Pet Book Cover 17 Mar 2008:Pet Book Cover 17 Mar 2008 4/4/08 3:04 PM Page 1 “The Nazis murdered millions of Ukrainians. Many more Ukrainians fought against the Nazi regime than collaborated with it. Yet a prejudiced Into Auschwitz, stereotype persists of Ukrainians as persecutors rather than victims. The Soviets and others opposed to Ukraine’s independence saw to that. This memoir will help to reverse that great lie. Written by a Ukrainian nationalist and Holocaust survivor it recalls for posterity the fate of some of those Ukrainians who dared to fight for Ukraine’s freedom.” Dr Mykhailo H Marunchak Auschwitz tattoo number 120482 For Ukraine Stefan Petelycky Pet Book Cover 17 Mar 2008:Pet Book Cover 17 Mar 2008 4/4/08 3:04 PM Page 1 “The Nazis murdered millions of Ukrainians. Many more Ukrainians fought against the Nazi regime than collaborated with it. Yet a prejudiced Into Auschwitz, stereotype persists of Ukrainians as persecutors rather than victims. The Soviets and others opposed to Ukraine’s independence saw to that. This memoir will help to reverse that great lie. Written by a Ukrainian nationalist and Holocaust survivor it recalls for posterity the fate of some of those Ukrainians who dared to fight for Ukraine’s freedom.” Dr Mykhailo H Marunchak Auschwitz tattoo number 120482 For Ukraine Stefan Petelycky Into Auschwitz, for Ukraine Stefan Petelycky Kingston Kyiv The Kashtan Press 1999 The Kashtan Press Kingston Kyiv © 1999 Stefan Petelycky & The Kashtan Press Reprinted in 2008 Graphic Design: Gerald Locklin & Associates Front cover illustration: Forearm of Stefan Petelycky, photograph by L Y Luciuk Back cover illustration : “ Arbeit macht frei ” - “ Work shall set you free ” by P Osynka from Album of a Political Prisoner Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data Petelycky, Stefan, 1923- Into Auschwitz, for Ukraine Includes bibliographical references. Text in English, with summaries in Ukrainian and French. ISBN 1-896354-16-5 1. Petelycky, Stefan, 1923- 2. World War, 1939-1945—Ukraine. 3. Auschwitz (Concentration camp). 4. World War, 1939-1945—Personal narratives, Ukrainian. 5. Ukraine—History—Autonomy and independence movements. 6. Holocaust survivors—Ukraine—Biography. 7. Holocaust survivors—Canada—Biography. I. Title. D805.5.A96P48 1999 940.54’81477’092 C98-901140-2 The reprinting of this memoir was made possible by the generosity of the Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain, the Dopomoha Ukraini Foundation (in memory of the late Mr and Mrs Mychailo and Yaroslava Szafraniuk), George & Zenowia Jurkiw, Eugene & Sonia Jurkiw, Lidia Jurkiw-Gulawsky, Ulana & Marko Suprun, the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association, the Ukrainian American Civil Liberties Association and Borys Wrzesnewskyj, MP. To the millions of Ukrainian victims of the Holocaust Into Auschwitz, for Ukraine Stefan Petelycky Acknowledgements The late Emilia Ostapchuk, OC , first urged me to publish an account of my wartime experiences. Grants from the League of Ukrainian Canadians, League of Ukrainian Canadian Women, Prometheus Foundation, Ucrainica Research Institute, Ukrainian American Justice Committee, Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association, Ukrainian Canadian Congress (Saskatchewan Provincial Council, Edmonton & Windsor branches), Ukrainian Canadian Foundation of Taras Shevcehnko, Ukrainian Self Reliance Association (New Westminster branch), Ukrainian Studies Foundation of British Columbia, Ukrainian Youth Association (CYM) of Canada (Calgary branch), and World League of Ukrainian Political Prisoners helped make this book possible. I am grateful to J B Gregorovich, - Dr Mykhailo Marunchak (120482), Dr Oleh Romanyshyn, and Julia Stashuk for their encouragement of my efforts and to Professor Lubomyr Luciuk for his assistance in editing this book and compiling the footnotes. The book’s striking appearance reflects the talents of graphic artist Gerry Locklin, who was able to incorporate the sketches of another Ukrainian survivor of Auschwitz. Published under the pseudonym Paladij Osynka, Album of a Political Prisoner (Osiris: Munich, 1946) is something of a rarity. I met the artist in the laundry at Auschwitz, where I knew him as Petro Balij (57321). He deliberately drew his sketches in a humorous way, acknowledging that capturing what he and his fellow political prisoners had survived in the Nazi inferno was otherwise near-impossible. Photographs from the Zolochiv prison were taken from Volodymyr Boiubash, ed., Zolochivshchyna: Ti mynule i suchasne (New York-Toronto: Kanads’ke Naukove Tovarystvo im. Shevchenka, 1982). The opinions expressed throughout this book are, of course, entirely my own. This account describes what happened to me and other Ukrainians in the Nazi concentration camps