Hope's War

by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch

  "Don't ask, just vote," said the commissar.

  Danylo took the ballot from the commissar's outstretched hand, ripped it in two, and strode out of the building.

  That night, Danylo was awakened by a loud banging. His father got up to answer the door, but before he could even get to it, it was smashed open and two Soviet secret police — the NKVD — stepped in. One grabbed Danylo by the hair and dragged him outside. His mother ran after him and tried to beat one of the police with her fists, but he swatted her away as if she were no more than a fly. Danylo's father ran out and grabbed his wife and dragged her back in.

  One of the police punched Danylo repeatedly in the face, while the other kicked him in the abdomen. "When we say vote, you vote," they said.

  After they left, his parents carried him back inside and his mother washed the blood from his face.

  In the newspaper the next morning, the headlines announced, "Communists win overwhelming majority!"

  In some ways that first beating was what saved Danylo's life. The next day, Danylo and his sister dug a hiding place deep beneath the barn. The entry was hidden under a pile of manure behind the garden. From then on, Danylo and his family slept in this safe but aromatic refuge each night.

  Danylo wasn't the only one to be beaten or dragged off in the middle of the night, and so the initial hope of the villagers for the Soviets was quickly replaced with fear. There were some villagers who profited from the Soviet occupation, however. These were the kind who would denounce their neighbours to get ahead. It was the thugs and the bullies who ruled the day. Starting in September 1939, the NKVD, with local collaborators, rounded up all of the people who had been leaders within the Ukrainian community. They were loaded into cattle cars and shipped off to Siberia. Sometimes, in a fit of efficiency, the newly arrested were simply shot. By April 1940, a new wave of terror had arrived. Vast numbers of people were arrested and shipped off. No one was safe. The NKVD would walk into people's homes at night and arbitrarily arrest whoever they found. The best and the brightest were taken, and had it not been for the Feschuks' hiding place, they too would have been taken away. Then one night, Kataryna mysteriously disappeared.

  But as bad as it was, the worst was yet to come. On June 22nd, 1941, the Nazis, who up until that time had been collaborating with the Soviets, suddenly launched a blitzkrieg against the Soviet Union. As the NKVD and Commissars fled, a scorched earth policy was instituted in Soviet Ukraine. The NKVD tried to carry off everything that they could and burn what they couldn't — whole factories, food, machinery, equipment. But that wasn't enough for them. They didn't want to leave people behind who were not staunch Communists, so they arrested even more people. The NKVD would leave tractor engines running all night to muffle the screams of prisoners. As Danylo and his parents huddled in their hiding place, they could only imagine the horrors outside.

  And so, as the Soviets slashed and burned and stole and retreated, they evacuated high ranking Communist officials to safety. They also evacuated many professionals whose skills could be of service to Stalin. Left behind to meet the Nazis were the anti-Communist Ukrainians who had somehow managed to survive. Also left behind were the old, the feeble, and the children. They were abandoned by the Soviets without food, without weapons, and without means of protecting themselves.

  Danylo and his parents stayed hidden under the barn as long as they could. Even after they ran out of food, they were still afraid to come out. It wasn't until Danylo's mother became ill that he or his father even considered seeking food.

  The horror of finding the body of his father amongst so many others that he knew was terrible, but the worst was still to come. When the Nazis arrived, people came out of hiding. Danylo's mother even greeted them with relief. How could the Nazis possibly be worse than the Soviets?

  But the Nazis set up administrative offices in the same buildings that had been evacuated by the Soviets. And then they went from house to house and chose people to help them. Of Danylo, they asked that he be an auxiliary policeman, but he refused. They came the next day, and he refused again.

  The next night, there was a tapping on their door, and when Danylo answered it, Kataryna stood there. Danylo was astonished to see his sister alive. "How can this be?" Danylo asked in wonder.

  "I've joined the OUN — the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists," explained Kataryna. "When the time is right, we will fight the Nazis, but right now, we must let them think we're working with them."

