Bereza Kartuzka is a film about political prisoners during Western Ukraine’s inter War Polish regime. Its harshness spawned the Ukrainian Insurgent Army which went on to fight the Nazi and Soviet machines. Producer/Director Yurij Luhovy caps the universality of man's inhumanity to man with the message: resistance to tyranny is eternal. Bereza, named after the notorious prison, is about yesterday; its lessons are applicable today.
Many young faces on the screen are familiar. They became leaders: Taras Chuprynka founded an army; Stefan Bandera led an independence movement. There’s Winnipeg's Olha Bilas-Senchuk. She is crying, recalling her uncle and brother's execution by hanging for resisting oppression. Volodymyr Makar is there, Sofijka and Lesia Kachor's mother and Theodor Baran, whose son Emil was a strong Canadian presence in post-independent Ukraine. And handsome pan Majiwskyj. Shot by the enemy, his widow married Evhen Shtendera-- "Litopys UPA" fame--and taught hundreds of children in Ukrainian-language schools. Yaroslav Preyzhlak's commentary throughout the footage is invaluable just like his eulogy at tato's, my father's, funeral was in 1995. Pani Kobzir, godmother to Kvitka Haywas, recalls the horrid conditions in Bereza. Rotting, inadequate food, overcrowding and toilet for all on a whistle command --finished or not. Psychological torture was designed to re-enforce the prison authorities' pledge to the incarcerated: Here you are nothing.
Most of the faces are gone now but their story continues. Bereza prisoners went on to become activists of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, freedom fighters and the backbone of the diaspora around the world. Bereza made me understand why my mother loved Hollywood's High Noon: she was applauding the stand of one man against oppression.
Bereza's political prisoners, including my father, were incarcerated for resisting Poland's de-Ukrainization. Most were students, held without trial, some for three –four years. And there was the assassination of Minister Bronislav Pieratsky the minister charged with Polonization.
The documentary says Hryhorij Matsejko, a Lviv student, committed the act. His photo reveals an unlikely assassin. Handsome, dreamy-eyed, studious who, like the rest of them, chafed under Polish chauvinism.
Here's what happened. The Treaty of Versailles legitimized new nations springing from the collapsed Austro-Hungarian Empire. The Entente, deferential to Russia in matters dealing with the eastern part of Europe was baffled by what to do with Ukraine. Margaret MacMillan, in "Paris 1919", describes Lloyd George, then Prime Minister of England, dismissing Ukraine's delegation seeking recognition for statehood: he has once met a Ukrainian and he doesn’t need to meet another!
Such ignorance landed Western Ukraine in Poland's “care”; for 25 years only! But the clever Poles had other plans: Polonize the population and keep Ukraine. Chauvinism, ethnic hatred, violence, reigned. Ukrainians were kept out of businesses, professions and institutions of higher learning. Speaking Ukrainian constituted insubordination to the Polish regime. In response popular resistance, directed by OUN, spread. The assassination, followed by Poland's determination to "pacificfy" Ukrainians exacerbated the situation. There were widespread arrests, prisons like Bereza and, ultimately, national resistance byUPA under General Roman Shuchewych.
And there he is on the screen-- Petro Bashuk, my father. Rounded-up, incarcerated. And real-life history changes like channel surfing. Click! It's1939. Stalin collaborates with Hitler to invade Poland. Will Western Ukraine finally be rid of the insufferable Poles? Click! They're out. Click! The Soviets are in but even more brutal than the previous bastards. Click! They're out. For a few months there is peace and rejoicing. Click! It's 1941. The Germans march in; this time without Russians. Click! It's the declaration of Ukraine's independence! Click! The Gestapo are arresting the OUN's leadership. Several hundred, including its leader Stefan Bandera, are herded to Nazi concentration camps. My father spends much of the War period in the death mills of Auschwitz.
Click! The War ends. In Ukraine the Soviets are crucifying the people. This must stop! But the Allies have clicked to "off". There is little compassion for those being persecuted, killed or exiled by Soviet comrades. A new policy of don’t ask, don’t tell allows Kremlin to commit then whitewash atrocities for nearly fifty years.
Occupations--Poland, Germany, Russia-- defined Ukraine's inter war period. Today, the same players are at it again. Russia is determined to control Ukraine, albeit through its own government. Poland protests UPA and OUN's resistance to Polish atrocities hoping, no doubt, favourable strategic alliances with Russia. To placate Moscow, Germany undermines Ukraine NATO bid and its energy advantage. A dying, stateless John Demianiuk is persecuted for alleged war crimes while Germany exonerates its own War elite. It's get the victim time.
