On October 8, 2010, the medical college of Kremenets hosted a scholarly soiree commemorating Arsen Richynsky, a physician, philosopher, and public figure. A monument to this outstanding, albeit not properly appreciated person, was unveiled, and the book Za tebe, Ukraino… (For You, Ukraine…), about victims of the Bereza Kartuska prison camp (among them Richynsky), was launched.
The average Ukrainian doesn’t know about Bereza Kartuska and few professional historians comprehend the significance of these two words. Some may recall that it is the name of a small town, actually the center of Brest oblast in today’s Belarus. A few may even remember that during the Second Polish Republic Bereza Kartuska accommodated a concentration camp.
For most Ukrainians, brainwashed by Soviet historiography (quite a few of them still believing it), the notion of concentration camp is closely associated with the Nazi death camps that appeared in the second half of the 1930s. The younger generation in Ukraine should know that Uncle Joe (who appears to be increasingly popular in Russia, and even in some parts of Ukraine, such as Zaporizhia) supervised an active prison camp construction campaign. Although most camps were built on the vast expanses of Siberia, there were many Ukrainians among the inmates. During the Second World War quite a few of our fellow countrymen ended up in Nazi death camps. It was as though Ukrainians were particularly “prized” by the totalitarian or authoritarian regimes of the 20th century. Perhaps our innate rebellious spirit was the reason. C’est la vie!
Personally I believe that Bereza Kartuska holds a place of note in the Ukrainian prison camp saga, among other reasons because this concentration camp was where nationalist Ukrainians were sent. Moreover, it existed in a country that was anything but totalitarian. The Second Polish Republic was a moderate democracy, with relatively free elections (unlike the USSR or Nazi Germany), with various political parties vying for power; there were NGOs and the press, albeit in the presence of censorship, boasted opposition-minded periodicals. Essentially, however, Bereza Kartuska wasn’t much different from its Soviet or Nazi counterparts. Its inmates were “politically inconvenient” people and were locked up in the camp without trial.
Bereza Kartuska started functioning as a prison camp on July 12, 1934 [following the assassination of Polish Minister for Internal Affairs Bronislaw Pieracki on June 15, 1934, by the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists. – Ed.]. The town was then in ethnic Ukrainian and Belarusian lands, although there weren’t many Ukrainians living there (as was the case with many other Ukrainian towns). Poles had tried to turn the town into a bulwark of Catholicism [it had previously been an important center for Protestantism, particularly Calvinism. – Ed.]. In the 17th century premises were built for a Carthusian Monastery (hence the Kartuska part of the Polish place name). After the partitions of Poland, Bereza Kartuska found itself part of the Russian empire. Following the 1830-31 Polish Uprising (also known as the November Uprising or the Cadet Revolution) the authorities liquidated the Carthusian Monastery in Bereza Kartuska and turned the sturdy monastic premises into Russian army barracks, and later a Tsarist prison.
Individuals suspected of antigovernment activities, including some whose guilt had not been legally proven, were sent to Bereza Kartuska for a term of three months without the right to appeal, although the term could be lengthened. The camp’s perimeter was fenced off by five lines of barbed wire, followed by a broad moat and finally a high voltage wire fence. On each corner of the courtyard was a timber watchtower equipped with a machinegun. The inmates numbered between 100 and 600 and were guarded by some 200 policemen with specially trained German shepherds, so escape was nearly impossible.
The inmates’ living conditions were hair-raising. Every effort was made to wear them out morally and physically [during the five years of the camp’s operation between 13 and 20 inmates of the prison died, depending on the sources — leading English historian Norman Davies sets the number at 17. – Ed.]. Each inmate wore linen clothes with a round hat and a pair of sabots. Each had a 20x20 cm number on his back and a smaller one sewn on his left sleeve. The purpose was to annihilate the inmates’ individual personalities; they had no names, just numbers. Their cells were constantly washed with a hose, so the inmates couldn’t sit on the cement floor, and they were packed into small cells, at times up to 40 per cell [towards the end of Bereza Kartuska’s operations, there were occasions when up to 70 inmates were kept in a single cell. – Ed.].
Their rations were just above starvation level: 400 g of rotten sticky bread each day, half a liter of thin coffee for breakfast, and 3/4 liters of thin soup for lunch and supper.
Add to this the guards’ constant brutality, the physical violence, the solitary confinements. Some of the surviving inmates would later describe their horrible experience, notably Archpriest Semen Haiuk in his book Vid tserkovnoho prestolu do Berezy za droty (From Religious Post to Bereza [Kartuska] Prison), published in Winnipeg in 1955). In fact, there were many intellectuals and clergymen among the inmates.
