Biography

Nadezhda Mikhailovna Slobodyanik was born on June 11, 1927, in the city of Zaporizhzhia into a family of civil servants.
Her father, Mikhail Petrovich Shepel, worked as the director of a crushed stone plant, while her mother, Ksenia Afanasyevna Shepel, was a housewife.
Prior to the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War, Nadezhda was attending school.
The German offensive against the Zaporizhzhia region began in August 1941, when Nadezhda was 14 years old.
The region held strategic importance due to the presence of industrial facilities.
Fierce battles raged for 40 days, a struggle that allowed for the evacuation of equipment from the local enterprises.
Her father, Mikhail Petrovich Shepel, took part in these battles, while his daughter served as a courier.
However, the opposing forces were unequal, and the Soviet Army was forced to retreat.
Thus began a period of brutal occupation that lasted for nearly two years.
The Germans evicted Nadezhda’s mother - a woman with three children - into a barn while they themselves occupied the family home.
Their situation was dire; Nadezhda’s mother fell gravely ill, and with no food available, Nadezhda took a job working in a German mess hall - a decision that ultimately ensured her family's survival.
The fascists carried out mass repressions against the civilian population; moreover, the Jewish population was subjected to near-total extermination.
Since Nadezhda’s sister, Nina, had dark hair, she was mistaken for a Jew; she miraculously escaped execution by firing squad.
Later, when the Germans began rounding up teenagers for forced labor in Germany, Nadezhda and a friend fled to a remote farmstead, where they remained in hiding until the arrival of Soviet troops.
In 1944, Nadezhda enrolled in the Railway Paramedic School in Zaporizhzhia, and in 1947, she successfully graduated from the paramedic program.
She first worked at a maternity hospital, and later at an emergency medical services station.
She married; her husband was Ivan Grigoryevich Yefimtsev. In 1958, their daughter, Elena, was born.
In 1969, she separated from her husband, moved to the Far North - specifically to the settlement of Deputatsky in Yakutia - to live and work, and married Alexander Sergeyevich Slobodyanik.
In the mid-1980s, she moved to Krasnoyarsk to live with her daughter, where she resided until her death. She passed away on April 15, 2009, at the age of 81, and was buried in Krasnoyarsk at the Badalyk Cemetery.