Local Resident Shares Memories
of Famine Genocide
May 15, 2008
Erna Derevianka was barely
more than a toddler when Soviet dictator Josef Stalin
instituted a plan that brought her family to near
starvation during the next few years.
Speaking about the events today, the 85-year-old Bridgeport
resident said the memories are still so painfully
vivid, sleeplessness lingers for days.
Derevianka is among the survivors
Ukrainians statewide will recognize at the state capitol
Saturday, the 75th anniversary of Ukraine's communist-fueled
famine genocide.
It is a time formally known as
the Holodomor, defined as "death by hunger."
A central piece of Stalin's five-year
New Economic Plan (NEP), a communist policy created
to assure Russia's geopolitical supremacy, was agricultural
collectivization. Created in 1928, the full impact
of the plan wasn't felt until the early-to-mid-1930s.
At the time NEP was implemented,
the majority of Ukraine's population was comprised
of peasant farmers. These farmers were forced to yield
their entire harvests to Soviet authority. If they
were caught attempting to use any of their produce
to feed themselves or their families, they were executed
on sight or transferred to work camps in Siberia.
As a result, an estimated 10
million Ukrainians died of starvation.
Derevianka was born in Belarus,
a country neighboring Russia. Her mother, a native
of Kyiv, Ukriane, had traveled to Belarus to care
for an ailing aunt. It was in Belarus she met Derevianka's
father and started a family. When Derevianka was about
nine, however, her mother became "homesick"
and the family decided to return to Kyiv.
Since communication was tightly
controlled within Ukraine's borders, Derevianka and
her parents were shocked when they arrived in the
Kyiv region, a land of plenty now desolate and economically
desperate. In lieu of the bustling, family-operated
farms Derevianka's mother remembered were collectivist
villages managed by communist authority.
Derevianka and her family settled
with her maternal aunt. Times became increasingly
desperate. Derevianka's aunt struggled to provide
enough milk to nurse her newborn baby. On more than
one occasion, Derevianka said, "The baby pulled
blood from her breast." The infant soon died.
Although Derevianka's aunt lived
on less than 20 acres of land, the Soviets believed
she owned enough to belong to the upper landownership
class. Further, although she had lived in the Kyiv
region for four generations, her German ancestry made
her even more of a threat, Derevianka said.
As a result, Derevianka said,
it wasn't long before the family was separated. Derevianka,
her younger sister and her parents were transported
west to the Kharkiv village. There they settled with
another peasant family.
Derevianka's aunt was deported
east.
Derevianka's parents struggled
to get jobs at the collective farm in Kharkiv. The
only "pay" on these collective farms was
a daily ration of half a pound of grain, not nearly
enough to feed two adults and growing children.
At Kharkiv, Derevianka remembered
an older woman who behaved erratically, often wandering
the village nude during the summers. Derevianka learned
the woman's children had recently starved to death.
"It was rumored she made holodets (a Ukrainian
delicacy made of pork) from her children's bodies
to keep herself alive," Derevianka said. "People
pitited her or ignored her."
Derevianka usually spent her
days trying to gather edible weeds to boil and eat.
Her sister, she said, was often so weak she spent
most of her time sleeping. "Her belly was swollen
with hunger," Derevianka said. She also hunted
the grounds for hedgehogs. "Putting a lot of
salt on the [hedgehog meat] made it taste like pork,"
she said.
Derevianka also stole grain,
lying flat on her stomach and dragging herself close
to the ground so she wouldn't be seen.
After about a year, the quotas
were eased and farmers were allowed greater rations.
Following World War II, Derevianka and her family
lived in Germany in a Displaced Persons (DP) camp.
One hot summer day, Derevianka was preparing to swim
with a friend when her friend stripped to her swimsuit
and revealed several long, viscious scars across her
back.
When Derevianka asked her friend
what happened, her friend replied that one day during
the height of the famine in 1932, a man, crazed with
hunger, attacked her. "There was so much blood
[my friend] fainted," Derevianka said.
Derevianka and her husband moved
from Germany to Bridgeport in 1961, she said, to seek
better opportunities for her family. Although several
decades have passed since the famine, Derevianka said
it is a story few know. The ones who are still alive
who survived it were very young when the famine happened.
"It's important for the world to know what happened,"
Derevianka said. At times, the events seem so horrific,
"people think you've lost your mind and don't
believe you."
Derevianka is now largely
confined to her bed. She said she feels thankful her
mind is still strong. "I never thought I would
live to these years," she said. "God must
be helping me."
Local
Resident Shares Memories of Famine Genocide
