Turning the pages back... September 11, 1947 (09/10/00)

Turning the pages back...

September 11, 1947

The second world war came to an end in 1945. Peace, freedom and democracy were supposedly brought back to Europe with the fall of Hitler's Nazi Germany. However, this was not the case in Ukraine, where stubborn resistance by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) continued the struggle against Stalin and the Soviet Union. For Ukraine, the fall of Nazism meant a return to another odious system, Soviet communism, and another oppressor, the USSR.

After the Soviet re-occupation of western Ukraine in 1944, the NKVD quickly began a campaign to root out the UPA freedom fighters on an immense scale. Entire villages were deported and destroyed, family members were threatened by the secret police, there were large-scale battles between the UPA and Soviet forces. The UPA, under immense pressure from the merciless and larger Soviet forces, had few choices.

These difficult conditions left UPA Commander Gen. Roman Shukhevych (Taras Chuprynka) with several choices: continue the fight and eventually be annihilated, go further underground in order to survive, or send out several UPA units to Western Europe to let the world know about the struggle going on in Ukraine. Shukhevych eventually chose the latter two.

In 1946-1947 Shukhevych began ordering several UPA companies to do the near impossible: march from Ukraine to West Germany and show the world that Ukraine was continuing the fight against Soviet tyranny. This nearly 1,000-mile distance was mainly over rugged mountain terrain in Czecho-Slovakia. But the biggest challenge was not the terrain, but the numerous Soviet army and NKVD divisions in the area that were ready to stop any defections from behind the Iron Curtain.

From the time they left Ukraine and came to West Germany, these UPA companies (which usually had around 100 men each) fought against much larger Soviet forces nearly continuously for several months. All these men had were the weapons and food they brought along or captured, and occasional assistance from brave and sympathetic civilians.

Finally, on September 11, 1947, more than three months after beginning its journey, the first UPA unit made it to West Germany: Company 95, led by Lt. Mykhailo Duda - "Hromenko." Out of a force of over 100 men, 36 UPA soldiers made it to freedom. Later, more UPA units arrived as late as the summer of 1948, but others never made it.

Somehow, Western radio stations picked up news about the UPA units making a break for the West, and these men made news around the world. However, when they finally reached the West, few people chose to listen to their story of Ukraine's struggle.

Ukraine's liberation struggle would go on with scant help from those on the other side of the Iron Curtain.

Sources: "Against the Invaders: Taras Chuprynka - Roman Shukhevych, Commander-in-Chief of the UPA" by Petro Mirchuk, Ph.D., J.D., New York: Society of Veterans of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, 1997; "UPA: They Fought Hitler and Stalin" by Petro Sodol, New York: Committee for the World Convention and Reunion of Soldiers in the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, 1987.

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