1
Re-examining
the World War II
Ukrainian Refugee
Experience
Marta Dyczok, DPhil (Oxon),
University of Western Ontario,
mdyczok@uwo.ca
Prepared for Conference:
World War II and the (Re)Creation of Historical Memory in Contemporary Ukraine
24 – 26 September 2009, Kyiv, Ukraine
DRAFT – COMMENTS WELCOME
BUT PLEASE DO NOT CIRCULATE
2
Introduction1
“The Motherland remembers her children. Not for a minute did the
Soviet people, our government, or the Party of Lenin and Stalin forget
about the fate of the Soviet citizens who temporarily found themselves
in the yoke of fascist oppression.”2
The Soviet government sent out this message to the millions of displaced people in
central Europe at the end of World War II. The war is over, it’s time to come home, the
Motherland is waiting. Many displaced Ukrainians told a different story. They insisted
that they were Ukrainians, and not Soviet people. Refusing to go to the USSR, they
explained that they feared persecution, imprisonment or death by the communist
authorities if they returned.
These competing narratives emerged within the larger context of the post World War II
peace settlement. Over 3 million Ukrainians were involuntarily displaced during the
course of the war, and they found themselves at the center of Allied disagreement at the
war’s end. The overwhelming majority of them returned to the Soviet Union, either by
force or voluntarily, while a small minority became refugees and were eventually
resettled in new host countries. Their complicated stories unfolded amidst a rapidly
changing, complex international environment, and this led to the emergence of a
number of competing narratives about the events and their outcomes. As the Cold War
unfolded, these Ukrainians became entangled in larger geo-political issues that affected
both their fate and the way their story was told.
This paper looks at how this experience has been represented in history and how this
has changed over time. It is the beginning of a new research project that builds on my
previous research on Ukrainian World War II refugees (2000) and takes the story into a
new direction. The analytical frame proposed by Horn and Kramer (2001) will be used,
namely that to understand how memory is constructed one needs to first establish the
reality of the events and then trace the image of how they are remembered. Following
Mazower (2008) it will use an explanation of what happened during the war as a preface
to discuss what happens afterwards.
Starting with a look at the conflicting narratives that emerged about the displaced
Ukrainians, the paper will then sketch out an outline of the main events and key issues,
and finally will explore how the account has been revisited since the collapse of
communism. It argues that this complex story needs to be reconsidered beyond the
binary, Soviet and anti-Soviet, Cold War framework because it challenges many
dominant myths about all parties engaged in the war. As such is likely to be a
controversial part of Ukraine’s mnemohistory.
1
2
My sincere thanks go to David Marples for his comments on this draft of the paper.
Nicolai F. Brychev, Domoi Na Rodinu (Moscow, 1945)
3
Conflicting narratives
The complex story of the Ukrainian refugees and returnees has been told in a number
of different ways. At least three distinct narratives emerged around the time these
events were occurring, at the end of the Second World War, by participants and
contemporaries. What emerges is a rather conflicting picture about the actual events,
behavior and motivations of the actors involved. These competing narratives illustrate
the subjective perceptions of the various sides, the beliefs, assumptions and ideologies
of the various actors. These both shaped their experiences and affected the way the
stories were recorded.
The Western Account
The victorious Allied powers faced a daunting task at the war’s end. They needed to
conclude peace treaties and proceed with post war reconstruction as soon as possible.
Millions of displaced people in Europe would need assistance to return home and a
major repatriation programme was organized in the final years of the war. Western
media reports and official histories of international agencies dealing with these
displaced people describe the successful international efforts at dealing with an
unprecedented humanitarian disaster.3 These accounts use Western liberalism as
underlying frame, stressing the tolerant values and compassionate nature of the
Western allied governments in resolving the traumas of the involuntarily displaced.
Some dissonance was introduced into this narrative when Ukrainians, and other East
Europeans, refused to return to communist controlled territories. Many officials dealing
directly with these displaced East Europeans, as well as policy makers in various
Western capitals, could not understand why anyone would not want to return home, and
why these people were so critical of their war time ally, Stalin. UNNRA Director and
former New York City mayor Fiorello La Guardia infamously said, that he could not
understand why people did not want to return home simply because they disagreed with
the government. He disagreed with his government all the time.4 Initially, opposition to
repatriation was not well received, and force was widely used against people who did
not want to return voluntarily throughout the summer of 1945.
