The Chronicles Of Grant County

Holodomor Remembrance
2023

Part One
This photograph is of “5-A class of Kryvorudsk (Zarudyansk school) of Kremenchug district, Poltava region [in Ukraine],” according to a statement from Holodomor Museum, part of the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine. “A third of the class did not survive the Holodomor of 1932-1933, including Lida Gonchar, born in 1921, (second row, 4th from the left).” (The photo was from the archive of Hanna Kapustyan’s family and was provided courtesy of Holodomor Museum, Fall of 1932.)
As Americans celebrate Thanksgiving tomorrow, some will also plan for the remembrance of the Holodomor on Saturday.

Folks in southwest New Mexico may view the news about the war in Ukraine and express sympathy for Ukrainians. Or, local residents here may see that war as one that is not one that should involve the United States of America. Some may have views that straddle those lines.

It’s important for people to understand the background of this situation.

It won’t explain why a bombing occurred today or why an army unit encircled a city with mines tomorrow.

It won’t detail corruption in Ukraine or bad deeds by Ukrainians.

It won’t provide perspectives on the enforcement of treaty obligations or the expansion of economic or military blocs.

It won’t provide a detailed roadmap for the U S to get further involved or for the U S to withdraw some of the country’s support for Ukraine.

It will explain, though, why the people in Ukraine continue to fight. Why they ask for help from others.

“Holodomor” is the English word used to describe events that took place in Ukraine during 1932 and 1933.

Events that led to and resulted in the killings of millions of Ukrainians.

The Holodomor was the genocide of the Ukrainian nation, committed in 1932-1933 .

“It [the Holodomor] was committed by the leadership of the Soviet Union in order to humiliate Ukrainians, to finally eliminate Ukrainian resistance to the regime, and attempts to build an independent Ukrainian State independent of Moscow,” according to a statement from the Holodomor Museum, part of the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine. “During the commission of a particularly grave crime of genocide in 1932–1933, the communist totalitarian regime destroyed millions.”

“On July 13, 1923, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics [USSR] was formed, which included the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic,” the statement from Holodomor Museum continued. “The union treaty provided for the full equality of the republics, but Ukraine was actually ruled by the Kremlin.”

The statement from the Holodomor Museum noted that “In 1928, the leadership of the USSR announced a course of collectivization – the unification of individual private peasant farms into state-owned collective farms. Each peasant was assigned a certain number of working days, for which they were paid in kind. However, working days were mostly so meager that they deprived the peasant of the opportunity to feed himself and his family. Given the strong sense of individualism of Ukrainian farmers, the establishment of the collective farm system in Ukraine caused opposition. That is why the peasants were forced into collective farms by means of terror and a propaganda war with dissenters, on whom the regime labeled ‘turtles,’ ‘bourgeois nationalists,’ ‘counter-revolutionaries’ and destroyed these people.”

“At the beginning of the 1930s, the policy of collectivization in Ukraine collapsed,” continued the statement from Holodomor Museum. “Peasants left the collective farms en masse and took their property: livestock, equipment, earned grain. In order to preserve collective farms and property in the hands of the state, on August 7, 1932, the regime adopted a repressive decree, which was popularly called the ‘law of five ears of corn.’”

The statement from Holodomor Museum indicated that “By the decree of the Central Committee and the National Assembly of the USSR ‘On the protection of the property of state-owned enterprises, collective farms and cooperatives and strengthening of public (socialist) property,’ all collective farm property was equated to state property, and severe punishment was established for its theft. According to this law, the state punished hungry peasants for collecting crop residues in the field with imprisonment for 10 years with confiscation of property or execution. Special groups of people were organized to search the population in order to forcibly remove grain. Such searches were accompanied by terror, physical and moral abuse of people.”

“The next genocidal decision was the establishment of fines in kind – the right of the state to take away from the peasants not only grain, but also other foodstuffs and property that could be sold or exchanged for food,” the statement from Holodomor Museum continued. “Such a phenomenon did not occur in any other republic of the USSR…The Kremlin [had] created living conditions designed to destroy a part of the Ukrainian nation by completely removing all food products…[the leadership of the USSR implemented a resolution that] blocked Ukrainians within the starving territory, prohibiting them from leaving the USSR and the Kuban [a region of the North Caucasus] for bread. A similar decision was not applied to any other administrative region of the USSR or republic.”

Offers from “non-governmental organizations, in particular the Ukrainian communities abroad and the International Red Cross,” were declined by the USSR, according to Holodomor Museum.

“In the Spring of 1933, mortality in Ukraine reached catastrophic proportions,” noted the statement from Holodomor Museum. “The peak of the Holodomor [occurred] in June [of 1933]. At that time, approximately 28,000 people were martyred, 1,168 people every hour, 20 every minute. At that time, Moscow provided Ukraine with seed (for the sowing campaign) and food loans. If food did reach the village, it was provided mainly in the form of public catering and only to those collective farmers who were still able to work and live in the fields.”

“All this happened in the presence of large stocks of grain in centralized state reserve funds and large-scale food exports,” the statement from Holodomor Museum continued. “The actions of the totalitarian regime confirm the intention to destroy a part of the Ukrainian nation within the specified time limits.”

Holodomor Museum indicated that “Certain historical circumstances complicate the calculations, and even more so, establishing the names of the killed. The communist totalitarian regime did everything possible to hide the consequences of its crime. It was forbidden to record the real number of deaths on the ground…There was a ban on recording the cause of death as ‘hunger,’ so death certificates indicated ‘from typhus,’ ‘exhaustion,’ ‘from old age’…The rate of unreported deaths is unknown, but it is clear that millions died.”

Nations throughout the world – including the U S – recognize the Holodomor as genocide. Individual states within this country have done likewise. Many encourage remembrance of the Holodomor.

The next edition of The Chronicles Of Grant County will include details on these remembrances as well as statements made regarding the Holodomor by recent Presidents, including President George W. Bush, President Barack Obama, President Donald Trump, and President Joseph Biden.

Do you have questions about communities in Grant County?

A street name? A building?

Your questions may be used in a future news column.

Contact Richard McDonough at chroniclesofgrantcounty@mail.com.

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© 2023 Richard McDonough