Мирослав Сипа

When I returned home, in the neighboring village of Stanymyr, they already erected a kind of arch of pine, and put out a red and blue and yellow flag in awaiting the Red army. And here a group of Polish army, which had a lot of men and women, in uniform, the Polish head of Stanymyr on a motorcycle with a Polish major at the head. This Polish were armed with machine gun positions. Notwithstanding that tanks were only 1,5 kilometers away, here the Polish army had machine gun emplacements. They rode on wagons, drunk, singing songs (I won't repeat the titles), because as they say Poland is comming to an end. They approached closer, and the whole village came out to see. It was very interesting to see the Red army. In fact all children came out to greet them, brought flovers for the Red army. Even though there were no tanks, armored personell carriers with barefoot occupants on both sides.

In the end of January we came to the Carpathians. We were met. The snowfall was extremely heavy. We were met by Captain Chmelyk with his group. A sleigh with two horses had to precied us, so that we could walk. The snow was very deep. It was very romantic the way we entered the Carpathians. I had never been to the Carpathians before, and here with a full moon, and such a snow, falling continuously. The lights in houses looked like little fires. Arround morning we arrived at our camp site, near the beginning of the river Mizunka in the Region of Bolekhiv.

I had a sister 2 years older than me, she attended the gymnasium of the Sisters of Saint Basel the Great, and was on a skolarship of Metropolitan Andrew Sheptytskyi. That meant, that all expendatures for the education were paid for by the Chamery of the Metropolitan from his fund. The Polish authorities wanted her to finish the 6th grade of the gymnasium in Lviv in a school named "Queen Yadviga" a totaly Polish school and wanted my father to bring her metrics to the Polish church. Therefor my father took it from one church and brought it the Polish church. My father however went to Metropolitan Andrej to ask for assistance. The Metropolitan readily agreed and let my sister remain with the scholarship grant, therefore she had to travel by train for lessons. At that time the rail branch "Berezany - L'viv" was not in ruins, later I traveled by the same train.

My parents were judged by the court in the village of Pohoriltsi in the Civil Hall, the trial was due to "anti-bolshevik" agitation. The man, that was elected on the head of the "revcom" in our town, who hailed probably from the eastern Ukrainian provinces, was probably spy left in our town, and lived there. He liked to crawl to other people storage spaces, etc. In town was stationed a tank group. A meeting was called and this man named Ivan was recomended as head of the "revcom". Many people protested this, but for some reason they head only my father and mother, because dad said: "How can a thief be elected as head?!". Well, this was quite a brave statement for which a court was called from Hlyniany and my father was sentenced to 5 years and my mother to 3 years for "anti - bolshevik" propaganda. However, thaks be to God, we did not sleep at home nights thatmuch when, the Red army was withdrawing. We slept in the garden or in the woods, and that way escaped being exiled at that time.