THE THINGS WE DO... That blue tattoo (01/14/01)

THE THINGS WE DO...

by Orysia Paszczak Tracz

That blue tattoo

When I was growing up, I knew a man with a row of dark blue letters on his arm. When I asked about it, he said that he was a "katsetnyk," that is, one who "sat in the 'katset.' " I had heard that word often. It is an acronym for the German abbreviation KZ, for konzentrationslager, i.e., concentration camp.

There were many katsetnyky that my family knew back then, each with his tattoo.

Fedir Lucyshyn or, as I always called him, Pan Lucyshyn, did not dwell on his past, and just went on with his life, but even as a child I sensed an intense loss and emptiness deep within him. In Newark, N.J., in the 1950s, he was a mainstay of the Ukrainian community, especially the Ukrainian American Youth Association (SUM). A kind, generous man, he was extremely talented.

In Ukraine he had been involved in the theater as a set designer, and the Ukrainian National Home benefited from his elegant sets and decorations for dramatic productions and the many "vechornytsi" (dances) in the hall. He was a bachelor for a long time, and married later in life. I remember all of us were so happy for him that he finally had a family. Whenever he worked at the Tsentralia, with sleeves rolled up, the dark blue numbers on his arm were visible.

My parents were not katsetnyky, but were forced/slave laborers in Germany during the war. As I grew up, I learned from them and through history books what had happened to Ukrainians during World War II, but general histories do not provide the personal experiences.

In reading "Into Auschwitz, for Ukraine" by Stefan Petelychy (Kingston, Ontario: The Kashtan Press, 1999. ISBN 1-896354-16-5. $24.95), I now understand the haunted look I saw sometimes in Fedir Lucyshyn's eyes.

This is not a pleasant book, nor is it bedtime reading. It is the story of Stefan Petelycky, No. 154922, an inmate and survivor of Auschwitz, Mathausen and Ebensee. Simply, but intensely, and in horrifying detail, Mr. Petelycky describes his experiences before and during World War II, and how he and thousands of other Ukrainians found themselves in the Nazi concentration camps. He was a Ukrainian patriot, a nationalist (in the positive sense of that word). He wanted "to live in a land of our own, without a foreigner's boot always in our backsides ... I went to Auschwitz because I believed in a free Ukraine."

From the foreword on, Mr. Petelycky does not mince words. "... I saw things I can never forget. Even if I wanted, that blue tattoo won't let me. I survived the Holocaust. I know all that I need to know about it. I was there, I remember, I can never forget. No one should ever doubt that the Nazis exterminated millions of Jews and many millions of non-Jews. My marked flesh empowers me. Those who were not in the Nazi death camps do not have the same right as survivors to speak about the Holocaust."

He had written down his experiences just after the war in 1946-1947, but had put them aside "to get on with my life ... Now I wanted a chance to live ..." But recently he made himself reread his memoirs, forcing himself to remember "the humiliation of being beaten and degraded to the point where one almost ceases to exist as a human being ... a frightened animal ..."

He became convinced that if he did not publish his memoirs, "once the Ukrainian survivors of the Holocaust and the Soviet Great Terror pass away, their experiences will be forgotten or misrepresented."

Each page of this finely designed book brings the reader more unimaginable horrors. When a person is hungry to the point of madness, or wants to live at any cost, or wants to just give up and die, there is no accounting for logic or humanity. There is no black or white, but a full spectrum of shades of grey.

Mr. Petelycky describes heroism, betrayal, cowardice and inhumanity beyond comprehension, among all nationalities. Of those who survived, the reader can only wonder how they maintained, or retrieved, their sanity.

There is so much horror, humanity and depth on each page, that it would be difficult to pick one moment to illustrate. But I could not help wondering about one thing. Mr. Petelycky was betrayed to the Gestapo by a Polish man in his village. Later, as he lay close to death - and in the room adjacent to the ovens - at Auschwitz, it was a Polish man who noticed he was still alive.

The man asked Mr. Petelycky in Polish where he was from. "For no reason that I have ever been able to explain, I replied, in Polish, that I was from the city of Tarnow and had lived on Sanguszka Street. .. He, too, had lived in Tarnow on Sanguszka street when he had been attending medical school... Thinking that I was a compatriot, he told me not to drink the lime concoction we had been given because it was intended only to speed us on to our Maker." Thus, the man saved Mr. Petelycky with his care. The author is still searching for this medical student from Piortrkow to thank him for saving his life. Given all that happened in that and other camps, I could not help but wonder: did the Pole save Mr. Petelycky because he thought the dying man was also a Pole? Would he have saved the man if he knew he was a Ukrainian? Would a Ukrainian man have saved a dying Pole?

Mr. Petelycky also describes the situation in the Zolochiv prison in 1941 after Ukrainians proclaimed independence on June 30, when the Soviets fled, and the Germans arrived on July 1. The population found rows and mounds of corpses and mass graves of Ukrainians executed by the Soviets. He and others helped bury the dead. The Jews who had stayed behind but were working for the NKVD were executed by the Germans. It would be fascinating for historians to compare the versions of what happened based on eyewitness and survivor accounts from Ukrainian and Jewish views, considering what has been written by Jewish witnesses. Mr. Petelycky describes the situation simply and coldly.

The cover is a simple yet dramatic black-and-white photograph of Mr. Petelycky's arm, with his tattoo. Illustrations include archival photographs and documents, and the "cartoons" of Petro Balij, No. 57321, published under his pseudonym Paladij Osynka in Munich in 1946. The text is annotated, with eight pages of notes, and summaries in French and Ukrainian. One telling reproduction is the proclamation by the SS and police leader of Galicia of January 21, 1944, informing the population of the death sentences imposed on 20 named prisoners convicted of being members of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) or the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), and for sheltering Jews.

This book is relevant to anyone interested in the full story of World War II. There are still some Ukrainian survivors of the camps across North America. Winnipeg katsetnyky included the late Petro Bashuk, and the late the Rev. Semen Izyk, a survivor of six concentration camps. Dr. Michael Marunchak, a Winnipeg historian, number 120482, is a founder of the World League of Ukrainian Political Prisoners, made up of former inmates.

This book contains a list of "The Lviv Transport" of Ukrainian nationalists to Auschwitz, whose boxcars arrived in Birkenau, known as Auschwitz II, on October 1, 1943.

My blood chilled as among other familiar names I saw the name of our late family friend, Fedir Lucyshyn.

This book is available through the Yevshan catalogue, the Ukrainian Bookstore in Edmonton, other bookstores, and the publisher. Readers may also order online from www.chapters.ca.

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