R.O.Rudenko: I am Rayisa Opanasivna Rudenko (in the documents my patronymic is spelled Afanasiyivna). My maiden name was Kaplun. That was my father’s name, and my mother belonged in the family of Ocheretnys, well-known at least in our village, because my grandfather Ocheretny Makar Porfyrovych was a known farm owner such wealthy peasants were called kurkul at the time. And in our Village of Lavrivka, Vinnytsia Region, Vinnytsia Oblast, there were many people with a surname of Ocheretny: close and distant relatives. As a kurkul, he was dispossessed, of course. They also dispossessed my paternal grandfather, Volodymyr Kaplun, who also lived in the Rohizna Village, Tyvriv district, Vinnytsia Oblast, and had a mill. So, he was a kurkul, too. I did not exist at the time all of it my mother told me later in time. My father Kaplun Afanasiy Volodymyrovych was killed in action during the WWII.
I was born on November 20, 1939. I hardly remember my childhood. Later I’ll tell you why. Though I remember some pictures, mostly sad ones. In fact, I was not born in Vinnytsia Oblast, all my ancestors are from Vinnytsia. I was born in the village of Petrivka, Synelnykivsky Region, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast. There lived my parents. My father, it seems, worked in the militia, my mother was also employed. When the war began, my parents immediately moved to Lavrivka, Vinnytsia Oblast, were the maternal parents lived. So I grew up in Vinnytsia Oblast.
I remember how the Germans bossed in our khata, and we, three children, were sitting under the stove on the clay floor. We were very hungry, and the khata smelled of sausage, because the Germans were eating sandwiches. They never shared food with us, but only demanded to bring them cucumbers, eggs, and onions. Therefore my grandmother, mother and Aunt Mariya (mother’s sister) had nothing to feed the children with. Our khata was chosen for some German officers and we were evicted. Fortunately, near the khata there was a huge cellar, divided into three “rooms”. So we stayed in one such room on straw: my grandma, Aunt Mariya, my mother, my brother Ivan, me and my younger sister Hanna. I had also the eldest brother Borys, but he had already died by the time. The German, who evicted us from the khata, happened to be a decent man. He tried his best to explain something, but no one understood him. When it grew dark, he went out into the yard, took shovels and motioned to dig below the kitchen window. And he began to dig himself. Everybody was terrified, but we kept digging… We sapped, he dismantled the foundation and a part of the wall of this cellar, went to the barn, where two cows were, and led those into the cellar. There we also brought hay during the nighttime. Then he mended the wall, filled up the pit and covered it with hay dust, so that not a trace remained.
It turned out that the next day the Germans confiscated all cows in the village for meat. We heard a terrible roar of the cows, and the grownups told that the Germans were flaying live cows. Our cows seemed to understand everything and did not moo in the cellar. In the cellar this German and another one took turns patrolling all the time. And those inside the khata did not go down into the cellar being afraid of the guerrillas. These patrolmen did not give out our cows. They took pity on three small children in need of milk. Because the Germans confiscated all products in our settlement.
Our village is situated on the right bank of the Southern Bug. And on the left bank the Soviet troops were located. When they began beating the Germans out of the village, there was a terrible shooting. The Germans were ousted, and our troops marched in. they had no sausages, but they boiled potatoes, mashed it, crumbled bread, seated all children in their laps and fed us. I remember we ate with pleasure. The Soviet forces went after the Germans, but the din continued. One day there was a perfect calm. I remember the walls pierced with holes in our khata. The broken windows, and the draft in the rooms… We were dressed, brought outside, where the yard was powdered with snow, and my mother said that we would flee. But where to…? Someone across the street advised to stay, because the Germans were on both sides of the village and the battle was about to begin again. Here another neighbor with three children went into the yard. And my grandmother asked, “Where were you hiding?” She answered, “In the khata.”−“You’d better join us in the cellar.” And as soon as they ran up to our door the battle erupted again and their khata was hit by two mines. We came down into the cellar… In spring the front advanced westward. We went out into the yard, and the ground was covered with cartridge cases and bullets of different caliber everywhere. Well do I remember it.
After the war, I was already five years old, I was playing in the yard, and there was a cow Lyska, black with white hairless spot and sharp horns. The summer was hot and I wore reds panties only. It looked like the cow disliked the red color, or something else, but it lowered her head and began approaching me. I did not run away, just thought about the cow’s strange gaze. Another moment and everything went haywire. The cow butted me in my cheek and tossed me up in the air so that I flew over the khata. Our neighbor saw it, she yelled at the top of her voice, all villagers ran out, found me behind the khata with a hole in my cheek, but alive.
There was also another occurrence: I was six or seven years old. My grandmother on mother’s side very often beat me and my elder brother Ivan. Later, when I was an adult, I learned that my grandmother did not like her son-in-law, my father. And my brother and I are like our father. This made her wild: she brutally beat us for any fault. The youngest sister was like her, our grandmother, and she was very beautiful, and the smallest, so we all were very fond of her, and her grandmother, too, and nobody hurt the little girl. Once my grandma put a box of matches into the pocket of her apron and forgot about it… She looked for them and could not find. Then she nagged at my brother Ivan: “You took it.”−“No, I did not,” he answered. She stripped him naked, tied to a pole and began beating with the soldiers’ belt, with a belt buckle. She kept beating until his back began bleeding. I felt sorry for him and I stood there crying. She caught sight of me: “Why are you weeping?” And began beating me…
I was born short-sighted, but no one knew this, and I did not know. Once I was sent to pasture two piglets beyond the village. They woke me up at five in the morning, I drove piglets barefooted, the dew was very cold, and my feet froze, as if I was trotting over the snow. Finally, at about eight o’clock, it became warmer in the sun, the dew evaporated, my legs warmed up, and at nine it became quite warm. I feel so good… But the sun burnt the piglets! What is good for me is not so good for them… They−oink, oink!