Penn Hills man's Ukrainian family has history of resisting Russian invasions

Bohdan Czmola’s family has a history of opposing the Russians.

A son of Ukrainian immigrants, Czmola, 70, of Penn Hills said his grandfather, Ivan Czmola, was one of three founders of Plast, a Ukrainian scouting organization for boys in 1911.

When Ukraine declared independence from Russia in 1918, Czmola’s grandfather and his troops defended the fledgling nation’s parliament in Kyiv. “They fought a few battles,” he said.

When the fight was lost and members of parliament knew they would be murdered if they stayed, Czmola said, his grandfather was tasked with defending a railroad station in Boyarka, a town outside Kyiv, in February 1919. Czmola said his grandfather, a young man of around 25 years, commanded 1,000 troops.

“They fought for about a week,” he said, as he anxiously watches the current events of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine unfold. “They knew they couldn’t win. Their job was to stall the Russians so they would not catch the politicians.”

Half of their troops died or were seriously wounded, but they were successful.

Czmola’s family learned about a fundraising campaign by Plast to place a monument at the train station, and they donated the balance necessary to make it a reality. They were present for the dedication ceremony on Nov. 30, 2019.

As the latest Russian invasion of Ukraine continues, Czmola doesn’t know whether the memorial is still there.

“History keeps repeating,” he said.

Czmola said his mother, Olha Czmola, 93, was from Lviv and now lives in Buffalo, N.Y. His father, Ihor Czmola, who died in September 1997, came from Drohobych, about 50 miles away from Lviv. Each left Ukraine to escape the Russians near the end of World War II.

“They escaped to the west near the end of the war,” he said. “The Russians would have probably sent them to Siberia or would have killed them.”

His parents met in Germany, where they lived in a government camp for five years. His father came to the U.S. first, in 1950. His mother followed some months later. They settled in Buffalo, where they married.

“They lost their homeland. They had nowhere to live,” Czmola said. “President Eisenhower was trying to help these people. He allowed for them to move to America. America was a dream to them. In Germany, where they were, pretty much everything was destroyed. It was a dream for them to come to America. They thought the streets were lined with gold.”

Czmola, who has an older sister in Buffalo, said his father’s first job was shoveling coal on train engines before working for Ford. His mother became a kindergarten teacher.

Growing up, everything in his home was Ukrainian.

“I didn’t speak any English when I went to grammar school,” Czmola said, adding that he picked up English quickly.

His wife, Lisa, has a similar story, although her parents are from eastern Ukraine and her father was German.

Czmola and his wife came to Pittsburgh when he got a job here, and they have two sons and a daughter who are able to talk with their grandmother in Ukrainian.

The Czmolas don’t have any grandchildren yet, but their daughter is due to be married in June. The couple was with the Czmolas at a demonstration in support of Ukraine a week ago in Pittsburgh.

“We’re very religious,” he said of Ukrainian culture. “They all stick together very much, which has pluses and minuses. They didn’t really assimilate very well. Some did. Others stuck with their community and didn’t really interact with Americans too much.

“None of us pretended we were Russian. We don’t like Russians.”

Knowing there are Ukrainians older than him taking up arms to defend their nation, Czmola has a hard time knowing what he would do if he were in Ukraine today.

“From here, it’s very easy to say I’d be very brave. It’s easy to talk when you’re across an ocean,” he said. “I would like to think I’d be amongst those defending the country.

“There’s no way Russia can win,” he said. “They have 100,000 soldiers. We have millions of people fighting.”