"Nothing happened to my close relatives."
"And did you know that he's in the Ukrainian Insurgent Army?"
"Who could tell anyone? At that time, it was not told. I sat with a handful of other boys and none of them knew."
"He came and said: 'Your dad is not any more.' And that was it. Did he die or what? I have no idea where he had gone. He just told mom: 'I'm going, take care of the children.'"
"Youth, more like the youth. He told us: 'On you go!' And you stay silent. You don't know anyone. And that's it. He said: 'Take it away.' He did not tell us what it was. And in ten minutes, we got another message."
Vasyl Ivanovych Martynyuk was born on the 18th of February in 1932 in the Pidluzhzhya settlement near Dubno in the Rivne region, then in Poland. In his birthplace, he lived through both the Soviet (1939–1941) and the Nazi (1941–1944) occupation of Ukraine. In 1944, he was sent to Germany for forced labour. He returned in 1946 and joined the Ukrainian Insurgent Army where he served as a courier. Owning to good luck and help of his family, he avoided arrest. For all his life, he worked in a kolkhoz [agricultural co-op]. At the time of recording (2020), the witness lived in his birthplace, Pidluzhzhya, in Western Ukraine.
Hrdinové 20. století odcházejí. Nesmíme zapomenout. Dokumentujeme a vyprávíme jejich příběhy. Záleží vám na odkazu minulých generací, na občanských postojích, demokracii a vzdělávání? Pomozte nám!
