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Table of Content

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This page examines the historical events that led to the tragedy called the - literally, “murder bystarvation”, a Ukrainian term for the engineered famine that killed millions of Ukrainians in 1932-1933 under theregime of Joseph Stalin. Study the timeline and the primary and secondary sources provided in order tounderstand the circumstances that caused this massive forced starvation of several million men, women andchildren in central Ukraine during Stalin’s leadership. Explore the arguments of genocide ‘believers’ and ‘deniers’,and the role of diaspora survivors in revealing the Soviet era cover-up.

http://www.holodomorsurvivors.ca/Video/video/Files/Aleksandra%20Brazhnyk_video.htmlEye-witness account of survivor Alexandra Brazhnyk

Source: http://www.holodomorsurvivors.ca/Survivors.html

– the word “Bolshevik” is Russian, derived from “one of the majority”. They were members of theRussian Social Democratic Labour party who split from the minority Menshevik faction in 1903. They believedthemselves to be leaders of the revolutionary working class of Russia. Led by Lenin, the Bolsheviks foundedthe Communist Party in 1912 and brought about the takeover of the Russian government after the OctoberRevolution in 1917.

– a government policy in which private ownership of farmland is discontinued; land is forciblytaken from land owners and amalgamated into government-owned structures known as collective farms. Theywere large agricultural units where people worked in a factory-like environment controlled by the totalitarianSoviet government.

– a totalitarian system of government in which all the land, natural resources, industries andinstitutions, including education and media, are owned or controlled by the government.

– a group of people who have been ‘dispersed’ from the area in which they had lived for a long timeor who are living outside the area in which their ancestors lived.

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Definitions

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– the Russian acronym for the government agency that ran Soviet forced labour camps during theStalin era between 1930 and 1950. The camps were established to punish anyone who dared to oppose thegovernment. Many Ukrainian farmers, kulaks (see definition below) and political dissidents were imprisoned inthese concentration camps.

– a break-off principality formed in the western regionsof the Kyivan Rus State in the latter Middle Ages.

– group of predominantly East Slavic-speaking people who became known asmembers of democratic, self-governing, semi-military communities, mainly located in Ukraine and in Russia.They fled to the south and east borderlands of Kyivan Rus to escape national and religious persecution inPoland-Lithuania. They tried to establish an independent Ukrainian Kozak State and served in the cavalryunder the czars in return for special privileges.

– refers to the successful independent farmers who resisted collectivization.Stalin’s drive to liquidate the kulaks resulted in more than 600,000 Ukrainian farmers and their families beingexecuted, deported or sent to Gulag camps.

– a powerful independent state (est. 882 AD) that preceded the formation of current-day Ukraine.The indigenous land of Ukrainians, Kyivan Rus is often mistaken as land that belonged to the principality ofMuscovy (est. 1283 AD). Some history books incorrectly interpret the term ‘Rus’ as the short form for Russia.

– transformation from a mainly agricultural society to one that is based on manufacturing ofgoods. Manual labour is replaced by mechanization.

– a break-off principality formed in the north-eastern regions of the Kyivan Rus State.

– a systematic effort to persuade people to accept certain ideas or to mold people’s views into aparticular mindset using such means as education, mass media, public meetings, and publications of variouskinds.

– laws, decrees, and aggressive actions taken by imperialist Russia and Soviet authoritiesbetween 1700 and 1991, aimed at imposing Russian language and culture, and social and political systems onall non-Russians.

– a select group of police or small agency within government known to suppress political dissentthrough terror, intimidation, torture and killing. In the Russian empire, they were first called by the acronymCHEKA, and later in the USSR, they were known as OGPU, NKVD and KGB.

– a political system in which one political party or group maintains control over all spheres oflife. Totalitarian governments are extreme dictatorships that combat all opposing groups and ideas and allrivals. Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, the Soviet Union and all communist countries were examples of totalitariangovernments.

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https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ukraine_in_Europe_(-rivers_-mini_map).svg

This Really HappenedThe Famine of 1932-33 is called the Holodomor, a Ukrainian word that means prolonged, agonizing murder bystarvation. The Holodomor is known as an artificial famine because it was not caused by crop failure or naturaldisaster. Joseph Stalin created the conditions for mass starvation in order to destroy the people who dared tooppose his government’s plan for collectivization and industrialization.

