BLOOMINGDALE, Ill. – On the initiative of the Organization for Defense of Four Freedoms for Ukraine (ODFFU), Branch 31 in Palatine, Ill., in cooperation with St. Andrew Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral in Bloomingdale, Ill., the Ukrainian community of Chicago and suburbs gathered, on Sunday, August 2, to honor the memory of the Ukrainians who perished in the Battle of Brody in 1944.
Approaching the end of World War II in Europe, the Russians launched offensives to push the occupying German forces back into Germany, which would leave the Russians free to pursue their objectives in seizing western Ukraine, Belarus and the left bank of the Vistula River in German-occupied Poland, and gaining a foothold in Romania. With the objective of saving western Ukraine from Russian forces, young and patriotic Ukrainians comprising the Galicia Division positioned themselves near the town of Brody. The Ukrainian objective failed. As noted in the Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine, “Of the division’s 11,000 soldiers, 3,000 returned from Brody and regrouped in Serednie, Transcarpathia. After the battle, some members of the division joined up with the Ukrainian Insurgent Army. Many were taken as prisoners of war.”