Holodomor

While reading The Trials of Harry S. Truman by Jeffery Frank last week, I became aware of the Holodomor in Ukraine (1932-1933).  It is amazing how much we don’t know!  I had never read or heard of the Holodomor—a term coined using the Ukrainian words for hunger (holod) and extermination (mor).

The Holodomor was a man-made famine.  It occurred when Soviet leader Joseph Stalin tried to collectivize agriculture in Ukraine (then a part of the Soviet Union).  The Communist Party forced peasants to relinquish their land, personal property and housing to collective farms.  This policy was resisted by the Ukrainians.  Rebellious farmers, towns and villages were prevented from receiving food (the “police” took everything edible from them).  They were not allowed to leave the Ukrainian republic in search of food.  

The result:  3.9 million Ukrainians perished from hunger.  Mass graves were dug all across the country—just as they are being dug today.  

Yesterday, May 8, 2022, 2:15 PM ET — “A UN official said that Russian forces are stealing and destroying grain in Ukraine, which may result in food shortages there and around the world.  Warnings of famine carry an echo of the Holodomor, when the Soviet Union’s decision-making resulted in the deaths of some 5 million people across the U.S.S.R., at least 3.9 million of whom were Ukrainian.”