Luhovy’s film is about resisting injustice. It attests to the universality of the right for self determination and freedom and proclaims the inability of despots to suppress this basic human right enshrined in the United Nation's Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
My father was incarcerated in Bereza, then Brigitky Prison in Lviv from which he, Yaroslav Haywas--Kvitka's father-- and Petro Kaniuka escaped, creating a national sensation and firing the spirit of resistance. A bas-relief of three falcons breaking out from behind bars was installed in that infamous place, 33Horodotska Street. Please say Slava Ukrajini! Herojam Slava! for freedom everywhere, should you ever visit.
Brigitky was as foul as Bereza and as brutal as Auschwitz: Occupational forces everywhere are merciless. Yet tato would say, “Katset , incarceration, was a university.” More. In those institutions of "higher learning" he developed friends for life. The katsetnyky were like no other fraternity on earth. Nelson Mandela, undoubtedly, knew this bond as did the dissidents of the Soviet regime—Levko Lukianenko, Evhen Sverstiuk --and others imprisoned for a cause.
How reprehensible that today, Ukraine's freedom fighters are pilloried with the full might of Russia's government assisted by "useful idiots"--Stalin's moniker for Soviet apologists and appeasers in the West.
Make no mistake, the katsetnytky--from Bereza to the Gulag--are in the best of democratic traditions: liberty, equality, fraternity; give me liberty or give me death; zdobudesh ukrajins’ku derzhavu abo umresh v borot’bi za neji, you will deliver a free Ukrainian state or die fighting for this end. When the fight is just its defenders are heroes. My mother used to say that in battles for freedom often the best people were in jail.
Unfamiliar with the historic battleground of Ukraine and deferential to Russia, global decision-makers from 1919 to the appeasement politics of today --just look at the tortuous road of Ukraine's attempts at membership in NATO or EU--have spawned horrific consequences for individuals and global peace.
Around the time portrayed by Bereza Kartuzka, cousin Bohdan Bashuk, eighteen, was captured for being tato's nephew. He was tortured then dragged-half dead through the village as a warning: Banderivtsi bandits will be exterminated! Then publicly hanged. For what crime? My mother was beaten by the Gestapo and incarcerated for failing to disclose my father's whereabouts. She had no idea where he was hiding! I was virtually orphaned; brought up by grandparents. Entire villages were ethnically cleansed, forcibly removed to northern Poland, displaced to Soviet Ukraine or exiled to Siberia. Many were simply shot. From 1919 to 1991's independence the human toll in Ukraine is about twenty million dead. And, not to be forgotten, the human and material cost of the Cold War.
Is it over yet? Alas, not quite. Russification is advancing in Ukraine. The government of Viktor Yanukhovych eliminates references from its website about the most heinous of Kremlin's crimes against humanity--the starvation of some10 million Ukrainians while Moscow makes it a criminal offence to talk about its wicked crimes. Russia's Black Sea Fleet has dug in. Ukraine's media is under siege. Lending support, "useful idiots"--or are they paid provocateurs?-- crow about missteps of freedom fighters and the political incorrectness of calling Communist atrocities by what they are: does anyone have a problem in calling Nazis murderers?
But back to the film. After the War, the Bereza brotherhood went on to create vibrant communities around the world. My father became an organizer. Among notable achievements is The World League of Ukrainian Political Prisoners realized with, among others, two Winnipeg katsetnyky Dr. Mychaylo Marunchak and Rev. Semen Izyk; the Ukrainian Canadian Congresses Taras Shevchenko Monument and Foundation in Winnipeg, which dispenses millions in annual funding to worthy projects including a grant to Bereza Kartuzka. He organized credit unions, youth groups and some forty League of Ukrainians in Canada branches from sea to sea in cities and remote prairie and mine towns. He loved his people and brought them hope: the fight for independence is never a lost cause. Some day they or their naschadky, descendents, would see Ukraine free.
This was the mantra of the young Bereza prisoners. And when you see the film you will realize, as I did, that today's struggles in Ukraine are but steps on an ongoing continuum pointed at self determination, a universal human right. See it, and you will be energized to get on with whatever it takes to assist this struggling democracy in this quest.
Oksana Bashuk Hepburn, a columnist, is a former Director with the Canadian Human Rights Commission. She is preparing a publication about Petro Bashuk and seeking stories or material. Please contact via email oksanabh@sympatico.ca or call collect 819 771 0723.
Bereza Kartuzka recently won first prize, a Platinum Remi Award, at the 43rd Worldfest Houston International Film Festival, Political/International issues category. To order Bereza Kartuzka or contribute to the making of Genocide Revealed (Holod 1932-33 English version) please visit or write to
