Stalin's Nemesis

by Michael James Melnyk

  He continued:

  The withdrawal was really stressful for all of us. Retreating, at a small railway station there was a rail wagon full of bread. One of our soldiers kept throwing it out in the air. I managed to catch 4 loaves and helped myself to some Schmaltz (pig’s fat)—in fact I filled my gasmask case full. Making my way as fast as I could, trying to catch up with the rest of our unit, I met one of my school friends Bohdan Kostiw, who was one of the guys rejected from enlisting in 1943. It was a short-lived reunion, as I was in a hurry to rejoin our unit where all of my personal belongings were. I left minus one loaf of bread and some Schmaltz. Further on going through small town we came across a burned-out vehicle and a body of one of our soldiers—the result of a Soviet air attack on the retreating soldiers. I finished up in the town of Spittal with the bulk of our Division.13

  A few of the more resourceful and enterprising individuals headed into the remote Austrian mountains as Dr Wächter had done and together with a handful of others, who having thrown away or hidden their military apparel, eventually made their way to camps in Germany. Claiming to be ex forced labourers, they managed to register themselves as stateless persons and were subsequently reclassified as ‘refugees’. Thus, having obtained the appropriate documents14 they were able to maintain the status of civilians, thereby evading the fate of their comrades.

  At Spittal which became the main assembly area for the Ukrainian Division, a camp was established in a large meadow with no borders or fences of any kind and only a token British guard. New groups of all ranks and units continually arrived, some with their rations and field kitchens and some with their weapons which they had to surrender. Amongst them was Oberst Alfred Bisanz.15 As the numbers grew to two or three thousand people the soldiers started to organise themselves into regiments or battalions and submitted their numbers to the British.

  Low flying planes dropped food deliveries and other necessary equipment on the meadow so although there were now no immediate shortages, bad management prevented even distribution.16 Fortunately the weather was clement during the day and at night Zeltbahns (poncho type shelter quarters) served as temporary shelters. On 14 May the British separated the remaining German personnel.17

  Not all the Division’s soldiers who surrendered to the British were disarmed immediately. Waffen-Untersturmführer Roman Cholkan (II./3 Rgt.) was part of a group who were allowed to retain the weapons they were carrying for several days as they made their way unescorted to their eventually assembly point at Feldkirchen. He recalled:

  Only about 60 per cent of the Division’s soldiers were assembled after the war in Spittal, Austria. Most of the 3 Regiment (formerly WGR 31) and many others stopped on the road to Judenburg having received information that it was being occupied by the Red Army, and turned south into the mountains. This group took with them all horse drawn wagons full of army supplies including their field kitchens. All day we struggled along poor log-covered roads up-hill until in the dark we reached the top of the snow-covered mountains. During the climb we had to shoot some of the horses which had broken their legs on the bad road. Overnight we slept wherever we could, mostly in and under the wagons. In the morning we continued our march southward down the mountain until about noon we met the first British soldiers of the advance units. All our rifles, machine guns and some mortars were surrendered to the British. They allowed all officers and others to keep their side arms (mostly pistols) and directed us to set up our camp in nearby fields of clover. In the evening the British commandant asked all the officers (from the rank of Obersturmführer–Hauptsturmführer) to meet with him. The Germans did most of the talking. When the meeting had concluded, the Ukrainian officers asked to speak to the British commander and explained to him through an interpreter our situation and requested that we be separated from the Germans.

  The next morning the British commander asked us to provide the Germans with a few horse driven wagons, and ordered them to move out of the camp. They soon departed without any goodbyes. We stayed in the fields without any British guards for a few more days before we were told to go further south to the town of Feldkirchen, a main gathering point of the Ukrainian Division. At that time we had enough food supplies to feed our people. The British command indicated the road we were to follow and warned us that we may encounter some of Tito’s partisans. They said that they did not have enough soldiers to escort us and gave us back some rifles and ‘assault rifles’ (Sturmgewehrs) and told us that we would have to defend ourselves if the partisans attacked.

