March 6, 1919: Born near the city of Lutsk in northwest Ukraine
Michael Karkoc's timeline
July 16, 2013 at 5:23PM
1939: Leaves home to escape the Soviets
1941: Conscripted into the German army and participates in invasion of Soviet Union.
1942: Deserts the German army not long after seeing mistreatment of Russian prisoners
1943: Helps organize the Ukrainian Self Defense Legion and serves as a unit commander. Legion strikes a deal with the Germans, asking them to stop killing Ukrainian civilians, free Ukrainian political prisoners and provide the Legion with arms and ammunition. In return, the Legion will help the Germans fight the Red Army
1944: Legion commander Siegfried Assmuss, a German, is killed in an ambush near the Polish village of Chlaniow by Polish resistance fighters. The next day, the AP reported, the unit burned homes and killed more than 40 people in the city in a retaliatory attack
1945: At the end of World War II, lands in camp for displaced persons in Neu Ulm, Germany, with his wife and two young sons. His wife dies there.
1949: Arrives in Minneapolis with sons Peter and George
1952: Takes a job as a carpenter with construction firm Adolfson & Peterson
1953: Marries Nadia, with whom he'll have four children — a son and three daughters
1981: Retires from Adolfson & Peterson.
2000: Moves to a new home in northeast Minneapolis
June 2013: The AP reports that Karkoc's Legion unit was linked to the Nazi SS and responsible for several World War II mass killings of men, women and children
Sources: Michael Karkoc's memoir, Karkoc family, AP
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