Former students of Berchtesgaden gymnasium retrace steps of their youth

by Ihor and Natalia Lysyj

Spring came early to Europe in the year 2000. The weather was unseasonably warm and streams and rivers in the Alps and the Carpathian Mountains, swollen by the snow-melt, were running high. The landscape was green and lush. "Khrystos Voskres" (Christ is Risen) resounded in and around St. George Cathedral in Lviv. In Shevchenko Hai (woods) the ancient spring ritual of "hahilky" was celebrated in song and dance near wooden Carpathian churches.

East of Peremyshl, across the Sian River, the NATO training grounds in Yavoriv were getting ready for summer military exercises. Within the medieval walls of the old city-fortress of Krakow and in front of majestic Wawel Castle on the hill, unruly youths were noisily celebrating Polish Constitution Day. In the Tatra Mountains heavy traffic was moving in both directions across the border between Poland and Slovakia. A blue haze of industrial pollution was spreading from Bratislava over the Danube River.

Impeccably clean and freshly white-washed towns and villages of Tyrol and Bavaria were getting ready for the annual summer invasion of tourists. And the citizens of Oberammergau were conducting dress rehearsals for the passion play. All was well with the European Union.

There was also a spring in Eastern Europe 55 years ago. But it was a different spring. Along the ancient barbarian invasion route from Asia, and across the Hungarian plains and broad valley of the Danube River, the Red Army of the Soviet Union was plundering Eastern Europe. A rag-tag tidal wave of refugees - women and children, old men and women - were streaming westward on foot, in ox carts, and in freight trains, in order to escape rape and pillage.

Now, 55 years later, a group of survivors was retracing the journey of tears, fear and uncertainties that they had experienced as children. What began as an idea for a 50th year reunion of the 1950 and the last graduating class of the Ukrainian Gymnasium in Berchtesgaden, turned out to be an epic odyssey over the westward migration route of World War II refugees.

Under the auspices of the Scope Travel agency, the former students of the gymnasium with their families and friends made up a busload of travelers. Most of the participants came from the United States, with a few from Canada and Germany. Wolodymyr Sharko of Jackonsville, Florida was the driving force, cheerleader, and organizer of the trip.

Part of the group assembled in Lviv, while another group joined the tour in Vienna. After transoceanic night flights, the first group congregated in Frankfurt airport for a flight to Lviv, where the Ukrainian Gymnazium in Berchtesgaden had its origins, and whence came the majority if its faculty and a part of its student body. Arriving travelers were met in Lviv by colleagues who arrived earlier and were spending time with relatives.

The actual odyssey began in Ukraine and took the group across the borders of Poland, Slovakia, Austria and Germany. The voyage followed the corridor of the westward migration of refugees during the second world war: Lviv, Peremyshl, Krakow, Bratislava, Vienna, Salzburg, Berchtesgaden, Mittenwald, Innsbruck and Munich.

We landed in Lviv in mid-afternoon, at the same time two other flights, one from Moscow and another from Warsaw also arrived. Our group was fortunate to have been ushered first into the airport processing building, as there were only three working customs officials in the reception hall: one examining passports, two others checking declarations and luggage. After having paid a mandatory health insurance fee ($1 per day per person from the hard currency countries) for our stay in Ukraine, our tour group navigated its way out of the overcrowded entry hall full of outbound passengers. We were expected and ushered without delays into a waiting bus and transported to our hotel in the city center.

Lviv is described as a smaller version of Vienna in its architecture and feeling. It has many of the attributes of Western European cultural centers: cathedrals, museums, an outstanding university, fine hotels and restaurants, as well as a vibrant street life. No wonder it is becoming a prime destination for tourists from Poland and Russia, a window to the west so to speak.

According to people who travel to Lviv regularly, the economy of the city seems to have improved significantly during the past four years. Small businesses are taking root. Bustling open-air markets, exclusive stores, chic coffeehouses and the popular beer-drinking establishments (plus cheap horilka) are readily available. Young people enjoy a vibrant scene on Shevchenko Street and Svoboda Boulevard, lasting into the early hours of the day.

