========================================================

         UKRAINIAN GENOCIDE JOURNAL:
 HISTORY OF THE HOLODOMOR 1932-1933

2. THREE MEMBERS OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT DEMAND
   RECOGNITION OF SOVIET-ENFORCED UKRAINIAN 'GENOCIDE'
         "This is not directed at Russia but there can be no doubt that this
         was a Soviet-enforced crime against Ukraine", Marek Siwiec MEP.
By Martin Banks, The Parliament.com
Brussels, Belgium, Wednesday, March 7, 2007

3. UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT YUSHCHENKO SUGGESTS OPENING
           MUSEUM ABOUT SOVIET REPRESSION IN UKRAINE
By Misha Dzhindzhikhashvili, AP Worldstream
Tbilisi, Georgia, Friday, March 02, 2007

4.                     WHY IS UKRAINE FIGHTING RUSSIA?
      Ukraine's parliament passed a law on the famine of the 1930s, which
        it has interpreted as a Soviet genocide against the Ukrainian people.
OPINION & ANALYSIS: By Zakhar Vinogradov
RIA Novosti Commentator in Kiev
RIA Novosti, Moscow, Russia, Sunday, March 11, 2007

5. UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT YUSHCHENKO SAYS LEADERSHIP

   OF THE EUROPEAN PEOPLE'S PARTY AGREE TO SUPPORT

                         THE HOLODOMOR AS GENOCIDE

Office of the President of Ukraine

Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, March 8, 2007

6.       UKRAINE & EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT PRESIDENT'S
        DISCUSS DEVELOPMENT OF UKRAINE-EU RELATIONS 

       Yushchenko thanked deputies who submitted genocide resolution

Ukrainian News Agency, Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, March 8, 2007

7. UNITED KINGDOM: SIGN THE UKRAINIAN GENOCIDE PETITION
LETTER-TO-THE-EDITOR: From: Stepan Speight Komarnyckyj
Ukrainian Genocide Petition in the United Kingdom
Ukrainian Genocide Journal, Issue Two, Article Seven

Washington, D.C., Sunday, March 11, 2007

8.                  IN MEMORY OF EXECUTED UKRAINIANS
                        By German invaders in 1942 at Babyn Yar
All-Ukrainian Svoboda (Freedom) association
Posted on the maidan.org.ua website
Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, February 26, 2007 (in Ukrainian)
Published by the Ukrainian Genocide Journal

Issue Two, Article Eight (in English)
Washington, D.C., Sunday, March 11, 2007

9.      63RD ANNIVERSARY OF THE NATIONAL TRAGEDY OF
                 CHECHEN AND INGUSHS, SOVIET GENOCIDE
Andrew P. Grigorenko, President
General Petro Grigorenko Foundation
New York, New York, Saturday, February 24, 2007

10.  UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT YUSHCHENKO CONDOLES WITH
   JEWS ON INTERNATIONAL HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE DAY
Office of the President of Ukraine, Kyiv, Ukraine, Sat, Jan 27, 2007

11. HEAD OF ALL-UKRAINIAN JEWISH CONGRESS PROPOSING TO
  INTRODUCE CRIMINAL PROSECUTION FOR HOLOCAUST DENIAL
Interfax Ukraine News, Kyiv, Ukraine, Wednesday, January 24, 2007

12.     DOCUMENTARY ABOUT THE UKRAINIAN GENOCIDE OF
     1932-1933 (HOLODOMOR) NOW AVAILABLE IN DVD FORMAT
Ukrainian Canadian Research & Documentation Centre, Toronto
Ukrainian Genocide Journal, Issue Two, Article Twelve

Washington, D.C., Sunday, March 11, 2007

13.    HOLODOMOR DOCUMENTARY "HARVEST OF DESPAIR"
                               POSTED ON GOOGLE VIDEO

Ukrainian Genocide Journal, Issue Two, Article Thirteen 

Washington, D.C., Sunday, March 11, 2007

14.                      JAMES MACE MEMORIAL PANEL

     New evidence on how the famine was eye-witnessed and concealed.

IAUS Congress, Donetsk, Ukraine, Wednesday 29th June 2005.

Ukrainian Genocide Journal,  Issue Two, Article Fourteen

Washington, D.C., Sunday, March 11, 2006

15. RUSSIAN UNION OF FORMER CHILD PRISONERS FROM NAZI
    CONCENTRATION CAMPS ACCUSE UKRAINIAN POLITICIANS
    OF REWRITING HISTORY ABOUT GENOCIDE DURING FAMINE
Interfax Ukraine News, Moscow, Russia, Tue, February 20, 2007

16.    NEW SUBSECTION OF THE 1932-1933 FAMINE-GENOCIDE

            SECTION OF THE STATE COMMITTEE ON ARCHIVES

                                   OF UKRAINE WEB SITE

Roman Senkus, Director, CIUS Publications Program

Published by the Ukrainian Genocide Journal

Issue Two, Article Twenty (in English)

Washington, D.C., Sunday, March 11, 2007

========================================================
1. HOLODOMOR WAS NOT ONLY 7 MILLION LIVES BUT ALSO
       66 TONS OF GOLD, 1,439 TONS OF SILVER AS WELL AS
                            DIAMONDS AND ANTIQUITIES
        Holodomor was also a large scale and effective pillage of people

By Oleh Nadosha and Volodymyr Honsky (in Ukrainian),
Ukrayinska Pravda on line, Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, January 5, 2007
Published by the Ukrainian Genocide Journal 

Issue Two, Article One (in English)
Washington, D.C., Sunday, March 11, 2007

The official events to commemorate the victims of the Holodomor and
repressions are over. Viktor Yushchenko should get a lot of credit for his
commitment to the truth and determination to make his case in front of those
who are not aware of the full measure of the manmade famine in 1932-1933.

Such awareness-raising efforts should have been undertaken earlier and on
a larger scale. In my opinion, this year's commemoration was the most
convincing, marking a watershed in the realization by Ukrainians of true
dimensions, causes and consequences of the Armageddon that struck
Ukraine in 1932-1933.

But: No matter what people are talking about, they are talking about money,
runs Murphy's Rule 1.

It looks that only the horrors of the Holodomor can contradict this truth.
But, in fact, the whole world must be told that the 1932-1933 Holodomor
was not only the largest genocide recorded in history but also the most
large-scale and effective pillage of people.

It was a kind of gold procurement, a gold rush the Communist style, with
the victims taking out their family valuables from hiding places and
bringing them to pillagers in the hope of putting off death from starvation
or surviving.

We must admit that this idea took some time to dawn on the authors. It
came when one of us asked his mother in a telephone conversation about
how the family managed to survive the famine.

Their salvation, it turned out, was thanks to 7 massive gold things of rare
beauty and purity presented by grandfather, nobleman Kyrychenko and
captain of a ship in the Far East.

Having taken this gift of her father (in cash terms, it was a well-sized
capital) to a Torgsin store, grandmother saved the family and many
residents in her village of Monastyryshche, Ichnya rayon, Chernihiv oblast.
The rest of the villagers died.

The big question came up quickly: how much wealth had been pocketed by
the Communists in Ukraine? After digging in libraries and pestering several
professors, we can point to some facts.

Torgsin stores (an abbreviation of "trade with foreigners") during the
Holodomor became the only chain of state-run stores where the populace
could buy some food essentials - but only for precious metals or hard
currency.

Formally, the all-union chain was set in the summer of 1930 under the
foreign trade ministry. In Ukraine, such stores began to operate actively
since January of 1932, with starving peasants, not foreigners, as their
customers.

The resolution "On creating the all-Ukrainian Torgsin office" was passed
by the Ukrainian Economic Council under the government of Ukraine on
June 29, 1932.

Government experts said that "the collection of hard currency held by the
populace will play a major role", that "the gold kept in households must be
collected via a chain of Torgsin stores and used to serve the interests of
the proletarian state." Can the dates and directives be viewed as
coincidental?

We compared the time and content of various resolutions and documents
on setting up the Torgsin chain in Ukraine with Communist party resolutions
to launch a genocide by starvation (on
[1] raising grain procurement targets, on
[2] "the three spikelets law" [law imposing criminal liability for taking
       even three spikelets from the state farm fields - Trans.], on
[3] banning food trade in rural areas, on
[4] combating "saboteurs" [peasants whom the authorities accused
     of sabotage of mandatory grain deliveries - Trans.] and others).

We were horrified by the perfectly synchronized timing of these documents.

The time pattern was as follows:
     1) the party takes away all grain from peasants;
     2) Torgsin stores take away all gold and hard currency. Further
          analysis of how the party and the Torgsin chain worked
          revealed that
     3) everything was done to prevent the  survival of Ukrainians.

In exchange for their gold and silver jewelry, peasants received coupons
which they could later exchange for food. The exchange could take up to
two months, and very often bearers of coupons were dead by the time
they could get some food. There was a secret instruction to Torgsin
salesmen: "do not promise customers a quick exchange."

According to eye-witnesses, many starving people died when standing in
kilometer-long lines to Torgsins or immediately after they received food.

Here are some of the eye-witness reports:
NINA PEREPADA:
Every morning a 7-year-old boy Yury Perepada saw the following scene:
horse-driven carts used to go along Khreshchatyk [Kyiv's main street -
Trans.] One man was in the cart, with two other men escorting it by feet.
Their mission was clear the street from corpses or those close to death.

The two lifted the bodies, put them on the cart and covered with matting.
Children and adults walked the streets by-passing the dead. The bodies
were reportedly taken to the Oktyabrsky hospital, laid up in layers and
from there taken to the Bajkove cemetery to be thrown in ditches and
covered up with sodium chlorite.

He remembers that there was a commercial bakery in 6 or 8 Pushkin St.
where they sold bread at very high prices. Still, the line of customers
stretched farther than Proriizna St. People often died standing in the
line." (The Ukrainian Holocaust of 1932-1933: Evidence of survivors.
Ed. By O. Mytsyk. Kyiv Mohyla Academy publishers, 2004 - Vol. 2).
HALYNA NAZARENKO:
"Since late night, we had to line for bread that tasted like sawdust. We
stood in line all night, and broke into tens in the morning as they would
allow only ten persons into the store.

