I don’t know why they threw us out of our house. They put us in my uncle’s house, who had been exiled already. They brought in settlers to our house. I don’t know if I should say this, but I called them katsapy [derogatory term for Russians]. I asked why they were living in our house. My mother told me to be quiet.
We were [at the train station] for a long time. My father went somewhere and never came back. He was gone for a few days, and my mother went to look for him. I remember as if it were today – she came back with a document, and read it. The document said that they had found our father on the street. He was dead, and they had already buried him. That’s how we found out our father wouldn’t be coming back. My mother was left alone, without any [food] to give us, or anything to trade for [food]. She took off her ring and earrings and went to trade them. We waited for her, and my mother never came back. After a while, some [officials] came and told us that our parents were gone, and that we had to go with them [the officials]. They threw out all the things we had with us; I still remember my father’s hat. They took us to a train car, which was already full of children. I dragged my little brother, who hadn’t learned how to walk yet, along with me. They gave us a piece of bread and a piece of sugar. We ate it and went to sleep. In the morning when I got up, both my brothers were gone. I asked where’s Hrytsko, Vasyl, and Sashko, the little one. He probably grew up not knowing who he is at all. The woman told me that they were taken to a school, but that I was too small to go to school, so I was taken to an orphanage. At the orphanage, I was ill with typhus, and children were dying in the hospital. From the balcony, I saw them bringing cartloads of corpses and throwing them in a pit. They didn’t let me contact my family on purpose. Why? They wanted me to forget, but I still remember a bit. [My little brother] probably doesn’t, but I remember. That was their goal. They must have known whose children we were. When Stalin was alive, and even after his death, you didn’t have the right to search for anyone. Because there was no Famine, and nobody listened to the few that were left. Before I die, I’d like to meet someone from my family. I’m going to die without having anyone.