Student Question
What happened to Dolot's father in Execution by Hunger?
Quick answer:
In Execution by Hunger, when Dolot was three years old, his father was imprisoned by the Communists, who charged him with being a "servant of the old regime." Before Dolot's mother could visit her husband in prison, he was already dead, and she took his body home to bury it in a private ceremony.
In 1919, when Miron Dolot was three years old, his father was arrested by the Communist forces who had just reoccupied Ukraine. He was imprisoned, and charged with being "a servant of the old regime," an "exploiter of the poor," and a "bourgeois nationalist."
Dolot's mother was certain that there had been some mistake, and her husband, who had committed no crime, would soon be set free. However, when she went to visit him, she was told he was already dead. She immediately thought about how to remove his body from prison and give him a decent burial, and was able to do both. She took the corpse back home, accompanied by a detachment of soldiers from the Red Guard. The Communists stipulated that his funeral must include no members of the public, and his coffin must never be uncovered.
Dolot says that his father was a successful man in...
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a small way, but his farm was barely large enough to support his family, and he never even employed hired hands to help him with the labor. He had been elected "head of the village" shortly before the Revolution and, although the position was purely honorary, based on the community's respect for his hard work and integrity, it marked him out for death under the new regime.
What happened to Dolot's older brother in Execution by Hunger?
At the end of Execution by Hunger, Dolot writes that he does not know what happened to his family. His mother and his brother lived through the famine with him, but Dolot eventually was forced to move away. He explains that after the famine he was working as a secondary school teacher when World War II broke out. He was a soldier in the war and was taken prisoner by the Germans. After the war ended, he remained in West Germany and eventually moved to the United States. He said that his mother and brother stayed in his village, but he does not know what ended up happening to them.
The war forced many people like Dolot to move around, and since there was no internet or cell phones back then, it was hard to track family and friends down when it was over. It is thus understandable why he lost contact with his brother. However, the way Dolot describes his family at the end of the book highlights the emotional intensity of this loss. When explaining that he lost contact with his mom and brother Dolot writes,
My mother and my brother, who suffered with me, who shared with me the last morsel of food, and to whom I owe my survival, remained in the village (231).
The way Dolot stresses what his family means to him here shows his sorrow over not being able to reconnect with them.