AW: My parents hid [food] wherever they could. Here, we have basements, but at home nobody had basements. So they dug holes and hid food there. In the kitchen my parents dug a hole and hid food there. There was a table [over the hole]. There was a committee that came around with a cart and took whatever people had. We children were home alone [when the committee came]. We had a dog, which was sitting under the table right where our parents had buried the food. They came in and asked where our parents were. We said we didn’t know. They asked if our parents had hidden anything. We said we didn’t have anything or know anything. My little brother Volodya said, “There’s something under the dog’s tail.” And the dog was sitting right on the hole. They thought about what my brother said, and laughed. Had they chased the dog off, they would have found the hole. My brother was three years old, and said, “Under the dog’s tail.” They had a laugh, and left. They didn’t find anything. Our little brother saved us, because if they had found that [food] they would have taken it away.

Antonina Witrowych (nee Prychodko)

Date of birth: 25 May 1929

Place of birth: Dnipropetrovsk city

Witnessed Famine in: Dnipropetrovsk city

Arrived in Canada: 1951

Current residence: Winnipeg

Date and place of interview:  16 March 2009, Winnipeg

Excerpt From Full Interview