Throughout his childhood and youth, Wolodymyr Papuca was blown like a leaf in the wind from one perilous situation to the next. Born in the Ukraine in 1925, Wolodymyr’s early life became entangled in the rival ideologies of communism and Nazism and daily life was a battle for survival. When the Second World War broke out, Wolodymyr was just 14 years old and had been a Young Communist for six years just to avoid the gaze of the authorities. It was not long before he was forced to flee his home in search of safety as the Soviets began conscripting young Ukrainian men or forcing them into slavery, and the German army moved closer. Against all the odds, Wolodymyr would make it as far as war ravaged Germany, where he found that his troubles were only just beginning…

“In that split second, I had to make a choice: I could be killed by the Russians or killed by the Germans. I decided to run towards the tanks.”