To be Ukrainian and be able to declare it openly...

In a secluded spot of London's Holland Park, among luxurious English flower gardens, an elderly grey-haired woman is painting. Red and pink camellias, wisteria bunches, and tulips with black velvety tips come to life under her brush.
Peacocks cackle from the rooftop of the Belvedere restaurant. Soon, they will take off and stroll through the narrow alleys, sweeping them with their magnificent tails, and then reward the visitors with their huge standing fans.

The colours in the artist's paintings are cheerful and succulent. They have light, sun, and the blue of the sky in them. They also emanate infinite energy that comes from the life-giving source of love, dignity, and goodness.

However, the colour grey prevailed in various periods of the painter’s life, which at times gave way to black... Grey were the walls of the Polish police station, a prisoner’s skirt and jacket, and the endless horizon of Kolyma. Black was the autumn night on the old creaking ship in the Sea of ​​Okhotsk; black in grief was the mother who survived the death and arrest of her children. However, black fear
never overcame her because she had no such fear...

Ivanna Maszczak, a Ukrainian from London, is now known in Poland, Canada, Germany, the USA, Australia, Lviv, Ternopil, and Kyiv. There was a time when at Christmas she would send 140 greetings out to her friends around the world and receive the same number from them. But of late, she’s receiving fewer and fewer letters and cards...

- Ivanna, how did you manage to warm the whole world with your sincerity?All of them are my friends - some from childhood, and others with whom I once shared a dry piece of rationed bread in Kolyma. These days, I can go to Marks amp; Spencer to get something tasty or buy a delicious spinach pie from the Arab bakery around the corner, whereas 70 years ago even bread was a great luxury for us. We became friends with many people then; we still worry about and take care of each other, even though we all have many years behind us.
-In London, everyone calls you Asya. Your given name, however, is Ivanna?
I was the youngest child in my family and, being the only sister to my three brothers, I was affectionately called first Ivasya, and then simply Asya.- What was your family like? My father Osyp Przepiórski from Yavoriv, Lviv Region, was a Ukrainian Greek
Catholic priest, and his brother Andrii was a chaplain with the Sich Riflemen 1 . My mother Iryna Marenin, also from Yavoriv, was a teacher who headed the local branch of the Ukrainian Women’s Union in Khorobriv, Sokal District. Our mother played the piano quite well. I was the fourth and youngest child in the family, with three older brothers. Myroslav, on the eve of his 25 th birthday in 1943, was killed
by a Polish bullet near Uhryniv. Vsevolod joined the OUN 2 at the age of 15 in 1936. During WW II, he fought in the battle near Brody and survived by accident.- He became a member of the underground UPA 3 and was exiled to Kolyma for 25 years. Yurko joined the Halychyna Division 4 in 1943; he perished in 1944 whilefighting near Brody.- Your own life was also full of drama…
 Yes, many things happened... The Bolsheviks arrested me for the first time in1945. After a short stay in the prisons of Sokal and Lviv, in  Lontsky Street, I hid with my friends during raids wherever we could.- Did your family experience the horrors of Operation Vistula 5 ?
In 1946, immediately after WWII, the Polish authorities strongly recommended that the Ukrainians there move “voluntarily” from the so-called “kresy wschodnie”, or “eastern territories” in Polish - in fact, to Ukraine. Only a fewfamilies moved because everyone had a farm, a  house, and a field. Where do you take it all; where should one go in Ukraine, and why? In 1947, the Polish authorities carried out the infamous Operation Vistula; they decided to evict thousands of ethnic Ukrainians. Why did they resettle people from Poland? Those people were not given anything in return in the USSR. Why destroy lives and destinies of Ukrainians whose livelihoods had already largely been destroyed bythe war?I remember when the Polish army surrounded our village and announced that we had two hours to pack up. Each family was assigned two carts. They cared nothing
(1 One of the first regular military units of the Ukrainian People’s Army in 1917-19.
2 The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, a Ukrainian nationalist political organization established in 1929.
