Hope's War

by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch

  On a sketchpad, Kat quickly drew the outlines of a few ideas she had swirling in her head. She wanted one or two of her eggs to be fairly traditional, but she wanted to combine the old symbols in a new way. She experimented with a motif of dots, symbolizing the Virgin's tears, and waves, symbolizing immigration, but then she scratched that out. Stylized sheaves of wheat? No. Too typical. Kat tried to think of Easter eggs she'd seen when she was younger. She remembered the first time she had seen swastikas on a Ukrainian Easter egg. She was barely seven years old. Her grandparents had taken Kat and Genya to a travelling exhibit that had come to the Ukrainian community centre and some of the eggs were from the 1800s.

  "Look at that pretty egg," she had said to her grandparents, pointing to a red and white pysanka decorated with a broad band of yellow and black stylized crosses. The label in front of it stated that it had been made in 1882.

  "That used to be pretty, but not any more," replied her grandfather.

  Kat looked up, startled by the anger in his voice.

  "Those crosses, the ‘swastika' used to mean the wheel of life. It is ancient: thousands of years old."

  "What do they mean now, Dido?" Kat had asked.

  "Death," he replied huskily. "Death and hate. They shouldn't even display those eggs."

  Even at that age it had startled Kat to think that something out of context could cause such pain.

  She tried to reconcile this thought of Dido's reaction to the swastikas many years ago and what she had heard at the hearing. Her grandfather was repulsed at a visceral level. Yet he had worked for the Nazis. It didn't make sense.

  Kat turned her attention back to her egg. She gave up on trying to sketch something altogether. "I'll just write on the egg and see where it takes me."

  Kat struck a match and then lit the small stub of a candle that was nestled in a pool of hardened wax inside the lid of a peanut butter jar. She grabbed the red-handled kistka from the TV tray and stuck the metal tip into the flame. She had three different kistkas.The red-handled one had the thickest nib and she used it to write the broad outlines of designs. It was also good for filling in broad areas of colour. The blue handled kistka had a narrower nib, and the white had the narrowest of all. So narrow, in fact, that it kept getting clogged with soot from the candle. Kat had bought a metal wire finer than baby hair at the Arka store to clean it out with.

  When the tip of the red-handled kistka was blackened and warm, she dipped the head into her cake of beeswax, then blotted it on a paper towel to make sure it didn't drip. Then swiftly, without even thinking of what or where the kistka would take her, she began blocking out sections with broad swift lines of blackened beeswax upon the egg.

  She looked down at her egg and realized that she had blocked off the traditional pattern of forty triangles. There were a number of classic base patterns to a pysanka and one of the most difficult to do freehand was the forty triangles. Kat had never done it before without drawing the outline lightly in pencil first. She was amazed at the steadiness of her hands. I guess it pays not to be trying too hard, she thought to herself.

  She set the egg down on a dishtowel and opened up the jar of red dye. With a teaspoon, she dipped the egg in gingerly, then resealed the jar. This one would sit till tomorrow.

  "I'll start one more today," she said to herself, drawn to a beautifully smooth creamy white egg that seemed more oblong than the others. Since she had so much success writing freehand before, she decided to try it again, only this time with the blue-handled kistka.

  As she heated the tip over the candle flame, Kat thought back to the testimony she had heard. Nothing she had heard had implicated her grandfather. But she was curious about why he would have become an auxiliary police officer in the first place? What could he possibly have been thinking of? Why hadn't he simply run away? She almost feared what he would testify.

  Kat looked down at the egg she was currently working on and was startled to see that she had blocked the egg with a band down the middle and then another band perpendicular to it. It was like a motif of crosses. Behind the crosses, Kat had begun to draw a cross-hatch pattern: a fine mesh. This was a classic pattern and symbolic of a fisherman's net. Could it also be symbolic of the net that was closing in around her grandfather?

