An Information Resource about Ukraine and Ukrainians.

Link: InfoUkes

Link: Teacher Package on the Holodomor Ukrainian Famine Education

The Artificial Famine/Genocide  
(Holodomor) in Ukraine
1932-33

Our mother from Vinnitsa Region (Paraskevia Breha (Kuzmenko), orphaned age 9) survived the Holodomor, but our Great Grandmother Katerina Kozar, Grandmother Tatiana Breha, Grandfather Gregory Breha, and their children, Peter, Philip and Anastasia lost their lives. May they rest in peace. Вiчна їм пам´ять.

Olga Kuzmenko Drozd and Larysa Kuzmenko Kulesha

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Link: InfoUkes » Black Famine in Ukraine

Link: Famine in Ukraine, 1932–1933

Link: Famine-Genocide - The impetus for this site was the 65th anniversary of the 1933 Famine-Genocide in Ukraine. A commemorative week was dedicated for observance of this solemn anniversary. Participants included survivors, scholars, students, parliamentarians, clergy and the Ukrainian community in the Greater Toronto Area.

Link: Execution by Hunger: The Hidden Holocaust <= Book Review on Amazon.com - An eyewitness account of the forced collectivization of Russian agriculture in 1929-1931 and the ensuing famine in Ukraine, brought about by Stalin's command.

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Poem written by my Brother-In-Law -- Nicholas M. Latyshko


1932 FAMINE - GENOCIDE 1933

Nicholas M. Latyshko


I remember the Ukrainian Famine,
Of my early and simple childhood,
That was caused by the sickle and hammer
And the Communist Party's - "no goods"!

I remember the people were dying
In their homes in their own land
And the children that always were crying
And their lives that they could not defend.

Going to school was a torturous feat
For a little, hungry, village fellow,
As skinny, as a blade of a dried out reed
With a growling and painful belly.

Give me some food, l begged my Mother
I'm not going to make it to school!
I know that my little love - Nicki
I'll come and will help you, - don't drool...

We cried and cried standing together
Without the hope, without the strife
That ARTIFICIAL, painful FAMINE
I shall remember all my life!

I went to school that painful morning
To learn my A,B,C's in text,
The fate of "kulaks'' and "burzhuivs"
And where the Party leads us next.

My swollen brother and hungry sister
We're going to search for grain,
On Fields yet frozen and sinister
Blood-soaken Fields o' Soviet Ukraine.

Corpses on streets - result of oppression,
People unable to bury them all
Hungry cried out for God's compassion,
Help us survive before all of us fall.

Hearts were aching from the sorrow
Of fathers and mothers still alive,
To see their children dead in furrows
In land so fertile, whole Europe could thrive.

I remember the tears of my Mother
And father's sad face in window's blue glass
O! Those pictures forever so vivid-
Shall never fade, shall never pass.

What could the parents give their children
In hungry times of those deadly years,
When the whole country lay in ruins
And the whole nation was in tears...

Can well-fed people understand us
How much we suffered in those days.
When we were forging fate unknown,
Yet "Commies" never heard our prays.

And after all the aches and torment
We came to life again once more,
Our Ukraine again had risen,
We shall not suffer anymore!

We lived through torture and Chornobyl,
Czars, Kaganoviches and all
That could not break backbone of farmers
We lived through all to see them fall.

Why did not we stand up with Symon,
In battle fierce right to the end,
With Konovalec and Hrushevsky,
That tried so hard to free our Land?

l had two buddies, I remember,
One then had died and one's alive
To tell the World about the FAMINE,
We shall not perish, we'll survive!

O ! Unforgetful years of suffer
And thirty two and thirty three
God give us strength and make us tougher
And keep our Land forever free!

We always knew and then and ever
The end will come for Moscow's heist
The Holy Truth with us forever
Our God with us, our Jesus Christ.

Our Nation's rising from oppression
And steers it's fate with open eye,
And now will sing so ever loudly,
"Ukraine's alive it'll never die!"


