The Extraordinary Lives of Ukrainian-Canadian Women: Oral Histories of the Twentieth Century

This book contains the life stories of ten Ukrainian-Canadian women who survived the turbulent events of twentieth-century Europe. The older women were shaped by their experiences during the First World War and the revolutionary years of 1917–21, while the younger ones were profoundly affected, if not traumatized, by the trials and tribulations of interwar Polish or Soviet rule, the Soviet and Nazi occupations of Western Ukraine during the Second World War, or their deportation and forced labour in the Third Reich. Some of the women were politically active in Ukraine during the war; some experienced Soviet and Nazi persecution and even imprisonment. All ten women found refuge in the displaced persons camps in postwar Allied-occupied Germany or Austria. From there they immigrated to Canada, where they were active in the life and organizations of the Ukrainian émigré community. One became a published poet and writer. These life stories were selected from among the interviews of 250 Ukrainian émigré women conducted by the Ukrainian Canadian Research and Documentation Centre in Toronto and the Institute of Historical Research at Lviv National University. They are valuable contributions to the oral history of Ukrainian women, twentieth-century Ukraine, and Ukrainians in Canada.