THE AUTHENTIC ECLECTIC

The Story of My Ukrainian Grandfather

A family separated by war, geography and circumstance

Protestors against the invasion of Ukraine at Barcelona’s Plaça de Catalunya. Photo by author.

My grandfather, Ivan, was born in the mid-1920s in Nikopol, Ukraine. By that time, the country was a member of the former USSR.

Ivan grew up during a period of famine and genocide.

I remember being told that when Ivan was a little boy he jumped on the bed and burst his hot water bottle and scalded himself. Another time he crawled home through the snow “right drunk” on vodka and snuck into his house through the window. His mama was not impressed on both occasions.

Ivan was 16 when the Germans occupied Ukraine in 1941. He’d been attending naval college, but the invasion meant he was sent home.

Ivan’s father was put in a concentration camp, where we think he perished.

At some point, my teenage grandfather was rounded up with other young men from his village and forced to build railways for the German Army. I believe Ivan was an ostarbeiter — Central and Eastern Europeans who were forced to perform labour for Germany during World War II. It was slave labour.

Being an ostarbeiter was regarded by the Soviets as “collaboration” with Nazi Germany. Ivan couldn’t return to Ukraine. He…