Holodomor

Media reports on famine. XX

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London Daily Telegraph
LONDON – Prof. Robert Conquest, the author of the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute and UNA-commissioned book about the famine, made what he considers “a small contribution to the 50th anniversary of the Great Famine in Ukraine,” by writing a commentary on Stalin’s treatment of Ukrainian peasants in the Saturday Column of the London Daily Telegraph dated November 5. Dr. Conquest describes the man-made famine as being “completely localized, affecting only Ukraine and the Ukrainian-speaking regions of the North Caucasus.” He said: “First all the grain was taken; then the seed grain; then the houses and yards were searched and dug up, and any store of bread seized. They lived on a few potatoes; then on birds and cats and dogs, and then on acorns and nettles; and in early spring they died.” He went on to say: “There is no doubt that it was a conscious act of terror against the Ukrainian peasantry.

Holodomor

CHRONOLOGY OF THE FAMINE YEARS. PART XLIV

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July 16-31, 1934
On July 16, the headline in Svoboda read “Soviet bureaucrat denies famine threat in Soviet Union.” The story, datelined New York, reported that The New York Times had published Dr. Ewald Ammende’s letter which told of the ongoing famine in the Soviet Union. A few days later, The Times published a letter from a Soviet attache which stated that bread prices had gone up in state stores to match the prices of the bread in privately owned stores. The Soviet bureaucrat avoided Dr. Ammende’s statements that grain was being shipped to the Soviet Union from Argentina. He told The New York Times that the country expected an “unparalleled harvest.”

Holodomor

Media reports on famine. XIX

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Chicago Sun-Times
CHICAGO – Dr. Myron B. Kuropas was interviewed about the “forgotten holocaust,” the Great Famine in Ukraine in 1932-33, in the Living section of the Chicago Sun-Times on Sunday, November 13. Dr. Kuropas, supreme vice-president of the Ukrainian National Association and former President Gerald R. Ford’s special assistant on ethnic affairs, told reporter Marcia Froelke Coburn that “Ukrainians have been trying to tell their story for years. Nobody’s interested. Nobody wants to hear about Ukrainians.” In a full-page profile-interview, Dr. Kuropas explained the death of 7 million people deliberately planned by Joseph Stalin.

Holodomor

CHRONOLOGY OF THE FAMINE YEARS. PART XLIII

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July 1-15, 1934
On July 1, Svoboda printed an article which reported that Pravda, the communist newspaper in Moscow, had stated that the harvest in Ukraine had been very poor. According to a Communist Party official, this was due to a drought, mainly on the steppes of Ukraine. That same day, Svoboda also printed an article based on news stories in Pravda as to why the capital of Ukraine was moved from Kharkiv to Kiev. Pravda stated that Kiev had been rebuilt, polished up. According to that newspaper, the “nest of Petliurist intellectuals” did not like this move because they could no longer openly do their business.

Holodomor

Media reports on famine. XVIII

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Eugene Register-Guard
EUGENE, Ore. – The 50th anniversary of the Great Famine in Ukraine (1932-33) was the subject of Don Bishoff’s column in the October 28 issue of The Register-Guard here. The article, headlined “Famine memory,” featured the recollections of a 79-year-old area woman, identified only as Elizabeth, who survived the famine. Mr. Bishoff wrote that she did not want to disclose her full name because she feared reprisals against family members still in the Soviet Union. She described the massive starvation that resulted when the Soviet government ordered special cadres to confiscate grain and foodstuffs from farmers.

Holodomor

House unanimously approves famine resolution

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WASHINGTON – House Concurrent Resolution 111, commemorating the Great Ukrainian Famine of 1933, was unanimously approved on November 17, reported the Ukrainian National Information Service. It was submitted to the full House by Rep. Clement Zablocki (D-Wis.), chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee. The resolution, introduced by Reps. Gerald Solomon (R-N.Y.) and Hamilton Fish Jr. (R-N.Y.) and co-sponsored by 84 other members, calls upon the president to: issue a proclamation in mournful commemoration of the Great Famine in Ukraine during the year 1933, which constituted a deliberate and imperialistic policy of the Soviet Russian government to destroy the intellectual elite and large segments of the population of Ukraine and thus enhance its totalitarian Communist rule over the conquered Ukrainian nation; issue a warning that continued enslavement of the Ukrainian nation as well as other non-Russian nations within the USSR constitutes a threat to world peace and normal relationships among the peoples of Europe and the world at large; and manifest to the peoples of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics through an appropriate and official means the historic fact that the people of the United States share with them their aspirations for the recovery of their freedom and national independence. According to Rep. Solomon, this resolution is “a tribute to the spirit of the Ukrainian people, which survives this crime and lives on in the face of a brutal oppressive and evil empire…

