My Grandmother's Village

2006-07-05, Lacko, Lviv Oblast, Ukraine

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I only found where my paternal grandmother had lived just before we left for Ukraine. Not surprisingly (although I was very surprised) it was right next to my paternal grandfather's town of Hubuci. I understood that they were married in America but apparently they knew each other in their home country.

Lacko, now called Solianuvatka, is very small--there seemed to be 20 or so homes. We attended mass in the lovely little church that stood in my grandmother's day and the attached cemetary probably contained the remains of many of my ancestors. The graveyards are hard to navigate and I don't know for sure who belongs to me. Later in the week we visited a salt mine located in Lacko that was the site of a gruesome political crime during WWII. First the Russian troops threw in local dissidents to die. Later German troops had local Jews recover the bodies and bury them only to then throw the Jews to their deaths.