Alekseieva, Yevhenia (Ivha Kolomiiets)

Description

Creators

Yevhenia Aleksieieva (Ivha Kolomiiets) (b. 1921), Author

Volodymyr Maniak

, Recipient

Media Type

Text

Item Types

Correspondence

Envelopes

Transcriptions

Translations

Description

Letter sent from: Village of Hlobyne, Poltava oblast
Letter describes events in 1932-1933 in: Petrivka (Petrivka-Romenska), Lokhvytsia, Yakhnyky, Luka, Svyrydivka, Pisky, all in Kharkiv oblast
Current location name: Petrivka (Petrivka-Romenska), Lokhvytsia, Yakhnyky, Luka, Svyrydivka, Pisky, Poltava oblast

Yevhenia Alekseieva was born in 1921 as Ivha Kolomiiets before she and her two siblings became orphans when the father died and the mother abandoned them to foster parents until they could be placed in orphanages. She describes moving among orphanages and mentions that in one of them, in Lubny, in 1932-33, 42-43 [sic] children were dying daily and were buried in a large pit in the orphanage garden. Children were dying of hunger, cold and even disease, because they were not receiving proper treatment for sickness.

She has no hope that her story will be published. She is a veteran of World War II and of labor. She joined the army during the war voluntarily and worked for 38 years, and all for meager wages and a small pension. Such is her “happiness,” she writes.

Ukrainian transcription and English translation available.

Notes