Refugee shares story at fundraiser for Ukraine
Jim Slattery has invited his Ukrainian friend Andrew Melnyk to Creemore to speak at a fundraiser for the Canada Ukraine Foundation.
Slattery said he was inspired to do something to help after Russian invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, so far resulting in the death of more than 2,000 civilians and displacing close to 3.5 million refugees.
“People don’t know what to do. I didn’t know what to do,” said Slattery. He thought of his friend Melnyk, an educator and historian who has authored a book about his family’s experience as refugees after the Second World War. In My Father’s Mill, Melnyk tells the tale of returning to Ukraine after the fall of the iron curtain, a journey he made with his wife Chrystyna Tatomyr. The couple met while skiing in Quebec and realized they had a common experience; they had both been born in what was then called Galicia, a region that now spans western Ukraine and eastern Poland, at the height of the war. As the Red Army approached, they fled to Displaced Persons camps in Austria and Germany, where they lived for several years before finding freedom in Canada and the United States.
During the first half of the 20th Century, Ukrainians were the victims of genocidal starvation, eradication of language and destabilization of religious beliefs. The 2022 invasion disrupts the longest period of independence since the 17th Century.
Melnyk and Tatomyr were not able to return to Ukraine until 1993. When they returned again years later they observed that the young people had embraced the Ukrainian language, and English, welcomed Westerners and abandoned Sovietism.
“Ukrainians have tasted freedom. There is no going back,” writes Melnyk in the final thoughts of the book, published in 2003.
The Canada Ukraine Foundation is currently focussing on getting funds for the Displaced People as they arrive in the GTA, about 600 have already arrived with more on the way.
The event is a fundraiser for the newly formed Clearview Ukrainian Refugee Relief fund, which will provide funds to the Canada-Ukraine Foundation
The event will be held at Station on the Green in Creemore on Saturday, April 2 from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Books will be available for purchase. Donate directly at www.cufoundation.ca.
For more information, contact Jim Slattery at 416-605-8787.
Photo: Jim Slattery (centre) with Andrew Melnyk and Chrystyna Tatomyr at a protest and fundraiser held outside the Russian embassy in Toronto on Feb. 27.
