Letter sent from: Village of Trokovychi, Cherniakhiv raion, Zhytomyr oblast
Letter describes events in 1932-1933 in: Village of Trokovychi, Cherniakhiv raion, Kyiv oblast
Current location name: Village of Trokovychi, Cherniakhiv raion, Zhytomyr oblast
Author was 10 years old in 1933. Their family of ten had 5 desiatyns [13.5 acres] of land to live off of, of which only 3 were arable.
In 1930, father joined a kolhosp. The result was very hard with the removal of land, livestock, and implements, but still, people were able to live.
This changed in the fall of 1932 when “The Broom [Mitla]” cleaned out foodstuffs followed by “special people” who then searched for potentially hidden food stocks. He mentions that his mother’s pleas for mercy so that the children would not die were met with laughter. The author’s fingers were slammed in a door. Their neighbor, Ivan Melnychenko, was beaten so badly during a search (he had slaughtered a calf for the family to eat) that he died not long thereafter.
Recalls mock foods and even that they tasted good. Recalls that people collecting bodies were paid one pound of bread per day and were not particular as to whether someone had yet expired. Cites case of people escaping their clutches and then living to 1987.
Recalls an incident when the head of a household killed with an axe a starving person attempting to steal from his garden, with no subsequent consequence.
Those with some strength left who could work in the kolhosp received at least some meagre food (soup and bread).
