More about When Ukraine Came To Me
The invasion of what was Eastern Poland by the Soviet Union came as a complete surprise. The Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact, signed in late August, had been at least as surprising, shocking. But that Soviet invasion had been part of protocols to that treaty that had been kept secret effectively; so the Poles had prepared no defence toward the East. The older buddy, whose feet were bloody from the long walk on ill-fitting shoes, and who had leaned on me on the last leg of the way to Kowel, was not allowed to enter town without first taking part in digging trenches against the advancing German army; which then stopped at the Bug river, just to the West.
Nonetheless, the reference to Ukrainian brotherhood in leaflets dropped from planes were not merely empty propaganda. Most of the peasant population, the majority throughout Volhynia, was indeed Ukrainian (and Orthodox). Catholic Poles tended to be the majority in the towns, with a substantial Jewish minority; even a majority in many a small town (shtetl).
Although Ukrainian lands had been under the control of mainly Polish overlords for centuries, Poland had lost its own independence in the late 18th, when it was partitioned between the Austrian, Prussian and Russian empires. As a result, Volhynia became part of Tsarist Russia, where Ukrainians were not recognized as a separate ethnic group, or nationality; and Ukrainian language and literature were not welcome. When Poland was to be reestablished as a sovereign state at the end of World War I, its eastern boundary was to be the Curzon line, named after Lord Curzon, the British foreign secretary, who had suggested it. It ran about where it is now and had become the day we are talking about, e.g. along the Bug river. But at the end of hostilities with a Red Army also still engaged in the Russian civil war (following the October Revolution of November 1917), Polish troops were in control of Western Volhynia.
I only recently heard of the lady who was overjoyed when she found out that Kowel was to be a Polish town. She said that she couldn't have survived another one of those Russian winters.
(In this here blog, the italics are to indicate that the historical reliability, or veracity, is not yet established conclusively to the same extent as other parts.)
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When I woke up on the floor of a Kowel gym (of the Hashmonaim sports club), there was my brother waiting for me to wake up. We hadn't seen one another for about four months and sure didn't expect to meet now in this place we had never even heard about. The people of his commune had left their (Grochow) farm in a Warsaw suburb just before the Nazis completed the siege of the capital and had walked hundreds of kilometers before they got to Kowel; while mine, marching more hundreds from a different direction, got to the same town, and at almost the same time. I am not confident that we ever exchanged accounts of our experiences during those long marches.
But some of what happened to them on the way, I just saw described in "A Surplus of Memory", the account of Yitzkhak Zuckerman, who a few years later (1943), under the nom de guerre of Antek, was commander of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising; after Mordekhai Anielewicz, whose deputy (and really co-commander) he had been, died in the bunker at Mila 18.
I happened on that book, of which I hadn't known, and which had other things of major direct interest to me, while looking for another in the library. Antek had been a leading member of the He-kHalutz Ha-tza'ir. My brother belonged to it, due to his membership earlier in Habonim, the parallel outfit in Germany. Anielewicz was a leading member of the Ha-Shomer Ha-Tza'ir, to which I belonged for similar affiliation in Germany. These two left Zionist youth organizations were the most prominent in the Ghetto resistance and worked closely together. But the book also describes areas of friction between the two, especially later. They go far in explaining what made me spurn at the time, and again later, going with my older brother. Instead, I had gone to the Czestochowa hakhsharah (=preparation) kibbutz of the Ha-Shomer Ha-Tza'ir (generally regarded as further to the left).
Yitzkhak Zuckerman
Mordekhai Anielewicz
There had been no indication of what was to unfold, when planes approached and hearts started pounding as everyone looked for a place to duck before the screech of the diving Stuka planes, followed by the explosions of their bombs; which all had experienced. So the dropping of those Soviet leaflets instead, was hardly resented. Later, I was with my brother and a few others from his kibbutz (I don't think Antek) in a garret while some small arms fire could be heard briefly.
Later that day (or the next), there was a formal Red Army march along the main street. It was quite a performance (CNN should have been there to record it for the benefit of people like you who didn't have the privilege of being present). Loaves of bread were handed out as they marched singing the song of the Amur Partisans; about the victory ending their civil war in the early twenties; when they conquered Primorye on the shores of the Pacific Ocean. In every section, one soldier with a good voice would sing a verse, then the whole troop would come in powerfully with the refrain. I saw a version of the song with an English translation on the internet, and I'll try to link to it. (Done; click below.)
But we now had to scatter pretty fast, because Zionist organizations were highly illegal then, leftist or not (mine even had a pretty rosy view of the Soviet Union). For the time being, I now went with my brother and Yoine, a member of his kibbutz, toward the latter's home town of Lanowce, further south in Volhynia; where we were hidden for about two weeks. Until December, when we got to Vilna, newly part of Lithuania, we were in what was after that known as the Western Ukraine. That was a much smaller area than being tossed about in the current news; where the electoral confrontations continue, with danger of a split of the East from what is referred to as Western Ukraine. But that is meant to include (e.g.) Kiev.
