‘Stefan! Put that down. You haven’t finished it just yet.’ Mr Markovych explained that I would need to apply a final rub down to the aeroplane with fine sand paper, wipe it down and begin the process of varnishing. It took another two weeks to apply enough coats of varnish, and just before the final coat I painted a Ukrainian flag on the fuselage. A strip of blue and a strip of yellow, our national colours. Mr Markovych smiled at me when he saw this and ruffled my hair. ‘Well done Stefan.’ While I was waiting for the coats of varnish to dry I was left without much to do in the workshop so Mr Markovych came to me, ‘Stefan, another student started an aeroplane project some time ago but he never finished it. His family moved out of the area, so we haven’t seen him. Would you like to finish it off?’ Of course I was only too happy to take his offer up and, a couple of weeks later was walking home with a pair of beautifully polished, gleaming wooden aeroplanes.
When I got home I gave one of them to Volodimir. They became part of our daily games. The only other toys we had was a box of old tin soldiers that our Grandmother had given us, a relic from one of the abandoned houses. We played war games. We launched our Ukrainian fighter planes and they dived down over enemy lines and destroyed the invaders. It didn’t matter who the enemy were, they might have been Soviets or Poles. We drove them back, away from our land. That was all we wanted, nothing more.
The days passed by. The radio played and we listened as much as we could, or were allowed. When we heard about the Nazis invading France, and North Africa, we took notice. According to news reports the Nazi army was strong, organised and heading our way. Maybe we’d be free of our Soviet oppressors once and for all. Some people thought the Nazis would help us Ukrainians get our freedom. We waited. None of us really knew what lay ahead. All around us were the warmongers. The Red Army guarded our border, the Nazis on the other side, but there was no invasion. It was a stalemate and none of us could understand why. The Nazis were invading and conquering most of Europe. Why had they stopped at our border?
Two years of tension passed by, and we arrived at the year of 1941. Every day our eyes looked to the west. We wondered what was to come. Winds of turmoil blew across the mountains and the plains right into our homes. We knew there were many battles and conflicts taking place. It was as if the wind howled with the wails of those who had perished. The Nazis were sweeping through everything in their path. The British, and only the British it seemed, were out to stop them. France was already in Nazi hands. That much we knew.
Despite all the unrest and uncertainty we carried on living our lives. We liked to laugh and have fun just like boys and girls all over the world. We’d gather together in the village square. Once the icy winter had passed, we were there most evenings. Volodimir, Miron and I were always together. In the early spring it was often still chilly so we’d be wrapped up in hats and jackets. Other boys gathered there and, sometimes, one of them would dish out cigarettes. We were growing up you see, and we wanted to be just like the adults. Girls would walk past and we’d shout to them,
‘Hey! My lovely, you look beautiful! Come and talk to us.’
Most of them would keep walking, their cheeks flushed, but one or two came over and we chatted to them. All the boys would try to impress the girls. We all tried to make them smile, by goofing around and with lots of clowning. All the jumping around kept us warm. The girls just watched and giggled. One of them I became quite fond of. Her name was Natasha. She had long black curls, lovely blue eyes and skin so soft and smooth it was like the dough that Mother made for baking bread. She would come up to me and stand very close. We’d hold hands and she’d whisper,
‘Stefan, you’re my little Kozak.’ I loved that. Her breath on my neck made me tingle all over. She was an angel. At this time I was 13 years old. I’d only ever kissed my beloved Mother and Grandmother. To be honest I’d always been a little shy with girls. Volodimir and the other boys teased me about Natasha, but one evening, in the spring, I was there in the village square with her. None of the others were around. As usual we were holding hands. Our breath turned to mist in front of us. Then we turned towards each other and kissed. It was a sweet moment if a little awkward. We held onto each other tightly. Her lips were so soft. We kissed several times and then she rested her head on my shoulder. We stood there together. I wanted to be with her like that for ever. The moment was shattered by the arrival of Volodimir, Miron and several other boys, ‘Ooh, look at the two lovebirds! Aahhh! Don’t they look lovely together?’ Natasha and I stepped away from each other but we shared a secret smile. It was a moment I would never forget. In the weeks leading up to Easter I met with Natasha almost every night. We’d meet in the square. Then we’d walk to the nearby woods to find a secluded spot. I’d bring along my copy of Kobzar* by Taras Shevchenko and I’d read aloud to her. Her favourite was always Why Should I Have Black Eyebrows? She’d laugh out loud and say, ‘Stefan, that’s just like you. Your eyebrows are black as coal.’ I loved being next to her. She was a year older than me and a little bit taller, so I always preferred it when we were sitting down together rather than standing up. I suppose you could say she was my first girlfriend. Well, Volodimir, Miron and all the other boys never tired of reminding me of that. They’d often disturb us, just when we’d found somewhere quiet to be together and talk. They’d sneak up on us just when we’d got close and were about to kiss, ‘Stefan!! The boys are here! It’s good to see you two lovebirds. You always find the best places. Can we join you?’ Volodimir grinned mischievously. There was no point in trying to get away from them. Anyhow, we were a band of brothers, I could never turn these Kozaks away. We had a code, to stand together on our land and carry the fight as best we could. We would never surrender who we were to anyone.
Easter came and the whole village celebrated, as usual. I didn’t see Natasha for over a week because she lived on the other side of the village. At home, Mother and Father arranged for our traditional offering of painted eggs, ham, soft cheese, bread and paska* to be blessed by the local priest. Then, after prayers we’d all sit down and Mother would slice up some bread and the paska, we’d butter them well and partake of our Holy meal.
All around nature bloomed, the grass, the greenery and the spring flowers returned with all their fragile, delicate beauty. Our winter coats were put away and we left our boots indoors, we wore our summer shoes in the spring. It sounds silly I know, but in the really hot days of summer we’d go barefoot to save on shoe leather. Father forever scolded us for scuffing up our footwear and, every few weeks, we’d see him at his workbench in a corner of the barn repairing someone’s boots or shoes.
I hadn’t seen Natasha for two or three weeks. I wouldn’t have admitted it to anyone but I was missing her. Even though I liked to hang around with the boys, at times I walked around the village on my own, hoping to see her. I even went to her house one day and knocked on the door. Her mother answered and said that Natasha wasn’t home.
Anyway, I hung around with Volodimir, Miron and the other boys and I can’t say I didn’t have fun. Summer was approaching and the glorious sunshine bathed us in its glow, but some days the weather was bad and the rain was often heavy. On those occasions I’d play indoors with Volodimir. We had the wooden aeroplanes and the soldiers. In our bedroom we’d mark out a battleground. Ukraine always emerged victorious with piles of tin soldiers flattened along its borders.
There was still no sign of Natasha. Until one day in June when we boys were walking through the village. There was a big gang of us, maybe about eight or nine. We turned a corner and there she was. There was no mistaking her. She was with another boy and they were kissing with some passion. My heart twisted around and turned somersaults inside me. I wanted to reach out to her but I couldn’t move my arms. I wanted to run up to her, get hold of her and hold her tight, and tell the other boy she was mine, but my legs wouldn’t move. I thought about calling out to her but my throat was too dry and when I opened my mouth nothing came out. The next thing I knew Volodimir was besi
de me, with his arm around my shoulders.
‘Come on Stefan, let’s go home.’
Thinking back now, she wasn’t right for me anyhow. She was too old, and too tall. It was just a teenage infatuation, but at the time it was as if my whole world had collapsed around me. It was getting late, close to supper time, so we made our way home. I sat through supper quietly and went to bed early. I was tired. I thought about Natasha while I lay in bed. It took me some time to get to sleep, but eventually I nodded off.
Of course I dreamt of her. We were walking hand in hand, barefoot, through a meadow caressed in golden rays from the sun. Laughing and smiling we chased each other. Then we stopped and I picked flowers and gave them to her. All around us was a peace, a kind of calm, as if there was no one else in the world, just the two of us. Then we looked up and a dark cloud sat in the sky above us. We shivered, and then there was a crack of thunder.
