MEMORY LIVES IN FAMILIES
Every family carries fragments of history — photographs, letters, documents, objects, and stories passed from one generation to another.
These personal memories reveal what official records often leave out: how repression, deportation, imprisonment, war, and displacement were experienced by individual people and families.
We preserve these stories so that private memory becomes part of our shared history.
ZINAIDA SHEVCHENKO
Local historian and community activist
Khmelove, Kirovohrad Region, Ukraine
“Our task is to document and preserve the memory of a past that was silenced under the Soviet regime.”
VOLODYMYR KOLOT
Grandson of Kyrylo Davydovych Kolot
Executed in Bykivnia near Kyiv in 1937
“Even though my grandfather was branded an ‘enemy of the people,’
the whole family fought — for the USSR, as they used to say, for Stalin.”
VASYL MISHCHUK
Family history of Soviet repression
Dnipro, Ukraine
“My grandfather was one of the few who survived the execution at Lutsk Prison. My father was later sentenced under Article 54-11 when he was only sixteen.”
FATHER IVAN KATKALO
Priest, Orthodox Church of Ukraine
Viknino, Cherkasy region, Ukraine
“During the Holodomor, eleven people in our household survived because my grandfather had hidden grain in the cellar. Not one of them died.”
MYKOLA BENDIUK
Artist-restorer · Head of the Art Cluster, Ostroh Academy · Rivne, Ukraine
“From generation to generation, my family fought for an independent Ukraine. My mother was left an orphan at the age of three.”
VALENTYNA VLASENKO
Family memory of the Holodomor
Dnipro, Ukraine
“He was swollen from hunger, and he didn’t get up again until he died.” For decades, families carried memories like this in silence.
MARTA HRYTSIAK & TARAS ROMANIUK
Daughter and grandson of Yevhen Hrytsiak
Ustia, Kolomyia District, Ukraine
“The uprisings in Norilsk, Vorkuta,
and Kengir were, in fact, the beginning of the end of the Soviet system. The struggle for Ukraine’s freedom continues across generations.”
VASYL DUDKO
Born into a family deported by the Soviet authorities · Dnipro, Ukraine
“Sixty-eight families were forcibly relocated from our village. My parents were deported to the Far East, and I was born in a camp in Amur Oblast.”
IVAN DREMLYUGA
Head of the Regional Society of Political Prisoners and Repressed · Dnipro, Ukraine
“It is essential to speak about repression, remember it, and draw conclusions from our past. Without its own state, a nation cannot survive.”
ZHANNA KRYZHANOVSKA
Daughter of the repressed Mykola Bereslavsky
Dnipro, Ukraine
“My father had no illusions about Soviet values. His national consciousness was shaped by people who helped him understand what Ukraine meant.”
EDUARD ANDRUSHCHENKO
Historian · Author of KGB Archives: True Stories
Kyiv, Ukraine
“The repressions of the 1930s were not about logic, but about fear and chaos. The KGB conducted surveillance before arrests — using eavesdropping, photographs, and informants.”
DMYTRO SYNYTSIA
Retired rural teacher · Born in Vorkuta
Dnipro, Ukraine
“My father told me, ‘Your real birthday is the day Stalin died.’ I was born in a prison hospital in Vorkuta and learned the truth only as an adult.”
OLENA LEGOSTAYEVA & KALERIYA POPOVA
State Archive of the Dnipropetrovsk Region
Dnipro, Ukraine
“Files contain not only information, but also a heavy human energy. Each case preserves a personal tragedy that still demands to be remembered.”
DMYTRO KARAN
Chaplain of the Armed Forces of Ukraine
Kyiv, Ukraine
“This war is existential: if we have no right to exist, then we must defend not only our land, but our very identity.”