where we were imprisoned. I recognize that the passage of time has an effect on what one recalls. That is why I was determined to put this account on the record, before the last of the Ukrainian victims of the Holocaust fade away. Our sufferings have been ignored or denied far too often. Contents Dedication Acknowledgements Foreword ...................................................................................................................................................................................................... I-III Chapter One - For Ukraine .......................................................................................................................................................................... 1-6 Chapter Two - Into Auschwitz .................................................................................................................................................................. 7-19 Chapter Three - The Many Circles of Hell ............................................................................................................................................. 20-36 Chapter Four - The Struggle Continued ................................................................................................................................................. 37-48 Notes ......................................................................................................................................................................................................... 49-57 Résumé ............................................................................................................................................................................................................ 58 Pe 3i-o Me ......................................................................................................................................................................................................... 59 About the Author Foreword The number 154922 is tattooed on my first wrote of my experiences just after the that if I do not take up this burden then forearm. I got the tattoo at Auschwitz. I war ended, in 1946-7. Yet I put those papers once the Ukrainian survivors of the spent more than sixteen months in the away. I did not want to forget those who Holocaust and the Soviet Great Terror pass most infamous of the Nazi concentration had suffered in the Nazi death camps with away their experiences will be forgotten or camps. Then I was sent to Mauthausen and me, and most especially those who had misrepresented. We must not, I believe, from there to Ebensee. I saw things I can perished. But I also wanted to get on with allow the understanding of future never forget. Even if I wanted, that faded my life. I had survived Auschwitz. Now I generations to be shaped by half-truths and blue tattoo won’t let me. I survived the wanted a chance to live. I think I can be distortions penned and promoted by those Holocaust. I know all that I need to know forgiven for that. who have historically done much to about it. I was there, I remember, I can But I have been forced to take my notes suppress the Ukrainian nation’s struggle for never forget. No one should ever doubt that out of the drawer I consigned them to independence, by those who would still do the Nazis exterminated millions of Jews and decades ago. I have had to reread them. I so, if only they could. many millions of non-Jews. have made myself remember the indignities, Ukraine lost more of its people than any My marked flesh empowers me. Those the pain of Gestapo imprisonment, the other European country during the Second who were not in the Nazi death camps do humiliation of being beaten and degraded to World War. 2 This has been all but forgotten. not have the same right as survivors to the point where one almost ceas es to e xist as Ukrainians and other Slavs were described speak about the Holocaust. So although I a human being. How one becomes a in Nazi propaganda as untermenschen , welcome the attempts of those scholars frightened animal, instinctively doing subhumans slated for enslavement or who study what happened and recognize anything one has to in order to survive. extermination. For most Jews it was that some reliable accounts of this great Robbing the dead to cheat death. That’s undoubtedly worse. No matter where they murder have been written, I believe that how many survived. By the war’s end the lived in Europe they were, almost without those who were not there can never truly Nazis had all but transformed me into a exception, targeted for extermination and understand the Holocaust. 1 They interpret. musulman , the term we inmates used for murdered in the millions. While that was I remember. Two very different endeavours. those who remained barely alive, no longer