  "I can't work with them," declared Danylo. "They're no better than the Communists."

  "You'll do what I say, brother, or I will shoot you myself."

  Danylo was taken aback by this talk, but he noticed that as his sister made this statement, she drew a pistol from her jacket and she was pointing it to the dirt floor of the cottage.

  "Take the job as an auxiliary policeman," Kataryna ordered. "You and others will infiltrate the Nazi administration to gain weapons and information. When the time is right, you will kill the Nazis and join us in the forests."

  Danylo knew better than to argue.

  The next day, he was issued an armband, a pistol and two bullets.

  As the days passed, a putrid stench began to fill all of the administrative buildings that had been abandoned by the Soviets. Danylo and the other local boys with auxiliary police armbands were ordered to open up the basements of the buildings and locate the source of the stench. The doors had been padlocked from the outside and the locks had to be shot off or sawed through because the keys could not be found. When Danylo opened up the first door, he covered his mouth in horror at the sight that awaited him. Dozens of mutilated bodies were stacked on top of each other, rotting and maggot-ridden. The retreating Soviets had not been content to simply kill the Ukrainian resistance fighters who were left behind: they had tortured them beyond recognition. Although his father was dead, Danylo was thankful that he had merely been shot.

  The Nazis saw this horrific tragedy as an opportunity to garner support. They ordered the bodies to be taken out of the dungeons and basements and lined up along the main street. Bodies were also found in the fields. It was hard to imagine how many people had been killed in those last days of Soviet occupation.

  The mothers and the wives and the daughters came to identify their sons and husbands and brothers. Men and boys, too young or too old to fight, came to view the bodies too.

  Husbands and sons and brothers and lovers and neighbours lay dead and mutilated in a row. The sight was too much to bear.

  As the survivors grieved, a black-uniformed SS officer walked up and down the street, viewing the spectacle with satisfaction.

  "You know who did this?" he whispered as he passed a grieving woman.

  And then he marched out a group of Jews and half a dozen Communists who were too unimportant to have warranted evacuation with their comrades.

  "It's these vermin who are to blame," said the officer.

  One of the men shook his head fearfully, knowing what the officer was trying to do. "I did nothing," the man protested.

  Then the officer turned to Danylo.

  "I will leave it to you to punish these murderers."

  Danylo stood there in shock. He looked at the mutilated corpses lined up in front of him and he looked at the grieving villagers. And then he looked at the pitiful group of scapegoats.

  He knew that if he didn't mete out punishment, an SS officer with a fully loaded gun would be brought in. Plus he would blow his cover. But what could he do?

  As he stood there trying to decide, the grieving villagers began to chant, "Kill them! Kill them! Kill them!"

  "Get down on the ground," he ordered, pointing his pistol at the group.

  The Nazi officer smiled with satisfaction when he saw that his orders were being carried out. He pulled out a gold pocket watch and noted that it was almost time for a nice hot cup of tea. He walked away, leaving the dirty work to the Ukrainian boy.

  When Danylo saw through the corner of his eye that
the officer was no longer watching him, he pointed his pistol to a tree beyond the people lying on the ground and a single shot rang out. The villagers, stunned by the noise, stopped their chanting. The men lying on the ground groaned in fear of what was to come.

  Then Danylo said in a firm voice, "One hundred push-ups, now."

  Danylo was startled from his memories by a light tapping at the bedroom door.

  "May I come in?" A sliver of Kat's face was peering through a crack in the door.

  Danylo took a deep breath to calm himself, and then he grabbed a handkerchief from his pocket and quickly wiped the tears from his face. He did not want Kat to see how sad he was.

  "Come in, zolota zhabka," he said.

  Kat pushed the door open with her shoulder and walked in. She was carrying a tray that held a steaming mug of tea and a grilled cheese sandwich. "I thought you might be hungry," she said. "Besides, you made me breakfast, so I figured I should make you lunch."