  The horses were well rested and the next day we proceeded towards Feldkirchen. While passing one village, we encountered some partisans who quickly dispersed when they saw that we were armed. By the evening we had arrived in Feldkirchen where many soldiers of our Division were assembled on a large meadow near a creek.

  Our senior Ukrainian officers assigned us an area in which to set up our camp. The II battalion of the 3 Regiment had brought with it four field kitchens and were ordered to share them with the other soldiers. We settled there for a few days, during which time the intendant of the II battalion was able to pay his soldiers in German Marks and divide among them the remaining food, cigarettes and liquor. Altogether about 4,000 soldiers from our Division assembled in that location under the overall command of some of the older officers (such as Sylenko, Nikitin and others). We did not know then about the existence of the camp at Spittal.

  Within a week or so we were ordered to take a train to a permanent camp. We were unloaded overnight in a mountain location which to the best of my recollection was known as Pantofel, where we stayed overnight in a school. There we meet for the first time Jewish soldiers in British uniforms. Most of them spoke Polish. They gathered around the entrance and offered to buy some items from us. One offered 60 cigarettes for an officer’s pistol, but none of our officers accepted the offer … Later we were all searched by British soldiers who took our weapons and many other items. Maybe 60 cigarettes was a good price for a pistol after all.[…]18

  Further to the north on 13 May Waffen-Hauptsturmführer Ferkuniak joined a much smaller group of the Division’s soldiers, which consisted of 76 officers (30 of whom were Ukrainian) and 1,112 NCOs and men, who had surrendered to the Americans near Wagrain in the vicinity of Radstädt. Most of the surviving senior German staff officers including Beyersdorff, Forstreuter, Kleinow, Bristot, Kopp and Finder were amongst them,19 since having had access to motorised transportation, they had made their getaway in good time taking with them their personal effects and their own food reserves for ten to twelve days.

  Unlike the British, for the first two months the Americans showed little interest and made little effort to provide the prisoners with food as Roman Kolisnyk who was amongst them to later commented—‘We practically starved for the first few months’.20 Whilst held captive in open meadows the Ukrainian soldiers were forced to forage for sorrel and other edible plants which they gathered in blankets and took to local farmers who crudely processed them so that by adding water they could produce an improvised ‘soup’.21

  While in American internment the simmering enmity which continued between the Ukrainians and the Germans soon manifested itself when two of the senior ranking Germans, SS-Standartenführer Beyersdorff and SS-Sturmbannführer Karl Bristot attempted to assert their authority over this group. On one occasion they even demanded a Ukrainian NCO be executed for not fulfilling one of Bristot’s orders, that is he had walked off the road when he had been ordered to run. Waffen-Hauptsturmführer Ferkuniak who represented the Ukrainians refused to cooperate and stated that he could not guarantee the lives of those who would carry out such a decision while Beyersdorff retaliated with threats if any Germans were harmed. He then went ahead and convened a ‘Kriegsgericht’ (emergency court empowered to sentence any soldier guilty of a breach of discipline and to carry out executions),which in turn was invalidated by Ferkuniak as the sole representative of General Shandruk.22

  Trying unsuccessfully to maintain wartime discip
line, including court-martial trials, Beyersdorff continued to find any excuse to disassociate the remaining German contingent from the Ukrainians.23 Ultimately the Germans were separated from the Ukrainians after they were transported on 30 May 1945 to an open field near Weilheim in Bayern (1 June 1945) and Waffen-Hauptsturmführer Volodymyr Kosak became the commandant.24 Shortly thereafter they were relocated about 10 kms south to an open field at lake Riegsee where they stayed till the end of July before finally being moved to the large PWE (Prisoner of War Enclave) #24 at Auerbach in Germany controlled by the 3 US Army in Bad Tolz. Here many thousands of Waffen-SS POWs of all nationalities, were housed in wooden barracks and according to the Geneva Convention officers and senior NCOs were segregated from the men and kept in a separate cage. Movement between cages was forbidden.

  First meal in captivity Austria, May 1945.