3 Ukrainian Insurgent Army was a Ukrainian nationalist paramilitary and later partisan formation. During WWII, it
was engaged in guerilla warfare against the Soviet Union, the Polish Underground State, Communist Poland, and
Nazi Germany.
4 A World War II German military formation made up predominantly of military volunteers with a Ukrainian ethnic
background from the area of Galicia (Halychyna in Ukrainian).
5 The codename for the 1947 forced resettlement of some 150,000 Ukrainians from the south-eastern provinces of
post-war Poland to the so-called Recovered Territories in the west of the country.)about the houses, cattle, gardens, or relatives’ graves being left behind. Not having a lot of money nor belongings, we threw a couple of bags into the bottom of the cart and “Hey-ho!” off we went. In a couple of hours, a column of carts was already on its way to Uhniv, and then to “kresy” on rail freight cars. The soldiers treated people very cruelly. My parents and I ended up in Srokowo, Olsztyn
Voivodship. At that time, German families were forcibly evicted from the city and their apartments were offered to the new arrivals, that is, to us. We entered the house, and there were still bread crumbs on the table. Mother went to the stove, and it was still warm to the touch. “We will not spend the night here,” mother tried to speak clearly, although her throat had tightened with emotion. That night we all
lay down on the ground near the house and slept in the open; luckily, it was summer. The first week we slept in the open air, on the cobblestones of Srokowo in front of the town administration building. Only later were we given a half-destroyed house.
The struggle for the Ukrainian cause did not stop even in the new place. OnEpiphany Eve 1947, the Polish Security Service arrested me  again for my connections to the underground. On our way to Olsztyn, the guard even felt sorry for me: I was so young, he said, and already a follower of Bandera 6 .
I remember the prison on Koszykowa Street in Warsaw. From the first day, for responding “I don't know” they hit me in the face, and those blows were accompanied by vulgarities. Later I was made to sit on a hook with my legs extended down while the hook was digging itself into my behind.
Two Polish women from Armia Krajowa 7 were my cellmates at the time. One of them, Danuta, somehow managed to withstand 73 blows with a rubber truncheon.She finally crawled into the cell, and large tears were rolling down her face. She
 could not sit down and could only hold on to the toilet with her hands. “Why didn't you scream?” we asked her. “They might have reduced the number of blows at least a bit.” “I wanted to know how long I could endure,” she answered. And later there were prison cells in Legnica in the Wroclaw region, a train to theSoviet Union, and from there, to prisons in Brest-Litovsk, Orel, and Kyiv.
 At 33 Korolenko Street in Kyiv, I was locked up for a whole day in a box - a dark,cramped cell, as though in a coffin.
 (6 Stepan Bandera (1909 – 1959) was a leader of the Ukrainian right wing of the Organization of Ukrainian
Nationalists.
7 Polish for Home Army, the dominant resistance movement in German-occupied Poland during WW II.)The interrogations were especially brutal when they tried to get additional information about some of our actions or underground fighters. I remember one exquisite type of torture called “the mills,” for those who were particularly unrelenting and did not intend to betray their comrades. During the interrogation, they would twist a person’s arms and legs back and tie them together. Then they
would turn the bound person back and forth, hit him or her on their exposed ribs, on the head, on the stomach; they could not defend themselves in any way.
When May was in full bloom, I received a sentence from the “special council” to serve 10 years at the Coastal Correctional Camp (Berlag) 8 . After that, there were Kuibyshev, Irkutsk, Chita, Khabarovsk, Vanino Bay (Soviet Harbor) on the Sea of
​ Okhotsk, Magadan, Butugichag women’s camp, and Khenikandzha. As I learned later, my brother Vsevolod had also been sent there.- How often did you receive letters from home?
Until 1954, my parents did not know where I was nor whether I was even alive. In1954, through friends who had already been released, I  sent my first message homefrom Kolyma and finally I received three letters from my mother.
 My letters were short. I let my relatives know that my brother and I were still alive. At that time, I did not know that I would return to Poland the following year.- What was most difficult for you in the camps?
