Deportations from the Region of Chernivci (Ukraine) and Edinets District (Moldova)

destroyed the houses and the auxiliary constructions, and forcibly resettled to Donbass and to Khersones. Those men lived there. During the Soviet Union, when I once came back from the seaside through those villages, I saw crosses of our type, I saw houses of our type. People told me – here nobody would tell You anything. What You took from the Kolkhoz, nobody would ask You if you brought this or if you brought it with bags. Nobody [would ask you]. The people were solitary and they didn’t see each other.

- Did somebody return after this forced movement?

- Usually they didn’t come back from Siberia. One guy was taken to Donbass. He had no work. The chief of the village’s Council sent him to Donbass, he got married there and died there. He lived not far from me, was my neighbour.

- What happened during the years of war?

- The Moskals had partisans and against them fought the banderists of UPA. UPA began to go against the Moskals. We didn’t have UPA in the village, but they hid themselves here, because here was silence. By night they [the banderists – A/N] went through villages and took the collaborators and liquidated them. But their number diminished. In ’46, I worked at the railroad junction. Being young guys, we went in the evening to dances and arrived home at 2 o’clock. Mother said – “where have you disappeared”?

The telephone rang up and we were called to the station. I went with my colleague from work. The train was waiting. There were three armed men with red epaulettes. We took the instruments and went, because in Snyatin was no connection. We sat down in Vorchintsy and from there we went further and arrived to the bridge. And there was silence, because on the bridge was the connection from Snyatin. One guard was looking around.

Everything was silent. We went passing Zavalyn, and there the wires were suspended like a guitar’s strings. The train stopped. We united the wires.

And the train went to Snyatin, and after that, to Kolomiya. And there we also stopped. We knew that the banderists had done that, but they could also kill us. After that, we went to Snyatin. And then, we went home. The chief of the station lived at the station. Somebody wrote on his door – «Тібє остайотса жить троє суток» [= You have three days to live]. The chief then was – 60