A WWII refugee from Ukraine links Putin’s war to Stalin’s famine
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has brought back memories.
The Soviet army invaded western Ukraine in September 1939, three months after I was born. During its 2½-year occupation, my father was interrogated twice by the Soviet secret police, and he realized he was on their list of “enemies of the people.”
Before being forced to retreat by the German army’s advance, the Communists rounded up people on their list of suspects and, as has been their custom since the inception of the Soviet regime, had them shot. My father saved his life by hiding in a village.
When the Soviet army was about to return in 1944, my father had to decide whether to stay – and probably be shot or sent to a gulag in Siberia – or to flee for his life.