Mom took her and dad's golden wedding rings to the Torgsin store,
receiving several kilos of flour for them. From it, she made halushkas
(boiled lumps of pastry)." (The Ukrainian Holocaust of 1932-1933:
Evidence of survivors. Ed. By O. Mytsyk. Kyiv Mohyla Academy
publishers, 2004 - Vol. 2).
ANDRIY OPANASENKO:
In Kyiv I saw dying peasants from nearby villages. Those miserable creatures
didn't look like humans. They didn't ask for food, they sat or lay, their
bodies swollen and big like logs, under the walls of building on Podol's
Upper and Lower Banks. The dead were taken to Babyj Yar to be buried.
Half dead inhabitants were also taken there to die. (The Vechirny Kyiv,
November, 1998).
LIDIYA KUZNETSOVA:

I well remember bread lines. Sometimes, they were several kilometers long.
Those who lined for bread at dawn could get their small piece of bread only
late at night. Mostly, they were peasants from nearby villages.

I remember how people from villages would get their bread, sit in the corner
and die right there on the street. (The Ukrainian Holocaust of 1932-1933:
Evidence of survivors. Ed. By O. Mytsyk. Kyiv Mohyla Academy publishers,
2004 - Vol. 2).

Very often the starving peasants were intercepted by GPU (sectet police)
officers who arrested the alleged speculators and took away their bread.
GPU often scattered peasants or locked them up - to ensure their deaths.
HALYNA AFANASYEVE:
I remember well how in the fall of 1932 Kyiv was full of starving and
swollen peasants, trying to exchange their inexpensive possessions for bread
or other food. A major inflow of starving peasants took place in the spring
of 1933. The capital's squares and streets were full of live skeletons and
swollen people.

Their numbers were especially large in the  Polol district on the Upper and
Lower Bank  where there were many wide benches on which hundreds of
poor victims crowded. They were sitting, lying and dying.

Every morning carts went around the city streets. Their teams consisted of a
horseman and his assistants who picked up dead bodies. Together with the
dead, they also took away still living people. The dead and the half dead
were taken to a church on the Horeva St. where they were piled up.

Around the church a deep and wide ditch was dug out in which they put the
dead when the church was full of bodies. There was a bakery on the Upper
Bank St. which sold bread at commercial prices. One could buy only one
kilo of bread.

As the bread was in short supply, people stood in huge lines since late
night. Militsiya (police) scattered lines of exhausted people, drove them
into the church and locked them up there. They died in the church.

My mother Ulyana Khomenchuk  got into one of such police raids and was
locked up in the church. After 2 days they opened the church to get rid of
the bodies and put new victims into it. But my mother was alive and was
spared this satanic conveyor of death.

No one was swollen from starvation in our family, because we lived on the
Trukhaniv island and gathered deadwood which we floated across the
Dnieper and sold on the market. Besides, we had some valuables inherited
by my mother. Traders willingly accepted the valuables in exchange for food.

In Torgsin stores, supplies of flour, lard, sausage, tinned food were
abundant. In exchange for golden decorations we bought the cheapest brand
of maize flour from which my mother baked pies and sold them on the market
to feed her family. All Kyiv residents were involved in such business not to
die from the famine. (The Samostijna Ukrayina, October, 1999).

The major cause of deaths of peasants, even of those who got food from
Torgsin stores, was the mark-up, an officially allowed profit of a Torgsin
salesperson which was the difference between the amount of gold accepted
from the populace and the amount handed over to the bank. Very often,
salesmen understated in their receipts the weight and quality of gold they
took from starving people.

The mark-up could reach several kilos, with every gram of gold stolen from
peasants paid for by their lives. There were other kinds of fraud in which
Torgsin salesmen were involved, despite their high salaries and additional
food rations. Torgsin stores bought gold from Ukrainians at much lower
prices than those on the international market.

We cannot but agree with V. Marochko, Doctor of History, about another
dimension of this criminal robbery: the gold, titled by the authorities as
scrap gold, was a dangerous asset because it was part of sacred spiritual
traditions.

Family valuables, crosses, wedding rings, baptizing crosses were kept in
the families and handed over by one generation to another, adding to the
national spirit.

October 1933, a chain of 263 Torgsin stores operated in Ukraine. Each store
had its own network of smaller outlets. The largest number of Torgsins was
in the Kyiv oblast (58), the smallest number in the Donetsk oblast (11) and
the Moldavian autonomous Soviet republic (5). The chain had its specific
targets for the purchase of gold and hard currency which, because they were
excessive, were never met.

The scale of the Communist-engineered gold rush matched the time frame set
for the genocide: with 6 mn hard currency karbovanets earned by Torsins in
1931, the figure ballooned to 50 mn in 1932 and to 107 mn in 1933.

Of the total amount of valuables sold by starving Ukrainians, 75.2% was
precious metals, gold, silver, and platinum. Of the total amount of gold,
38% was in tsarist coins, or 18% of the total revenue received.

While in 1932 Torgsins "procured" 21 tons of gold (worth 26.8 mn
karbovanets) and 18.5 tons of silver (worth 0.3 mn), the figures for 1933
were respectively 44.9 tons of gold (worth 58 mn karbovanets) and 1420.5
tons of silver (worth 22.9 mn).

It was extremely unprofitable for Ukrainian to sell silver as the price of
it dropped threefold since 1917. Peasants were paid 1.25 karbovanets for
1 g of silver, with the price on the New York stock exchange at 1.8
karbovanets. Communist party revenues from such transactions were
colossal.

The government allowed Torgsins to purchase diamonds in the fall of 1933
when gold and silver buying fell significantly as the populace had sold what
they had and the number of Ukrainians dropped sharply. There was only
one Torgsin store buying diamonds, in Kharkiv.

Ukrainians got 12 karbovanets for one carat of defective diamonds and 260
karbovanets for pure diamonds. Any guesses why such a huge disparity in
pricing?

In four months alone, Torgsins bought 600,000 karbovanets worth of
diamonds. In 1932-1933, the Soviet Union sold abroad antiquities,
pictures and ancient jewelry worth 5.8 mn golden karbovanets.

Torgsins were not the only tools to rob starving Ukrainians. Who can
count the money Ukrainians had to pay for food on the black market
where the prices for bread were tens of times higher than even in the
Torgsins?

Or the amount of gold pillaged by the authorities from individual farmers?
A recount of such incident was given by war veteran Oleksij Riznyk in his
article "Gold for the dictatorship of the proletariat" (The Ukrayina moloda,
23.11.2006, p. 11):

"In 1931-1932, the authorities launched a large-scale operation against
individual farmers. Militsiya took groups of them to a prison in Vinnytsia.
My father was one of them.

On arriving in prison, every farmer was told the amount of ransom in golden
rubles he had to pay for his freedom. Militsiya officers rushed into the
cell, took inmates by the hair and hitting their heads against the heads of
others said, 'Oh, hear how the gold chimes.'

Some were taken to torture cells where they were beaten up, had their
fingers broken by doors - until the victim agreed to name the sum of ransom
sufficient for butchers. My father told them he had only 35 golden rubles
left. The militsiya officers happily took the money and let him go."

In conclusion, let us hear another eye-witness report:
MYKAL from the village of Pukhivka, Brovary rayon:

It was in the spring of 1933. I was eighteen and was a student at Kyiv's
college of teachers. The enrollment was 99 persons, while only 33 graduated
from the college. Where are the rest 66 students? Some of them died and
some of them left for good. Sahno Volodya died at the math lesson after
working a night shift at the Ukrkabel plant. We carried him out and buried
at the Lukyanivsky cemetery.

We ate at a students' canteen on Dyka street. They would give us a plateful
of water with one pea, calling it soup. We got 150 g of bread a day. I
prayed that nobody stole my bread coupons. The bread ration was so
meager you didn't feel you ate anything.

One episode has remained engraved in y memory. We had a lesson in military
training outside Kyiv near the Lukyanivsky cemetery. We were dog-tired but
our instructor ordered us to run. Three of us didn't run, we sneaked away.
There was a boy who had lived in an orphanage, Kostya.  It was time to
return, but he was sitting at a distance and didn't move.

When we came up to him we were scared stiff - he was sitting near a ditch
full of children's corpses. They all lay in a mess: positions of legs, arms
and bodies showed that they had been dumped in the ditch from a cart.

There were seven such graves there. They did it at night, bringing the
bodies, dumping them and going away for more corpses.

Our instructor called us, but we were shaking and crying, especially the boy
from the orphanage. He said: "This is going to happen to me, too."(1933:
Famine; People's Book. - Memorial. /Compiled by L. Kovalenko and V.
Manyak. Kyiv, 1991.)

If you divide the amount of gold and silver pumped out from Ukrainians
by the Communist regime, you'll get 5 convertible karbovanets. Or 12
kilos of flour. That was the price of life, to be exact, the price of a
horrible death of one Ukrainian.

Is there any place for graves on the cemetery of destroyed illusions?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The authors express their acknowledgments to V. Marochko, Doctor of
History, S. Vakulyshyn, expert on Kyiv, N. Sukhodolska, Ph.D.(Biology),
R. Krutsyk, head of the Kyiv branch of Memorial and other researchers
for their help in preparing the article for publication.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LINK: http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2007/1/5/53000.htm)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NOTE:  This article was translated from Ukrainian to English solely
for the Ukrainian Genocide Journal by Volodymyr Hrytsutenko,
Lviv, Ukraine.  The translated article can be used but only with

permission from the Ukrainian Genocide Journal, Washington.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[return to index] [Ukrainian Genocide Journal: Holodomor 1932-1933] 

========================================================
2. THREE MEMBERS OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT DEMAND
   RECOGNITION OF SOVIET-ENFORCED UKRAINIAN 'GENOCIDE'
              "This is not directed at Russia but there can be no doubt that this
              was a Soviet-enforced crime against Ukraine", Marek Siwiec MEP.

