Ihor Shevchenko (b. 1926) was Ukrainan farmer and veteran of the Great Patriotic War. When World War III broke out in 1951, he and his wife Anya lived on a kolkhoz (collective farm), designated 127, outside Kiev. He and his family had survived Joseph Stalin's purges and collectivization of the Ukraine throughout the 1930s. When he was 15, Germany invaded the Soviet Union. Unlike some of his neighbors, Shevchenko didn't quite accept the Germans with open arms. Once the Nazis showed their true colors, Shevchenko joined a partisan band operating outside of Kiev.