Following are excerpts of testimony by eyewitnesses to the man-made famine in 1932-33 in Ukraine who appeared at the Chicago regional hearing of the U.S. Commission on the Ukraine Famine on November 7.
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Anna Pylypiuk, Chicago:
In 1932, when I was not yet 12 years old, I witnessed the weary faces of people tortured not only by hunger but also by terror, many of which were buried alive. Those who survived remained emotionally crippled for life. It's very hard to endure constant humiliation, to feel constantly persecuted, particularly in one's own native land and one's own home. Let this memoir of my stolen childhood help you retain the memory of those who are no longer with us.
My apathy for school grew. Everyday men on horses would come to our house to notify us about meetings at the collective farm of the village soviet [council]. My father frequently came back very late from these meetings. A lamp was lit beneath the icons in our house, and we little ones, along with grandfather and grandmother stood on our knees and prayed. We were eventually told to take down our icons and replace them with a sickle and hammer and a portrait of Stalin. People came to our house to check to see if we had done what had been ordered.
One dark autumn night in 1929, as I was celebrating my eighth birthday, a Black Raven (vehicle used to remove prisoners) drove up to our house and took our father away. We cried so much that our lips became dry and our bodies froze. The next day we went to see him to give him some food parcels, but there was a large crowd of people all around the prison, which convinced us that grief had been visited on everyone. Soon our father was taken to a prison in Kiev called Lukianivka. There again, crowds of women and children milled in the streets for weeks on end in order to see their fathers and husbands for the last time.
At that time hooligans gathered along the docks and robbed the women who had come to visit the prisoners. The hooligans lay down completely naked on the straw, raised their legs in the air and shouted "we are fulfilling the five-year-plan."
Father was taken to Murmansk on a 10-year sentence to level forests in the name of socialism, grandfather gave his entire field to the collective farm, because there was no one left to work it. With time the orchard next to our house was cut down.
In 1930 the schoolchildren were getting ready to celebrate the first of May: the "International" could be heard over the loudspeakers, as well as could be: "Moscow, my most beloved country, vanquished by no one." On the way to school I dropped by to pick up my girl friend, Tonia, and go with her to the parade, but when I arrived at her house I was astounded to discover that they had been evicted from a brand new house. Tonia's father had built the house with his very own hands. He was tall and well-built. The neighbors all loved him. Ivan's family was thrown out because their house was going to be occupied by some sort of exemplary activist. Soon the Black Raven took Tonia's father away to Siberia. All of his farming equipment turned rusty, and his yard was covered with weeds. The mother and children were placed in a cattle shed. I was late for the parade. The sun caused the blood to rush to my nose, but I endured it. I endured it because I did not want to be an enemy of the people.
Every blessed day a brigade consisting of several sturdy men headed by a Chekist came to our house. He had medals on his chest and was called Comrade Fisher. He ordered his men to pierce all the walls, ceilings and floor with long ramrods. He frightened his helpers by saying that they would be arrested if they didn't find any grain. Comrade Fisher began to play up to my stepmother and to provoke her with various jokes. We little ones cried. My stepmother grabbed one of father's joiner instruments and threw it into the front part of the stove. The instrument rebounded and nearly struck him in the head. After this incident my stepmother was repeatedly called before the court. She was forced to sell almost all of her shawls and sheepskin coats in order to bribe the investigator, a Comrade Sedlovych or Sedlovsky (I don't recall which) who defended her. One time my stepmother was once again called to court where she was accused of propounding religion because she had a shawl embroidered in a pattern resembling crosses. They said it was a provocation of the Antichrist because she had bought the shawl at the marketplace from one Mendel. My stepmother told them they should punish him for selling such a scarf, not her.
Spring of 1932 arrived. There was no one to plant the garden at home. My stepmother and we children were able to get by on money [we earned]; we plowed gardens for our neighbors, but later our horse was stolen and they had to do the planting without a horse. The neighbors said they had seen our horse at the home of one of the activists.
In the summer of 1932 I went to the butter factory in an attempt to make some money to buy bread. At that time peasants took milk away from their own children in the name of building socialism.
Butter made at the factory was exported to Moscow and Leningrad. Cheese was made from the milk, dried to the hardness of a rock and used by the aviation industry to make some sort of buttons. In the evening only those who had met their milk quota were able to buy one liter of buttermilk for 2 kopecks. I was hungry and bought some of that cheese, but it was hot. I nearly choked because the inspector came and fired me from the job. I recall a little ditty we used to sing "the sickle and hammer hang on the wall, and nothing to eat for us all."
