Holodomor, which means "death by starvation" or "murder by hunger," was a manmade famine genocide inflicted on the Ukrainian people from 1932 to 1933 by the Soviet regime. Estimates of the number of people who starved to death during the Holodomor range between 6 and 10 million. A precise idea of the number that died is difficult to determine due to the closed nature of the Soviet Union-controlled messages and the secrecy surrounding this tragic event.
This genocidal program was executed through orders of the Soviet regime that confiscated wheat and other foods and products mainly from grain-producing regions of central and eastern Ukraine.
The Soviet government used food as a weapon against the Ukrainian rural population. It also wiped out the cultural, religious, intellectual and political leadership of Ukraine. In committing this genocide, Soviet authorities sought to repress Ukrainian aspirations for autonomy and eradicate all opposition to collectivization and communist rule.
In the Soviet Union, the Holodomor was a taboo subject, denied and covered up. Soviet authorities also attacked those Western journalists who strove to inform the public about the famine. Thus, the Holodomor nearly disappeared from world awareness. Since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, archives in Russia and Ukraine, which had been off-limits to scholars for decades, have become accessible. This has led to a deeper understanding of the Holodomor and its historical significance, including its far-reaching consequences in contemporary affairs.
Saskatchewan was the first jurisdiction in North America to recognize the famine as an act of genocide by the Soviet regime, passing “The Ukrainian Famine and Genocide (Holodomor) Memorial Day Act" in 2008.
Canada was the first country to recognize the Holodomor as an act of genocide under the Act by the same name.
Learn more about Holodomor here: https://education.holodomor.ca/
