The E-Sylum:  Volume 7, Number 17, April 25, 2004, Article 11

KONOWAL'S FORTY-DOLLAR FORTUNE

  My web search for Konowal information also uncovered
  this August 2000 article with a heartbreaking numismatic
  connection:

  "Three generations of Konowals had secreted a keepsake
  of Filip's. Out it came. Two American $20 bills, of 1913
  vintage. Both had been carefully folded over and over.
  Konowal had mailed them to his young wife and child just
  before the First World War and the 1917  Bolshevik coup
  severed him from them, forever.

  Worthless today as currency, these bills represented a small
  fortune in the early decades of  the last century. They could
  have more than paid for enough food to keep Anna and many
  of  her fellow villagers alive through the 1932-1933 famine.
  But to possess foreign currency was a crime among the Soviets.
  They would have demanded that Anna explain why she had it.
  They would probably have accused her of being an agent of
  Western imperialism, a spy, an anti-Soviet Ukrainian nationalist.
  The entire family might have been liquidated.  And, of course,
  the Communists weren't interested in Ukrainian lives being
  delivered. Stalin and his minions deliberately orchestrated a
  genocidal famine to crush Ukrainian resistance to Soviet rule.
  Millions perished, among them Anna.

  When Filip Konowal emigrated in 1913, he joined others who
  came to Canada to earn enough for a better future for their
  loved ones in the old country. He must have worked very
  hard to save $40 and get it home before war broke out in
  1914. His separation from his family was meant to be temporary.
  Anna concealed the money that should have saved her and died
  slowly of hunger. Maria survived but also kept hidden her
  father's gift. She died in 1986."

  [The article states incorrectly that the bills are worthless.
   They have never be repudiated, and are still legal tender
   at face value.  -Editor]

  Wayne Homren, Editor

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