Underground Soldier (20 page)

Then the next year, Lida found Larissa. Or should I say that Larissa found her? A letter arrived from Canada. And an invitation from Larissa and her adoptive parents asking Lida to join them in Canada. The thought of Lida leaving tore me to the quick, but reuniting with her sister was her dream come true. “I am so happy for you,” I told her.

She pulled back from me just a little bit and looked me in the eye. “I made you promise that you wouldn’t leave me, Luka,” she said. “Do you think I would leave
you
? Where I go, you go.”

“And my mother?”

“We won’t stop looking for your mother just because we’re in Canada.”

That night I tossed and turned in bed, thinking of what our future would hold. My future was with Lida and her family — in Canada. But before we left there was one thing I had to do. We were old enough. It was time.

I visited a local jeweller and asked what she had in the way of wedding rings. She pulled out a velvet tray of gold bands. The ones I could afford were all previously owned — that brought back disturbing memories. But some of the new rings were silver. I picked out a delicate silver ring with a pattern that looked like a wreath of lilacs. It was perfect.

That evening, I walked to Lida’s boarding house. When she opened the door, I got down on one knee and held out the ring. “Will you marry me, Lida?”

She pulled me up until I was standing and wrapped her arms around me. “Yes, Luka,” she said. “I will marry you!”

It was the happiest day of my life.

* * *

A year later, the sleek Canadian train we rode on shuddered to a stop at the Brantford station. Lida looked up at me, her eyes shining. I grabbed our luggage from the storage bin above — just a thin suitcase between us.

I searched the waiting crowd on the platform, recognizing Larissa right away. She stood there, looking so much like Lida, holding a bouquet of fresh lilacs. She was a bit shorter and her hair was blonder, but the eyes, the nose, the smile — the same.

The two hugged and wept for joy. “I would never have found you without the help of Marusia and Ivan,” said Larissa.

I hadn’t noticed the couple standing to the side. “You must be Luka,” the woman said. “Welcome to Canada.” The man beside her introduced himself as Ivan and held out his hand. I shook it firmly.

We five stood awkwardly for a moment, everyone but Lida a stranger to me. As we drove away from the station, a jumble of emotions ran through me. I was glad that Lida had found her sister, and grateful that Marusia and Ivan had helped me get to Canada, but as happy as I was for Lida, I longed for a little bit of the same joy. Tato and Dido were dead. Martina and David too. Would I ever find my mother? Ever truly be at home? How would I fit into this world?

“We’re here,” said Ivan, pulling the car into the driveway of a small wooden house. Walking inside was like stepping back in time. There was a familiar scent of chicken soup simmering in the kitchen, and a faint breeze filled with lilac.

The five of us sat down to a simple meal of soup with dumplings and fresh rye bread. I was overwhelmed by how normal life was for Marusia and Ivan. I knew that they had lived through the war, and that Larissa especially had experienced terrible things, but somehow they had been able to put it behind them, to carry on with their lives. I looked up from my plate to find Marusia smiling at me.

“We have so much in common, Luka,” she said. “And a whole future of dreams ahead of us. I have a feeling you’ll be happy here.”

Her words had the ring of truth. I turned and caught Lida’s eye, then smiled. Yes, I would be happy.

Author’s Note

Two of my earlier books,
Stolen Child
and
Making Bombs for Hitler,
told of two young sisters who were captured by the Nazis but suffered dramatically different fates.

Luka is also captured by the Nazis, but when he escapes, his story lets the reader step into the world of a brave group of people who fought not just the Nazis but the Soviets as well.

I first heard about the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) almost two decades ago. Could it really be true that there was an underground army that fought the two most bloodthirsty dictatorships of the twentieth century? People who couldn’t take the tyranny anymore, so they went into the woods and the mountains, built hiding places and underground hospitals and fought back for freedom, even though they’d likely die in the process?

I still hardly believed it — until 1999, when I met Peter J. Potichnyj, Professor Emeritus of Political Science at McMaster University. He had joined the UPA when he was fourteen. Not only has he written his own story, but he has been collecting primary documents about the UPA for decades and is the editor-in-chief of
Litopys UPA
, a set of documents and memoirs about the UPA which comprises 115 volumes, mostly in Ukrainian.

Without Peter’s guidance, I would not have been able to write this book.

The battles and incidents that Luka and Martina are involved in during the time of this story are based on actual events. Luka and Martina are fictional characters inspired by real people, and the villages are fictionalized, but based on real ones.

* * *

The framework of Luka’s story relies on some key historical events:

Babyn Yar
is a ravine located in Kyiv, beside a Jewish cemetery. Over the course of two days, September 29 to 30, 1941, the Nazis killed 33,771 Jews at this site. This was one of the largest single massacres in World War II. By the end of the war, Babyn Yar would claim more than 100,000 other Nazi victims, including Roma, Ukrainians and Soviet prisoners of war.

Bykivnia
was a village in the woods on the northeastern fringe of Kyiv. Between 1936 and 1941, the Soviets used the area as a massive yet secret burial ground. More than 100,000 Ukrainians and others who had been tortured and killed by the NKVD are buried there.