I woke up, but the crashing sounds continued and, once again, our house was shaking. On a shelf in the corner of the bedroom were the two wooden aeroplanes I’d made. The vibrations caused them to slip to the edge of the shelf, and then a thunderous boom thudded through the air causing the planes to topple off the shelf down into the army of tin soldiers below. The soldiers scattered all over the floor. Volodimir sat up with a start. I jumped out of bed and ran to the window. I looked through the curtains. There was fire in the sky.
Chapter 4
Ukrainian proverb: A hungry wolf is stronger than a satisfied dog
At daybreak, we cautiously wandered out of our houses. Many of our neighbours were already outside. Father walked down our approach with Volodimir and me following while Mother stayed indoors. There was a silence amongst us, our neighbours and ourselves were gripped by a collective dread. We walked down the road with our heads bowed. What would we find? A man, one of our neighbours, came running up to us. It was Miron’s father, Ivan.
‘I’ve seen it, I’ve seen it! Come with me! It’s not far, come on! It’s this way!’
We followed him back down where he’d come from, and about 400 metres away we found ourselves standing at the edge of a crater. The earth was scorched a deep red, and was still smouldering slightly. It was liquid black in places, like melted sugar. The smell was strange, with a sourness that made us screw up our faces.
‘Nazi bombs,’ said Ivan. Nobody responded, and I don’t think he was expecting anyone to. He was just saying it out loud. We walked further and saw more craters, and then some dwellings that had taken an impact. God save us, somehow the damage had all been to outhouses or barns. None of the actual houses had been hit.
Villagers stood in a line from the well passing down bucket after bucket of water to finally put out the flames which had been raging all night. People had lost some of their livestock, but there had been no human loss. We’d been lucky for once, but would our luck last?
‘Come on, boys.’ Father, Volodimir and I turned away from the scenes of devastation and trudged home. We walked up our approach, and through our gate. To our left was a wooden enclosure built by Father, with a little help from me, to house our geese. There were a dozen of them and they all rushed towards us as we passed, honking away madly. We looked across at them, and I don’t know what Father or Volodimir were thinking, but I was glad of the geese. They filled an unbearable silence, and perhaps they showed us that to make ourselves heard we needed a voice – a loud one, a voice which wouldn’t stop. Mother came out of the house with a bucket of cornmeal to feed them and they soon calmed down. She turned towards Father,
‘Did you find out what the noise was?’
‘Yes, Olha. It’s what we’ve feared for a while. We’ve been bombed, but people have only suffered damage to livestock and outbuildings, so far anyway. But it looks like the Nazis are coming our way. There’s no doubt about that.’
Mother walked up to the three of us and pulled us together in an embrace,
‘Oh, Mikola. Oh, boys. What will become of us?’ Her eyes were red around the edges and there were tears in them. Eventually, she released the three of us, and then Father spoke, ‘All we can do is wait and see. In the meantime we have work to do around here. Let’s keep ourselves busy.’ He put his arm around Mother and walked into the house with her. Volodimir and I followed. Once inside, he instructed us to put on our work shirts and trousers, the ones we used around our smallholding when helping out with the daily tasks. Then, Volodimir took our cow out to the pasture while I followed Father into the barn, ‘Stefan, it’s going to be a long, hard winter. We need to prepare ourselves.’ He rolled up his sleeves and took up a position next to a large pile of logs. He picked one of them up, placed it on a chopping block and raised the axe above his head. With a muscular swing of the axe he split the log in two, and then put the axe through each of the smaller pieces again. I gathered them up and put them in a small barrow. Once it was full, I wheeled it across the barn where we had a large crate to store our firewood, and stacked them neatly inside. We worked liked this for quite some time, without stopping or speaking to each other. The sweat poured off Father as, over and over again, he swung the axe down. The sound of the splintering wood shuddered through me again and again. The crate was beginning to overflow, but Father continued to chop the logs, paying no heed to this. I started a small, neat, pile of firewood in front of the crate.
