The Holodomor Museum recorded the testimony of 96-year-old Oleksandra Riabenko

In March, employees of the oral history department of the Holodomor Yulia Kotsur, Sofia Diachenko and Lesia Klymenko, visited the town of Vyshneve to talk to 96-year-old Oleksandra Riabenko.

Oleksandra Petrivna was born in 1927 in the village of Prechyske (during the Holodomor, Kharkiv region, now Chervone village, Kyiv region). Her family suffered during collectivization, and the Holodomor – horses and a cow were taken away. Father was the head of the village until 1930, but then he did not want to dekulakize the people and gave up the position. After all, in 1938, he was repressed as an enemy of the people. “My father was taken away for the rest of the life, and my mother… “Petlyurivka!” — everyone mocked my mother,” the woman recalls (you can view the video here).

Oleksandra Petrivna talks about her mother, who was exiled for five years because of “careless speech”. “My mother remembered how one of them told her: “You, Tetiana, you pray to God! And you see where God sent you.” My mother replied: “I was not sent here by God but by evil people!”

The entire story of Holodomor witness Oleksandra Riabenko will be published soon on our online resource “Testimony”.