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Where there is no law, but every man does what is right in his own eyes, there is the least of real liberty
Henry M. Robert

WEEKLY ROUNDUP 

12 May, 1999 - 00:00

All Things Are in Flux
Years and centuries come and go, leaving behind witnesses to outstanding
developments, turning past experience into history. Who would now regard
events dating from World War I or the October revolution as having anything
to do with his/her present-day existence? Many of the rising generation
in Ukraine and elsewhere in the world have a rather vague idea about the
scope and significance of the Second World War, let alone about the period
when the whole thing started and ended. Just another chapter that has to
be read in one's school textbook and memorized as best one can. This is
bitter for people who lived and suffered at that time, although many realize
that this is something to be reckoned with, even to be taken for granted.
Such is the logic of the times. As for the young and forgetful, they will
have their share of ups and downs; history will act on them in their invariable
inexorable manner.

I belong to a generation for whom the 1941-45 worldwide hostilities
are still an inalienable component of their life stories. Primarily because
their parents lived through its horrors. How can I forget my father's attitude
(pious is the only adjective I can think of) toward everything associated
with World War II, his former comrades-in-arms, his faded wartime photos,
government decorations, and even that pea-sized artillery fragment which
the field hospital surgeon could not remove and which stayed with him for
the rest of his life? And the same was true of May 9, Victory Day. I am
afraid the coming generations will never celebrate this anniversary which
I still hold close and dear.

My generation has its own memories of the past war. Of course, nothing
to do with propagandized heroics, but always filled with mortal fear, hunger,
the whole lifestyle we had known ruined, the way people must feel living
in a quiet little town suddenly hit by a major earthquake. Watching the
late news with endless lines of refugees and flashes of rockets and bombs
hitting Yugoslavia at night, I shudder, instinctively remembering my own
war. My mother and I were being evacuated, riding on a village cart somewhere
in the middle of a long column stretching from one end of the horizon to
the other. There were countless other cars and old trucks pulling artillery,
and a myriad pedestrians shouldering knapsacks bulging with what things
they had had the time to pack when fleeing their homes. And there were
the artillery pieces being towed along by horses and infantrymen for want
of vehicles. Now and then Nazi planes would appear from nowhere, strafing
the road, pouring out lead, and dropping bombs. They would fly so low that
I was frightened they would hit me in the head. In fact, some of the crew
would lean out of the cockpit and open up with their Schmeisser burp guns.
This would happen several times each day. The horror all of us experienced
is indescribable; it has be to experienced. And the regular air raids.
As bombs are howling down everyone on the ground is sure one of them will
land right where the victim is trying to hide.

Let me tell you a short wartime story. I lived through the war, including
the Nazi occupation, in a small village in Donetsk oblast. Of course, I
vividly remember the Nazi New Order. It was under that order that I could
finish school - four grades being considered enough for the Untermenschen.
I remember watching the school-opening ceremony (September 1, 1942) with
the Nazi-appointed schoolmaster standing in front of the entrance, addressing
the final grade students with bitter solemnity: "You can go home, children,
your education has been completed." At the time we had no radios or newspapers,
not a single source of information about what was happening elsewhere in
the world. We did not know about the battle of Stalingrad, but in the summer
of 1943, after two endless years under the Nazis, one and all felt that
something had changed, drastically. Toward the end of August word flashed
through the village that two Soviet soldiers had been spotted at the Kamiana
Balka ravine.

The news had a shattering effect. Unbelievable! I decided I had to make
sure. Without telling anyone at home I went to the ravine, careful to pick
my way back of village homes and kitchen gardens, then through the local
graveyard. The day was cloudless and pleasantly warm. There was scarce
underbrush on the sides of the ravine, here and there showing glimpses
of autumnal gold. The dry grass rustled underfoot. And it was dead quiet.
It was some time before I noticed I had been walking behind a line of soldiers
armed with submachine guns. The soldiers were lying on the crest of the
ravine, waiting for the signal to attack, hiding behind bushes or rocks.
Several minutes later they would be ordered to move and the whole village
would hear the sounds of combat.

I saw that the soldiers wore Nazi uniforms and I felt that all their
guns were aimed at me. Suddenly my feet were made of lead, unable to take
another step. I forgot which way to run. It was then one of the soldiers
nearest me shouted at me in German, "Verlab von hier aus! Schnell!
Get out of here! Run!" This made me regain my senses. I turned and ran,
feeling I was a clear easy target for all those guns. And then the shooting
began. The noise was deafening. We sat in our cellars listening to it and
trembling. That evening a Soviet unit entered the village.

About a hundred German and Soviet officers and men died in that battle
by the Kamiana Balka ravine. We buried those wearing Soviet uniforms in
the local cemetery, mounting small cardboard obelisks topped by five-pointed
stars by way of gravestones. The German bodies were thrown into a pit dug
for storing manure before the war. There may have been among them the soldier
who had saved my life, caring for a silly little village girl's safety
at the most dramatic moment when all senses are supposed to be concentrated
on the task at hand: bringing death to one's fellow human beings.

By Klara GUDZYK, The Day

 

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