For the record: eyewitness testimony before Commission on Famine

Following are excerpts of testimony by eyewitnesses to the man-made famine of 1932-33 in Ukraine who appeared at the Glen Spey, N.Y., regional hearing of the U.S. Commission on the Ukraine Famine on October 26.

Julia Pastukhiv, Long Island, N.Y.:

I was an only child. Both of my parents worked. I remember that bread would be given out by ration cards. I remember waiting in long lines with my mother. That is how it was. I also remember that near our houses there were homeless people who would spend the night on benches and on the street. And then, on the following day, they would forbid us to go near them, because they were no longer alive. I heard everywhere that hordes and hordes of hungry people from the villages would come to town in an attempt to get food, for they were forbidden to do so. Time and again they would find emaciated children on the streets and the women who could would bring food to feed them. Of course, nobody at that time had a choice of what food they would give, and those children who would receive liquids would be the ones who survived while those who received dry crackers or dry food of any kind would be the first to die. Our parents would tell the children not to stray from home because terrible rumors circulated that children would be kidnapped and made into sausages.

At that time the incidents of theft increased. Even food which was hidden in barns and storage places was stolen. ...

Zinoviy Turkalo, Orangeburg, N.Y.:

...For me, the recollection of this event is tied together with personal tragedy in my family. My father was arrested just about that time and he was a defendant in one of the show trials of the Union for the Liberation of Ukraine.

We were living in Kiev at the time, and I was going to school, and my first experience was thousands of homeless children who were flooding Kiev from the countryside, looking for food, stealing everything they could get. I lost many school lunches to these children, on my way to school, but that was just the beginning. When we moved to the area of Kharkiv in 1931, I was playing in a school band, in a school orchestra, and that was the only music in the whole area. And, those party officials that were sent from Moscow, they were called five thousand, ten thousand, twenty-five thousand later on, many of them were killed by the peasants. They paid a terrible price for that, but many of them were killed. And, our school then was invited for the funeral every time. For us, it was a very happy event, because every time somebody was killed, they would take us to the village, give us some food and then we would play in the funeral. And, we were looking forward every time to the next funeral, because that meant food for us.

But, because of this, we were traveling this whole area around this village. ... It was about 17 kilometers from Kharkiv. So, I witnessed this, at approximately 30 miles around in different villages and as the time progressed, we were witnessing the deterioration of these villages - the number of people, the way they looked, the way they behaved, and it got progressively worse every time. Every time, visiting the city of Kharkiv to get some food or whatever, we would go to the market. There was a very big market in Kharkiv filled with people, hungry people from the villages coming into the city looking for food. I will never forget hundreds of women laying in the streets, some of them dead, some of them unconscious with small children crawling over bodies. You know, this was an unforgettable experience. ...

Mr. B., Glen Spey, N.Y.:

In the spring of 1933, I was in Kiev. I was studying. I was a freshman. Of course, schools had to help with the agricultural work. ... We were told that there were problems in the harvest, and for that reason we had to go to the villages and help out. One working Saturday, one subbotnik, we were loaded in a car and driven out of the city. We arrived at a nameless village. There was not a soul to be seen. ... I asked the leader in charge why from this village, which was a very short distance from where we were, there was such a stench coming in our direction. These were some peasants gathering wild garlic to make dinner, he answered. Later on, I grew thirsty and they wouldn't give us water, so I, ignoring the advice of the leader, went towards the village. Not ignoring, but without permission. There I saw a truly horrible picture, just as [Vasily] Grossman describes. Everywhere bodies were sitting and lying and they were decomposing, and from them was emanating such a stench that I couldn't stand it. The name of the village was Katerynivske, which I discovered later. ...

John Samilenko, Long Island, N.Y.:

It is now very difficult for me to speak about the great famine and the tragedy of Ukraine in 1922-23. Of course, there is no time to speak more widely about all the events that happened. ...

My task today is to give some information about what happened between 1929 and 1932. I lived in Pryluki in Ukraine. My parents descended from an old Kozak family. When the New Economic Policy was established, they (the Soviet government) introduced a new system of model farmers in order to stimulate private industry. My father was recognized as a model farmer. ...

And, finally, in 1927 as a Ukrainian "kulak" he was disenfranchised. He was subjected to extraordinary measures. In other words, he was given many and very heavy quotas of grain which were established during this period. And, finally, in 1929, my father was arrested. Before his arrest, my brother, Gregory, and I were expelled from school. My brother, Gregory, had two months to go until graduation from agricultural school. I was studying in a teachers' school ... but was expelled and deprived of the right to study in any school of the Soviet Union.

And, finally, I escaped to the Donbas, in order to work in industry and find some way to continue my education in the future. This time, in December 1929, my whole family, my father's two brothers, and my mother and father were arrested. At night time a hundred families were deported together to Ichniya Railroad Station, loaded into the cars and deported to the Lepsha concentration camp on the Solovetsky Islands.