By Martin Banks, The Parliament.com
European Politics and Policy
Brussels, Belgium, Wednesday, March 7, 2007

MEPs are calling on the international community to recognise the 1930s
great famine in Ukraine as Soviet-enforced genocide.

A small number of nations have already recognised the famine as genocide
and three deputies have tabled a written declaration calling for the
international community to follow suit.

The three are Konrad Szymanski, a Polish member of the UEN group, UK
Conservative Charles Tannock and Polish Socialist deputy Marek Siwiec.

A parliamentary declaration has to be supported by at least 50 per cent of
MEPs before it can go to the full plenary to become a formal parliamentary
resolution.

Siwiec said MEPs were currently being canvassed for their support and he
was hopeful that it would receive the necessary backing.

He said the reason he and his colleagues had decided to act now was
because they felt that international recognition for the alleged genocide
was "long overdue."

"This is not directed at Russia but there can be no doubt that this was a
Soviet-enforced crime against Ukraine."

An estimated 10 Million Ukrainians starved to death in 1932-33 as Soviet
leader Joseph Stalin stripped them of their produce in a disastrous forced
farm collectivisation campaign.

The true scale of the disaster was concealed by the USSR and only came
to light after Ukrainian independence in 1991.

A week long exhibition covering the famine, organised by the Ukrainian
mission to the EU, will run in the European parliament from March 26.

Russia firmly opposes the designation of the famine as genocide. -30-
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.eupolitix.com/EN/News/200703/b936b29d-91df-4cef-8f85-e1e33ef920cd.htm

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[return to index] [Ukrainian Genocide Journal: Holodomor 1932-1933] 

========================================================
3. UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT YUSHCHENKO SUGGESTS OPENING
            MUSEUM ABOUT SOVIET REPRESSION IN UKRAINE

By Misha Dzhindzhikhashvili, AP Worldstream
Tbilisi, Georgia, Friday, March 02, 2007

TBILISI - Ukraine's president said Friday he supported opening a museum
dedicated to Soviet repression in Ukraine, but acknowledged that it would
be difficult.

Viktor Yushchenko made the comments while visiting the Museum of Soviet
Occupation in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, which chronicles the fate of
thousands of Georgians purged and killed by the Soviet secret police.

"When I am uttering these words, I understand that certain political forces
will be furious," Yushchenko said in remarks released by his office. "But I
believe we must do it for our grandfathers and great grandfathers, and for
our children and grandchildren."

Yushchenko, who like Georgian counterpart Mikhail Saakashvili has sought
to pull his country out of Russia's shadow, has repeatedly pushed for
further recognition of Soviet crimes.

Last year, he won parliamentary approval for a law recognizing the 1932-33
famine, which many blame on Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, as genocide.

Moscow strongly protested the move, and the Russian-leaning party of
Ukraine's prime minister refused to vote for the measure.

Opinion polls have shown that Ukrainians overwhelmingly welcomed the
Soviet collapse; in 1991, more than 90 percent of Ukrainians voted in
support of declaring the nation independent.

Since then, however, Ukraine has struggled to refashion its relations with
Moscow, triggering sharp disputes between Ukraine's more pro-European
west and the Russian-speaking east and south over how close relations with
its former ruler should be.

At least one other ex-Soviet republic, the Baltic nation of Latvia, has a
museum dedicated to the Soviet period, as well as the Nazi occupation
during World War II.

Speaking on the eve of the two presidents' visit to the year-old museum,
Saakashvili said the institution is not designed to anti-Russian. "This was
a Soviet occupation of Georgia not a Russian occupation," he said at a
parliamentary briefing.

"If someone on the peripheries of Georgia is offended by the creation of
this museum in Tbilisi, then we are not guilty in this. With all
responsibility, I will say that this museum illuminates the history of
Georgia and it exists to ensure that such pages of history are never again
repeated."                                              -30-
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Associated Press Writer Mara Bellaby contributed to this report
from Kiev, Ukraine.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[return to index] [Ukrainian Genocide Journal: Holodomor 1932-1933] 

========================================================
4.               WHY IS UKRAINE FIGHTING RUSSIA?
    Ukraine's parliament passed a law on the famine of the 1930s, which
       it has interpreted as a Soviet genocide against the Ukrainian people.

OPINION & ANALYSIS: By Zakhar Vinogradov
RIA Novosti Commentator in Kiev
RIA Novosti, Moscow, Russia, Sunday, March 11, 2007

MOSCOW - Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko has once again
surprised Russia and other countries.

He recently unveiled a monument to Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko in
Tbilisi, capital of Georgia, signed several intergovernmental agreements
there, and announced his intention to establish a museum of the Soviet
occupation of Ukraine, like the one he visited in Tbilisi together with his
friend, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, and those in several Baltic
countries.

As usual, the Ukrainian and Georgian presidents said cynically that they
had nothing against Russia, and that the museums were only proof of their
countries' respect for their past, for the elder generation victimized by
the Soviet regime.

Neither leader explained how they would separate the victimized Ukrainians
and Georgians from the Ukrainian and Georgian occupiers.

The picture has been complicated by the fact that millions of those who had
been considered occupiers one day became victims of Stalin's regime the
day after.

The truth is that these official speeches are poor camouflage for ordinary
Russophobia.

Attempts at political correctness made by Yushchenko and Saakashvili did
not sufficiently hide their anti-Russian sentiments. It is clear to everyone
that they have become friends because they hate Russia.

Yushchenko's stance in this historical confrontation looks more vulnerable
and less consistent than the position of Saakashvili.

Under its current president, Ukraine is moving further away from its
neighbor and partner, Russia, contrary to economic logic and common
sense.

Some two months ago, Ukraine's parliament passed a law on the famine

of the 1930s, which it has interpreted as a Soviet genocide against the
Ukrainian people.

These are the methods used by Yushchenko and his ideological comrades
to consolidate Ukraine.

Unfortunately, they are uniting the country not to tackle issues of social
and economic development of interest to both the eastern (pro-Russian)

and western (anti-Russian) parts of Ukraine, but to focus its attention on
negative issues, hunt down witches and stir up ghosts.

By doing this, Yushchenko is creating more problems for himself. Ukraine's
parliament expressed its outrage at the famine in Ukraine in the 1930s, but
completely overlooked the hunger in Belarus and Russia.

Moreover, Ukrainian leaders are pretending not to remember that the famine
happened because of the policies pursued by Stalin, a Georgian by
nationality, and unnamed leaders of Ukraine.

In principle, the Ukrainian elite knows very well that its pseudo-historical
stand is vulnerable. But it is using it to hide its anti-Russian policies.

Russia, busy with its gas and oil projects, has chosen to disregard the new
ideological studies of its neighbors.

Its parliament seems not to notice the ideological tumor spreading through
the Commonwealth of Independent States, an ailing but still alive
organization bringing together 11 former Soviet republics.

As all of us who belong to the older generation were told in Soviet
universities, the viability of the superstructure depends on the foundation,
that is, on economic relations. Unfortunately, the superstructure (ideology)
is being turned into the foundation in some ex-Soviet countries.

Russia and Ukraine have more things uniting them than pushing them apart
economically. These ties do not just include Russian oil and gas supplied to
Ukraine, which it delivers to Europe. This makes our countries natural and
indivisible partners.

But the main thing is that Russians and Ukrainians have a common history,
which was both good and bad, and a common culture, which they
developed over centuries. And lastly, many Russian and Ukrainian families
are interrelated.

But Ukrainian politicians' ideological confrontations with Russia, and
Russia's apathy towards the issue, are making their people hostages to a
war against the ghosts of the past.

This is a perfect background for some Ukrainian political analysts, who
write in the press about choosing a specifically Ukrainian path towards
Europe, in the name of which Russia, once the closest and friendliest of
neighbors, is termed "the country of Russian imperialism." They seem to
believe that if they want to become part of Europe, they should attack
Russia.

A top official in Yushchenko's administration recently told me that Ukraine
can become not only a gas transit but also a political corridor between
Russia and Western Europe.

This is a disputable idea, for Russia does not need intermediaries, but it
is quite new for Ukraine. Maybe Ukraine should use the available
foundation to rebuild its ideological superstructure of confrontation with
Russia into that of real partnership.

This idea has also been supported in the European Union, which Ukraine
wants to join so much.

Justas Paleckis, a Lithuanian member of the European Parliament who
attended meetings of the Ukraine-EU inter-parliamentary cooperation
committee, told the Ukrainian daily Den: "The main thing for Ukraine is to
have good relations with Russia. The European Union does not need
countries that have problems with their neighbors."

Therefore, the war against the ghosts of the past is useless and even
harmful to Ukraine.

In the meantime, Yushchenko will be building his museum of Soviet
occupation, and maybe some time soon U.S. anti-ballistic missile
systems will be deployed near it. After all, what could be better than a
good neighbor?                                   -30-
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not
necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LINK: http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20070309/61773609.html
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[return to index] [Ukrainian Genocide Journal: Holodomor 1932-1933] 
========================================================
5. UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT YUSHCHENKO SAYS LEADERSHIP

Office of the President of Ukraine

Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, March 8, 2007

KYIV - Victor Yushchenko told reporters in Brussels on Thursday he

approved the participation of Ukraine's center-right parties in today's

summit of the European People's Party in Brussels.

"I think it is a very important instrument to promote Ukrainian policy in
Europe," he said.

The President said party contacts were productive and helped develop
economic, energy and humanitarian ties, as well as any other cooperation
"where there are no ideological differences no matter what country we are
speaking about."

