The 20th century brought many challenges to the people of Ukraine. Among such extreme events, the Nazi occupation of 1941-1944 was engraved in the historical memory of the people. Terrible living conditions during this period were remembered by everyone who managed to survive then. This was written not only by those who remained in the Soviet Union, but also by those who left with the occupiers to the West, in particular from Kharkov.

The theme of the life of Kharkov residents in the occupied city has a great historiographical development. But there are still many questions that await clarification. The relevance of the topic lies in the need for further study of the source base of this time, because the Second World War is an important page in the history of Ukraine. In addition, the memories of emigrants were inaccessible to Ukrainian researchers for a long time. And the analysis of these sources makes it possible to better see the daily life of the Ukrainians of Kharkov, their methods of survival during the German occupation.

The purpose of the publication is to analyze the memories of pro-Ukrainian emigrants regarding the famine during the Nazi occupation of Kharkov. To realize the set goal, the task was set: to determine the value and authenticity of the information of the memoirs in the study of the famine of 1941-1942 in Kharkov; based on the analysis of historical sources, to find out the attitude of memoirists to the food crisis at the specified time.

Research methods. The principles of historicism, objectivity, scientificity, complexity and systematicity were chosen for writing the work. Such scientific methods as retrospective analysis, synthesis, abstraction, as well as generally accepted criteria and methods of source analysis, including historical, textological, comparative and other, were used.

The study analyzed the memories of people who left the city in 1943 because of hatred for the Soviet government and unwillingness to live in the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, while abroad, these people remembered their life in Ukraine and later published their memoirs. Their references are united not only by their joint stay in a settlement occupied by the Nazis, but also by the relevance of some topics, in particular, the hunger strike of 1941-1942.

Among the memoirists are politician, lawyer, leader of the pro-Ukrainian forces of Kharkov Volodymyr Dolenko, mayor, lawyer Oleksander Semenenko, famous philologist Yuriy Shevelyov, writers Anatol` Gak, Arkadiy Lyubchenko, Dmytro Nytchenko, children of famous writers Oleksandr Voronin-Varavva, Halyna Khotkevich and others.

All these figures were pro-Ukrainian. Based on the analysis of the memoirs, the authors came to the conclusion that emigrants from Kharkov, describing the events on the eve and during the German occupation of their native city, to a certain extent shed light on the facts related to the famine of 1941-1942. This information can be divided into the following elements: 1) methods of food preparation by people on the eve of the occupation; 2) hunger and means of combating it by citizens during the "new order" period; 3) the attitude of the German command to the food supply of the native inhabitants and 4) the efforts of the local civil administration and the management of the "Prosvita" society to support two categories of Kharkov residents in this difficult situation – the pro-Ukrainian intelligentsia and the families of those repressed during the Soviet era. As for the value of memories in covering the mentioned topic, they are not equivalent in the informative aspect. First of all, the material on hunger is presented by the authors in different volumes. And if the data on the procurement of food and means of fighting hunger are in all memories, then the information about efforts to help Kharkov residents was written by O. Semenenko and V. Dolenko, who were involved in solving this problem.

Analyzing the memories of emigrants, it can be seen that they describe the famine of 1941-1942 in the same way as the eyewitnesses who remained in the Motherland. The fact that this event is reflected in all the researched publications indicates that it was a deep psychological trauma. And despite the fact that these people left Ukraine, they considered it necessary to describe this episode in their memories, without justifying the occupiers.

The use of memories of emigrants as a historical source makes it possible to investigate in more detail the activities of the city civil and German military administration in 1941-1944, to better analyze the standard of living of different strata of the population, to make a comparative analysis of events in other settlements of the Kharkov region and throughout Ukraine.

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