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Soviet-era historians present various explanations for the Famine of 1932-1933, such as excesses in the Sovietdrive for collectivization, the slaughter of livestock by farmers opposed to collective farms, drought, and a poorharvest. However, most scholars and Ukrainian survivors of the Holodomor have evidence to confirm that theFamine was deliberately planned and artificially engineered. It was the result of natural causes, such asdrought or a poor harvest. During the years of the Famine, the weather conditions were favourable and the harvestwas plentiful enough to feed the entire population of Ukraine, as evidenced by official government reports fromthose years. Survivor accounts confirm that the Famine was artificially created by Stalin’s government. Thegovernment imposed crop quotas that were excessive, demanding that the entire harvest in the fields of Ukraine beconfiscated, as well as all food supplies in people’s homes.

By the fall of 1932, the rural population of Ukraine was starving. Laws, such as the Decree of August 7, 1932, madeit a punishable crime to gather and hide for oneself any produce from the fields, as these were declared to be“socialist property.” Entire regions of Ukraine were placed under food blockades, with orders to halt the delivery offood to stores in these regions. Distressingly, as millions lay dying in the streets and in village huts, Sovietgranaries were filled to capacity with the year’s harvest. Large shipments of grain were sold to Germany and othercountries, contributing to a depression-era drop in the price of wheat in Europe.

Soviet regions just outside the borders of Ukraine (other than the Don and the Kuban, inhabited by formerUkrainian Kozaks) experienced minimal food shortages. Police patrols had to be placed on Ukraine’s bordersduring the time of the Holodomor to keep starving Ukrainians from crossing into Russia where they could obtainfood to survive.

Official documents and materials now available to the public confirm the extreme lengths taken by Stalin’s regime tosuppress news of the artificial Famine in 1932-33. Soviet authorities ordered the press to deny the existence of theFamine, and severely punished anyone who spoke or wrote about it. The country was eventually closed to foreigncorrespondents. The suppression of the truth continued for several decades until the collapse of the Soviet Unionin 1991.

A few western journalists who travelled to Soviet Ukraine in 1932-33 were too intimidated to write about what theywere witnessing at the time. They chose to share their experiences after they were safely at home. Journalists suchas Malcolm Muggeridge and Gareth Jones were appalled by the starvation and loss of life, particularly in centralUkraine. Unfortunately, one very influential journalist, Walter Duranty, denied that he had witnessed the horribleresults of the Famine in exchange for lavish Soviet favours. Duranty’s articles for the New York Times in 1932-33convinced many people that reports of starvation in Ukraine were untrue. He pointed to large grain exports from theSoviet Union as proof that all was well in Ukraine.

Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, researchers have gained access to hidden governmentdocuments and Communist Party archives. They have found numerous documents that prove the conditions forforced famine were created by Stalin’s regime. Stalin himself admitted to Prime Minister Winston Churchill that 10million peasants died in Ukraine and neighbouring regions in the 1932-1933 Famine. He viewed this as successfulrevenge against people who were considered to be hostile to the Soviet communist system.

Adapted from http://ncua.inform-decisions.com/eng/files/UkrGenocide_Teacher_Student_Workbook.pdf. Used withpermission.

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https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=36679963

Current-day Ukrainians trace their historical roots to the Kyivan Rus State, which was one of the strongest andmost influential social, political and economic powers of Europe between the 9th and 14th centuries. The state wasmade up mostly of Slavic tribes, with the major tribe, the Polianians, eventually becoming ethnic Ukrainians. TheMeryans, in the north, a Finno-Ugric tribe, became the Russian peoples. The history is clear - Ukrainians andRussians did not stem from the same Slavic tribe, nor did Ukrainians evolve from Russian tribes or historic states.

The Kyivan Rus State, with its capital, Kyiv, was a major hub of north-south and east-west trade beginning in the9th century. The territory was very susceptible to Mongol and Tatar invasions from the East. By the 12th century,the Tatars had destroyed Kyiv and the state was splintered into several principalities, two of which were Vladimir-Sudal-Rostov in the East and Halych-Volhynia in the West.

