Turning the pages back...

March 3, 1945

Fifty-one years ago, a detachment of 60 men in Red Army uniforms marched into the village of Pavlokoma, a village on a bend in the San River near the town of Dyniv in the Lemko region, and exacted its measure of revenge against a purported haven for the Ukrainian Insurgent Army: 383 human beings were annihilated.

Since some of the victims cried out, recognizing their neighbors among the murderers, it has since been determined that it was an act of blind hatred committed by acquaintances, former friends, members of families, Ukrainians and Poles inextricably intertwined.

Katrusia Potichna Stefaniuk, then a child of four, survived to write the following poem in memory of her father, her five brothers, her paternal and maternal grandmothers, her aunt and 19 other family members who died along with the rest of the victims of Pavlokoma.

383 People were Massacred
Remembering that
where once there were
200 homes and 832 inhabitants
now there is
a common grave with a wooden cross

Remembering that
through time, land and ocean
we bring you our remembrance, our respects
our love, our anguish, our sorrow

And as the bushes grow where a church once stood
and as the candles burn
We, their survivors, will continue to remember them
remembering that
that these memories will live with us forever.

Sources: Ms. Stefaniuk; Andriy Mudryk, "Trahediya sela Pavlokomy" (Toronto: Krayeva Uprava Obyednannia Lemkiv Kanady, 1974).

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, March 3, 1996, No. 9, Vol. LXIV

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