The Chernobyl of Petro Bronterjuk

Jaroslav Jadpovs’kyj, Užhorod

The original Ukrainian-language version of this article can be found at http://ua-reporter.com

Petro Bronterjuk, 77, is a retired police officer who lives in Užhorod and whose roots are in Transcarpathia, far from Chernobyl. But the catastrophe at the nuclear plant there 18 years ago still echoes in his heart.

In those anxious days back in 1986, both he and his son Viktor took part in the cleanup effort at the nuclear plant, called the “liquidation.” The father remains alive, while the son passed into eternity before his time.

From heartache, and from an obligation to care for and take care of those who passed through the furnace of Chernobyl but remain alive, Petro Ivanovyč has headed the Internal Ministry’s volunteer Chernobyl association in Transcarpathia for 13 years. Last year, he prepared the Chernobyl White Book of Remembrance, which collected historical documents, artistic and documentary stories and photographic materials related to Transcarpathians who served in Chernobyl, including policemen. Bronterjuk was also among the initiators of a memorial wall on which are inscribed the names of rescue workers whose lives were cut short by Chernobyl.

Petro Bronterjuk talked to Jaroslav Jadpovs’kyj about his own private Chernobyl:

On 20 June 1986, I arrived at the Chernobyl zone, where I was a manager of the administration of the defense of civil order for two months. It was not easy physically, and spiritually it had me full of anxiety. Everyone felt like they were serving on the front line. With each step, we watched out for an invisible enemy – radiation. But we finished the job we started. At that time, nobody thought we would pay for it with our health, and even with our lives. In the first place, we didn’t know much about how insidious atoms are, and in the second place, as military people, we were simply following orders. After all, someone had to rescue people from the horrible misfortune.

Some 430 Transcarpathian police officers went to the Chernobyl zone. They were a mixed bunch. According to our sources, 85 percent of them today are ill, 26 people are handicapped and 24 others have already died, leaving behind wives and children. Vasyl’ Varha, Viktor Libo, Andrij Obic’kyj, Ivan Šrek…

You could add your son’s name, Viktor Bronterjuk, to that list…

Yes, he volunteered to go to the Chernobyl zone. At first, he worked in the police force in Pryp’jat, commanded the KPP “Dibrova,” and for the last nine months was the assistant to the head of the Chernobyl regional office of the Internal Ministry. Once he got sick, he came home. His health was undermined by the radiation. After eight years, he was no more…

His daughter Veronika has become a police officer, following in her father’s and grandfather’s footsteps.

How does the Chernobyl association cooperate with the Internal Ministry in Transcarpathia?

The ministry is interested in our work, and its leaders attend our meetings and help out in whatever ways they can, including with funding. The ministry’s health service has created a separate healthcare voucher for our Chernobyl victims. With the ministry’s help, we created the Memory Wall of police officers who died in Chernobyl and from its effects.

At the same time, we support and care for the social security of police officers who served in Chernobyl, and the families of officers who have died. Twice a year, the association takes on important issues – about the health of Chernobyl workers, getting them material assistance, and so on. This year, on 26 April, we had a memorial service for family members of deceased Chernobyl victims.

And the monument in Užhorod?

It is a tribute to the honor and memory of all Transcarpathian victims of Chernobyl. Certainly it wasn’t just police officers who passed through that atomic hell. On the base, there is an inscription: “To the Transcarpathian Liquidators of the Aftereffects of the Chernobyl Catastrophe.”

I would like to mention Vasyl’ Uhryn, head of another Chernobyl organization in Transcarpathia, who put a lot of effort into ensuring the completion of the monument in Užhorod. Ivan Rizak, head of the provincial administration, provided the funds not only for the monument, but also for the Chernobyl White Book of Remembrance.

This book you mentioned has also become a sort of monument to the living Transcarpathian victims of Chernobyl and to those who are no longer among us…

That’s what I was thinking as I was setting the book up for printing. Nearly 6000 people live in our province who are suffering from the effects of Chernobyl. Police, firefighters and soldiers took part in cleanup – the “liquidation” – of the aftereffects of the catastrophe at the nuclear plant, but so did medics, economists. Nearly 340 of them have died.

Aside from this, more than 700 people have come to Transcarpathia from the contaminated land of Kiev and Žytomyr provinces and have settled all around our region. The book and the monument in Užhorod remind everyone of that awful April day 18 years ago, and of those who survived the Chernobyl horror and fought it. We don’t have the right to forget this, the most terrible technological catastrophe of the last century. Neither do we have the right to forget the Liquidators, victims of Chernobyl.

Chernobyl: Background

On 26 April 1986, during a routine 20-second shutdown of the system at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, a surge created a chemical explosion that released nearly 520 dangerous radionuclides into the atmosphere. The total power of the explosion was estimated to be more than 100 times that of the atomic weapons used in World War II. The force of the explosion spread contamination over large parts of the western Soviet Union.

According to official reports, thirty-one people died immediately and 600,000 “liquidators” involved in fire fighting and clean-up operations were exposed to the high doses of radiation. Based on the official reports, nearly 8,400,000 people in Belarus, Ukraine and Russia were exposed to the radiation. About 155,000 sq. km were contaminated (almost half of the total territory of Italy) and agricultural lands covering nearly 52,000 sq. km (a territory bigger than Denmark), were contaminated.

Nearly 404,000 people were resettled, but today roughly 6 million people continued to live in an environment where continued residual exposure is creating a range of adverse effects. Chronic health problems, especially among children, are rampant. In some areas of Belarus, for example, national reports indicate that incidents of thyroid cancer in children have increased more than a hundred-fold when compared with the period before the accident.

According to Transcarpathian governor Ivan Rizak, as quoted by Reporter, more than 180,000 people participated in the post-meltdown cleanup effort and more than 3200 were from Transcarpathia. Around 360 of the Transcarpathians have since died, while nearly 6000 people living in Transcarpathia today are suffering from Chernobyl-related illness – including 2000 children.

For more information, visit the United Nation’s Chernobyl website at http://www.un.org/ha/chernobyl/index.html