The Kröker Family: a journey from Volhynia through Kazakhstan and Russia to Germany

Born in the German colony of Uvarovka / Neu-Aleksandrovka in Pulin district of Kyiv region (Zhytomyr region from 1937). In 1941, aged 17, she was deported from the village of Peski (Dvorichna district, Kharkiv region) to the North Kazakhstan region as a person of German nationality. 15 years in special settlement: village of Semipolka (1941–1946) → village of Sennoye, Sovetsky district (1946–1956). Released on 19 January 1956.

After release she moved to the village of Dubovskoye (Dubovsky district, Rostov region), where she settled together with her elder sister Zinaida Ivanovna Simentsova (b. 1920, also released from special settlement). Both sisters lived in Dubovskoye until the end of their lives and are buried there.

Emma Ivanovna died on 2 May 1987 in the village of Dubovskoye at the age of 62. Posthumously rehabilitated in 1993 under Russian Federation Law No. 1761-I. Personal file No. 1229 (28 sheets) is kept at the Branch State Archive of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine (HDA MVS Ukrayiny), fond 161, inventory 1, file 877; digital copy obtained on 14 May 2026.

Son of Emma Ivanovna Kröker. Born in special settlement in the village of Sennoye, North Kazakhstan region. In the original birth record entry the father is given as "Vasiliy" (identity not established); later the entry was rewritten to name his stepfather Nikolai Maksimovich Usachev (his mother's marriage on 26.07.1952).

He spent his first six years with his mother in Sennoye; in 1956, after Emma Ivanovna's release from special settlement, he moved with her to the village of Dubovskoye (Rostov region). He completed the Kupiansk Tractor Vocational School in the town of Kupiansk, Kharkiv region of the Ukrainian SSR — in the very region from which his mother had been deported in 1941 and to which she was forbidden to return for life.

Until 1975 he worked as a driver of the long-distance "Ikarus" bus on the Rostov — Kharkov route. Around 1975 he moved with his wife Lyubov (née Kryshka) to the city of Shakhty (Rostov region) and became a driver of a GAZ-66 truck in a geological exploration expedition (surveying work). Lyubov worked at the Shakhty Cotton Mill (KhBK). On 25 January 1979 their son Eugen was born in Shakhty — the author of this family archive.

In 1986 Vladimir Nikolaevich took part in the liquidation of the consequences of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. 2nd group disability. Certificate of a Chernobyl liquidator, and the medal "For Participation in the Liquidation of the Consequences of the Chernobyl Disaster".

Vladimir Nikolaevich Usachev died in Shakhty on 6 August 2023.