Introduction
The guide Studying Genocides presents nine genocides recognized by the UN, Canada, or Quebec. Here, discover the case of The Holodomor, genocide of Ukrainians in the USSR, presented through four sections: the first section provides context for the study with a map, highlights, and a timeline; the second offers a problematization of the case under study; the third examines essential elements of the historical context; and the fourth section describes the genocide according to the six stages of the genocidal process.
EXCERPT FROM AN ACCOUNT
“The [food requisition] teams went from house to house. It was our turn. They came into the house and asked if we had any wheat. We cried, we begged. My father said that we had a bit of malt and a bit of wheat. They took everything. That was the start of the famine for our family. We went into the woods around our house looking for blackberries, but there were more people there than blackberries. We found almost nothing. Even the grass was gone. People were dying every day. We had a large family. My eldest sister went to Donbass. My mother left my youngest sister, Varia, in front of the orphanage in Isium. My other sister, Paraska, died at home. My brother Dmitro left and never came back. My mother and father died at home.”
Timeline
Highlights
- Stalin took power and began the forced collectivization of agriculture.
- The Holodomor was the murder by famine of four to five million Ukrainians, including a very large number of children.
- Central and eastern Ukraine
- Neighbouring Ukrainian-speaking regions: from Kuban to Stavropol in the southeast, from the Don in the east along the Belarusian border in the north.
- From July 1932 to December 1933
- The perpetrators were the Soviet leaders, the Soviet Red Army under Stalin’s orders, and their Ukrainian collaborators in the Communist Party and the administration.
- The victims of the genocide were Ukrainians, mainly in rural areas.
The full Story
We have developed a comprehensive document that outlines and summarizes the entire narrative. Please download, print, and utilize it for your teaching and study purposes.
Pictures
Testimonials
“At the kolkhoz, they never gave us anything and they will never give us anything, because the kolkhoz doesn’t have anything. Our only hope is the cow, but we expect they will come and take it away any day now, because they have been ordered to find grain and they will search all the houses, and since we don’t have anything, they will take the cow. If you could see what was happening here: the people are eating rotting horse meat, and that is the best there is, and it’s hard to get; people stand in line near the horse pit and fight for it, the strongest go home with a piece. Otherwise people eat dogs, but there are no more dogs so they have started trapping rats and eating them. That’s the truth. People are halfcrazed and are forced to work. If they don’t work, they are run out of the kolkhoz, put in prison, and everything they have is confiscated. And what happens to them in prison? They are shot or left to starve to death.”
“Since the beginning of the campaign, 2379 farmers have been convicted for shortfalls in deliveries. Between November 1 and December 5, 1243 people were convicted of stealing bread (62 were shot). These sanctions were applied to 475 poor farmers, 481 mid-income farmers, 82 higher mid-income farmers and 204 kulaks. There have been convictions of the Communists in charge and various leaders for hiding bread, wasting and stealing bread, accounting errors, failure to deliver milled wheat, etc. Eight kolkhoz leaders have been shot, 30 sentenced to 5 to 10 years, 29 to 5 years, 78 to 3 years, 55 to forced labour, total: 200. . . . In all, 1062 convictions, including 59 people shot.”