Writer and journalist Liudmila Taran donated books to the Holodomor Museum

Writer and journalist Liudmila Taran donated books from her own library to the Holodomor Museum. Mrs Liudmila collected her book collection for a long time, but now she has decided these publications are more necessary in the museum. After all, museum workers and scholars will popularize and use them in their work.

Among the donated publications are a rare periodical, a book of testimonies, “The Crucified Village” by Mrs Liudmila’s compatriot and namesake Mykola Taran, as well as Anastasia Lysyvets’ memoirs “Tell me about a happy life” in Ukrainian and French. Liudmila Taran was personally acquainted with Anastasia Lysyvets, an ordinary village teacher who, back in the 70s and 80s of the last century, wrote down her experiences, not really hoping that they would ever be published. The journalist is the author of articles about Anastasia Lysyvets, one of which is included in the aforementioned book of memories.

“One day, Nastusia came back from a trudoden’ (“working day”) – and there was a small coffin on the table. Before that, the youngest Vasylko had not got out of bed – the last phase of exhaustion. Mother and a younger sister barely came from the cemetery and lay down in their black beds, which had not been washed or cleaned for a long time. Mother was as thin as a rake, and Halia had such chubby legs that shone like glasses. And then the time came, mother called Nastia to her bed and said she would die soon. She told her what to do next… And the daughter fell asleep next to her mother. And at night, she felt her heavy, stone-like, lifeless hand next to her… There were three children left, Nastia was the oldest… “I was as dry as a straw and black as the soil but not swollen, while Halka got more filling up with water. The skin was cracking, and some liquid was pouring out of the body. Flies sat on the wet bed.” Nine-year-old sister Halia also died. Eleven-year-old Anastasia and seven-year-old brother Mykola remained… “The orphan wandering and grief began. And days and nights, weeks and months passed, full of suffering.”

(from Liudmila Taran’s article for “Dzerkalo Tyzhnia”, August 16, 2002)