Maria Arhypivna Kostyuchenko

Interview by Olya, Pia, Jakob and Philipp on April 5th, 2013 in her home in Konstantinovka. Text in square brackets serves as explanation and commentary added by the interviewers.

Life before the war: famine and repression

I was born on July 30 1921 in Cherepyn village, Cherkassy region, Korsun-Shevchenko district, formerly Kyyiivska region. There were 6 girls in my family.

During the collectivization period, we lived in village 10 km from Korsun-Shevchenko, which is now an almost extinct village. From 1929 I remember everything - I was already 8 years old - how the horse were collected [by the collective farms], during the day horses were collected and in the evening people take them home again. “Kulaks” were taken to the Solovki, but from the villagers only cows and horses were taken to the collective farm [kolkhoz]. We received only 6 acres of land.

I also remember famine of 1931-32 - it was terrifying, people died, they were eating grass or weeds, I can not tell - [starts to cry] In our village many people died, whole families, in some families only two people were left, two families ate their children.

One family had boy of 8-9 years, who went to school, and another child heard, how the father and mother discussed whom they should kill first. The smaller one was a bit silly - he walked across the field to collect ears [of grain] and the older knew everything and did not want to do it - so older brother was killed first, and parents even did not have time to cut him apart and ate him as he was. The younger brother hid on the stove, and in the morning fled, but later he was found. The head of oldest son was hidden under manure, and the next day the people in the village asked, where the eldest son was. The parents answered, that he went for mushrooms or went fishing. When the neighbor's pig dug manure and found the head and brought that to the neighbors, then people told this to the silsoviet [local authorities] and they were arrested. Also the same situation was with a woman who lived alone and had two children. She killed one daughter and hide her body with a coat. People also began to ask, where the girl was, she was about four years old - and she was also arrested. As I know, the first did not return to the village, and the second returned. She traveled by train , sitting on stairs of the car. Then she fell down under the train and her feet were cut off.

People ate also dogs and cats, we had beets and potatoes, also we had hidden a bit of grain, so we could survive, then leaves ground up we made flour, but in the 1933 - it was a terrible famine, the people used to die on the roads.

Our mother seemed to be from kulak family – she had good dowry, and our father tried to exchange different things from the house [for food]. One time, when there was already nothing to take from the house, and he came back home with nothing, he was robbed in the train. During the spring time the life was better – we could eat fried ears, leaves, nettle, linden, spruce shoots and roots. We survived with help of others who stole something from the farm (kolchoz) if it was possible. But if you were arrested, it meant that you would never return to the village.

In 1938 my father Archipp, who had last name Stefan was accused as Polish or German spy. [It is unclear what exactly happened to the father and wether he survived the great terror] My grandfather was a brigadir [foreman] on the kolkhoz, but in 1938 he was charged as an “enemy of the people”, though he only grew beets. Two or three months after his arrest he was executed. In 1956 our family received the document about his rehabilitation, but the stigma of the “enemy of the people” still was with our family.

Life in Turkmenistan during the second world war

In 1938 I graduated from high school and was sent to Turkmenistan for work - I was a nurse. Information about war I got from the radio and newspapers, but I have not seen the war closely.

Two of my sisters were captured to work in Germany, but one escaped, and the other one could not. My older sister Oksana was taken by the Germans and became an Ostarbeiter in Germany. From my sister’s memories – her hostess was harmful – she never gave enough food and forced her to work very hard. After the war Oksana married a Polish man and had children there [in Poland], but she used to come to Ukraine in Soviet times.

My other sister escaped - she hid away from the village, and then returned home, and then moved to her uncle's home in the Poltava region.

When the mobilization [of soldiers] began, Turkmens started running away to the plains, [and if they were captured, they were] sent to a penalty - battalion. Someone rubbed tobacco in his eyes [to simulate an infection of the eye and not be drafted into the army], another put eight needles under his knees, so he got treatment but he would still limp. Then he was sent to the X-ray procedure and the doctor found the needles. Then he was send to penalty – battalion.

My husband and I met in the hospital, I was a nurse at the commission, and my husband was injured - he has injured thigh bones. He was from Smolensk Oblast on the border with Belarus, but he had an Ukrainian surname — Kostyuchenko.

For 5 years I could not write to my family, and when mother received a letter after the war- my mother could not read - she ran onto the field and found the people who helped her to read that her daughter is alive.

Return to Ukraine

I returned back to Ukraine in 1945 or 46. After the war, it was hard time. A bucket of potatoes cost 100 rubles, the salary was 300 rubles – we always tried to calculate how much we can eat during the day. We took bread per ration card – for my husband it was 600g, for me and my child 400g – so we tried to wait to gather the whole loaf, then exchanged it with a neighbor for a bucket of potatoes.

When I heard on the radio that had Stalin died [in 1953], people were crying, but I was happy and said - why you had not died earlier — then my father would not have had such problems.

The best time was when we moved to the Crimea in 1959. On the farm it was very hard work – and in the Crimea there was a plant, baths, shops, vineyards. We had enough bread, and owned the farm house.

I wish no one suffers hunger and war, even though I did not hear the bombs, but the famine was in Turkmenistan also.