Oral stories
- ID:
- 30074
- Description:
-
An interview with the native resident of the village Perenivka, Rohatyn district. Considering the narrator's age and his excellent memory, the conversation has a vivid description of the pre-war, war and post-war life of the city Rohatyn and the neighbouring villages with numerous details and examples. The man was longing to learn and willing to escape the village: he first studied in Rohatyn school in the interwar period, then in the Soviet school between 1939 and 1941 and the German school of trade. Still, the man consciously gave up the acquired specialty and the ability to emigrate to become a local leader of the Ukrainian nationalist underground. He described in detail the opposition of the underground opposers in the second part of the 1940ies, the methods employed by the Soviet government to eliminate them, his frequent arrests and imprisonment. Born in 1922, the interviewee remembers very well the multiethnic community of Rohatyn and its neighbourhoods, the (non)cohabitation of the ethnic groups, entrance of the Soviet Army and establishment of new rules in the city, forced eviction of Polish colonists. He met the German army in Rohatyn in June of 1941 as a member of OUN and recalls the atmosphere of great expectations among the Ukrainians, the Ukrainian-Polish opposition. A separate topic covered during the interview was the Holocaust in Rohatyn – the creation and location of the ghetto in the city, the activity of the Judenrat, their hiding places that were given away. Being employed in trade in the post-war period, the interviewee had firsthand experience with the restoration of the Soviet power, took part in collectivization; he vividly describes the realia of the life of that time using the insider point of view and giving numerous examples from life.
Recorded in Rohatyn. The interviewer – Anna Chebotariova. - Collection:
- Social Anthropology of filling the Void: Poland and Ukraine after World War II
