Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Martin Koby - April 20, 1999

Ukrainian Anti-Semitism

Yeah. So did you, did you, did you think that maybe there would be some kind of anti-Semitic outbursts among the U...Ukrainians?

No. I, I myself, did not think. But I just--you know, I asked myself--when we got to the house, I thought to myself, what will the neighbors say? How you know, how would they look on us?

Yeah.

But that same day, we came out--we came home to our house this morning, because I don't think I ever con...I considered it anymore my house--my home. I don't think I even thought that we're going to live in our home, because there was something that you felt that you cannot stay here. You cannot go home again, right? And when my father came--my mother and father went away. Oh, they were gone maybe an hour, an hour and a half. I don't know who they consulted with. I'm sorry I didn't ask, I should have asked all these questions.

Yeah.

They said--my father came home and my brothers, I don't know, came in the house. And Tante Chyka was--came in and I was there, my mother there are the five of us. They said, "We cannot stay here. We were advised to leave. We should not stay here in this village."

Who do you think advised them?

I don't know, maybe Czepko. I don't know who, it's very intimate--it's an intimate question, isn't it?

Yeah.

He had to have somebody like Mr. Czepko. It could have been Timoszc you know, the guy that said, "Don't worry we'll keep you as a museum piece."

Yeah.

It could have been--oh, I, I, I--no idea. Maybe one of the Communists, I don't know.


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