War survivor finds brother 60 years later

PHILADELPHIA -- On July 23, 1942, Nazis forced 24-year-old Maria Maksymiuk Harkuscha from her home in a small Ukrainian village, sending her on a trek through labor and refugee camps before her escape to America a decade later.

Separated from her parents and three siblings, who were put on different trains, Harkuscha knew little of their whereabouts.

Then, exactly 60 years later, on July 23, 2002, she got a letter from her 79-year-old brother, Elko Maksymiuk. Her daughter, Ann Freed, had located him through the Red Cross.

"He said 'After the war, everybody came back except Maria,'" said Freed, 57, who lives in Williamstown, N.J. "They made it back to that village."

Harkuscha, 84 and living near Harrisburg, has lived in America for 50 years.

She is returning to northwestern Ukraine this weekend to see her brother for the first time in six decades. She speaks little English and plans to make the trip with Freed and five family members, who will begin the journey Saturday.

"This is my brother," Harkuscha said through her son Frank Harchuska, pointing at a picture of Elko Maksymiuk, one she received in the mail on Thursday. "I want to talk to him in our language, and I just want to talk to him."

Two-year search

The family started the search for Maria Harkuscha's relatives in earnest about two years ago.

Freed said she contacted the American Red Cross and has also worked with and Red Cross's Austrian and Ukrainian offices, as well as the American Red Cross Holocaust and War Victims Tracing and Information Center in Baltimore.

Freed filled out forms identifying the lost siblings -- Elko, Anna and Nicholas -- and submitted them with the Red Cross.

"Then we waited and she waited," said Deborah Cooper, a representative of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Chapter of the Red Cross. In May, Cooper heard from the Ukrainian Red Cross, which said it had located Maksymiuk.

Through Cooper, Harkuscha exchanged the letters with her brother and found out he was sick, but would look forward to seeing her again.

Parents, others died

Harkuscha's parents and other two siblings have died since she last saw them, Freed said. After being taken by Nazis, Harkuscha was sent to a job in Austria and then put in a labor camp, where Freed was born.

With a newborn child, Harkuscha, a Greek Catholic, was put in a place for unwed mothers, then moved to a refugee camp in Austria.

After spending several years moving from camp to camp in Austria, Harkuscha and her husband, Andrew, whom she married in 1947, eventually found a sponsor in Maryland who paid for their trip to America.

Once in America, Harkuscha first worked on a farm in Linwood, Md., and later worked in a clothing factory in Pennsylvania.

Frank Harchuska, who was born in Pennsylvania, said he and his eight siblings eventually changed the spelling of their last name to "Harchuska" in order to "Americanize" it.

Husband was ill

After she had children and her husband was diagnosed with a mental illness, Harkuscha became a homemaker, Freed said. Andrew has since died.

Frank Harchuska said his mother is enthusiastic about her visit with her brother. Having heard Maksymiuk is in ill health and may have had a stroke, she often prays for him.

"Every time we bring up the visit to see her brother, she puts her hands together and says, 'Poor brother, sick,'" said Frank Harchuska, who lives in Jonestown, and is also traveling to Ukraine. "She doesn't remember a lot of things."