

O. Suhoniako: Was the RUNVira case an internal party matter or something else?

I.M. Pokrovskyi: Not exactly, it was an ethical matter.

V.V. Ovsiienko: I don’t recall anything like that, but that’s of less interest to us.

I.M. Pokrovskyi: Well, what else can I tell you?

V.V. Ovsiienko: And how are you related, Lena, I still haven’t understood?

O. Sereda: I am my mother’s daughter. Mr. Ivan’s adopted daughter.

Ye.M. Sereda: He was a stranger to us, you could say. My husband was a terrible drunkard.

V.V. Ovsiienko: Well, we don’t need to talk about that husband.

Ye.M. Sereda: Four were left, I raised them all by myself. She was nine months old. When Ivan Mykolaiovych came, she was 13.

V.V. Ovsiienko: So you have a daughter, Olena, and who else?

Ye.M. Sereda: I also have a daughter, Lida, in Brovary, and Pasha lives in Tolyatti.

V.V. Ovsiienko: And who is this in the picture, your son?

Ye.M. Sereda: My son Volodia. They said he was killed in 1979.

V.V. Ovsiienko: What, was he in the army?

I.M. Pokrovskyi: No, not in the army. He worked at a factory…

V.V. Ovsiienko: And until what year did you work?

I.M. Pokrovskyi: Let’s count. Seventy-five—that’s five years. And after that, to be honest, I felt that I couldn’t work as an electrician when my hands were shaking and my mind wasn’t quite… So I quickly submitted my resignation.

V.V. Ovsiienko: And you've been retired since about 1980?

Ye.M. Sereda: No, he went to work at the sanitary inspection station.

I.M. Pokrovskyi: I retired in 1985. I worked part-time at the sanitary station… True, I was already earning well, something over 90 rubles, not like the 65 at the hospital.

V.V. Ovsiienko: And what year did you retire?

I.M. Pokrovskyi: Around eighty-five.

V.V. Ovsiienko: And what is your pension now, out of curiosity?

I.M. Pokrovskyi: A great deal: 86 hryvnias.

V.V. Ovsiienko: Wow!

Ye.M. Sereda: And 90 kopecks.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: I just retired—it's about 89 hryvnias.

Ye.M. Sereda: I get 92 hryvnias.

I.M. Pokrovskyi: My friend Kurchykov, a Russian, lives in Donetsk and also writes me letters. He writes, “I receive a pension of 141 hryvnias. But it’s not quite enough for me, I have to work on the side.”

Ye.M. Sereda: It’s enough for us.

O. Sereda: The Lord doesn’t abandon us. Can you imagine, I haven’t been paid my salary for May yet? We’re self-funded, and we don’t earn enough to cover our costs. I also work here at the station.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: You could try to demand it, go somewhere.

O. Sereda: Demand what? If only our management could get their behinds, excuse me, out of their chairs and go to the organizations and sort things out. That’s how we live. You have to sit tight and not make a peep.

I.M. Pokrovskyi: Wait, I think I must have miscalculated something…

V.V. Ovsiienko: Since when you've been on pension, right?

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: But that’s not essential.

I.M. Pokrovskyi: Right. Yes, it's something like that. The only thing I should say is that I served five years at the hospital, and when they hired me as an electrician, I told them I would work off five years for you for those sixty-some rubles. And when that term ended, I submitted my resignation, and they moved me to the sanitary inspection station. I was officially a part-time electrician there, but the volume of electrical work was small, so I also worked as a focal point disinfector.

V.V. Ovsiienko: One more question—regarding rehabilitation. Has the issue of your rehabilitation ever been raised?

I.M. Pokrovskyi: It hasn't been raised for me, because I can’t change my case file, what's written there. There was a commission that ruled I was not subject to rehabilitation, and there’s nothing more to be done.

V.V. Ovsiienko: That might only happen if the entire UPA is rehabilitated, then maybe.

I.M. Pokrovskyi: Yes. If I had been rehabilitated, I would have received 12,000 at once, like everyone else who was rehabilitated. Levko got it.

