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Holodomor is the Ukrainian word for “killing by hunger.” It is now the proper term for Josef Stalin’s forced starvation genocide against the Ukraine from 1932 to 1933. The manner by which Stalin forced it on the Ukrainian people is open for discussion, but most historians agree that he knew what was happening in the Ukraine and refused to provide relief of any kind, even ordering food shipments diverted from the Ukraine and what food its population had confiscated, violently whenever necessary. He imposed this particularly cruel death sentence on so many solely out of retaliation for the Ukraine striving for national recognition and independence.

Today, we refer to it as a country, Ukraine, with Kiev as its capital city. But at that time, it was still referred to as “the Ukrainian SSR,” or simply, “the Ukraine,” one of many areas of Russia. The famine was manmade, an imposition directly from Stalin, but whether he premeditated it beforehand is difficult to determine. Most of Russia was experiencing a famine at that time, and Stalin may have seen this a chance to make the Holodomor look, at best, like an accident, at worst, passive justice.

The numbers are the saddest testimony overall in every one of these entries. Records were not well kept during the famine, so the death toll ranges from 1.8 to 12 million. Some scholars have narrowed this down to about 4 to 5 million. The borders were closed by the NKVD, the precursor to the KGB, and anyone attempting to flee to other countries or Russian states was either shot or captured and brought back to starve. 190,000 tried to escape the Ukraine after the first year. Starvation may be the most awful cause of death. The commoners’ despair, agony, and terror led tens of thousands to resort to eating their own children. Many ate their own feet. It did not end until Stalin’s implementation of forced collectivization of grain threatened to destroy all of Russia, not just the Ukraine. Once the police and military stopped stealing everyone’s grain, farmers were able to grow for small communities, as they always had. -- http://listverse.com/

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from http://www.holodomorct.org/


BRIEF SUMMARY

The Holodomor refers most specifically to the brutal artificial famine imposed on the Ukrainian people in 1932-33 by Stalin’s regime.

In its broadest sense, it refers to the Ukrainian genocide that began in 1929 with the massive waves of deadly deportations of Ukraine’s prospering peasant farmers as well as the deportations and executions of Ukraine’s religious, academic and cultural leaders, culminating in the devastating forced famine that killed millions more innocent men, women and children.

The genocide in fact continued for several more years with the further destruction of Ukraine’s political leadership, the resettlement of Ukraine’s depopulated areas with other ethnic groups, the blatant public denial of famine, and the prosecution of those who dared to speak of it publicly.

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1932-1933
The Soviet government increases Ukraine's production quotas by 44%, ensuring that they could not be met. Starvation becomes widespread.  Secret decrees are implemented that  allow arrest or execution of any starving peasant  found taking as little as a few stalks of wheat or a potato from the fields he worked.  By decree, discriminatory voucher systems are implemented, and military blockades are erected around Ukrainian villages preventing the transport of food into the villages and the hungry from leaving in search of food.  Brigades of young activists from other Soviet regions are brought in to confiscate hidden grain, and eventually all foodstuffs from the peasants’ homes.  Stalin states of Ukraine that “the national question is in essence a rural question” and he and his henchmen determine to “teach a lesson through famine” and ultimately,  to deal a “crushing blow” to the backbone of Ukraine, its rural population. 

1933
Ukrainians are dying at the rate of 25,000 a day, more than half were children.   In the end, up to 10 million starve to death.  Stalin denies to the world that there is any famine in Ukraine, and prevents international aid from entering the country.

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Ukraine’s government is asking the United Nations to recognize the disaster as an act of genocide, worsening already frosty relations with Russia, which says the famine resulted from drought. Russian nationalists vandalized an exhibit at the Ukrainian embassy in Moscow in November. While the Russian government didn’t condone the attack, it called Ukraine’s depiction of the famine a “one-sided falsification of history.’’

In recent years then-Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko had ordered the release of old KGB records on the Famine. With this information it has become very apparent that this Famine was a deliberate act of Genocide, a method to ethnically cleanse Ukrainians from the territories of Ukraine and parts of Russia. At first only several thousand documents were released. Recently another batch of 25,000 documents is being declassified.

As more documents are released this event in Ukrainian history has taken on a very ominous tone. On November 28th 2006, the Verkhovna Rada (Parliament of Ukraine) had passed a decree defining the Holodomor as a deliberate Act of Genocide.

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What happens to a starving person

Individuals experiencing starvation lose substantial fat (adipose) and muscle mass as the body breaks down these tissues for energy.  Catabolysis is the process of a body breaking down its own muscles and other tissues in order to keep vital systems such as the nervous system and heart muscle (myocardium) functioning.

Vitamin deficiency is a common result of starvation, often leading to anemia, beriberi, pellagra, and scurvy.  These diseases collectively can also cause diarrhea, skin rashes, edema, and heart failure.  Individuals are often irritable and lethargic as a result. (wikipedia)

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All movements become painful due to muscle atrophy and dry, cracked skin that is caused by severe dehydration.  With a weakened body, diseases are commonplace.  Fungi, for example, often grow under the esophagus, making swallowing unbearably painful. (wikipedia)


Starving Russian girl during the Russian famine of 1921

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Grabeha. Wa pakan-a pero gitupihan pa...

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All pictures of sadness and misery make one fell  depressed not good pictures and topic.

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