Recorded and transcribed by Oksana Kuzmenko on July 6, 2014, in the village of Isakiv, Tlumach district, Ivano-Frankivsk oblast, from Maria Dmytrivna Karach (born in 1932 in Isakiv, Tlumach district, Ivano-Frankivsk oblast), who was deported to Siberia together with her sister and returned in 1982.
[Karach Maria, hereinafter – K.M.:] …We were taken to Siberia too…
[Kuzmenko Oksana, hereinafter – K.O.:] What was it like? Tell me, what was it like?
[K.M.:] Oh, my dear child! If I were to tell you everything, I wouldn’t be able to fit it all even on a cowhide. It was like this: my brother, the eldest one (it’s cold there, which is okay, because I can’t handle the sun) … I walked three hundred kilometers in three weeks.
[K.O.:] And how old were you when you made that journey?
[K.M.:] How old?… I don’t remember… It was in 1947.
[K.O.:] You were fifteen.
[K.M.:] I don’t remember exactly. But there was an older sister with us—she was born in 1929. And we were deported to Siberia…
[…]
[K.O.:] Can you tell us how exactly you were evicted?
[K.M.:] Oh God, I’m not sure I’ll be able to explain it properly.
[K.O.:] Just try to remember it the best you can.
[K.M.:] It was in ’45, right after the war. My brother was born in 1927, and all the young men around that age—people said they had something to do with the UPA…
[K.O.:] You were born here in Isakiv, right? Sorry to interrupt.
[K.M.:] Yes, yes. Though not in this house—I built this one myself—but in Isakiv. And our brother, they said he joined the UPA.
[K.O.:] Your own brother?
[K.M.:] Yes, my brother. He was supposed to join the army—he’d been ordered to—but something happened on the way. I don’t remember the details, just what my mother told me. Somewhere along the road they took him into the UPA as he was born in 1923. And he died somewhere—so we never saw him again, never knew what really happened. He was just taken away. We eventually placed a cross in the cemetery, just to mark that he was gone. That’s all. I don’t know anything more. In 1945… My mother was still young then, and we had a little brother. And at dawn, three trucks came and said: “Get ready. You’re going to Siberia”. What could we do? You can’t do anything. They wouldn’t let us go anywhere. So they took us—our mother was carrying a small child in her arms—and we were just kids ourselves. Three trucks came into the yard. They loaded us up and took us to Korshiv. Do you know where Korshiv is? No, of course you don’t. They brought us to Korshiv, put us in freight wagons—those old train cars for goods, with no seats or anything. We just sat there. I couldn’t stretch my legs—I was bent and sore at the knees the whole time. They transported us like that for a month. A whole month in a freight wagon. No stops, no breaks. At some point, shame has disappeared… Everything happened in that wagon—sorry to say it so plainly—peeing, pooping, everything. But we barely ate, because there was nothing to eat. Then they moved us again. For a whole month, we were transported like cattle—shoved around, crying the whole time. I’m crying now just remembering it. It was terrible, the suffering. We ended up in Omsk oblast. First there, then they took us forward. Eventually, they opened the train car and said, “You can get out”. But they lined the train on one side and placed guards on the other so no one could escape. So we stepped outside, but we couldn’t walk—our knees wouldn’t bend after all that time sitting. We stayed there for half a day, then they loaded us into a truck again. We were brought to Omsk oblast, Vrivsk district, the village of Rakhtovka. I still remember the name. At night, they kept moving us by train. We would just stand all day in the wagon. And they’d move at night, secretly—so we wouldn’t know where we were or where we were going. We couldn’t know where we were headed. We were like cattle going to the slaughterhouse. Crying in the wagons—just crying. Because no one knew if we would survive. My mother… back in Korshiv—do you know where that is? I still don’t even know for sure myself. So, I know that in Korshiv—my brother was still in diapers—she had run away with my little brother, and me and my sister, we said: “How will we go back?” My oldest sister, born in 1929, said: “If we go back, what will our stepfather say?” Everything’s been confiscated. There’s nothing. Only kids they didn’t take. When we arrived, my sister went to work right away in Omsk—digging trenches. Do you know what a trench is? I went too, eventually. That’s how it was.
[K.O.:] And where did your mother go, with your little brother?