The most difficult were hunger, the cold, and physically demanding work, as well as lack of information about the fate of our parents. Until 1954, I did not know at which camp in Kolyma my brother was being held, since I met him only once in the special zone of Magadan to which we were brought as foreigners.Then there was another opportunity for us to meet; we had been looking forward to
it for so long. They brought us close to the bird market where we could call out the names of those for whom we were looking, and that person might respond from the crowd. Countless seagulls were squawking loudly. No one could hear anyone; our heads were spinning from the noise. We were just standing there, covering our earswith our hands, and realizing that no one hear could anything. The only  desire was to escape from there as soon as possible. Vsevolod and I never saw each other - we could not outshout the seagulls. And then we returned to our camps.
The mood was also unspeakably sad on Ukrainian holidays, although we stillmanaged to observe them.
 (8 Berlag was a system of special Soviet concentration camps where fighters against the Soviet regime were kept.- How did you observe the holidays?
For example, one time on Christmas Eve, we asked the overseer to give us an opportunity to gather for Christmas, as most of us were from Halychyna - Galicia.
“Only briefly,” she suddenly agreed and closed the door behind herself. We huddled next to each other, each of us took out a piece of dry bread that we had tucked away from breakfast, and our Christmas Eve dinner began. We whispered a prayer, quietly sang a Christmas carol, and nibbled on the remains of our own little pieces of bread. And then, in our thoughts, we were transported back to our
families, gathered around our tables and in front of everyone’s eyes there appeared kutia 9 with poppy seeds, dumplings with cherries, and stewed fruit. My heart was overcome with emotion…
We tried to hold Taras Shevchenko poetry readings, observe religious and national holidays. For that, they would punish us and put us into isolation cells.- What ‘camp knowledge’ have you gained for yourself?
- I learned how to endure difficulties. I understood that one needed to get to know a person, to appreciate and love them, because you can learn something good from everyone. I understood that adversity unites people and teaches them to forgive.
Sometimes, however, you just have to say “No” firmly and fearlessly. If you are afraid of your overseers and they see this, they will not back off from you but will invent some humiliation each time.
Once, in minus 30-degree Celsius weather, I was digging frozen ground with a pickaxe, as we were making holes for posts. Although I was in a jacket and tarpaulin boots, the cold was penetrating to the bone. I said to the overseer, “Enough, I'm going to warm up.” He hadn’t expected this and immediately responded, “Don't you dare!” “You won’t do anything to me!” I told him firmly,
and walked away towards the barracks. Why should I be afraid? And he didn’t shoot me in the back; didn’t even throw a stone at me; he raised his hand abruptly and lowered it in frustration.- The Gulag 10 was one of the most brutal creations of the Soviet system. How could anyone endure it?
True, in the camps we had to dig frozen ground or ditches when it was beyond the limits of human capabilities. In addition, we suffered constant humiliation from the9 A traditional grain dish made with nuts and poppy seeds sweetened with honey and served at Christmas.
10 The Russian abbreviation for the State Directorate of Labor Camps.overseers. When the pain or the humiliation became unbearable, I simply relied on my endurance. It was impossible to survive the psychologically and physically hard work and contempt. In the camps, people would become sages and philosophers. We learned to tolerate our pain, abuse, and humiliation, but
sometimes this patience erupted in rebellion. To regain peace of mind, we embroidered ritual cloths and other smaller table covers, and other items. Threads were pulled from old clothes or scarves, and parcel bags served as cloth for
embroidering.- Modern women have no idea how you managed in the Gulag during “critical days”.
For this, we used hessian cloth from parcels, washing those rags each time – and we got used to it. This was not the biggest problem, however.
- Ivanna, how did you and the other young women live after being released from the camps?
When I returned home to Poland (and we flew for a long time on a mail plane sitting on stools), my father was no longer alive, since he had passed away not long before then. Mother was grief-stricken.
