It’s not so easy. Then you noticed shortcomings and they hurt you. But another lifestyle doesn’t exist for young people from the international volunteer camp “The history of the last prisoner”. Otherwise they didn’t come to us from Vienna, Berlin, Budapest and other “luxurious” cities. Indeed we need the view of us, our country, our history by such girls and boys. Because no man is a prophet in his own country and an outside view is always useful.
From the first days the camp organizers made sure that all – from the youngest 16 years old Antonina (Perm, Russia) to experienced 30-years old Stefan (Vienna, Austria) – were geared up for serious work. They gave up trips to The Holy Mountains, to the champagne factory and limited themselves by beauties of Kleban-Byk, Belokuzminovka and a visit to Donetsk. Suffering from extreme, even for us, heat (by the way, as to the order scorching heat finished only in the day of their departure – 20th of August) they were walking along the dusty streets and talking with senior citizens. As the camp participant from Konstantinovka Julia (school #13) said, “during these two weeks the most difficult was to come back in our minds with the old women and men to the difficult years of concentration camps and forced labour. These stories forced us to cry and suffer with them”. Now stories of the German-Austrian-Italian prisoner N. Pogasiya, the martyr of Dachau, Mauthausen I. Evtehov, the juvenile Polish-German “Ostarbeiter” N. Zakabluchnyj, N. Maslenna, V. Lymareva, G. Novozhenova, N. Bur’jan and many others will be known well beyond our town.
“When we started the project we thought that the main problem would be the infrastructure of Konstantinovka which is less developed than in the big cities”, - says the manager of the project Olga (Kharkov). – But here we were thrilled by interest and help of everybody we met. Thanks to this we could worked over a huge array of information during the short period of time. These two weeks weren’t enough for us”.
By the way, at the meeting with the Konstantinovka’s mayor assistant S. Astahova many participants of the project supported its continuation, as volunteers interviewed only almost 30 prisoners and former “Ostarbeiters”. But in Konstantinovka about 200 of people which such experiences live (this number was a real surprise for all). The USA Peace Corps volunteers Ben and Matison who became practically citizens of Konstantinovka and were present at the executive committee meeting, expressed an opinion that there was no sense to wait until next summer and next camp. We, who live next door with these people, could continue to talk with them and then post the English translation of those stories in the Internet. It was interesting for the Americans to see the work of European volunteers because, according to Matison, globally they all together fulfill common mission – to learn about Ukraine as much as possible and to implement a close friendly relations between countries. Matison admired this project and said that though he was a representative of another generation and understood that years of tortures during World War II were not the fault of the young people, but such work would make it possible to pay attention to veterans who underwent incredibly severe trials. Ben reminded us that the project idea come up thanks to the appearance of “The Holocaust diaries”. Nonna Bannister’s and now American volunteers’ duty is to continue what was started by Europeans.
“Language trials were added to natural for me, as I don’t understand Russian and only a few understand English, – shares smiling, excellently swimming and dancing Sonya from Budapest. – But here we were welcomed so warmly even by unknown people on the streets because the language of the heart is clear for all. I understood a lot of things and now I’m sure that after coming home I can persuade my grandmother, who came through the war but never told about her experiences, to stop keeping silent and to tell about everything happened”.
Natasha from Artemovsk who is an experienced voluntary group activist and has participated in several voluntary projects noted that for her it was the first time to take part in such kind of project and she hadn’t heard about anything similar organized. She thinks that such work is very necessary. As information about war heroes is collected and available for studying, they receive honors deservedly. But the page of history about those who were taken as prisoners to Germany, and after coming back were reproached for betrayal unfairly and some even were imprisoned, is elucidated scarcely: “We were talking with those people – almost nobody had spoken with them, they hadn’t been invited to educational institutions and so on. But they had been gone step by step as well as the war heroes. And the day will come when only last prisoners are left”.
That Konstantinovka experienced such an “invasion” of foreigners became a good training for the town before Euro-2012, as volunteers thought themselves. According to them, Donetsk isn’t big enough to host all guests of Euro-2012. That’s why citizens of Konstantinovka should get ready for international communication. It is necessary to learn English, to make maps, circuitry, guideboards, and signboards.
The young people thank all who helped in the organization and carrying out the camp and first of all the editorial staff of “Provintsija”, department of education, KP “Kommuntrans”, the town and the regional local history museums, the chairman of Belokuz’minovsk village council A. Skomorohov, the teachers of KPL K. Zemtsov and I. Bredihin, the students of the local history N. Stukan, A. Novocel’skyj and A. Taraman.
We will miss graceful Tim from Germany whose palm was caught in handclasps of former “Ostarbeiters”, virtuosic Austrian girl Marlen who shocked Konstantinovka by New Zealand’s amusement by colorful ribbons, elegant Bjanka who disputed for the right not to eat only pancakes for supper. We will miss strapper Stefan (because of which children gave him a name uncle Stepa) who freely spoke Russian and came with guitar and made “Imagine” of John Lennon the camp hymn. We will remember the Russian girls from Perm – “computer genious” Oksana who created the Internet-blog about Konstantinovka’s prisoners and Inna who struggled with chills and had saved the bat which flew into the bedroom. And the rest of 20 volunteers worked in our town.
The parting wasn’t easy but the hope for a meeting and future work warms our hearts. As that young people are as we are, but they have only a bit more open eyes.
V. Berezin
P.S. It’s worth to say that volunteer camp in our town did some extra planned tasks – two lorries of rubbish were collected and removed from the territory of our sacred place – Sergeevskyj gully. Except this, the German and the Austrian project participants undertook liabilities to help with the approval of some data of the interviewed’s biography in Nazi torture chambers during talks with prisoners and former “Ostarbeiters” and provided information about contacts of plants and factories where they worked so that they can take part in different programs of these enterprises.
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