Oleksandra Radchenko’s Diary

Oleksandra Radchenko’s Diary

Oleksandra Mykolayivna Radchenko was born in 1896 in Okhtyrka, Sumy Oblast, and died in 1965 in Vovchansk, Kharkiv Oblast. She was a Ukrainian teacher and a political prisoner of the Soviet regime. From 1926 to 1945, she kept a diary in which she described events during the Holodomor. On July 7, 1945, an NKVD investigator signed Oleksandra’s arrest warrant, citing her diaries as the main evidence of «anti-Soviet propaganda and agitation.» She returned from the camps in 1955 and was rehabilitated in 1991. Part of her diaries was published in 2007.

From 1926 to 1936, she worked as a teacher in Kharkiv region. Due to her position, she had a food ration, which allowed her and her children to survive the famine. During this time, she made diary entries concerning the Holodomor of 1932–1933.

From 1937 to 1939, she worked at a meteorological station. In 1940, she moved with her family to Bukovina. In 1941, Bukovina was occupied by Romanian troops, who were allies of the German forces at the time. Oleksandra and her husband Vasyl were arrested and sent to a camp. They were there for several months until Vasyl’s acquaintances helped secure their release. After their release, Vasyl continued to work as a forester. Initially, Oleksandra hoped that the new government would «liberate them from the Communists,» so she connected with a German journalist who promised to publish her diaries about the Holodomor. However, the diaries were never published, and Oleksandra eventually realized that the new government was no better than the Soviet one.

In 1941–1942, she kept a diary about the crimes of the new regime. In 1943, her 17-year-old daughter Elida was taken for forced labor to Germany. In 1944, her husband, labeled a «fascist collaborator,» was sent to a Soviet penal battalion. In 1945, her daughter and husband returned home, but Oleksandra was arrested for her diaries, discovered during a search. Seven diary notebooks were confiscated, three of which were later destroyed by the KGB.

Her daughter Elida recounted those events: «Mother never hid her diaries. They got into the box where the diaries were kept. I managed to throw five or six general notebooks that were on the table under the pillow. After mother’s arrest, we started reading them, and there were so many horrors written about the Holodomor that we decided the whole family would be executed, so we burned them…»

However, the remaining diaries were sufficient to convict the teacher. The investigation lasted six months. Oleksandra immediately admitted that she had kept the diaries, but the investigator forced her to confess that she had kept them to discredit the Soviet Union. On December 17, 1945, in the city of Proskuriv (now Khmelnytskyi), she was sentenced to 10 years in the Gulag for «counter-revolutionary diaries.» At the trial, she retracted all statements made under pressure and stated: «The purpose of my writings was to dedicate them to my children. I wrote that in 20 years, children would not believe that such cruel methods were used to build socialism. In Ukraine, in 1930–1933, the Ukrainian people experienced horror…»

During her imprisonment, she fought for her release and wrote protests, but to no avail. She returned home in August 1955 with her health undermined by the camps.

During the investigation, three diaries were burned. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the diaries were handed over to the SBU (Security Service of Ukraine). In 2001, her daughter Elida heard on the radio that it was possible to review her mother’s diaries. Only in 2007 were parts of the diaries published in the book «Unclassified Memory.»

(From Wikipedia)

Links:

Олександра Радченко — репресована за пам’ять

https://www.istpravda.com.ua/articles/2020/11/27/158564/

Александра Радченко: репрессирована за память

https://argumentua.com/stati/aleksandra-radchenko-repressirovana-za-pamyat