As the Cold War unfolded, the pleas of these anti-communist non-returnees gained
political capital. Once the USSR went from being a war time ally to an ideological
opponent, appeals by Ukrainians and other East Europeans for political asylum began
to resonate with the Western governments. Eventually, those who had managed to
3
See, Louise W. Holborn, The International Refugee Organization: A Specialized Agency of the United
Nations. Its History and Work, 1946-1952 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1956); George Woodbridge,
UNRRA. The History of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration. 3 Vols. (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1950).
4 Vera M. Dean, “Tug of War over the DPs,” The Nation, November 1946.
4
avoid repatriation were granted the label of political refugees and assisted to resettle to
new homes. Again, descriptions and reports about these events contained a strong
liberal overtone, that Western democracies protected those fleeing persecution or fear
of persecution.
Most Western accounts of these events did not mention that force was used in the
repatriation of Soviet citizens,5 and the national dimension of Ukrainians’ requests for
political asylum was completely missing.
The Soviet Story
The Soviet Union also faced a daunting task at the war’s end. Stalin and the politburo
needed to consolidate the USSR’s international gains while engaging in major
reconstruction domestically. Meanwhile, millions of Soviet nationals were abroad. Some
of them were criticizing the communist system, refusing to return, and some were
insisting that they were not Soviet citizens at all but Ukrainians. A clear narrative was
constructed that reflected the dominant ideology of a victorious, unified Soviet family,
which also served to undermine the testimonials of the non-returnees.6
Soviet citizens had been deported by the Nazi-Fascist occupiers, or displaced by the
ravages of war, and at the war’s end it was time to go home. The Motherland was
waiting for them. Anyone who did not want to return home was portrayed as having
something to hide: traitorous or criminal activities during the war, perhaps collaboration
with the Nazi regime. “The only persons who do not wish to return to their country are
traitors,” Izvestiia wrote in the summer of 1945. “All honest people taken from their
homes by the Germans wish to return.”7 Those who refused to return should be handed
over to Soviet authorities without delay, to face justice. By 1946, when relations with the
Western Allies worsened, the massive repatriation drive was completed, and the use of
force ended, a new dimension appeared in the Soviet narrative. The capitalist states
were preventing Soviet citizens from returning home, they were keeping them to be
used and exploited as cheap labour in their own reconstruction efforts.
Ukrainians were not distinguished as a separate group, since the dominant narrative
was that all Soviet peoples wanted to return to the Motherland. Ukrainians who did not
want to return were depicted as ‘bourgeois nationalist Nazi collaborators.’ This framing
persisted throughout the entire Cold War period, and the image continues to resonate
among some into the post communist era. The difficult fate of those who returned to the
USSR was completely missing from this story.
5
For the first accounts of forcible repatriation see, Nicholas Bethell, The Last Secret (1974); Mark Elliott,
Pawns of Yalta: Soviet Refugees and America’s Role in Their Repatriation (Urbana, Ill.: University of
Champagne Urbana Press, 1982); Nicolai Tolstoy, Victims of Yalta (London, 1978).
6 Nina Tumarkin, The living & the dead: the rise and fall of the cult of World War II in Russia (New York,
NY: Basic Books, 1994): Amir, Weiner,Making sense of war: the Second World War and the fate of the
Bolshevik Revolution (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2001).
7 Izvestiia, summer 1945, the article was quoted in the New York Times, 1 August 1945.
5
Ukrainian Refugees About Themselves
Ukrainians who did not want to return to Soviet controlled territory found themselves in a
difficult situation. Their nationality was not recognized by the Western allies, since no
Ukrainian state existed, and initially they were viewed as a nuisance. They, however,
were very clear about who they were, what they wanted, and what did not want, and
presented their case in a clear narrative that did not change over time. These people
explained that they were Ukrainians, and refused to be identified as Soviet citizens, or
citizens of the states where they previously resided.8 In very detailed terms they
explained that Ukraine was overrun by a hostile foreign government, and that the
Ukrainian nation was being suppressed. They told their experiences of being displaced
from, or fleeing from, their homes, and that they were unable to return because the Red
Army had occupied the territories where they came from. Their fear was that Soviet
(Bolshevik) authorities persecuted Ukrainians for their national and religious beliefs, and
in some cases their socio-economic background.
