Editor’s note: The following story is by Kathy Zozula of Armstrong.
Leipzig, Germany — May 8, 1945
This is a deeply personal story. This is how my mother, Antonina Zozula, remembered VE Day. It is just one story of the millions told by displaced persons at the end of the war.
We hear the news that we’ve been waiting for all these years. The war is over! Hitler has surrendered!
I am alone with our four children. Maksym isn’t with us; all of our men are out in the streets, clearing rubble and searching for survivors. Only women and children are in this bomb shelter, waiting. We are all huddled together in darkness, in absolute silence. I am bent over my little ones, hugging them tightly. Tetyana is only two years old, Nadiya is four, Mykhaylo is six and our oldest, Stepan, is eight.
Above us, we hear footsteps approaching. We know they are coming for us. But we have no idea whether we are about to come face to face with American or Soviet soldiers. In the eternity of silence between one footfall and the next, events of the past years race through my mind.
1940. In the time since Stalin came to power, the seizures of land, the terrible famine, the endless intimidations, the incomprehensible number of arrests, executions and exiles were wearing us down. Maksym had begged me to leave but I was afraid, and so he travelled alone to Kyrgyzstan, in central Asia, to see if that was a place we could settle. He returned full of enthusiasm, and so he convinced me.
1941. We bought tickets for a train leaving for Kyrgyzstan on June 23. On June 22, at 3 a.m., Hitler invaded Ukraine. We were 60 km from Kyiv, but we saw the light from the fires, heard the explosions, and felt the earth shake. Stalin prepared for battle, conscripting all of our men into his army. Maksym was gone. I was alone in the village with three small children when the German army marched in. The Soviet troops retreated, taking our men with them. Maksym wasn’t able to write to me, and I had no way of knowing where they had taken him, or even if he was still alive.
1942. Not only were the Soviets losing the war, but they were losing some of their own soldiers. Maksym, along with others from our village, managed to escape and return home. But then things changed. We heard that the Soviet army was gaining strength. Village by village, the Soviets were reclaiming Ukraine.
1943. We heard that when the Germans left a village, they took everyone with them. Anyone found hiding was shot. Only God knew where these people were being taken. Maksym decided not to wait any longer. He said that we should go first, choose our own path, rather than wait for the German army to decide our fate. Maksym found a horse that had been abandoned by the German army. He fed the horse, and cleaned its wounds. He repaired an old wagon that the horse could pull. Then it was my turn. I was baking bread for our journey the day the soldiers knocked on our door.
The soldiers told us that we had 20 minutes to pack what we needed, and then we would have to leave with them. I will never forget that day. It was Dec. 19, St. Nicholas Day according to the Julian calendar. As we climbed into the wagon, I prayed that St. Nicholas, the patron saint of children, would protect our little ones. I held Tetyana, who had just turned one, in my arms. The other children sat in the back of the wagon, snuggling together to keep warm. Maksym drove the horse through the deep snow, away from the retreating German troops and their growing line of refugees.
1944. Winter was coming to an end when we reached a village on the border between Western Ukraine and Poland. We had hoped that we would be safe here, but when we heard that the Soviets would soon arrive we knew we had no other choice. We agreed to go to Germany. Nazi Germany needed foreign workers, and was happy to take us all. We traded our horse and wagon for a little food and waited for the train that would take us the rest of the way. When the train arrived, we were herded into cattle cars. Like livestock, we crowded together for warmth. We arrived in Leipzig just before Easter.
Our men lived in a school where they would be available to search for survivors when the bombs fell, which was mostly at night. A nearby concert hall had been converted to a living quarters for the women and children. It felt like the entire city was bombed that first night that I was left alone with the children. Buildings were shaking; windows were breaking; children were screaming; mothers were panicking, not knowing what to do! Everywhere we looked, the city was in flames.
Over time, the routines became more familiar, and the bombings less terrifying. We were fortunate because we didn’t have to go outside; there was a bomb shelter right below our barracks. When the sirens sounded in the middle of the night, I would pick up one of my daughters in each arm and push my sleepy sons in front of me towards the entrance. We just had to open the hatch and go down those stairs. We just had to sit there, embracing our children. We just had to wait in darkness, in absolute silence.
May 8, 1945. With that thought, my mind returns to the present. Today is May 8, 1945. The war is over. We are about to leave this bomb shelter for the last time. We are about to come face to face with our conquerors. Have the Americans come to free us? Or has Stalin caught up with us at last?
The footsteps have stopped. We are crowded together, frightened beyond words. We watch the hatch slowly open. A face appears, and then we see the uniform. The soldier approaching us is American, but he looks so tall and stern that we freeze. He stops when he sees the raw fear on our faces.
His own face suddenly bursts into a broad grin and when he speaks, we can’t believe what we are hearing, “Stara baba yak haliyera, Cheiy schukaiye kavaliyera!” This is just a silly rhyme, which loosely translated means: “Ancient baba, you’re over the hill, And searching for a suitor still!”
One woman smiles, then she starts to giggle and then we all burst out laughing. Bless this young man for taking pity on a room full of frightened women and children. Thank God he knew just enough Ukrainian to help us forget our fear, at least for a moment.
Epilogue: For many, May 8, 1945 was both an end and a beginning. This was the first day of peace, a day of rejoicing and renewing and rebuilding. But for displaced Ukrainians like Maksym and Antonina Zozula, this was just a short respite: a glimmer of hope and promise before their nightmare continued. Their ordeal was far from over. On that day, Antonina had no way of knowing that Leipzig was situated within an area designated to become the Soviet Zone of Occupation. Nor did she know that Joseph Stalin had negotiated the return of all Soviet citizens once the war ended. According to the terms of the agreement he had reached with Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill (Yalta Conference, Feb. 4 – 11, 1945), American and British soldiers would be ordered to return Soviet citizens from displaced persons camps throughout Germany and Austria. They would be compelled to use force against anyone who resisted, even women and children. They would be told to shoot if necessary. They would witness refugees commit suicide rather than go back. But that is another story, to be told another day.
Maksym and Antonina Zozula came to Canada in 1952. They moved to Vernon in 1976.