[K.M.:] They fled from Korshiv. They said that one of the railway tracks broke down near the truck, and we were under convoy when they were transporting us. But when they saw that there were no guards nearby, they ran. They got off the truck and ran with the baby. In Korshiv, they ran into someone’s house—but they didn’t know where they were going. They couldn’t read, couldn’t write. They just hid. They crawled under a chaff stove with the baby. It was already freezing, snow had started to fall. Maybe she gave the child her tit, so that it doesn’t cry. Some woman was leaving the house early, she saw my mom, and took her in. She said: “Let me at least bathe the child.” They bathed him. Such a small baby. Later, my mother returned home from Korshiv, but the soldiers were already looking for them. They were walking around the stables, searching. She was hiding with the baby, covering his mouth with the hand and thinking, “Either I’ll strangle him, or we’ll live”. He whimpered, but he was just an infant. And the two of us went to Siberia. And there, in Siberia, I went to the zhebry. Do you know what zhebry means? It’s when you beg. So that anyone would at least give me a crust of bread or a single potato. I went to one house—they were tatars, also exiled like us—and the man gave me one potato. That’s all they had. Nothing more to share. Then I went to work. They gave out bread—my sister received 700 grams, and I only got 300 grams a day. That was it. Day and night, round the clock, waiting for those rations. I got older a bit, and then my sister said: “Some woman asked me if you want to go into service. To work in a house.” I cried. “How can I leave you? I am afraid to go alone” I said. But my sister said: “We have no other choice. We’ll die of hunger.” So I went. I went to work in Omsk.
[K.O.:] Who was that woman? Where did she work?
[K.M.:] When I came to her, she said she had been taken to Germany during the war, but she came back. She returned from Germany and married a man. But I don’t know their surnames… Wait, yes, I remember now, his name was Ivan Zhyzhyliv.
[K.O.:] Zhyzhyliv Ivan—her husband?
[K.M.:] Yes, her husband.
[K.O.:] Did she hire you for money?
[K.M.:] No, no. Just so I could eat. I had absolutely nothing. Though, I was old enough to peel and cut potatoes. They had a little boy—I played with him while she went to work. That’s how I survived that terrible time. Oh God… No one can imagine what it was like. But yes, it’s true—I worked there, helped out, and at least I wasn’t hungry anymore. He was a garage manager, and she worked as a saleswoman. They always gave me something to eat. Then one day, when I had enough food in me, I went back to my sister Hanka and said: “Hanka, I don’t want to be in service anymore. The other girls are going to real work—I want to work too.” And she said: “Then go. If you don’t want to serve, go try it yourself. Dig trenches, throw clay. You’ll see what it’s like.” So I did. There were men in the pits, pounding in stakes, and I had to toss earth from above. I was the smallest, so they put me on top. I would throw the dirt down so the others could keep working. And so it went. My whole life went like that. I’m not even ready to tell you everything—I don’t know if I can.
[K.O.:] And when did you return? How did you come back?
[K.M.:] In eighty-five. Yes, 1985. By then, we had already been released from the special settlement regime. There were no more convoys, no more restrictions. And I left. My sister stayed behind—she’s still in Omsk. I don’t even know if she’s alive or not.
[K.O.:] So your sister stayed in Omsk?
[K.M.:] Yes, she did.
[K.O.:] Why didn’t she come back?
[K.M.:] Well, she got married, and they wouldn’t let her husband go. We had already been released, but he wasn’t, and she had a child by then—so what was she supposed to do? Divorce him? She stayed in Omsk. That city became her home. And honestly, I didn’t feel bad at the time either. Oh, I remember how she received 700 grams of bread, because she was already officially working, and I only got 300 grams. I hadn’t “earned” more yet. Once, I went to get that bread… and I got lost. I walked and walked, and I was so hungry. I couldn’t find our barracks—I just couldn’t remember where we lived. But I had the bread in my hand, and I was so hungry I ate it on the way. In the evening, somehow, I found my way back home. And there was no bread. She asked me: “Where’s the bread?” And I said: “I ate it. I was hungry, I ate it”. She cried so much… She came home from work and had nothing to eat. Life was so hard… But now, thank God… I am happy I got married here…
[K.O.:] Did you get married here, in the village? In Isakiv?