  She blew out the candle, then set the egg down on the dish-towel. She opened up the mason jar of brilliant yellow, then gently plopped in the egg with a fresh teaspoon. Sealing the lid back up, she set the jar beside the one with the red dye. "I can hardly wait to see what you two eggs look like tomorrow," she said to herself.

  CHAPTER 29

  THE NEXT FOUR days saw more witnesses for the plaintiff. First on the stand was a retired immigration officer. Mr. Conrad Draycott had been stationed as a screening officer in Karlsruhe, Germany from 1948 to 1952. During those years, Mr. Draycott screened thousands of Eastern European displaced persons who wanted to immigrate to Canada.

  Mrs. Caine began the questions. "Mr. Draycott, can you tell me how you went about deciding who could come into Canada and who was to be screened out?"

  Mr. Draycott had an oblong face and a surprisingly full head of steel grey hair. While his arms and legs were long and lanky, the man also sported a substantial stomach, and in order to accommodate this, the waist of his navy blue trousers settled between his chest and navel, and his tie was tucked into his leather belt.

  "Canada had an urgent need for farm labour after the war," explained Mr. Draycott.

  "Were there any screening procedures in place to keep certain people out?" asked Mrs. Caine.

  "With the huge backlog of refugees, it was difficult, but we did the best we could. Almost certainly some undesirables were able to sneak through. One or more of the following elements would have made a prospective immigrant unsuitable: If the person was a Communist, a member of the SS, a member of the Nazi Party, a criminal, a professional gambler, a prostitute, a black market racketeer, if the person was evasive during questioning, did not have acceptable documents, used a fictitious name, was a collaborator presently residing in previously occupied territory, a member of the Mafia or of the Italian Fascist Party, a Trotskyite or member of another revolutionary organization."

  Mrs. Caine walked over to where Danylo was sitting and pointed at him. "Would you have let this man into the country had you been the one screening him?" she asked.

  Mr. Draycott turned to look at Danylo and knitted his brows. "Under what grounds are you thinking, Mrs. Caine?"

  "As someone who committed crimes against the local population on behalf of the Nazis," she replied.

  "These people were ‘collaborators' and were specifically barred from obtaining entry into Canada," he said.

  "So a person who committed crimes against the local population would be barred from gaining Canadian citizenship?"

  "That is correct," said Mr. Draycott.

  "No more questions," said Mrs. Caine.

  Mr. Vincent got to his feet.

  "Mr. Draycott," he began. "Mr. Feschuk was a member of the auxiliary police force in the Ukrainian province of Volhyn from 1941 until 1943. If he told you that during his security screening, would that have barred him from entering Canada?"

  "Not on those grounds. Was he a member of the SS?" asked Mr. Draycott.

  "No," said Mr. Vincent.

  "Did he bear the SS tattoo?"

  "No," said Mr. Vincent.

  "Was he a member of the Nazi Party?"

  "No."

  Mr. Draycott shook his head. "Simply being a local auxiliary police officer would not be considered collaboration."

  "What would be considered collaboration, then?" asked Mr. Vincent.

  "As I said to Mrs. Caine, if Mr. Feschuk had committed crimes against the civilian population, he would be considered a collaborator."

  "How would you determine that?" asked Mr. Vincent.

  "People like that were shunned by the other Displaced Persons," said Mr. Draycott. "But mostly, we would base the judgement on the personal intervie
w."

  "Thank you Mr. Draycott. I have no more questions."

  The next witnesses were much the same as the first. Another immigration officer, a medical officer. Each would speak of who would and who would not have been let into Canada immediately after the war.

  As Kat listened, she was troubled by the fact that month to month and year to year, there were subtle changes in who was allowed in and who wasn't. It also troubled her that Danylo's immigration papers had not been brought forward as evidence. Surely if he was being accused of misrepresenting himself, the government could settle the matter by showing the papers? But all the immigration papers from just after the war had been destroyed. One clerk testified that this wasn't malice on the part of the government, it was routine housekeeping. It left Kat to wonder at how this hearing could even be, with no surviving paperwork and no witnesses.

