BRAMA, March 25, 2009, 9:00 am ET
Letter to the New York Times underscores issues surrounding a 76-year-old crime against humanity
Dear Mr. Levy:
Thank you for your recent article about the Holodomor in Ukraine (A New View of a Famine That Killed Millions by Clifford J. Levy, March 15, 2009).
As a Ukrainian American born in the 1950s, this is a conflicted story that has
been with me most of my life. On one hand, for decades, I had heard from
historians and media that there had been no famine, or that yes, maybe
there had been a famine, but only a small one, or really, there was some
bad luck with bad weather, or that I/we/Ukrainians were all crazy, simply
motivated by nationalist fervor, or … etc. etc.
On the other hand, my own personal experiences with individuals in my
community who lived through – as we knew it then – the Great Famine of
1932-33 (Velykiy Holod) – could not be denied. I remember visiting homes
of childhood friends whose basements were stockpiled with dusty old cans
and boxes of food – my introduction to hoarding – a common obsession among
immigrant parents and grandparents who had survived the Holodomor. Later
in life, I learned that my great-grandmother was a member of a league of
women in Western Ukraine that organized food shipments to send across the
border into Soviet Ukraine. The shipments apparently were blocked – I was
told that food was dumped as proof that there was so much food in Soviet
Ukraine that that there was no need to waste the time to transport the
shipments further inland.
This extreme polarity of truths – denial (Walter Duranty) of a widespread famine,
one that many believed to be politically-motivated and avoidable, versus
the experiences of those who survived and bore witness to massive
starvation has caused deep, deep bitterness.
The NYT acted very shabbily in the past with regard to information about
the famine. In fact, I suspect that you may receive letters that will say
"why only now? why so little? why on a Monday?" and other expressions of
frustration and anger. There is much merit to these expressions.
Nevertheless, I also know that many of us also very much value whatever
small steps the NYT is taking to come out of the cold on this issue. So
again, thank you.
I agree with Kulchytsky that it is important for people to understand that
horror is not an abstraction, that horror is often not an exception in
human behavior. We need to be diligent in our daily lives and to be aware
of and try to understand the political, social, economic, personal
motivations and factors that can lead to horrors such as the Holodomor –
factors that include disinformation and denial of facts.
I am not sure that NYT will ever buck up and acknowledge that their
powerful reputation gave undue credence to Duranty's obfuscation and
denial of what actually was happening during the late 1920s-1930s in the
Soviet Union – including the painful-to-read and obsequious reporting for
which he received his Pulitzer Prize – but giving voice to Stanislav
Kulchytsky was a good step in the right direction.
Irene Jarosewich
Clifton, New Jersey
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More from the New York Times...
Letter to the Editor: The Ukraine Famine
Ulana Mazurkevich
Philadelphia, March 18, 2009
New York Times
Published: March 24, 2009
A New View of a Famine That Killed Millions
By CLIFFORD J. LEVY
New York Times
Published: March 15, 2009
KIEV, Ukraine — A quarter century ago, a Ukrainian historian named Stanislav Kulchytsky was told by his Soviet overlords to concoct an insidious cover-up. His orders: to depict the famine that killed millions of Ukrainians in the early 1930s as unavoidable, like a natural disaster. Absolve the Communist Party of blame. Uphold the legacy of Stalin.
Professor Kulchytsky, though, would not go along.
Read the entire article
75 Years Later, Survivor Helps Commemorate Ukrainian Famine
By PETER DUFFY
New York Times
Published: December 19, 2007
Remembering Ukraine’s Holocaust
New York Times
Published: December 10, 2008, 12:10 pm
World Briefing | Europe: Ukraine: Parliament Recognizes Soviet-Era Famine As Genocide
By STEVEN LEE MYERS
Published: November 29, 2006
A City of Memorials Finds Itself Filling Up
By FELICITY BARRINGER
New York Times
Published: December 30, 2006
Times Should Lose Pulitzer From 30's, Consultant Says
By JACQUES STEINBERG
New York Times
Published: Thursday, October 23, 2003
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