UPA veterans share their experiences at press conference in Kyiv (10/22/06)

UPA veterans share their experiences at press conference in Kyiv

by Zenon Zawada
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) veterans shared their experiences at an October 10 press conference organized by the Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists, one of six political parties belonging to the Our Ukraine bloc. Following are some of their accounts of the UPA's activity.

Petro Balytskyi, 84, Vorobivka, Ternopil Oblast, UPA soldier:

My group was arrested by the NKVD (People's Commisariat for Internal Affairs). They brought us to a concentration camp in Saratov (Russia), and we endured horrible torture, but I am not going to talk about it because all of us know the NKVD's methods. They tortured us, gave us salted fish, dry crusts, broke our teeth and denied us water. Try it for yourself. You will see after one week you would hang yourself. No water. You are choking. And people did commit suicide.

When we came out in the morning, we drank cow's urine on the ground. We drank dew to quench our thirst. Later, they didn't let us sleep at night. We had to work. Then the interrogations, interrogations ... And the question was, "Do you want to fight against Hitler?" I said, "Yes, I do." So they sent me to the so-called "shtrafbat" (penalty battalion) in Eastern Prussia. Almost nobody who was with me had returned from the concentration camp.

In the fall of 1944, we carried mines in our backpacks and they told us to place them when German tanks drew close. We didn't even have any arms or anything. I took off my military clothes, changed into civilian clothes and registered myself as a Pole. I got myself jailed as a Pole, and the Soviet NKVD transferred me into the hands of the Polish NKVD and I was imprisoned in a Moldovan concentration camp. I knew how to lie and they believed I was a Pole. I learned perfect Polish.

Daria Husiak, 82, Truskavets, Lviv Oblast, Roman Shukhevych's liaison:

Roman Shukhevych prepared a lot in 1930s. He did a lot of educational work and prepared young people for this armed struggle. At the beginning of World War II, national consciousness was so high and the desire for freedom so large that the Ukrainian nation was ready for the armed struggle, not for life but to death.

You know very well what losses those fighters for Ukraine's freedom suffered. They managed to hold out a decade. And I believe the struggle of the 1940s is unique. It is unique because the Ukrainian nation and the Ukrainian people rose up with arms against two world powers. I believe there is no analogue in the world.

He was a very communicable and marvelously cheerful man. When we look at portraits with the stern appearance of Shukhevych, we can hardly imagine that he was a man with a sense of humor. He knew how to joke and understood the jokes of other people. He could sing with the boys and the boys felt very free in his company, despite the fact that he kept discipline. But all the people that surrounded him felt themselves very easy.

He was so modest that practically anyone who mentions him in their memoirs talks about this trait - his modesty. He wore clothes and ate what the UPA soldiers ate. He didn't allow any exceptions for himself, even when he was sick. One more trait of his was his diligence. In his last secret house where he actually died, in Bilohorscha, he, a sick person already, was very hard-working and he used every minute as optimally as best he could. He had rest - probably his doctor told him to have a rest - but he used every minute for work

Tetiana Vaida, 74, Zavorol, Rivne Oblast, UPA scout:

I was 13 when I helped out. I was a runner and a scout. My father had a shelter, the boys asked me and I went, so it was not official. But when my brother was arrested, I stood consciously on the side of struggle. I joined the junior network of the OUN, they suggested a propaganda post to me and I spread the propaganda in schools that it was necessary to go to the army of the Ukrainian nationalists.

My father had a shelter in our yard where insurgents were hiding all the time. I communicated with them everyday. My brother was also a runner who brought weapons from Lviv to Lutsk and back. He was sentenced. Unfortunately, he became ill with tuberculosis in the mines and died. And I was sentenced for 10 years and stayed alive.

As always there were traitors, "stukachi," and they betrayed me. I was arrested and they put me in a cellar. For three months I endured 42 interrogations, and then they sentenced me to 10 years. They suggested that I collaborate and betray. I didn't go for it. I was sent to the banks of the Pacific Ocean for lumberjack work. I survived and I am still alive. I don't regret anything, although it was difficult. It was cold, I was hungry, and it was painful. They beat us, taunted us and tortured us.

But we knew we were for this great idea - you can take away everything from me, just don't take away this holy and saintly love for Ukraine. Let it stay. When they beat us, tortured us, they put out cigarettes on my nose, when they beat me by my feet, put me into a punishment cell, it wasn't as painful as it is now, when 24 European nations have recognized us as a resistance movement, and here in our native Ukraine they don't recognize us. That's the most painful and most horrible thing.

Fotii Volodymyrskyi, 83, Vyshnevets, Ternopil Oblast, UPA soldier:

I represent the brotherhood of OUN-UPA of the Carpathian region, the region where this struggle continued for the longest time for our Ukrainian state. In the Prykarpattia region, 16,500 fighters were killed and 650 women - the wives of our commanders and our girlfriends involved in this struggle.

When the Soviet Army stood under Moscow and the Germans were eyeing the Kremlin through their binoculars, nobody knew how the circle of history would turn. There still weren't any partisans. It was only the UPA soldiers who stood up for the defense of the fatherland.

Stepan Bandera proclaimed in 1941 the independence of our state. The occupiers, the Germans, accepted it very negatively. They forced Bandera and [Yaroslav] Stetsko to cancel that act. But they didn't want to. So Bandera and the entire leadership were arrested. Until 1944 they were imprisoned in German camps.

And it is very painful to me to hear those Communists in the Verkhovna Rada led by Petro Symonenko say that "they were German collaborators." Halychyna was occupied by the Germans, who were robbing us. I was wounded for the first time in my feet in 1943 when the Germans came to rob our village. I was 19 years old when they wounded me in the leg during a battle.

Look at all the historical facts - the issue of UPA crimes was not even in the Nuremburg trials. This issue was not even raised because we were fighting for our state and for our freedom. Our slogans were "Freedom to the nations and to man" and "The well-being of the nation is the highest law." We fought with these slogans.

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