We were taken 30 miles away to a small village near a railroad station where dekulakhed people were gathered from eight nearby villages. We were kept there a longtime. They fed us little, and no one bothered us. Each had to get food any way he could After a short while, my grandfather and two of my siblings died. The children which survived walked around swollen and weak. Then my father died, leav¬ing my mother to look after his two small remaining children. By then, I already had two children of my own.

My family was not deported like so many, but were simply taken to a dilapidated house. Sometimes at night I would go visit my mother, little brother and sister, who were swollen and feeble from hunger. They waited for me with the hope that I would bring them something to eat, but I could not help them enough because my own children and I were starving too.

I was sent to the fields to work, and for this, was given a small bowl of soup. For the children we cooked tree bark mixed with grass.

My husband discovered that he might be able to find work in the Donbas and went to the town of Alchebsk near Luhansk. Very soon thereafter, my husband’s brother was arrested, because he was unable to hand over the quota of grain assigned him. After he was taken to prison, his wife also was left along with four small children who were swollen from hunger.

A month later, the wife’s brother was arrested, and exiled to Siberia, not for any¬thing he himself had done, but because his four-year-old son had picked up some grain from the field, leaving four small children to fend for themselves. The eldest of them was only eight years old.

Not long after that, my eldest little girl who was eight years old died of starvation followed soon after by my six-month-old infant who starved because my milk had dried up. At the collective farm they gave us food which lacked essential nutrients.

One day, my little girl came up to me in the field. She was in tears, and I im¬mediately guessed that my baby had died. When my daughter confirmed my fears, I begged the brigade leader to let me go home to bury my baby. The brigade leader, who was on a horse and had a loud angry voice, refused. I didn’t understand him and started to leave the field.

He called after me in that loud and angry voice saying that if I took one more step he would run me down and squash me like a frog. He even tried to do it, but the horse wouldn’t answer to his reins.

I don’t remember what he said, because my thoughts remained on my little baby daughter. I did manage to get home. I wrapped my baby in a white blanket, took her in my arms and went to the cemetery.

The coffin was very small, but I had difficulty digging the grave because I had no strength left. Several days later, the two youngest children of my brother-in-law died and were buried, without their mother and father being present. The graves were very shallow, because the diggers themselves were very weak from hunger.

The young sister and brother of the deceased children helped cover the coffin with earth thrown by their own little hands.

I no longer had any strength to visit my mother, and I no longer had any hope of being reunited with my husband. My health grew progressively weaker and weaker. It was only through the grace of God that I was saved. Shortly thereafter my husband