The horrors of the Russian-Soviet induced Holodomor/Genocide that purposely killed millions of Ukrainians in the 1930s will reberverate to the end of time.
But tonight, it occurs to me in these troubled times that I’ve never been to the villages in Ukraine where my paternal and maternal grandparents were born.
The closest I got was as a pre-teen in 1972.
But when we got near the village, our 24/7 KGB minder got freaked, and wouldn’t let us go the final few miles. Our entire tour group, who all had family ties in the area, was deported across the border into Romania.
Even in those dark days, I fondly recall the Romanian border “guards” greeting us with bread, and cold cuts, and cheese, and wine, after observing our 12-hour interogation/ordeal at the border.
The damn KGB still owe me several rolls of Fujichrome that they confiscated from 12-year-old me, eh?
But as we were driving through the border town the day before we got kicked out by the KGB, my lingering memory is of an aunt spotting a relative on a street near the family origins (gait and facial features umistakable — an image of grandad), and demanding to stop and being allowed to see if he was really who we thought he was.
He was, and said he’d been told by the KGB to go home because we were not coming.
How cruel.
And to the KGB minder’s dismay he stayed with us for our final night and shared stories of the KGB’s inhumanity, and the Soviet Russian attempts to destroy the Ukrainian language and culture.
He said he didn’t care about what they would do to him, he’d seen so much horror in his life.
He had only a few teeth left, despite vaunted Soviet medical care, and no glasses. . . again despite vaunted Soviet medical care . . . Sigh.
So all of us in our group who had glasses let him try them out and we left a pair.
Through the night he shared stories of horrors upon horrors infilcted upon Ukrainians by Soviet killers, and we all cried.
And he crept away before dawn.
This is so sad, and. . .
Another reason why we must all Stand for Ukraine.
Abused for centuries, but still standing. . .
