Anatole Kurdsjuk talked with students about the horrors he witnesses as a child in the Ukraine during World War II. He was invited to speak at LMS as part of the school district’s holocaust and genocide education initiatives.
By: Lea Kahn Staff Writer
By the time Anatole Kurdsjuk was 11 years old, he had witnessed a young boy shot to death by a German soldier, marched from his home in the Ukraine to work in a German slave labor camp and had become temporarily separated from his parents until they were reunited in a displaced persons camp.
"Be thankful for this country," Mr. Kurdsjuk, 71, told about 200 Lawrence Middle School students Nov. 21. The former West Windsor Township resident, who lives in Florida, spoke to the students about his experiences and his family’s experiences under the Communists and the Nazis.
Mr. Kurdsjuk was invited to speak to the students by school district officials in connection with the district’s holocaust and genocide education initiatives, said LMS Principal Andrew Zuckerman. Mr. Kurdsjuk’s grandson, Nicholas Kurdzuk, is a second-grader at the Eldridge Park School.
The story begins, Mr. Kurdsjuk said, when his grandfather, Zachary Kurdsjuk, was drafted into the Russian army in 1914 by Czar Nicholas II. Zachary Kurdsjuk was wounded during World War I and sent home to his village in Byeloruss.
After the Russian Revolution, the new government seized land that had belonged to landowners and distributed it among the serfs, or peasants. Zachary Kurdsjuk received land, which he farmed. He also built a steam engine-powered grain mill. The family prospered, Mr. Kurdsjuk said.
Life was good, Mr. Kurdsjuk said, until Joseph Stalin became the leader of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Mr. Stalin abolished the private ownership of land and forced the farmers to join collectives.
Mr. Kurdsjuk said that when Zachary Kurdsjuk refused, the family which included Zachary Kurdsjuk and his wife, and son Jacob Kurdsjuk and his wife and children was exiled to a labor camp in Siberia in 1930. Mr. Kurdsjuk had not yet been born to Jacob and Olga Kurdsjuk.
"When they left (Byeloruss), it was spring," Mr. Kurdsjuk said. "When they arrived in Siberia, it was 45 degrees below zero. Within six months, the only people who had survived were my parents."
Mr. Kurdsjuk’s parents escaped from Siberia, but Mr. Kurdsjuk’s father was caught and sent back to another labor camp in Siberia. He was sentenced to 25 years of hard labor, but he escaped a second time.
During his flight, Mr. Kurdsjuk’s father discovered the body of a dead man. The U.S.S.R. required every person to carry identification papers, and since his father lacked identification, he seized the opportunity and grabbed the papers, Mr. Kurdsjuk said. He assumed the dead man’s identity.
Mr. Kurdsjuk’s father walked back to the family’s village in Byeloruss and was reunited with his wife. The family moved to the port city of Mariupol in the Ukraine, and that’s where he was born in 1934, Mr. Kurdsjuk said.
World War II broke out in 1941 and the Germans captured Mariupol, said Mr. Kurdsjuk, who was 7 years old at the time. The atrocities committed by the Germans were horrible, he said. A young man was shot on the spot after he became entangled in the leash of a dog belonging to a German soldier. Women were raped and killed, he said.
After the German defeat by the Russians at Stalingrad, the Germans rounded up the residents of Mariupol, Mr. Kurdsjuk said. The Germans killed about 30,000 Jews and Communists, while other residents including his family were taken 500 miles away to work in a slave labor camp in northern Germany, he said. They worked in a munitions factory owned by Alfred Nobel.
The food at the slave labor camp consisted of rotten pumpkin soup and bread that was made up of sawdust and spoiled flour, Mr. Kurdsjuk said. The bread was filling, but there was no nutritional value to it, he said.
But after two years on March 27, 1945, to be exact, he said the camp was liberated by U.S. Army soldiers led by Gen. George Patton. It was difficult to imagine that they had been rescued, he said.
The Kurdsjuk family was taken to a displaced persons camp, he said. Determined not to return to the U.S.S.R, Jacob Kurdsjuk contacted a cousin who had emigrated to the United States. The cousin arranged to bring the family to the U.S., Mr. Kurdsjuk said. The family settled on Long Island in 1949.
After his presentation, Mr. Kurdsjuk said he wanted the students to cherish what they have and to take advantage of the opportunities especially the freedom that previous generations have fought to achieve.
It is important to learn about other people and their cultures and customs because the world has become a global village, he said. Acquiring an understanding of others helps one to develop compassion for them and also may help to avoid conflict, he added.

