Letters of Soviet citizens deported to Germany to their families in Kyyiv Oblast

Scope and content

The collection contains thousands of letters of Soviet citizens who were deported to Germany, addressed to their families in Kyyiv region. The deportation of young people from the Kyyiv region for forced labor began on January 22, 1942, when the occupation forces recruited about 1,500 people. From the very beginning the deportees tried to contact home. But only in the summer of 1942 special regulations for mailing were created for the so-called Eastern workers. In November 1942, special correspondence rules were imposed; according to these rules, Ukrainians were allowed to send two postcards per month.

Most letters can be divided into three categories:
• Letters written on paper and sent in envelopes (document ID 126963511- 126963512) which are very rare;
• picture postcards with the picture motive on one side and the written text on the other side (document ID 126721583-126721584, document ID 126734232-126734233), these also occur rarely;
• -postcard issued by the National Socialist authorities with a reply card (document ID 126963613-126963614, document ID 126732016-126732017), which represent the majority of documents in the collection.

The postcard with a reply card was double and looked symmetrical. The first page was for the sender. On the first page was written mostly in German transliteration (document ID 126721583), but also in Ukrainian (document ID 126963613) first and last name of the addressee and the text of the letter. The second page contained the name, address of the sender, and was for the reply from Ukraine (document ID 126963614). In the collection, many postcards with reply have only the first page, namely that of the sender. The original postcards are usually 14.5x10.5 cm.

All postcards confirm payment for postal services by the presence of a German stamp. There is also a postmark with place and date of sending. All letters are handwritten (document ID 126721583), sometimes with a pencil (document ID 126732016-126732017). They are written in Ukrainian. It is possible that some of them are written in Russian. However, in the samples conducted, all the letters sighted were in Ukrainian.

Repeatedly, forced laborers sent photos to their families. Usually they sewed photos to the postcard with threads (document ID 126723176-126723177, document ID 126723198-126723199), sometimes they glued photos to the postcard (document ID 126729776-126729777, document ID 126729909-126729911). In the second example, the photo is no longer stuck in the original place, which can be seen from lighter paper above the photo and something like remains of glue. The majority of the sewn-on photos were separated from the postcards either by the staff of NKVD, NKGB and their successor authorities, or later by the archive staff. Usually it is possible to identify where the photo was originally sewed, because of the holes on the photo and on the postcard (document ID 126963613-126963614).

The earliest sending date is December 12, 1942 (document ID 126740025-126740026). However, Ukrainians wrote most of the letters in summer - autumn 1943. Possibly, there are also other sending dates, but the dates obtained in the samples remain within these limits. The content of the documents informs about the stay in Germany, emotional and physical condition, free time, relations with the Germans and with the forced laborers from other nations, sometimes working conditions, or work done, etc. Usually letters begin with a greeting formula listing all the relatives, sometimes greetings to family and friends are written at the end. The deportees ask many questions about the health of the family, work in the garden and general situation in Ukraine. Often they ask family members to send them a photo or some tobacco, which was considered money.

According to the order of the High Command of the Wehrmacht (germ. Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW)) of June 1942, letters were to be checked. Not everything was allowed to write. Some letters have traces of censorship, where the contents were thoroughly crossed out with black paint (document ID 126962680-126962681) by Foreign Communications Office (germ. Auslands(telegramm)prüfstelle) of the OKW, confirmed by the round red "OKW-geprüft" (OKW-checked) stamp, or by the round black stamp with the letters "Ab". On other letters, unwanted contents were crossed out with blue paint (document ID 126724149-126724150), although the text can still be seen relatively well. Depending on the content of the postcard, the Foreign Communications Office did not cross out anything (document ID 126960557-126960558; document ID 126962064-126962065). The next inspection was conducted directly by the occupation authorities on site. Sometimes one suspects a kind of "secret languages" in the letters, where certain objects were called by other names to avoid censorship. A confirmation of this can be found in the statements of eyewitnesses after the war.

Among the letters of the forced laborers there is sometimes prisoner of war mail (document ID 126959575-126959576, document ID 126959722-126959723, document ID 126969864-126969865). This mail was also checked by the postal control in the main camp (Document ID 126960489-126960490).

Most likely, the addressees never received the letters. There are two strong arguments in favor of this. First, many of the postcards with reply card still have the pre-printed reply sheet with them. Normally, it should have been torn off and mailed as a reply. Secondly, in March 2019, the State Archives of Kyyiv Oblast launched a public historical-documentary project "NeprOSTi listy" (engl. challenging letters). The origin of the project was in May 2018 when a Ukrainian historian, Vitaliy Hedz, discovered the collection in the archive. The objective of this project is to return the undelivered letters of the so-called Eastern workers from the autumn of 1943 to their current descendants.

