Full Name in Ukrainian: Олександра Пилипівна Демченко (Александра Филипповна Демченко (Rus.)
Full Name in English: Demchenko, Oleksandra
Data of Birth: circa 1927
Place of Birth: Salne
Raion: Nizhyn raion
Oblast: Chernihiv oblast
Country: Ukraine
Copy of original: Yes
Number of pages: 6
Keywords: family; mortality; food substitution; childhood; trauma orphanage; memorialization
Notes:
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Oleksandra Demchenko (Oleksandra Pylypivna Demchenko (Ukr.) or Aleksandra Filippovna Demchenko (Rus.) was six years old at the time of the Famine.
She describes events in her native village of Salne, Nizhyn raion, Chernihiv oblast.
Her big sister Halyna was eight and her little brother Kolia was four in 1933. Their mother died of starvation first, followed by their father. The three orphans wandered around the village hoping that the remaining people could give them some food, but everyone was starving, and mothers were dying first, trying to save their children. Pancakes made of dried potato peel or soup made from weeds and roots were not saving from dysentery and death. Soviet leadership of all levels abandoned people, left them for dead. Dmytrenko wonders how this was allowed to happen, why the Famine occurred only in Ukraine.
Oleksandra vividly remembers how her little brother was dying, begging for food until his last breath, biting his own fingers. She and her big sister Halyna ended up in an orphanage in Krasny Khutir of Novhorod-Siversky raion in Chernihiv oblast where they lived until 1941. Then their orphanage was evacuated to Tashkent (Uzbekistan). She started working at a military plant when she was 14 until and worked there for 4 years of war, earning distinction for excellent labor. She speaks warmly about her years in the orphanage, which she visited years later as an adult, and is proud of her 40 years of work and of her family, two sons that she raised as a single mother, and grandchildren.
She praises Maniak’s effort to publish the Memorial Book and pleads with him to publish a few words about her life story. She intends to buy the book “at any price” once it is published and hopes that there would be enough copies published for everyone to be able to own one.
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