Iryna Stankevych (Byrka) Ірина Станкевич (Бирка)

* 1947

  • And one day, it was usually in the morning and in the evening, young girls were in the train car too, young like you, and I was apparently, as they say in Russian, "tiotia liapotiotia", they played with me like with a doll. Every morning the doors were opened with a loud noise, we had to stand on the "stand to attention!" (in Russian) order and they did a roll call. Andrushko, then Byrka... Step forward. My mother stood with me, and everyone said "present". In the evening they (girls - translator's note) took me, fed me and played with me, and it was interesting for me... The roll call started, and I wasn't there... They noticed that the enemy of the people, a little 3-year-old girl was missing... They kept calling me, people were handing me over, it was impossible to run, and one by one I am handed over to my mother... at that time my mother is being beaten because I wasn't there... And when they handed me over to my mother, he no longer could beat her in the chest, so he stepped with his "kirza boots", we were barefoot in the train car, stepped on her toes. Mom's reaction - of course she cried. And I wanted to protect her, I showed him my tongue, and he grabbed my cheek so that now my face is a bit deformed. Later I needed a surgery, there was a tumor... in Siberia...

  • I was waiting for my mother, my mother was kissing horses and cows good-bye and we didn't pack, it was twenty minutes to 2 am, and at 2 that was it... It didn't matter then whether we packed on not - they just put you on a cart and take you away in a compulsory way. As a child, I remember that the neighbors went outside because they respected my parents, they threw us loaves of bread… and I will always remember their candies... I struggle to recall the color... somewhat... blue… They were simple little pillow-candies... That's what I remember... I also remembered the train car very well... Since our last name consists of first letters of the alphabet, we slept on the floor. There was also a ratish (a wooden or metal pole that іs used to lock doors and prevent them from being opened by animals or strong wind - translator's note). I don't have a good understanding of what ratish means, but my mom used to say this word... When they opened the ratish the noise was so loud and even small children were visible sitting in the train car. And I also remember very well... we were lying on the floor, in fact, at the entrance... it was so crowded that if one person wanted to turn, a dozen on one side and on the other had to turn with her, because it was impossible otherwise...We were lying, you know, like in the poem that I'd learned at school: "Horses and people mixed together in a bunch (poem Borodino by M. Lermontov - translator's note)", I was learning Russian and I always drew this parallel line of our big group there. There were young people, children, girls - such beauties and also boys, men, older and senior people. In the middle, there was one and only closestool, pardon me for this word, the closestool... and later when I saw other similar objects, even after a long time... They make it on a different shape now… but back then trash bins looked similar... Soviet trash bins looked like that, they always reminded me of that closestool...

  • And another terrible fact, I think you will record it... Obliquely, along the opposite wall - the second row was lying on the floor. And there was a woman with us, recently delivered woman, two weeks after birth, with a tiny baby... why I remembered that, because I took that baby for a living doll... She swaddled the baby... and I folded my arms like that and she put the baby in my arms, and I played with her, it seemed to me that it was a doll. One morning I woke up and for some reason people in the train car gathered around that woman, crying and making a sign of cross, and sprinkling water on the baby. And then they tear the board off the floor and throw my doll away...

  • I still remember another case there... I asked for an egg, I asked how it tastes, buy it please. Let's go, Irtsia, - she says. Buy her one, - someone says. - I don't have money for that... - Dad will earn some. But I didn't have a dad. And the woman who recommended my mother to her master, she said that my mother was a trustworthy woman, she cut a piece of turkey and pretended it slipped on the floor, right into the sand. It was very dusty in the summer. She says to my mother: "Take it". My mom picks it up and gives it back to her. The woman answers - "Oh, just throw it to the dogs, but to the good dog". And she went to wash it. That's how it was.

  • It is very insulting to this day, when I enrolled in first grade, the teacher asked me: "What's your last name?", Mom said - "Byrka" - What? (in Russian) Mom repeated again... -Your last name will be Byrko. Because every khokhol (Ukes) last name ends with an "o" I became Byrko… - Your name? -Irtsia -What's that? That's how my mom called me, I was the youngest, I was born when she was already older. - Well, this is a very khokhol - like name, your name will be Vera. I was Vera for ten years, Vera Byrko.

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    Morshyn, 28.09.2020

    (audio)
    duration: 01:51:43
    media recorded in project Memory of Ukraine
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We are living pages of history

Mrs Iryna during interview
Mrs Iryna during interview
photo: photo by Anna Yutchenko

Iryna Stankevych (maiden name - Byrka) was born on April 17, 1947, in the suburbs of Sudova Vyshnia, Lviv region. For his help to Ukrainian insurgents, Ms. Iryna’s father, Vasyl Byrka, was arrested and imprisoned for 10 years in labor camps. And his family - Ms. Iryna, her mother and brother in 1950 were transported to the special settlement Rozdolne, Krasnoyarsk Krai. In 1964, Iryna Stankevych’s father was rehabilitated, and the family moved to Ukraine. Iryna Stankevych remained in Krasnoyarsk, where she received her higher education. In 1973, Ms. Iryna returned to Ukraine. She started working as a chemistry teacher at Novoyavorivsk school. Now Iryna Stankevych lives in Novoyavorivsk in the Lviv region. She is the chairwoman of Novoyavorivsk Society of Political Prisoners and Repressed People.