Fedir Bovkun was 6 years old when German invaders nearly wiped out his Ukrainian village. Now, he worries about being attacked by invading Russians.
His wife, Maria, also survived the July 1943 massacre. She was then only 2 years old, however, and so remembers only stories of how an aunt grabbed her and fled into the forest.mercenaries who relocated to Belarus
The Bovkuns are rare survivors, their lives bookended by two brutal wars on Ukrainian soil. More than 8 million Ukrainians died in World War II, many under German occupation after Hitler unleashed his blitzkrieg, or lightning war, against the Soviet Union in June 1941. Under German occupation, the area seethed with partisan activity. Two of Fedir’s five brothers fought in their ranks, he said, including one who joined “the Banderites,” a group of ultraright nationalist guerrillas led by Stepan Bandera.Fedir, who was one of seven children, has vivid memories of the day Germans nearly wiped out the village. Well before dawn on July 13, 1943, German soldiers began rounding up villagers, including his mother, a brother and two sisters, Fedir said.
But his mother, Pelagia, also escaped, along with a boy about his age. They ran into a nearby rye field, running and ducking through grain that stood high enough to harvest. They lay in the field as Germans, some on horseback, pursued and shot other villagers who had escaped, Fedir said. Later, he and his mother slipped into the forest.
After the war, Fedir and Maria lived on a kolkhoz, or Soviet collective farm. Work on the farm was hard, and Soviet life in general was repressive under Stalin and the Communist Party.Fedir, who drove a tractor and performed other tasks, ruptured two disks in his back that still cause intense pain. His daily pay was five kopecks or 200 grams of bread, and his clothing was filled with patches and holes, he said. Yet no one dared complain.
Fedir traveled after the war, living for a time in the Caucasus, but Maria never left the region, they said. The couple married in 1961. Even just visiting their sons in the United States is tough.“You have to fly 10 hours in a plane and then drive 10 more hours to their house,” Maria said. She said it is also difficult for their sons to visit, too, because they have large families.
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