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The Witnesses of the Holodomor: true stories of the genocide of the Ukrainian nation
From 1929, the Soviet government was extensively creating collective farms ("kolhosps"). Having altogether eliminated the very concept of individual farming, they forced the villagers by "collectivisation" to join the kolhosps and thus deprived them of the possibility to earn their living. Then the regime took away all their food supplies having accused the Ukrainians of resisting collectivisation. But they resisted because working in a collective farm meant giving up the traditional ways of farming and submission to the new Soviet order. The Holodomor was a way to subdue the Ukrainians who resisted not only the new rules of farming but also the Soviet regime on the whole.
The Holodomor of 1932–1933 was the genocide of the Ukrainian nation. In this way Stalin was trying to suppress the Ukrainian farmers which opposed collectivisation and rose against the Soviet rule en masse. Unrealistically high quotas for the state grain procurement plans, coercive expropriation of people's land, property, and food led to an artificial famine in many villages. The Holodomor killed millions of Ukrainians.
For many years after the Holodomor, the Soviet authorities had concealed the truth about it, prohibiting speaking about what the Ukrainian villagers lived through and how many people really died from hunger. The subject of the Holodomor was hardly ever officially raised in the Soviet Union or abroad.
The Holodomor of 1932–1933 was the genocide of the Ukrainian nation. In this way Stalin was trying to suppress the Ukrainian farmers which opposed collectivisation and rose against the Soviet rule en masse. Unrealistically high quotas for the state grain procurement plans, coercive expropriation of people's land, property, and food led to an artificial famine in many villages. The Holodomor killed millions of Ukrainians.
For many years after the Holodomor, the Soviet authorities had concealed the truth about it, prohibiting speaking about what the Ukrainian villagers lived through and how many people really died from hunger. The subject of the Holodomor was hardly ever officially raised in the Soviet Union or abroad.
In 1985, the US Congress set up the Commission on the Ukraine Famine. Its members wanted to investigate what had happened in 1932–1933 in the USSR to reveal the truth about the crime committed by the Soviet Union against the Ukrainian nation. In Ukraine, the archives were declassified, and the investigation of the Holodomor began only after the declaration of independence in 1991.
In 2003, Ukraine internationally declared the Holodomor as a genocide against the Ukrainian people. Then Russia, as the successor of the Soviet Union, addressed the international community with the appeal not to recognise the Holodomor as genocide, and later interfered in the process of approving the UN resolution on a number of occasions.
With this publication Online.ua Editorial supports spreading a series of stories, The Witnesses of the Holodomor, which were recorded on expeditions of the Ukraїner team and the National Museum of the Holodomor-Genocide as part of the project Holodomor: Mosaics of History with the support of the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation.
In 2003, Ukraine internationally declared the Holodomor as a genocide against the Ukrainian people. Then Russia, as the successor of the Soviet Union, addressed the international community with the appeal not to recognise the Holodomor as genocide, and later interfered in the process of approving the UN resolution on a number of occasions.
With this publication Online.ua Editorial supports spreading a series of stories, The Witnesses of the Holodomor, which were recorded on expeditions of the Ukraїner team and the National Museum of the Holodomor-Genocide as part of the project Holodomor: Mosaics of History with the support of the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation.
It's all right, dear, let it be. We have a cow, we will survive!
When the Holodomor (famine genocide in Ukraine) started, Mariia Hurbich was twelve. Mariia Hurbich (maiden name — Shovkun) was born in the hamlet of Vyla in the Losynivka district of Sivershchyna.
Memories of those times were etched in her memory for a lifetime: during the Holodomor, the Soviet authorities confiscated grain and passports, destroyed the millstones, so that they would not have the slightest chance of survival.
It was impossible to leave a village as villagers had no ID. They had to stay where death from hunger was waiting for them or risk their lives to escape from a village searching for food. Some managed to do it. Others sold their jewellery and family relics to "Torgzins" (from "trade with foreigners", special state-owned shops where goods were sold for foreign currency or exchanged for precious metals) for nothing just to get some bread.