Nonetheless, the reference to Ukrainian brotherhood in leaflets dropped from planes were not merely empty propaganda. Most of the peasant population, the majority throughout Volhynia, was indeed Ukrainian (and Orthodox). Catholic Poles tended to be the majority in the towns, with a substantial Jewish minority; even a majority in many a small town (shtetl).
Although Ukrainian lands had been under the control of mainly Polish overlords for centuries, Poland had lost its own independence in the late 18th, when it was partitioned between the Austrian, Prussian and Russian empires. As a result, Volhynia became part of Tsarist Russia, where Ukrainians were not recognized as a separate ethnic group, or nationality; and Ukrainian language and literature were not welcome. When Poland was to be reestablished as a sovereign state at the end of World War I, its eastern boundary was to be the Curzon line, named after Lord Curzon, the British foreign secretary, who had suggested it. It ran about where it is now and had become the day we are talking about, e.g. along the Bug river. But at the end of hostilities with a Red Army also still engaged in the Russian civil war (following the October Revolution of November 1917), Polish troops were in control of Western Volhynia.
I only recently heard of the lady who was overjoyed when she found out that Kowel was to be a Polish town. She said that she couldn't have survived another one of those Russian winters.
(In this here blog, the italics are to indicate that the historical reliability, or veracity, is not yet established conclusively to the same extent as other parts.)
------------------------------------
When I woke up on the floor of a Kowel gym (of the Hashmonaim sports club), there was my brother waiting for me to wake up. We hadn't seen one another for about four months and sure didn't expect to meet now in this place we had never even heard about. The people of his commune had left their (Grochow) farm in a Warsaw suburb just before the Nazis completed the siege of the capital and had walked hundreds of kilometers before they got to Kowel; while mine, marching more hundreds from a different direction, got to the same town, and at almost the same time. I am not confident that we ever exchanged accounts of our experiences during those long marches.
But some of what happened to them on the way, I just saw described in "A Surplus of Memory", the account of Yitzkhak Zuckerman, who a few years later (1943), under the nom de guerre of Antek, was commander of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising; after Mordekhai Anielewicz, whose deputy (and really co-commander) he had been, died in the bunker at Mila 18.
I happened on that book, of which I hadn't known, and which had other things of major direct interest to me, while looking for another in the library. Antek had been a leading member of the He-kHalutz Ha-tza'ir. My brother belonged to it, due to his membership earlier in Habonim, the parallel outfit in Germany. Anielewicz was a leading member of the Ha-Shomer Ha-Tza'ir, to which I belonged for similar affiliation in Germany. These two left Zionist youth organizations were the most prominent in the Ghetto resistance and worked closely together. But the book also describes areas of friction between the two, especially later. They go far in explaining what made me spurn at the time, and again later, going with my older brother. Instead, I had gone to the Czestochowa hakhsharah (=preparation) kibbutz of the Ha-Shomer Ha-Tza'ir (generally regarded as further to the left).
Yitzkhak Zuckerman
Mordekhai Anielewicz
There had been no indication of what was to unfold, when planes approached and hearts started pounding as everyone looked for a place to duck before the screech of the diving Stuka planes, followed by the explosions of their bombs; which all had experienced. So the dropping of those Soviet leaflets instead, was hardly resented. Later, I was with my brother and a few others from his kibbutz (I don't think Antek) in a garret while some small arms fire could be heard briefly.
Later that day (or the next), there was a formal Red Army march along the main street. It was quite a performance (CNN should have been there to record it for the benefit of people like you who didn't have the privilege of being present). Loaves of bread were handed out as they marched singing the song of the Amur Partisans; about the victory ending their civil war in the early twenties; when they conquered Primorye on the shores of the Pacific Ocean. In every section, one soldier with a good voice would sing a verse, then the whole troop would come in powerfully with the refrain. I saw a version of the song with an English translation on the internet, and I'll try to link to it. (Done; click below.)
But we now had to scatter pretty fast, because Zionist organizations were highly illegal then, leftist or not (mine even had a pretty rosy view of the Soviet Union). For the time being, I now went with my brother and Yoine, a member of his kibbutz, toward the latter's home town of Lanowce, further south in Volhynia; where we were hidden for about two weeks. Until December, when we got to Vilna, newly part of Lithuania, we were in what was after that known as the Western Ukraine. That was a much smaller area than being tossed about in the current news; where the electoral confrontations continue, with danger of a split of the East from what is referred to as Western Ukraine. But that is meant to include (e.g.) Kiev.
posted by solar_sol | 9:06 PM
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