Now, here was my brother who had been deported. He was 30 years of age... But in 1931, as you know, if your parents were arrested and sent to concentration camp, there were children who remained so-called "free." It was no way to live, "free." You had to live illegally. ... Now what happened in 1931. I found in the newspaper, Izvestia, a note on page 4 that direct relatives can take out of the concentration camps parents who are already disabled. So I decided to take a risk without many difficulties. I reached Lepsha on the White Sea. I was supposed to enter into this concentration camp. It was wired all around, guarded all around. I found many barracks ... finally I reached barrack No. 8. ... It was about eight o'clock, quiet. Finally, a voice: who is that? It was voice of my father. It was difficult to see, and I found he could stand and walk on his feet. He was filled up. Finally, when I picked up my stick matches and tried to find a candle to light the room, I found in this section of the barracks seven bodies on a bench, a wooden bench. Three of them were dead; four had already lost consciousness. ... The next day I was received by the commandant of this concentration camp... I explained that I would like to take out my father because he is dying, he is disabled. He said all right, I will give you a pass to Arkhangelsk. Only central headquarters ... can give you this final decision. So he gave me a permission pass to go to Arkhangelsk and in addition I received from a doctor who was also a prisoner medical confirmation that my father was disabled. ... Plesetskaya Station was five miles away. ... There was the station, you couldn't go inside. There were a thousand people; they stayed in line two, three days to get permission to go to this headquarters. ... Finally, on the third day I received permission to go to this headquarters. ...

Now, first of all, I was called to the records office. Mr. Kuzmin asked me everything about my family ... and finally he prepared all the information for the chief. Finally, I received permission to go with this to him and ask him permission to take my father. Now, he asked me one thing. He took a look at this, at the yellow record that was given by Mr. Kuzmin, and asked me, where is you mother? ...Where is your brother? [They had both escaped.] Now, he said, oh, you have a special assignment, you are illegally taking prisoners from the concentration camp. ... He arrested me and sent me to a special cell for investigation. On the 11th day I was sent to a special concentration camp, North Dvina, where I was for 11 months - 11 months. During these 11 months, one friend from my place was also sent to this camp, and he said, your father died in Plesetskaya during 1932. About 1,800 died during one spring in 1932. I managed to escape in the 11th month. ...

When I came to this village (Krasnoyarsk) I found a dead village. No dogs, no cats, nothing - except maybe a few houses populated with people. I went to the school. The school was locked. Not one pupil came to school. I decided to take - I had a list - to go to the houses and ask what happened. Why is the school closed? I opened one door - another door wide. Nobody answered. I looked inside another door. Knocked on another door. I heard this human voice. Finally, I opened this door. I found in the darkness three children dead, lying on the floor, a husband dead a woman still alive. And she told me, nobody come in here. I ask you only one thing: take my children and husband, and bury them, and kill me because I also am dying. Now, I went to three more houses. I found the same thing. ...

Wasyl Samilenko, Long Island, N.Y.:

You have heard my brother; he has given much accurate and truthful information, but I would like to narrate a few episodes concerning myself. It was the end of 1929, the fall. I was 13. It was in the evening when the NKVD came in a wagon to my home. Inside my house was my mother and my whole family. The senior NKVD officer took out papers and read before my entire family this order. Take only what you can wear and take something to eat. You are under arrest. And, they took us all outside and placed us in the wagon. They took us to the railroad station far away called Ichniya. We rode the entire night. At the station there were cattle cars used for loading cattle and other types of domestic animals. They opened the doors and shut us all in. They didn't tell us - they shut the doors - didn't tell us where they were going. There was no air, except from tiny vents on the roof of the cars. We rode for a little over a week. Nobody was permitted to go out. Nobody could relieve themselves outdoors. Everything, all the refuse, was discharged through the windows.

On our way to Arkhangelsk, we stopped at a station called Lepsha, and this is where we were told to disembark. When the people who were in the cattle car came out, they told them to separate into two groups. The men on one side, the women and the children on the other side, and we were told that our fathers were leaving to do work - to do forest labor - and that they would return in a week or shortly. The children and mothers were led along a snowy path. They were beaten to make them hurry along, and they were taken to a place where some barracks were standing and also some were under construction. In the barracks there was only one stove for all the people who had arrived by cattle cars. It was impossible to get any more heat. There were beds. People were strewn all over the place. Some lay on top of the stove. Some were scattered all over the place. There was no food. They didn't give us any food. We were forced to subsist on the food which the women had brought with them to finish that off, and they gave us some liquid food, some soup and some sardines once in a while. A week passed and people began to fall sick. And because the barracks were not heated, children began to die. A week passed or more - our fathers did not return. When we questioned what had happened to them, we were denied answers.

After some time, some of our relatives arrived with false documents indicating that my mother was not a prisoner, but in fact had come to visit a relative who was in prison in that place. With those false documents, she was able to escape. There were no false documents for me and I was forced to travel the entire way in a large bag my mother made. All throughout the train ride, I was forced to lie under the seat where my mother was sitting. She fed me scraps until we got out of the danger zone in about three or four days. Thank you. This is one of the episodes from my life.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, December 7, 1986, No. 49, Vol. LIV

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