The town of Moscow was founded in the east beginning in the 14th century. The surrounding area became knownfirst as the Muscovite State. By the 19th century, the Muscovite State became the Russian Empire. In the west,Ukrainian lands were incorporated into the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. For a brief time, the Ukrainian KozakState existed on the fringes of the Commonwealth. Ultimately, the Kozak State fell to the Russian Empire led byPeter the First. Catherine the Second of Russia continued Russian imperialism by expanding the empire andenforcing russification on the Ukrainian population.

In the 19th century, Russian leaders introduced the secret police and continued imperial expansion, makingrussification a government policy. It was at this time that the descendants of the Kyivan Rus State began to refer tothemselves as Ukrainians, in order to clearly differentiate their nationality from Muscovites/Russians.

Early in the 20th century, following the abdication of Tsar Nicholas the Second of Russia, the Russian socialistpolitical parties were formed and the Bolshevik (later Communist) party under Vladimir Lenin seized power. Leninbelieved that a transition to true communism required a period of dictatorship. The Bolsheviks laid claim to all landsof the former Russian empire. They established the secret police to imprison and execute anyone who opposedSoviet dictatorship, calling them "enemies of the state".

In 1918, Ukrainians declared independence and created the Ukrainian National Republic, but were soon overrun byGerman and Austrian forces. A civil war ensued on Russian-held territory as the Bolsheviks continued toconsolidate power. Six different armies were operating on Ukrainian lands during this time of anarchy and collapseof authority. When Ukraine was allied with Poland for a short term it gained some ground, but by 1920 all of Easternand central Ukraine except Crimea was taken over again by the Bolsheviks. In 1922, the Communists created theUnion of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.) as a federation of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Transcaucasia.

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When the U.S.S.R. collapsed in 1991, Ukraine regained its independence.

Photo provided by the Ukrainian Canadian Congress – Saskatchewan. Petro Nakutnyy

The following timeline provides an overview of historical events leading up to the Holodomor. It traces Ukraine’shistory from 1918 to the present day.

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Ukrainian National Republic 1918 Bolsheviks create the Russian Soviet FederatedSocialist Republic.

Ukraine declares a short-lived UnitedUkrainian National Republic byincorporating Western Ukrainian lands

1919

Ukrainian nationalist forces unable torepel foreign aggression [(Red Army,White Army, Poles, Entente); leadersforced into exile.

1918-1921

War; CommunismBolshevik policy aims to establish a totalitariansocialist order; nationalizes all productive property;Cheka (secret police) and the Bolshevik Red Armysuppress worker and peasant uprisings.

Ukrainian lands divided up betweenfour countries: Russia, Poland,Czechoslovakia and Romania.

1921 Red Army takes most of Ukrainian territory. A periodof inflation, food rationing, forced labour andeconomic collapse ensues.

First Famine in UkraineThe expropriation of grain, a poor cropand severe food rationing result in1.5-2.0 million deaths by starvation inUkraine.

1921-1923

The expropriated food is sent to feed Russian citiesand the Red Army.

Source: Subtelny, O. 2009. Ukraine: A History, Fourth ed. Toronto, pp. 380-381

1922 Russia creates the Union of SovietSocialist Republics (USSR), includingRussia, Ukraine, Belarus andTranscaucasia. Ultimate control,however, is by the Central Committee ofthe Communist Party in Moscow.

In Ukraine, this policy is called 'Ukrainization' andresults in a significant social, political, culturalrenaissance, as well as the spread of a nationalconsciousness.

1923 The USSR introduces a policy to recruitnon-Russians to the Communist Party.

1924 Vladimir Lenin dies and a struggle forpower sees Joseph Stalin take control ofthe Communist Party. Stalin aims to makeall non-Russian republics into one singleRussian socialist/communist state. Heuses the OGPU, successor to Chekasecret police, to eliminate all internalopposition. Through terror, deportationsand executions Stalin assumes completecontrol.

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Of the approximate 29 million people in Ukraine,80% are ethnic Ukrainians and 89% of the farmingsector population is Ukrainian and demonstrateslittle desire for communist totalitarianism.

