A personal memory of Memorial Day
Memorial Day, for each of us in the United States, is a personally meaningful experience, even more so for me, because of recent events in Ukraine.
I am a Ukrainian-American and a DP, Displaced Person, born in the Regensburg, Germany DP Camp after World War II.
My parents and I came to the United States of America in August 1949 after crossing the Atlantic on the troopship USS General Omar Bundy. My parents had spent three years in Germany during the war as part of 2.5 million Ukrainian Ostarbeiters (slave laborers) and four years in various DP camps where they met and married.
In our early years in Rochester, we lived on Kelly Street, Baden Street, Scrantom Street and Hudson Avenue across from Wadsworth Street. Each Memorial Day, we would walk to the parade route on Main Street. My earliest memories are of sitting on the hot curb holding an American flag on a wooden stick with a gold tip. My parents would nudge me to stand every time the colors or a military unit passed.
We would sometimes get looks or comments because we only spoke Ukrainian. My parents were attending citizenship and language classes and had not yet mastered their fifth language, having been forced to learn Polish, Russian and German by successive occupiers of their homeland.
I remember asking my parents why we came to the parade to stand in the hot sun. They answered that it was the least we could do to honor and show our respect to the men who had died so that we could live in freedom. They had not come to the United States as political or economic refugees. They came seeking the personal freedom that had been denied them for no other reason than that they were Ukrainian. They came seeking what President Franklin D. Roosevelt had expressed in his January 1941
Four Freedoms Speech:
● The first is freedom of speech and expression
● The second is freedom of every person to worship God in their own way
● The third is freedom from want
● The fourth is freedom from fear In subsequent years, I participated in the parade with the Boy Scouts of America and the Benjamin Franklin High School band. For many years, I marched with the Headquarters of the 98th Division (Training) US Army Reserve and prior to my retirement as Division, Chief of Staff, led the parade’s military contingent.
This year, I have the honor of being the parade’s Salute Officer. My grandchildren will march in the parade. And when asked the question why we participate in the parade we will answer, “it is the least we could do honor and show our respect to the men who had died so that we could live in freedom.”
That is the same freedom that today is still sought by the people of Ukraine.
Eugene Sydor is a retired Army colonel.