ZM: A grown man, a doctor, came to my father, crying. He said to my father, “Fedor Serhiyevych, you don’t know what’s happening.” This doctor went from village to village recording how many people had died. He was arrested and nobody ever saw him again. My father saw that he would have to flee the village. He fled to rudniky [a play on the word ruda – iron ore], to the mines. This was near Kryviy Rih, where there were iron ore mines. He got a job there. In 1932 he came back at night and took my brother, mother, grandmother and myself. We fled to the city, and that’s why we survived.

My great grandmother didn’t want to come with us. She said, “I’m old, I’m going to stay.” So she stayed. My mother returned to the village several times to try to get her to come to the city. But she wanted to stay at home. My mother came back, crying, because her sisters had died. The last time my mother went to the village, my great grandmother said she would go with her to the city. But she was swollen, and couldn’t walk anymore.

My mother went to her [my mother’s] sister’s house – her sister and husband were already dead. Four children were lying on the stove, swollen, and there was nothing she could do for them. She left them a bag of dried bread, and when she came home with my great grandmother, she cried a great deal, because those were the last children from my mother’s family.

My great grandmother survived for only three days in the city. My mother said that she was barely able to get her to the train station, because she couldn’t walk anymore. She crawled on her knees to the train. The village [where I came from] was called Boryse. It was a large village, but it doesn’t exist anymore. The whole village died during the Famine, and they brought in settlers from Russia. They stayed for a little while, but didn’t really want to live there. Later they flooded the village to make lake Kremenchuk; the village is gone now.

Zinadia Marusenko (nee Demchenko)

Date of birth: 14 September 1929

Place of birth: Boryse village, Poltava oblast

Witnessed Famine in: Boryse village, Poltava oblast

Arrived in Canada:

Current residence: Winnipeg

Date and place of interview:  17 March 2009, Winnipeg

Excerpt From Full Interview