This didn’t last long though. Soon the Nazi’s came back and took our belongings and our cow, and put us on a train to the concentration camp. It's hard to describe what it was like in the camp because there just aren't any words to explain how horrible it was. We had no rights, we were forced to work beyond exhaustion, we didn't get food to eat or water to wash - like I said, there just aren't any words.

I remember there was a small hole in the fence around the camp and my mom would squeeze me through, telling me to go find food. I was four years old. I guess I just did what I was told because I didn't know any better. So off I would go, searching for food where there was no food to be found. If my mom or I had been caught, we would have been in big trouble…the worst trouble. But we were hungry and we were desperate, so we did desperate things.

I was in the camp for 5 years until the war ended in 1945. Once we were free, my dad decided to take us all to France where he could work as a miner. Dad would come home from the mines and I found myself wondering what it would be like to crawl around under the earth. I guess I knew that one day I would find out. I knew that I would be a miner too.

After France we moved to Belgium and from Belgium we came to Canada. I had an uncle who was living in Rowley, Alberta and he paid to bring me, my parents, and my brother George into the country. That was a big trip and I had no idea where I was going, but dad told me I would have a better life in Canada. I was 12 years old then - old enough to know I wanted something better.

In Canada we took a train to get to my uncle's house. We got off at a station in Drumheller, Alberta and stood there waiting for my uncle, but nobody came. At that point we were in big trouble because none of us spoke a word of English. Who do we ask for help? How do we find out where we are?

Everything was foreign and a little bit scary, but soon two Ukrainian ladies overheard us and came to help. We told them that we were looking for the Avramenko family and the only Avramenkos they knew lived in Munson. We hired a taxi but when we arrived, the lady who answered the door was not our relative. We had found the Avramenkos but they were the wrong Avramenkos! She was not too impressed to find a hungry family on her doorstep, but she couldn't just send us away. Her family ended up putting us to work in the fields and we were there quite some time before my uncle finally found us.

My uncle took us to Nacmine, Alberta and we set up our home there. There were quite a few Ukrainians around Nacmine so there were always people to talk to. But I had a big problem: I had to go to school. I had never gone to school before - my childhood was spent in a concentration camp, not a classroom.

On my first day, the teacher realized that I couldn't speak English so she put both George and I in Grade One. Grade One! I was 12 years old and everyone else was half my age! I was embarrassed and the kids made fun of me. The first day of school I was in a fist fight because they teased me so much. I hated it. We moved to East Coulee shortly after that, but the teacher put me in Grade One there as well and it was the same: teasing and bullying.

I stayed in school until Grade 4. By then I was 16 years old and I had had enough so I quit and went out to work. I wanted to work in the mines with my dad, but I had to wait until I was 18 before they would hire me. You used to be able to go in the mines at 16, but me, I had to wait until I was 18! It didn’t seem fair. All I wanted to do was go to work with my dad - make my own money and find my way in the world, but instead I had to work on farms and for the dairy.

The day I turned 18, I went into the mines. I was so excited that day. I remember thinking that I had finally made it. That now I was a man and all that teasing and bullying I went through during school would finally end. To my surprise though, I was pretty jumpy once I got underground. I guess I thought I would just walk in there and start mining like it was in my blood but it took me a long time to get used to the darkness and the strange sounds.

I would be sitting having lunch underground with the old guys and I would be so tuned-in to the creaks and groans from down the tunnels that it was hard to concentrate on my sandwich. I remember one day they had just pulled the pillars and timbers from one of the rooms and it was just a matter of time before the roof would cave in. I was having lunch with the guys and that’s when the roof decided to come down with a big WHOOF that shook the whole mine. I jumped right out of my shorts but the guys next to me just kept eating their lunch like nothing had happened!

It took me quite a while to get used to the sounds of the mine but soon I learned to look to the old guys and as long as they were calm, I knew that everything was ok. Eventually I understood the sounds just as well as they did. I liked the mine then - it sure suited me a lot better then school ever did. When I was in the mine I was just one of the guys. We all worked hard and we all walked out with money in our pockets and I was happy with the independence that I soon began to feel.

When I was 20 I married my wife, Joyce. Every night I would read to Joyce and she would teach me some writing and I eventually became very good at it. I worked hard to lose my accent and soon nobody could tell where I was from. We had three children who today are all educated and doing very well.

I'm very proud of the life I created in Canada. My start in the world might have been a hard one, but I found my path. And even though there were many obstacles along the way, I faced them and worked through them, and nobody can do better than that.

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