Vira Biryuchenko

Vira Biryuchenko was born in 1933 in Kharkiv. Her family lived together in a big house with five children. During the war, she witnessed the occupation of Kharkiv. Until now, Vira Volodimirivna recalls the persecutions by the Germans, who killed Jewish and Roma people. 

Her family eventually fled to Kalashi. During this move, they stayed in poor conditions and lost her younger sister, who died of pneumonia. The Nazis also killed Vira’s uncle and his wife. Upon returning to Kharkiv, the family found their house destroyed but gradually restored. 

After the war, she worked at the Kharkiv Electromechanical plant, got married, and had three children. Vira Volodimirivna is now 90 years old, but she still needed to evacuate from Kharkiv to Lviv because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Illustration by Sergei Asmar