My friend Ivanna Maszczak, who has died aged 100, survived a brutal seven-year spell in a Siberian labour camp in the late 1940s and early 50s before moving to the UK, where she made a new life for herself.
A native of Ukraine, Ivanna had fallen foul of the Soviet authorities when they discovered her support for Ukrainian independence. After serving her sentence and arriving in Britain during the mid-60s, she kept up her connections with Ukraine – and her support for its independence movement – via the Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain and worship at the Ukrainian Catholic cathedral in Mayfair, London.