Then, it must have been almost two hours later, Volodimir came back with our cow, and it was only then that Father stopped. He watched as Volodimir led the cow back into its place in the barn. Then he hung the axe up and said, ‘Come on, boys, let’s get a drink.’ Wearily, he led us boys into the house. Mother was standing at her stove, busy as ever with a steaming pot. There was a melody floating through the air. I smiled to myself. How I cherished that sound, it sent shivers up and down me every time I heard it. Mother’s singing was truly beautiful, like that of a nightingale. She turned around and smiled at us. She poured us all a glass of milk and we drank it down.
‘Well,’ said Father. ‘This is it. We’re in the middle of a war now. Things are going to get difficult for us. We have to try to hold on to what we’ve got and stick together.’ As we sat in the kitchen and drank our milk, I never for one minute thought that we’d ever be apart. I prayed to God we’d all stay together.
The radio fizzed, whined and crackled more than ever as Father tried to find out what was happening. The Soviet broadcasts had stopped, there was nothing from Moscow, no propaganda broadcasts, no public information, nothing.
Meanwhile the Nazis’ voice was all too clear. ‘We are here as liberators. You have been ruled by the dictatorial power of the Bolsheviks. Germany will conquer them! Join us in our quest for freedom. The Soviet Union has treated you like slaves. The military might of the German Army will drive them back.’
It was 1941 and I’d just turned 14. I’d grown up in some very tough times. None of us expected things would improve much, but we wouldn’t be sorry to see the back of the Soviets.
Like a spider spinning its web, the Nazis infiltrated and occupied every corner of our beloved Ukraine. The disorganised and bedraggled Soviet soldiers were easily driven back. Many times we cowered in the darkness of our homes in the chilly autumn evenings, listening to bombs exploding, some far away, others very close. Too close. It wasn’t long before the Nazis were amongst us.
As they drove through the village, some people greeted them with traditional offerings of bread and salt, and a large crowd assembled to cheer them. The procession of Panzer tanks, armoured vehicles, and Nazi soldiers on motorbikes was truly impressive. Everything about them, the vehicles, their uniforms, their weapons, all seemed superior. Would this mean the end of the purges and the terrors? Maybe people wouldn’t just disappear anymore. Soviet rule had left its scars on us. Surely things couldn’t be any worse under the Nazis?
The Nazi convoys drove to the far side of the village and headed towards Vinnitsya, stopping only to take over the local village hall and install a radio communications team there with a
unit of armed soldiers to oversee them, and patrol the village. The main body of the convoy marched on towards the city.
‘What do you think?’ I asked Volodimir as we watched the Nazis in action.
‘I don’t know, Stefan. The Soviets have gone and that’s good, but I’m not sure about these Nazis. As Father says, we’ll have to wait and see, I suppose. But to be honest, Stefan, they look like a whole lot of trouble to me.’ I’d learnt to trust Volodimir’s instincts. He was such a good judge of people and situations.
The following Monday morning, Volodimir and I walked to school in the bright, cool sunshine of early summer. To me, that sunshine seemed more golden than ever before, because the Soviet menace that had inflicted so much misery on us was no longer around. Further down the road, we came across an armoured car full of German troops. They were dishing out chocolate bars to all the passing children. As soon as Volodimir and I saw this, we broke into a sprint. A few minutes later, we were cramming chocolate into our mouths.
‘You see Volodimir, the Germans aren’t so bad are they?’ I said between mouthfuls of chocolate.
‘Hmmm, we’ll see.’ he replied.
The school day passed slowly. With the summer upon us, we boys and girls just wanted it to end so we could be out in the sunshine. We’d had enough of sitting in a dusty classroom. At the end of the day, we charged through those school gates without looking back, with little regard for those crumpled books stuffed into our overflowing wooden desks. There was still plenty of daylight left and we had games to play, and girls to tease, and plenty more besides. Volodimir and I ran up our approach, ready to dump our schoolbags, grab a slice of bread and butter if one was available, and then be out again as soon as we could, to meet our friends.