1926 Stalin fears that the peasant class, whichowns agricultural land, is the social baseof Ukrainian nationalism, and are thus,‘enemies of the state’.

Collectivization meets with opposition fromsuccessful, wealthier, independent farmers.

1928 Stalin introduces the first Five Year Plan,a state imposed 'revolution from above',focused on rapid industrialization tomodernize the USSR. He initiates forcedtotal collectivization of agriculture (fromprivate farms into state-owned) so thestate can sell grain abroad and pay forindustrialization.

Stalin directs his secret police, OGPU, to arrestUkrainian political, intellectual and religiousleaders for allegedly belonging to a fictitious Unionfor the Liberation of Ukraine and conspiring for theseparation of Ukraine from the USSR. Next heliquidates the Ukrainian Autocephalous(autonomous) Orthodox Church, sends bishopsand priests to labour camps.

Through executions, deportations or exile to theGulag (Soviet prison camps) over 600,000farmers and their families are liquidated, theirproperty transferred to collective farms.

Moscow sends in urban workers to expropriateproperty, organize collectives and supervise grainshipments; peasant uprisings are quelled by theregular army and OGPU units; any protesters areimprisoned or killed. Peasants slaughter farmanimals in protest.

1929 -1931

Stalin regards Ukrainian nationalisttendencies as an impediment to buildingsocialism.

The Soviet state labels successfulfarmers as 'kulaks' and 'enemies of thestate' and Stalin calls for the 'liquidationof the kulaks as a class'.

Stalin launches an attack on theremaining mass of farmers, most of whomoppose collectivization.

Famine spreads in Ukraine. There is not enoughgrain to meet government demands and to feedpeople. Many peasants flee collective farms, seekfood in towns and cities.

The Ukrainian Communist Party pleads with Stalinto lower grain quotas.

1932 The state creates penalties and policiesmaking private farming economicallyimpossible, sets unrealistically high grainquotas for collective farms and demandsthey give up seed grain reserves.

> August:Stalin responds by sending hisassociates to supervise grainprocurements, to use harsher methods,and to confiscate every last bit of grain inorder to meet collection quotas. A lawwritten on August 7, 1932, known as theLaw of Five Stalks of Grain, threatenedsevere punishment, even death, forpicking any food, including grains, fromthe fields.

Red Army units, OGPU secret police andurban Russian communist activists act asenforcers.

> November:

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Swollen from hunger, desperate peasants eatrats, tree bark and leaves to survive. Numerouscases of cannibalism are recorded.

Demographers claim that at least four* millionmen, women, children have starved to death inUkraine as well as at least 600,000 deaths in thepredominantly Ukrainian Kuban region.

> November:Villages, farms believed to be sabotaginggrain requisitions, are placed on ablacklist, no food or goods can enter orleave. Over one-third of Ukrainianvillages are put on this list, people arecondemned to starvation.

> DecemberAn internal passport system is introduceddenying farmers any ability to travel tocities or outside of Ukraine to seek food;essentially confines them to stay homeand starve!

*In a meeting with Winston Churchill in 1942, Stalinadmits to 10 million deaths during collectivization.

During the spring and summer of June – July1933:

28,000 people are dying perday,

1,167 people are dying perhour,

19 people are dying per minute

one-third of these deaths arechildren under 10 years old.

Western governments, such as Great Britain,France, USA and Canada, are aware of theHolodomor but choose not to interfere in the'internal affairs of the USSR'.

Stalin's artificial famine destroys one quarter ofUkraine's population, particularly the mostproductive farmers, and traumatizes the Ukrainianpeople for generations (intergenerational trauma).

The famine provides a path to Soviet repopulationof areas where massive starvation occurred.Through the addition of Russian and other Sovietpeoples to Ukraine and the dispersion ofUkrainians throughout the Soviet Union overseveral years, ethnic unity is destroyed andnationalities are mixed.

1933 > JanuaryStalin seals the border so that noUkrainian farmers can enter Russia,where there is no famine.

Stalin appoints Postyshev to speed upgrain collection and to reprimandUkrainian Communists for failing to meetquotas. Some Communists begin callingStalin's brutality in Ukraine 'genocidal'.Postyshev's gangs of activists conductbrutal house searches, tear up floors andwalls looking for grain. Watchtowers areplaced around farm fields; guards aredirected to shoot anyone picking cropsfor food.

