大象传媒

Stephanie's story is part of a collection recorded for a reminiscence project to celebrate the history of the Ukrainian community in Gloucester, and contributed to the 大象传媒 People's War with permission.

I was born in Kalne, Ukraine. My family were farming people. I remember spending half days in school and half days working in the fields looking after the cows.

I was nearly eighteen when the Germans took me. I remember two men and a dog came, I was the only one they took. I spent one night in a school waiting for transport. In the morning I was loaded into a cattle truck taken to Borhorst, Germany where I was forced to work in a textiles factory. I worked here for about nine months.

I was again transported by freight wagon to work in a munitions factory. I worked in this factory for almost one year until the factory was bombed. After this the Germans moved me to a series of detention camps across Germany until the end of the war.

I married my husband Michael Olijnyk whilst still in Germany. We were given a choice of where we could go, we chose England.
We arrived in England on separate boats in May 1947 and were initially housed in a camp at Malvern.

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