My Grandfather's Mill

Book excerpt: My Grandfather’s Mill – Journey to Freedom is a true story — part history, part biography. It focuses on two families and their two infant children, Andrew and Chrystyna, born in Western Ukraine at the height of the Second World War. Their parents fought for Ukrainian independence throughout the years of Polish occupation, the invasion of Stalin’s Bolshevik forces and during the years of Hitler’s Nazi terror. Members of both their families were murdered by one or another of the occupying armies. Family accounts of concentration camps, refugee camps; of war crimes, brutality and uncertainty, of hope, courage and unexpected generosity are interwoven with the historical realities of the time. They were among the lucky ones who found freedom in North America. Half a century after they left their homeland, Andrew and Chrystyna returned. They discovered the villages of their birth, found family members they didn’t know existed, experienced their culture fi rst-hand and fi nally began to make sense of their place in history. This book is written for future generations, for all those who have lived in two very different worlds, for victims of wars, present day refugees, immigrants and especially for those who were born and have always lived in a free country and never experienced the horrors of war.