Thus they described themselves as Ukrainian political refugees fleeing from tyranny,
oppression, and persecution, and they appealed to international norms in requesting
political asylum. If returned, they feared being killed, or sent to the GULAG. They were
motivated by a strong sense of national identity, and explained that it was their national
identity that was threatened by the USSR. Ivan Bahriannyi presented this in an eloquent
essay, Why I Do Not Want to Return to the USSR.9 This narrative was repeatedly
presented to the Western Allied authorities, so much so that one British official
complained, “The Ukrainians certainly seem to dispose of a great deal of paper, judging
by the sheaves which reach this office almost daily.” 10 This narrative was later
reproduced in stories and memoirs by those who succeeded in gaining refugee status
and resettling in new host countries.11
The Missing Narrative
One narrative was missing from the story at the time these events occurred. Ukrainians
who returned to the USSR left no record at the time of the repatriation that was
accessible in the West. Furthermore, as the Iron Curtain descended, it became very
difficult if not impossible to document their fate upon return to the USSR. Some Western
military personnel who had conducted the actual repatriation related what they had
witnessed to their superiors. British Major S. J. Cregeen reported that in December
8
Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania.
Ivan Bahriannyi, Why I Do Not Want to Return to the USSR (Winnipeg, 1946).
10 Minute by Miller, 10 October 1946. PRO FO 371/56793.
11 For a collection of memoirs and information see, Omelian Kushnir (ed.) Regensburg. Articles and
Documents on the History of Ukrainian Emigration in Germany After World War II (New York:
Shevchenko Scientific Society, 1985).
9
6
1944 Soviet repatriates were greeted in Murmansk by an armed guard.12 When
Solzhenitsyn’s The GULAG Archipelago appeared, he mentioned repatriates he met in
the camps, and this was this first real account about the fate of returnees. But what had
happened to the millions who went back was practically impossible to verify until Soviet
archives opened up and the returnees were openly able to tell their stories.
Reconstructing the Events
How do these conflicting accounts relate to the events that actually occurred? Were
these Ukrainians a separate national group or were they part of the Soviet nation? Were
they political refugees or traitors, or even war criminals, trying to evade justice? Did the
Western Allies assist displaced people to go home and grant political asylum to
refugees, or did they knowingly, forcibly send people to the GULAG? Was the Soviet
Motherland waiting with open arms for her children, or did the USSR punish those who
had been abroad? What do such conflicting narratives tell us about the contemporaries?
How did these narratives affect each other? How has this changed after Ukraine gained
independence?
As Horne and Kramer point out, ‘the first step to understanding how contemporaries
held such opposed views’ is to reconstruct what actually happened.13 Understanding
how that generation understood events through collective beliefs and cultural constructs
in vital but ‘it is also indispensible to establish who did what to whom and on what
scale.’14
Tracing the events of what actually occurred during the tumultuous months surrounding
the war’s end was a complex, transnational project. It involved consulting a variety of
historical records in many countries, including multi-archive research, oral history,
memoirs and other sources. Although Western records were available during the Cold
War, access to Soviet archives and the personal accounts of returnees to the Soviet
Union became possible only after the collapse of communism.
My 2000 book on The Grand Alliance and Ukrainian Refugees was the first English
language study on this question that drew on sources from all sides. It was the first
attempt to reconstruct events based on information from archival sources of all the
members of the Grand Alliance, the states with decision-making power at the time of
these events. It also drew on the records of the Ukrainian refugees, both published and
oral sources. A first step was taken to document the fate of those repatriated to the
USSR, from both Soviet archives and the personal accounts of surviving returnees.
12
Note from Major S. J. Cregeen, 2 December 1944, reporting on Naval Mission in Murmansk from 7
November 1944. PRO WO 32/11119.
13 Horne, John and Alan Kramer, German atrocities, 1914: a history of denial (New Haven, CT: Yale
University Press, 2001): 2.
