ES – Because my father refused to take food and clothes away from people, he was supposed to be sent to Siberia. Good people told him about this so father ran away at night to the Donbas. He worked there, but he lost his job because somehow they found out that he was a kulak. He was often without work and had to look for other jobs. My mother had earrings and a ring, and she had to take that to the TORGSYN , where you could exchange gold for a bit of grain. I remember mother brought home a bit of grain, which didn’t last long. After this we didn’t have anything to trade or sell, and had to suffer.

Later on, I became very sick and weak, and mother was sick. We children slept on boards covered in corn husks. It was cold and there was nothing with which to build a fire.

INTERVIEWER – Did you have any bedding?

ES – Nothing. Only the rags on our backs. We didn’t have blankets, mattresses, or anything. We children were small, and there was nothing to eat, and [two of my sisters] died in one day. One died during the day and the other at night. I remember two funerals, and there was nothing to dress my sister in. So my mother sewed, from her skirt, a little dress to put on my sister. There was nothing to bury them in, so they lined the grave with newspapers, and that’s how they were buried.