Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.news From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: 4 Americans trapped in Ukraine after WWII found Date: Thu, 19 Nov 92 15:23:03 EST Message-ID: \SE A;WORLD \SS (WS) \HD 4 Americans trapped in Ukraine after WWII found \BY Vladimir Isachenkov \CR ASSOCIATED PRESS \DT MOSCOW MOSCOW - Four Americans trapped in Soviet territory after World War II were found living in western Ukraine and at least one of them wants to visit the United States, a newspaper reported yesterday. The four, cited by Komsomolskaya Pravda, are connected to a list released by Russia in July of 39 persons, mostly ethnic Ukrainians, Belarussians and Lithuanians, who were born in the United States or held U.S. passports. The 39 were not conventional prisoners of war, but were living along the Soviet border in what were then Poland and Lithuania when the war started with the Nazi invasion of Poland on Sept. 1, 1939. At least one other person on that list previously was found: John Yarema, 73, who left New York for Poland with his parents at age 2. Mr. Yarema would like to go to the United States but cannot afford the trip. Another American-born resident, Mikhail Semko, told the Associated Press in August that he was beaten by police for seeking U.S. help to return to his birthplace. Mr. Semko, 73, was born in Omrod, Pa., but moved to Poland as a child. Komsomolskaya Pravda also mentioned Mr. Semko, saying he now has a U.S. passport and plans to return to the United States with his children and grandchildren. The disclosures about such residents come amid increasing cooperation by Russia to determine the fates of Americans missing after World War II. President Boris Yeltsin told U.S. senators in a letter made public last week that Russian leaders are almost certain that no American citizens are being detained in the former Soviet Union against their will. The July list was released by Gen. Dmitri Volkogonov, co-chairman of a commission investigating American POWs and other missing Americans in the former Soviet Union. The four persons listed by Komsomolskaya Pravda are Bogdan Karishin, who was on Gen. Volkogonov's list as either Karizhin or Korishchin; his sister, Emiliya Shakhrai; Margaret Krivenko, whose brother, Yuri, was on the Volkogonov list; and Mikhail Semko, who also was on the list. The report did not say where any of them lived. The newspaper said Mr. Karishin was born in 1923 in New York, the son of a furrier who moved his family to Poland before the war. The family's property was confiscated when the Soviets took over that area in 1939, it said. After the Soviet army recaptured the area in 1944, Mr. Karishin received a new passport from the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. The KGB arrested him when he applied for an exit visa, the newspaper said. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison for "slandering the Soviet order" but was released in 1954 after Josef Stalin died, it said. Mr. Karishin told Komsomolskaya Pravda he wants to visit his relatives in the United States but wants to die in Ukraine, where three of his children live. This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM