Lest we forget (10/10/93)

ANNIVERSARY REVIEW

Lest we forget

Reprinted below are excerpts of The Ukrainian Weekly editorial contained in the newspaper's special issue devoted to the 50th anniversary of the Great Famine in Ukraine. The issue was dated March 20, 1983.

Twelve pages of this special issue of The Weekly are devoted exclusively to the Great Famine in Ukraine, unquestionably the least-known man-made Holocaust of modern times. An unbelievable 7 million Ukrainians - men, women and children - starved to death in a little over a year. ...

In an effort to break the will of an independent-minded and nationally conscious Ukrainian peasantry, secure collectivization and ensure industrialization, the Soviet regime under Stalin ordered the expropriation of all foodstuffs in the hands of the rural population. All harvested grain was confiscated by 25,000 non-Ukrainians sent in to oversee the operation ... Peasants were ordered to turn everything over to the state. Failure to do so was punishable by death. ... The famine, then, was politically motivated genocide.

So why, 50 years later, is the famine so little known? How has this horrible atrocity, the murder of 7 million people, escaped the attention of mankind, its conscience and its justice?

When Allied troops liberated the Nazi death camps at Treblinka and Auschwitz, their senses verified that an unspeakable crime had been committed against humanity. The sight of living corpses, the stench of death, the moans of the tormented, the ovens and barbed wire all provided instant confirmation. ...

Because Nazi Germany was vanquished, it was possible, as was done at Nuremberg, to bring to trial at least some of those responsible for the Holocaust.

In contrast, the Ukrainian tragedy is unknown and unavenged. At the time, the Soviet Union was not a vanquished enemy, but an ally. Ironically, the United States formally recognized the Soviet Union in 1933, the same year that millions were dying of starvation. Because it was a closed society, most Western journalists and government officials were carefully kept away from the countryside and could not see the scale of the tragedy. ...

So why ... dredge up a 50-year-old tragedy? ... Because, like the Nazi Holocaust, the murder of millions is a blot on our collective conscience. It must he recognized, understood, absorbed - regardless of political considerations. A failure to do so would suggest the chilling notion that had the Nazis won the war, the death of 6 million Jews would be little more than a footnote in history. As we read the next few pages about the famine, we should ponder long and hard the real consequences of silence.

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