Mr. Yushchenko added that he had asked the leadership of the EPP to

genocide and had been reassured they would.             -30-
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[return to index] [Ukrainian Genocide Journal: Holodomor 1932-1933] 
========================================================      
6.      UKRAINE & EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT PRESIDENT'S
      DISCUSS DEVELOPMENT OF UKRAINE-EU RELATIONS 

[return to index] [Ukranian Genocide Journal: Holodomor 1932-1933] 

========================================================
8.            IN MEMORY OF EXECUTED UKRAINIANS
                         By German invaders in 1942 at Babyn Yar

All-Ukrainian Svoboda (Freedom) association
Posted on the maidan.org.ua website
Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, February 26, 2007 (in Ukrainian)
Published by the Ukrainian Genocide Journal

Issue One, Article Eight (in English)
Washington, D.C., Sunday, March 11, 2007

On Feb. 25, 2007 the Ukrainian community of Kyiv commemorated the

Ukrainian nationalists executed by the German invaders in Babyn Yar.

In February of 1942, the Germans executed activists of the Ukrainian
nationalist underground in Babyn Yar - Olena and Mykhailo Teliha, Hanna

and Ivan Rohach, Ivan Irlyavsky, the Sukhoversky sisters, Yaroslav
Orshan-Chemerynsky, Odarka Huzar-Chemerynska, Mykola Olijnyk,

among many others.

In total, 621 members of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, OUN,
were shot in Babyn Yar.

According to historians, over 55,000 Ukrainians were executed by the

Germans in Babyn Yar. The place has become a symbol of a great

Ukrainian tragedy.

On Feb. 25, over 200 Ukrainians came to Babyn Yar to honor the memory

of active fighters for independent and sovereign Ukrainian state.

Lighted by torches, Ukrainian national flags and red-and-black flags of the
Ukrainian revolution could be seen around the place. The commemoration
events started with the service for the dead nationalists held at the
commemorative cross. Near the cross, participants made another cross -

from lighted icon-lamps.

The rally after the service was opened by the leader of Kyiv OUN branch
Bohdan Chervak. He briefly described the events of the WWII, stressing that
there is a Christian cross at the site of mass murders of Kyiv residents.

"This humble cross is here to commemorate sacrificial deaths of thousands of
Ukrainian patriots murdered by the Germans in wartime. It is here in Babyn
Yar that the renowned Ukrainian poetess Olena Teliha is buried. We will
celebrate her 100th birth anniversary in July."

Bohdan Chervak also added that, despite many forthcoming speeches to

be made by politicians and well-know public leaders, they will be never able

to reveal the whole truth about Olena Teliha.

"Why? The answer is simple: in the country still fighting for its statehood
there are those who regard Teliha as their enemy - because she never lowered
the Ukrainian national revolution flag," the leader of the Kyiv OUN branch
stressed.

Head of Kyiv Patriot of Ukraine public organization Serhy Bevz said tens of
thousands of Ukrainians had been shot in Babyn Yar. Their only guilt was
that they were Ukrainians.

"Today, Ukraine is an independent country but this independence is ephemeral
because Ukraine is still ruled by foreigners. We have to realize that the
colors of invaders, be they red, brown or any other, do not matter. What
matters is that their only goal is to exterminate Ukrainians," he added.

For his part, deputy head of Kyiv Svoboda branch Andry Illenko emphasized
that the public is unaware of the fact that primarily ethnic Ukrainians, not
political opponents, were shot in Babyn Yar.

" We must know that not only OUN members lost their lives here. Ordinary
Ukrainian were shot too, as well as prisoners of war.

Yes, representatives of other nations were executed here, but we must
remember that it is basically the site of the Ukrainian tragedy. We must
fully restore historical and national justice," Andry Illenko said.

Other speakers at the rally included representatives of  the Kyiv branch of
the Youth Nationalist Congress, Ukrainian Resistance, the youth branch of
the Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists (Kyiv branch), organizing committee
of the International court to try the crimes of Communists against humanity,
and the Ukrainian People's Party.

In conclusion of the rally, head of Kyiv branch All-Ukrainian Svoboda
association Andry Mokhnyk stressed that the main obstacle barring

Ukrainians from knowing their history are communist myths originated in

Moscow.

[1] First, that Germans executed mainly non-Ukrainians in Babyn Yar.

[2] Second, that Ukrainian nationalists helped Germans to carry out
executions in Babyn Yar.

"It's a blatant lie. Babyn Yar is mainly a cite of the tragedy of
Ukrainians, with over 55,000 Ukrainians being murdered there.
Simultaneously, Babyn Yar is a hallmark of the unbreakable Ukrainian spirit.
In Babyn Yar the Germans shot activists of the Ukrainian nationalist
underground movement.

It's an established fact that 621 OUN members found their deaths there.

They were executed as fighters of the Ukrainian national revolution," Andry
Mokhnyk underlined.

For the record: on Feb. 16, 2007 nationalist patriotic organizations in Kyiv
created a coordinating council, Ukrainian Community of Kyiv, which includes
Svoboda (Kyiv branch), OUN (Kyiv branch), Les Kurbas Cultural Society,

Youth Nationalist Congress (Kyiv branch), Patriot of Ukraine NGO,

Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists (youth council of the Kyiv branch),

All-Ukrainian Stepan Bandera organization Tryzub (Kyiv branch), Ukrainian

Resistance, organizing committee of the International court to try the crimes

of Communists against humanity, and Institute for Human Rights NGO.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LINK: http://maidan.org.ua/static/news/2007/1172511331.html)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NOTE: This article was translated from Ukrainian to English solely
for the Ukrainian Genocide Journal by Volodymyr Hrytsutenko,
Lviv, Ukraine.  Translated article can be used but only with permission

from the Ukrainian Genocide Journal. 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[return to index] [Ukrainian Genocide Journal: Holodomor 1932-1933] 

=======================================================
9.  63RD ANNIVERSARY OF THE NATIONAL TRAGEDY OF
           CHECHEN AND INGUSHS, SOVIET GENOCIDE

Andrew P. Grigorenko, President
General Petro Grigorenko Foundation
New York, New York, Saturday, February 24, 2007

Dear Friends,

Today February 23, 2007 is a 63rd anniversary of the national tragedy

of Chechen and Ingushs. At this day, 63 years ago, the soviet
international-socialist committed the gravest crime against Humanity -
genocide.

They hoped, under the cover of Second World War, to eliminate those

who from their point of view belong to suspicious ethno-religious groups,

and who does not fit into Procrustean bed of communism.

At this day, Chechen and Ingushs, similar to the other deported people, were
ousted from their ancestral homes and as cattle horded into freight cars,
which took them away into eternal exile and dooming them to death. The
deportee loses amounted to a half of their entire population.

Even today, regardless of a spectacle crash of international-socialist
empire of evil, those who considered themselves the legal successors of
USSR, do not get around even to apologize to the victims of genocide, or

pay them for their sufferings.

Instead, they sow grains of ethnic hatred, supporting and blowing up the
local conflicts, and in case of Chechnya, they are conducting dirty colonial
war, the war that brought Chechen people again to the abyss of total
annihilation.

Today I would like to appeal to Russian people: Stop your rulers! Stop the
new imperialists! It is time finally comprehend, that the empire brought a
misery not only to colonial people, but as well to the people of Russia
herself.

The rulers of modern Russia murdered the two legitimate presidents of
Chechnya, but they will fail to subdue a freedom-loving people, the people
who sustained their desire to read of occupation for two centuries.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

LINK: www.grigorenko.org; [email protected]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

LINK: http://groups.google.com/group/grigorenko_us?hl=en
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[return to index] [Ukrainian Genocide Journal: Holodomor 1932-1933] 
========================================================
10. UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT YUSHCHENKO CONDOLES WITH
JEWS ON INTERNATIONAL HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE DAY

Office of the President of Ukraine, Kyiv, Ukraine, Sat, Jan 27, 2007

Ukrainians, who survived the Great Famine of 1932-1933 and know what
genocide is, condole with Jews on International Holocaust Remembrance

Day, Victor Yushchenko said in an address on January 27.

"Ukrainians have always remembered the victims of the World War II," he
said. The President said over 1.5 million of Ukraine's Jews had been
exterminated by the Nazis during the war.

"Ukraine has spared and will spare no effort to ensure that xenophobia and
anti-Semitism never become an element of politics."          -30-
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[return to index] [Ukrainian Genocide Journal: Holodomor 1932-1933] 
========================================================

11. HEAD OF ALL-UKRAINIAN JEWISH CONGRESS PROPOSING TO
 INTRODUCE CRIMINAL PROSECUTION FOR HOLOCAUST DENIAL

Interfax Ukraine News, Kyiv, Ukraine, Wednesday, January 24, 2007

MOSCOW - The head of the All-Ukrainian Jewish Congress Vadym

Rabinovich has proposed to introduce criminal prosecution for the denial

of the Holocaust.

In a letter to the Verkhovna Rada Speaker, deputies and the Prime Minister,
the text of which was obtained by Interfax on Wednesday, he said, in
particular, that "this is crucial today, when attempts are being made to
re-write the history of the Second World War, during which hundreds of
thousands of Ukrainian Jews were massacred."

Rabinovich said the introduction of criminal prosecution for the denial of
the mass destruction of Jews "will serve as a warning against any attempts
at reviving fascism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism, interethnic and
inter-religious hatred and will demonstrate once again Ukraine's steady,
uncompromising stance in its refusal to accept and condemnation of such
phenomena, as well as its adherence to the principles of tolerance,
democracy and human moral values."                     -30-
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[return to index] [Ukrainian Genocide Journal: Holodomor 1932-1933] 

========================================================
12.  DOCUMENTARY ABOUT THE UKRAINIAN GENOCIDE OF
   1932-1933 (HOLODOMOR) NOW AVAILABLE IN DVD FORMAT

Ukrainian Canadian Research & Documentation Centre, Toronto
Ukrainian Genocide Journal, Issue Two, Article Twelve

Washington, D.C., Sunday, March 11, 2007

TORONTO - The Ukrainian Canadian Research & Documentation
Centre (UCRDC) is pleased to inform you that the internationally
acclaimed, award winning documentary "Harvest of Despair" is now
available in DVD format in English for $25.00. [Information about the
documentary from the UCRDC website is found below.]

