Sonia Lebedin video transcript

Hello. My name is Sonia Lebedin. Both my parents were witnesses and survivors of the Holodomor, the Ukrainian famine-genocide of 932-33. Today I will tell you a small part of my mother’s story. 

This is my mother, Anna Milko. She was born to a large farm family, the 3rd youngest of 7 children, in the Poltava province. Her father inherited a large farm because for several generations they only had one son and the farm wasn't split between sons like it was in other families. Other families had many sons, their land was split with each generation, and some people had very small farms, some people had hardly any land at all. 

My grandfather was a very hardworking, well-respected man. He was prosperous and his family lived well. The oldest children all received good educations. There was an engineer, a teacher, a geologist. They loved music, they all played various instruments; they had a family orchestra. They lived in harmony with their neighbours, and then the Bolshevik revolution happened and a new government, new rules, came to be. Lenin and his successor Stalin decided to change the system. They said the cities are for workers and the countryside is for farmers. And according to Marxist-Leninist principles, people were divided into classes. First were the бідняки [“bidnyaky”], the poorest of the poor who had nothing. Then there were the середняки [“serednyaky”] the middle poor [middle ‘peasants’]. And then there were the “kulaks” [кулаки: literally means ‘fist’]. In Ukrainian they were called куркулі [“kurkulyi”]. They were landowners.

The Bolsheviks planned an economy of collectivized farms. Government officials had authority to seize kulak land and to murder the resistors or deport them. Often entire families were deported to Siberia to work camps, to the Far East. Many died. According to recently released data from Soviet archives, between 1930 and ’31, 1.8 million were deported, 1.3 million reached their destination, meaning that half a million people died on the way. And of course, many more died once they arrived. 

Stalin had ordered that kulaks be liquidated as a class. They were designated “enemies of the people.” During collectivization, anyone designated as a kulak was subject to humiliation, deportation, violence, sometimes murder; sometimes formal execution. Children were taught in schools that kulaks were to be hated, that kulaks were responsible for all the troubles of society, that they were greedy and despicable. So at first, the definition of a kulak was that he used hired labour, that he owned some kind of a mechanical machine – a mill, a creamery. That he rented out land or equipment, or that he traded, he got money or income by anything other than his labour. By the last definition, any peasant who sold any of his surplus goods could be labeled a kulak. So quotas were established: so many kulaks had to be destroyed in a certain period. Local officials were given the right to add any other kind of criteria for defining kulaks depending on local conditions – because sometimes they would run out of kulaks to destroy. A Soviet politician by the name of Grigory Zinoviev said in 1924, “We are fond of describing any peasant who has enough to eat as a kulak.” 

It became against the law to be Ukrainian. It became against the law to wear an embroidered shirt, to play a bandura. It became against the law to be a Christian. Churches were closed. Priests were shot or deported to Siberia. It was against the law to mention the word “famine.” So my grandfather and his family were branded kulaks. He was arrested many times, hauled off to jail. Meanwhile, his neighbours went to vouch for him. They said to the authorities, “Listen, this man has never done anything wrong. He’s kind and honest. When we worked for him he paid us well. When we had problems he helped us and never asked to be repaid. And they were told, “If you stand up for him, you will have the same fate as he. “ So my grandfather was beaten, tortured, and finally murdered. 

And his family was soon thrown [out] from their house. Their belongings were ransacked and looted, they scattered in the night, walked on foot as far away as they could. They had to go far away where nobody knew them. No one was allowed to help a kulak. My mother couldn’t go to school, or her 2 younger siblings, because they were kulaks. They lived in constant fear of being found out. 

So, my mother was finally fortunate enough to get a job in a large state farm known as a SOVKHOZ (СОВХОЗ – советское хозяйство, a state farm). She had to lie about her origins. She said she was an orphan, she didn’t know who her parents were, she had no family. Now this state farm was the estate of a truly wealthy landowner who had long ago left, probably emigrated to France or maybe America. There were many buildings on this estate. There were barns, all kinds of farm equipment and machinery, and there were hundreds of young boys and girls who worked there. The girls lived in their own barracks with 3-tiered bunk beds. They worked hard. They worked in the fields, in the kitchen. My mother said it was thanks to being at this state farm that she survived the famine. 
The food they had was sometimes miserable and disgusting, but at least they ate something every day. Sometimes all they had was the head of a pig. And they would boil this, and the girls would go out into the fields and gather edible weeds just to make a thicker soup. And there was always a piece of black bread every day. The famine was in full swing in the neighbouring hamlets and villages. Groups of activists were encouraged to go to extract food from the peasants living nearby. Ironically, my mother was always invited to go and she would try to find some excuse not to go and not try to be very obvious about it. They would confiscate the very last food that people had, they’d throw it on the ground, stomp it into the earth. 
Starving people would come to the state farm asking for work or begging for food. Sometimes after eating just one meal, they would die. Eventually it became common knowledge that in the closest two neighbouring hamlets, which were named Pokrovske and Nastynkivka everyone had died out. And, as in many other villages and towns where they had empty houses, the Communist authorities brought in new people from Russia. In this way, it’s an early example of ethnic cleansing. And much of the heart of eastern Ukraine was re-settled with Russians. This is my mother’s family shortly before they were de-kulakized [shows photograph]. Soon after this picture was taken they had to leave their house and run away. 
So one day after receiving her allotment of bread for the day, my mother went out into the yard. She said it was a beautiful sunny day and a girl or a woman approached her. It was hard to tell how old this person was because she was so emaciated with hunger. She asked my mother, would she trade her bread for a blanket? And my mother said, “Keep your blanket, you can have my bread.” But this person grabbed the bread and threw the blanket down and ran away. My mother said she probably ate that bread and died. But my mother kept the blanket. She kept that blanket when she was taken by the Nazi’s, as a slave labourer, to Germany. She brought it with her to Canada. And this is what my mother looked like when she came to Canada, 1948 [shows photo]. And this is the blanket [unfolds and shows the blanket]. She said it’s made in France, it’s called Marseille, it’s from Marseille. It’s a single bed blanket, a coverlet. So, my mother kept this with her all her life. And she passed it on to me. She kept the memory of this girl alive. And I pass it on to you.