Camp Ohio Resident Mykola Swiderski

June 30, 2018.  One of the ongoing themes encountered in researching the residents of Camp Ohio is how dedicated those residents with the benefit of a good education were in giving a helping hand to those who were less fortunate in receiving an education before the war.  In a previous posting the Agricultural School in Camp Ohio was discussed.  (See The Agricultural School in Camp Ohio). This was only one of several initiatives that began in the fall of 1945 by a committee formed in the camp.

One of the programs was, according to a journal kept by Bohdan KOWAL, “intended to close the so-called ‘gaps’ among uneducated people, so that they have the opportunity to learn reading and writing.”  The instructor for this first literacy program was Mykola SWIDERSKI.  With the exception of one woman, Charatina KILCZEWSKI, no other student has been identified to date.

Mykola Swiderski was a key figure in Camp Ohio.  In addition to the literacy class, he taught in the Ukrainian elementary school and was on the school council, taught music, was conductor of the Camp Ohio Women’s Choir, and conducted the Ukrainian Orthodox Church choir. He is in many of the Camp Ohio photographs.  Who was this man whose efforts helped ease the lives of so many residents, and what happened to him after he left Camp Ohio?

His daughter Olga helped fill in the story about her father, explaining that he was “born in Pochaiv” (in the Ternopil province of Western Ukraine), “on December 12, 1892.”  It was the start of an eventful life.  “After attending the Military Academy in Kiev, he was one of the first to organize and set up the first military units of the new Ukrainian fighting forces of the newly proclaimed Ukrainian National Republic.”  The Ukrainian People’s Republic, or Ukrainian National Republic, was declared on June 10, 1917 following the Russian Revolution.

“In August 1917, he was commissioned by its President, Symon Petliura, to continue this task in Trabzon (Turkish Anatolia).  Upon its successful accomplishment he returned to Kiev in 1918 at the head of a Ukrainian army and was asked to join the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Central Rada.”

In the book ‘Encyclopedia of Ukraine: Volume 5 St-Z’, edited by Danylo Husar Struk, under the entry for Turkey, an explanation for this was given.  “…In the spring of 1916, the Russian imperial army, which included Ukrainians, captured eastern Anatolia (centred on Trabzon), which it held until 1918.  After the February Revolution of 1917, a Ukrainian Hromada was established in Trabzon. In September 1917, the Central Rada appointed M. Svidersky as commissar of the Trabzon district.  Entrusted with Ukrainizing local military units, he organized a military congress there in October 1917.  In early 1918 the imperial army evacuated the city, and the Ukrainians returned to Ukraine…” A Hromada is a term for an association or community for people.

Olga continued with the story of her father’s life, by saying that while at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, her father “met and married Elisabeth von Wiedenbach.” The Ukrainian National Republic lasted on Ukrainian territory until 1920, when the head of the Directory and the government went into exile.  “When the Ukrainian National Republic was forced to leave Kiev, the young couple went with them, but were left behind in Ternopil when my father contracted typhus.  Upon his recovery, they decided to settle in the town of his birth.”

Two children were born during this period:  Mykola, on October 17, 1920, and Olga on July 23, 1928.  “During the 1920s and 1930s, my father was elected and re-elected mayor of Pochaiv and brought about many improvements for the township and its inhabitants, including clearing the swamp in the middle of town and replacing it with a park, and establishing a fruit cooperative.”

Mykola Swiderski at his desk while mayor of Pochaiv. (Photo: Olga Katchan family collection)

Mykola Swiderski and his wife Elisabeth with daughter Olga in front of the Council Chambers of Pochaiv in 1934. (Photo: Olga Katchan family collection)

“Unfortunately, in 1937, the Polish government decided to replace the Ukrainian mayor with a Polish government official.”  The family was advised to leave and moved to Warsaw.  In the summer of 1939, Olga and her mother spent the summer in Pochaiv.  In July her father came for Olga’s birthday, and advised them not to return as war was imminent.  “Dad was right.  Germany attacked Poland on the lst of September and Warsaw was bombed. All communications were cut and we could only pray for Dad’s and my brother Nick’s safety. As Poland surrendered, we were in for a new surprise. Our part of the country was to be occupied by Soviet Russia.”

In October Olga and her mother learned that Olga’s father and brother were alive and hoped they could now return to Warsaw.  It took until January 1940 to return, due to the closed border, a story in itself that hopefully Olga will one day agree can be shared.

The family remained in Warsaw “until 1944, when Dad was sent to the front to dig trenches.”  Just before the war ended Olga was near Prague, in a German school, and her mother came to visit for a few days.  It was the last time they saw each other.  When American troops came in, the school was disbanded and Olga ended up in Wurzburg (in the American Zone) where she found a job teaching the children of a war widow.

A year later, Olga heard about a church organization that helped people looking for family members.  She wrote to them and soon learned that her father was living in a DP camp in the British Zone and went to meet him.  Together they went to the Red Cross in Hamburg, where they learned that Olga’s mother was in the Russian Zone. Unfortunately, she passed away in hospital on October 17, 1946.  Olga joined her father in Camp Ohio, and not long afterwards they learned that Olga’s brother Nick and his wife Halyna were in Biberach, in the French Zone.

In 1949, Mykola Swiderski, his daughter Olga, and her husband Arkadi KATCHAN immigrated to Australia, where Olga’s brother and wife had already immigrated.  Unfortunately, his health deteriorated, and he passed away on October 20, 1951 in Sydney, at the age of 58.

A big thank you to Olga Katchan for sharing the story of her amazing father!  If you have any memories of Mykola Swiderski, or recognize anyone in the literacy class photo, please share them, along with any other anecdotes you may have about Camp Ohio.  Comments can be made on this blog or by sending an email to dariadv@yahoo.ca. Don’t forget to check out the photos on our website at http://www.dpcamps.org/burgdorf.html.

© Daria Valkenburg