Serhiychuk20170927UkrainianGenocide1933.html

Ukrainian Genocide 1932-1933

How millions of deaths were not included in the statistics.

[... 27-page pdf file ...]

For decades, our Diaspora was convinced that, because of Holodomor-Genocide of 1932-1933, Ukraine had lost from 7 to 10 million human lives. In many cases, this belief was predicated upon the records of German diplomats assigned to the USSR; in particular, the Consulate General of Germany in Kharkiv. For example, on 11 December 1933, they reported:

From reliable sources it is known that according to the official estimates, seven million victims did not constitute a great loss, but that means that a quarter of peasantry was annihilated, which even comparatively to the victims of the World War is a terrible number.[1]

An employee of the German Embassy in USSR, Schiller, added, "As for me, the announced figure of 10 million of victims of hunger is not an exaggeration".[2]

The relevant conclusions were made also by researchers of Ukrainian emigration. For example, S. Sosnovyi, a former employee of Ukrainian SSR State Planning Committee, an entity well aware of the distortions imposed upon the statistics of population movement in Ukrainian SSR in early 1930s, wrote:

Thus, the conclusion to which we come by analyzing official materials are: the total number of hunger deaths due to lack of population is 7.5 million, 4.8 million people died of starvation (1.5 million in 1932, and 3.3 million in 1933) and 2.7 million -- a reduction of population growth after the famine.[3]

In this manner, dating from the first mass recognition of the tragedy in 1953, the Ukrainian Diaspora used these figures. On 2 August 1953, in Manchester, UK, a demonstration was held, marching under the slogan, "Blaming Moscow for Death of Seven Million Ukrainians Annihilated by Hunger in 1933."[4] With the declaration of Ukrainian independence, this statement passed to Ukraine. For almost a quarter of century, this expression of losses remained in the minds of the people.

Significantly, a few weeks before the unveiling of the United States’ Memorial to the Victims of the Holodomor, on 7 November 2015, in Washington, DC, five leaders of Ukrainian research institutions in North America: the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, the Shevchenko Scientific Society of America, Inc., the Ukrainian Free Academy of Science, and the American Association for Ukrainian Studies appealed to the Chairman of the Organizing Committee, Michael Sawkiw Jr.,[5] with a request not to use the conventional figures of losses ranging from 7 to 10 million, and to limit information to the conclusions of Professors Andre Graziosi, Timothy Snyder, and Stanislaw Kulchyzkiy, who claim that this tragedy took the lives of less than half of our peasantry. Otherwise, they warned, it will cause protests in certain anti-Ukrainian circles, and will be used immediately by Kremlin propagandists to blame Ukrainian science for incompetence, etc. In light of these concerns, the Organizing Committee decided to abide by this request. Thus, at the unveiling ceremony, the topic of the number of victims was addressed only in terms of millions of victims, without specifying of any numbers.[6]

Concurrent with the already mentioned letter, there appeared in Kyiv an article written by N. Levchuk, T. Boriak, A. Wolowyna, O. Rudnytskiy and A. Kovbasiuk (demographers and historians) published in Ukrainian Historical Journal, entitled, "Losses of Urban and Rural Population Due to Holodomor in Ukraine 1932-1934."[7] This article states:

During 1932-1933, about 8.7 million deaths in the Soviet Union was caused by hunger. Almost 98% of these losses come to three Soviet republics: Ukraine (3.9 million), Russia (3.3 million) and Kazakhstan (1.3 million). If you calculate the relative loss, in other words per 1000 of population, the rank of Ukraine is second after Kazakhstan. Losses from hunger are 22% of the total population of Kazakhstan; 17% in Ukraine; 3% in Russia; and less than 2% in other former Soviet republics.[8]

These authors substantiate their calculations of losses from famine in USSR, with such factors as those related to internal migration (in other words by mechanical outflow of population from villages to cities in quantities 3,388 thousand people for 1927- 1938), and external migration, which assess the losses in terms of nine streams:

1) Transporting of prisoners outside of the Republic, 1928-1938
2) Transporting of "kulaks" outside of the USSR, 1930-1933
3) Forced migration outside of the Republic, 1929-1933
4) Organized agricultural resettlements to other republics, 1927-1929
5) Deportation of Poles and Germans to Kazakhstan, 1936
6) Emigration of Jews out of the Republic, 1928-1938
7) Organized labor recruitment from rural areas for construction of new projects outside of Ukraine, 1935-1938
8) Resettlement of peasants to Ukraine from Belarus and Russia, 1933-1934
9) Eviction of "kulaks" from Central Asia to Ukrainian SSR, 1931

This would be an acceptable approach for our demographers and their colleague from the USA, Dr. Oleg Wolowyna, if these innovations used in the creating of a counting methodic of Holodomor victims, were based upon a perfection of the statistics to which they refer. However, we believe that what factors make it impossible to assess the losses of rural population of Ukrainian SSR, are the facts that the authors evaluated a great period of time, during which all the events directly affecting the total calculations, and the full scope of the documentation regarding these events, have not been made available to allow a complete analysis.

Indeed, even if Holodomor killed not any accepted number of millions of Ukrainians, but many less, that would not lessen or change the genocidal nature of the crime. It is our duty to remember all the innocent victims. Therefore, we should continue to methodically seek a comprehensive answer, and critically treating any position established in academic circles about a designated number of losses.

The first mistake made by these demographers, ... [... 27-page pdf file ...]

[W.Z. In the rest of the article, the author continues providing arguments, statistics and interesting episodes to support his thesis. These may, or may not, be convincing, but certainly add to our understanding of the Holodomor.
(Note: Several minor corrections have been made in the above text and the translated-from-Ukrainian text in the pdf file is also sometimes confusing -- such as thousands/millions; and European nomenclature 31.285,777 thousand vs. 31,285.777 thousand nomenclature used in North America.)

Personally, I first encountered this controversy about Holodomor-death-numbers at the Ukrainian Canadian Congress triennial conference held in Edmonton on 05/07Nov2010. My critical report of the event is archived on this website at:
XXIII Triennial Congress; 05/07Nov2010; Part 2
XXIII Triennial Congress; 05/07Nov2010; Part 1
Elder UCC-Edmonton statesman, Stephan Romaniuk, brought up this question and Holodomor-expert Roman Serbyn from Montreal supported the lowered numbers with the same argumentation as described above. This sudden about-face of our modern Ukrainian acedemics appears to be related to the establishment of the Ukrainian Jewish Encounter (UJE) in 2008 dedicated to improving Ukrainian-Jewish relations. Did they reach a tacit agreement with the Holocaust Industry to keep the fatality figures below six million?

Especially frustrating is that these lowered figures contradict the numbers quoted in their own books and earlier articles. For example, Nikita Khrushchev refers to the catastrophic situation in Ukraine and 12 million victims. Furthermore, they never refer to earlier experts such as Ewald Ammende, who wrote a detailed book on the subject in 1935 and Andrew Cairns, who witnessed the beginning of the famine in 1932 as described in the book "The Foreign Office and the Famine". Neither do they ever refer to James Mace (1952.02.18-2004.05.03), who dedicated his life to uncover the details of the Holodomor.]