LETTERS TO THE EDITOR (03/31/02)

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Letter re OST patch brings back memories

Dear Editor:

After reading Ingert Kuzych's letter in the March 3 edition of The Ukrainian Weekly I decided to write about my own experiences with the OST patch, which may interest some of your readers.

In 1943 I was sent to forced labor in Graz, Austria, and ended up working as a house maid for Herr Spee, the chief inspector of the Labor Administration for the District of Steiermark. He was a German from Stuttgart and a highly decorated Nazi.

His wife was a plain country girl, not particularly interested in politics. She was a kind woman, gave me some of her clothes, including a winter coat, and told me that I did not have to wear the OST patch.

One Sunday afternoon, on my half-day off, I boarded the electric train going to Puntigam, a Graz suburb where my mother and sister were doing forced labor at an airplane factory. The train was packed, so most of us had to stand. Next to me stood a young German soldier who was on leave. He picked up a conversation, asking me where I was from. Jokingly I said, "You guess." He tried several places, then gave up and said that he was from the North.

I happened to know a song in the Northern dialect and was happy to demonstrate my knowledge to him by singing:

Wor die Möven schrien/gell in Storm Gebrus,/dor is mine Heimat/dor bin ick zu Hus.

(The English translation would be something like "Where the seagulls shriek gaily in the storm breeze, there is my native land, there I am at home").

The soldier was obviously delighted and pressed on with his query about my place of origin. So, finally I told him that I was from Ukraine. As soon as I uttered that word I heard a voice, "And where is your OST patch?" The man asking this question obviously had overheard our conversation.

I had no time to give him an answer, for he said, "Come with me. You will have to answer to the Gestapo." And so we went back to Graz and there, at the Gestapo headquarters, the officers began questioning me. Being young and naive, and sure of my innocence, I did not feel too much fear and told them that it was Frau Spee who allowed me not to wear the patch. The Gestapo men knew, of course, who Herr Spee was, so they let me go with a warning that if I didn't wear the patch from now on I would be punished.

Incidentally, Frau Spee showed me the instructions which she received on how to treat the Ostarbeiter such as myself. No conversations were allowed except giving orders. The poor woman had no one to talk to all day long since the Austrian women avoided her company. So she ended up occasionally talking to me after all, asking me about my family and my life in Ukraine.

Some day I will write the complete story, but here I just wanted to give a further illustration of what Ingert Kuzych said in a letter: that some German agencies "proposed to abolish the odious OST symbol." As my experience shows, not only agencies, but also some decent German individuals were opposed to this degrading practice.

Assya Humesky
Ann Arbor, Mich.

No UNA candidates or platforms in sight

Dear Editor:

We are about two months away from the next quadrennial convention of the Ukrainian National Association and there are no lists of candidates or their respective platforms and credentials in site. It is not only disturbing, it is outright alarming that we are once again led in the dark about whom we are to elect and how are we to make an informed decision come May 24.

A repeat of the last convention does not hold a promise for some miraculous solution. Quite the contrary.

The confusion regarding leadership and any proposal to change the UNA's organizational structure from a community-oriented body to a corporate structure remains unresolved and undiscussed at the branch level of the UNA. This, in itself, needs a much more thorough study by the membership than a convention can allow. In the absence of strong leadership, the choice of a corporate structure looks rather attractive, but at the same time is doubtful because of too many unanswered questions regarding its relationship and affect on the community aspect of a fraternal organization. If the UNA structure, as it stands today, is too cumbersome in size to effectively manage the organization's dual business and community responsibilities then that, too, needs more than a day of discussion of delegates in Chicago.

An organization of the size and prominence of the UNA is too important to go down the path of some other fraternal organizations in our recent experience. The UNA management has to face up to its responsibilities and lead the discussion of viable choices that the membership can intelligently support. Apathy and inertia are frequently the result of confusion and lack of direction.

It is now late March. I call for clarification of the proposals before the UNA Convention so that I could still pass my opinion onto the delegate from my local branch of the UNA. For a start, many of us would like to know who the candidates are and what programs are they offering to re-energize the UNA so that the organization may grow.

Roma M. Hayda
Easton, Conn.

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