V.V. Ovsiienko: That’s how it was before the Law of April 17, 1991. But when we were rehabilitated under that law, I calculated that I could get enough money to buy a typewriter. So I didn’t take it, because it offended me.

I.M. Pokrovskyi: And now they took my autobiography, where I might not have written everything in detail, they took other documents, and a month later they called me into the social security office and said, “The President has established a personal stipend for you.” I ask, “How much?” “We don’t know.”

V.V. Ovsiienko: One hundred hryvnias.

I.M. Pokrovskyi: “When will it be paid?” “We don’t know.” And then a letter comes: provide a bank account number.

V.V. Ovsiienko: And you don’t have an account.

I.M. Pokrovskyi: I do, why not? I have that savings book with nothing in it. I went to the Oschadbank, they renewed it for me, registered it or something, opened that account. Or maybe it was already open. I provided the account number from my savings book. A month passed, I called the savings bank, and I said, “Has any money been deposited?” “No,” she says, “no money has been deposited into your account.” Now a second month is passing, I plan to call again on Monday and ask, “Has any money been deposited to this savings account number?”

V.V. Ovsiienko: But look, they are supposed to pay it starting from January 1st. I have the decree here. This is, of course, a mockery of us. “Decree of the President of June 8, 2001, No. 411, on measures to enhance the social protection of citizens of Ukraine who were persecuted for their human rights activities.” It establishes 50 stipends for the entire country, when we have over 33,000 political prisoners. Only 50 stipends of 100 hryvnias for all of Ukraine. It's simply a mockery.

Ye.M. Sereda: 100 hryvnias per month or a one-time payment?

V.V. Ovsiienko: Monthly, for life.

Ye.M. Sereda: Listen, can you give me this paper so I can show it to them?

I.M. Pokrovskyi: To whom? You won't show it to anyone. The social security office has nothing to do with it.

V.V. Ovsiienko: It’s easier for me to make a copy, put it in an envelope, and mail it.

I.M. Pokrovskyi: And whether I need to write or prove something, I don’t know. Some kind of transfer is being made in Chernihiv… Some department.

Ye.M. Sereda: Here in our district, if you only knew the things they do, it’s anarchy.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: Mr. Ivan, if you had the financial means, would you like to go to the Khmilnyk sanatorium?

I.M. Pokrovskyi: You know, the guys asked me the very same question. They said they had the means to help me a little. But I can't give an answer right now, because I need to pass a medical commission.

Ye.M. Sereda: That’s one thing, and second, they would have to go together, because how can you let him go alone?

I.M. Pokrovskyi: Well, and the third thing is that, of course, it would have to be postponed until the fall.

Ye.M. Sereda: Yes, the potatoes need to be dug up.

O. Sereda: We’ll dig them up, and after September, they can go.

I.M. Pokrovskyi: And then she, what does she have to do here: milk the goats, feed them, and everything will be fine. But right now, with the potatoes, the gardens, the grass…

Ye.M. Sereda: She went to Crimea—I was completely worn out. He just sits at home, and I had the potato beetles to deal with, and the goats to feed… [Remark unintelligible].

I.M. Pokrovskyi: I was a partisan, as if I wasn’t. I was in the camps, wasted half my life there, and for what? And now in the URP, I confess, it pains me so, I have some grievances with Levko. When he went to Canada, the URP fell apart; Horyn brought it to ruin.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: You think Horyn caused it?

V.V. Ovsiienko: Well, that's the least of our concerns.

I.M. Pokrovskyi: I don’t want to say it out loud, I respect Horyn too, but it’s a fact, and not just I, but other people say so too.

V.V. Ovsiienko: But what I’d like is if we could somehow move away from this table and all sit over here, and I could set up the camera there and take a picture of everyone… [Recording interruption].