At the height of this artificially-inducedFamine (Holodomor), Stalin's unrelentingdrive to finance industrialization sees theSoviet government selling wheat to othercountries and at below-market prices.

The Soviet government* denies theFamine, refuses help from anyinternational charitable organizations likethe Red Cross.

*(Soviet propaganda and disinformationcampaigns continue this denial into the1980s.)

Ukrainian communist officials are replaced byRussian officials. Ukrainian cultural and politicalleaders are imprisoned or killed. Any spoken orwritten mention of the Holodomor is strictlyforbidden and harshly punished.

By Soviet policy, Russian is to become thelanguage and culture of all of the peoples of the

1933 -1938 Ever fearful of Ukrainian nationalism, of

'losing Ukraine', Stalin instructsPostyshev to complete Russiancolonization, to destroy any remaining'Ukrainization'.

Russification of Ukraine ensues,

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language and culture of all of the peoples of theUSSR.

Russification of Ukraine ensues,continuing 18th century policies of theRussian Empire.

The Ukrainian Communist Party declares theFamine was a 'national tragedy', but does notadmit that is was genocide.

1990

Ukraine declares its independence after the USSRdissolves.

1991

President Viktor Yushchenko, Ukraine's first pro-Western leader, and the Ukrainian parliamentrecognize the Holodomor as genocide.

2006 Russian parliament passes a resolutiondenying that the Holodomor wasgenocide.

Pro-Russian Ukrainian President ViktorYanukovych rejects the Holodomor as genocide.

2010

Massive public protests by Ukrainians, similar tothose that took place on the Maidan in 2004,demand integration into Europe after PresidentYanukovych refuses to sign an associationagreement with the European Union. Millions ofpeople gather in Independence Square in Kyiv toprotest corruption and human rights violations andeventually force President Yanukovych to flee thecountry.

2014 Fearing a resurgence in Ukrainiannationalism, Russia annexes the Crimeaand begins using hybrid warfare todestabilize Ukrainian sovereignty.

The Holodomor is presented as genocide inhistory texts and is studied by students inUkrainian schools.

2015 The Kremlin continues to deny theHolodomor.

http://ncua.inform-decisions.com/eng/files/UkrGenocide_Teacher_Student_Workbook.pdf, pp.6,7http://www.faminegenocide.com/resources/facts.htmlhttp://www.holodomorct.org/HOLODOMOR-MAPS-DEMOGRAPHY.htmlMagocsi, P. 1996. A History of Ukraine, Toronto, pp.557-563Klid, D. & Motyl, A. 2012. The Holodomor Reader, Edmonton, Toronto, pp. 80-81http://www.umanitoba.ca/libraries/units/archives/media/Lecture_XVI-Serbyn.pdf (p.3)Hrushevsky, M., 1970. A History of Ukraine, Yale.Hrushevsky, M., 1999. History of Ukraine-Rus', Vol. 7, Edmonton, Toronto.Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine. Kyivan Rus’.http://www.encyclopediaofukraine.com/display.asp?linkpath=pages%5CK%5CY%5CKyivanRushDA.htmKuryliw, V., 2016. Holodomor in Ukraine (in press)Lemkin: Genocide against Ukrainians. http://www.infoukes.com/lists/politics/2008/10/0012.htmlhttp://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/article/deleting-holodomor-ukraine-unmakes-itself

The timeline traces Russian imperialist aggression toward Ukraine beginning in the 19th century. You will noticethat the Holodomor was one in a series of attempts by Russian imperialists and later Soviet authorities, to dominatethe land and people of Ukraine. However, the Holodomor was the most ruthless of all, in that Stalin’s decreescreated the conditions for mass genocide. As reports of starvation continued to surface, there was no compassionand no reversal of the plan. Stalin was determined to destroy Ukrainian citizens who openly defied communistideology and collectivization within the USSR. The result was massive starvation of millions of men, women, childrenand infants.