Please contact the UCRDC for further details:
Nadia Skop, Executive Administrator
Ukrainian Canadian Research and Documentation Centre
620 Spadina Ave., Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M5S 2H4
Telephone: 416-966-1819; Fax: 416-966-1820;
E-mail: [email protected]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                HARVEST OF DESPAIR
It is called the forgotten holocaust - a time when Stalin was dumping
millions of tons of wheat on Western markets, while in Ukraine, men,
women, and children were dying of starvation at the rate of 25,000 a
day, 17 human beings a minute.

Seven to ten million people perished in a famine caused not by war or
natural disasters, but by ruthless decree.

To commemorate the 50th anniversary of this tragedy the Ukrainian Famine
Research Committee (former name of UCRDC) gathered materials, sought
out eye-witnesses and documented this horrific event. Harvest of Despair
is the product of this effort.

The documentary probes the tragic consequences of Ukraine's struggle for
greater cultural and political autonomy in the 1920s and 1930s.

Through rare archival footage, the results of Stalin's lethal
countermeasures unfold in harrowing detail. Harvest of Despair examines
why this man-made famine remains so little known.

Blinded by radical leftwing ideals, world statesmen, such as Edouard
Herriot, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists and writers such as George
Bernard Shaw, all contributed to the regime's campaign of concealment.

Even the democratic governments of the depression-hit West preferred to
remain silent over Soviet Russia's atrocities in order to continue import
and export trade.

In 1932-33, roughly one-quarter of the entire population of Ukraine perished
through brutal starvation. Harvest of Despair, through its stark, haunting
images, provides the eloquent testimony of a lost generation that has been
silenced too long.

The film Harvest of Despair won the awards and honours at the following
festivals:
     1. Houston International Film Festival - April 1985 - Houston, Texas
     2. Strasburg International Film Festival - April 1985
     3. Festival Des Filmes Du Monde - August 1985 - Montreal, Quebec
     4. New York Film Festival - September 1985 - New York City
     5. Columbus International Film Festival - November 1985 - Columbus,
         Ohio
     6. Yorkton Short Film and Video Festival - October 1985
     7. International Film and T.V. Festival of New York - November 1985
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LINK: http://www.ucrdc.org/

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[return to index] [Ukrainian Genocide Journal: Holodomor 1932-1933]  ========================================================
13.  HOLODOMOR DOCUMENTARY "HARVEST OF DESPAIR"
                                POSTED ON GOOGLE VIDEO

 

Ukrainian Genocide Journal, Issue Two, Article 13

Washington, D.C., Sunday, March 11, 2007

WASHINGTON - The documentary "Harvest of Despair" has been
posted on Google video. The link to the documentary:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3897393411603039499&q=famine+Ukraine&hl=en

Leonard Klady wrote the following about the documentary film, "Harvest
of Despair" in an article for the Winnipeg Free Press, Friday, October
26, 1984 which is posted on the Infoukes website, Toronto, Canada:

"IN THE FALL and spring of 1932 and 1933, the government of the
Soviet Union created a man-made famine in Ukraine to quell what was
perceived as the dangerous threat of regional nationalism.

With alarming design, the authorities succeeded in their goal. The
possibility of rebellion was eliminated at a most terrible cost of millions
of lives.

Harvest of Despair recalls this black period of modern inhumanity. The
exceedingly well-documented film details an act of genocide using both
personal and historical ammunition.

The result is an unquestionably sobering film which rightfully deserves wide
distribution on television and in the educational system.

Produced by the Ukrainian Famine Research Committee (since renamed the
Ukrainian Canadian Research and Documentation Center -- Webmaster
InfoUkes) with assistance from the National Film Board and a variety of
private and public funding sources, the movie screened at the Planetarium
Auditorium of the Manitoba Museum of Man and Nature on October 26
and 27, 1984. It is a real eye-opener.

The startling aspect of this bit of history goes well beyond the act by the
regime of Josef Stalin. The insidious nature of what transpired was
orchestrated in such a fashion that those within and outside the borders of
the Soviet Union were led to believe low crop yields and drought were the
cause of what is estimated to be seven million deaths.

However, subsequently available meteorological, trade and political data
quite conclusively proved this not to be the case.

THE ROOTS OF THIS deliberate and vicious act are traced back to the years
immediately following the 1917 Revolution. Emerging from the era of the
Czars, Lenin opened the door to liberal trade and cultural activity in
Ukraine.

As detailed in the film, it was a time of tremendous growth of all types in
the region. With Lenin's death and the rise to power of Stalin, there was a
change in Soviet government attitudes.

Ukraine, with its independent attitudes in education, politics and culture,
was viewed as a hot bed of dissent. No method was viewed as being too
severe to bring the area back into the fold.

The historical documentation has been vividly assembled. One can see that
tremendous research was a part of making Harvest of Despair. There can be no
question that without the film and photographs uncovered from the 1932-33
famine, the film would lose much of its authority.

However, the production's greatest asset remains the eloquent and emotional
testimony of survivors and first-hand witnesses to the horrors.

Memories of those who saw relatives and friends slowly succumb to disease
and malnutrition fill one with the most terrifying images. It is clear from
the tone of these people's recollections that their lives were forever
changed by the experience.

Harvest of Despair is a chilling reminder that so-called civilized modern
societies continue to participate in or remain silent witness to the most
gruesome atrocities. Let's hope in some small fashion this and other like
documents can reverse the terrible tide.

FOR YURIJ LUHOVY, THE PRODUCER and editor of Harvest of Despair,
the documentary provided him with a very special opportunity to stand up
and be counted for something of a very personal nature.

The 34-year-old film-maker, a native of Montreal, admits most of his income
has come from editing feature films of questionable quality. He has a
reputation as a good "doctor" someone who's brought in to salvage a movie
which is deemed unreleaseable by film exhibitors and distributors.

"This movie," he says, "represents one of those rare situations where you
have to demonstrate some courage and conviction.

It may seem very strange but even 50 years after the actual famine,
survivors now living in Canada and the United States are still fearful of
reprisals. I cannot honestly say whether relatives of mine who live in the
Soviet Union will not suffer because of this film."

Despite positive response to world premiere screenings in Toronto last
month, Luhovy remains anxious about the film's reception and its eventual
distribution to television and educational systems.

Produced on a modest budget of less than $200,000, the producer-editor
indicates that the film could simply not have been made without the
tremendous commitment of many people.

He personally viewed more than a million fe&t of historic stock footage to
find roughly 20 minutes (720 feet) of appropriate material for the film.

HE ALSO INTERVIEWED more than a hundred living survivors of the
famine who live in Montreal. In the vast majority of cases, these people
refused to be filmed or would only consent on the understanding the
material would not be seen until after their deaths. Luhovy says their fear
of reprisals is unshakeable.

"Of course, all of us who participated in the film would hope it has some
small effect on getting the famine official recognition by Soviet
authorities,' Luhovy notes.

"But most important is that people not forget what occurred. The film was
not made out of anger, it was made to show the senselessness of the action.
We must always remember this and ensure such incidents never happen again."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Harvest of Despair: The 1932-33 Famine in Ukraine. Director: Slavko
Novytski, Producers Yuri Luhovy and S. Novytski.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Article Reprinted, with permission, from the Winnipeg Free Press,
Winnipeg, Canada, Friday, October 26, 1984.
LINK: http://www.infoukes.com/history/famine/harvest_of_despair/
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The documentary "Harvest of Despair" has been posted on Google video.
The link to the documentary:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3897393411603039499&q=famine+Ukraine&hl=en-
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[return to index] [Ukranian Genocide Journal: Holodomor 1932-1933] 
========================================================
14.                JAMES MACE MEMORIAL PANEL

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[return to index] [Ukrainian Genocide Journal: Holodomor 1932-1933] 
========================================================
16. NEW SUBSECTION OF THE 1932-1933 FAMINE-GENOCIDE

 

Roman Senkus, Director, CIUS Publications Program

Also please note that the entire contents of the following sections are

endangered.  They may soon be erased from the web.Viewers may
want to access these addresses ASAP:

Archives and Human Rights Violations
http://www.archives.gov.ua/News/HumanRights.php

Famine in Ukraine in 1921-23, 1932-33
http://www.archives.gov.ua/News/Golod.php

 

The Ukrainian Martirolog, XX Century
http://www.archives.gov.ua/Sections/Martyrolog/

Totalitarian Regime in Ukraine
http://www.archives.gov.ua/News/Totalytaryzm.php

Declassified Documents of the Ukrainian Archives
http://www.archives.gov.ua/Publicat/References/Rozsekr-fond.php

Archives of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army
http://www.archives.gov.ua/News/Arch-Doc.php

Archives of 1956 Hungarian Revolution
http://www.archives.gov.ua/News/HungaryRevolution.php

 

Samvydav archives
http://www.archives.gov.ua/News/samizdat.php

Online Documentary Exhibitions
http://www.archives.gov.ua/Sections/

Home Page links on the www.archives.gov.ua site to other Web

resources may also be liquidated in a short while. Among them:

http://www.gulag.ipvnews.org/index.php
http://www.gulag.ipvnews.org/index.php

http://www.terrorhaza.hu/index3.html
http://www.archives.gov.ua/News/HungaryRevolution.php
http://www.archives.gov.ua/News/Arch-Doc.php
http://www.archives.gov.ua/News/kgb-archives.php
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/
http://www.history.univ.kiev.ua/ukrbooks/doc1921_85.html
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ROMAN SENKUS, Director, CIUS Publications Program

www.utoronto.ca/cius, [email protected]
Managing Editor, www.encyclopediaofukraine.com
Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, Toronto Office
20 Orde St., Room 125, University of Toronto
Toronto, ON, M5T 1N7, Canada

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[return to index] [Ukrainian Genocide Journal: Holodomor 1932-1933] 
========================================================
17.  PRES YUSHCHENKO: "ASKED WHAT THE HOLODOMOR
                  WAS, MY ANSWER IS 'IT WAS GENOCIDE'"

Ukrainian President Victor Yushchenko's address on Remembrance
Day for the Victims of the Holodomor and Political Repressions
Remembrance Service at St. Michael's Square in Kyiv
Official Website of President of Ukraine (In Ukrainian)
Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, November 25, 2006
Published by the Ukrainian Genocide Journal

Issue One, Article Seventeen (in English)
Washington, D.C., Sunday, March 11, 2007

Dear Ukrainian people!