  At Ukrainian Christmas they received gift parcels from the Ukrainian Medical and Charitable Organization in Munich. In 1946 they were moved to a camp near Regensburg and in the summer (again in accordance of Geneva convention)—one year after the end of the war they released all soldiers, up to and including the rank of Unterscharführer. The officers and senior NCOs could not be legally kept as POWs and were transferred to an international internment camp in Aschaffenburg and later to Ludwigsburg where they were released as ‘Legionnaires’ on 11 January 1947.

  A smaller number of Ukrainians were also held captive by the Americans in Austria in three groups which at some point passed through several camps including: Flachau, Wagrain, St Johann in Pongau, Bad Ausee, Radstädt, Steyr, Saalfeldon, Hallein and Glasenbach, (Salzburg).

  Faced with the prospect of immediate repatriation to the USSR, the few Ukrainians who found themselves in French hands chose instead to join the French Foreign Legion.

  The majority of the Division’s soldiers were now either in British or American captivity and despite the uncertainly and understandable apprehension that lay ahead, most were glad just to have survived. For the approximately ten thousand men encamped in the area around Spittal and Feldkirchen there was nothing left to do now except enjoy the fresh mountain air and spectacular scenery and await further developments. Roman Hawrylak wrote:

  We sat, sunned ourselves in the spring sun, admired the beautiful mountains surrounding us and hunted for lice that we brought from the front. No facilities for personal hygiene were available.25

  Eventually, by mid-May 1945, several elements of the ‘1 Ukrainian Division’ which had been allowed to retain some of their portable weaponry, finally had to relinquish them.26 A few days later, on 19 May the British began to move the first contingent of 3,000 soldiers by truck from their temporary compounds in Carinthia to a transit camp near the city of Udine, in north-eastern Italy followed by other transports including one group of 2,000 as confirmed in the entry in 5 Corps War Diary which read ‘Evacuation of SS troops and Yugoslav subjects continues, 2000 troops of 14.SS Galizien moved to Udine’.27

  On arrival, the British ‘Tommies’ began searching the men for guns and other weapons and the officers were obliged to surrender their military accoutrements such as pistols, binoculars, compasses, maps and pocket knifes.28 Moreover all ranks had other personal items of value such as rings and watches taken from them and any Ukrainian who dared to protest at what was considered uncivilised British behaviour29 was hit with a rifle butt or kicked in the backside. Julian Chornij wrote:

  […] Before entering the camp we were kept for a few days in an open field and went through some very strict searches. They confiscated watches, pocket knives medals and other valuable property claiming that it was ‘war booty’. To me it looked like brazen robbery. Before it was my turn to be searched I hid my watch under my armpit and luckily the solider did not find it.[…]30

  From Udine, transports left for another camp at Mestre, five miles north-west of Venice, stopping at barracks and transit camps where they were searched again. Along the way the Ukrainians who passed through towns still wearing their German uniforms and riding in open trucks were met by hostile Italians who thinking they were Germans threw stones, made ominous gestures with their fingers across their throats and shouted ‘Porchi Tedeschi’ (German pigs)’.31 Again Julian Chornij:

  […] While travelling in the open trucks through northern Italy very often our soldiers were singing Ukrainian folk songs. Sometimes we met trucks travelling in the opposite direction full of British soldiers. Some of them hearing our singing applauded and some were showing a hand gesture indicating that our throats would be cut and our heads cut off. Usually such an awful gesture was accompanied by vulgar shouting in the Polish language because these soldiers were part of the Polish troops under the command of General Anders’ Polish Corps.[…]32

  Bellaria

  The duration that different transports stayed at Mestre varied and eventually all were moved to Camp 5C, a temporary camp which had been hastily established on 4 June 1945, west of the village of Bellaria on the Adriatic coast. Here the Division’s Ukrainian contingent was finally re-assembled, its personnel having been classified with the status of ‘surrendered enemy personnel’ (SEP) and they were to remain here, held in captivity by the British until mid October 1945.

