In spring 1991 when I was living in Brooklyn I came to the conclusion that the USSR is going to disintegrate within a few months. An entire page of “The Ukrainian Weekly” was devoted to the documents about the concentration camp in Jaworzno collected by Evhen Misylo. At that time I read the book by Wojciech Hejnosz Ius Ruthenicalis about the history of Dobra in the middle ages. I also was corresponding with Stefan Popiel of Cheltenham, England. This was when an idea came to me to organize a family reunion and meeting of former inhabitants of Dobra. As I wanted to participate in the meeting I sent out the letters to the relatives in Poland, Ukraine, Germany, England & Canada and to the Association of Ukrainians in Poland. I have set the meeting for August 3rd & 4th. One of my letters reached Jan Bilasz who llived in Sanok at the time. He wrote several letters to me, that with his experience he would like to help in organizing the meeting. I knew that an uncle from England and my sister from Canada were to arrive. As August was approaching I decided to stay in New York since without so-called green card I wouldn’t be able to return to the United States if I had left for Poland. On August 3rd & 4th I was celebrating my birthday on the roof of the building in Brooklyn I lived in. There was a nice company with barbeque and a keg of beer. Everyone knew about the meeting going on in Dobra on San near Sanok, and we were sending telepathic telegrams to the participants. Only when my sister returned I could see the meeting on the video. It was successful by any measure. I thank Jan Bilasz and Bogdan Ugryn from Ukraine and all the people who wanted to come to the meeting. I posted a part of the video at dobra.org under the link “1991 meeting of former inhabitants of Dobra” – you are welcome to see it.

Today on April 28th on the 70-th anniversary of Operation Vistula and exactly on the 20-th anniversary of creating dobra.org website I am posting the last video clip of that meeting. It is the speech of Josip Demkovich from Kozliv in Ukraine, son of Vas’ko from the part of Dobra near the church called Hubaliwka. Josip Demkovich has died, yet perhaps his relatives and friends will see the video. That was his speech in Dobra, where he was born, just a few weeks before Ukraine became independent with disintegration of the USSR.

The meeting was organized by Jan Biłas from Sanok and Bohdan Uhryn from Kozłiw.

Jan Popiel