Kean University offers course on Famine-Genocide of '32-'33 (12/03/06)

Kean University offers course on Famine-Genocide of '32-'33

by Matthew Dubas

PARSIPPANY, N.J. - A course titled "The Ukrainian Famine-Genocide, 1932-1933" is being offered in the spring 2007 semester and first summer session in June as part of Kean University's Graduate Program in Holocaust and Genocide Studies. The three-credit course, the first of its kind in the United States, is taught by Ruth Pianotchka Griffith, the granddaughter of a victim of the Famine and the daughter of a young survivor.

The course will cover the conditions of the Ukrainian population under the regime of Joseph Stalin, the historical background, the struggle of the peasants during collectivization, Ukrainian nationalism under Stalin, the Famine itself, the Western response and its effects, recovery efforts, and the study of evidence - literature, journalistic accounts and memoirs.

The historical background to the Famine-Genocide will be heavily stressed to give students a better understanding of the environment that produced the extermination of over 7 million Ukrainians living under Soviet rule.

In the formation of this discipline, Dr. Bernard Weinstein, head of the department of Holocaust and Genocide Studies, had the original concept and design for a graduate program in Holocaust and Genocide Studies. The interdisciplinary program was initially intended to help teachers whose curriculum requires them to teach about the Holocaust and other genocides.

Dr. Weinstein knew of Dr. Griffith's Ukrainian background and asked if she would be interested in designing a course on the Famine-Genocide of 1932-1933. At that time, Dr. Weinstein was unaware of Dr. Griffith's personal history, which included relatives who survived the Holodomor.

Dr. Griffith's mother's family (Ancherbak) came from the Ukrainian village of Shkarbinka, north of Odesa. During the time of the Holodomor, her grandfather (Horbatiuk) on her mother's side, died while imprisoned and was buried in a mass grave at Troitske. According to her grandmother's account, there were no horses to bring her husband's remains to Shkarbinka for a burial in the local cemetery.

A visit to the village of Shkarbinka in 1993 and the gravesite at Troitske with her parents, Dr. Griffith said, was one of the most moving experiences of her life. In contrast to her mother's family's experience, her father's family, which came from Halychyna in western Ukraine, saw little of the devastating effects of the Famine.

In getting the course off the ground, Dr. Griffith received a lot of encouragement and support from both Dr. Weinstein and the university curriculum committee. In preparation for the course, during the summer of 2005 Dr. Griffith immersed herself in the literature of the Holodomor and designed the course that was approved in the fall of 2005. The course was first offered in the spring semester of 2006. Kean University is also creating a human rights center that will be unveiled in 2007 or 2008, she added.

As part of the course, Dr. Griffith is locating survivors of the Holodomor and their children. She is looking for children/grandchildren of survivors or victims to interview in person or by phone. (She can be contacted by e-mail at [email protected] or by phone at 908-737-0387.) Students taking the course will be encouraged to interview these survivors and/or their children in order to collect primary and anecdotal accounts.

Dr. Griffith is also in the process of building a Holodomor library collection at Kean University. Readers can send tax-deductible contributions earmarked for the "Ukrainian Holodomor Library Collection" to: University Foundation, Kean University, 1000 Morris Ave., Union, NJ 07083.

The class is limited to 15 students, but is open to both matriculated and non-matriculated students. The spring course is scheduled to meet once a week on Monday evenings from 7:50 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. and runs from January 16 to May 7. The summer session will offer a six-week course that meets at 5 p.m. on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays from May 21 to June 28.

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