On expiry of the three-month term, the chief warden would offer the inmate to write a statement of repentance. If he did, he was released under police surveillance. If he refused, he received another three months, a process which could continue ad infinitum.
More information about the Bereza Kartuska concentration camp is found in the book Za tebe, Ukraino… Z arkhivu viazniv kontstaboru Bereza Kartuska (1934-1935) chasiv Richi Pospolytoi Polskoi (For You, Ukraine… From the Archives of Bereza Kartuska Concentration Camp Inmates (1934-35), under the Second Polish Republic), published in Ternopil this year. This book mostly contains documented evidence (inmates’ case files, correspondence, also some literary works) and is the brainchild of four enthusiasts: Oleksandr Ilyin who collected the data; Petro Mazur, Candidate of Medical Sciences [roughly the equivalent of the associate professor’s rank. – Ed.], director of the Richynsky Medical College of Kremenets; Serhii Shevchuk, Ph.D. (Psychology), deputy rector at the Vasyl Chornovil Institute of Galicia, and Arsen Hudyma, Ph.D. (Philosophy), one of the institute’s lecturers. Remarkably, none of these researchers was a trained historian. Needless to say, professional historians may well accuse them of having been unprofessional in the publication, that they used Ukrainian translations of documents rather than the Polish original text, and so on. I would personally address all such potential critics with this remark: “Where have you been, gentlemen? Why have professional historians overlooked the subject of Bereza Kartuska? Was it because they felt more comfortable dealing with well-trodden themes?” As it is, we can only thank these four enthusiasts for their effort; people can now read a truly unique expose.
This book contains documents having to do with outstanding members of the contemporary Ukrainian Movement, among them Taras Borovets, Arsen Richynsky, and Roman Shukhevych. Borovets organized Ukrainian self-defense detachments in the north of Rivne oblast during WW II. These units would eventually become known as the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA). Borovets adopted Hohol’s hero’s name Taras Bulba as his guerrilla alias and acted independently of the Bandera [OUN faction]. His armed struggle against the Nazi aggressor was praised by the distinguished Ukrainian author, Ulas Samchuk, who wrote a novel dedicated to him entitled Choho ne hoit vohon (What Fire Does Not Heal, 1959).
Taras Bulba/Borovets was sent to Bereza Kartuska on July 11, 1934, on ambiguous charges that read: “OUN functionary, nominated by a local executive council; since 1933 he has been trying to organize a Ukrainian Orthodox publishing house in Rivne, campaigning in the powiat [Polish administrative territory. – Ed.]. He has founded a number of OUN cells/communities and organized anti-[Polish-language] schools and acts of sabotage, which activities have gained momentum due to his activities.” His arrest warrant, with instruction to lock him up in Bereza Kartuska, was signed by Henryk Jozewski, the Voivode (Governer) of Volyn. By the way Jozewski had an image of being a Ukrainophile, trying to foster relations between Poland and Ukraine. [He repeatedly argued for the introduction of Ukrainian language in school, and giving it a regional language status. While Jozewski argued for broad autonomy and self-governance of Ukrainian regions, he asserted that Ukraine must choose between Poland and the Soviet Union. – Ed.]. This document, however, shows him for what he was all about. He hated Ukrainians and was prepared to throw behind barbed wire a man who wanted to establish a Ukrainian publishing company, who was campaigning against the Polonization of schools in the [ethnic] Ukrainian lands.
As a Bereza Kartuska inmate, Taras Bulba/Borovets had problems with the guards because of his explosive temperament. In the end, he was placed in solitary confinement and forbidden to write and/or receive letters.
Another “inconvenient” public figure destined to experience the living hell of Bereza Kartuska was Arsen Richynsky. Before the arrest he was a practitioner in Volodymyr-Volynsky while dedicating much of his time to public activities. He was one of the activists campaigning for the Ukrainization of the Eastern Orthodox Church in Volyn, and helped establish a variety of Ukrainian cultural and educational organizations. The Polish authorities, of course, took a dim view of his activities and he was sent to Bereza Kartuska on May 11, 1935, pressed with the following charges: “… suspected of OUN affiliation… Richynsky is a moral authority for all nationally conscious Ukrainians.”
In order to raise young Ukrainians in the patriotic spirit, Richynsky started by founding Plast Scouting Organizations in Volodymyr’s powiat.