In my hand I have a spikelet of wheat.

I wish I could offer this spikelet to a little boy who died from starvation
in 1933 in the field near the village of Kruty in the Chernihiv oblast.

And to a small girl in the village of Vilanka in the Zhytomyr oblast. And to
a woman in the village of Krasnohirka in the Odesa oblast. And to a man in
the village of Teplivka in the Poltava oblast.

With pain in my heart, I wish I could give this spikelet to my Granddad
Ivan and his family who died from the great famine in 1932.

I wish I could give this spikelet to residents of thousands of towns and
villages in Ukraine. In oblasts Kyiv, Donetsk, Cherkasy, Mykolayiv and
Kuban.

I wish I could give this grain over tens of past years to villages Luteske
(Kharkiv oblast), Kosenky (Sumy oblast), Zajtsivtsi (Luhansk oblast) whose
residents, with few exceptions, died in the holodomor. They were dying at
the rate of 17 per minute, 1,000 per hour, 25,000 per day.

Such was the harvest of the great famine in Ukraine. Asked what the
holodomor was, my answer is "It was genocide."

I do not know what kind of a country Ukraine would have been, had they
survived.

But I know what kind of a country Ukraine is today.

And I know what kind of a country it may become, if the souls of its
innocent dead are forgotten. Once oblivious of them, such a Ukraine will
inevitably lose its soul, its language and its national memory. It will turn
into a faceless land with a faceless and lifeless people.

Those denying the Holodomor loathe Ukraine deeply and resolutely. They
hate us, our spirit and our future. They do not deny history, they deny
Ukraine.

The Holodomor victims must be remembered as martyrs of one of mankind's
largest catastrophes.

I do not ask, I demand that the Ukrainian lawmakers recognize the Holodomor
as genocide. This is their obligation and history's pressing requirement.
Same as was the act of proclaiming Ukraine's ndependence. Relieve yourselves
of fear and lies.

History has already passed its sentence on the murderers who had planned
and induced the Famine, with Stalin's totalitarian Communist system being
its main perpetrator.

This system has no national identity because the latter is an imminent
feature of a civilization of humans. Death from starvation and extermination
is incompatible with civilization.

A genocide is a purposeful annihilation of a people or its part.

The 1948 UN convention defines genocide as an act committed with intent
to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious
group, or cause serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group, or
deliberately inflict on the group conditions of life calculated to bring
about its physical destruction in whole or in part.

And now let me quote a letter Stalin wrote to Kahanovych, his henchman in
Ukraine in 1932:

"Ukraine is of topmost priority. Things in Ukraine have got out of hand,
in two oblasts (Kiev and Dnepropetrovsk, if I'm not mistaken) some 50
Communist party rayon committees criticized the plan of mandatory grain
deliveries, saying it cannot be met. If we don't go about rectifying the
situation in Ukraine right away, we may lose Ukraine."

Stalin wasted no time to deliver on his threat. A terror campaign was
launched against things Ukrainian. The country's intellectuals, clergy,
every active representative of the Ukrainian identity was executed. It was
a well-planned act.

At that time the pupils of Mykhailo Hrushevsky [Ukraine's first president
exiled to Russia - Transl.] wrote to him: "A true famine is ravaging
Ukraine. It was induced by politicians and aimed to break the Ukrainian
nation as a sole national force capable of serious resistance [to the
Stalin's regime - Transl.]

Part of Ukrainians will die, others will be scattered over Russia's
boundless territories." It was a report by a secret police agent keeping an
eye on Hrushevsky and his friends.

 The territory of Ukraine and Kuban (adjacent area of Russia populated by
ethnic Ukrainians - Transl.] will be sealed off by law-enforcement units to
prevent peasants from leaving in search of food. Life will become
insignificant. Death will rule in Ukraine.

Just think about it: according to historians, in 1933 the average lifetime
for men in Ukraine was 7 years and 10 years for women. What's that?
This is true genocide.

 In August of 1932, the regime imposed restrictions on trade, banning
peasants to buy or sell grain and obliging them to turn over their grain
only to the state without any payment.

In the fall of 1932 the authorities started to confiscate grain from
so-called deadbeats, farmers and kolhosps that failed to meet excessive
grain procurement targets. All of them were treated as deadbeats: this is
genocide.

 In the wake of a corresponding resolution by the Communist party central
committee, the authorities imposed a system of black lists for alleged
deadbeats.

In order to forcefully take away grain, seeds and supplies of food, the
regime used secret police units to seal off villages, farms, rayons and
kolhosps. Their number reached 82. Being put on a black list was
tantamount to a death sentence. This is genocide.

The regime resorted to the same methods which were used in Jewish
ghettos and Nazi concentration camps.

The crimes of the Holodomor paved the way for WWII crimes which
climaxed in the devilish atrocities of the Holocaust.

 It is difficult for me to continue the crime list. Despite all the
misgivings, Ukraine has survived.

We remember past sorrows as a warning against new crimes against
humanity. We are counting on international understanding and support in
this issue.

Today, speaking on Mykhajlivsky square in the heart of Kyiv, I'm urging the
Russian Federation in the first place to join us and, by commemorating the
Holododmor at the state level, to demonstrate the high degree of human
empathy which is typical of the Russian people.

I'm also urging every nation that has fallen a victim to the Communist
regime. We were all hostages and victims of the evil regime and we must
now jointly cleanse ourselves.

I wish to thank all countries that legally and politically recognized the
Holodomor as an act of genocide against the Ukrainian nation. I hope that
the United Nations will be unanimous in recognizing the tragedy on the eve
of its 75th anniversary.

I deeply believe this will happen, because I deeply believe in justice.

The spikelet is burning my hand. I feel how the souls of our brothers and
sisters are reaching to it from the past. And I feel the warmth of their
touch.

Do not be afraid. Do not be afraid of anything any longer. The Holodomor
dead! Your whole nation and your state is standing by you.

Let's stop the flow of time for an instant.

And in this instant we feel how God is listening to the dead.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LINK: http://www.president.gov.ua/news/data/11_12068.html)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

NOTE:  This article was translated from Ukrainian to English solely
for the Ukrainian Genocide Journal by Volodymyr Hrytsutenko,
Lviv, Ukraine.  The translated article can be used but only with

permission from the Ukrainian Genocide Journal, Washington.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[return to index] [Ukrainian Genocide Journal: Holodomor 1932-1933]   
========================================================
18.   UKRAINE MARKS THE EVENTS OF 1932-1933 FOR THE

         FIRST TIME AT AN APPROPRIATE NATIONAL LEVEL

PERSONAL COMMENTARY: By Daniel Bilak
Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, December 1, 2006
Published by the UKL407 (The Politics of Genocide),
The Ukraine List (UKL) #407, Article 3
Compiled by Dominique Arel, Chair of Ukrainian Studies,
U of Ottawa, www.ukrainianstudies.uottawa.ca
Supported by the Dopomoha Ukraini Foundation
Ottawa, Canada, 12 December 2006

COMMENTARY: By Daniel Bilak <[email protected]>
Date: Friday, December 1, 2006 8:53 AM

Daniel Bilak is a lawyer in the firm Sergei Koziakov & Partners in Kyiv

It's been a very emotionally trying weekend here in Kyiv and throughout
Ukraine. This is really the first time that the country has marked the
events of 1932-33 on an appropriately national level.

The President spoke eloquently before the monument to the victims of
the famine in front of the Mykhailivsky Church of the Golden Domes.

He spoke of the fact that this catastrophic event in the history of  the
Ukrainian people was planned and executed as a deliberate policy of
Stalin to destroy the Ukrainian people as an ethnic and national reality.

This was an important message, because Russia, as the legal successor to
the Soviet Union, does not recognize the famine as having been directed
specifically at Ukrainians.

Russia maintains that the famine was not a genocide (ie. directed at a
particular race, ethnic group or nation), but an aspect of Stalinist
repression.

Indeed, the present Communist Party of Ukraine and the Party of the
Regions (which forms Ukraine's government) also reject this calamity as
a genocide against their people.

They refuse to vote for a draft law put before the Verkhovna Rada by the
President that would recognize the famine as a genocide and would make
denial of the famine a punishable offence. Similar laws exist in various
countries (including Canada) with respect to the Holocaust.

On Saturday, in front of the Holodomor memorial, the President movingly
and emotionally recited some of the facts regarding Ukraine's holocaust,
much of which was detailed in a documentary film shown on national
television Saturday night.

The following emerges:
 - in one year, 1933, in villages throughout Soviet Ukraine, 17 Ukrainians
died every minute of the day - that's over 1000 people an hour, 25,000 per
day, almost 10 million during that year;

- that the average life span of a man during the period 1926 - 1937 was
calculated at 7 years and for a woman 11 years;

- that Ukraine in 1957 had 70% less population than it should have had
based on the rising birth rates in the country from 1900-1926;

- the census held in 1957 showed that Ukraine had lost one-quarter of its
population since the last published census held in 1926 (the results of the
1937 census were so awful that Stalin had them suppressed) ;

- that throughout the famine period of 1932-33, the Soviet Union recorded
massive grain exports.

