It seemed a lifetime ago, so much had happened in these past two years. I curled into a ball and held my knees to my chest, ignoring the thorns and burrs. I could feel the spirit of Uncle Roman wrapping me in his arms. In the depths of my heart, I heard his voice: “You are a strong girl, my dear niece. You will get through this.”
I closed my eyes and waited for darkness. Could I survive? It would take more luck than strength. In the early hours of the morning, I unfolded my stiff, cold legs and found my way to the insurgents’ hideout in the forest.
I reached the perimeter of the camp before the first light of dawn. It was quiet and still, but I knew I was being watched. I didn’t dare step any closer for fear of being mistaken as the enemy and shot. I gulped in a lungful of air, then carefully, clearly, did my best imitation of the falcon’s kak kak kak.
Then I slumped beside a birch tree and waited. Maybe I slept. When I opened my eyes, there was a boy who couldn’t have been more than fourteen crouched in front of me, scrutinizing my face. A rifle was slung across his back. It was not aimed at me and I took comfort in that.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“I’m Krystia Fediuk, Ivan Pidhirney’s niece. Iryna Fediuk’s niece.”
“Why are you here?”
“My mother has just been killed. I need to see my aunt and uncle.”
“What is the answer to the question?”
“Ukraine is not yet dead.”
The boy nodded. “Follow me.” He signalled to people I couldn’t see to hold their fire. As morning light broke through, he walked me past the snipers poised in trees and hiding behind bushes. We walked into the encampment.
Uncle Ivan wept when I told him that I was the only one left of all our family and friends. “The Commandant will pay for this!” he said. “I don’t know when or how, but I will make it happen.”
I couldn’t live with Uncle Ivan, because he stayed in the underground barracks with all the men, but Auntie Iryna’s living space was a room carved under the side of a hill. “You’ll stay with me,” she said.
When my eyes adjusted to the dim shadows of her cave room I saw a mound of stolen army uniforms — many ripped, some of them stained. “Those ones need fixing,” she said. “That’s one of the things I’m good at.”
She found an extra bedroll for me, and while the insurgents prepared for an uprising all around me, Auntie Iryna nursed me back to health one teaspoon of soup at a time. She told me that I was a survivor, as she was. And that the way to honour our family and friends was to be strong and to live and to tell their stories.
“Who will remember them if you give up?” she asked.
Auntie Iryna found the photos and the ripped-up drawings in my pocket. She made a glue of flour and water and carefully pieced the portraits back together. We hung them on the wall of our cave. I found comfort in looking at Dolik and his family. But sometimes I’d wake up weeping, wondering if the Kitais were staring down at me in judgment because I couldn’t save them. On those nights it was hard to get back to sleep.
Auntie Iryna liked to look at the wedding picture of Mama and Tato — the one that Mr. Segal had taken so many years ago — before the sadness, before the war. “Look in their eyes,” she said. “See the hope and joy for the future. They want that for you.”
When I was stronger, she showed me the photograph of Mama and me and Maria, the one that had been taken by Mrs. Segal. I held it to my heart and wept.
“You know that Maria is alive and safe,” she gently reminded me, her arm wrapped around my shoulder. “She’s probably on that farm in Austria by now, with Nathan. I think you need to find her. That’s what your mother would want.”
“Did you know that Auntie Stefa had wanted Mama and Maria and me to go to Canada and live with her?”
“Your mother told me,” Auntie Iryna replied. “She confided in me once that her biggest regret was not taking Stefa up on the offer before the war.”
“She couldn’t possibly have known how bad things would get here,” I said.
“That’s true,” said Iryna. “But I think your mother would rest easy in her grave if she knew that you and Maria were with Stefa.”
“I need to find Maria,” I said. “And if we survive this war, we will go to Mama’s sister.” The thought filled me with hope. “Can you teach me what you know, so I’ll have the strength and skill to find my sister?”
“You already have the strength, Krystia. You’ve proven that. But the skill — that I can help you learn,” said Auntie Iryna, hugging me fiercely.
Author’s Note
Don’t Tell the Enemy was inspired by the true story of Kateryna Sikorska and her daughter Krystia, who hid three Jewish friends under their kitchen floor during the Holocaust.
Krystia is now a senior citizen who lives in Canada. Her daughter, journalist and filmmaker Iryna Korpan, approached me in 2012 at a public event. She handed me a copy of her excellent documentary called She Paid the Ultimate Price and explained that it was about her own mother’s and grandmother’s heroic actions in World War II Ukraine. She asked if I would consider writing a book about it.
After reviewing the documentary and doing some preliminary research, I agreed. I had originally planned to write this book as non-fiction, but as I got into the interviews and research, I realized that writing it that way would not do the story justice. Many of the people who lived through those times had perished. How could I interview them? How could I quote them?
But the other problem was that as I delved into the complicated events of the time, I realized that the story extended far beyond Krystia and her family.
I archived my original manuscript and started from scratch. I located memoirs and narratives of other people in the surrounding towns to create fictional characters based on composites of those real people.
However, my heroine is true to the real Krystia. Her younger sister was Maria, and her father was a blacksmith who died before the war. Her Aunt Stefa sent packages of goods, like stockings, from North America for the family to sell should the need arise.
Dolik and Leon were Krystia’s next-door neighbours. Their mother was a doctor and their father ran a stationery store from the house. Photographer Michael Klar and his wife, Lida, lived across the road from Krystia. Michael Klar took the wedding photo of Krystia’s parents. He and his wife are my inspiration for Mr. and Mrs. Segal.
While pasturing his cow a few kilometres outside their town, Krystia’s uncle was shot and killed by a Soviet soldier. Her cousin was killed by the NKVD — his body so brutalized that the only way he could be identified was by his crooked baby finger.
Ukrainian insurgents did capture the radio station in Lviv and declare independence from the Soviets and the Nazis. They posted flyers to this effect all over the area. These posters were quickly taken down by the Nazis, and those leaders of the independence movement who were captured were sent to concentration camps.
Krystia really did sneak food into the ghetto and spirit out photographs. Her mother and uncle worked with Ukrainian insurgents in the area to create false documents that helped save Jews. Krystia’s mother also sneaked onto the train to sell goods in Lviv.
The first names of the three Jewish friends that Krystia’s family hid were indeed Dolik, Leon and Michael. The real Nathan escaped using the false document that had been provided by Krystia’s family.
All of the atrocities are based on documented Aktions in the area, orchestrated by the Nazi regime to carry out the Hunger Plan and the Holocaust.