Halyna Kopač

* 1936

  • "They made a grave and my father was buried in the grave. Nikolaj is in his one communal pit. There was a big cross where they were going to build the church. They dug a very big pit under the cross. There they took the chopped, burned and cut pieces of people."

  • "The 13-year-old girl was raped. Whoever wanted it and however they wanted it. The father couldn't watch, so they gouged out his eyes. His ears were cut off, his hands were cut off, and I'm sorry, but his male organs were also cut off. And they cut off his legs with a wood saw. They also cut off my mother's sister's breasts and ears and ripped out her tongue."

  • "So it happened that from Thursday to Friday, from 22 to 23 April, at midnight, they set fire to Janova Dolina from all four sides. Our house did not burn down, the Volksdeutsche lived in our house. There were Germans in our block who were supposed to protect us, but they only protected themselves. When Janova Dolina started to burn, the Volksdeutsche fled, and on two of the windows were written 'Volksdeutsche. They didn't burn our house down because of that. That's what the three houses in Janova Dolina were like."

  • Celé nahrávky
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    Zdolbunov, Ukrajina, 23.04.2014

    (audio)
    délka: 01:21:48
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Stories of 20th Century
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We knew those supporters of Bandera

Halyna Kopač, April 23, 2014
Halyna Kopač, April 23, 2014
zdroj: Post Bellum

Halyna Kopač, née Holcová, was born on 5 December 1936 in the village of Janova Dolina in what was then interwar Poland. Her father was of Czech origin, her mother was Polish. The family originally lived in Zdolbunów, but shortly after Halyna‘s birth, her parents moved to work in a stone quarry in Janova Dolina. On April 23, 1943, Janova Dolina was burned down by the Ukrainian rebel army. During the burning, her father was shot, but the rest of the Holc family was saved by living in the house together with the Volksdeutsche, who were spared the violence of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army. After the burning, the Germans sent a train to Kostopol. Thus Halyna Kopač, her mother and younger sister reached the district town, after which they all went to Zdolbunov. There Halyna Kopač first attended Czech, Polish and finally Ukrainian schools. In 1947 she was supposed to re-emigrate to Czechoslovakia, but through an unfortunate series of events she remained in Ukraine. She graduated as an accountant and worked as an accountant, economist and forewoman in a plastic packaging factory. She retired in 1996. In 2014 she was living in Zdolbunov.