  Like the other SEP and POW enclaves throughout the region, Camp 5C was administered by 218 Sub area HQ based at Riccione. The camp itself had poor facilities and was situated on an area of about 100 acres of farmland, surrounded on each side by a barbed wire fence and guarded by 55 Lt. A.A. Regiment.33 A single, two storey, typical Italian farmhouse without doors or windows stood in the middle which was utilised as a sick bay and doubled as an administration centre for Colonel Mychailo Krat, whom the British appointed as the internal camp commander. Prior to entering the camp the Ukrainians were thoroughly searched again and whilst checking for weapons the British soldiers used this and subsequent opportunities to relieve the prisoners of anything of value such as medals, watches, wedding rings, fountain pens etc.

  The first internment camp in Italy at Bellaria was a primitive tented compound.

  Of the approximately 11,000 inmates34 70 per cent were under the age of twenty six and for the purposes of preventing escape and establishing ration strength, roll calls were held every morning and evening. The maintenance of health and hygiene were both prominent concerns so a primitive latrine was constructed and the British command also sent a medical corps with fumigation equipment. In the absence of shelter exposure to the heat of the Italian summer regularly resulted in severe sunburn and several cases of sun-stroke. Roman Cholkan wrote:

  […] Some groups had been brought to Bellaria before us and others continued to arrive during the course of the following week until our numbers reached approximately 11,000 amongst whom were over 240 Ukrainian officers. Most soldiers had only the clothing on their backs and a few personal belongings in their rucksacks.

  They also brought lots of lice and so the first thing the British did was to organise a ‘delousing programme’. Everyone had to stand naked and lay all his belongings on the floor where they were disinfected with DDT from a manual spray gun after which within a few days the lice had gone.

  Our commandant was Colonel, later Major-General M. Krat, who together with the Ukrainian officers quickly organised the camp into regiments, battalions and companies. The British did not interfere with our internal organisation except every morning and evening when they counted us. Food was brought to our centre and was divided by our own administrators. Dry biscuits, coffee and some soya conserve in the morning and some bread and hot ‘soup’35 for diner which was cooked with our remaining field kitchens. No tents were provided and people had to accommodate themselves with whatever they had. Several had their Zeltbahns (camouflaged shelter quarters which were worn as rain capes or could be converted into small tents by joining four together). The rest slept in the open but fortunately the weather was generally warm and there was very little rain in Italy at that time.

  Units usually in battalion strength were ofte
n taken under armed British escort for a swim in the nearby Adriatic Sea, because there was not enough water in the camp. We had no news from the outside world and no contact with friends or relatives. It seemed as though the world had forgotten us.[…]36

  From here on, improvisation was the order of the day, something that the resourceful Ukrainians applied themselves to, often with admirable results. As a routine began to develop, tents accommodating up to 14 men and blankets were finally issued and the camp began to evolve into a cohesive community. Complementing the full command structure which was now in place, five chaplains, four Catholic and one Orthodox, held regular services which attracted very large congregations and which in addition to serving the spiritual needs of the internees, helped to maintain morale and discipline.

  Nevertheless, due to the inadequate rations hunger remained, deep and constant. Having established order, the British authorities allowed the Ukrainians to practice their national and religious traditions and basic social activity groups such as a choir soon began take shape. The introduction of supervised work details which undertook manual labour outside the camp brought limited contact with local civilians and also provided a chance to acquire highly prized additional foodstuffs and tobacco that could be used as currency or traded in the camp’s fledgling black market.

  The Mark of Cain

  During this period of great uncertainty, wild rumours quickly circulated, in particular was one that the Soviets were looking especially for Ukrainian soldiers with their blood group tattooed under their left arm (i.e. former Waffen-SS personnel). This caused panic in some quarters and for many the temporary focus of attention was removal of the indelible proof of their former membership of a Waffen-SS Division. For this purpose some Divisional physicians were able to provide a handful of men with hydrogen tablets. When moistened and dabbed onto the arm, the resulting skin irritation was sufficient to ensure that the tattoos came off within about two or three days, whist the skin itself required two-three weeks to heal.37 For the vast majority however such a luxury was not an option. Instead many tried primitive methods to obliterate it but did not succeed. Volodymyr Keczun remebered: