Maria Sergijivna Cigankova, roz. Zbirun

“[The rebels said - ed.]: ‘We’ll give you 24 hours to chose [a different house - ed.], and will give you 24 hours to move in. Don’t expect to stay anywhere. Go to your own house. Because if we’re to help one family, we have to move another family out. No one will give you back your parents, no one will give you back your family, so move in.’ So I moved in, and sometimes they came, so I had to make [them - ed.] food. When I cooked it, they came inside. And sometimes I took them a basket - there was a basket [of food - ed.] in the shed.”

“We were five children, and the sixth was a boy. Six children. Our father served in the tsar’s army at sea, he was a staff scribe, and when he completed his five years, he came home and was elected mayor of the village. He was mayor for six or seven years. Then there was a piece of land near Pisnikiv, a piece of land there, and the children were being born, so they bought the Ignatovka, they came there, bought the forest, cleared it, and lived there until 1943. And in 1943 the whole family was killed.”