The collection is sorted by localities. Unfortunately, in the 1960s the archive staff sometimes wrote the names of the settlements in Russian, sometimes in Ukrainian. They did not always transcribe them correctly, or did not check them. In order to avoid misunderstandings, the staff of the Arolsen Archives has checked, corrected and correctly transcribed the names. First comes the transcription from Ukrainian in brackets the transcription from Russian e.g. village Mala Vilshanka (Malaja Olshanka) (archive description ID 475984, document ID 126726322). Since the borders of Kyyiv Oblast changed several times in the second half of the 20th century, some villages are now located in Cherkasy (Cherkassy), Chernihiv (Chernigov), or Zhytomyr (Zhitomir) Oblast. Besides, some small villages (ukr. Khutir / russ. Chutor – a single-farm settlement, or a kind of rural locality in some countries of Eastern Europe) became villages, others were united, or renamed. All these changes are noted.
The villages Mala Supoyivka (Malaya Supoevka), Nedra, Pylyptcha (Pilipcha), Semenivka (Semyonovka), Sofiyivka (Sofievka), Usivka (Usovka) were photographed twice and recorded twice in the system. Because some of the photographs are defective (not always in focus, or only partially photographed), it was decided to keep duplicate photographs.

The collection contains thousands of letters of Soviet citizens who were deported to Germany, addressed to their families in Kyyiv region. The deportation of young people from the Kyyiv region for forced labor began on January 22, 1942, when the occupation forces recruited about 1,500 people. From the very beginning the deportees tried to contact home. But only in the summer of 1942 special regulations for mailing were created for the so-called Eastern workers. In November 1942, special correspondence rules were imposed; according to these rules, Ukrainians were allowed to send two postcards per month.

Most letters can be divided into three categories:
• Letters written on paper and sent in envelopes (document ID 126963511- 126963512) which are very rare;
• picture postcards with the picture motive on one side and the written text on the other side (document ID 126721583-126721584, document ID 126734232-126734233), these also occur rarely;
• -postcard issued by the National Socialist authorities with a reply card (document ID 126963613-126963614, document ID 126732016-126732017), which represent the majority of documents in the collection.
•
The postcard with a reply card was double and looked symmetrical. The first page was for the sender. On the first page was written mostly in German transliteration (document ID 126721583), but also in Ukrainian (document ID 126963613) first and last name of the addressee and the text of the letter. The second page contained the name, address of the sender, and was for the reply from Ukraine (document ID 126963614). In the collection, many postcards with reply have only the first page, namely that of the sender. The original postcards are usually 14.5x10.5 cm.

All postcards confirm payment for postal services by the presence of a German stamp. There is also a postmark with place and date of sending. All letters are handwritten (document ID 126721583), sometimes with a pencil (document ID 126732016-126732017). They are written in Ukrainian. It is possible that some of them are written in Russian. However, in the samples conducted, all the letters sighted were in Ukrainian.

Repeatedly, forced laborers sent photos to their families. Usually they sewed photos to the postcard with threads (document ID 126723176-126723177, document ID 126723198-126723199), sometimes they glued photos to the postcard (document ID 126729776-126729777, document ID 126729909-126729911). In the second example, the photo is no longer stuck in the original place, which can be seen from lighter paper above the photo and something like remains of glue. The majority of the sewn-on photos were separated from the postcards either by the staff of NKVD, NKGB and their successor authorities, or later by the archive staff. Usually it is possible to identify where the photo was originally sewed, because of the holes on the photo and on the postcard (document ID 126963613-126963614).

The earliest sending date is December 12, 1942 (document ID 126740025-126740026). However, Ukrainians wrote most of the letters in summer - autumn 1943. Possibly, there are also other sending dates, but the dates obtained in the samples remain within these limits. The content of the documents informs about the stay in Germany, emotional and physical condition, free time, relations with the Germans and with the forced laborers from other nations, sometimes working conditions, or work done, etc. Usually letters begin with a greeting formula listing all the relatives, sometimes greetings to family and friends are written at the end. The deportees ask many questions about the health of the family, work in the garden and general situation in Ukraine. Often they ask family members to send them a photo or some tobacco, which was considered money.

