Remembering the Holodomor

By Walter Kish

Тhis past Saturday, November 26, my wife and I joined Ukrainians in every corner of the country by lighting candles in memory of the many millions who died during Stalin’s genocidal famine imposed on the Ukrainian peasantry in 1932-33. 

The famine, or Holodomor, is still shrouded by a historic conspiracy of silence. Even today, nobody is certain of the total number who starved to death. Estimates range from 5 to 15 million. Stalin himself told Churchill at one point that the number was around ten million.

That grisly statistic is borne out by the Soviets’ own public records of the time. The official census of 1927 gave the population of Ukraine as being 32 million. The corresponding census 12 years later in 1939 states the population as being 28 million. The population decreased in official statistics by four million, but over and above that, the normal demographic growth during that period should have added another six to seven million people.

The horror of the famine has become well documented in recent decades, and archival records from Stalinist times are shedding increasing light on the cause, nature and implementation of this genocidal act. At its lethal heights, some 25,000 to 30,000 people were dying every day. At the same time, the grain confiscated from Ukraine was being dumped in record numbers on the world markets – 1.7 million tons in 1932 and 1.84 million tons in 1933.

Of course, the Soviets denied the very existence of the famine right until the collapse of the USSR. The Russians still do. It was not that long ago that the Russian ambassador to Ukraine Victor Chernomyrdin, when asked whether Russia would ever apologize for the grievous sin commit against Ukrainians, stated unequivocally that there was nothing to apologize for.

Even those Russians who admit there was a famine claim that it was not ethnic in nature – that Russians starved as well. Such a claim belies statistics. While it is true that some Russians died, more than 81 percent of the victims were Ukrainian as opposed to just 4.5 percent who were Russian. The famine was clearly a premeditated act aimed specifically at Ukrainians.

On May 15, 2003 Ukraine’s parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, passed a resolution declaring the famine of 1932-33 to be an act of genocide. Since then many countries of the western world, including Canada and the U.S.,  have recognized it. In Ukraine, the last Saturday in November has been designated as the official day of commemoration for the victims of the Holodomor as well as other Soviet oppressions.

And so this past Saturday, my wife and I joined thousands of other Ukrainians on Kyiv’s Mykhailivsky Square to light memorial candles. President Yushchenko was there with his family as well as Parliamentary Speaker Volodymyr Lytwyn and leaders of the various religious faiths. Thousands of candles illuminated the square and surrounded the statues of Sts. Olha, Cyril and Methodius, and the apostle Paul that dominate the square. A mournful lament issued forth from the many speakers that were set up.

After the official ceremonies, the crowds began lining up their candles in the shapes of large crosses on the cobblestone ground that forms the square. Here and there, wizened and tearful faces of the elderly, who had obviously witnessed and survived the horrors of the famine as youngsters, gave testimony that the event had been a very real and painful one.

For some reason, though the official program was over, most people did not depart, but lingered for a long time, wandering around the square and admiring the thousands of candles shimmering in the twilight. It was a touching spiritual experience and one that I think will be repeated annually for a long time to come.

Let us not forget nor allow the world to forget what happened here just over 70 years ago.