Bilaniuk, a native speaker of Ukrainian and Polish, grew up in a village in the Carpathian Mountains in a long-contested territory now still part of southern Poland. After World War II, the region served as the last bastion for Ukrainian partisans fighting for independence. Ultimately, they and their supporters—roughly a quarter million people—were deported. "My village doesn’t exist anymore," Bilaniuk says. "My wife and I went to visit in 1965. There’s no trace of it."

During World War II, 17-year-old Bilaniuk, an only child, was recruited to Germany as a laborer. "I volunteered because I wanted to get out into the world," he says. "But many of my friends who did not volunteer were taken by force." He worked at a factory in Germany, then on a Bavarian farm. In 1945, he was liberated by the U.S. Army, which, jointly with the United Nations, established displaced persons’ camps in Germany. There, he was able to resume his studies and eventually received a scholarship to Belgium, where he studied engineering.

Bilaniuk’s parents survived a similar experience—they were taken through Austria and Germany, first as refugees, then as forced laborers. She sewed uniforms, and he worked as an interpreter at an aircraft factory. They, too, ended up in the "American zone" and found him through the lists of names at the camps. Yet they were separated again and, in an odd twist, arrived in America before he did.

Bilaniuk came to the United States in late September 1951, after winning a scholarship to the University of Michigan. His train to Ann Arbor passed through Detroit, where his parents had settled. "They came to the station, and we spoke through the train window," he says. Though they had not seen each other in four years, "they wanted me to keep going because I arrived two weeks after the start of classes."

In seven years, Bilaniuk earned two B.S.E.s, two M.A.s, and a Ph.D., after which his adviser, a Swarthmore graduate, recommended him for a position at the College. Bilaniuk arrived in 1964 as an associate professor of physics. Although he officially retired in 1990, he continued to teach classes until 1993.

Bilaniuk has returned to the Ukraine at least once a year since its independence in 1991 and works closely with the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. Although it is painful for him to see the country mismanaged economically and politically, its scientific and cultural life remain an inspiration. "Ukraine is a live concept for me," he says. "It’s a wonderful country, and I am very optimistic that in the future, it will become a worthy member of the European Union.

"There’s a Ukrainian proverb: ‘An only son becomes only a drunkard or a thief.’ Somehow, I disappointed the proverb writers."

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