Holodomor

CHRONOLOGY OF THE FAMINE YEARS. PART XLII

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June 16-30, 1934
On June 16, Svoboda reported that six commissars in Kiev had been sentenced to death for extortion. Also on that day Svoboda reprinted a memorandum sent by the United Ukrainian Organizations of the United States to President Roosevelt. This memorandum included an article by William Henry Chamberlin from the Christian Science Monitor. The article was titled “Famine Proves Potent Weapon in Soviet Policy” and described Mr. Chamberlin’s trips through Ukraine. The editorial that day in Svoboda stated that it was important for the Ukrainian people in the United States to approach the subject of the famine united, to approach each and every city and state government official on behalf of the Ukrainian people suffering because of famine in Ukraine. On June 18, Svoboda reported that Pavel Postyshev had said in a speech that nationalistic and Fascist elements in Ukraine were trying to worm their way into the Communist Party in order to harm party policy.

Holodomor

Media reports on famine. XVII

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Weekend Australian
SYDNEY, Australia – The October 8-9 issue of The Weekend Australian carried two stories on the Great Famine in Ukraine (1932-33) by Peter Day. Reporting from Washington, Mr. Day wrote that the famine commemorations in the U.S. capital on October 2 and those in Australia slated for October 15 draw attention to the famine, which, he said, “has never taken root in the historical memory of the West.” In a story headlined “How Stalin starved millions to death in Ukraine,” Mr. Day wrote that “the nightmarish recollections of thousands of refugee survivors, for decades ignored, forgotten or complacently dismissed, have become a field of intense and systematic scholarly interest.” Citing British Sovietologist and author Robert Conquest, who is currently writing a book on the famine, Mr. Day said that the famine was Stalin’s answer to the so-called nationality problem. This view, Mr. Day wrote, is shared by Dr. James Mace of the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, who has helped with much of the research for the Conquest book.

Ukraine

CHRONOLOGY OF THE FAMINE YEARS. PART XLI

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June 1-15, 1934
On June 1, Svoboda printed a news item from Moscow which stated that there was a great drought in Ukraine. The Soviets reportedly said they would raise the price of bread because the harvest was poor. On June 2, Svoboda printed a news item about the Belgian-Ukrainian Committee to Save Ukraine. The story stated that the Ukrainian immigration in Belgium had organized a committee over a year ago which worked for famine victims in Ukraine and the Kuban. That same day, Svoboda reported that a resolution about the famine had been introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives, by Rep. Hamilton Fish.

Holodomor

Media reports on famine. XVI

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New York Tribune
NEW YORK – The September 29 issue of the New York Tribune ran two articles about the role of The New York Times correspondent Walter Duranty in covering up Stalinist crimes, including the Great Famine in Ukraine (1932-33). The articles, by Lev Navrozov and Marco Carynnyk, appeared under the headline “New York Timesmen who forgave genocide.” Mr. Navrozov, a Soviet emigre, is the author of a forthcoming book, “The New York Times as a Specimen,” while Mr. Carynnyk has edited and translated nine books on the Soviet Union. In his piece, subheaded “Stalin’s sycophant Walter Duranty made Kremlin line acceptable in U.S.,” Mr. Navrozov described Mr. Duranty’s reports from the USSR as “a cascade of wild fantasies,” and accused him of inventing “his own fantastic pro-Soviet propaganda for Western consumption.” “Duranty concealed or justified all crimes of Stalin’s regime as long as it was possible to conceal or justify them without ruining his credibility in the West,” wrote Mr. Navorozov.