Poldina Semančinová

* 1927

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  • "That was many years before the war. We were building a house. My parents built a house and dug a well twice in their lifetime, and each time the well had saltwater in it. It was no use for anything, not for watering, not for feeding the cattle, not for anything. The water was quite salty because we were close to the Crimea where they mined for salt. I don't know how it was done, but they took the salt out of the water. So, for example, big factories had to go two hundred kilometres to get salt. Except for the Crimea."

  • "Make sure to never experience that. Never wish it on anyone, not even your worst enemy. Hunger is... it can't be told. Everything inside you is torturing you. You need to eat but have nothing. We ate the green grass, we ate the leaves off the trees."

  • "They were all dekulakised. They took them all away and they died, they all froze out there somewhere. They took them far north past Leningrad. They worked on connecting the White Sea and the Baltic Sea. The guys would dig it all by hand, the canal. They slept in tents in 50 degree frost at night, so in the morning half of them were frozen. Daddy stayed alive, and he came back. The things he told us... Half a village came in and everybody listened to daddy's stories."

  • Full recordings
  • 1

    Znojmo, 25.10.2024

    (audio)
    duration: 01:30:27
    media recorded in project Příběhy regionu - JMK REG ED
  • 2

    Znojmo, 31.01.2025

    (audio)
    duration: 01:12:11
    media recorded in project Příběhy regionu - JMK REG ED
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We ate hedgehogs, leaves and grass. I wouldn’t wish hunger on my worst enemy

Poldina Pirklová (Semančinová) in 1937
Poldina Pirklová (Semančinová) in 1937
photo: Witness's archive

Poldina Semančinová (née Pirklová) was born in southern Ukraine on 7 January 1927. Her parents František and Kristýna Pirkls owned a large farm in Chekhohrad (Novhorodkivka) near Melitopol. Her father was exiled to the Gulag as part of the forced collectivisation of the village and the farm was confiscated. In the 1930s, the mother and children experienced famine. The family subsisted as best they could. The father returned after three years and the family lived in Melitopol. The father joined General Svoboda’s army corps during World War II and stayed in Czechoslovakia after the war. He acquired a house in Hodonice in the Znojmo region after deported Germans. His wife and two daughters were only allowed to move in with him in 1953. Poldina stayed in western Ukraine and married Slovak Michal Semančin. Four children were born to them, and they were not able to move to Czechoslovak region of Znojmo to join their family until 1966. She and her sister visited Ukraine several times in the 1970s and 1980s. She describes the hardships associated with this. In 2024 she lived with her daughter in Znojmo.