14 Ibid., p. 4.
7
So, what actually happened? The story is a complicated one. Ukrainians were displaced
for many reasons, and therefore had different attitudes towards their displacement and
goals at the war’s end. Some were interwar refugees (Nansen Passport holders),
Ostarbeiter, or concentration camp survivors. Others had fought for Ukrainian
independence in the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, or were members of national liberation
movements such as the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) or the Ukrainian
National Democratic Alliance (UNDO).There were also intellectuals and clergy, some of
whom had escaped from Soviet controlled Eastern Ukraine during the course of the
war. Among them were also Nazi collaborators and Red Army PoWs.15 At the end of the
war some wanted to go home, others did not.
War time planning by the Allies viewed all displaced people a ‘problem’ and the
preferred solution was to repatriate them all as quickly as possible. An international
agency, UNRRA,16 was created as part of the newly formed United Nations, to provide
relief and assistance for people to return home. Stalin was initially not interested in the
fate of Soviet nationals abroad, but by 1944 agreed to accept Soviet nationals if they
were transported home by the other Allies. That same year the USSR created its own
Repatriation Administration to receive returnees. Repatriation began and resistance to
returning to the USSR appeared almost immediately. In February 1945 a Secret Clause
was added to the Yalta Agreement on repatriation, which allowed all sides to use force if
necessary.
The main repatriation drive occurred after hostilities ended in the European theatre,
during the summer of 1945. Millions of people were wandering around Europe, and the
overwhelming majority of them simply wanted to go home, to France, Belgium, England,
Italy, to Hungary, to the USSR, and to other countries. UNRRA and the Soviet
Repatriation Administration assisted them in doing so. From the now available personal
accounts of returnees, there were many Ukrainians who actually did want to return
home. However, they explain that they were motivated by personal reasons, wanting to
be reunited with their families, rather than the ideological desire to return to the
Motherland and the Party of Lenin and Stalin. Ostarbeiter Lidia Vakl’koCherednychenko returned because she ‘could not imagine life far away from my
mother, from my family and my village.’17
Problems arose when people refused to return to communist controlled territories.
Ukrainians were among them. The situation with Ukrainians was complicated by the fact
that they insisted on identifying themselves in national terms. No Ukrainian state existed
to take responsibility for them, and national identity was not recognized as a category in
the repatriation scheme. To make things even more awkward, borders had shifted as a
result of the war. Ethno-linguistic Ukrainian territories that had been part of Poland
during the interwar years had become absorbed by the USSR. Poland refused to accept
15
For a detailed description see, Marta Dyczok, The Grand Alliance and Ukrainian Refugees
(Basingstoke, Houndmills: Macmillan; New York: St. Martin’s Press, in association with St. Antony’s
College, Oxford, 2000): pp. 14-22.
16 United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, see Woodbridge.
17 Letter from former Ostarbeiter Lidia Vakl’ko-Cherednychenko, Kyiv oblast’, Ukraine, 4 September 1992.
8
Ukrainians with Polish citizenship, since their homes were no longer within Poland’s
post war borders,18 and these people did not want to be handed over to Soviet
authorities. Many of them were sent to the USSR nonetheless.
According to Western statistics, during the summer of 1945, over 10 million displaced
people were returned home.19 It is impossible to document how many returned
voluntarily to the USSR, but it is well documented that in many cases force was used
against those who refused to return. One such incident was recorded in Kempton,
Germany, in August 1945:
“The soldiers entered the church and began to drag people out forcibly.
They dragged women by the hair and twisted men’s arms behind their
backs, beating them with the butts of their rifles. One soldier took the
cross from the priest and hit him with the butt of his rifle. Pandemonium
broke loose. The people in a panic threw themselves from the second
floor, for the church was in the second story of the building, and they fell to
their death or were crippled for life. In the church there were also suicide
attempts.”20
Large scale use of force ended by the autumn, when most people had been repatriated,
relations between the war time allies began to deteriorate, and Western Allied soldiers
increasingly refused to use force against unarmed civilians.
It was at this point that non-returnees began to gain political capital for their anti-Soviet
views. Sending people home to a country that was increasingly hostile became less
palatable. Once the Cold War deepened, in 1947 a new agency, the IRO 21 was created
to resettle those who still remained displaced, including about 200,000 Ukrainians.
