Halyna Reshetnyk
Halyna Reshetnyk was born on September 1, 1941, in the village of Radiv in the Rivne region into a family of peasants – Ivan (born in 1914) and Anna (born in 1922) Mykolaychuk. Her dad was a blacksmith.
At the beginning of World War II, her father served in the Polish army as a horseman. “He witnessed how the Polish authorities fled” after the Nazi occupation.
In 1942, Ivan Mykolaychuk became the commander in the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA). In 1944, immediately after the Soviet government came to power, he was arrested. The trial took place in Rivne. Ivan Mykolaychuk was sentenced to 10 years in labor camps.
“OUR DETECTIVE STORY BEGAN IN DUBNO”
And on May 18, 1945, little Halyna Reshetnyk and her mother were taken away, and “they even were not allowed to take anything with them”. Mrs. Halyna’s younger brother Petro was hidden by her grandmother.
Already from the train car, little Halyna is secretly taken by her aunt – her father’s sister and hidden at their acquaintances. However, in the evening, during the roll call, they find out she was missing. The mother was forced to look for her daughter among relatives with a barrel of a pistol aimed at her. And mom decided that “be as it may, but at least they would stay together”.
Halyna Reshetnyk remembers the long road to their destination point. Perhaps the brightest and most horrible memory of the prison transport is the polar bear’s attack on a barge with people. All passengers miraculously remained intact.
“MOM IS A GOOD NAME”
Halyna Reshetnyk and her mother were settled in the village of Mama in the Irkutsk region. It could only be reached by water or air.
All the inhabitants of the settlement worked in logging. Anna Mykolaychuk was no exception. Soon Mrs.Halyna’s mother became very ill. As it turned out later, she had spinal tuberculosis. For two years, Mrs. Hanna was ill and confined to bed.
“I HAD A DIFFICULT CHILDHOOD”
At that time, Halyna Reshetnyk lived in a Ukrainian family Novosad from Rivne area, she and her mother met them during the prison transport. But she was not allowed to stay with them and was redirected to a home for children of enemies of the people.
Mrs. Halyna remembers these two years in the orphanage with horror. Children were forbidden to show any emotions. They were constantly starving. Halyna Reshetnyk developed dysentery there, and she was left with no chance to recover.
Fortunately, Mrs. Hanna, Halyna’s mother, recovered and learned about the fate of her daughter, who was in the hospital. However, she was not allowed to take back Halyna because she said, “she wouldn’t be able to bring up a real Soviet person”.
Hanna Mykolaychuk put her exhausted daughter “over her arm” and covered her with a coat. That’s how she took her out of the room. Mother’s friends helped Halyna Reshetnyk to recover.
In 1948, Halyna Reshetnyk went to a local school. Both local children and children from the boarding school went to this school. The latter told the administration of the children’s boarding school that Halyna was alive.
Halyna Reshetnyk recalls that every Sunday people gathered for worship in one of the rooms in the barracks. Most of the services were conducted by family members of priests. Together they celebrated Christmas and Easter.
photo: Halyna and her Lithuanian friend Nilya
“YOU ARE FREE. CHILDREN ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THEIR PARENTS”
In 1953, after Stalin’s death, Halyna Reshetnyk was called to the commandant’s office, where she was told that she was free and could return to Ukraine.
In 1954, Ivan Mykolaychuk was serving his full sentence in Karahanda. From there he was redirected to a settlement in Kostanay, Kazakhstan. He worked in a factory there. At the same time, he constantly writes letters requesting the release of his family and the possibility of uniting them. However, as it turned out, in 1950 Hanna Mykolaychuk voluntary-compulsory signed a lifelong exile agreement in their settlement of Mama.
(photo: Postcard from the father, 1953 – return of the postcard)
(photo near the barracks in the village of Mama, before leaving, 1954)
“WHAT A HAPPINESS TO MEET A FAMILY”
But Ivan Mykolaychuk still achieved the goal, and in 1954 the whole family (including brother Petro) met in Kostanay.
In 1956, the Mykolaychuk family returned to Ukraine and settled in Dubno. They were given land for construction. However, they cannot register in a new place.
Mrs. Halyna started attending a local Russian school because she didn’t speak Ukrainian. She studies very well. Thanks to the father of her classmate, who was the police chief, she managed to register the family and obtain documents.
After graduating from school, she entered the Kyiv University of Telecommunications. After graduation, she was sent to work at the Zaporizhia TV Center, where Mrs. Halyna worked for three years.
Later, Halyna Reshetnyk got married and gave birth to a son. Also, she got the long wished profession of a mathematician.
In 1980, she defended her dissertation and received the degree of Candidate of Technical Sciences.
Now Halyna Reshetnyk is a pensioner. She lives in Ternopil. She is a member of the Ternopil Regional Union of Political Prisoners and Repressed People, the Society of Children of Political Prisoners. Halyna Reshetnyk is the honorary chairman of the Ternopil Regional Women’s Association. She is working on writing memoirs.
Хто записував: Ганна Заремба-Косович
Де: Тернопіль, Україна
Коли: 25 листопада 2020 року
Хто працював над записом: Ганна Заремба-Косович
Проєкт: «Пам’ять України»
Інституція: Меморіальний музей тоталітарних режимів «Територія терору»
Біографію підготувала: Ольга Муха
