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TINA BOSCHKO

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1920:    born in Ukraine (later part of the Soviet Union)
 
1942:    a fully qualified speech therapist, she is deported to Germany, where she has to do forced labour

1943:    Ostarbeiterin, or “eastern worker”, at the German rail repair works in Diedenhofen (Thionville) in annexed France

1945:    marriage to Luxembourger Mathias Hoor
Tina Boschko in front of the fence surrounding the Ostarbeiter camp, Thionville 1943-1944
Tina Boschko’s Ostarbeiter ID card, Thionville, 1 Feb. 1943
Work
On 15 December 1942 Tina Boschko found herself forcibly mobilized for “work in Greater Germany”. She was given only one hour to pack her things and leave her family, whom she never saw again. Tina Boschko was even forced to leave her five-year-old daughter behind.
After the Wehrmacht invasion of the Soviet Union, thousands of Soviet citizens from the occupied territories were deported to the Third Reich for forced labour. They were deployed as support for the war economy. From autumn 1942, almost 4,000 Russians, White Russians and Ukrainians were sent to Luxembourg and northern France. Often they were young men, even more often women, and they were called Ostarbeiter, or “eastern workers”. They had to do hard and dangerous work in industry, without protection or training. Their clothes were marked with the letters “OST”. They were interned in so-called “Russian camps”, where they lived marginalized lives under difficult conditions and constant surveillance.
In the winter of 1943, Boschko was deployed in Diedenhofen and interned in “Russian camp” no. 1239. She kept in touch with her family through letters. In Diedenhofen she met Mathias Hoor, a Luxembourger, whom she married in 1945. After the end of the war, liberated forced labourers were returned to their homeland, where they were often labelled as traitors and collaborators. Boschko stayed in Luxembourg and started a new family.

Les Allemands commencent à envoyer des prisonniers russes dans les usines luxembourgeoises. Ce sont des femmes et des jeunes filles ukrainiennes, anciennes institutrices, élèves de lycées des jeunes filles, qui sont amenées dans un état de dénutrition lamentable. Dans chaque voiture on découvre 1-2 personnes mortes d’inanition pendant le voyage. La nourriture est presque inexistante […] .
Fernand Schwachtgen, report, 1942 

As a forced labourer in Thionville, Tina Boschko had to wear the “OST” badge, abbreviation for “Ostarbeiter”, on her clothes.
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