Soviet records show that over 5 million people had been repatriated to the USSR by
1946.22 This included 1, 650, 343 Ukrainians, who made up the largest national group of
the Soviet total. All returnees were screened and segregated. Some were transferred to
NKVD authority, others were sent to work battalions or re-conscripted into the Red
Army, but over half were sent to their former homes.23 Those who returned home were
treated as second class citizens until the USSR ceased to exist in 1991. All forms
included a version of the question, ‘were you, or any of your family members, abroad
18
The Western Allied authorities and UNRRA referred to these people as Polish Ukrainians.
From 1 March to 30 September 1945, 10,054,000 Europeans were repatriated. See Malcolm Jarvis
Proudfoot, European Refugees, 1939-1945: A Study in Forced Population Movement (Evanston, Ill,
1956): p. 228.
20 Olexa Woropay, On The Road to the West: Diary of a Ukrainian Refugee (London, 1982): p. 33; Elliot,
pp. 90-91; Iurii L.[avrynenko], “’Rodina’ I ‘Skrynning’: Damokliv mech taboriv,” in S’ohochasne I mynule
(Munich, 1949), Vols. 1-2, p. 65.
21 International Refugee Organization, see Holborn.
22 GARF, f. R-9526, op. 1, d. 1118, 1.223-6, for details see Dyczok, pp. 166, 167.
23 No separate statistics were uncovered by this author to date detailing the precise breakdown of the
destinations of Ukrainians.
19
9
during the Great Patriotic War,’ and an affirmative answer led to discrimination. Many
returnees hid their past out of fear. In 1992 Oleh Kulyk wrote about his father,
“He hid the fact that he was in Germany but was afraid his whole life that it
could be found out. Just my mother knew and no-one else. He even hid it
from me until last year though I was already 27 years old. My mother told
me that in the 1980s when he applied for a new job and filled out the form
he thought that he may be found out. He carried fear throughout his whole
life.”24
Since only some Soviet archives on this subject have been made available to the public,
knowledge about the details of the Soviet repatriation campaign is only preliminary at
this stage, and the full story will hopefully emerge in the future.
Newly available information reveals the complexity of this story. The victorious Allied
powers had a very full agenda at the war’s end, and dealing with refugees and
displaced people was not a high priority, beyond wanting to resolve the problem quickly
and in a way that did not interfere with the larger issues. All parties allocated significant
resources towards repatriation, but despite declarations about concerns for the well
being of these people, all the Allied powers appear to have been motivated by both
practical and political concerns. Furthermore, despite the lofty declarations made in the
Atlantic Charter and United Nations founding documents, neither the USSR nor the
Western Allies were prepared to acknowledge Ukrainians’ national aspirations.
Requests for asylum by Ukrainians were granted only when this became politically
expedient for Western countries. Finally, the displaced Ukrainians need to be
recognized as the diverse group that they in fact were – while some of them were very
strongly motivated by national ideals, others were not.
Re-considering Things After the Fall of Communism
How have these events been reconsidered after the fall of communism and Ukraine’s
independence? How has newly available information re-shaped these narratives? What
does this reveal about the ability to construct meaning through the manipulation of
historical records and deeper underlying mentalities?
While conducting research on this topic in Ukraine in the early 1990s, I met a journalist
who was a historian by training, Volodymyr Skachko. He published an article about my
research titled, “Repatrianty, vidiztisia dlia istorii,” in the highest circulation newspaper in
the country at the time, Parliament’s official paper, Holos Ukrainy.25 This was probably
the first widely read media account about displaced Ukrainians, refugees and
repatriation in independent Ukraine. As a result, I received hundreds of letters from
Letter from Oleh Kulyk, Dnipropetrovs’k oblast, Ukraine, about his father, Prokop Kulyk, 10 September
1992.
25 Volodymyr Skachko, “Repatrianty, vidiztisia dlia istorii [Repatriates, let your voices be heard by
history,]” Holos Ukrainy, 4 September 1992.
24
10
people recounting their personal experiences of repatriation to the USSR at the war’s
end. However, this topic has received significantly less media and public attention than
other historical experiences since that time.26 One possible explanation is that neither
the former refugees nor returnees are a coherent group, able to effectively demand
attention for their stories. Another is that this story it does not easily fit into any memory
project. Yet it is interesting precisely because of its complexity and its challenge to
many larger dominant narratives.
