Media reports on famine. XIII

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
PITTSBURGH – The October 7 issue of the Post-Gazette ran a lengthy, front-page article on the Great Famine in Ukraine by staffer Bohdan Hodiak. Headlined “‘Hidden’ famine in Ukraine killed millions,” the article was accompanied by a page one photograph of a young girl holding her horribly emaciated brother. “The artificial famine, which will be commemorated in Pittsburgh this weekend, has been described as the crime of the century which few have ever heard of, and, as the only large-scale humanly engineered famine in history,” wrote Mr. Hodiak. He said that, according to British Sovietologist Robert Conquest, as many as 14 million people may have died as a result of the famine. “While Ukrainians were starving, the Soviet Union was exporting grain, and the Soviet leadership was denying any famine existed, as it still denies it occurred today,” Mr. Hodiak said.

CHRONOLOGY OF THE FAMINE YEARS. PART XXXV

January 1934
Svoboda printed news datelined Moscow in its January 4 issue. According to Pravda, the new year’s preparations for planting were going quite smoothly. This was attributed to the fact that all political offices made sure to collect the proper amounts of grain from the peasants. The newspaper also stated that the Soviets were able to liquidate all the “kulak elements” and saboteurs. Also on January 4, Svoboda printed an English-language page with press accounts from newspapers across North America which protested against the Soviet Union.

Media reports on famine. XII

Washington Post
WASHINGTON – The Washington Post provided detailed coverage of the weeklong Great Famine observance here with an October 1 article about the activities and extensive coverage of the October 2 rally at the Washington Monument and the march to the Soviet Embassy. On October 3, the paper ran a full story on the rally and march by staff writer Eugene Meyer under the headline “Ukrainians Commemorate Victims of 1933 Famine.” In the article, which was accompanied by three photographs and began on the first page of the paper’s Metro section, Mr. Meyer quoted from President Ronald Reagan’s message to the rally and from an address by UNA Supreme President John Flis. He also spoke with Halyna Hrushetsky, 41, of Chicago, who lost four sisters during the famine. “I’ve lived with the famine as long as I can remember,” she told the Post, adding that she, her older sister who survived the famine and her mother wound up in a German labor camp during the war and were saved from repatriation to the Soviet Union after the war after Eleanor Roosevelt intervened on behalf of the displaced persons.

Rep. Don Ritter’s remarks

Following is the text of the address delivered by Rep. Don Ritter of the 15th Congressional District in Pennsylvania at the Great Famine memorial rally near the Washington Monument. Rep. Ritter, who is in his third term, is co-chairman of the Ad Hoc Committee on the Baltic States and Ukraine and a member of the Congressional Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe. He speaks Russian fluently and spent a year in the Soviet Union as an exchange scientist. Today, my dear friends, I honor the 7 million who died in the famine/holocaust and the millions who lived through those terrible years. But that is not enough.

An open letter to the Kremlin

The following letter to the Kremlin from Americans of Ukrainian descent was read in front of the Soviet Embassy at the demonstration on October 2. The statement was read by Orest Deychakiwsky, 27, of Beltsville, Md., a staff member of the Congressional Helsinki Commission. We Ukrainian-Americans are 1 million strong, living in cities and towns throughout this great land of the United States of America. There are two additional millions of us living in other countries of the free world. You have enslaved 50 million of our brothers and sisters in Ukraine and countless millions more who live in daily terror of your dictatorship.

They came from near and far

WASHINGTON – They came from all over the United States; they came by bus, by car, by train and by plane. They all converged upon the nation’s capital. Some 18,000 Ukrainian Americans gathered at the Washington Monument on Sunday, October 2, for one reason: they came to commemorate the millions of victims of the Great Famine in Ukraine 1932-33. Some had carried the memory of the tragedy in their hearts and in their minds for 50 years. Some knew only of the genocide through stories told by parents and relatives.

