Letter sent from: Pereiaslav raion, Kyiv oblast
Letter describes events in 1932-1933 in: Village of Vyly, Lubny raion, Kharkiv oblast
Current location name: Village of Vyly, Lubny raion, Poltava oblast
O.I. Ekho was three at the time of the famine. After being dispossessed, her family died. Her cousins lost
their father to repressions. He was taken away in a “black raven,” the name for secret police cars, at night. Most of Ekho’s account is about the hardship she experienced living as an orphan on her own, then in an
orphanage, and then, after the orphanage was bombed in WWII, on her own again, during the war and after the war. She began working in a kolhosp as a 13 year-old and is a veteran of labor. Ekho feels that life has improved considerably and that people should not shy away from any work. She describes an episode when, during the Nazi occupation, she was tasked with bringing food to the Soviet partisans but had to come back because no one met her in the forest. She was hungry but did not eat anything intended for the partisans.
Ukrainian transcription available.
