SFCG screens “Three Stories of Galicia”

Yesterday, SFCG hosted a screening of Three Stories of Galicia , a documentary film by Olha Onyshko and Sarah Farhat. The film is set in the region of Galicia, which straddles the modern nation-states of Ukraine and Poland; during the time before, during and after World War II.

Onyshko hails from the region herself and she and Sarah traveled the region collecting the past. The land was rich, they found, in personal histories of bravery and bloodshed.

Before WWII, Galicia was a culturally diverse area with a mix of ethnicities, the three largest groups being Poles, Ukrainians, and Jews. During the war, the land was caught in the ruthless struggle between Hitler’s Third Reich and Stalin’s Red Army. The invaders exploited pre-existing ethnic jealousies, turning each group against the other and fueling some of modern history’s worst ethnic conflicts. But in the midst of evil, where trust had lost its meaning and human life had no value, there were those who were willing to risk what little they had left to do what was right instead of what was easy. The film reveals the intimate stories of three courageous individuals who took it upon themselves to preserve the dignity of the human spirit.

The first story retold in the film is that of Aharon Weiss, a Jew from the city of Boryslav in western Ukraine. Before the war, Boryslav had a population of 20,000 Jews, 20,000 Poles and 20,000 Ukrainians. After the war, there were only 78 Jews left in the whole town.

Wiess’s Ukrainian neighbor Yulia hid him and his family in her attic for three days during a pogrom  that took place in the town, which specifically targeted Jews.  Following the pogrom, the family returned home but soon realized that if they were to survive, they would have to flee or become invisible.  They built a secret wall as a hiding place and Yulia moved into their house so that they could hide behind it.  Yulia’s son Yuzek, who had become a Ukrainian policeman serving under the Nazis, did not even know that his mother was helping to hide Jews.  When the situation became untenable, the family moved to a hole below the basement of a neighboring kindergarten. They stayed there for over a year, fed by a Polish neighbor. After the Soviets liberated the town in August 1944, the Weiss’s returned to their home. Now their neighbor needed help; the Soviets were targeting anyone who had collaborated with the Nazi regime and her son was in danger. She asked them to hide him in the same basement and Aharon found himself in the strange position of bringing food to someone who’d tried to exterminate his community.

Olia Ilkiv, a Ukrainian woman who fought against the Soviet occupation with the Ukrainian Insurgent Army did not have to find common ground with former enemies, but with her own children. When she was arrested by the KGB for her involvement in the resistance, her children were sent to an orphanage, where they would be raised as Leninists and taught that those who opposed the USSR, like their mother, were their enemy.  Olia’s children still bear the names that they were given in the orphanage. However, they have now come to see their mother as a hero who fought for a cause that she believed in.

The final story told in the film was that of Father Bartminski, a Polish priest.  Up until World War II, Poles were the land-owning elite and Ukrainians were under their rule. During the war, both sides carried out ethnic cleansing campaigns against the other and destroyed each other’s places of worship. The killer and victims almost always knew each other. The conflict was finally brought to an end when Stalin carried out massive deportations to clear the troublesome territories between Poland and the USSR.

Father Bartminski had dreamt for years of bringing peace to the people of Galicia. After the fall of Soviet rule in 1990, he found a way to do so through restoring destroyed Ukrainian churches and Jewish cemeteries. Although there are no more Ukrainian Orthodox or Jews left in the area, it was important to Father Bartminski to restore their places of worship to preserve the region’s multi-ethnic heritage.  Father Bartminski also incorporated the stories of his parish into a soap opera titled Plebania (The Parsonage)  that is running on Polish TV. Like much of our own work, the series uses soap opera to speak about tensions between communities.  The series is extremely popular in Poland and is currently in its eleventh season.

Sarah Farhat, one of the film’s co-producers, spoke with us after the screening. Farhat and her co-producer created the film so that people from Galicia would have an opportunity to hear the other side’s perspective and hopefully feel some empathy for people who were formerly perceived as enemies. Almost everybody in Galicia has a similar story to those portrayed in the film, but this history is still not discussed openly. Some that did not make it are equally as fascinating as those that did. She and Onyshko interviewed the family of one man who hid in his attic for 40 years, only emerging with Ukraine’s independence in 1991. Farhat believes the film can serve as a tool for constructive dialogue for people not only from Galicia but also from other regions, such as her native Lebanon. For some people, it might be easier to talk about what happened in Galicia rather than in their own country.  Thus, the film will hopefully spark a discussion on ethnic conflict and individuals who showed heroism by risking their own lives to protect the Other.

For those of you in the DC area, there’s a chance to see the film on June 26 at the Ukrainian Cultural Center