Of course, upon release from the camps young men and women tried to get married, have a family, and start a normal life. Not everyone, however, was so lucky...I started working at the town library. I lived on the premises in a small corner behind the bookshelves there. Representatives of the authorities came to see the director (a communist, by the way) once a week and asked about me. At that time, the attitude of Poles towards Ukrainians was hostile, but there are good peopleamong every nation, so I was lucky to meet such people in Poland.
Once, a colleague stayed overnight at the library with me. In the evening, when were talking with her, she began to tell me how Ukrainians abused Poles and killed them. I listened for some time and then asked, “Has anyone in your family suffered because of Ukrainians?” “No,” she said. “Thank God, no one”. “Poles killed my brother,” I said. “So, let’s not exchange accusations.” The woman fell silent...- With whom of your camp friends are you still in touch?
In 1948, I spent some time in the Kyiv prison at 33 Korolenko Street (now Volodymyrska Street). There I met Nina Virchenko who was - from Volyn Region. Nina survived all the torture, entered the university to studymathematics (she had no right to study in “ideological” departments) and became a professor of mathematics. Until recently, she taught at the Kyiv Polytechnical University. After Ukraine regained its independence, she learned about MykhailoKravchuk and brought him to the attention of the world. He was one of  the brilliant and completely forgotten Ukrainian mathematicians, also a victim of Stalinist repressions, and she wrote a book and many articles about him.In addition, I corresponded with former “Kolyma women” Lida Romanchuk and Katrusia Maksymovych. Nadia Mudra, a witness to Stalin’s terror, who returned to Lviv in 1956, was able to get a higher education, became a member of the League of Ukrainian Women in Lviv, and wrote numerous articles. Her efforts have resulted in the publication of three volumes of Women in the Liberation Struggle of
the 1940s and 1950s. Sonia Malilyo is a poet who has published several collections of her verses. After her release, she worked as a teacher in the Zaporizhzhia and Cherkasy Regions, and in 1999 she received permission to return to her native Transcarpathia. Unfortunately, some of these friends have already passed away.
For many years, we were good friends with Stepan Semenyuk with whom we returned to Poland from the Soviet camps. At one time, he also suffered a great deal for promoting the Ukrainian cause, and then became an organizer of the largest Soviet-era Norilsk Uprising of those incarcerated in 1953, the main participants of which were former UPA members and prisoners from Western Ukraine. The uprising was very powerful, it lasted over two months. In order to suppress it, the authorities brought out tanks against the rebels, as the confrontation was very fierce. So, how could this story not be told? I advised Stepan to write a memoir about this momentous event because he had personally played such an important part in it. For some reason he did not feel that he could do justice to this
important story. He did not have the confidence to tell this story. “I’m not a writer,” he said. During each visit to London, Stepan and I had an opportunity to talk and reminisce about a great deal. In recent years, he travelled between Ukraine and Poland. Now even Stepan is gone...- And how did you manage your life?
I never thought of moving to Britain. One day, however, my friend from Scunthorpe invited me to visit England for a few days. This was in the 1960s, after the hard labor in the Soviet camps. I travelled to Great Britain, where she, as it turned out, had plans to have me marry her Ukrainian acquaintance. I had no plans for a serious liaison nor for serious commitments. I had to return home in a week,since I was on a scheduled vacation and had to return to my job. I visited this friend for a few days but then was able to extend my time in London. She asked her friend Volodymyr Maszczak from the Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain’s editorial board of “Ukrainska Dumka” (Ukrainian Thought) newspaper, to show me the city. He showed me all the best the city had to offer - royal palaces, monuments, wonderful parks. We walked the streets of London until late into the night, talked about many things, and even found that we had mutual acquaintances.
Vlodko, along with the other 9,000 soldiers of Halychyna Division, was brought in by the British government in 1947 so that they would not be sent to the Soviet Union and killed in the camps. Vlodko, a tall, handsome man, did not have a lot of money, since he only survived on promoting the Ukrainian cause. He rented a small area in the home of a wealthy Jewish man in Acton, the western part of
London... At that time, many Ukrainians lived there as well. In short, the day before my departure Vlodko proposed to me and asked me to remain in England. I neither expected nor planned such a turn of events, and much to my surprise, I
immediately responded, “Yes!; We seemed to fit so well together.
