DANYLO'S DEFENCE BEGAN on Friday, January 18th with an opening statement by Mr. Vincent.
"The plaintiff has put forward the theory that Mr. Danylo Feschuk collaborated with the Nazis in Reichcommissariat Ukraine from 1941 until 1943 in his role as an auxiliary police officer. However, it should be noted that the plaintiff did not present a single person who witnessed atrocities committed by Mr. Feschuk. In fact, the plaintiff presented no eyewitnesses to atrocities carried out by Ukrainian auxiliary police at all.
"The court might wonder how Mr. Feschuk was targeted with this accusation in the first place. In the 1970s, a package of material was brought forward by the Soviet Secret Police — the KGB — on behalf of the Soviet government. The RCMP followed up on that information, and drew up a list of people to investigate.
"One might ask what the motivation was for the KGB to do this? Why did the list contain not a single Russian, in spite of the fact that the Soviet Union openly collaborated with Nazi Germany from 1939 until 1941? Why did the list contain not a single German citizen, in spite of the fact that only German citizens could join the Nazi party? All of the people on the list were from Eastern European countries. These were the same countries who fought Communism, but were forcibly annexed to the Soviet Union after World War II. Was the Soviet Union trying to deflect attention from their own war crimes?
"Mrs. Caine has not been able to present a single piece of evidence to personally implicate Mr. Feschuk in atrocities. She bases her case on German documents which occasionally implicate Ukrainian auxiliary police. I will bring forward an expert witness who will provide German documents that paint a different picture.
"Mrs. Caine has stated that Mr. Feschuk lied during immigration proceedings, yet she has provided no evidence to back that claim.
"In her closing statement, Mrs. Caine asks, ‘if a man betrays the country of his birth, what stops him from betraying his country of adoption?'
"This is a key question. Mr. Feschuk's country of birth was Ukraine. I will show that Mr. Feschuk was a patriot.
"I call my first witness," continued Mr. Vincent after pausing. "Professor John Thompson of the University of Toronto, author of Modern Ukraine: 1900 - 2000."
Professor Thompson was a slim small man with tiny round glasses and greying curly hair, which he wore gelled and combed away from his face. He walked over to the witness stand and sat down, then adjusted the microphone so that it was close to his mouth.
Kat sat up to listen. She was very familiar with this man's name. Many of Professor Thompson's books graced her parents' bookshelves, but she had never read one herself.
Kat learned that when Hitler invaded Ukraine in 1941, there were many Ukrainians who welcomed the Nazis, believing they were being liberated from the Soviet Terror that had seen millions of Ukrainians go missing.
But the Nazis turned out to be as bad as the Soviets. Five million forced labourers from various countries were sent to Germany — half of them were Ukrainian. They were known as the Ostarbeiter and were identified by the OST badge they were forced to wear on their clothing. The goal was to literally work these labourers to death, and they succeeded at a rate of 40,000 a month.
As Kat listened to the professor's testimony, stories that her grandmother had told her began to surface in her thoughts. Kat could never really put them in context before. A sob caught in Kat's throat. She missed her grandmother so much. But as the professor continued, Kat remembered the stories as crisply as if she were stepping into her grandmother's shoes:
A sign was posted in the village square: Limited quantity of fresh bread, post office, two o'clock, first come-first served.
Nadiya couldn't believe it. Bread? She and her mother had been surviving on handfuls of horse feed that they'd steal from the Germans' stables when they were sent in to clean them. "Mama is so sick with hunger," thought Nadiya to herself. "She'll be so proud of me if I bring home a loaf of real bread."
When Nadiya got to the post office, her heart sank. There were already more than twenty villagers lined up. Mostly, it was wretched starving old women with distended bellies, but there were a few people Nadiya's age too.
Nadiya was about to leave when a soldier came out and beckoned the half dozen young people in the crowd. "I may have some more bread in the back," he said. "Follow me."
Nadiya hesitated, but she saw that the others were eager to follow. A loaf of bread was nothing to sniff at. So she followed too. But no sooner was she inside the post office when she felt a sharp blow to her head. When she woke up, she was in a boxcar packed tight with Ukrainian boys and girls. The smell of vomit and feces was intense, but worse was the weeping and wailing of all the teens who would never see their families again.
At the munitions factory she was sent to, she was fed a bowl of gruel once a day that was mostly water with scraps of mouldy potato. She was constantly hungry and her fingers were sore and swollen from handling metal all day. At night, she slept in a small room with dozens of other women. She could hear the sound of allied bombers flying overhead. Munitions factories were prime targets. On her breast she wore the badge of shame: OST. Subhuman.
Kat could almost see her grandmother sitting beside her, telling her these stories. She had to stop thinking of it, or she would burst into tears. She tried to concentrate on what Mr. Vincent was asking the professor.
"What were Ukraine's total losses during World War II?"
"Some go as high as 14.5 million, but in my estimation, approximately 10 million Ukrainians lost their lives during World War II. Of that total, four million were civilians. This figure includes 600,000 Jewish Ukrainians."
Throughout the professor's testimony, Kat would occasionally turn in her chair slightly so that she could see the reactions on the faces of the people in the audience. She was struck by the fact that several of the people on the opposite side wore angry expressions and had their arms crossed. Kat noted in particular the girl with the hair clip. She looked like she was about to explode.
Curiously, the reaction of her grandfather's supporters were exactly the opposite. While Professor Thompson spoke of Ukrainian losses, most were perched on the edge of their chairs and nodding in agreement. Kat remembered that when the plaintiff's witnesses were testifying, the reactions had been reversed.
This appalled Kat. Why were both sides not equally concerned with all the deaths? Was one human not equal to another? Kat's heart ached for all of the people who had been destroyed so long ago by two madmen. Whether Jews or Gypsies, Ukrainians or Poles, Russians or Germans, each of these people had been killed because of their race. Kat had assumed that the world had matured since then, but when she looked at the reactions of the people in the courtroom, she realized how little progress had actually been made.
At the first break, Kat didn't go down to the cafeteria for coffee with the others. Instead, she took the subway home. Professor Thompson had a stack of papers six inches high, and Kat had a feeling he'd be testifying all day. She didn't need a history lesson right now. What she needed was time to think. Thank goodness tomorrow was Saturday.