SYNOPSIS
Paraska (Pasha) Movchaniuk was 8 when her mother, swollen from starvation and barely able to move, was killed in a railroad accident. Her father died in 1932 and two more of her siblings died in Kremenchuk, Poltava oblast (likely in an orphanage and of starvation). Her grandmother’s husband and 12 children all died, too.
It is not entirely clear if the events that Movchaniuk described occurred in the village of Nyzhni Holovni, currently in Khmenlnytsky oblast, or in Kremenchuk. Paraska recalls that after the death of her parents, she ended up in an orphanage and was also begging. Once she was invited to a house under the pretence that she would be given some food. Movchaniuk was lucky to realize that the woman was a cannibal and had to run for her life to escape.
During WWII Movchaniuk was taken to Germany as an Ostarbeiter, fled from her masters, was captured and imprisoned in a concentration camp in Innsbruck. Experience with starvation, forced labour and captivity undermined her health. Her children died. At the time of writing the letter, she lived with her disabled husband and was grateful to the Soviet government for taking care of them in their retirement.