This must not be forgotten

“Dear editors of the newspaper The Day,

My name is Natalia Zhelnova, and I am a student at Zaporizhia National University. I recently read the book Day and Eternity of James Mace and was moved by the way a foreigner cared for us, Ukrainians. May his memory be eternal. So I decided to make my own contribution to his cause and collect evidence from those who survived the Holodomor. I am sending you material that I wrote on the occasion of the Day to Commemorate the Victims of the Holodomor. This is the eyewitness testimony of my grandmother, who remembers the 1932-1933 famine, and of another person, who declined to be identified. Even 15 years after the proclamation of independence this person is afraid to speak about those times.”

This is a really moving letter, especially the second part, in which the young historical researcher recounts her grandmother’s recollections. Even after the seven decades that separate us from those times, even after several generations, the bitterness of this story cannot leave one indifferent. November 26 is the Day to Commemorate the Victims of the Holodomor and Political Repressions. It is important for those who lived through the terrible years 1932- 1933 to be remembered more than once a year. To know history means to be able not to repeat past mistakes. To know history’s mournful pages means to honor one’s own people.

A foreign colleague once asked us, “Why are you, Ukrainians, so eager for other countries to recognize the Holodomor as genocide?” It is indeed difficult to answer this question, partially because this would be beyond the rational patterns to which today’s world is accustomed. The answer may be simple but in no way bombastic, as long as such non-pragmatic notions as justice, truth, respect, and sympathy remain in high esteem. Recognizing the Holodomor as an act of genocide will show that all of humankind is aware of what Ukrainians lived through and is determined to condemn politicians, who put their thirst for power above the interests of human beings and the entire nation.

Last week the Lithuanian parliament passed a resolution on the Ukrainian Holodomor. “The Stalinist totalitarian communist regime committed a deliberate and pre-planned act of genocide against the people of Ukraine,” the document emphasizes. Lithuania’s parliament expressed sympathy with the victims of this crime and solidarity with the people of Ukraine. By 2007 Ukraine intends to draw up a UN resolution on recognizing the Holodomor as an act of genocide. Historians believe that the 1932-1933 famine, which occurred as a result of the Soviet government’s administrative measures, claimed an estimated 7 to 10 million lives in this country. Some experts believe that if Ukraine had not suffered from the Holodomor, its population would be twice as large today — up to 100 million. Two years ago the Verkhovna Rada proclaimed the Holodomor an act of genocide. Twenty-five UN member states have already prepared a joint statement that calls the Ukrainian famine the result of the policy of a totalitarian regime.

The Day has also contributed to the efforts surrounding the Holodomor question. This year, at our own expense, we published the Ukrainian and English versions of the book Day and Eternity of James Mace, a collection of articles by this well-known historian, political scientist, and colleague, who devoted a considerable part of his life to making sure that the world, and Ukrainians themselves, would learn the truth about the terrible years 1932-1933. The Day also proposed to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine and the International Red Cross that the Holodomor be put on the list of the world’s greatest disasters, which is kept at the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum in Geneva.

Not many eyewitnesses of those times are left. Will the new generations of Ukrainians remember their past? Below is the letter from a student in Zaporizhia, who recounts the reminiscences of two people who lived through the Holodomor.

Natalia ZHELNOVA, third-year student, Zaporizhia National University, Faculty of Journalism:

“In 1932-1933 the streets of Kyiv were strewn with the corpses of peasants who had come to the city in the hope of finding a job. They kept coming because the countryside was in the grip of a severe famine, while factory workers obtained food with ration cards, with a new menu every day. They were given bread (made of rye, corn, and, very seldom, wheat), butter, fruit drinks, and herring. The black market was thriving. One could buy meat pies on Kyiv streets. Meanwhile, desperate peasants would bring their children to the cities and leave them on the street and in railway stations, hoping that they would be taken to orphanages and thus survive.

“I heard this from an eyewitness of those events, who declined to disclose his/her name. Aged 91, this person is still afraid to speak about the Holodomor, as s/he has been during his/her entire life. After all, there was no famine in the Soviet Union and there could not have been any famine: this was a lie and a concoction of bourgeois nationalists.

“I have another famine eyewitness: my grandmother Anna Kriuchkova (nee Protierescul) who was nine years old in 1932. This is what she remembers: ‘There were six of us in the family: my parents, three brothers and I. We lived in the village of Annovka in Bratsk raion, Mykolayiv oblast. My father and brother starved to death.

“Collectivization began in 1931. We had to consign all our cattle, farming implements, and land to the kolhosp (collective farm). Father was forced to supply grain at least once a month over and over again: it was the so-called ‘yard plan.’ Finally, we had just half a sack of wheat left. When they came again in search of grain, mother spilled this wheat over the oven, covered it with a blanket, and told us, children, to lie on top of it. We lay motionless until the inspectors left. But the half a sack that we saved could not last long. My father thought about going to Zaporizhia to build the Dnipro Hydroelectric Station (anyone who wanted could take part in such projects). He said he would earn money and buy me a new dress and overcoat. But he didn’t manage to do this.

“In the fall of 1932 the so-called kurkuli (well-off peasants — Ed.) began to run away from the village, mostly to Donbas. My elder brother Sashko and I once went to see what was left in their houses and found a rifle. Mother suggested we throw it into the pond, but father disagreed and took it to the village council. He didn’t come back: he was sent to prison.

“‘In the meantime, we starved at home. We would go to the collective village storeroom, where we picked at the wheat ears and pulled out grains. Then mother would crush them with a stone and used this flour to cook a thick gruel. Father returned in the fall of 1933, perhaps in April, and died the next day. There was nothing to eat in jail either.

“In the spring of 1934 my younger brother Lionia died. We first sent him to our aunt: she could feed him because she didn’t have children of her own. But she sent him back very soon. We had no food at home. My elder brother and I would graze collective farm pigs, so whenever a pig found a frozen potato in the field, we would chase it away, grab the potato, and eat it. Lionia was a little thing, four years old, and he could not search for food. He became weak. One morning we awoke on the pich (large brick-lined oven — Ed.) and saw him lying dead next to us. There was nothing even to bury him in. Still, we managed to put together a sort of small coffin.’

“Although the official period of the Holodomor is 1932-1933, my grandmother says there was nothing to eat in 1934, too. But in 1938 they received eight (!) kilos of grain per working day. This further proves the fact that it was a manmade famine in fertile Ukraine.

“You can see dark spots on granny’s legs — a sad reminder of the famine: she became bloated and watery sores appeared on her legs.

“There is so much talk now about the steady depletion of our nation’s gene pool. But that is only natural! For the years 1932- 1933 took a toll of seven to ten million Ukrainians, the same number that perished during World War II, while about seven million emigrated in different periods. Ukrainians knew no peace throughout the 20th century. We all must have sinned before God. But on the last Saturday of November, I will light a candle in the window, for there are still people who will pray for those who died.”