The documentary showed shocking footage and described the horrors of
the famine through the tesimony of survivors:

- the army was deployed to circle and cordon off villages and even whole
oblasts to prevent starving villagers from fleeing their homes. Those who
escaped were returned to face certain death;

- starving children were picked up off the street and carted off to special
homes and left to die;

- Soviet commissars went from house to house, first taking the peasants'
grain, then their animals, then their shovels, rakes, axes, and anything
else that they could use to feed themselves;

-  people in the towns would drop dead in the middle of the street and at
the height of the famine, so many died that there weren't enough coffins to
bury people; the bodies were thrown into mass graves;

- in 1933 so many peasants were foraging for food and dying on the streets
of towns and cities like Kharkiv that the internal passport system (which
still exists and whose logic still baffles westerners)was designed in order
to ensure that villagers couldn't leave their villages and would die at
home;

- the commissars would try to catch people who had hidden food by using
tricks like arresting a child and since there was no food in the jails, they
would wait to see if the parents brought anything for the child to eat. If
they did, it meant that there was more to take from them. The parents
were then often shot or sent to labour camps;

- mothers forbid their children to go outdoors to protect them from
neighbours who, mad from hunger, would kidnap children to eat them.

This insanity took place only in Soviet Ukraine and in the predominantly
Ukrainian area of the Kuban in Soviet Russia bordering Ukraine. Although
there was a famine in the Volga region, in most of the neighbouring oblasts
of Russia and Byeolrussia (literally next door), the villagers were
relatively well fed. Many Russians were sympathetic to the plight of their
Ukrainian neighbours, but were prevented from delivering food by the
Soviet Army.

One survivor, who was later interned in a Nazi concentration camp
(what this woman lived through!), said that the famine was much worse than
war. In war, a few of your neighbours die, she explained. In the famine
entire families and whole villages were wiped out. At least in the camps
they gave you a daily ration of stale bread, water, and a potato.

The diary of one village teacher described the transformation of her
neighbours: "starvation is slowly turning people into brutal, savage,
dehumanized beings capable of the worst crimes..."

There is finally in Ukraine an open discussion of what happened in 1932-33
and a rising appreciation of its affect on the Ukrainian psyche. In Soviet
times, the mere mention of a "famine in 1933" in Ukraine meant immediate
arrest and deportation to a labour camp in Siberia. The teacher whose words
are quoted above was sentenced to 10 years hard labour and 5 years internal
exile upon discovery of her diaries in 1945.

Her words have been brought to light by my friend Ihor Drizhchaniy, the
head of Ukraine's Security Service, the SBU (the former KGB). He ordered
over 5000 documents from that era declassified and they are now on display
[a small number of them, UGJ Editor] in a special exhibition at Ukrainskiy

Dim, as well as on the SBU official web site.

Ihor is a true patriot and it is an honour for me to have him as my friend.
He has performed a tremendous service to the Ukrainian people. The
materials on display for everyone to read are as stunning as they are
revolting.

The plans to exterminate Ukrainians are as clinical as anything the Nazis
documented regarding the Final Solution for the Jews.

What emerges is that Stalin feared the Bolsheviks were losing their control
over Ukraine, especially in the villages. Stalin realized that if the
Bolsheviks lost control in Ukraine, they would fall from power.

Stalin feared both the rising national identity among the peasants and the
general populace (as a result of the successful ukrainianization policies of
the 1920's), as well as Ukraine's rising population (which was growing as
fast as China's at the time).

Ukraine's burgeoning national consciousness was already obstructing
Stalin's plans to create a new "Soviet Man" and the peasantry's rejection of
collectivization was beginning to erode Party discipline and Stalin's grip
on Ukraine. His plan was to rid the Party of these obstacles by destroying
the source of the obstruction, the Ukrainian village.

By starving the villages, Stalin would break the will of the Ukrainian
nation and fill the demographic hole by populating Ukraine's rich soil with
Russians and other ethnic groups from other parts of the Soviet Union. To

a large extent, Stalin succeeded. In the 1920's ethnic Russians made up

only 7% of Ukraine's population. By 1957, they made up over 20%.

The famine abated in late 1933 when Stalin felt that he had sufficiently
broken the spirit of the Ukrainian people and had reasserted Party control
over the countryside. He realized that he could not repopulate Ukraine
quickly enough to produce the food necessary to feed the rest of the Soviet
Union in the looming war in Europe.

By the end of 1933, the collective farms started giving out food to those
peasants still able to work and most Ukrainian villagers were starved into
submitting to the collectivization process.

Stalin turned his attention to planning a reign of terror to "cleanse" the
whole of the Soviet Union of "counter-revolutionary" elements in the
Communist Party, which began in 1934, killing millions until the onset of
World War II.

In this horrific context, the Holodomor offers Ukrainians an opportunity to
discover common truths about themselves by asking what it was about being
"Ukrainian" that resulted in the perpetration of this heinous crime. The
Holodomor has attracted intense interest and generated serious discussions
across the country.

Scholarship on the subject is widely published and is picked up in the
popular press. The interest cuts across generations. It was heartening to
see large numbers of young families with small children wandering the
candle-lit squares in front of St. Sophia and St. Mykhalivskiy.

The whole nation marked the famine with a national moment of
silence following the President's address. People across the country put
candles in their windows to burn all night to mark the occasion.

I was moved to see young children carefully sheltering candles standing
next to weeping survivors of the famine, who pointed out where the
candles should be set before the Holodomor memorial.

A Hungarian friend of mine noted recently that the most remarkable thing
about the "Maidan" was that it was a peaceful revolution where the people
stood up to demand from their rulers respect for their dignity, and won.

They believed in the righteousness of their actions. That spirit has not
dissipated in the cynicism of the post-Maidan era. Perhaps the halo effect
of the Maidan and the facts of the Holodomor will stimulate Ukrainians to
come to terms with a common identity and their broader place in the world.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[return to index] [Ukrainian Genocide Journal: Holodomor 1932-1933] 
========================================================
19.        HOLODOMOR: INAPPROPRIATE RENAMING

ANALYSIS & COMMENTARY: By Ihor Lutsenko
Ukrayinska Pravda online, Kyiv, Ukraine,
Monday, November 27, 2006 (in Ukrainian)
Published by the Ukrainian Genocide Journal

Issue Two, Article Nineteen (in English)
Washington, D.C., Sunday, March 11, 2007

Obviously, many who observed Yushchenko efforts to equate the
holodomor and genocide got the impression that Ukrainians have been
trespassing on someone else's turf.

It's no simple matter to equate one horrendous crime and the other that
has already been defined, branded and denounced.

It looks like the law of precedent applied to history.

Not a bad idea, but only at a first glance: because to implement it in
reality head on, like Viktor Yushchenko is doing, is not a simple matter.
                         HISTORICAL CRIMINALISTICS
There are two reasons for this.

[1] First, the regime that committed this crime continues to exist now, in a
curtailed form. It is going out of its way to stop people around the world
from knowing the true measure of the Holodomor.

[2] Second, there is a technical reason. Unlike Stalin, Hitler preferred
direct style, transparency of his policy, to use modern parlance.

By openly declaring ethnic Jews a lower race he legitimized all further
encroachments on their rights, including the right to live. The openness of
style is a unique thing, especially so with regard to Hitler's criminal
acts.

You don't often see a murderer who speaks out loud about his intent to
commit a crime and then commits this crime in earnest under camera lenses.

Something of the kind happened in Nazi Germany, substantially facilitating
the condemnation of genocide in Germany. It is not difficult, therefore, to
prove the Nazis' guilt.

Proving the guilt of Cheka operators, Bolsheviks and their leader Stalin is
a much more difficult challenge. Hypocrisy thrived in their midst, and their
orders didn't have the clear chauvinistic edge.

No one gave orders to exterminate the Ukrainians, it would have been stamped
as politically incorrect [by the Bolsheviks themselves - Transl.]. Let it be
recalled that the incumbent Russian regime is loath to release complete
information about the Holodomor.

Therefore, the Nazis openly exterminated the Jews, openly declaring their
racial inferiority. Whereas Ukrainians were exterminated in a furtive way,
keeping the motives secret.
                           MOTIVES FOR EXTERMINATION
Quite a few motives were invented in the past, from destroying a base for
political opposition in the USSR to vengeance by the Jews for some past
historical grudges.

 Small wonder, as any mass murder is so much unnatural, senseless and
horrible that, trying to explain it, humans tend to broaden the framework of
logic giving rise to the wildest scenarios. Whatever the motive for
extermination, it stems from a sole source - separate self-identification of
Ukrainians.

The existence of a multi-million group of people divergent from other groups
in the USSR by many parameters, ranging from the language and traditions to
the way of maintaining households and self-government was a real threat.

This specific group had a fresh experience of armed fighting, it remembered
many radical political ideas dating back to tumultuous events that shook the
Russian empire in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

In addition, this specific group populated strategic areas along the western
border of the red Communist empire and was rich in agricultural and
industrial resources. It was these factors that eventually determined its
fate. A pretext for destruction was found easily.

The issue of collaborationists must be treated separately. The fact that
many Ukrainians sided with the Bolshevik regime gives no ground to shift
part of the blame to the Ukrainian people as a whole, presenting the
holodomor almost as an act of self-destruction.

It is the same as putting the finger for Nazi atrocities in Russia on
General Vlasov [Soviet general who led his army to surrender to the

Germans in 1941 - Transl.]  and indigenous  population hired by the

Germans as policemen. Every nation has its share of traitors but we will

not dwell on it now.

No genocide, ergo, no crime?

As regards the discussion whether or not to recognize the holodomor as
genocide, it is apparently counterproductive.
Millions died horrible deaths in Ukraine.

Is it a reason enough to view the holodomor as a lesser crime than the
genocide carried out by the Nazi Germany? Is it a reason enough not to
denounce the unprecedented crime of the holodomor in the same way as

the genocide has been denounced?

Doesn't holodomor in Ukraine deserve to become a separate precedent in
history, to serve as a yardstick for other, lesser similar crimes by
totalitarian regimes? Doesn't it deserve its own name?

Most probably, the Ukrainian experience of revealing and exposing the

crime of holodomor can be of great help to those trying to expose similar

crimes in other countries.

That is why the dispute [over how to call the horrible famine in Ukraine -
Transl.]  should be stopped as it is fraught with a dangerous trap: if it is
not recognized as genocide, it is not a crime?