According to the order of the High Command of the Wehrmacht (germ. Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW)) of June 1942, letters were to be checked. Not everything was allowed to write. Some letters have traces of censorship, where the contents were thoroughly crossed out with black paint (document ID 126962680-126962681) by Foreign Communications Office (germ. Auslands(telegramm)prüfstelle) of the OKW, confirmed by the round red "OKW-geprüft" (OKW-checked) stamp, or by the round black stamp with the letters "Ab". On other letters, unwanted contents were crossed out with blue paint (document ID 126724149-126724150), although the text can still be seen relatively well. Depending on the content of the postcard, the Foreign Communications Office did not cross out anything (document ID 126960557-126960558; document ID 126962064-126962065). The next inspection was conducted directly by the occupation authorities on site. Sometimes one suspects a kind of "secret languages" in the letters, where certain objects were called by other names to avoid censorship. A confirmation of this can be found in the statements of eyewitnesses after the war.

Among the letters of the forced laborers there is sometimes prisoner of war mail (document ID 126959575-126959576, document ID 126959722-126959723, document ID 126969864-126969865). This mail was also checked by the postal control in the main camp (Document ID 126960489-126960490).

Most likely, the addressees never received the letters. There are two strong arguments in favor of this. First, many of the postcards with reply card still have the pre-printed reply sheet with them. Normally, it should have been torn off and mailed as a reply. Secondly, in March 2019, the State Archives of Kyyiv Oblast launched a public historical-documentary project "NeprOSTi listy" (engl. challenging letters). The origin of the project was in May 2018 when a Ukrainian historian, Vitaliy Hedz, discovered the collection in the archive. The objective of this project is to return the undelivered letters of the so-called Eastern workers from the autumn of 1943 to their current descendants.

The collection is sorted by localities. Unfortunately, in the 1960s the archive staff sometimes wrote the names of the settlements in Russian, sometimes in Ukrainian. They did not always transcribe them correctly, or did not check them. In order to avoid misunderstandings, the staff of the Arolsen Archives has checked, corrected and correctly transcribed the names. First comes the transcription from Ukrainian in brackets the transcription from Russian e.g. village Mala Vilshanka (Malaja Olshanka) (archive description ID 475984, document ID 126726322). Since the borders of Kyyiv Oblast changed several times in the second half of the 20th century, some villages are now located in Cherkasy (Cherkassy), Chernihiv (Chernigov), or Zhytomyr (Zhitomir) Oblast. Besides, some small villages (ukr. Khutir / russ. Chutor – a single-farm settlement, or a kind of rural locality in some countries of Eastern Europe) became villages, others were united, or renamed. All these changes are noted.
The villages Mala Supoyivka (Malaya Supoevka), Nedra, Pylyptcha (Pilipcha), Semenivka (Semyonovka), Sofiyivka (Sofievka), Usivka (Usovka) were photographed twice and recorded twice in the system. Because some of the photographs are defective (not always in focus, or only partially photographed), it was decided to keep duplicate photographs.

Literature:
Hedz, Vitaliy: Istoriya proektu „NeprOSTi lysty“ [History of the Project „NeprOSTi lysty“ (challenging letters)], 2019.05.07, in: Makarivski visti, URL http://makvisti.com/2019/05/17/istoriya-proektu-neprosti-lysty/?fbclid=IwAR3Q767EH-HXa317B7io3YLwcvgA9wSh60s8zpAMuAQGsS9s0rV2zltx_ZA (last used 2020.10.05).
Lehun, Hanna: Zensiert, beschlagnahmt, geheimgehalten. Privatfotos ukrainischer Zwangsarbeiter_innen aus der Sammlung im Winnyzja Regionalarchiv, 13.07.2020, in: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, URL https://edoc.hu-berlin.de/handle/18452/22324 (last used 2020.09.30).
Marmilova, Olha: Dzherela do vyvchennya istoriyi Ostarbayteriv s Donetchchyny [Sources for the study of the history of the “Ostarbeiter” (Eastern workers) from the Donetsk region], Vinnyzya, 2017, 297 p.
„NeprOSTi lysty“ [„NeprOSTi lysty“ (challenging letters)], official Facebook page of the project, URL https://www.facebook.com/%D0%9D%D0%B5%D0%BF%D1%80OST%D1%96-%D0%BB%D0%B8%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B8-318367345520928/ (last used 2020.10.05).
Pastushenko, Teteyana: Ostarbaytery s Kyyivshchyny: verbuvannya, prymusoa pratsya, repatrіatsіya (1942–1953) [“Ostarbeiter” (Eastern workers) from the Kyyiv region: recruitment, forced labor, repatriation (1942–1953)], Kyyiv, 2009, 282 p.

Existence and location of originals

State Archives of Kyyiv (Kiev) Oblast