Description
From 1942 Nazi Germany took millions of civilians from occupied Ukraine for forced labour; after the war the Soviet state filtered those who came back. This twelve-week course follows one fictional sister and brother, and the schools, churches and new homes built in exile.
Full description
From January 1942 Nazi Germany took millions of civilians from occupied Ukraine for forced labour. Women were the largest group, many of them minors. They had to wear a badge marked OST, German for “east.” After the war the Soviet state treated those who returned as suspects: they went through filtratsiia (фільтрація), “filtration,” and many lived for years branded “traitors.”
The minus comes from two powers; the book blames no people as a whole. OST− names what power took: the OST badge and the round-ups; the journey west by force and back east; and the traitor label, with filtration and forced return after the Yalta agreement of 1945. REFUGE+ names what people kept: the refusal to return, education and faith in the camps for displaced persons, unions, the journey to new homes, and an enduring diaspora.
The book is a twelve-week course. Each week follows the Melnyks of No. 12 River Street, a fictional family: Hanna, taken to Germany in 1942, who refused to go back and settled in Canada, and her brother Mykola, who came home through filtration. Every event behind it is documented, with sources. Sister streets run from German farms and displaced persons camps to Pier 21 and the Prairies, and to Ukrainians abroad since 2022, when Russia again runs filtration.
We Remember keeps those taken to Germany, the filtered and the sent back, with the Arolsen Archives and 18 January, Ukraine’s Day of Remembrance of the victims of forced deportation to Germany. For Every Age gives four guides: Hanna’s Badge, a story for children; six lessons for youth; a community evening; and a guide for teachers and leaders.
For university and college courses in social work, history, human rights, migration, Ukrainian and Canadian studies; for community groups and families; and for readers of Ukrainian descent. Help shape the next edition: write to sasha@drokacademy.ca with corrections and family stories.
This is the first edition. Our goal is to find people with lived experience of what it describes, including Crimean Tatar and Lemko readers, survivors, their families and descendants, and their communities, and to review the book with them for accuracy. If you have lived this history, or you find something that is not accurate or something that is missing, please write to sasha@drokacademy.ca. The second edition will carry every correction, and the author is looking for co-authors who will shape it. A Ukrainian edition, ОСТ− і ДІПІ+ (Ost− i DiPi+), is planned. We will keep working toward it and are asking people to help with translation and review: write to sasha@drokacademy.ca.
Inside
- Twelve weeks, one for each class of a course term, in four parts: CARE, POWER, the minus word and the plus word
- River Street: one fictional family and the documented history behind every week
- Every week read on three circles (personal, cultural, structural) and in four times: before, what the empire brought, since 1991, the future we choose
- Three readings a week, discussion questions, a research task and key terms
- We Remember: who the filter took, with dated, sourced counts, and where the names are kept
- For Every Age: four guides, for children, youth, a community evening, and teachers and leaders
The author takes no income from this book. Proceeds after production costs support students. The author supports student caregivers and those who stand with Ukraine.
Teaching it? Instructors can request a free review copy, and every student in a course that adopts the book receives it free. Write to sasha@drokacademy.ca.
Author line
Dr. Oleksandr Kondrashov (Sasha) is the founder of DROKACADEMY, a healing and writing space in Kamloops, British Columbia, and a social work educator who currently teaches at Thompson Rivers University. Born in Lviv, Ukraine, and in Canada since 2004, he has taught over 7,000 students across five Canadian universities. DROKACADEMY’s motto guides this series: Love. Care. Share. His MSW research at the University of Manitoba studied the fourth wave of Ukrainian immigration in Winnipeg, and he has taught Ukrainian Canadian diaspora studies, with a unit on the displaced persons of the third wave.
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