[K.M.:] Yes, here. I came back here.
[K.O.:] And what school did you attend? Did you finish primary school here? How many grades?
[K.M.:] I didn’t go to school. I didn’t go to school, did I?
[K.O.:] Then who taught you to read and write?
[K.M.:] Who taught me? I taught myself. When we were taken to Siberia, I already knew the letters a little. My stepfather was around then, and he would say: “You won’t make a good teacher”. He didn’t let us go to school. And when I was in Siberia, I taught myself. I listened to the children speaking and writing, and I taught myself. But I’m not very literate. I can write, but it’s… well, that’s my life.
[K.O.:] And your mother—when you were little, did she sing to you at home?
[K.M.:] My mother used to cry more than sing, my dear. After she married her second husband, it was hard. There were three of us children. And he wouldn’t even let us… When he’d go back to the house, my mother would whisper: “Children, lie down like you’re already asleep”. So we’d lie still, so he wouldn’t notice us. He wasn’t good to us. No songs—just tears, more and more tears.
[K.O.:] And your little brother—the one from 1945—did he survive?
[K.M.:] The little one?
[К.О.:] Yes.
[К.М.:] Yes. He survived. He did survive.
[K.O.:] And is your brother still alive?
[K.M.:] He died. He got married, he had no children, he married a woman with a child. He died three years ago. We were all so poor, my mother with him, and he with his mother. We had nothing to eat when three trucks came to the yard. Do you know what a truck (fira) is?
[К.О.:] Yes.
[K.M.:] They took everything from us. They even stripped the walls bare. They took the icons—there was nothing left.
[K.O.:] When you came back to the village—was your old house still there? The one they took you from?
[K.M.:] Yes, yes, the house was still standing.
[K.O.:] And was it returned to you?
[K.M.:] My eldest sister, Maria, died that same year. Somehow, she had managed to escape when they took us away—she ran and hid. She kept moving from place to place. But later, when they started announcing who had what and where, to give back the houses… She claimed: “I think I’m alone”… […] My mother’s brother had given money for the house—he actually bought it. So my sister was living there with another of our brothers. Then they said the house would be confiscated. A man from the village came—though my mother’s brother had paid for the house, not much, but he did. And my sister was there, too. With my brother. And the villager was like… I wasn’t home then, I didn’t see it myself. The house was hidden behind the thatch, and he wanted to force it open. And she said: “I was crying so hard. I told him, ‘Voyko, we bought this house—my mother’s brother paid for it. Maybe not much, but he paid something’”. And that man replied: “When Ukraine comes, you’ll come back and hang me”. And he broke open the house anyway.
[K.O.:] And what did he do?
[K.M.:] He tore open the house—scattered the thatch.
[K.O.:] Why did he say, “When Ukraine comes, they will hang me?” Did he really believe Ukraine would return?
[K.M.:] Well, he must have known. He clearly thought Ukraine would come back one day. But he didn’t wait—he hanged himself.
[K.O.:] He hanged himself?
[K.M.:] Yes, he did.
[K.O.:] Why did he do it?
[K.M.:] I don’t know.
[K.O.:] Was he a party member?
[K.M.:] I think he must have been. I don’t know for sure—I was in Siberia then. But my sister told me, “I cried so much…”
[K.O.:] And what happened after that—did he destroy the house?
[K.M.:] He wanted to tear the roof off completely, but he didn’t finish. The walls were still standing; he had only pulled off the top layer of straw. And then my uncle—my mother’s brother—he either called or came himself, I don’t know because I wasn’t home. But somehow, he paid for the house…
[K.O.:] Who did he pay?
[K.M.:] My sister… I don’t know exactly who they paid the money. My uncle gave it to my sister. Maybe it was the village council. I think so myself. That’s how it was… And now my husband has passed away. I am alone now.
[K.O.:] How many children do you have?
[K.M.:] Two daughters.
[K.O.:] Do they live here with you?
[K.M.:] No, both of them live in Frankivsk. The younger one married a man from there. And the older one…
[K.O.:] Were they born in Omsk?
[K.M.:] No, no—not in Omsk.
[K.O.:] So, here?
[K.M.:] Yes, here. I got married here and had my children here.