As we arrived in time for Easter celebrations we found the city in a festive mood. The celebrations began by mid-day on Saturday, and the churches were overflowing with people, young and old, dressed in their Sunday best or in Ukrainian embroidered shirts and dresses, carrying baskets filled with babky, pasky, krashanky, bacon, sausage, cheeses, decorated with greenery, flowers and candles, to be blessed. The blessing of the Easter baskets continued through Sunday noon.

After Sunday morning Easter services at St. George Cathedral some members of our group strolled down the hill along the ancient pathways where once stood Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky's army camp and toward the university to the commemorative statue of Taras Shevchenko by the opera house. Easter joy, childhood memories and a sense of history overwhelmed our senses; the emotions brought tears to our eyes.

On Sunday afternoon the festivities shifted to Shevchenkivskiy Hai, a park, where an outdoor museum of old wooden houses and churches typical of the Carpathian Mountain region are on display. Here more ancient rites of spring, "hahilky," were celebrated by song and dance. Merry-makers were streaming into the park on foot, by bus, by trolley and by private car to walk, to dance, to socialize. It was a spiritually uplifting and memorable Easter celebration for our group among friends, relatives and countrymen in Ukraine.

Our group left Lviv in a touring coach driven by two Ukrainian drivers. We left our hotel early in the morning darkness, at 5 a.m. in order to cross the border before 8 a.m., when the change of guards takes place at the crossing. Had we arrived after 8 a.m., long delays in crossing could be expected.

As we rolled towards Poland, the countryside was sparkling with spring time freshness and the promise of Eastertime renewal. We arrived at the border crossing on time, and, escorted by Ukrainian tour guides, cleared Ukrainian exit customs smoothly, only to run into a stone wall a few feet further at the Polish border. Here was a busload of American citizens on a Ukrainian tour bus with blue, yellow and red stripes (the markings were a relic of the Soviet Ukrainian Republic), but without any commercial markings.

The first question from the border patrol was whether we had any Canadians among us. After surrendering our passports to a young customs official, who carefully read aloud each person's name looking into each face, we sat for two hours sidelined. The reason for the hold up turned out to be that our Canadian colleague needed a visa to enter Poland. While American and Ukrainian citizens do not require visas to enter Poland, Canadian citizens do. Eventually a Polish visa was issued for the Canadian, the zloty paid, passports stamped and returned to us, and we were rolling across the Sian to Peremyshl.

Riding along the Polish countryside one was amazed to see American-style roadside businesses, a combination of gasoline stations with mini markets, and fast food services trading in zloty and American currency. Numerous road signs in Ukrainian advertised Polish products, an indication of a brisk trade in goods between Poland and Ukraine.

We arrived at Peremyshl around noon at a large and modern Hromada hotel complex on the Sian and were met there by representatives of the local Ukrainian community. Peremyshl was the westernmost city-fortress of Kyivan Rus' and a center of Ukrainian ethnic population and culture on the western borders of the country until the end of World War II. As a result of the gerrymandering of national maps of Europe after the war, the city and the surrounding area around Sian River became part of Poland. Under Soviet-era Polish rule the Ukrainian population of the area was forcibly deported and resettled. At one point only seven Ukrainian families with historical ties to the city administration were permitted to remain in the city.

Today the Ukrainian population of Peremyshl numbers around 2,000, and is enjoying some support from the Polish government. It is a vibrant and prosperous community, proud of its Ukrainian heritage. Our tour group was met and hosted by representatives of this community. Bohdan Huk, teacher at the local Ukrainian gymnasium, guided the group up the Tatar Hill, the highest observation point above the old town, where the look-outs were stationed to alert the townspeople of approaching Tatar marauders or other advancing armies.

Up the hill lies a cemetery with graves of soldiers of the Ukrainian National Republic (UNR) army of World War I. Ukrainians of Peremyshl commemorate these war heroes with an annual procession up the hill to the cemetery overlooking the city. Landmarks in the city include the old and new Ukrainian gymnasiums.

With permission from the Polish government, the Ukrainian community operates its own primary and secondary schools. This year the gymnasium graduated its first group of graduates - all of whom entered schools of higher learning, making it a school with the highest academic achievement in Poland. During our visit to the Ukrainian cathedral we encountered a group of young nuns and children dispersing after the Easter Monday church services.