Ukrainians protest near Soviet Embassy

WASHINGTON – An estimated 18,000 Ukrainians, marching in a phalanx that at one point stretched nearly a mile, assembled within 500 feet of the Soviet Embassy here on Sunday afternoon, October 2, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the artificial famine in Ukraine which killed 7 million people in 1932-33. As the marchers moved down 16th Street toward the embassy, many carrying colorful banners castigating the Soviet regime, they were met by a large contingent of uniformed police, who had cordoned off the block between K and L streets near the embassy, which is between L and M streets. Over 15 blue Metro Police cruisers lined the street, while others were parked bumper to bumper sealing off both ends of the block. Police had expected a group of some 5,000 people, but as row after row of demonstrators continued to stream down 16th Street, it soon became clear that at least three times as many were at the rally. The first to arrive at the police barricades were members of the Plast Ukrainian Youth Organization – 1,000 strong – who marched in uniformed formations behind a large banner.

Crowd rallies at Washington Monument

18,000 attend famine memorial events in D.C.
WASHINGTON – Thousands of Ukrainians gathered in the shadow of the Washington Monument on Sunday morning, October 2, to mourn those of their kinsmen who had perished in the Great Famine of 1932-33 and to renew their pledge to always remember and to never allow the world to forget the holocaust inflicted upon the Ukrainian nation by the Soviet regime. They began arriving shortly after 9 a.m. in preparation for the 10 a.m. rally. By the time the program began, the grounds near the Sylvan Theater were filled with a sea of placards and banners, some identifying the hometowns of the groups in attendance or the organizations present, others scoring the USSR for crimes against humanity such as the artificially created famine, and still others warning the free world to beware of the ever-present Soviet threat. During the two-and-a-half-hour rally, the participants heard speakers – including a representative of President Ronald Reagan and Rep. Don Ritter of Pennsylvania – expressing sympathy for the loss of 7 million lives and lauding the Ukrainian nation’s courage and continued resistance to Soviet Communist subjugation. As the rally progressed and buses carrying Ukrainians from throughout the United States continued to arrive, the crowd of 6,000 tripled in size to an estimated 18,000, according to Washington police.

Media reports on famine. XI

Star-Ledger notes October 2 events
JERSEY CITY N.J. – The Star-Ledger, the largest and foremost newspaper in the state of New Jersey, carried an article about the 50th anniversary commemorations of the Great Famine to be held in Washington on Sunday, October 2. In its Wednesday, September 28, issue, the newspaper printed an article by Gabriel H. Gluck, headlined: “2,000 Jersey Ukrainians to join rally marking Soviet ‘genocide.'” The article stated that at 10 a.m. on Sunday the participants will gather in front of the Washington Monument for an ecumenical service. William Bahrey of Scotch Plains, N.J., a member of the National Committee to Commemorate Genocide Victims in Ukraine told the reporter: “Organizers hope the demonstrations will awaken Americans and expose the leaders of the USSR for what they are. The downing of Korean Airlines flight 007, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the invasion of Ukraine in 1918 and invasions of satellite countries such as Hungary and Poland, all show the Soviet’s inhumane mold,” he said. Daily News cites memorial observances
NEW YORK – The Wednesday, September 28, edition of the New York Daily News carried the following news item about the Great Famine.

CHRONOLOGY OF THE FAMINE YEARS. PART XXXIII

December 1-15, 1933
On December 1, Svoboda reprinted an entire page of press accounts about the Ukrainian protest march held in New York on November 18. The New York Times, New York Herald Tribune, New York American, New York World Telegram, The Sun and the Sunday Mirror all carried articles about the march to protest Moscow’s starvation of Ukrainians as well as the recognition of the Soviet Union by the United States. It was also one of the few times Svoboda printed a photograph in the newspaper, which pictured the thousands of marchers with banners. Following are a few excerpts from the news items.

The New York Times wrote: “Five persons were injured and nine arrested in street disturbances that lasted for two hours yesterday morning, when 500 Communists attempted to break up a parade of 8,000 Ukrainians from Washington Square to the Central Opera House at 67th Street and Third Avenue. “Three hundred policemen, including a score of mounted men, were called out to enable the marchers to reach the opera house and to conduct a meeting there in peace.