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This engineered famine and tragic loss of millions of lives has gained international recognition. However, there arestill many countries that do not officially recognize the events of 1932-33 as a genocide created by the totalitarianregime of Joseph Stalin. Before you draw your own conclusions about Holodomor as genocide, let’s take some timeto examine primary and secondary sources of information.

Source: www.encyclopediaofukraine.com/

CC AUCP (b) – Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolshevik) based in Moscow

Artifact 1: Politburo Resolution on Grain Procurement in Ukraine

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CC CP (b) U – Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolshevik) of Ukraine based in KharkivRGASPI – Russian State Archive of Socio-Political HistoryUkrainian SSR RNK – Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic Rada Narodnykh Komisariv (RNK), or Council of Peoples’Commissars of the Ukrainian Socialist Soviet Republic

Source: . Compiled by Ruslan Pyrih; Translated by Stephen Bandera,Kyiv Mohyla Academy Publishing. (2008). p.77.

Eyewitness account: http://www.rferl.org/content/ukraine-holodomor-famine-survivors/25178009.html

Artifact 2: Report from the Consul of Italy in Kharkiv

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Source: . Compiled by Ruslan Pyrih; Translated by Stephen Bandera,Kyiv Mohyla Academy Publishing. (2008). p.114-115.

Taken from: Published by the Ukrainian NationalAssociation, p. 33. The source of information is “Natsionalisti SSR” by Kozlov, p. 29.Small Soviet Encyclopedia, 1940 edition, under “U” – “Ukrainian SSR”; Ukraine’s population in 1927 censuslisted at 32 million; in 1939 (twelve years later) – 28 million.

USSR 137,397,000 100.0 170,557,100 100.0 +16.0

Russians 77,791,001 54.0 99,591,500 54.0 +28.0

Byelorussians 4,738,900 3.3 5,275,400 3.1 +11.3

Ukrainians 31,195,000 21.6 28,111,000 16.5 -9.9

Source: Cultural Construction of the USSR, Moscow: Government Planning Pub., 1940, pages 40-50.

1914-1915 4,965,318 1,492,878 235,065

1928-1929 5,997,980 1,585,814 369,684

1938-1939 7,663,669 985,598 358,507

Charts reprinted from http://ncua.inform-decisions.com/eng/files/UkrGenocide_Teacher_Student_Workbook.pdf. Used with permission.

Artifact 3 – Population Figures

Artifact 4 - Resettlement Directives

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SNK – Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR (Soviet Narodnyhkh Komisariv)CC CP (b) U – Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolshevik) of Ukraine based in Kharkiv

Source: . Compiled by Ruslan Pyrih; Translated by Stephen Bandera, Kyiv Mohyla Academy Publishing. (2008). p.116-117.

Canada recognizes the Holodomor as an act of genocide against the Ukrainian people. In addition to Canada,other countries/states recognizing the Holodomor are:

Argentina

Australia

Colombia

Czech Republic

Estonia

Ecuador

Georgia

Hungary

Latvia

Lithuania

Mexico

Paraguay

Peru

Poland

Slovak Republic

USA

http://canada.mfa.gov.ua/en/ukraine-%D1%81%D0%B0/holodomor-remembrance/holodomor-international-recognition

Artifact 5: International Recognition of Holodomor

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In 2003, the United Nations (UN) and delegations from 25 countries issued a Joint Statement on the GreatFamine of 1932-33 in Ukraine (Holodomor). The opening statement reads as follows:

While the UN considers the Holodomor a national tragedy, they fall short of the term genocide. In 1990, the UNInternational Commission of Inquiry into the 1932-33 Famine in Ukraine (Geneva) concluded that the Faminein Ukraine was, in fact a genocide. At the same time, the Commission could not confirm that the Moscowauthorities had a preconceived plan to organize a famine in Ukraine.

Recently released evidence from primary sources in Ukraine may have an impact on the UN’s position incoming years.

George Orwell satirized the corrosive effects of communism in the novel “Animal Farm”. In Chapter Seven ofhis novel, he also alluded to an engineered famine and the need to conceal it from the outside world.

Orwell created a different preface to his novel in an underground Ukrainian edition of “Animal Farm” that waspublished in 1947. The translated edition was circulated throughout displaced persons’ camps in Europefollowing World War II.

