“While in Slovakia he received a letter from my mom that his daughter was born and that she would be named Milenka. When he was there, he would always send letters and blue and red ribbons and he would always write: ´I don’t care if it’s a girl or boy. But if it’s a girl, when she grows up, she will be helping mommy.´ Thinking he would perhaps never come back. But it is already given. He received this letter and exclaimed: ´Guys! I have a daughter! My daughter was born!´ And he was jumping with joy and they replied: ´How jolly you look! You are already over thirty, and you’re jumping here.´ And he said: ´I’ll write them a letter right now.´ And he went outside and sat down on a stump. He began writing. But somewhere nearby a sniper was lurking and shot him dead.”
“The wedding was held in January in the church. And as they were being married, an icon was being lowered, and ribbons laid upon it. And when they began lowering the icon, it suddenly fell down and broke. It was in 1944 and the Cossacks were there. Such was their wedding. And on 17th March all left for the front.”
Interviewer: “Who actually came here after the Czechs?”
“Slovaks came. But they had contracts that they were to stay here for fifty years. And just after the fifty years have passed they left. Some went to Slovakia, some to Uzhgorod in the Subcarpathian region and many of them left immediately after the kolchoz started, to Crimea and Odessa. But the Slovaks had lived there with the Gypsies, and some were perhaps mingled with them as well. And some had their language and culture and this was evident.”
“I married in 1964 and my daughter Lenička was born in 1966. She died in 1968. She scalded herself. But I think it was God, or this Czech spirit, which gave me the strength to survive. All were telling me: ´Milka, Emílie, you’ve got strong will.´ And I really do. There was my grandmother, mom, and me. My husband was working in Rovno and my stepfather went to deliver apples to Leningrad. Lenička loved her grandpa and she was always begging him to take her with him. And he told her this was not possible. ´I’ll bring you anything you want.´ He bought her shoes and a coat there. We slaughtered a pig. And in this kitchen right here, we had a stove, there was no gas back then, she was helping us, bringing the guts, and they were messy, overflowing. She was here among the Poles and Slovaks and us, she could understand words in Czech, Slovak and Ukrainian. She was two years and eight months. And suddenly, as grandma was taking that kettle with soup, or jelly, from the stove, she fell in there. They took her to Dubno immediately, an ambulance arrived, but she died there.”
Interviewer: “What do you remember about Stalin’s death in 1953?”
“We were in school. We went to the auditorium and they told us: ´Stalin died.´ And we stood still... in silence. There was silence.”
Interviewer: “And what do you actually think about Stalin today?”
“And who knows something? Nothing much was told about him. They taught about him in schools. But he died and nothing more was told. It’s only now they’re speaking about him. When I was going to school before in Rovno, nobody was talking about him. And now? And why? I don’t know.”
Emilie Kuročenko (Tenglerová) was born November 27, 1944 in the village of Molodava in Volhynia. She never saw her father Josef Tengler as he was killed shortly after her birth near the village of Borovec in Slovakia when he served in the Czechoslovak corps. Her mother Olga remarried a Russian army doctor, and in 1947 the family thus did not emigrate to Czechoslovakia but remained in Ukraine. Emilie Kuročenko studied in the Construction Institute in Rivne, graduated as a building engineer, and then she worked in the construction industry untill her retirement. Today she still regards herself as a Czech and she is active in Stromovka, a local organization of Czech expatriates. She has a bookcase full of Czech books at home and thanks to her, a memorial plaque was erected in Molodava, commemorating the Czechs who perished in WWII. She also looks after the local Czech cemetery and it is especially thanks to her activity that the former presence of Czech population who had lived in her native village is still visible.