Accounts of resistance to repatriation in the West created the image that nobody
wanted to return to the USSR. Conversely, the Soviet story made it appear that
everyone wanted to go back to the USSR, except traitors. The main Western accounts
(Woodbridge, Holborne) skimmed over the dark story of forcible repatriation and the
national question altogether, and presented the Western democracies as benevolent
humanitarians, and later as standing up to the evil communists. All of these reflect the
ideological positions of those who constructed the narratives at the time, and present a
distorted picture of the actual events and motivations of the actors.
Many of these accounts are now being called into question. The stories of the returnees
show that personal motivations were the main driving force behind their decisions rather
than political ones. They did not indicate that they were responding to the appeals of the
Soviet Motherland. Most of them were simply homesick, wished to see their families,
and did not anticipate the harsh treatment and discrimination they would face upon
return. Many later regretted their decision. This information challenges the Soviet
narrative of the ‘highly-politicized mythology of loyalty and unity amongst all Soviet
peoples during the great struggle.’ It also challenges the account of the refugees that all
Ukrainians were highly patriotic and were willing to sacrifice themselves for the
Ukrainian nation.
Soviet archival evidence and returnees accounts have also allowed for more nuanced
reframing of Cold War ideological images of East and West. Whereas the Soviet Union
claimed that the Soviet Motherland was welcoming all returnees, including the black
sheep, all repatriates were in fact harshly treated for the simple reason that they had
been abroad. Punishment was not limited to those who were charged with treasonous
activities. However, the detailed accounts of screenings, segregation and different
destinations for returnees also challenge the Cold War narrative that all repatriates to
the USSR were killed or imprisoned. This, when taken in tandem with the Western
record of forcible repatriation, challenges the previous ideological black and white
representation of West and East as good and bad. The same needs to happen with the
narrative of war crimes, which the Soviet Union framed in simple terms, that all nonreturnees were Nazi collaborators. Soviet citizens eluding forcible repatriation often lied
about their identities, which made them guilty of deception and thus open to accusations
of Nazi collaboration. The chaos at the war’s end also made it possible for real war
criminals to conceal their true identities. Now that sources are available, it should
26
See for example, Bohdan, Harasymiw, “Memories of the Second World War in Recent Ukrainian
Election Campaigns,” Journal of Ukrainian Studies, Vol. 32, No. 1, Summer 2007: 97-108.
11
become possible to establish who in fact had committed war crimes and remove the
long shadow from the refugees as a group.
A surprising revelation emerged from the returnees’ accounts that engages with recent
historiography re-examining World War II experience in Eastern Europe, particularly the
economic dimensions, including studies by Kershaw, Liulevicius, Mazower, Tooze.27 In
addition to descriptions of difficult and sometimes intolerable conditions, a number of
former forced labourers recount positive memories of their dealings with Germans for
whom they worked. This aspect needs to be further explored.
All this new information introduces a personal dimension to a story that was previously
presented in mainly political terms. It shows how ordinary people got caught up in
events that were not of their making, how they had to make difficult choices, how their
choices were often ignored (not respected). Some had to fight for their rights and
identity, many were accused and penalized for things they were simply not guilty of. And
the story that was told about them often did not correspond to what had actually
happened and why.
Conclusion
This paper is the beginning of a research project, and as such contains more questions
than answers and conclusions. One key question is what does this story reveal about
the ability to construct meaning through the framing and manipulation of historical
narratives and records? What does this case show about the relationship between
constructed narratives and deeper underlying mentalities? How does this contribute to
the study of memory that has swept through various scholarly disciplines?28
The collapse of communism opened up an unprecedented opportunity to reinterpret
relationships between the past, the present and future by contesting previous narratives
about identity, politics and power. The story of refugees and returnees confirms some of
the larger trends visible in the process of Ukraine’s reconsideration of its past. It clearly
shows that historical events can be suppressed in official historical records but remain
active (alive) in individual memory, and resurface into the public sphere once
restrictions on open discourse are lifted.
