No matter how often Vasyl Popadiuk tried to picture this meeting, he never thought he would be so excited. Would Richard recognize him? What does he look like today? Sixty years ago, in St. Poelten, they were just boys playing soccer and racing each other, unaware of their strikingly different status. Richard was an Austrian, a free man, a master, while Vasyl was just a farm laborer forcibly brought from far-away Ukraine. In fact, he was a little downtrodden slave, and hurting one of his kind was not only an easy thing to do but even an obligatory part of the game played by cruel fate. But fate could not foresee that the noble-hearted Austrians would take a dim view of this game and remain human against all odds, although the Nazi regime demanded an altogether different sort of behavior. This is why all the children played and chatted together in their spare time, teaching one another their traditions and culture, and dreaming of building a world that would be entirely different from the one the adults had given them.
Richard was 10 years old and Vasyl was 13, taller, and stronger.
“Vasyl was a very athletic boy, who knew how to play all the kids’ games with surprising skill. Sometimes he would deliberately let the little ones win just to encourage them. In those days Vasyl seemed very noble and wise to me. In fact, so he was, for he managed to build a relationship based on equality and to make others love and obey him. We were very astonished when he assembled a bicycle out of some leftover scraps and rode it through St. Poelten,” reminisces Richard Wotawa, now secretary-general of the Austrian Reconciliation, Peace, and Cooperation Foundation. When this retired diplomat was invited to become president of the foundation, he agreed instantly — not only because he needed a decent occupation to act as an outlet for his prodigious energy but also in memory of Vasyl.
After some 60 years the two old friends finally met in Ukraine. The difference was that now Richard was almost two heads taller than Vasyl and this time, he was the one taking care of people. Of course, fate had taken them along different life paths. Wotawa became a diplomat and a wealthy globe-trotter. By contrast, when Vasyl came back home, he served in the army, worked as a carpenter, and lived a quiet life, as a former Ostarbeiter was supposed to do because the likes of him could end up in the Gulag (so many did). Guilty in the absence of guilt, they had to “atone for their treason.” So, most of them kept silent about their forced stay in Austria or Germany until the Soviet Union collapsed. Mykhailo Lytsovsky was brought to Austria as a 16-year-old youth. He first lived in Graz and then in Vienna. His job was to carry large and heavy coal boxes to the first and second floors of buildings. After a month of this kind of work he could barely walk and was transferred to an easier job. He was lucky to be surrounded by Austrian Social Democrats. “I did not feel like an Ostarbeiter among them, nor did I suffer from loneliness. We worked and ate together. They often asked me about Ukraine, and I even recited poems for them. I also attended the Vienna Opera. Surprisingly, during my two-year stay in Vienna I was never asked to produce my pass,” Mr. Lytsovsky says.
All the Ostarbeiters say practically the same thing about the time after Austria was liberated from the Nazis: everyone agonized over the dilemma of whether to go back home. Of course, people in the know warned them that they might fail to reach home if they chose to go east, to the Soviet Union. Those who risked returning set out on carts loaded with food. They carried bundles and suitcases full of presents and souvenirs that were confiscated at checkpoints; then they were driven to a barbed-wire-fenced territory. Lytsovsky’s head was shaved, and he was forced to put on a military uniform. “Now you can atone for your treason with your blood,” he and other returnees were told. Soon after, their sergeant-major, said, overjoyed, “My boys! You’ll stay alive, the war’s over. We’ve won!” But Lytsovsky was not demobilized for another five years. This circumstance may have helped him enter university and later work for 34 years as the principal of the Radekhivka secondary school.
Lytsovsky and other ex-Ostarbeiters now living in Lviv oblast gathered in the Grand Hotel on the eve of Victory Day to receive another compensation installment from the Austrian Reconciliation Foundation. It should be emphasized that Austria is voluntarily paying compensation to former slave laborers. Aware of the situation of these elderly people whose health was destroyed as a result of cruel treatment and backbreaking work, the Austrian parliament unanimously passed the compensation law. Austria’s intention to make voluntary payments was officially announced on February 15, 2000. The Federal Law “On Funding Voluntary Payments by the Republic of Austria to Former Slave and Forced Laborers of the Nazi Regime” came into force on November 27, and by December 12, 2000, the compensation fund was established. The first installments reached Ukraine in August 2001. The job was done quickly and smoothly. The Ukrainian National Foundation for Mutual Understanding and Reconciliation, and the Austrian Foundation of Reconciliation have been cooperating extremely well in the interests of the victims of Nazism.
Another positive aspect is that the law fulfilled the two contracting parties’ wish that payments be made in one installment, in view of the recipients’ advanced age and poor health. Recipients were to record a waiver against his/her further claims in the bank upon receipt of the money. The issuing of payments to heirs, as specified in the law, has also resolved many problems for citizens of Ukraine (and other countries, where the Ukrainian Foundation effects payments). The Austrian side also showed flexibility in deciding who was eligible for compensation: the application deadline was extended several times, and in the absence of archival documents, indirect evidence and verbal reminiscences were taken into account. Aware that the sufferings of victims of Nazism are immeasurable and cannot be compensated by any amount of money, the Austrian Foundation’s board of governors decided to carry out humanitarian actions in addition to paying out money. The Ukrainian Foundation has received wheelchairs for ex-Ostarbeiters and death camp inmates. The Austrians also funded orthopedic operations performed in their country. Ukraine was allotted a total Euro 78,486,660.9. Approximately 43,000 people were paid a total of Euro 88 million. What is very striking, if not instructive, for us is that the Reconciliation Foundation decided to spend its residual funds to finance humanitarian programs to assist victims of Nazism. Since November 2004 people have been provided with access to health resort facilities, surgical operations, and material benefits. To allow all citizens to benefit from these humanitarian measures, the Ukrainian Foundation’s regional branches asked every aid recipient to fill out a questionnaire that helped identify those in need of medical treatment, surgery, further rehabilitation, or prostheses. The contracts signed with Ukraine’s medical institutions allowed 540 people to receive free medical care. In Lviv oblast alone, 314 people were treated at sanatoriums, 336 had surgery, and 34 received hearing devices. Lists were recently compiled of individuals requiring orthopedic surgery, including replacement arthroplasty. Postoperative rehabilitation, drug therapy, transportation, and, if necessary, transportation and accommodation for accompanying persons will also be free of charge.
In order to take advantage of this opportunity to improve their health, eligible individuals should apply to the regional branches of the Ukrainian Foundation with their case history. However, all medical and social assistance projects are only intended for victims of slave and forced labor. The Austrian Reconciliation Foundation has also decided to pay individuals a lump sum of 200 euros so that they can take care of their urgent medical and social problems on their own. This humanitarian aid is only intended for victims of Nazism, not for their heirs. Lviv residents were the first to receive this money because this region has the largest number of former Ostarbeiters and prisoners from the Mauthausen concentration camp, which was located in Austria.
Unfortunately, the Austrian Reconciliation Foundation will be disbanded on December 31, 2005, but it will replaced by three other foundations. One of them, the Foundation of the Future, will continue implementing humanitarian programs. The second will deal with scholarships, and the range of responsibilities of the third one will be decided by the Austrian government in the nearest future. In any case, this is going to help Ukraine build a democratic and socially secure society, in which there will be no place for violence. In our hearts we will always sadly cherish the memory of the victims of Nazism.
