In fact, Mykola’s father hadn’t been directly conscripted by the police; he had put himself forward to replace one of his sons, “It was the polizei who came to get him. They wanted to take my oldest brother, but my mother started to cry and persuaded them to take my father instead. She guessed that it was to bury the bodies and she didn’t want my brother to be traumatized by the blood and the cadavers. The police accepted and took my father.
