Valentina Polyakova

Valentina Polyakova was born in 1944 in Konstantinovka, Ukraine. Her father’s family was from Izum. Her grandfather had a big house there; it was made of red brick. 

When the Germans came, they drove Valentina’s family out of the house and turned it into Nazis headquarters. Valentina Fedorivna recalls that her family knew Romani people were executed. Her father’s niece was killed together with her little baby in a gas chamber; others were shot and buried in a mass grave.

Valentina’s parents tried to stay low and avoided Germans. That is how they survived. After the war, they moved to Donetsk and later to Lviv. They lived in a big house with a yard and horses. Valentina's father worked at a confectionery plant, and her mother found work in a housing committee. Her eldest brother took care of them while they all grew up.

Illustration by Sergei Asmar