Dedicated to the memory of my Mother.
Oct. 20, 2000

All Poems are by Eugenia Sakevych Dallas

Visit the Authors web site for more information about her book, poems, photos, reviews and artwork: One Woman, Five Lives, Five Countries

UKRAINIAN  GENOCIDE (1932-1933) Peaceful, hard working, happy, gregarious people, With their golden fields of wheat Blue skies, Ukraine my country, Breadbasket of Europe. , Suddenly black clouds of terror From the neighbor to the North. Darkness blew over the green hills The peaceful golden steps of Ukraine. Bullets riddle my country, They took my freedom, my land And brutally turned us into a colony Run by hostile ruthless outsiders By Force they made us give them All our food to the last morsel. In return they gave us prisons in Siberia And Genocide in Ukraine. Countless Numbers of Children With protruding frightened eyes, outstretched little hands Pleading for food, crying. Some of us survived - Orphans Forever The free world was silent!   Our Hopelessness, Bewilderment, Gave way to panic. We sunk deep into resignation, Mental apathy, stupor, and despair The Communist Terror, their sadism Made us pay dearly with our lives. Extermination by slow starvation Was done quietly, so that no one in the world Would hear or know about it. We Must Pledge to Preserve, Memories of Ukrainian Genocide To ensure that the world, Does not repeat the past. We must not forget the pain That was inflicted upon Ukraine. We must remember our Obligations and responsibilities Toward our loved ones, who perished so unjustly? Today and Always, Their memories must be kept alive forever. The Russian Revolution Creation of world Communism in 1932 Let to a yet unknown Genocide In Ukraine, a story that was never fully told.

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Ukraine My Tortured Land. My parents my own dearest ones. Where are your tortured bodies? Starved, tormented thrown, dumped in mass graves In frozen Tundra foreign land. Searching, calling you, but no one hears me No one wants to know about your suffering. Only two little worn out documents Say: "Sent on a road to Siberia" Where is that tragic road that took? Millions of innocent people to their death? It is so very hard to accept your suffering, Cruelty by Soviets for so long. Uncontrollable tears don't let me forget Destruction of my homeland. Empty homes, empty fields, empty Ukraine Terror of horrors ruins of the nation. Excruciating torture by slow starvation. Some of us children survived - orphans forever. Finally destiny smiled on us Long waiting freedom came upon us Unexpected Independence Free from shackles of Communists tyranny

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My Mother

My mother with her tender care
Looked at me with so much joy
She watched over me always
with so much pride in her eyes

I was her life
She always hugged and kissed me
She always talked to me asking for my advice
making me feel I was special

My mother was taken away from me
A t the tender age of five.
I lost her steady love and care
My world crumbled around me

My joyful, happy childhood was over forever.

My little friend in the second grade
Her mom was tender just like mine
With pride, love and kisses,
Just to watch, would make my heart tremble.

I would burst into tears
So much pain for a child to bear
Without the loving care of a Mother
I wish I had my Mother.

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My Childhood

I was robbed of my childhood
Happiness to me was denied
I went through turbulent life,
But somehow survived

Why my life was spared?
I think I was chosen
to bring the message to the world

Ukraine by evil force was occupied.
A million souls were crucified
The rest conveniently Russified

My parents were arrested
Their identity stripped
Why was their destiny so cruel?
Today I ask for what reason were they punished?

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A Message from the Author

TO THE UKRAINIAN PEOPLE EVERYWHERE:

EVERYONE MUST GET ELECTRIFIED, THINK LIKE FREE PEOPLE.

WE HAVE SUFFERED FOR SO LONG SOME PEOPLE ARE AFRAID EVEN TO THINK FREE.

HISTORY WILL NEVER SMILE ON US AGAIN AS IT DOES TODAY.

THIS OPPORTUNITY WE WILL NEVER HAVE AGAIN. WE MUST GET OUR RECOGNITION FOR COMPLETE INDEPENDENCE TODAY AND GOVERN OUR HOUSE BY OURSELVES. WE WERE DEPRIVED FOR A LONG, LONG TIME. WE WERE FORCED TO USE THE RUSSIAN LANGUAGE.

OUR OWN LANGUAGE WAS RIDICULED AND LAUGHED AT. PEOPLE HAVE TO WORK AT AND INSIST ON OUR COMPLETE FREEDOM AND RECOGNITION. IF WE PERSIST, OUR FREEDOM WILL COME. WE MUST SAVE OUR COUNTRY AND DO EVERYTHING THAT IS POSSIBLE WITH ALL OUR STRENGTH FOR THE STATEHOOD OF UKRAINE.

WE HAVE NO OTHER CHOICE BUT TO ACT STRONGLY, FOR WE CANNOT RELY ON ANYONE ELSE FOR OUR FUTURE. WE WILL REMAIN FAITHFUL TO OUR IDEALS FOR OUR INDEPENDENCE AND RECOGNITION AWAY FROM MOSCOW’S TYRANNY AND RETURN TO THE LAND OF THE FREE UKRAINE. OUR FUTURE FREEDOM AND INDEPENDENCE FROM MOSCOW MUST BE REALIZED. THE WORLD MUST RECOGNIZE OUR COUNTRY OF FREE UKRAINE.

- Eugenia Dallas