Some of our group got sprayed with water by happy young pranksters. After a festive lunch with our guides in a Ukrainian restaurant, we departed with uplifted spirits and full of promise and hope for the future blossoming and growth of the local Ukrainian community.

On through the Polish countryside, past tidy farms, we rolled to the old city-fortress of Krakow, a one-time capital of a great European superpower encompassing Poland, the Baltic countries and Ukraine. One can see the signs of this ancient greatness, by wandering around the walled, old city and the Royal Castle on Wawel Hill, well preserved from ancient times. In Krakow we feasted on dinners in restaurants featuring Ukrainian cuisine.

With lots of singing and merriment, we continued rolling toward the Polish-Slovak border and the Tatra Mountains. After surrendering our passports to Polish border officials, we waited again for two hours before passports were returned to us affixed with exit stamp. No reason for the delay was offered.

Transit into Slovakia was approximately 100 feet from the Polish customs. Here our bus encountered another delay: negotiations ensued between our drivers and Slovak customs officials as to how much drivers should pay for the use of Slovakia's highways. In due time a fee was negotiated and paid, and we rolled along the picturesque neat and clean farm valleys between the Tatra mountains, sighting some ruins of old castles and some in restored condition. After a tasty lunch of halushky in sour cream and cheese at a roadside gas station in Slovakia, travelers felt reinforced for the rest of the afternoon, until our Vienna destination.

After Bratislava came another series of borders to cross into Austria. Again negotiations ensued as to our exit transit from Slovakia, rumored to have been the price of a bottle of cognac, before the bus could move a few meters to be processed by Austrian customs.

A Ukrainian coach driven by Ukrainian drivers, carrying American and Canadian tourists created some interest with the Austrian customs officials. Bus drivers' licenses and bus registrations were checked out; the luggage and cargo bays were examined. Some of our touring colleagues spoke fluent German and assisted in explaining our tour agenda and circumstances. Road use and transit fees having been paid and all passports returned, at last we were rolling into Austria, after more than three hours of delays at four border crossings that day.

It was already getting dark, past our prearranged dinner time and reunion with the other members of our group who were to join the tour in Vienna. We had just about settled in for another hour or so of travel into Vienna, reasoning that there would be no more security controls to contend with between member-nations of the European Union, but our first surprise happened just a few kilometers into Austria. We were stopped by the highway patrol and our bus was subjected to a thorough safety inspection.

It was discovered that the bus was missing spare headlights, a requirement for buses traveling in Austria. After some negotiations and an appeal from our German-speaking colleague, with a promise to acquire spare headlights at the first opportunity, the bus was on the move again. As we later learned, highways in Austria and Germany are patrolled by rolling teams of customs and immigration agents. These teams stop cars, trucks and buses along the rest stops and autobahns, to inspect baggage and cargo for smuggling.

We pulled onto the streets of Vienna past 10 p.m., having traveled for over 14 hours that day. After wandering around some very narrow city streets and alleys, our guides decided to hire a taxi cab driver to guide the bus along the wider avenues to our hotel. Exhausted, but glad to see our colleagues waiting for us at the hotel, the bus group finally sat down to a festive dinner at close to midnight.

The following day, with a full busload of the combined tour groups, we ventured out to explore historic sites of Vienna. Some colleagues went to visit the graves of their relatives in the city cemeteries as part of their own personal journey into the past. With such Viennese specialties as Sacher tortes, coffees and chocolates under our belts, the journey continued into Tyrol and Bavaria, retracing the group's childhood journeys during the war years, and the gymnasium days.

Along the way in Melk, Austria, the bus detoured in search of a munitions factory where one of our colleague's father worked as one of the forced laborers and miraculously survived wartime carpet bombing of the facility. Painful memories brought forth tears in a retelling of the story on the bus; however, no trace of the facility was found.

Along the way some of our travelers visited the Ukrainian community in Salzburg, composed of local residents and newly transplanted Ukrainians from former Balkan countries and attended Ukrainian Sunday services. The center of this community life revolves around an ancient church, complete with holy relics. The church was provided by the Austrian government for the use of the Ukrainian community.