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/03/how-animal-farm-gave-hope-to-stalins-refugees/253831/

Researchers have found that collective trauma is passed down from generation to generation, a phenomenonknown as . In Canada, the impact of intergenerational trauma has been highlighted bysurvivors of residential schools. It is what happens “when untreated trauma-related stress experienced bysurvivors is passed on to second and subsequent generations. The trauma inflicted by residential schools andthe Sixties Scoop was significant, and the scope of the damage these events wrought wouldn’t be trulyunderstood until years later.” http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health-and-fitness/health-advisor/the-intergenerational-trauma-of-first-nations-still-runs-deep/article23013789/

Artifact 6 – An Author’s Chronicle of Events

Artifact 7 – Intergenerational Impact of the Holodomor

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A research study by Brent Bezo and Stefania Maggi (2015) investigated how three consecutive generationsperceived the impact of the Holodomor on their lives in modern-day Ukraine. The findings indicate that:

https://www.jscimedcentral.com/Psychiatry/psychiatry-3-1030.pdf

Previously sealed files from the Soviet era are now available to authorities, historians, and researchers. Many ofthe documents from the files provide compelling evidence of a government-imposed famine, with losses rangingbetween four and ten million victims.

Unfortunately, in 1932-33, evidence of the famine was kept well-hidden. Journalists were rarely allowed into Ukrainedue to a travel ban. At least three noteworthy journalists did manage to travel to the region, one with the permissionof Soviet authorities, and two who ignored the travel ban. The articles they wrote convey divergent views.

Read the article written by Ian Hunter titled “A Tale of Truth and Two Journalists”, available at:http://holodomor.ca/education/teaching-materials/ian-hunter/. Study the summary of interpretations offered in thechart and examine the articles published by both Malcolm Muggeridge and Walter Duranty (links given) to gaingreater insight into each interpretation.

Note: Duranty’s article was written in response to the eyewitness accounts of journalist Gareth Jones. WalterDuranty travelled with the permission of Soviet authorities. Malcolm Muggeridge and Gareth Jones ignored thetravel ban and went on their own.

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Understood the reasons behind Ukraine’srejection of imperialism and collectivization;

Knew that weather conditions for abundantharvests were favourable in 1932 and1933;

Shared eye-witness reports*: “Hunger wasthe word I heard most. Peasants begged alift on the train from one station to anothersometimes their bodies swollen up—adisagreeable sight—from lack of food.”

Recognized that Stalin’s political weaponwas famine; only death would ensure thatUkrainian resistance to collectivizationwould be removed.

*Reprinted article from The Manchester Guardian(1933): http://www.garethjones.org/[...]

Refused to acknowledge that millions of people in centralUkraine were being starved to death;

Created media reports about abundant harvests andgeneral economic prosperity in the Soviet Union;

Shared eye-witness reports*: “There is no actualstarvation or deaths from starvation, but there iswidespread mortality from diseases due to malnutrition”;

Promoted the view that economic prosperity in the SovietUnion was the result of Stalin’s political leadership andpolicy of collectivization.

*Reprinted article from The New York Times (1933):http://www.garethjones.org/[...]

The article offers some reasons for the lack of awareness by the public of theartificial Famine of 1932-33. http://holodomor.ca/education/teaching-materials/holodomor-denial-silences/. It isinteresting to note that even though many detailed accounts of the Holodomor were written, Duranty’s articles,which were backed by Soviet authorities, overshadowed the work of other journalists.

a. Why was the Holodomor denied for so long and what ended the controversy?b. Can historical facts be denied when there is archival proof? Consider other examples such as Holocaust

denial and the Armenian Genocide.

Write your answer and then discuss .

Why is it that the earliest historical accounts of the Holodomor originated from diaspora Ukrainians and not fromsurvivors living within Ukraine?

Write your answer and then discuss and compare with a in your class.

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Although the Holodomor of 1932-33 is now widely recognized (see ), Canada prides itself on being thefirst country in the world to declare that the engineered famine was a genocide against the Ukrainian people.

In 2008, a private members’ bill was introduced to establish a day of remembrance for the Holodomor, UkrainianFamine and Genocide (“Holodomor”) Memorial Day.

