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Volodymyr Yaromov was born in 1915 in the village of Onatskivtsi in Polonne raion of Vinnytsia oblast (currently Khmelnytsky oblast).

He recalls that the activists of the search brigade took everything edible from the peasants in their village. They came to Volodymyr’s parents’ house with a rifle and demanded that his father, Petro, deliver 70 poods  (1 pood= 16.3807 kg) of grain “to the state.” Petro noted that he had delivered his previously assigned quota of grain two months earlier and  the head of the village council Yukhym “Harmyder” replied that now he was assigned a new quota. Activists took all wheat, rye, flour and even seed grain from the family. When Volodymyr started crying and asked Yukhym to leave some millet for his sickly mother, he was told to shut up or he would get slapped around.

Volodymyr’s elementary school teacher’s daughter named Liuba stopped by his ransacked house to talk to his mother. Liuba suggested that Volodymyr come with her family to the Donbas. Her husband was working at a mine in Rutchenkovo (currently Donetsk oblast) and could help Volodymyr find a job. His mother told Yaromov to go to the Donbas.

From the version of the letter published in the memorial book, we learn that Volodymyr moved to the Donbas, found a job, and kept sending toasted bread back home, and thus saved himself and his parents from starving to death.

During WWII, Yukhym “Harmyder” became a Nazi collaborator and executed four Jewish families from Onatskivtsi, while Volodymyr became a commander of a Soviet partisan unit.  

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