SYRACUSE, N.Y. – On October 3, the local Ukrainian community came together on the Syracuse University campus to commemorate the victims of the Holodomor, the artificially created famine during which millions of people were starved to death for their refusal to comply with Soviet collectivization policies.
Lighting many candles on the steps of Hendrick’s Chapel, Syracuse Ukrainians took part in the 85-day journey of the Holodomor remembrance flame that is traveling across five continents and concludes in Kyiv in November this year. Nearly every Ukrainian lost a family member in the long winter of 1933, many of them young children: according to demographic estimates, the Holodomor took the lives of over a million children under the age of 10, in addition to the 600,000 whose lives ended before they could be born.
The candlelight vigil at Hendrick’s Chapel was dedicated to these children – a bell tolled as participants read the names of 85 children who never made it back to school that year. The event was co-organized by the head of the Syracuse branch of the Ukrainian Medical Association of North America, Dr. Borys Buniak, the Ukrainian American Youth Association and the Ukrainian Club of Syracuse University (whose faculty advisor is Pat Burak).
Adriana Buniak (left) reads the names of the 85 children who perished in Holodomor, as Pat Burak (right) tolls the bell.
This year marks the 85th anniversary of the Holodomor and – after the decade-long efforts of the Ukrainian World Congress and the U.S. Committee for Ukrainian Holodomor Genocide Awareness – the U.S. Senate recently passed a resolution to recognize this tragedy as a deliberate act of genocide perpetrated against Ukrainians by the Soviet regime.
Without adequate nutrition, the human body can sustain itself for up to 70 days, Dr. Buniak explains in a new Holodomor documentary, “When We Starve.” Watching others die of hunger is also an immensely traumatizing psychological experience that often gets transmitted onto the next generations. Long surrounded by the culture of silence, it is imperative to remember the Holodomor by paying tribute not only to those who perished, but also to the survivors, whose testimonies of this unspeakable crime will forever keep this event in our collective memory.
A grandmother’s recollections
Growing up, this writer associated the Holodomor with her great grandmother Lida – my only living relative who survived it while being a college student. Coming from a small village in Poltava Oblast, she never talked about it; she agreed to share her daunting memories of collectivization only once, at my father’s request.
In the fall of 1932, her father, who owned a mill, was made to surrender all of their daily output flour to the newly appointed superintendents. Knowing he would not be able to feed his family of 10 through the winter, Lida’s father was able to salvage some of the grain by digging a makeshift storage space underneath their house. By night, the family would grind a few handfuls of grain by hand, and bake an improvised bread to get the family through the day. That winter, Lida found her neighbors, a family of nine, unable to leave their house, dying of starvation – so, she visited them every day to share some of the bread. Two of the neighbors had perished, but seven others gradually regained their strength and made it through the winter. In the most precarious of circumstances, people were helping each other survive – leaving a legacy of cooperation and care that could not be destroyed by the Soviet regime.
Bread is not only a staple food – it has enormous symbolic importance in the Ukrainian culture. Just like the vyshyvanka, it accompanies a person through life, being the centerpiece of births, weddings and deaths. Every Ukrainian child knows bread may not be thrown away – a tribute to those who were once denied it in the name of a “bright future” they would not live to see.
In my hometown of Ternopil, we remembered the Holodomor in November by sharing a homemade loaf of bread with passers-by on the street, wishing them and their families that they never again experience hunger. Some of us are here today because somebody once chose to share their bread so our grandparents could make it through. It is now up to us to preserve this legacy of cooperation and care, and not turn a blind eye to the present-day atrocities committed in the name of the future, no matter how seemingly bright it may be.
Olga Boichak is president of the Ukrainian Club of Syracuse University.