Within five days, we married. I still could not believe myself when I returned home to Poland as someone’s wife. I have never once regretted my having done this; we lived together for 47 years, living modestly. My husband passed away on the last day of 2012 at the age of 94. Although he lived his last 5 years in a nursing home, I spent time there with him and helped the employees of this facility every
day.
(At the nursing home, Asya helped take care of both her husband and all of the other residents. One day, her husband’s special bed broke, and they could not locate a new one for several days. They said that this had been happening for a long time, and they were unable to change out seven other such beds for a year.
On the second day, Asya identified which services to contact, and by the end of the day, the administration was informed that all eight new beds would be delivered the next day. The administration and the entire nursing home gave Ivanna a standing ovation. Within a short time, she did what they could not do for a year.)-I have no doubt that, like your husband, you also devoted yourself to promoting the Ukrainian cause in London.
At first, I joined my husband and started working at the bookstore of the Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain (AUGB), founded in 1946. Times werevery difficult, because Ukrainians here had to start their lives from scratch. Having settled in a little; we started going on vacation to the sea. My husband continued to work at the newspaper Ukrainska Dumka, and in 1973, I began working at an
English bank where I worked until my retirement.
But I could not just sit at home, so I returned to AUGB as a volunteer where I helped out in the T. Shevchenko library and archive and sent out issues of Ukrainska Dumka to subscribers (until the very last day of its 70-year-long publication). For several years in a row, until recently, I also volunteered at the library of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Cathedral in London.- Ivanna, you have been visiting the picturesque Holland Park for years now with paints and brushes in hand. How long have you been painting?
When I retired, I had some time to spare, and it was then that I picked up a brush for the first time. I began to paint flowers blooming outside the window, and then those in London parks. I drew Lemko 11 churches from old photographs. I was painting just for
myself and did not expect that anyone would be interested in my work. It turned out, however, that many acquaintances, and sometimes, even complete strangers wanted to have them in their homes. It is still hard to believe, but several successful exhibitions of my watercolours have already taken place, and two catalogues of my works have been published.- You have published two memoirs, “Down Memory Lanes."; How did you manage to retain so much information in your memory?
You know, thank God, I remember almost every day spent in the camps. I remember the names of those cruel guards. Can this ever be forgotten? In the book, I only shared the history of my family, about my friends with whom we went
through the stormy periods of the history of Poland, Western Ukraine, and the Soviet Union from the 1940s through the 1950s.- From your reminiscences, we see a picture of the emergence of the UPA or similar Ukrainian groups. It appears to be very naturalas young people and their leaders considered it their sacred duty to defend their Motherland.
This is how it happened. The Red Army would draft their conscripts by force,while Ukrainians would sign up for the UPA voluntarily. Do  not forget that we were all brought up on the stories of our parents and grandparents about the Sich 11 A region in Western Ukraine.Riflemen, the Ukrainian Galician Army, etc. Therefore, the UPA and theHalychyna Division were how we protected our native land,  parents, home, and churches. For young people it was quite natural, and their relatives always supported them in this endeavor. Our mother, for example, always taught us, “Tobe Ukrainian and declare it openly under any of life’s circumstances is patriotism,
 too; so, my children, always remember this.”- Did you manage to visit Ukraine after it regained its independence?
In 1991 (while the USSR still existed), I went to Kyiv, not having been there in along time, to participate in the First World Congress of  Political Prisoners. I also visited Ukraine in 1993, 1995 and 2018 to see my family and friends. In November 1995, I unexpectedly received a Certificate of Rehabilitation from the General Prosecutor's Office of Ukraine.
In 2019, I had the honour of participating in the presentation of the second edition of my memoir at the Book Arsenal in Kyiv.
Of course, Ukraine in all its times, better and worse, would be in my heart always, as it was in the heart of my husband and all of our friends in Great Britain and abroad.
