Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch has written eloquently on topics of particular interest to Ukrainians around the world.

In Enough she retold the story of Ukraine’s Famine-Genocide of 1932-1933, which saw the soviet regime under Joseph Stalin murder some 7 million Ukrainians by starvation. She shed light on the internment of “enemy aliens” during WWI in Silver Threads. Most recently, in a novel for young adults called Hope’s War, Forchuk Skrypuch documents the tragedy inflicted on ordinary people and their families as a result of the Canadian government’s policy of deportation and denaturalization.

This method is used to strip individuals of their citizenship on the basis of allegations alone, without giving them a criminal trial to find out if they had actually committed a crime. Hope’s War describes the struggle of Kataryna Baliuk in coming to terms with the accusation made by the RCMP, that Danylo Feschuk, her grandfather, was a Nazi collaborator and war criminal.

After she regained her composure, Kat walked back down the steps with slow determination. Her grandfather was in the kitchen, staring into an empty teacup. She sat down in the chair across from him and waited for him to look up and meet her eyes.

“Dido,” she said. “Tell me what this is all about.”

What is it that you want to know? he asked.

“What did you do during the war?”

“I did nothing wrong,” he said, his voice cracking with emotion. He got up from his chair and walked out of the kitchen.

Kat sat there, staring at the empty chair.

In the solitude of Genya’s transformed bedroom, Danylo had a jumble of thoughts running through his mind. What person nowadays could understand the kind of choices he had to make in his youth? Movies and television liked to make war seem like a battle between right and wrong, good and bad. But what if both sides were bad? Stalin on one side, and Hitler on the other? What choices did you have then? If he could live that time all over again, his choices would still be the same. The pity was that people now couldn’t understand how his was the only noble choice.

Thoughts of the past were quickly washed aside with practical considerations of the current situation. How was he going to afford a lawyer? A trial? He didn’t want his daughter and son-in-law to go bankrupt all because of him. Why had the RCMP targeted him after all these years?

Danylo thought of his home a few blocks away. He thought of all the memories it held. He had never been much further than Toronto since he came to Canada. When he and his wife first came, they had lived in a rooming house around Spadina and Queen, and after saving their pennies and dollars for years, they had bought their first home with a garden in the back and a verandah in the front. That home had been on Bathurst Street, and they had lived there for decades. When they finally moved to Mississauga, it was to be closer to Orysia and Walt and the girls. The quaint tree-lined street had been his refuge, his home, for almost twenty years now. When his wife died, he couldn’t bear being there on his own with all the memories. Perhaps he should sell it. But even so, how much money would it fetch? Surely not enough to pay for his court case? And if he did sell it, where would he live? He couldn’t possibly camp out in Genya’s room forever. That would hardly be fair to her.

Danylo walked over to the dresser and opened the top drawer. Beneath the yellowed envelope was Nadiya’s plain wooden jewellery box nestled amidst his socks and underwear. He opened it. Inside was a simple gold Orthodox crucifix on a fine chain that he had given her on their tenth anniversary. There was also a homemade brooch that Orysia had made when she was a child and Nadiya had worn with pride all these years since. A few other homemade mementoes, but nothing in the box of monetary value. Danylo lifted the top tray out to see if there was anything secreted below. Nothing but a small container of prescription medication. These were morphine tablets. His wife would take them when the pain from her cancer became too overwhelming. She didn’t like to take them very often because she considered it a moral failing to give in to her pain, and so she had hidden them here so that she wouldn’t resort to them easily. Danylo held the pill bottle up to the light and counted how many tablets it contained. More than a dozen. Enough to stop his pain. Should he take them now and save his family all this pain?

He opened the container and shook the pills out into his palm. It would be so easy to take these now, and forget everything. His family would be spared the burden of his court costs. What did he have to live for, after all? But then he looked at his wife’s golden crucifix. How could he kill himself. That would be a sin.

The image of Kataryna filled his mind. There were unanswered questions in her eyes. When she had looked at him, their eyes met, and she held his gaze. It was as if she were trying to look into his very soul. To find the truth.

If I kill myself, considered Danylo, my zolota zhabka [term of endearment, literally “golden frog” - Ed.] can only assume that I’ve done something bad. He stared at the pills in the palm of his hand with longing. I can’t do it. This burden has been given to me, and I

must live it. He put the pills back into their container and snapped the cap back on.

Hope’s War is available in most bookstores and is published by Boardwalk Young Adult Fiction, an affiliate of Dundurn Press, 8 Market Street, Suite 200, Toronto, Ontario, M5E 1M6.

247 pages. ISBN 1-895681-19-7.

More information about Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch is available at her web site, www.calla.com