27
Ian Kershaw, “Improvised Genocide? The Emergence of the ‘Final Solution,’” in the Warthegau,
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society (1994), 51-78; Liulevicius, Vejas Gabriel, War Land on the
Eastern Front: Culture, National Identity and German Occupation in World War (Cambridge, CUP, 2000);
Mark Mazower, Hitler's empire: how the Nazis ruled Europe (New York: Penguin Press, 2008); Adam
Tooze, The Wages of Destruction. The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy (London: Penguin
Press, 2006).
28 Duncan Bell, Introduction, in Duncan Bell (ed.), Memory, trauma and world politics: reflections on the
relationship between past and present (Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006); Le Goff,
Jacques and Pierre Nora (eds.) with an introduction by Colin Lucas. Constructing the past: essays in
historical methodology (Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press; Paris: Editions de la maison
des sciences de l'homme, 1985, 1984): Jay. M. Winter, Remembering war: the Great War between
memory and history in the twentieth century (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006)
12
This speaks to the limitation of the constructivist approach, so prevalent in history and
media studies, which argue that it is possible to shape public opinion through the
selective presentation of facts, in part through the media. All governments use the
media to ‘not only to communicate facts but also to normalize their version of events as
they see fit,’ to reinforce their agenda and silence counter-dominant narratives.29
However, the real question is whether they succeed.
This story supports the view that narratives become accepted if they resonate with
deeper underlying beliefs and experiences.30 Western audiences had little difficulty
accepting the narrative that their governments were assisting displaced people to return
home, and that people refusing to return were somehow suspicious. This is because
most people who live in established democracies believe that their governments uphold
the liberal principles they profess, and it is a basic instinct to want to go home.
Furthermore, accusations of war crimes were coming from the war-time ally, Uncle
Joe’s government. Many are still shocked today when they learn about the use of force
in repatriation.31 Even when the USSR became the official enemy, having no experience
with authoritarian government, many had difficulty believing that innocent people would
need to lie to save their lives.
The Soviet narrative was successful to the degree that it appealed to the experience of
war-time suffering that resonated with the experiences of so many people. The USSR’s
role in the ultimate defeat of the Nazi regime was irrefutable. However, the emotional
response to these tropes did not necessarily translate into support for the Soviet
government or its ideology, particularly among those who had been victimized by it, as
was the case of returnees.
This story is also interesting because it reveals the complexity of issues surrounding
Ukrainian national identity, Ukraine’s World War II experience, how people on all sides
engaged in various activities, held different views, and being Ukrainian did not
necessarily contradict wanting to go home to Soviet control. It also illustrates some of
the intricacies surrounding the touchy issue of Nazi war criminals, which continues to
cast a shadow into the present. The stories of returnees provide more evidence of the
Soviet Union’s attitudes towards its citizens, the use of deception and violence. Perhaps
most interesting is that this story does not easily translate into categories of heroes and
villains,32 and there are no ‘sites of memory’ to historicize these events which can lead
to filling in gaps left by eradicating ‘real’ history.33
29
Harold D. Lasswell. Propaganda Techniques in the World War. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1927);
Patricia Leavy. Iconic events: media, politics, and power in retelling history (Lanham, MD: Lexington
Books, 2007), p. 13.
30 Horne and Kramer, p. 427.
31 E-mail discussion with Achille Michaud and Jo-Ann Demers who are working on a CBC documentary
about World War II, May 2009.
32 David R. Marples, Heroes and villains: creating national history in contemporary Ukraine (Budapest;
New York: Central European University Press, 2007).
33 Pierre, Nora. “Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de Memoire,” Representations, 26 (1989),
Special Issue: Memory and Counter-Memory, pp. 7-24.
13
Bibliography
Primary Sources
Archival Sources
Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Rossiskoi Federatsii (GARF) [State Archive of the Russian
Federation]
Public Record Office (PRO), London
Foreign Office Papers (FO)
War Office Papers (WO)
Letters
Letter from former Ostarbeiter Lidia Vakl’ko-Cherednychenko, Kyiv oblast’, Ukraine, 4
September 1992.
Letter from Oleh Kulyk, Dnipropetrovs’k oblast, Ukraine, about his father, former
Ostarbeiter, Prokop Kulyk, 10 September 1992.
Media Articles
Skachko, Volodymyr. “Repatrianty, vidiztisia dlia istorii [Repatriates, let your voices be
heard by history,]” Holos Ukrainy, 4 September 1992.
