Children of Konstantine Pohuliaj watch Ukraine invasion in horror (VIDEO)

LORAIN — The ghosts of her family's tragic past cry along with Larissa Reidy as she watches news reports of Russian soldiers rolling over her ancestral homeland. She can't look away, and doesn't want to, even when she sees footage of Ukrainian mothers and children dying as they defend their homes. The 62-year-old funeral homeowner said she is fixated on the television every waking moment, flipping from channel to channel. "I've been having a hard time sleeping with everything going on," she said Tuesday. "Just kind of praying and wishing something would happen to Putin to stop the slaughter." Reidy is a first-generation Ukrainian immigrant, who grew up exclusively speaking the language at home. Her father, Konstantine Pohuliaj, was born in 1913 in Donetsk and worked the family farm, growing wheat and raising cattle. He studied to become a dentist. Konstantine was away at school in 1936 when Soviet soldiers arrived at the homestead and announced it was forfeit. The Pohuliajes refused. Reidy said her grandparents, aunts and uncles were forced at gunpoint to dig their own graves before being executed on the spot. "They just lined them all up in front of their graves and shot them all," she said in a flat voice. Her brother, Alex Pohuliaj, also of Lorain, said his father was press-ganged and forced to dig tank trenches for the Soviets for years. In 1943, Konstantine was sold to the Nazis and enslaved as an army dentist. He survived despite beatings. Alex said his father was tortured when he insisted on giving Russian prisoners the same medical care afforded to the Germans. After the war, while working for the British, Konstantine met his wife, Elizabeth, and Alex was born in a camp for displaced prisoners of war. The family emigrated to the United States in 1952 when Alex was a baby. He only has one memory from the trip — being given milk and doughnuts when stepping of the gangplank of a troop carrier in Brooklyn, New York. Konstantine, who died in 1999, never talked about how his parents and siblings were murdered. Alex said he pieced together the family story later, as a college student studying history, government and the Russian language. His father talked about other horrors he'd witnessed, though. "My dad always talked about the bombing of Dresden, and how the ground shook," he said. "You can't imagine the noise, the crying, the kids screaming and you didn't know if you were going to get hit." Likewise, Alex said few Americans can imagine how today's Ukrainian refugees have been walking 30 or 40 miles to the Polish border to escape bombing by Russian President Vladimir Putin's forces. "We should support the Ukraine any way we can," he said. "It was a free country. For thousands of years it fought for its independence, and now they're trying to take it away again." Alex's wife, Toni, is also Ukrainian and has family trapped there. Those relatives were safe as of last week, he said. His daughter also married an ethnic Ukrainian with family believed to be hiding in bunkers in Kharkiv, the nation's second-largest city. "Everyone is hunkering down and afraid," Reidy said. "The women out there are bearing arms right beside their husbands, defending their country." She isn't sitting by idly. Reidy has signed up to be a translator, and is on a list waiting to be called to Eastern Europe. She could be flown to Poland or a dozen other countries if needed. In the meantime, she's been collecting medicine and food to go to Ukraine, delivering loads to Pokrova Ukrainian Catholic Church in Parma. Members of Disabled American Veterans Chapter 20 of Lorain pitched in Tuesday, loading down a truck with canned goods, clothing, wheelchairs and strollers. They used $350 in cash donations Monday night at Sam's Club to fill up a cart with diapers, baby wipes, feminine products, toothpaste and deodorant, all being trucked to Richard J. Reidy Funeral Home and then on to Ukraine. "It saddens me that we have to watch something like this in the 21st century. Our hearts go out to the Ukrainian people," said veteran and DAV Cmdr. Don Attie. He's especially angry that half of refugees are women and children — not soldiers — being purposefully targeted by Putin's forces to demoralize the Ukrainian citizenry. "This man is just absolutely ruthless, bombing places that have no military presence at all," Attie said. "He has the whole world's attention." Reidy also called Putin "an evil tyrant" who "must be stopped at all costs." She said she can't pick up arms, but can pick up medicine and food, the two most-desperately needed items right now, and won't stop until the Russian military has been turned back and Ukraine is once again free. Contact Jason Hawk at (440) 329-7122 or news@lcnewspapers.com.