Maria Holowko
We are looking for the family of Maria Holovko, born on October 29, 1926 in Poselok in the Dnipropetrovsk province of present-day Ukraine. She had a sister and a brother, Olya and Grysha. From July 1942 to March 1945—still a teenager—, Maria was forced to perform labor as a “foreign civilian worker” in a rolling mill of the Siegerland steel works in the district of Siegen. About 8.4 million civilians from the territories occupied by the Wehrmacht had to perform forced labor in the German Reich, including a very large number of young people from the Soviet Union.
Maria Holovko died in the Marburg university hospital on June 29, 1945, a few weeks after the surrender of Nazi Germany. Her final resting place was grave no. 8504 in the cemetery of that Hessian town. The Arolsen Archives have her belongings in their holdings. They include a wallet and photos with affectionate dedications from friends and her siblings.