Every year on the fourth Saturday of November we have the Holodomor remembrance day. We light a candle on our windows to honour the memory of the victims of the Soviet genocide of the Ukrainian people. This year our candles were also lit for the Russian-inflicted genocide of Ukrainians in 2022 as they are currently doing all they can to freeze and starve us to death.

It seems that deranged hateful terrorists are just as they were 90 years ago, with the only goal of their lives to kill Ukrainians en masse and rob us of everything we worked hard to achieve.

What is Holodomor? 

Holodomor is а genocide of the Ukrainian nation committed in 1932-1933. The term itself literally means “death by hunger” in the Ukrainian language.

The biggest Holodomor that resulted in the starvation of millions of Ukrainians took place in 1932-1933 and was a direct outcome of Soviet policies. Just as now, Ukrainians resisted the dictatorship of the Communist Party and Soviet state with their unjust policies put in place in the late 1920s. 

The genocide of Ukrainians was planned, prepared and carried out by Soviet government representatives. There are about 400 archival documents that prove this — the genocidal nature of Holodomor, the intention of Stalin, Molotov, Kaganovich, Postyshev, Chubar, Khatayevych, Kosior to destroy a part of the Ukrainian nation.

To this day we don’t know the exact number of Ukrainians that perished during the famine. The Soviets falsified a lot of documents and most of the war and post-war documentation is still guarded by Putin.

Thus, the exact number of victims of the Holodomor in Ukraine is still unknown. Historians have a rather vague number, though it is absolutely horrifying: the absolute minimum death toll starts at four million and goes up to eight million. If you counted the unborn the number would be much worse. 

How did the Soviets create famine?

The Soviets adopted a resolution that actually legalised the theft of all food from Ukrainian farmers. All crops were proclaimed as state property and there were severe and inhumane punishments for Ukrainian farmers for “stealing” their own crops.

This law starved Ukrainian farmers and their families and even punished hungry farmers for collecting crop leftovers from fields. They were either jailed, with all their property confiscated, or killed. That law took away people’s right to have any food.

Soviets carried out searches to confiscate any crops farmers had. Moreover, they weren’t just confiscating the crops, they were taking all the food and absolutely all property that farmers could potentially exchange for food. 

On 18 November 1932, the Soviets adopted a new resolution that introduced a specific repressive regime to physically block any ways and means for Ukrainians to get food. They’ve removed all food and then banned trade and transportation of goods, banned farmers from leaving their homes to find the means to survive.

They also blocked any foreign aid that had been generously offered. Overall, the police, GPU and military were watching millions of Ukrainians wasting away and dying from hunger. It was pure terrorism against the Ukrainian people. 

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It’s rather surreal to now, 90 years later, witness the same sort of events unfolding because of one dictator, his government and people brainwashed with non-stop propaganda, ready to kill, torture, starve and rape on demand. Just like they did 90 years ago. History won’t be kind to any of them and that is our promise. 

To learn more about the genocide of Ukrainians, please visit the website of our Holodomor Museum. There is tons of information gathered and preserved. I especially treasure its valuable work with Holodomor survivors. If you have a minute, read the story of Holodomor survivor Mariia Tilna from Kharkiv Oblast to understand what a starved human being would eat to survive. We haven’t forgotten their suffering; they survived and they now give us the strength to follow their heroic path. 

I’m a big believer in visual representations. It gives us a much clearer understanding and pictures stay engraved in our memories.

These are the ones that stay with me: people collapsing of hunger and dying on the streets, mass graves and kids… little starved children that were nothing but skin and bones…

You have to be a true killer to take pleasure in recreating that history. But, Russian terrorism will stop here. With us. They won’t be creating famines and perpetrating the mass killing of people much longer. This time the whole world sees them for what they are. And this time everyone is ready to help. DM