by Leila Gheit                                  

Rare 1943 Nazi Map of the Ukraine usmbooks.com

Ever since we were little, my sister and I begged my grandmother to tell us stories about the war. There is a lot to tell; as a teenager growing up in the Ukraine during WWII, her memories are vivid. Some are funny, many are sad, but they always remind me that what she describes took place just two generations ago, and that under slightly altered circumstances her past could have been my own.

My grandmother was born in Khodoriv, a small town in the Polish half of what is now the Ukraine. She describes it as a beautiful town near a lake, surrounded by thick forests with a river that ran past her house. Her life was pleasant and simple; going swimming in the summer, taking piano and dance lessons.

Rare 1943 Nazi map of the Ukraine

The German soldiers she encountered during the occupation were polite, clean, orderly and good-looking. They wore immaculate uniforms and had perpetually shiny boots. They were heading east, towards what would later culminate in the disastrous German defeat at Stalingrad. After them came the Gestapo; they were similarly behaved and dressed and always wore helmets. Their purpose was to deal with the Jews. In 1940 a small ghetto was set up in one corner of the town, and all Jews except doctors, dentists, pharmacists (people whose services the Germans could use) were contained inside. A classmate of my grandmother’s, Flora, was allowed to remain outside because her father was a doctor, and therefore she, her mother and little brother were also exempt. One day, however, the Gestapo came to their house. They ignored the certificate identifying them as a doctor’s family and took them anyway because they had a quota to fill. Flora’s father came running to the railroad station where the cattle cars were waiting, still wearing his white coat from the hospital and yelling for his family to be released.

German Enzion Division in Ukraine usm.books.com

My great-grandmother used to say that she was sorry for the Germans because of the job they had to do. There were thick woods near Khodoriv, the border of which was in my family’s backyard. It was well-known that many Jews hid there. One day my great-grandmother heard boots approaching the house, and in Polish, a voice yelled, “Don’t be afraid! Don’t be afraid!” It was a group of German soldiers. They asked her to make them scrambled eggs, bread and butter. She saw one of them take a flask of liquor from his coat and when he caught her eye, said, “We must drink the whole bottle.” When she asked why he replied, “Because we have to look for Jews. Sober, we can’t do it.”

In 1944, after the defeat at Stalingrad, the Germans began retreating. This time as they passed through the town, they were dirty and depressed. The Russians were now pushing west, and my family also decided to move west because they did not want to fall under Communism. At this time Germany was practically disappearing under American bombs. My grandmother remembers how the so-called “targets” they were supposed to aim for (factories, railroads, sites of military importance etc.) were just pretense. At Chemnitz, a railway station along the route to Munich, it was so light you could read a newspaper at night because of the flames from Dresden. The bombing of Dresden came about simply because it was reputed to be the most beautiful city in Germany.

My grandmother passed through Slovakia on her journey west with her mother, her aunt and uncle and little cousin. Her father was to come later on another train. The retreating Germans arranged for all Slovak families near the Polish border to take in refugees from the east who were fleeing the Russians.

Life among occupied Ukrainians Coppermine Photo Gallery

In Slovakia, the female refugees worked in the fields digging potatoes. They wore long skirts and babushkas in order to be disguised as locals. My grandmother remembers seeing two Russian parachutists leading three men into the woods. A Slovak woman working nearby whispered for her to keep her head down and not look at them. But she did, and recognized one of the men as a Ukrainian priest who had traveled with them. Moments later, they heard three shots. That evening as they were walking home from the fields, my grandmother and her uncle were approached by two men—the parachutists who had killed the men in the woods earlier. They asked them where they lived. Were there Germans there? Ukrainians? They forced them to admit that they were in fact Ukrainians. They then asked, “Why are you running away from your home?” My grandmother replied, “Because you’re bombing us on the east, and the Germans are bombing us on the west.” It was a no-mans land between two political ideologies and two sides of Europe. They were in the middle.

Another unpleasant reality was that many girls were raped by Russian soldiers and partisans. It was a by-product of the lawlessness of war, the breakdown of humanity. In Slovakia, my grandmother’s host family advised her to keep indoors at night and sometimes made her sleep in the barn among the chickens so she wouldn’t be dragged out of the house.

Soviet forces in Ukraine Coppermine Photo Gallery

My understanding of my grandmother’s stories is that when it comes down to it, there are no sides in war. There is nothing fair or righteous about destruction. People are cruel or kind whether history makes them heroes or villains. There were good Germans and Russians and bad Germans and Russians just as there were good Americans and bad Americans. Some Ukrainian families took in Jews, only to be discovered and sent to the camps along with them. Others betrayed their neighbors out of hatred or fear. Some German soldiers passing through told my grandmother they were afraid and didn’t want to fight. They weren’t all Nazis, they were scared young kids. Everyone has a story about their war, the one they witnessed and survived. People are people, and war is about them.

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