Memories of those times were etched in her memory for a lifetime: during the Holodomor, the Soviet authorities confiscated grain and passports, destroyed the millstones, so that they would not have the slightest chance of survival.
It was impossible to leave a village as villagers had no ID. They had to stay where death from hunger was waiting for them or risk their lives to escape from a village searching for food. Some managed to do it. Others sold their jewellery and family relics to "Torgzins" (from "trade with foreigners", special state-owned shops where goods were sold for foreign currency or exchanged for precious metals) for nothing just to get some bread.
Mariia Hurbich (maiden name — Shovkun)
Mariia says that so many people died from the Holodomor in her village that the dead were lying right in the streets. A special cart was sent to pick up the bodies to bury them. The burial place was in the middle of the village, a mass grave.
Death certificates did not indicate hunger as the real death cause. According to the records, people were dying of pneumonia or other diseases. Officially, there was no hunger. Although those who had survived knew the truth (that the Holodomor was a genocide against the Ukrainian people — ed.), they couldn't talk about it for a long time, and they were afraid to.
Death certificates did not indicate hunger as the real death cause. According to the records, people were dying of pneumonia or other diseases. Officially, there was no hunger. Although those who had survived knew the truth (that the Holodomor was a genocide against the Ukrainian people — ed.), they couldn't talk about it for a long time, and they were afraid to.
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I was carrying it and saw a boy running after me. He was around seventeen. He called me and said, "Let me scoop some peas from your bucket", and he was holding a very big spoon. I was scared. I said, "Take! Take as much as you want." He scooped a spoonful, devoured it, scooped another one, and said, "Go, I don't need any more, take it home."
So, I brought it home, my mum was putting it into plates, and then my father said: "They gave water to the child." I said nothing. Later I secretly told my mum that Mykola Nabok met me and asked for some peas. "It's all right, daughter, let it be. We have a cow, we will survive."
That boy survived too. We met again when I was a student and he was a lieutenant. And we cried so bitterly as we remembered that moment. (Crying.) We were looking at each other, and I said, "Are you Mykola Nabok?" — "Are you Masha?" I said, "Yes, I'm Masha," and we both started crying. And then we talked a bit, asked some questions. I'm happy that he survived, and all his family too: four children and their widowed mother. It was hard, but they did survive.
I keep thinking all my life how come I didn't make it to feed the old man...
When the Holodomor (famine genocide in Ukraine) broke out in the village of Kobylianka, Fedir Zadiereiev's parents had to travel on foot 100 kilometres to Belarus to bring potato peels from their relatives. Fedir's grandmother sneaked potatoes in her boots, and Fedir cooked borshch from nettle and plantain leaves for his younger siblings. Thereby they managed to survive. Fedir recalls that prior to collectivisation, people in the village could lend money to each other for as long as half a year, though during the Holodomor he had to steal from his neighbours to survive.
People started dying in the village because of food shortages. The Nechais, the neighbours of the Zadiereiev family, once ate too much rye grits on empty stomachs, and all of them died. Wandering the riverbank in search of something edible, Fedir saw people from neighbouring villages (Chornyshi, Sukhodoly) who would come to pick some sorrel but died right there because they did not have enough strength to return home. The corpses stayed on the riverbank all winter, and only in spring, when the ice broke, the bodies were pushed into the water.
Fedir had nothing to eat. However, he was trying to figure out how to feed others. One of his most painful memories is about his unsuccessful attempt to help.
Fedir had nothing to eat. However, he was trying to figure out how to feed others. One of his most painful memories is about his unsuccessful attempt to help.
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I was coming back from the river with the catch when I saw an elderly man near an old willow. It was already warm, but he wore a winter coat and a cap with ear-flaps. I came up to him and said, "Mister!" He mumbled something like "voo-voo-voo" and kept saying "I want to eat, I want to eat." So I decided to share with him. I ran home and filled a full bowl of borshch for him and hurried back. I approached the willow. "Mister, I brought you some borshch," but he was already dead. I keep thinking all my life how come I didn't make it to feed the old man.
