I suddenly reached for my sack and grabbed the rest of our loaf of bread. Ahead, I noticed a woman with two small children. They needed a miracle, I thought. I opened the window, and as the train approached them, I threw the bread in their direction. I could not see what happened to it as tears were blurring my vision.
Soon we arrived at our station. Before taking the road home, I wanted to find some kind of a stick for Mother as she thought it would be easier for her to walk with it. While looking for something suitable, I strayed behind some auxiliary buildings adjacent to the railroad station. The scene I saw there has been haunting me ever since. Now, after fifty years have passed by since that moment, I can still feel the terror that seized me when I came face to face with that ghastly view. In front of me, in open view, was a heap of frozen human corpses like some discarded woodpile. Some of the bodies were completely naked; others were half-clothed; still others were fully clothed but barefoot. Their frozen arms and legs were sticking out from under the snow like tree limbs in an intricate configuration. I stood there aghast, unable to move from fright and horror. For quite a while I stared at those human bodies, with outstretched frozen arms, as if they still were begging for food and mercy. Then I ran back to my mother, with her walking stick, trembling all over, but consoled by her company.
By the time we finally reached our house, it was dark; however, our shopping adventure had not yet ended.
On the way home, Mother seemed troubled and uneasy. When I asked her what was bothering her, she confided in me. Her anxieties centered about the form we had had to fill out when we traded the medallion at the Torgsin and I understood the danger we were in.
The decree to turn in any coins and foreign currency was ignored by the villagers, resulting in many arrests and tortures by the GPU. We had not violated the decree with the medallion as it did not fall into the category of valuables. But we had made the mistake of entering the medallion as “a coin” on the official appraisal form. This “minor” mistake could now turn out to be a “major crime” against the state.
Our apprehensions soon became a reality. One afternoon shortly after our shopping adventure, a large group of government officials made a visit to our home. It was composed of familiar members of the Hundred’s Bread Procurement Commission, accompanied this time by an armed militiaman, and the chairman of the village soviet. The militiaman was a stranger, apparently especially sent to our village by the county government. This man, and the presence of so many officials, indicated to us the seriousness of our situation.
After the group entered our home, the chairman of the village soviet stepped out in front. He looked at a document in his hand, and read aloud the name of my mother for identification, even though he knew my mother very well. Then he declared that, according to “reliable sources,” we possessed gold which was supposed to have been delivered to the state treasury long ago. He informed us that the militiaman was sent to us with the order to take our gold to the county center. He also added that if we handed the gold to him voluntarily, the whole case would be closed and forgotten. Our failure to cooperate would result in the arrest of the head of the household as “an enemy of the people.”
Their demand to deliver our nonexistent gold seemed ridiculous to us, and the idea that my mother was to become an “enemy of the people” was absurd. Mother had gone through many such difficult situations far too often to lose her composure now. She categorically denied that we had ever had gold coins to deliver to the state. She, for one, couldn’t even tell what a gold coin looked like. Our purchase of food at the Torgsin was made with a gold medallion, not a gold coin. Such an exchange of a medallion for food at the store owned by the state could not possibly be an illegal act, she insisted.
Just the same, the village chairman ordered a thorough search of our house. Every corner and nook was examined; each piece of clothing was pulled out; each lid from each pot was removed. They looked everywhere and into everything but found nothing. There was nothing to be found with the exception of the one remaining medallion which was carefully hidden in what was once our pigpen.
Finally, they departed with nothing, and afterwards, much to our surprise, they left us alone.
CHAPTER 25
IN THE latter part of February, the cold became very intense. Temperatures sank below zero; violent storms raged. The roaring and whistling winds tore frozen limbs off trees and ripped roofs off some houses. But even such a severe winter could have been borne were it not for the hunger. To be cold and hungry, without food or fuel, and without hope of getting any, is a horror defying imagination.
Our village became completely isolated. High snowdrifts made roads and paths impassable. The snow deposits were so heavy that sometimes it was difficult to open the front doors of the houses. People had no intention of leaving their homes anyway; there was no place to go. Our village was snowed in, and its inhabitants were slowly dying of hunger in their houses.
We kept our house locked. We tried unsuccessfully to suppress our feelings of hunger by reading and telling stories. We prayed often. Mother would fall on her knees in front of the icons, and we would join her, repeating the words of the prayer after her. We felt more secure then believing that our prayers would be heard by God who would soon send us some relief. I often heard my Mother addressing the icons: “Oh, Almighty God: You sent upon us Your wrath and punishment at a time when Satan is also torturing us. Why do you treat us this way, Great God? Be merciful to us and help us to withstand Satan’s treatment.”
Then, as if feeling remorse for reproaching God, she would recite a long suppliant prayer. My brother Mykola had his own prayer. He also wanted to know the reason God sent such torture upon the people who so fervently believed in Him. He always ended with the plea to God to send us some bread. And so we spent our time in prayers, dreams, hopes, and expectations of a miracle.
There was an endless succession of days and nights with mostly raging snowstorms. But one morning, the storm broke and it was calm outside. Feeble rays of sunshine penetrated the frosty windowpanes. Mykola and I decided to go outside, but we had a hard time opening the door. We finally succeeded after repeatedly shoving and pushing it against the drifts, and stepped out to a beautiful morning of gleaming snow, azure sky, and clear fresh air.
There was silence and the monotony of snow everywhere throughout the village. The only signs of life came from the chimneys here and there, with tiny streams of smoke rising in the sky. Many houses in our neighborhood did not have any smoke coming out of their chimneys. Hadn’t the people inside made any fires? How could they possibly stay alive, we wondered, in subzero temperatures, without their houses being heated?
To find out for ourselves, we ran first to Dmytro’s house which showed no signs of life. Dmytro had never returned home after he had been taken to the county center. His young wife Solomia was left alone with their daughter. She had gone to work in the collective farm, taking her little child with her. As the wife of a banished man, she too was considered an “enemy of the people,” and her child was refused admission to the nursery. Later, Solomia was expelled from the collective farm, and thus forced to seek a job in the city. That was impossible, however, because she could not show a certificate of release from the collective farm. She found herself trapped in the circle of the Communist death ring. She had to return to her village.
When winter came, Solomia went from house to house, willing to work for just a piece of bread. She was too proud to beg. People were sympathetic and helped her as much as they could. However, as the famine worsened, and the villagers were no longer able to help her, she was not seen on her rounds any more.