Kateryna Finiw

Kateryna Finiw was born in 1924 in the Ukraine. In 1942, aged 18, she was arrested and send to a hard labour camp in Germany where she was made to work 12 hours a day, 7 days a week on a pig farm, sleeping above the pigs in buildings full of rats.

It was whilst in the camp that she met her future husband Joseph, also from the Ukraine, who was in a camp 4 kilometres away. They were married in 1945 and had a son, who sadly died before they came to England.

They were still in a camp when, in 1947, Kateryna and Joseph were given the option of settling in Belgium, France or England. They chose England, arriving later that year, and being sent first to a refugee camp in Malvern, where they stayed for six weeks. From there they were moved to a camp at Bishops Cleeve and Kateryna went to work as a cleaner at Smiths, where she stayed until a week before her son, John, was born in 1948. She remembers with affection two ladies who were very kind to her during this period and who visited her in hospital after her son was born.

Joseph wanted to work as a coal miner, as that was what he had been doing in Germany, and went to Yorkshire for a medical but was not accepted as he had too much dust in his lungs. He returned to Gloucestershire, to a camp at Newton near Tewkesbury, and worked on a farm.

In 1948 Kateryna and Joseph moved to Brockworth where Joseph found work in a kitchen and Kateryna helped out on a farm. After a while they bought a single decker bus, which they converted into a caravan and lived in this until 1951 when they bought a house in Faulkner Street. They lived there for 3 years before moving in 1954 to Regent Street.

Kateryna worked as a nursing assistant at Standish Hospital, as a Home Help, at a laundry in Ryecroft Street and then in 1954 she started work in the dinning room at Horton Road Hospital where she stayed for 30 years until her retirement. Kateryna enjoyed her time at the Hospital and remembers particularly the friendship and kindness of the ladies she worked with and of the nurses.

Joseph worked at a foundry in Gloucester, followed by a job on the Brockworth Trading Estate and then finally at Walls, where he stayed until his retirement.

Kateryna returned to the Ukraine in 1992. She liked the country but felt conditions were very difficult for the people living there.

Kateryna feels that the Ukrainian Club has been an important focal point for the Ukrainian community in Gloucester. Particularly important has been the Saturday Club where children were taught the Ukrainian language, culture and traditions, including traditional folk dancing.

Kateryna used to a member of a Ukrainian Folk Dancing group who were once wrongly described as being "Russian" in The Citizen. This was offensive to the Ukrainians as Russia was one of the countries that had occupied the Ukraine along with Poland and Austria. Although upset by the mistake Kateryna feels this is due to a lack of understanding regarding the Ukraine, its people and its history.