“It was in 1939 when the Russians came. During the day we were still under the Polish rule, in the night they came and in the morning we were under the Soviet rule. We were by the windows and watched them pass. They had those little horses. The Czechs had horses like elephants but their horses were small. They dragged the cannons and different kinds of artillery and marched past our house. It was a long, long line west, up to the border. I was a little girl back then.”
“One of my schoolmates lived across the road and her fiancé was a Bandera fighter. He came and he said he was not going across the river that he wanted to play cards with us. So we played cards the whole evening. But when my mother told him that it was time to go across the river he said that he would get up early in the morning and nobody would see him. But we all overslept and when my mother woke up and went out with a potty (my sister was eight years old; there was a distance of 13 years between us) a Russian officer came to the yard with a rifle and he saw my mother with the potty and asked her: ‘Bandery nět, bandery nět?‘ And pretending to be shooting. Imagine that! And the Bandera was lying on a bench in our kitchen. My mother came to the kitchen, she shook the Bandera and dragged him to a middle room and hid him behind a wardrobe and told him to be quiet. Then she went out. She was an excellent actress, bright and ready. I took more after my father. And then, other partisans came, the yard was full of weapons, horses, wagons and soldiers and one of them was guarding at the gate. And my mother invited them all for a breakfast. There was always something to eat because we always had pork from the pigs. We had a lot of food and my father had distilled some vodka the day before so there was also something to drink. We invited them to the table and they had the breakfast in turns, one group after another so there was still some noise in the kitchen and the chief always asked: ‘Bandery nět, bandery nět?’ And my mother kept on saying: ‘No.’ And then we had to hide the Bandera somewhere. That was my task. I was supposed to take him to the attic, so I took him there and there it was quiet…” [the story continues]
“About the Jews… The teacher I told you about, she was also Jewish. Her husband was an accountant at a sawmill. Then they came to execute the inhabitants of the ghetto, she was in the ghetto and she knew her husband was at the sawmill. And she sneaked out of the rocks, she managed to escape through the garden houses and hid at some Ukrainians. She would have survived but when she heard that all the Jews were executed she went out and reported herself to the Germans. And when her husband heard that, he also reported himself. They didn’t have any chance to survive.” “And why did she report herself?” “Because all the Jews were executed and she thought that her husband was dead. They didn’t have any children so she had nothing to live for.”
“What relationships did you have with the Bandera groups?” “We lived quite in harmony with them They respected us and we never had any conflicts. Our Ukrainian neighbors, those who sold us the estate to build a house, were the best neighbors anybody can ever have.” “And how did your mother help the Bandera fighters?” “She had to. She couldn’t deny any help. When they asked for some clothes or some food, she was generous and she always helped,” “And they were dependent on the civilians, weren’t they?” “Yes they were not under any authority. And we could not refuse them.” “And on account of your good relationships you also didn’t have any reason to refuse them...” “Yes.”
“My grandma’s daughter lived over the street and she had a youngest son, Véna. He died at Dukla. Véna was also attending the second grade and we met every day. I remember that we always took our shoes down after the rain and strolled in the ditches by the road. Each Saturday evening the road in Volkov had been swept, the whole road, everybody swept the half in front of his house. So there wasn’t any dirt in the ditches, not a stone nor a nail. We were strolling barefoot in the ditches… I didn’t know how healthy that was… And this was how we played… Once, Véna sprinkled sand in my hair and my grandma had to comb it out. But he would pick the best cherries and strawberries for me. We went out every day. He came from school… I didn’t attend school at the time, I went directly to the third grade.”
“So they took away your neighbors and let the three daughters alone in the house?” Yes… And what did the middle one do? She went to the square and came to her parents who were standing in a line, took her mother and father by the hands and kept on standing there. A little girl, she may have attended a second grade. And the old German who was guarding the line was passing by and each time he looked at the girl with her parents. Finally he couldn’t stand it anymore, pointed at them and told them to go away. So the little girl maybe saved their lives.”
Evženie Ružbatská, a Volhynian Czech, was born on 23rd of December 1923 in Volkov in the Polish part of today‘s Ukraine. Her father was a lathe operator, her mother a shop assistant. For about four years, her parents run a family restaurant and a butcher shop in Beresteczko, Ukraine. The whole family then moved to nearby Boremel, they bought an estate and built a house where they lived until their departure to Czechoslovakia in 1947. Evženie Ružbatská attended a basic school in Boremel. Most of the pupils were of Jewish origin, only a small part of them were Czech and Ukrainian. In 1939, the area was occupied by Russians and in 1941 by Germans. The arrival of Germans was at first welcomed, because Hitler had promised independence to Ukraine. During the German occupation, the Jewish inhabitants were forced to live in a ghetto and later brutally disposed of. Under appalling conditions, the Jews were executed in the nearby rocks. At that time Evženie Ružbatská studied at a pedagogical school in Dubno. She finished her studies, due to breaks caused by the war, in 1947. The family was on unusually good terms with the local Bandera groups. They helped them with food and clothing and sometimes even hid Bandera fighters when they were on the run before the Soviet partisans. Evženie‘s mother had several times helped the Bandera fighters with an escape. In 1947, the whole family decided to move to Czechoslovakia to the border area to inhabit the houses left after displaced Germans. They decided to move to Litoměřice. At first they lived in a rented flat and later in 1949, they moved to their own house. Evženie Ružbatská worked for the rest of her life as a basic school teacher. Nowadays, she is retired. She met her future husband in 1950 at a ball in Litoměřice. She was married and had two sons, Rostislav a Jaroslav and she has five grandchildren. Evženie Ružbatská died on February 12th, 2017.
