How did the UPA soldiers celebrate Easter during the Second World War?

In order to celebrate Easter, the UPA warriors made a table from a log house, instead of a tablecloth there were needles, Easter cakes on the table, carrying weapons on their shoulders. So celebrated Christ's Resurrection in 1944-1950.

“From the front, which stretched to the Dniester near Stanislav, a heavy cannon cannonade was heard. The situation is tense everywhere. Every day we wait for news ... Among these circumstances, Easter holidays are coming,” the insurgent Podolyak recalled how a hundred Rezun celebrated Easter in the Black Forest in 1944.

According to him, on Easter Saturday, April 15, the camp was boiling like a beehive. Some cleaned the weapons and hosted in the huts, the second cut branches to decorate the huts, the other the chapel in which the field liturgy was sent. The cooks were supposed to make food for hundreds and guests.

In the morning the foremen checked if everything was in place. Then met the guests. They sat down to the tables as one family. They were treated to, sang, joked until noon. As an accompaniment to their amusements, front cannon batteries sounded. In the evening, the rebels dispersed to the sub-forest villages.

“Easter was of particular importance for the rebels,” says Yaroslav Koretchuk, director of the museum of the liberation struggle. - “It is necessary to understand that it was at this time, at the end of March and early April, that they left their hiding places, where they spent the winters of 3-4 people and gathered in large groups. That is, for them it was the first connection after the winter. They told what happened during this time, found out who died.”