Tatyana’s War

When Nazi troops invaded her home of Donetsk, Ukraine, in 1941, Tatyana Artemyeff, a 25-year-old teacher, was left on her own to save her two children and mother when her conscripted husband’s unit retreated from the city. Luckily, Tatyana spoke German and was determined to find a way to survive the brutal occupation and keep her family from dying of starvation or execution.
Decades later, Tatyana’s daughter Helen found her diaries in a Connecticut attic, and discovered a unique account of Tatyana’s life as a teacher in the Stalinist Soviet Union, the 1941 Nazi invasion of Donetsk, her survival under Nazi occupation, and her harrowing escape to the West. This book switches seamlessly between Tatyana’s account of life and death and the story of Helen, her American-born daughter.

Born in Brooklyn, New York, of émigré parents who came to the U.S. as Displaced Persons after World War II, Helen Charov grew up in Sea Cliff, a village on Long Island’s north shore. After graduating from New York University, she traveled extensively throughout the USSR with a U.S. government exhibit. She lives in Connecticut.

Helen Charov and Tatyana Artemyeff
Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 237
Bibliographic Info: 40 photos, index
Copyright Date: 2024
pISBN: 978-1-4766-9310-1
eISBN: 978-1-4766-5142-2
Imprint: McFarland

Acknowledgments ix

Preface 1

 1. June 2001 5

 2. June 22, 1941—The Day the War Began 12

 3. 1937—The Elections 18

 4. Ukraine 1941—The Bookkeeper’s Story 25

 5. December 2002—Finding the Journal 33

 6. 1956—Brooklyn 42

 7. Summer 1923—Leaving Kovrov for Ukraine 48

 8. September 1925—School Days 54

 9. September 5, 1931—Death of Fedia 59

10. Pedagogical Technical Institute—1931–1933 64

11. Fawn Lake, New York—2002 69

12. The Harvest—1933 75

13. The 1960s 80

14. A Married Woman—June 1934 85

15. Motherhood—March 30, 1935 91

16. Donetsk, 1938—The Belobandit Uncle 98

17. My USIA Trip to USSR—1975 104

18. The Last Days Before the War—1939 111

19. Goodbye—October 13, 1941 116

20. Under the German Flag—Autumn 1941 121

21. Alexander, My Father—1941–1945 126

22. Summer 2001—The Decision of a Lifetime 132

23. Eintopf Suppe—1942–1943 137

24. The Battle for Stalingrad—1942–1943 142

25. A Close Call—Winter 1944 146

26. February to March 1944 151

27. Waldenburg, Germany—1944 155

28. Inga—Spring 1944 160

29. The Last Train for Leipzig—February 1945 166

30. Leipzig—Spring 1945 171

31. Stalag X Wietzendorf—1941–1945 177

32. Goodbye, Leipzig—April 1945 183

33. Repatriation Attempts—1945 189

34. Displaced Persons Camp—Fischbeck, 1948 194

35. A Mighty Resettlement of Peoples—1948–1949 203

36. Coming to America—January 1952 210

Epilogue: June 2007 221

Index 225

“Words fail me as I try to describe this distinctly powerful book. Page by page, translating every word of her mother’s journals, the author learns of the horrors and joys of her life, and we join her on that long road. Birth as the Russian revolution was just starting, a childhood under Stalin, terror, starvation, escape west through Ukraine into Germany during World War II, a final transition into America, and the raising of her own four children. The story is told from the present, with deep dives into the past, interweaving different worlds, documenting a life of exile, and an inability to let go of the magic of an imaginary Russia. The experience is so personalized that you feel as if you are living through it with her. You will not be able to put it down!”—Tania Romanov, author of One Hundred Years of Exile: A Romanov’s Search for Her Father’s Russia