Stefan Terlezki
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Stefan Terlezki CBE | |
---|---|
Member of Parliament for Cardiff West | |
In office 9 June 1983 – 18 May 1987 | |
Preceded by | George Thomas |
Succeeded by | Hywel Rhodri Morgan |
Personal details | |
Born | Oleshiw, Poland (present day Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast, Ukraine) | 29 October 1927
Died | 21 February 2006 Cardiff, Wales | (aged 78)
Political party | Conservative |
Stefan Terlezki,
Early life
Terlezki was brought up in the nearby farming community of Antonivka,[1] where his first teacher at the village school was the Ukrainian poet Mariyka Pidhiryanka. His father Oleksa Terletskyj was a peasant farmer who also worked at a brickworks, where he organised a sit-in protest for shorter working hours. This led to a period of imprisonment by the Polish authorities.
Wartime experiences
After the German invasion in 1941, Stefan Terlezki was put to forced labour repairing a railway bridge over the river Dniester, damaged during the Red Army retreat. He also witnessed the murder of Jews thrown from the neighbouring road bridge by German soldiers.[1] His father also sent him on errands to aid Jewish villagers by obtaining false baptism certificates for them.
Slave labour
In 1942 the Germans went to Terlezki's school and drew up a list of children to be sent to the
Most of his consignment of slaves were destined for factory work in Graz but the younger ones were put on sale at a slave market in Voitsberg, Styria. Terlezki was bought by Hansel Böhmer, who had been conscripted into Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine and was looking for someone to replace him on his family's farm.
Terlezki worked on farms near Voitsberg between 1942 and 1945, interrupted only by a spell digging trenches for the German defences at
Soviet invasion
In May 1945, Voitsberg was occupied by the Russians, who promised to repatriate slave labourers. Terlezki was in a large group who boarded a train thinking they would be taken home but who ended up in a camp in the eastern Austrian province of
Escape to Britain
Terlezki escaped and fled back to Voitsberg, which in July 1945 became part of the British
Politics
His political career began in 1968, when he became a Conservative member of
He refused to travel to the Soviet Union when Cardiff City played
Parliament
He became MP for Cardiff West in the Conservative landslide of 1983. As in other constituencies, his Labour Party opponent suffered a loss of votes to the breakaway Social Democratic Party. In Parliament, Terlezki remained true to his right-wing reputation, introducing a bill to replace the May Day holiday with a day of celebration for Winston Churchill. However, he mostly concentrated on constituency work and secured an increase in his vote at the 1987 election (although a lower percentage). However, through the collapse in support for the Social Democrats, he lost his seat to Labour's Rhodri Morgan.
At
End of Communism
In 1989, Terlezki was appointed as the British Government's representative on the Council of Europe's Human Rights Committee. This was condemned by some Labour opposition MPs because of his previous advocacy of flogging, a view he later renounced. The Conservatives argued that his wartime experiences made him well suited to the role, which involved inspecting prison conditions in different countries, later including former Communist states.
When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Terlezki became a critical supporter of newly independent Ukraine. He condemned the preservation of close ties with Russia, especially the leasing of military bases in Crimea and argued that more should be done to promote the Ukrainian language and to discourage the use of Russian. In 2003, he visited the European Parliament to press the case for eventual Ukrainian membership of the European Union.
In 2002, Terlezki took part in a television documentary about his life story and returned to Voitsberg, where he was reunited with Hansel Böhmer's niece. He published his memoirs, From War to Westminster in 2005.[4] He died on 21 February 2006, aged 78.
References
- ^ a b c d e "Stefan Terlezki". The Telegraph. 27 February 2006. Retrieved 24 August 2019.
- ^ "Labour hammered in S. Wales polls - City Tories score 18-1 in battle of the wards". South Wales Echo. 10 May 1968. p. 13.
The Conservatives... won three key Labour seats in the Adamsdown, Splott and South wards... A three-cornered fight in the South ward was won for the Conservatives by Ukrainian-born hotel owner Mr. Stefan Terlezki with a majority of 185.
- ^ John Craven's Newsround, BBC children's television, 30 October 1984
- ^ "Long walk to freedom of former MP". BBC News. 28 July 2005. Retrieved 16 September 2020.