  A sad smile formed on Danylo's lips. It was so kind of Kataryna to think of him, even though the last thing he wanted to do right now was to eat.

  "Thank you," he said. "Set it down and I will eat it in a moment."

  CHAPTER16

  MR. VINCENT'S DESK was set in front of a magnificent old-fashioned bay window that looked upon the heavily treed Prince Arthur Street in all its autumn finery. He motioned for Danylo and Orysia to sit down in the deeply cushioned leather chairs that were placed before his desk. After a few pleasantries, he got down to business.

  "You're probably wondering what sort of information the government has accumulated against you," Mr. Vincent said, looking at Danylo.

  Mr. Vincent opened a thick file on his desk and then pulled out a pair of reading glasses from his pocket. "It says here that the RCMP visited your birth village of Orelets in Volhyn in 1992 and again in 1994 in order to interview the villagers about your activities during the war."

  Danylo nodded in acknowledgement. "That's good," he said. "They should talk to people who were there, and would understand what it was like back then."

  Mr. Vincent gave Danylo a puzzled look, and then flipped through a few more layers of paper. "Well, Mr. Feschuk, it seems that the RCMP were able to find two people who will testify that you collaborated with the Nazis."

  "What?" exclaimed Danylo with surprise. "Who? And what did they say I was supposed to have done?"

  "One will testify that you threatened local Jews. Another will testily that you collaborated with the imprisonment of Soviet prisoners of war."

  "Those are lies," said Danylo.

  "And that's what we have to demonstrate," said Mr. Vincent.

  Orysia asked, "Has the hearing date been set?"

  "Yes," said Mr. Vincent. "It will begin on January 11th."

  "How many villagers did they contact altogether?" asked Orysia.

  "I'm not exactly sure," said Mr. Vincent. "But they would have attempted to interview every single resident who is still alive and who lived there during the war."

  "Do they also have a list of residents who will testify in my father's defence?" she asked.

  "That wasn't their mandate," Mr. Vincent replied. "They were only interested in the people who would testify against him."

  "I would have thought they'd be interested in finding the truth," said Orysia.

  Mr. Vincent closed the file in front of him and folded his arms on the desk. "It's not fair," he said. "But we can make it more fair."

  "How?" asked Orysia.

  "The defence can also interview all of those surviving villagers."

  "How do we do that?" asked Orysia.

  "We would have to fly to Ukraine with an interpreter to interview them. Then we would have to fly the defence witnesses to Canada."

  "Wouldn't that cost a fortune?" asked Danylo.

  "It will be expensive," said Mr. Vincent. "But probably worth it."

  "How much would this cost?" asked Danylo.

  "The defence would have to pay air fare, accommodation, food and incidental expenses for the witnesses who come here to testify," explained Mr. Vincent. "You're looking at about $40,000 if you get six or seven good witnesses."

  "Then we've lost before we've begun," said Danylo. "I don't have that kind of money." Indeed, $40,000 was more than Danylo had ever made in a year.

  Orysia looked at her father. She knew what he was thinking. She also knew that by mortgaging both their own house and her father's house, they could borrow about $150,000, meaning there would still be $110,000 left for the trial. How would they ever pay it back? Orysia couldn't let herself think of that. Her father was innocent.

  "Do you have any idea how much this whole proceeding might cost?" asked Orysia.

  "The government spends several million dollars on each one of these cases," said Mr. Vincent. "To forge an adequate defence, you could easily spend one million." Mr. Vincent then looked into Danylo's eyes. "This is not a proceeding to step into lightly."

  "But what other choice do I have?" asked Danylo.

  "You could leave voluntarily," replied Mr. Vincent.

  "But then it will be assumed that I am guilty," said Danylo angrily. "This is crazy."

  Even so, Danylo thought to himself, how could he ask his family to take on such a huge burden? How could one man fight the whole government? Yet if he didn't fight, he would be branded a war criminal. Worse yet, his family and community would be reviled. He had no idea what he should do. He looked over at Orysia and was surprised to see a look of cool determination on her face.