  After the last immigration officer testified, the plaintiff rested the government's case. "To sum up," said Mrs. Caine. "We have heard testimony that Mr. Danylo Feschuk collaborated with the Nazis in Reichcommissariat Ukraine from 1941 until 1943 in his role as an auxiliary police officer. We have heard testimony about the atrocities committed by Ukrainian auxiliary police in World War II. We have also heard testimony that had Mr. Feschuk disclosed his involvement in these crimes, he would not have been given Canadian citizenship. The fact that he gained Canadian citizenship proves that he lied to security officials during screening procedures.

  "Some may try to minimize Mr. Feschuk's collaboration, saying he was forced into it. However, I want you to consider this: if a man betrays the country of his birth, what stops him from betraying his country of adoption?

  "Mr. Danylo Feschuk's citizenship should be stripped and he should be deported."

  Kat sat there, stunned.

  CHAPTER 30

  WHEN THE BALIUKS arrived home, Kat checked the mail, but found no hate mail. There had been a few pieces of hate mail since that first one, but now everyone knew what to do. As soon as they were opened and their contents revealed, they were dumped into a zip-lock bag and the police were notified. Several good prints had already been found.

  While the hate mail was upsetting to Danylo, what upset him even more was the "fan" mail. Twice in the last week, Danylo had received letters from neo-Nazis extending their support. The writers of these "fan" letters mistakenly believed that her grandfather was a Nazi and they idolized him for it.

  Kat remembered when the first such letter arrived. She had found her grandfather sitting on the sofa, a letter in hand. His face was almost purple with anger.

  "What's the matter, Dido?" she had asked.

  "This piece of garbage," he said, holding out the letter for her to see. "A fool is thanking me for my work in the name of Hitler. What kind of a nut would think Hitler was a good guy?"

  Thankfully, these letters were few and far between, and in this particular stack, there were none. What was in this stack, however, were letters of support. Some of the letters came from fellow Ukrainian immigrants who, like Danylo, had come from a village that was right on the front, but what warmed Kat's heart the most were the letters from Canadian-born citizens who were simply appalled by a process that could strip citizenship on the basis of unproven evidence.

  Kat had her own case of unproven evidence to atone for. Michael had still not returned her phone calls. She felt awful about what had happened, but she couldn't quite understand why he was so angry with her. She had not accused him of doing the graffiti, and she had not called the police. All she had done was witness his arrest. What had he expected her to do?

  She picked up the phone and called one last time. This time, Michael picked up.

  She was momentarily at a loss for words because she had expected to get an answering machine again. "Hi Michael, it's Kat," she said.

  "Hi," he replied in a flat voice.

  "Look," said Kat. "I am really sorry for what happened. I wish it didn't happen at all, but I don't know why you're so mad at me about it."

  "I'm not, really," said Michael. "I'm sad about it, not mad about it."

  "Can you come over, and maybe we can talk?"

  "Sure," he said. "Hold on for a minute." Kat could hear the muffled sound of a hand over the speaker of a phone.

  "My dad has to drop some papers off at your house after supper tonight. He said he could drive me over at the same time." "That would be great," said Kat. She was very relieved.

  When Mr. Vincent came over, he and Kat's mother and grandfather took over the kitchen table with an assortment of files and clippings. Michael stood awkwardly in the living room, looking on.

  "I'll just grab a couple of sodas and then we can go downstairs and I'll show you what I was working on," said Kat.

  "Okay," said Michael.

  Kat was relieved to see a faint smile on his lips.

  Kat had brought a spare lawn chair into the basement so Michael would have a place to sit. Since the trial began, she had come downstairs almost every single evening to work on her eggs. She had completed seven already, and there were three more in various stages of completion.

  Michael sat down on the lawn chair that faced Kat's working area. "Wow," he said. "You made all of those?"

  "Yep," said Kat. She picked up the one she was most proud of: the forty triangle pysanka she had written freehand, and she put it in Michael's hand.

  "It's still got the egg guts in it," said Michael. "Is it hard boiled?"