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: (In the car)… The idea for this trip came to me because of his uncertain condition. But I have always been fascinated by the phenomenon of Pokrovskyi. After all, there were many people who were imprisoned with him and served out similar terms, and it would hardly have occurred to me to go visit them or meet with them. They are their own people, and each has their own destiny. But Ivan’s fate is somehow close to the hearts of many and always has been, which is very interesting. He is an unassuming man, a quiet man, incredibly patient and modest. But he is noticed—the authorities notice him, they never forget about him; the zeks notice him, and he is present in all the important moments of camp life, because he carries within him that spark of resistance, a spark that never goes out. And though I have only known him for a couple of years, that is, from the summer of 1973 to 1974, not even a full couple of years…

O. Suhoniako: He was released on December 5, 1974.

Ye.O. Sverstiuk: Yes. But I remember him as this strong, stocky, un-deceitful, genuine, and faithful man to the very end. A man you can rely on, a man who will do well whatever he takes on. And it became a little clearer to me who he was when he said that he came from a line of priests on both his father's and mother's side. That clarified things for me. Then, when he said that he had finished, or almost finished, gymnasium. That, of course, meant a great deal. And the fact that he never found anything in his case worth telling about, but simply carried with him the fate of his homeland—it was repressed, and he was repressed with it. It lived an unremarkable and unpretentious life—and he lived an unremarkable and unpretentious life. He never needed anything for himself and never asked anyone for anything. This is the man who can give what he has to give, but he does not ask. I would say that there is no point in talking about pride and such things in relation to Ivan Pokrovskyi—he is very far from that, but dignity is always with him. And if you were to ask the people who were with him—"Oh, Pokrovskyi!" And maybe they would add nothing more to that. "Oh, Pokrovskyi—that's a man!"

The case of Pokrovskyi's release after six months in the internal prison and punishment cells is not ordinary. As a rule, before releasing an exhausted person, they would give them some respite in the hospital for a week or so, or put them on the food ration known in the camp as "5B." But to give a man who has—I don't know if it’s a closed or not entirely closed form of tuberculosis, and this is known, it’s in his file—to give him half a year in the internal prison before his release, and then to give him punishment cells on top of that—that is a completely conscious policy, a policy of a decisive stance by the administration towards this person, and an unceremonious policy. I've forgotten now how it was, but I remember how the whole zone wrote petitions and how the whole zone worried and was very concerned about how he would come out of that internal prison and how he would manage to hobble anywhere after they let him out—this is a fact that needs to be comprehended, it has various dimensions, this fact. I think it was no accident that we were so worried—it was about his fate, his personality, and the fact that this man was capable of such recklessness without any visible necessity. After all, it wasn't about some decisive battle where one could risk one's life, but simply about solidarity with other zeks. And any of them could go on a hunger strike and into a punishment cell, because they still had the strength and were younger. But when that man goes, he is already an unusual man, and people start to think about this man—he is different from others: either his instinct for self-preservation is weakened, or he is simply a man of great faith, who is confident that he who saves himself will lose himself, and he who gives of himself will save himself. [Recording interruption] Those who were approaching the end of their term, especially after 25 years, were completely passive in their last six months: “I’m not in the zone anymore. Lads, don’t count on me, I’m not taking part in anything anymore.”

O. Suhoniako: He said that phrase: “I never thought I would be free.” I think that in those last six months, the man also didn't think he would be free. He didn’t think he would need to wear that new suit when his mother came to visit him. He simply lived, like a true sage, here and now, and genuinely. We didn’t get to talk it all through, somehow it didn’t work out…

Characters: 108,806

Corrections made by his wife, Yefrosyniia Sereda, and her daughter, Olena, on January 11, 2009.

Photos:

Pokrovskyj1 – 2098, r.30A, July 25, 2002. Horodnia, Chernihiv Oblast. Ivan Pokrovskyi, insurgent, a 25-year prisoner. Photo by V. Ovsiienko.

Pokrovskyj6 – 2098, r.31A, July 25, 2002. Horodnia, Chernihiv Oblast. Oleksander Suhoniako, Yevhen Sverstiuk, and Vasyl Ovsiienko came to visit Ivan Pokrovskyi. In the middle are Ivan Pokrovskyi, his wife Yefrosyniia Sereda, and her daughter Olena. Photo by V. Ovsiienko. Pokrovskyj3 – 2098, r.33A, July 25, 2002. Horodnia, Chernihiv Oblast. Ivan Pokrovskyi with his wife Yefrosyniia and her daughter Olena. Photo by V. Ovsiienko.