Temny, Semen

Description

Creators

Semen Temny (b. cir. 1920s), Author

Volodymyr Maniak

, Recipient

Media Type

Text

Item Types

Correspondence

Envelopes

Description

Letter sent from: Kherson
Letter describes events in 1932-1933 in: Hola Prystan and Kherson, Odesa oblast
Current location name: Hola Prystan and Kherson, Kherson oblast

Author, Semen Temny, focuses on the story of his uncle Ivan Fedorenko and his uncle's friend, Kuzma Horbaty. The latter became an activist of a search brigade who unfairly singled out Ivan's family for excessive requisitioning and persecution. Semen's father saved his family by snatching them and taking them to Kherson, where he held a job at a yacht club and where they successfully survived the winter of 1932-33. Semen's uncle was repeatedly arrested and sent to prison camps because Kuzma was "on his case".

Kuzma was executed by the Nazis during the Nazi occupation. He supplied the Nazis with the lists of the Jews and Communists in Hola Prystan and they executed him together with those whom he betrayed.
Semen was in a Soviet partisan group during the occupation but has never been recognized for that.
He also offers his reflections on perestroika and those who sabotage it.

Notes

Author's gender: Male
Author's name in Ukrainian: Семен Тихонович Темний
Author's name in Russian: Семен Тихонович Темный
Category: Perpetrators; Life-long persecution

Date of Original