  "No," said Kat. "You have to use raw eggs."

  "Why?"

  "Boiling them would ruin the finish, and the dye wouldn't take properly."

  "Then how do you get the egg out once it's all done?" asked Michael.

  "You don't have to," said Kat. "Traditionally, you're supposed to leave the egg guts in. They dry on their own. Also, traditionally, to take the guts out is to kill the egg. An egg is a symbol of life and hope and good wishes, so some think it turns the symbol around if you take the insides out of it."

  "Hmm," said Michael. "I didn't know that." He set down the forty triangles pysanka and picked up another. This one had an intricate design. "This is beautiful," he said.

  "I made it for you," said Kat.

  Michael looked up, surprised and a bit embarrassed. "I can't take this," he said. "It is too precious."

  "Pysanky are made to be given," said Kat. "It is like a wish or a prayer that you give to someone else."

  Michael smiled. "Thank you," he said.

  "So," Kat said, grinning back. "Would you like me to teach you how to make your own pysanky?"

  His smile broke into a broad grin. "I would love it," he said.

  CHAPTER 31

  DANYLO'S DEFENCE BEGAN on Friday, January 18th with an opening statement by Mr. Vincent.

  "The plaintiff has put forward the theory that Mr. Danylo Feschuk collaborated with the Nazis in Reichcommissariat Ukraine from 1941 until 1943 in his role as an auxiliary police officer. However, it should be noted that the plaintiff did not present a single person who witnessed atrocities committed by Mr. Feschuk. In fact, the plaintiff presented no eyewitnesses to atrocities carried out by Ukrainian auxiliary police at all.

  "The court might wonder how Mr. Feschuk was targeted with this accusation in the first place. In the 1970s, a package of material was brought forward by the Soviet Secret Police — the KGB — on behalf of the Soviet government. The RCMP followed up on that information, and drew up a list of people to investigate.

  "One might ask what the motivation was for the KGB to do this? Why did the list contain not a single Russian, in spite of the fact that the Soviet Union openly collaborated with Nazi Germany from 1939 until 1941? Why did the list contain not a single German citizen, in spite of the fact that only German citizens could join the Nazi party? All of the people on the list were from Eastern European countries. These were the same countries who fought Communism, but were forcibly annexed to the Soviet Union after World War II. Was the Soviet Union trying to deflect attention from their own war crimes
?

  "Mrs. Caine has not been able to present a single piece of evidence to personally implicate Mr. Feschuk in atrocities. She bases her case on German documents which occasionally implicate Ukrainian auxiliary police. I will bring forward an expert witness who will provide German documents that paint a different picture.

  "Mrs. Caine has stated that Mr. Feschuk lied during immigration proceedings, yet she has provided no evidence to back that claim.

  "In her closing statement, Mrs. Caine asks, ‘if a man betrays the country of his birth, what stops him from betraying his country of adoption?'

  "This is a key question. Mr. Feschuk's country of birth was Ukraine. I will show that Mr. Feschuk was a patriot.

  "I call my first witness," continued Mr. Vincent after pausing. "Professor John Thompson of the University of Toronto, author of Modern Ukraine: 1900 - 2000."

  Professor Thompson was a slim small man with tiny round glasses and greying curly hair, which he wore gelled and combed away from his face. He walked over to the witness stand and sat down, then adjusted the microphone so that it was close to his mouth.

  Kat sat up to listen. She was very familiar with this man's name. Many of Professor Thompson's books graced her parents' bookshelves, but she had never read one herself.

  Kat learned that when Hitler invaded Ukraine in 1941, there were many Ukrainians who welcomed the Nazis, believing they were being liberated from the Soviet Terror that had seen millions of Ukrainians go missing.

  But the Nazis turned out to be as bad as the Soviets. Five million forced labourers from various countries were sent to Germany — half of them were Ukrainian. They were known as the Ostarbeiter and were identified by the OST badge they were forced to wear on their clothing. The goal was to literally work these labourers to death, and they succeeded at a rate of 40,000 a month.