Finally, the principal destination of our journey: Berchtesgaden. Before checking into the hotel, the bus detoured to the campsite for the first glimpse of the former home and school. With much anticipation everyone piled out of the bus for a preliminary viewing of the facilities outside the closed gates. The round tower building, the lion statue in front of the Kasserne seemed overwhelmed by the massive Watzman in the background - the front part of the camp looked smaller in size than what most students remembered.

Our Berchtesgaden hotel rooms, with balconies facing the majestic Watzman massif, provided a spectacular, contemplative view. Touring and retracing the "universe" of our youthful years began in earnest with a boat ride on the Königssee, a lift ride to Jenner peak, drives and walks in the valleys, along swift running rivers and streams up to Obersee and Hintersee.

Some ventured along the mountain trails and others went in search of the graves of relatives and friends lost during the gymnasium years. Friends and relatives residing in Germany arrived to join in the Berchtesgaden reunion.

One of our colleagues, Yuri Tymczenko, who resides in Munich, was instrumental in arranging a tour of the DP camp facilities for the group. This was to be the first time that a civilian group would be permitted to tour the German military facility in Berchtesgaden. The base was abandoned by the German army after the war and later taken over by the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) as a camp for displaced persons from Ukraine.

At that time the camp was promptly renamed Tabir Orlyk (in the honor of the first Ukrainian political exile, Hetman Pylyp Orlyk) by the residents and became a self-governing community with a elected administration, public and health services, cultural and educational institutions, and vibrant social life. From 1946 until 1952 it was a preserve of Ukrainian culture and national consciousness. By 1952 a majority of its residents were relocated under the Displaced Persons Act, and the camp was closed. Since 1957 it has been occupied by the 232nd Gebirgsjäger-Bataillon of the German army.

With great excitement and anticipation we arrived for our camp tour at the appointed hour. At the same time a reporter from the local newspaper arrived to record this event: the story of the displaced persons camp and the tour of the facility by the former residents from oversees.

We were greeted at the main gate on Sunday afternoon, May 7, by the commanding officer of the base, Maj. Eugen Fritz. As the group viewed the former sports field inside the walls of the camp and viewed rooms inside the buildings where some resided, the visit become more emotionally charged and tearful as voyagers recalled personal stories of their camp life.

After a walking tour, the group was guided to the mess hall for a reception. In a private dining room tables were laid out for coffee with Bavarian-style tortes and pastries. Our colleague Mr. Tymczenko had a surprise for the party by providing champagne for the event. Many toasts were raised in gratitude for this historic occasion, and numerous rounds of "Mnohaya Lita" were sung in return.

An article about the event and an overview of the history of DPs appeared subsequently in the local newspaper. According to local sources, the town inhabitants were not aware of this history from 50 years ago.

As we bid our farewell to the camp, dark rain clouds began to shroud the mighty Watzman and a light rain began to fall. It seemed as if Watzman was bidding a farewell to its former "children." That evening the reunion group, together with friends and relatives, celebrated with a formal Bavarian dinner and dancing in town.

From Berchtesgaden our tour moved through Innsbruck to Mittenwald. A stay in Mittenwald turned out to be equally meaningful for those in our group who lived in a DP camp in that town and attended school there. Here again the camp authorities took our friends for a quick tour. Then we traveled via Oberammergau, where rehearsals were in progress for the passion plays this summer, to our final destination of Munich.

Some of the Berchtesgaden gymnasium graduates went on to attend institutes and universities in Munich. In Munich the retracing of personal histories continued, with stops at libraries where some studied, museums where most visited, and beer halls where all frequented. Beer and sausages flowed as the group celebrated its last evening in the famous Hofbräuhaus with traditional Bavarian toasts, songs and dancing.

Most travelers departed for home from Munich, while the bus with Ukrainian drivers drove away back to Lviv, carrying with them our colleagues Dr. Lubomyr Wynar and his wife, Anna, who were scheduled to participate in an international meeting of historians at Chernivtsi University.

* * *

A journey has been completed, retracing the history of the refugee experience with all of the concomittant; pain, triumphs and joys. A copy of the history of the Ukrainian Berchtesgaden Gymnasium which was published three years ago, has been delivered to a library in Lviv, documenting the life and times of a group of Ukrainians in the diaspora.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, June 25, 2000, No. 26, Vol. LXVIII

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