Fedir Zadiereiev
Fedir Zadiereiev turned 11 years old when the Holodomor broke out in the village of Kobylianka, situated near the town Sedniv in Sivershchyna.
Fedir remembers that during Soviet times, people were not allowed to attend churches or observe Easter and other religious holidays. Despite that, people secretly went to bless their paskas (Ukrainian traditional Easter bread — tr.). Thereafter the village church in Kobylianka had been closed and subsequently turned into a school. Fedir recalls that a local priest was called in for questioning to the village council, and later on he disappeared.
Despite the propaganda, people kept honouring traditions, teaching children the commandments, and placing icons in their homes.
Despite the propaganda, people kept honouring traditions, teaching children the commandments, and placing icons in their homes.
My father refused to take a cow, other than our own, not to take the cattle from another family
Marfa Kovalenko was six when the Holodomor began. All those terrifying events of the Ukrainian genocide were engraved in her memory, despite her very young age.
When collectivisation and dekulakisation (mass expropriation — tr.) began in Ukraine, Marfa's family was among those who suffered. Wealthy and hardworking Ukrainians were called "kulaks". In the 1930s, everyone opposing collectivisation was considered a "kulak". This was how the Bolsheviks tried to forcibly change the people's values and to inculcate the principles of collective farming. They thus confiscated land and property from individual owners, proclaiming them "kulaks".
When collectivisation and dekulakisation (mass expropriation — tr.) began in Ukraine, Marfa's family was among those who suffered. Wealthy and hardworking Ukrainians were called "kulaks". In the 1930s, everyone opposing collectivisation was considered a "kulak". This was how the Bolsheviks tried to forcibly change the people's values and to inculcate the principles of collective farming. They thus confiscated land and property from individual owners, proclaiming them "kulaks".
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We had a small vegetable plot, but still they cut off most of it. My father was not in a kolhosp (a collective farm — tr.), so he was only allowed to keep 1.5 hectares, the area near our yard. So my father told the expropriators, "You may take away the vegetable plot, but please leave me a small garden up there." And so the land adjacent to our house was seized, and crops were planted there, on my grandfather's plot, by a collective farm. I could only use a narrow path to walk through it to what was left of our garden.
Marfa Kovalenko
Marfa remembers the winter of 1932–1933 the most. Those were hard times, but they still had some food. They still had some potatoes and beetroot in the cellar, and some pickled cabbage and gherkins.
Special patrols were walking around the village, equipped with metal rods — long sharp poles which they poked everywhere, attempting to find any hidden grain deposits. In fact, they were looking for anything edible — to seize or destroy.
Kovalenko's house was also visited by such a special patrol. Finally they entered the shed, and led the cow out and away.
Because Marfa's father was a physician assistant, not a collective farm worker, he went to the town of Nedryhailiv to the head physician and attempted to get their cow back, but he also made it clear — he wouldn't be taking somebody else's one:
Kovalenko's house was also visited by such a special patrol. Finally they entered the shed, and led the cow out and away.
Because Marfa's father was a physician assistant, not a collective farm worker, he went to the town of Nedryhailiv to the head physician and attempted to get their cow back, but he also made it clear — he wouldn't be taking somebody else's one:
— If they bring back the cow that used to be ours, let them put it in the shed. If they bring a cow that they took from some man or woman, where there are still four or five kids, don't bring that cow!
He was promised his cow back, but it was never returned.
According to Marfa's recollections, many people in Kostiantyniv died during the years of the Holodomor; yet still many of them survived, thanks to their mutual support. The villagers did not lose their humanity and were able to share even when for themselves they had nothing to eat.
He was promised his cow back, but it was never returned.
According to Marfa's recollections, many people in Kostiantyniv died during the years of the Holodomor; yet still many of them survived, thanks to their mutual support. The villagers did not lose their humanity and were able to share even when for themselves they had nothing to eat.
The material was published in collaboration with the Ukraїner team.
This series was created with the National Museum of the Holodomor-Genocide with the support of the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation.
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