VS - Before the Famine, they took everything, but there were wooden storage silos full of wheat. They locked it up and guards walked around, because people made holes in the wood and ate the rye or wheat. They didn’t give it to the people but it was there. They wanted to destroy the people with famine. Ukrainian soil is very fertile. If you put a plum pit into the ground in two weeks it would be growing. In 1932 there were still some potatoes, or beets, or maybe pickled cucumbers. But in 1933 there was nothing. People walked around and ate grass in the spring. There was nothing.
Interviewer – Your mother worked at the collective farm. Did she receive a wage?
VS – There were no wages. Sometimes they gave you a bit of rye. My mother took our linens and tablecloths in a cart and went God knows where to try to trade them for some food. When she came back she brought with her a bowl of millet, which she gave to me. There was nothing. I remember that I was very swollen, hungry and tired. I wasn’t able to get up, and was very hungry. Mother and I prayed a lot, and she found a porcupine in a hole. She cleaned and baked it. I was small, but she gave me most of it and only took a bit for herself. And that saved my life.
Many people died. They lay there, there was nobody to bury them. Nobody had the strength to give graves. People were swollen. One man saw a cat across from my house. He tried to catch and eat the cat. The cat ran away, and the man fell and died. And there was nobody to bury him.