LETTER TO THE EDITOR (10/08/00)

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Books expose Famine-Genocide

Dear Editor:

In your August 6 edition of Myron B. Kuropas enlightens us in his "Faces and Places" column about the hunger-famine in Ukraine which peaked there in 1933. He brings to our attention this tragic event as described in a novel by Vasily Grossman in his 1972 book "Forever Flowing." In that book, the chapter on the collectivization and the famine was among the most moving written about the period. Mr. Grossman, a prize-winning novelist of Jewish descent was the co-editor of the Soviet section of the "Black Book" on the Nazi Holocaust (which was never published in the USSR) and the author of the horrifying documentary work, "The Hell of Treblinka." In sum, Mr. Grossman was the Soviet Union's leading writer on Hitler's holocaust.

To this day the world is still disbelieving of that most inhumane tragedy of famine brought on by communism upon the Ukrainian people. And even those of us who survived that catastrophe have difficulty understanding and explaining the magnitude of cruelty that gripped that part of the world by a government against its own citizens. And this was couched by Stalin's propaganda from the rest of the world so that even to this day some intellectuals still disbelieve its occurrence.

For those of you who have the fortitude to read and really fathom the horrors of Ukraine's holocaust-famine, read "The Harvest of Sorrow" by Robert Conquest, which was published in 1986 by Oxford University Press in New York City. It consists of 412 pages and is extremely well-referenced, documented and indexed. The references alone comprise 45 pages and the list includes writings by Lenin, Stalin, Bukharin, Plekhanov, Trotsky, Medvedev, Grossman, Solzhenitsyn, Khrushchev, Rudenko, Duranty, Maynard, Chornovil and others; the newspapers Pravda, The New York Times, Visti and many European and Communist publications; Communist Party notes, communications, directives and enforcing methods are dispassionately cited and brought out.

But the majority of the information comes from personal accounts of surviving witnesses. The book is very detailed and approaches the verity of all events that transpired from many sides and perspectives. As a historical verifier of that catastrophe it is unprejudiced and invaluable.

Today's Germany is expressing regret and is in the process of somehow compensating the Jews, the Ukrainians and other nationalities for the wrongs committed by Nazi Germany. Japan is taking steps to apologize and perhaps somehow compensate China for the military atrocities of World War II. And even the United States is trying to do something to correct the injustices of internment committed at the onset of World War II against its own populace of Japanese descent.

Ukraine - so viciously starved by dekulakization, collectivization, and de-nationalization in the 1920s and 1930s by Moscow's communism and Stalin's OGPU and NKVD organs - also needs to address its cause in a similar manner. Russia, and its ex-KGB head of state, Vladimir Putin, needs to look at the atrocities it has wrought upon its neighbor, Ukraine. Today's Russia owes Ukraine a big debt of moral and compensatory nature. After all, at least 5 million died in agony on their rich soil in Ukraine to a government-enforced hunger; another 1.5 million of them died as a result of the same cause in the North Caucasus region.

There is no doubt the tragedy was of monstrous proportions. Ukraine, and the rest of civilized world, needs to push Russia into admission of a terrible wrong and realization that the world will not tolerate that type of unjust brutality against innocent people.

Note: "The Harvest of Sorrow," is available in most libraries. Paperback edition (which does not contain photos of the famine) may be purchased on the Internet from amazon.com.

George V. Mylton
Boise, Idaho

The Ukrainian Weekly welcomes letters to the editor and commentaries on a variety of topics of concern to the Ukrainian American and Ukrainian Canadian communities. Opinions expressed by columnists, commentators and letter-writers are their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of either The Weekly editorial staff or its publisher, the Ukrainian National Association.

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