(Petro Vojtsjukh)
b. 1896 in
Bohdanivka, Vinnytsia oblast. (father
/ mother)
d. 1972 April.
When World War I started he was drafted to the Russian Czar Army. He served as a private during the war but was luckily never injured. After returning home from the war he married in 1919 to Hanna Yarosh. He then got a small piece of land from his father and became a farmer in Bohdanivka. But during the civil war in the early 1920s he was forced to join the Cheka (the Bolshevik secret police). But after helping an innocent boy escaping execution he managed to leave the Cheka. Petro could return to his home village Bohdanivka where he continued to farm.
When the Nazi German troops attacked the USSR and Ukraine on June 22, 1941 Petro and his family was still living in Bohdanivka. Some weeks later German troops also came to Bohdanivka. Petro was then appointed by the Germans to be the starosta (=village elder) in the village, though this was against Petro's own will. During the war he tried to help people in the village from being sent to labour camps in Germany and therefore he was never accused of collaboration with the Germans after the war.
In early January 1944 the Red Army entered Bohdanivka. Petro was directly drafted in the Red Army and went with the army to the west. In February 1945 they had reached the river Oder in Germany. There Petro was working with building a bridge when they were attacked by German fire. Petro was thrown into the river and almost drowned. Although he managed to grip some floating wood and get to the shore. One of his legs was injured though and he was sent to a hospital in Sandomir, Poland. This injury made him to limp with one foot the rest of his life. After treatment at the hospital he was sent back to Ukraine.
Although Petro was never accused of collaboration with the Germans he thought it was best to leave the village of Bohdanivka after the war. Thus he moved with his wife and the daughter Pavlina to Stryj in Lviv oblast. There they had a small two room apartment. Petro now tried to earn his living by working as a veterinarian.
During the late 1950s he was remarried to Darya Petrivna. He and his new wife then moved to Berditjiv in Zhytomyr oblast (vul. Volodarskoho 59 a).
 Petro Vojtsjukh together with his second wife Darya Petrivna. |
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| Petro Vojtsjukh together with his second wife Darya Petrivna and their grandson Viktor Rechmedin. |
In April 1972 Petro's two grandsons Anatolij and Leonid were visiting him to help planting potatoes. Petro then took the bus to the nearby market, but while on the bus he suffered a severe stroke and died.
According to Petro's own will his grandson arranged so he could be buried in his home-village of Bohdanivka.
Petro was a tall man and when he was a young man he was known to be very strong. He had brown hair and moustache. He had a hot temper which his wife often had to cool down.
Children:
Pavlina, b. 1920, January 6, d. 2003, January 23.
Olha, b. 1923 in Bohdanivka, Vinnytsia oblast, d. 1936 in Bohdanivka, Vinnytsia oblast. She had a bad heart and died at a young age.
Maria, b. 1927 in Bohdanivka, Vinnytsia oblast, d. 1944 February in Bohdanivka, Vinnytsia oblast. She was killed by a stray bullet while she was at home.