Uprising behind the Iron Curtain.

Fighting of Ukrainian partisans.

Published on September 30, 1948 at 8 am

By Kurt Gelsner

Signs that this is a German city in Ganghofer settlement in Regensburger gradually begin to disappear, long before the barrier of the international refugee camp is reached. Even the bulbous heads of Catholic churches and roughly plastered walls of houses with small windows in the Bavarian style are unable to resist a magic change in the pattern of streets. Thousands of Ukrainians forcibly brought here or have escaped from the `people’s democracy’ created from their houses, gardens and roads; creating a copy of their eastern homeland, a well maintained and protected area which gives them the illusion of living somewhere on the Don, Dnieper or Donets.

 Laughter cannot be often heard in these streets and in these houses. Flight, poverty, misery, fear, persecution and deprivation are etched on the faces of the Ukrainians. Their eyes carefully, and with restrain, examine every newcomer stranger. Their age-old struggle for their own existence has nurtured distrust in them. They consider everything they had to endure as a sacrifice they were obliged to make for their homeland; one small step on the road to independence. The homeland sends them a message from time to time: heavily armed guerrilla detachments of Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) break through from the battle area to the border of the American zone of Germany. Then the exiles take heart and the western world gets to know that some freedom-loving people behind the Iron Curtain are successfully fighting against their oppressors.

 “Before we start talking, look at these pictures,”- a muscular Ukrainian of medium height says, while we are sitting in his modest room. He is 24 years old and he is a commander of the UPA. This resistance movement entrusted to him one of these raids to the West. His civil name written in the church register book of his community has lost its meaning long ago. His comrades call him the “Berkut”, a golden eagle.

Photos are thumbed. Partisans in the forest, partisans with guns and without them, partisans kneeling during a church service at a forest glade, partisans in the honor guard at the tomb of their fellows, partisans in combat in the thickets and bushes. There are even a few pictures of laughing girls. “Do not think that these are sentimental pictures,” – Berkut says. “These girls are fighting alongside men; they are the same guerrillas as we are. They carry weapons and they behave well in action”.

Here is a group photo, uniforms and weapons are a volatile mix of Czech, Russian and Polish equipments. “We have to procure all this,” – says Berkut. “No one will help us if we do not do it ourselves. We have to fill all ammunition that we spend by taking it from others. But you should know that all our hats, no matter where they came from, have Trident (Tryzub), the image on the arms of free Ukrainians. This symbol can be interpreted as that we are not bandits but the regular army. We wear a uniform, and we have the insignia. Our military organization is present throughout the country, and the number varies from a detachment to the regiment. Although we write as little as possible, our intelligence works fine. If a regiment is needed, it will be ready. We fight as guerrillas only because of the balance of forces: the occupiers have a powerful weapon, we do not have it. But we do not need it, because we are fighting in the woods. And even despite the lack of our weapons, there are places where the occupants dare to intrude only in large groups”.

 We recall that it was suspected that German SS officers and former troops of the Vlasov army are present in the staff of the UPA. The voice of Berkut reveals a mild irritation. In 1943, he fought personally against the German administration, against the SS, Gestapo and policemen. The UPA does not make suddenly friends from former enemies. Vlasov was a Soviet general who recruited his troops from the prison camps in Germany. Neither Berkut himself nor his comrades were ever soldiers of the Red Army. Since 1943 they fight against any form of oppression and enslavement: first national-socialist, then the Bolshevik. Although their ranks contain Germans escaped from Soviet captivity, they had nothing against the Wehrmacht soldiers if they behaved correctly.

Since May 1944 there is only one enemy for Ukrainian partisans, the Bolsheviks and those who are with them. They (the partisans) have strong points in the dense thickets: near Stanislav (Ivano-Frankivsk), Stryi, Sambir, Lviv and in the Carpathians. When it is time to go into battle, they go out of their shelters. They disappear back into the woods before Russians can answer. But the UPA is not tied to their strong points. Its organization exists across the whole country. What is happening today in Crimea, all combat staffs in the woods know tomorrow. They have there not only cabins and dug-outs, but also lined up bunkers at a great cost. Their pantries, hospitals and casemates are from four to ten meters below ground. NKVD special forces strived a lot to smoke the UPA from their nests. But they failed. From 40 to 60 thousand perfectly armed Soviet soldiers attacked the woods. But their losses were always higher than the loss of the defenders.

But isn’t hopeless a struggle waged there by the Insurgent Army? “If we cannot do that, then our children will have to do it,” – Berkut says. “The end remains unchanged: an independent Ukraine. This struggle is certainly not hopeless”.  The Ukrainian people want to have free peasants, not Soviet-style kolkhozes (collective farms). This is why kolkhozes are burning together with all their equipment and machinery. Soviet henchmen convey people in one place because they need slaves to work. This is why we attack the transport and we liberate people. That’s why a German prisoner of war owes his life to these attacks. NKVD organizes strongholds in the cities in order to create centralized bases of struggle against the partisans. Therefore the strongholds are blowing up. And what is a better way to attract allies than a fearless example? “We want to see the Western world knowing about our struggle, that it knows that even the huge Soviet military machine is not impregnable”.

In September 1947 Berkut was ordered to go to march to the West with his group. With arms, as guerrillas, as resistance witnesses.  Someone came before him, someone later. All experiences were exactly the same: two and a half months they were in the way, they waged fierce battles, and in all cases they achieved their goal. “We have no problem to replenish our equipment because Russians deliver their weapons to the Poles and Czechs”, – Berkut says. “None of us surrender alive to the enemy; we have an order and the law”.

 “The world has learned about us. Maybe we’ll find allies in this fight. We are ready. We are waiting for new orders. Maybe we’ll be back home soon”.

It seems that no one can really stop them. When the Poles deported Ukrainians from the southwestern part of the country to the Polish East Prussia, a detachment of the UPA was ordered to protect their fellow countrymen. For a long time there was no news about this group which waded through the woods to the north.   But recently, the Lithuanian newspapers published first reports of clashes with the “anti-popular bands”. This is UPA fighting, and Berkut with his people coming to the West as its “ambassadors”.

Source: http://www.zeit.de/1948/40/aufstand-hinter-dem-eisernen-vorhang P. S. In Germany, they started to digitize books, articles, etc. Many archives on the struggled for Ukrainian independence are now available in the public domain or in the Internet.

Original:

 https://informnapalm.org/3589-arhyva-nemetskoj-gazety-zeit-ob-ukraynskyh-partyzanah

translated by Maria Holubeva