The memories of year 1933-34 are particularly vivid in my mind. Every morning at 3:00 I took the cow to pasture, I walked barefoot along the cold wet grass. Part of the milk I took to the butter factory and the remainder sold in order to buy bread. Later I went to a field to gather frozen potatoes to make potato pancakes and all sorts of pigweed for soup, and looked after my younger brothers because my stepmother was forced to work at the collective farm. She was also forced to help gather bodies from the streets and the houses. The bodies had to be gathered quickly. Once I found some millet chaff. Not knowing any better I greedily ate them, and immediately experienced severe stomach cramps. My stomach swelled and bloody diarrhea set in. My brother was frightened that I would die and helped me to get to the doctor. Then an old nurse yelled at me in Russian to stop my diarrhea with my hand. Calling me by the derogatory name "khokhliushka," she chased me out the door. My brother ran to get another nurse who spoke Ukrainian and immediately eased my suffering with medication. When we returned home our stepmother was already there. She noticed the blood on the floor and immediately thought that someone had attacked us and eaten us, for rumors of such things were widespread at the time. There was a mad woman who killed her children one by one and fed them to the others. And so our stepmother left my brother with grandmother and took me with her because she was afraid for me.
Bodies lay along the fences near where we lived. Women piled them into wagons and drove them to the cemeteries. Those who refused to join a collective farm were forced to dig holes for the bodies. Once an old woman approached me and quietly asked for water to quench her thirst. I ran and got her some water in a bottle. An activist took note of this and pushed me into the hole that was being dug. My stepmother had to promise him a bottle of liquor in order to get him to allow me to be pulled out of the hole. After that time my stepmother never again took me with her. I was so frightened by what had happened that I stopped talking for several days. I saw dead bodies in my dreams and screamed in terror. I ran a fever but did not tell my grandfather about what had happened.
My grandfather fell sick with malaria and I had to tend to his needs. One time I ran over to the sugar beet factory. Not far from the factory was a wide field. Piles of beets lay covered with straw and sand. I wanted to see if I could find something in the field for dinner. But a guard stood on an elevated platform and shot anyone who came near. Nearby lay the bloody bodies of people who had just been shot trying to get the beets. I returned home with empty hands. Behind the house was a huge cellar and I hid there. There I found a large bottle of cod-liver oil which my parents had once used to soften shoe leather. Drinking that cod-liver oil saved me from starving to death. I mixed the oil with salt and some weeds and ate it. On the street everyone fled from me because I smelled of fish.
One day grandfather Nikifor, the brother of my grandfather, came to visit us. He was all swollen and tired because he had walked a great distance. He told our grandfather that he didn't want anything from him. All he wanted was for us children to take him to the cemetery so that he could die there. On the way to the cemetery he fell because he couldn't stand on his swollen legs, and gave up his soul. Flies covered his entire face and legs. The side of the road was strewn with bodies. We ran home. Our stepmother buried him the following day with the help of friends. Father's cousin informed us that grandfather's cousin had also died.
The summer of 1933 I could no longer take the cow to pasture. My legs were swollen and covered with sores. I was unable to walk. My stepmother had to place me on the chamber pot because I could no longer get on by myself. She took the cow to the collective farm. She was able to bring home as much as she could, which was not much, because the milk had to be handed over to authorities. Meat, eggs - everything had to be handed over to the authorities. My stepmother cut firewood in the nearby forest and sold it to the authorities. This is how we survived till autumn.
I reached my 12th year, and continued to lie in bed. My eyes were covered with sores. Grandfather died in 1934 on Christmas Eve.
It was a severe winter. The ground was frozen. My mother turned to the collective farm and to the village soviet. She told them that insofar as they now controlled her private property, they had the means to bury him, because she certainly lacked the resources to bury him herself. When they refused, she turned to the neighbors and told them they could each cut down a tree from her property they wanted if only they would help with the burial. They agreed because they all needed the wood to burn. Now my stepmother was summoned to court because she had destroyed government property. She fought them every way she could. She said grandfather had owned his own property years before the Soviets came into property that wasn't theirs. If your house is cold I'll let you have one tree apiece to heat your homes.
