Forgotten Ancestors: A Journey to Western Ukraine

Yaraslava remembers as as small child seeing soldiers herding a large group of people to the shaft of a nearby salt mine and throwing them down to die. Her grandson, Vylodia, took us to this spot which is in an especially bucolic setting. A monument marks the place where either Germans or Soviets did the deed. To this day, neither group admits to it and the locals have conflicting stories. It's possible that Soviets first killed Ukrainian and Polish dissidents and threw their bodies down the shaft. Later the Germans forced Jews to retrieve the bodies and bury them. Then they threw the Jews in the mine. It is rumored that over 4,000 people died. The story is very typical of the confusion and denial that people have about the past. The more questions you ask the more answers you get. Each is a different version of the truth. The tricky part is putting them all together and arriving at a conclusion.

I'm very pleased with the results of my stay in Hubici and Lacko. For so long I've wanted to actually see the land of my ancestors and perhaps understand myself better.

My grandparents, typical of immigrants, believed that once in America, they should forget their homeland. They passed on a little of the language, foods and traditions but not a lot and said almost nothing about the land and their daily lives in it. And no one asked! Everyone was dead by the time I was interested and none of their surviving children knew anything-not even where this mysterious Galicia with its constantly changing borders was really located. Was it Polish, Russian, Austrian or Ukrainian? My parents, like many first generation Americans, wanted more than anything to assimilate. They did not teach us Ukrainian but used it to talk about things they didn't want us to understand. Therefore we couldn't really communicate with our grandparents and much was lost to us about the culture of our people. Food was the main link to the past- even today when I'm sick or lonely, I comfort myself with pierogies!

I really enjoyed meeting these people. I could grow very fond of Vylodia who reminds me in many ways of Alexander--they are both serious, sensitive, kind and funny. And I am deeply thankful to Yaraslava for both her hospitality and research into my grandfather's past.

Just as we were leaving Dobromil, the hotel owner related that a kindergarten teacher, perhaps the daughter of the old man named Wojtowicz, had come to see us. We didn't have the time to seek her out. Alas, who knows what stories she had to tell!

We left Hubici and headed to the villages of my maternal grandparents, deep in the heart of the Boyko's land. The gentle hills of Hubici turned into real mountains. It's beautiful here.

Slav and I went to the district archives in Stary Sambir and found the birth records of my elusive grandfather, Fed Komarnicki! (The government office here has the following Lapousanka records: birth-1910 to 1944, marriage- 1859 to 1949 and death- 1886 to 1944.)

I have been looking for years for information regarding this man who died before his 30th birthday in the 1918 flu epidemic and left Grandmom a 21 year old widow with 3 babies and a dead brother, also a victim of the flu.

Scores of people were gathering flowers along the road and among the nearby trees. They must be preparing wildflower garlands for the Eve of Ivan Kupala, that celebration Lacko's priest cautioned his congregation about. There is an ancient belief that this is the only night of the year when ferns are blooming. Whoever finds a fern-flower will become immensely rich. I'll have to check out Gogol's story "The Eve of Ivan Kupala" when I get home.

Photos: top left: typical country store; top right: Is Pan Komarnicki our relative?; next: field near Lopusanka; next: church in Rosluch; bottom: monument at salt mine

posted by Sandy @ 11:12 AM