1. Read about the introduction of Bill C-459. Link: https://openparliament.ca/bills/39-2/C-459/. Whichspeaker, in your view, had the most compelling presentation?

2. Select and record six pieces of information about the Holodomor that were shared by the speakers andcaptured your attention.

3. Discuss as a class: Why is it important to recognize the Holodomor as a genocide?4. Are there other examples of historic injustices recognized by Canada’s parliament? Work in to

research and record your answers.

After viewing Artifacts 1, 2 and 3, reflect on the following questions:

1. Statistical data and documents from the years 1932-33 were released to the public following the collapseof the Soviet Union in 1991. Given these new sources of evidence, do you think that the integrity ofjournalists such as Malcolm Muggeridge and Gareth Jones will be restored? Explain your reasoning.

2. Create a five-minute presentation to the Pulitzer Prize committee about Walter Duranty’s award, andpresent it to your class.

Holodomor survivors who escaped to diaspora countries such as Canada have shared eyewitness accounts ofcruelty and starvation in Ukraine during 1932-33.

1. There was no mention of the artificial famine, the Holodomor, in school textbooks in the Soviet Union,including Ukraine. Reflect on why this information was left out of the school curriculum.

2. Germany has set an example by recognizing and apologizing for Hitler’s crimes. Reflect on the political,cultural, educational, economic and geographic implications for Russia if government authorities were toaccept responsibility for the Holodomor.

The next question refers to George Orwell’s . If you have read it, please proceed.

Andrea Chalupa has researched Orwell’s introduction to the Ukrainian version of (see ). Shespeaks of the ‘revived revolutionary spirit’ among displaced persons (DPs) upon reading this satire aboutcommunism, collective farms, and famine. Do you think that Orwell’s book motivated Ukrainian DPs to share theirrecollections of the Holodomor in the diaspora? Why or why not?

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contains examples of resolutions for resettlement following a methodical plan by the Soviet authorities tostarve millions of Ukrainians in central and eastern Ukraine.

Do you think that it will ever be possible for Ukraine to reconcile its relationship with Russia? In reflecting on thisquestion, consider the factors that led to demonstrations at the Maidan in Kyiv in 2004, (the Orange Revolution)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_Revolution and 2014, the Revolution of Dignity.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Ukrainian_revolution

explores intergenerational trauma. Define the following terms as related to the history of residentialschools in Canada: colonization, mistrust, indigenous inhabitants, cultural genocide, intergenerational trauma, andresettlement.

1. Using your definitions, work with a partner to draw parallels between the victims of residential schools andthe Holodomor.

2. Is it ever acceptable to compromise human rights to build a nation? Reflect on this topic and record youranswers. Make a presentation to classmates, with a clear explanation of your views.

Twenty-five years after Stalin's Holodomor, General Mao Tse Dong launched the "Great Leap Forward" in 1948.Both Communist leaders wielded apparently unlimited power in their efforts to eliminate private farms and promoterapid industrialization. According to an expert on the subject, historian Frank Dikötter, Mao's policies precipitatedmass famine, rampant cannibalism, causing an estimated thirty to fifty million deaths.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/16/opinion/16iht-eddikotter16.html?_r=0

Dikötter, Frank - . International Herald Tribune. 15 December 15, 2010

Select 10 adult participants for a History Survey. First thank them for participating and let them know they will beidentified only by number with no names ever recorded.

Question for them:

Give them scores out of a total of 5 based on correct answers to:

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Where? When? What? Who? Why?

1. (Where) know that Holodomor refers to the Ukrainian genocide and the Great Leap Forward was aChinese genocide.

2. (When) provide dates exactly (1932-1933 Holodomor; 1948-1952 GLF) or in the correct decade.3. (What) express a rough approximation of the number of man-made deaths attributed to the Holodomor (7

- 10 million) and the Great Leap Forward (at least 45 million).4. (Who) know that General Mao was behind the GLF and Stalin was behind Holodomor.5. (Why) know that both genocides were done by Communists who wanted to eliminate private farms and

rapidly increase industrialization.

Participants may be asked to volunteer their level of education and how they learned about these genocides.

Analyze your results as individuals and then looking at trends and the potential explanations of thosetrends.

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