A generous reward of fate
How can one live through so much horror and not hold evil in oneself? The evil really disappeared, having instead transformed itself into the colours that Asya hadmissed in the grey everyday life of the Gulag. Her current resplendent watercolours -  roses, wisteria, orchids, and poppies - are the greatest evidence that you cannotkill the human soul no matter how hard you try; her faith and spirit cannot be
 destroyed; they are restored, revived and start playing in richer colours.Great Britain has duly honoured its citizen who had suffered for the Ukrainiancause in Soviet times. It provided her with free housing and  a decent pension.
Here, in an ordinary city hospital in West London (where the modern super-richfrom the post-Soviet space are sometimes treated for a  great deal of money), she underwent heart surgery at no cost to her. In the early 2010s, she took free computer courses for pensioners and for years has been actively reading andcorresponding on the Internet.
 In 2005, Ivanna Maszczak was invited to the Embassy of Poland in London and asked to share her experience in Polish prisons. The officials listened and recordedher story for four hours. It was only in early 2013 that she received a letter fromthe Polish authorities with  an apology for all the troubles they had caused her in her life. They, however, would not be able to punish those who had committed
these crimes, because they were no longer among the living.
In late 2021, the London Museum of Communist Terror asked her to give a public presentation in front of an English audience, as quite a lot of people wanted to listen to Ivanna Maszczak’s story. (Has even one Gulag guard lived to see how a former Kolyma prisoner would be honoured in a major European capital?) Finally, Britons have also understood the need to study the history of Ukraine, as it holds
many things that could facilitate an understanding of what is happening on the territory of the former USSR and why it is happening now. In particular, one can learn about the roots of Russian contempt, envy, and hatred for Ukrainians whohave had their own history, religion,  and traditions for centuries and whosenational identity could not be eroded by the Holodomor 12 , nor the Gulag, nor
 Siberia, nor were they even intimidated by executions. They will not be destroyed by the cruelty unprecedented for the 21 st century nor by the flagrant international crimes - the large-scale war and genocide launched by Russia in Ukraine in
February 2022.- Ivanna, in 2013-14, you supported the Revolution of Dignity on the Maidanin Kyiv. What would you wish for Ukrainians in these historic  days of the Russian-Ukrainian war, when with weapons in their hands they defend the very existence of Ukraine?I am proud of the people who defend the independence of their state, and I want to wish them Faith, Unity, and Perseverance! I don’t want Ukraine to return to the 1930s through the 1950s - the times of Soviet repressions, nightly disappearances, murders, and torture... Allowing criminals to destroy, kidnap, torture, and abusethe Ukrainian people is unacceptable in the 21 st century in the centre of Europe!
 The truth belongs to you! While Ukrainians in Britain are far from their homeland,we do everything possible to make you feel our  support. We are with you!
Glory to Ukraine! Glory to you and to all who died a martyr’s death for thefreedom of Ukraine. Glory to the heroes!
 x x x
Asya’s relatives continue to live on in her thoughts, memories, and prayers. On her table she keeps their photos, even though most of them are already in a better12 Artificial famine organized by Stalin’s regime in Ukraine in 1932-33.world. In one photo dating back from  the 1920s, Asya’s mother stands in the company of her friends: all the women are neatly coifed, in elegant black coats and hats.Ivanna  Maszczak's room is decorated with Ukrainian-style ritual cloths and various smaller embroidered items, on the shelves there are enamelled stoneware andnumerous Ukrainian books (many others she sent to Ukraine in the first years of its
 regained independence). Destiny indeed rewards those who are steadfast andstrong in spirit. It generously rewards those who did not go  against their conscience, who did not allow their dignity to be trampled upon, for whom God’scommandments have become not only   an unchanging life’s credo, but also anenduring life’s core.

Ariadna Voitko

Pictured: Ivanna Maszczak in her youth and now
“Sunflowers”. I. Maszczak, watercolour
“Still life”. I. Maszczak, watercolour