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“НАШЕ ЖИТТЯ”, ЛИСТОПАД 2019 WWW. UNWLA .ORG 15 Escapes: A True Story Copyright 2018. Available in paperback and Kindle at amazon.com I first heard of Escapes while it was still a work in progress (a bit from one of my cousins and then a bit more during a brief email exchange with author Darian Diachok, an e - dis- cussion that started on one theme and morphed into a discus- sion about growing up Ukrainian and odds a nd ends about diaspora life.) From the start, I found the premise of the book intriguing — an account of people fleeing a country beset by rapacious enemies — a new chapter in the long and tumultu- ous history of a country that had experienced numerous as- saults and incursions by neighboring countries or marauding tribes for centuries, a pattern that continues to this day. What makes the book even more intriguing is that Mr. Diachok has done what many of us who were part of the post - WWII im- migration and have had s imilar experiences or have heard about them from parents and grandparents have only thought of doing: putting these stories on paper and sharing them with people who know little or nothing about Ukraine (past or present). The book opens with a prologue th at introduces the reader to a young Joseph Stalin and a young Adolf Hitler: ex- ploring odd facts about the early lives and interests of two men who were to become vicious and rapacious dictators who destroyed millions of people and nearly destroyed the worl d. This in itself was an interesting twist — I imagine that few people know that Stalin was once a seminarian or that Hitler was a hypochon- driac. The prologue then moves to an intimate portrait of Steffie and Theo, a young couple honeymooning in a cottage in the Carpathian mountains. All romantic discourse is interrupted when someone bangs on the cottage door announcing that Germany has invaded Poland, the country that had annexed and was ruling over Western Ukraine at the time. The honeymoon ends; the story of the young couple and the world they live in becomes a story of destruction, dehumanization, and displacement. Subsequent chapters delve into the brutal history of the times. We read about newspaper headlines and conversations between Theo and a friend, both of whom are the product of Polish officer candidate school. Their conversation reveals (or underscores) the complex relationships among Eastern European countries, the tenuous alliances, and the rapacious land grabs that Ukraine and Ukrainians have e ndured for centuries. This chapter and those to come are briefly supplemented by short passages labeled “History” that provide background or context for the evolving story and the people who inhabit it. These “detours” are interesting and informative; the caveat here is that some readers may find them a bit intrusive, a dis- traction from a riveting personal story. In a later chapter, titled “Reality Check,” the author focuses on books and conversations with his father on the topic of war and Ukrainian histo ry and the long succession of invaders that have populated this history and his father’s instructions that his author son should first learn “about war as it really is.” Subsequent chapters explore the nascent conflict between Germany and Russia, which hav e forged an un- easy truce. The Nazis and the Soviets are fixated on their respective ideologies, each focused on absolute power. Brief descriptions of this phenomenon are provided in the “History” inserts where the ideology of the Thousand Year Reich and Gu lag are more fully explored. The most telling and interesting of these segments describes the uncertainty and confusion in some Ukrainian villages “accustomed to periodic po- litical upheavals and unsure which rumors to believe began preparing for the triump hal entry of either of the two conquerors; some villagers creating 10 - meter - high welcome arches . . . German on one side and . . . Russian on the other.” The following two chapters deal with the coming of the Red Army, sowing confusion tinged by a hint of hope, perhaps merely relief that the Nazis have been driven out. The Soviets promise to take land from the Poles and give them to Ukrainian peasants. At the same time, they begin closing Ukrainian
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