  Orysia met her father's eyes and nodded slightly. Then she turned to Mr. Vincent and said, "Please make arrangements for an approved translator, yourself, and whomever else should travel to Ukraine. And of course, I will accompany you."

  CHAPTER 17

  IT WAS A snowy Monday in early December by the time Lisa, Kat and Ian could get together after school to test out different ways to hang the parachute onto the maroon velvet curtains. Preparing for the winter concert was a welcome respite for Kat. Her grandfather's hearing had been set for January 11th, and the winter concert was set for January 25th.

  "I love this stuff," said Lisa, crushing the parachute material to her face and breathing in deeply. "After the concert, can I have this? Maybe I can make a dress."

  "I don't mind," said Ian. "Unless Kat wants it."

  Kat shook her head and smiled. "Not my style."

  The parachute was large enough that they could drape it in three huge loose scallops and still have some material to spare. Kat and Lisa practised pinning it up and pulling it down while Ian timed them. Once they got the knack, it took less than a minute each way.

  As Kat and Ian and Lisa waited for the late bus, Kat remembered that she had brought something for Lisa. She reached into her knapsack and pulled out a zip-lock bag of what looked like dried animal droppings.

  Ian wrinkled his nose in disgust. "What is that?"

  But Lisa knew right away. "Are these some of the mushrooms that you dried by yourself?" she asked excitedly.

  Kat nodded.

  Lisa took the bag and opened it a tiny bit, then breathed in deeply. "Oh, they smell wonderful. My grandmother will be in heaven." She sealed it back up, then gave Kat a big hug. "Thanks."

  "If you're interested," said Kat, "come over to my house some time and I'll show you the contraption my father rigged up to dry them in."

  "Sounds good," said Lisa.

  Kat finished writing her last mid-term exam at noon on the Friday before Christmas. She clicked shut her school locker with a sigh after dumping her books in and grabbing her winter coat out. She had a feeling that she had bombed most of her exams. She had tried to study, truly she had, but the words just swam in front of her. The same thing happened while she was trying to write them. She would read through the questions and her mind would go blank. The worst was today's math exam. If she broke 50%, she'd be lucky.

  Kat pulled on her coat and shoved her hands into the pockets. In her rush to catch the bus this
morning, she hadn't brought gloves, and it was bitterly cold outside.

  Just as she walked out, she saw her bus pull up. There were only two kids boarding, so it left quickly. No time to flag it down. And there wouldn't be another bus for fifteen minutes.

  She shoved her hands further into her pockets with a shiver, and walked to the bus shelter.

  She thought of all that had happened in the last few months. Her father had been transferred out of the country. Mayfair Industrial had been afraid of the notoriety of Danylo's upcoming hearing, and so they gave her father a choice: He could either work a desk on the inside and receive no commission until the attention died down, or he could break new sales territory for their new office in Oregon. He would get full pay, travel expenses and commission. Kat understood his decision to temporarily relocate. After all, they desperately needed the money. However, she missed her father very much.

  Her mother was back from Ukraine, and her father had come back from Oregon for four days over American Thanksgiving. Kat had been looking forward to some normal family time, but instead spent that weekend listening to her parents argue as they took out their frustrations on each other.

  Her mother had triumphantly come home from Ukraine with the news that most people in the village would testify favourably towards Dido. The two who refused wouldn't even look her in the eyes; they just walked away in angered silence. Orysia had felt the trip was well worth it. Had she not gone over, the only eyewitness testimony would have come from those two who were the ones who were already testifying for the prosecution.

  Kat's father was furious when he found out it would cost upwards of $50,000 to transport and accommodate eleven witnesses for the hearing. "Are you crazy?" he had asked. "You're digging us deep in a hole of debt."

  Orysia's eyes stared at her husband coldly.