After the local administration prohibited Plast activities in 1929, Richynsky together with Stepan Chernysh, Ivan Kokhansky, and Yukhym Bunda, tried to start a semblance of Raiffeisen business in Volodymyr, in the shape of a small savings bank meant to cater to young Ukrainians and thus keep the ethnic community closer together. He also conducted patriotic enlightening work aimed at snatching young Ukrainians away from the Marshal-Pilsudski-yes-man’s influence of their parents and other collaborating adults. That Raiffeisen project never came to fruition because a district court outlawed its statute.
His wife, Nina Richynsky, set up a branch of the Ukrainian Women’s Association (UWA) in Volodymyr, on Arsen’s initiative. He was also the organizer and artistic director of the UWA’s Ukrainian Choir, just as he would invariably organize all of the Association’s projects.
All this adds up to the assumption that Richynsky was sent to the Bereza Kartuska concentration camp for conducting absolutely lawful cultural and educational activities. In fact, he cut a very interesting figure as a capable physician (lots of his patients in Volodymyr-Volynsky would remember him fondly for years), publisher, journalist, author of interesting works dealing with philosophy, folklorist, musician, and art critic. He came up with a variety of initiatives and established NGOs. This man could well be regarded as model Ukrainian intellectual — and he had to suffer for all this. His Ukrainian affiliation angered not only the Polish authorities. After the Soviet “liberation” troops entered Volyn in 1939, Richynsky was among the first to be arrested by the NKVD. Followed terms in GULAG camps. He never made it back to his native land. He died in faraway Kazakhstan.
Roman Shukhevych, future legendary commander of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, also served a term in Bereza Kartuska. The charges pressed listed his being “an active member of the OUN… no trial pending for want of incriminating evidence.”
I have mentioned above only three persons among the Bereza Kartuska inmates. There were hundreds of others. A far cry from the GULAG or Nazi death camps’ performance, of course, but still food for thought.
Most Bereza Kartuska Ukrainian inmates came from Galicia, although there were some from Volyn and from Beresteishchyna [which spreads out from Volyn towards Belarus and Lublin. – Ed.]. This was proof that these regions were engulfed by the Ukrainian national movement.
One of the dark pages in Bereza Kartuska history is the incarceration of Karpatska Sich members. On March 14, 1939, Subcarpathian Rus’ (originally part of the Czechoslovak Republic) proclaimed its national independence in Khust, but neither Hungary, which claimed possession of Ukrainian Transcarpathia [Zakarpattia], nor Poland, or even the Soviet Union felt happy about this proclamation. They were afraid that Transcarpathia would turn into a Piedmont of sorts, spreading freedom through the Ukrainian lands. By the way, the Ukrainian Nationalists counted on precisely this outcome while trying to keep the Transcarpathians on their path that led to independence. Quite a few Ukrainians conscious of their national identity traveled to Transcarpathia and joined the Carpathian Sich National Defense Organization. The latter would eventually become the “armed forces” of Transcarpathia.
On March 15, 1939, Hungarian troops invaded Transcarpathia, ruthlessly dealing with Carpathian Sich men, killing many. The Hungarians were aided by Polish forces. In the end, some of Sich men were captured by Poles. Forty men were sent to Bereza Kartuska, with the Polish Interior Ministry issuing this statement:
“During their stay in Poland, all the abovementioned persons (there was a list of names. — Author), considering their OUN affiliation, conducted antigovernment activities. They did so in a way that no charges could be pressed relying on incriminating evidence.
“While the OUN enhanced its propaganda campaign in favor of Transcarpathia, they joined the ranks of the local branch of the Carpathian Sich National Defense Organization. While in Ruthenia, they demonstrated a hostile attitude toward Poland.
“After Transcarpathia became part of Hungary, the abovementioned individuals were handed over to Polish authorities, considering their Polish citizenship.
“In view of their previous activities, particularly the possibility of committing acts harmful to the State, allowing them to remain at large constitutes a threat to [national] security, public law and order.”
Could any of these Polish officials have anticipated a similar future for their country when persecuting the defenders of Carpatho-Ukraine? In less than six months, Nazi Germany, aided by the Soviet Union, would invade Poland and have it divided between them. Those who would defend Poland (among them quite a few ethnic Ukrainians) would be sent to Nazi and Soviet concentration camps where most of them would die.
In a word, the book For You, Ukraine… gives one ample food for thought, even though it mostly contains documented evidence. I can only hope that this food for thought will benefit us and help arrive at the right conclusions.