Memiors, Essays
Bahriannyi, Ivan. Why I Do Not Want to Return to the USSR (Winnipeg, 1946)
Woropay, Olexa, On The Road to the West: Diary of a Ukrainian Refugee (London,
1982)
Secondary Sources
Bell, Duncan, Introduction, in Duncan Bell (ed.), Memory, trauma and world politics:
reflections on the relationship between past and present (Basingstoke and New
York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006)
Bethell, Nicholas. The Last Secret (1974)
Brychev, Nicolai F. Domoi Na Rodinu (Moscow, 1945)
14
Dyczok, Marta, The Grand Alliance and Ukrainian Refugees (Basingstoke, Houndmills:
Macmillan; New York: St. Martin’s Press, in association with St. Antony’s
College, Oxford, 2000)
Elliott, Mark. Pawns of Yalta: Soviet Refugees and America’s Role in Their Repatriation
(Urbana, Ill.: University of Champagne Urbana Press, 1982)
Harasymiw, Bohdan, “Memories of the Second World War in Recent Ukrainian Election
Campaigns,” Journal of Ukrainian Studies, Vol. 32, No. 1, Summer 2007: 97108.
Holborn, Louise W. The International Refugee Organization: A Specialized Agency of
the United Nations. Its History and Work, 1946-1952 (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1956
Horne, John and Alan Kramer, German atrocities, 1914: a history of denial (New Haven,
CT: Yale University Press, 2001)
Kershaw, Ian, “Improvised Genocide? The Emergence of the ‘Final Solution,’” in the
Warthegau, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society (1994), 51-78
Kunyts’kyi, M. P. Prymusova repatriatsia radians’kykh hromadian do SRSR pislia Druhoi
svitovoii viyny (ukrai’ns’kyi vector) [Forcible repatriation of Soviet citizens to the
USSR after World War II (The Ukrainian Vector)] (Luts’k: Volhyns’ka oblasna
drukarnia, 2007)
Kushnir, Omelian (ed.) Regensburg. Articles and Documents on the History of Ukrainian
Emigration in Germany After World War II (New York: Shevchenko Scientific
Society, 1985)
L.[avrynenko], Iurii, “’Rodina’ I ‘Skrynning’: Damokliv mech taboriv,” in S’ohochasne I
mynule (Munich, 1949), Vols. 1-2.
Lasswell, Harold D. Propaganda Techniques in the World War. (New York: Alfred A.
Knopf, 1927)
Leavy, Patricia, Iconic events: media, politics, and power in retelling history (Lanham,
MD: Lexington Books, 2007)
Le Goff, Jacques and Pierre Nora (eds.) with an introduction by Colin Lucas.
Constructing the past: essays in historical methodology (Cambridge, New York:
Cambridge University Press; Paris: Editions de la maison des sciences de
l'homme, 1985, 1984)
Liulevicius, Vejas Gabriel, War Land on the Eastern Front: Culture, National Identity and
German Occupation in World War (Cambridge, CUP, 2000)
Marples, David R. Heroes and villains: creating national history in contemporary Ukraine
(Budapest; New York: Central European University Press, 2007)
Mazower, Mark, Hitler's empire: how the Nazis ruled Europe (New York: Penguin Press,
2008)
Nora, Pierre, “Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de Memoire,” Representations,
26 (1989), Special Issue: Memory and Counter-Memory, pp. 7-24.
Proudfoot, Malcolm Jarvis, European Refugees, 1939-1945: A Study in Forced
Population Movement (Evanston, Ill, 1956)
Tolstoy, Nicolai. Victims of Yalta (London, 1978)
Tooze, Adam, The Wages of Destruction. The Making and Breaking of the Nazi
Economy (London: Penguin Press, 2006)
15
Tumarkin, Nina. The living & the dead: the rise and fall of the cult of World War II in
Russia (New York, NY: Basic Books, 1994)
Weiner, Amir, Making sense of war: the Second World War and the fate of the
Bolshevik Revolution (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2001)
Winter, Jay. M. Remembering war: the Great War between memory and history in the
twentieth century (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006)
Woodbridge, George. UNRRA. The History of the United Nations Relief and
Rehabilitation Administration. 3 Vols. (New York: Columbia University Press,
1950)