THE HOLODOMOR

1. THEHOLODOMOR • The Literal Translation means “Killing By Hunger” • In Ukrainian, Holod means ‘hunger’, and Mor means plague • Moryty Holodom roughly translates to ‘The Infliction of Death by Hunger’

2. WHAT WHO WHEN THEHOLODOMOR HOW WHERE WHY Bibliography

3. Initially, Ukrainian Peasant Farmers were the most effected, but eventually Stalin’s policies dragged the cities into famine a as well “[We] collected gley from the trees and ate it, ate sparrows, pigeons, cats, dead and live dogs. When there was still cattle, it was eaten first, then - the domestic animals. Some were eating their own children, I would have never been able to eat my child. One of our neighbors came home when her husband, suffering from severe starvation ate their own baby-daughter. This woman went crazy.” --Olexandra Rafalska, Zhytomir

4. The cause of the mass famine was, directly, Stalin’s ruthless dictatorship on the independent Ukrainian farmers who would not work in his ‘Collective Farms’. The U.S.S.R, led my Stalin’s totalitarian government, unleashed a policy of a 44% grain quota on the then Ukraine S.S.R., and forced the peasant farmers to work in large collective farms. Many refused, and were deported. This meant that the peasants in the countryside did not have enough to even feed themselves, causing a government-induced state-wide famine, later recognized as genocide. Outside help was prohibited and, internationally, Ukraine was ignored.

5. “Any report of a famine in Russia is today an exaggeration or malignant propaganda. There is no actual starvation or deaths from starvation but there is widespread mortality from diseases due to malnutrition.”(as reported by the New York Times correspondent and Pulitzer-prize winner Walter Duranty)

6. Timeline • 1928: Stalin enforces his ‘Collective Farms’ which forces all peasant farmers to give up their own land to join. • 1930: more than 850, 000 Ukrainians were deported to Siberia. • 1932-33: The 44% grain quota is instilled, intending that it not be met, forcing the country into famine.

7. The Ukrainian part of the U.S.S.R.

8. The intention of Stalin’s government was to remove the independence of the Ukrainian farmers who refused to join his collective farms. In 1930, more than 850, 000 are forcibly deported to the tundra-like wastes of Siberia, where many died.

9. All that the other powerful nations had to do to prevent the disaster was send a single representative to investigate the situation. Stalin could not deny him entry, because that would show guilt. Had that been done, millions of lives would have been saved. Stalin, being the dictator of the U.S.S.R, created, and enforced with military troops and secret police, a grain quota for the peasant farmers, leaving them with barely enough for themselves. He prevented any outside help by denying any claims and forbidding travel to and from Ukraine.

10. http://www.holodomorct.org/history.html • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor#History