Both parties must admit: it's not important whether you call it genocide or
not. Under a different name the crime is no less horrible.

Meanwhile, trying to score political points by renaming historical icons
with the help of loan cliches will only do harm.

It will harm Ukrainians - by presenting them as those with a much lower
status of victims.

It will harm the civilization - by hiding from humanity this unprecedented
crime.                                          -30-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LINK: http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2006/11/27/51390.htm
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[return to index] [Ukrainian Genocide Journal: Holodomor 1932-1933]   
========================================================
20.            CONSEQUENCES OF FAMINE GENOCIDE

By Fedir Moroziuk, Member, Ukrainian Association of
Holodomor Researchers, Kherson Oblast (Article written in 1997)
Posted on www.Golodomor.com website, Kyiv, Ukraine (in Ukrainian)
A Program of the Ukraine 3000 International Fund

Published by the Ukrainian Genocide Journal

Issue Two, Article Twenty (in English)

Washington, D.C., Sunday, March 11, 2007

It is over half the century, to be exact 65 years [1997], since the famine-

genocide in 1932-1933 in Ukraine. Although all progressive mankind have

recognized it as a reality, only P. Symonenko, leader of Ukrainian

Communists, speaking on television on Nov. 7 declared with irony, that the

holodomor death toll calculated by self-proclaimed researchers exceeds

the Ukrainian population of the country.

I will not speak for all Ukraine, but there are no Ukrainians left in the
Kherson oblast, let alone people speaking Ukrainian. We communicate in
surzhyk, a weird mixture of Russian and Ukrainian, while local leaders
communicate only in Russian.

Small wonder, as according to survivors from those times and archive
materials, the place of those who died from starvation was taken by settlers
from Russia's oblasts Gorky, Ivanovo, other central oblasts as well as from
Belarus and other Soviet republics.

The numbers of settlers can be seen from the secret report by the All-Union
Committee for Resettlement under the Council of People's Commissars of the
USSR of Dec. 29, 1933 and addressed to the head of GULAG Berman: "The
committee is sending you the report #38 on the resettlement to Ukraine as of
Dec. 28, 1933.

Simultaneously, we inform you that the plan for the number of resettled
persons has been fulfilled by 104.76 percent. In total, 21,856 peasant
households have been resettled, including 117,149 persons, 14,879 horses,
21,898 cows and 38,705 pigs and sheep."

In 1932-1933, what is now the Kherson oblast was part of the Odesa oblast.
In accordance with the document, 2,120 households from Russia's Gorky oblast
and 4,630 from Belarus had been resettled to the Odesa oblast [1]. These are
the figures for 1933 alone, while the resettlement to the south of Ukraine
lasted till the last days of the Soviet Union [1991].

Along with voluntary resettlement, there was a forced resettlement of
residents of Western Ukrainian oblasts after WWII. Here is an account of
that event given by Maria Stefanyshyn: "

It was exactly on Peter's day [July 12 - UGJ], soldiers surrounded our
village, drove all of us out of our homes and set fire to them. We were
taken under escort to Rozhnyativ, a rayon town in the Stanislav area, shoved
into cargo rail cars and taken to an unknown destination.

After 2 days they released us in Kherson. From there, we went on foot to the
village of Mala Lepetykha. We found ourselves amid boundless steppe, with
scorching sun and no water around.

Could we, the natives of the free Carpathian region, feel comfortable in
this hell? Of course, not. Hence, four attempts to flee back home. We were
caught at home and dispatched again to Kherson - until we found a decent
area to live  - the village of Hladkivka, Hola Prystan rayon. It all
happened in 1950 through 1954."

You may counter that the story has nothing to do with the 1932-1933
famine-genocide. Yes, it has. Back in 1932-1933, they used famine to
devastate Eastern Ukraine, later they used brutal force to destroy Western
Ukraine.

In 1944, Beria [head of Stalin's secret police - UGJ] and Zhukov [general in
charge of Soviet army troops in the area - UGJ] signed a special order,
under which all Ukrainians residing in the areas under German occupation had
to be resettled.

When I published this order in The Holoprystansky Herald, a rayon newspaper,
in September of 1997 alongside with my comments, it caused a turmoil, the
newspaper reported.

Veteran Communists dubbed the order a Goebbels-type fraud and me as a
historian who spits on his country's history, past and achievements.

The newspaper's editor was summoned for questioning by members of a
rayon council, I was threatened with a law-suit and punishment, while the
editorial board had to admit that the document was not an authentic
document but a fake.

However, according to Khrushchov's revelations [in 1956 - UGJ], Stalin
opted for large-scale resettlement to Ukraine.

Here is an excerpt from The Komsomolska Pravda: " Much to Stalin's
chagrin, he could not resettle all Ukrainians as the areas for resettlement
were scarce and there was the lack of transportation means." [3].

The famine-genocide of 1932-1933 has led not only to physical
extermination of Ukrainians, it eroded their spiritual base, the national
idea and national awareness of the people.

We can see the consequences of the genocide today when small but
nationalistically aware Estonia, and not only Estonia, sides with the
countries of the West - while a 50-million Ukraine is wavering whether to
break away with its Communist past.

There was a multitude of appeals from the people to Verkhovna Rada,
president and government protesting the stupidity of marking the
anniversaries of the Bolshevik uprising in Petersburg, incidentally, called
by Ulyanov (Lenin) a coup.

The Russians have long stopped to mark it, but in Ukraine it is still a
state holiday. Take, for instance, our submissiveness, apathy, and neglect
of our own traditions. Aren't they the consequences of the genocide? We have
learned to use Russian four-letter words in our speech, an unheard-of thing
in the past for a Ukrainian.

The Communist morals are convincingly demonstrated to us by our deputies
who prefer to resolve their problems in fist-fights in Verkhovna Rada, like
it happened on Apr. 16, 1997 when lawmakers Volodymyr Marchenko and
Natalia Vitrenko in a professionally thuggish way beat up their colleague
Pavlo Movchan. "I don't have any scruples," Marchenko said after the

incident [4]. No wonder.

Instead of crosses we now put guns, tanks, monuments of soldiers with guns
over tombs. The road to the Taras Shevchenko monument in Kharkiv is lined
with stone soldiers grabbing to their rifles. What for? So that the great
Ukrainian feels the Russian spirit? The same assertiveness had been
confirmed by Russia President Borys Yeltsyn who said: "We must do away
with Chechen bandits in Russia"[5].

Such assertive statements have already been directed at Ukrainians,
especially after Moscow Mayor Luzhkov's speech in Sevastopol: "Ukraine has
no claim to Sevastopol. So far, we are speaking only about Sevastopol"[6].
What will Russia claim tomorrow? The south of Ukraine?

Another turncoat and reportedly a descendant of Ukrainian Cossack Lebid, now
Governor of Siberia Gen. Lebid wants to take Ukraine to international court
to cede its territory to Russia, saying that in any way Sevastopol has
always been and will be Russia's territory.

Army generals have been echoed by church generals: "The purpose of the
conference is to restore our Motherland," Archbishop of Zaporizhia and
Melitopol Vasylij [Moscow-run Orthodox church in Ukraine - UGJ] declared
on Dec. 24, 1996, speaking on the Channel 2 of Ukrainian television.

Most probably as a snub, the conference in question was held on Jan. 9-12,
1997 by Moscow-affiliated clergy in Zaporizhia, [the area with a glorious
Cossack past, the seat of the Cossack state, Sich - Translator].

Joining Levko Lukyanenko [a prominent Ukrainian nationalist and dissident -
AUR], I would like to ask indignantly, "How such abominable cruelty could
be done in independent Ukraine?" I refer to the events on July 18, 1995 on
Sofiyivsky square in Kyiv when police using gas and batons broke up the
burial procession of the Holy Patriarch of Kyiv and all Ukraine Volodymyr.

"They are ignorant of the national shrines and national symbols. On July 18
they demonstrated their closeness with the imperial forces by protecting the
Russia-affiliated church,"  Levko Lukyanenko added.

Isn't all this lack of spiritual beliefs and national awareness the result
of the genocide? How much longer must we suffer to unite and feel a
full-fledged nation, to feel that we are UKRAINIANS?

Such kind of ideological duality is present everywhere, especially in the
south of Ukraine. My native village, Hladkivka, is no exception. When on
November 7 the local Communist leaders and their cronies were marking the
day of the Bolshevik coup, across the street there was a commemorative
church service for the innocent victims of the famine in Ukraine. From of
old, November 7, or the Dmytrij day, has been the day of remembrance in
Ukraine.

Therefore, the meeting of the Hladkivka branch of the Association of
holodomor-genocide researchers has appealed to the association council in
Kyiv to file a law suit with the international court on the grounds of the
crimes committed by Moscow in 1921-1923, 1932-1933, 1946-1947, with
appropriate compensations to be paid (excerpt from the meeting minutes of
Jan. 3, 1997).

  We suggest that the council of the association should initiate a proposal
in Verkhovna Rada making November 7 the day of the holodomor-famine
remembrance.                                      -30-
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                             NOTES:
1. Collectivization and famine in Ukraine in 1929-1933. A collection of
    documents and materials. Kyiv, 19992, P. 642.
2. Khrushchev N.S. On the cult of personality and its consequences.
    Report to the 20th congress of the Communist party of USSR.
    Feb. 25, 1956. Izvestia of the Central Committee, 1989, #3. - P. 152.
3. The Komsomolskaya Pravda, Feb. 3, 1990.
4. TSN TV program, Apr. 16, 1997.
5. Novosti TV program, Jan. 19, 1996.
6. Russia's Vremya TV program , Dec. 26, 1996.          -30-
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LINK: http://www.golodomor.org.ua/pub.php?sp=2
LINK: http://ukraine3000.org.ua/eng/yesterday/vchora/5216.html
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[return to index] [Ukrainian Genocide Journal: Holodomor 1932-1933] 
========================================================

A Free, Not-For-Profit, Independent, Public Service History Journal

========================================================