TAMARA KOSZARNY

Date and Place of Birth: 1945 in Salzburg, Austria

Date of Interview: November 17, 2015

Place of Interview: Toronto, Ontario

Interviewer: Sophia Isajiw

Length of Interview: 00:40:12 (raw)

Mother (Survivor): Akilina Huzenko, b. July 17, 1912 in Dibrivka, Donetsk oblast, Ukraine

Father (Survivor): Fedir Podopryhora, b. May 3, 1912 in Ukraine

(Excerpt):

I: Which of your parents was a Holodomor survivor?

TK: Both.

I: How old were they at the time of the Holodomor?:

TK: Ok, my dad was 20, and my mum, around 20.

I: How often did you talk with them about the Holodomor?:

TK: Quite a lot, because some things would, like I remember even in Venezuela mum telling us about how bread was sacred, you could never throw out bread because it was just, or leaving anything on your plate, and I think I still do that, I can’t leave anything on my plate, even today if you gave me a heaping thing I couldn’t leave anything and throw it out because it was a sin to throw out bread. And even if a piece of bread fell you had to pick it up and kiss it, cross yourself and kiss it. But she would tell us about during the famine when her dad was so sick, well, he was so hungry, that they would come, people would come with wagons and collect all the dead bodies and he was just lying there and they said, ‘well, we’ll take him too.’ I mean he was still alive, and they said ‘we’ll take him too because we won’t be coming back tomorrow to pick him up.’ So you know, the kids were crying to please leave him alone and don’t take him. So she would mention that quite a few times. And my dad used to write a lot, he wrote books on Holodomor; like any little piece of paper my dad had, he would write things. And about the Holodomor if there was any commemoration my dad was always speaking at that event.

CROSS REFERENCES:

1. •Fedir Pidopryhora, “My Testimony to the Tragic Days in Ukraine and Our Village and Family.” Photocopied text in UCRDC File #366 folder. (Федір Підопригора, “Мої свідчення про трагічні дні в Україні та нашого села і родина”).
   

1. •Tamara Koszarny’s sister, Raisa Machula was interviewed on Dec. 17, 2001 by Tetiana Lapan, File #363 (audio).
   

1. •Tamara Koszarny’s sister, Raisa Machula was quoted in an article by Маряна Стефак, “Історія Емігрантки.” Разом, Жовтень: 2013.