Oleksii Vobly handed over family belongings to the Museum

Oleksii Vobly from Kharkiv gave the Holodomor Museum his family’s belongings, which have a specific museum and historical value. Among the donated items are an antique Bible of 1876, embroidered shirts and towels.

These things belonged to the family and descendants of the teacher and priest Oleksii Vobly, who was known for saving the students of his school from starvation during the Holodomor. With his own funds, he organised meals for schoolchildren from the village of Piskoshyne in the Zaporizhzhia region, sheltered orphaned children in the school and took care of them together with his wife, Maria. Thanks to this, not a single child in the village died. During the repressions of 1937, the teacher was arrested and tortured in the cells of the NKVD.

The details of this story later became known thanks to his daughter-in-law Liudmyla Vobla, a teacher of Ukrainian language and literature from Kharkiv. In 1993, responding to a call to research the Holodomor topic, she unexpectedly discovered that she lives in a family that has its own special history related to that tragic period. Ms Liudmyla worked a lot in the archives of Poltava, Chernihiv, Sumy, Zaporizhzhia and other cities. She reread many documents, reconstructing her genealogy bit by bit. Together with her son Oleksii, named after her grandfather, she conducted a vast amount of research to shed light on her father-in-law’s life path and restore historical justice to his figure.

Liudmyla Vobla passed away at the beginning of November this year in Kharkiv. She was 85 years old. Ms Liudmyla visited our museum several times during her life. The last time was in the summer of 2022. In August of the same year, the Vobly family handed over their archive to our Museum, which could be dangerous to keep in a city that suffered from constant shelling.

After the death of his mother, Oleksii Vobly Jr. decided to transfer particularly valuable items from the family collection to our Museum.

We are thankful to Oleksii Vobly for these artefacts. They will complement our collection and the personal history of teacher and saviour Oleksii Vobly.

The bright memory of Liudmyla Vobla, the keeper of family memory, who preserved these items for future generations.