Микола Ставничий Mykola Stawnychy

There [in Kolomyia] is the railway station, and then toward the Ivano-Frankivsk is a road through rail - road to Horodenka. And there was a nice "rampa". You know what the "rampa"? "Shlack-baum", in Ukrainian saying - "shlack-baum" (laughs). So of course it was that someone leave Kolomyia, we quickly run to that gate, and as the train was going, we waved. But when we were still at the station, I stood by the carriage. And look - and through the slats move some green monsters. It was the bolshevik tanks. And then the train started, and we began to ride. And when we were more or less where the road was the following tank shoot out. But it is good that they had the poor cannon - shooted to the road, and only stones shakes. We were lucky that the on the last platform of our train was German anti-tank cannon. And it held those tanks... Tanks were afraid, it seems, we shot out one of the tanks. And so we gradually got to Ivano-Frankivsk.

My brother lives in Ivano-Frankivsk. So he taught me to be a scout. We put a tent in the garden and cooked some kind of soups or something - I do not remember because I was still quite small. During the war (under the German occupation) was created the so-called Ukrainian Youth Educational Community. I belonged to them. We went to exercise... It was not quite like a normal Plast. There was no time to make camps... I was - oh, sorry! - I was at a camp in Pasichna. In Pasichna took place at the former camp - in Polish it is called "przysposobienie wojskowe". It was for Polish soldiers, and there were barracks. Sheds on such increase, if it was then a fence, a kind of too high (points), and then a roof. There was so much space between the roof and the fence. I was freezing there! Because I had two poor blankets, and there was a terrible cold. But I went there two weeks of camp...

I was born in Kolomyia. My father was an lawyer in Kolomyia and conductor in choir “Boian”. My grandfather was also a lawyer in Kolomyia - is Andrew Czajkowski. I was born in 1927. I spent my childhood in Kolomyia. Then the war began, and brought Bolsheviks with it, and after them the Germans came, but then again advancing Bolsheviks. And because my father was a public figure and very active then, as in Kolomyia was in Hungarians occupation (there was almost an independent Ukraine, for Hungarians behaved quite properly with the civilian population and civilian administration) ... In any case it was necessary to travel, that when the bolsheviks came. We traveled to Vienna, after we drove to Vienna and stayed there for almost a year, and then, as mobilized again Bolshevik invasion, we moved further west.

For me policeman in America - that is, a man whom I pay. And secondly: when I need something - something to learn, for example, then I turn to the policeman and ask him if he can show me where there is a street, etc. A very long time, when I was in USA already, I had an uncomfortable feeling everytime with policemen. Because, first was a Polish policeman, who was the enemy for me. Then there was Bolshevyk policeman, then was a German policeman. And each of them was my enemy. And I absolutely do not want anything from them, or to deal with.