Oral stories
- ID:
- 30070
- Description:
-
An interview with a native resident of the village Osivtsi, now Buchach district, whose parents died during World War II. The woman lived as an orphan together with her older brother until to her marriage. The conversation is abrupt and non-structured; the woman often complained of the now poor memory and, as a rule, just answered the interviewer’s questions. The interviewee’s granddaughter was present and occasionally joined the conversation. The narrator shared her memories of the pre-war landowner of the village, his attitude to the hired labor and fellow villagers, and the cohabitation of the Polish, Jewish and Ukrainian population of the village before the war. The woman briefly talked about the years of war in the village, the front line near it, the Ukrainian nationalist underground. She said that there was a big fire in 1942 and the village was almost burnt to ashes; people survived on the minimal help provided by the government. A separate thread initiated towards the end of the conversation was devoted to the Holocaust of Jews in Buchach. The woman recalled the names and occupations of Jews that lived in Osivtsi and the shootings of Jews in Buchach, detailing various stories, the rescue of a Jewish girl from their village by the priest in particular. Vivid were the memories of post-war life. The woman talked about religious practices in the underground, in particular, her secret marriage, the eviction of Poles, and post-war hunger.
Recorded in Osivtsi. The interviewer – Wiktoria Kudela-Świątek. - Collection:
- Social Anthropology of filling the Void: Poland and Ukraine after World War II