Forced repatriation
occurred after the war when Stalin demanded that Soviet citizens who had, in Stalin’s eyes, “allowed themselves” to be captured by the Nazis be returned to the Soviet Union. Those who did return were either killed outright or sent to brutal work camps in Siberia, because Stalin considered anyone who was captured by the Nazis to be a traitor. Those who managed to escape to the West hid their wartime experiences because they feared being sent back to the Soviet Union. Their stories only began to emerge after the 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Ostarbeiter
(Eastern Worker) was the name the Nazis gave to the millions of young people, many from what is now Eastern Ukraine, who were forced into labour. They were required to wear a badge stitched with the letters
OST
. Most lived behind barbed wire in guarded camps. The 3 to 5.5 million Ostarbeiters in Nazi Germany were treated harshly — often worked to death. Many were forced to work in German munitions factories because the Nazis realized that those were prime targets for bombing by the Allied nations and did not want to risk their own citizens.

NKVD
was a brutal organization, the secret police, whose task was to inflict terror on perceived enemies of the Soviet Union.

Joseph Stalin
was the dictator of the Soviet Union from about 1924 until his death in 1953. During the winter of 1933–34, he withdrew food from Eastern Ukraine and sealed the borders so that the populace starved to death by the millions. This act of genocide is now known as the
Holodomor
 — literally death by hunger.

Koreans, Poles, Germans, Chechens, Tatars and other ethnic groups were deported from their homelands to prison camps in Siberia, Central Asia and other harsh, remote regions, where large numbers of them died. Stalin ordered so-called “socially harmful people” such as the homeless, the unemployed and former aristocracy to be shot.

It is impossible to know how many people were killed as a result of Stalinism. Estimates range from 15 to 20 million or more.

For the first two years of World War II, Stalin fought on the same side as Hitler, against the Allies. After Hitler attacked the Soviet Union in June 1941, the Allies accepted Stalin on their side.

The Ukrainian Insurgent Army
(
Ukrainska povstanska armiia
or UPA) was a well-organized military network of guerrilla fighters — men and women whose goal was independence for Ukraine. The UPA fought both the Nazis and the Soviets and operated throughout Ukraine, but were mostly concentrated in Volyn, the Carpathian Mountains and forests of western Ukraine. The UPA was formed in response to the brutality of both regimes and drew its members from many nationalities and all parts of the populace, although most of its members were Ukrainian. At its height, the army numbered between 45,000 and 60,000 fighters.

Also Available

Read the companion books to
Underground Soldier:

Lida and her younger sister are caught by the Nazis and separated. Lida is sent to a slave labour camp, where she works from dawn to dusk on only bread and soup, clad in one thin dress and no shoes. Even if she manages to survive the war, how will she find her sister again?

“A sensitively written page turner that teaches lessons in courage, faith, ingenuity and hard work … It is an important story.”

—
The Montreal Gazette

“[A]nother compelling tale based on the slave raids Hitler conducted throughout the Soviet Union.”

—
Calgary Herald

“The story is gripping and the themes powerful … an important piece of historical fiction.”

—Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction, jury citation

* Silver Birch Award Winner

* Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction Finalist

* An Ontario Library Association Best Bet

* Manitoba Young Readers’ Choice Award Finalist

*
Resource Links,
Best of the Year

*
Best Books for Kids & Teens,
Starred Selection

Nadia arrives in Canada after the end of World War II, from the Displaced Persons’ camp where she has spent the last five years. But troubling memories and dreams begin to haunt her. Who is she really? She sees images of another family, Nazi uniforms, Hitler … but can she believe what her dreams are telling her?

“[Skrypuch] takes on the Nazis’ notorious obsession with racial purity in her new novel … [She] succeeds in making some of the more horrific and lesser-known events of the Second World War accessible and engaging for younger readers.”

—
Quill & Quire

“Through gripping prose … Skrypuch relates a story previously untold in children’s fiction, offering an original perspective on the Ukrainian experience during the Second World War.”

—
Saskatoon StarPhoenix

* Crystal Kite Award Winner

* CLA Book of the Year for Children Finalist

* An Ontario Library Association Best Bet

*
Best Books for Kids & Teens,
Starred Selection

* Manitoba Young Readers’ Choice Award Honour Book

*
Resource Links,
Best of the Year

* Diamond Willow Award Finalist

* Golden Oak Award Nominee

* IODE Violet Downey Recommended List

Scholastic Canada Ltd.
604 King Street West, Toronto, Ontario M5V 1E1, Canada

Scholastic Inc.
557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012, USA

Scholastic Australia Pty Limited
PO Box 579, Gosford, NSW 2250, Australia

Scholastic New Zealand Limited
Private Bag 94407, Botany, Manukau 2163, New Zealand

Scholastic Children’s Books
Euston House, 24 Eversholt Street, London NW1 1DB, UK

www.scholastic.ca

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Skrypuch, Marsha Forchuk, 1954-, author
Underground soldier / Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch.

Issued in print and electronic formats.
ISBN 978-1-4431-2437-9 (pbk.).--ISBN 978-1-4431-2898-8 (html)

1. World War, 1939-1945--Ukraine--Juvenile fiction. 2. World War, 1939-1945--Underground movements--Ukraine--Juvenile fiction.
I. Title.

PS8587.K79U64 2014      jC813’.54      C2013-905336-0
C2013-905337-9

Cover images: Face © Sebastian Knight/Shutterstock; map with compass rose © Molodec/Shutterstock; hammer and sickle © Simonalvinge/Shutterstock.

Copyright © 2014 by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read this e-book on-screen. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher, Scholastic Canada Ltd., 604 King Street West, Toronto, Ontario M5V 1E1, Canada.