Wasyl Hryshko - The Ukrainian holocaust of 1933
Гришко Василь Іванович
This book appears at a time when millions of Ukrainians in the diaspora are freely commemorating - and many more millions of Ukrainians are doing so secretly - the fiftieth anniversary of the genocide perpetrated by the Communist regime in Ukraine in 1933. This act of genocide was accomplished in the form of a great famine, artificially created by the Soviet government and accompanied by anti-Ukrainian terror under the slogan of the "struggle against Ukrainian nationalism." More than six million Ukrainians perished as victims of this unprecedented crime.
On the anniversary of this great crime against humanity, thorough studies of this subject are being written. There is no doubt that they will be major contributions in revealing the truth that was so successfully concealed by the perpetrators. Before these books become available, interested readers will find the essential information in this book, written especially for the fiftieth anniversary of the Ukrainian tragedy of 1933.
Born and brought up in Soviet Ukraine, Wasyl Hryshko was a student and a young writer at the time of the events described here. And it was the tragedy of 1933 that influenced his life, so that instead of the assured career of a successful Soviet writer, he chose to become a political opponent of the Soviet regime, spending four years of imprisonment in the Gulag, then taking part in the Ukrainian liberation movemerat during the Second World War, and then fleeing as a
political emigre to the West. The events of 1933 became the central subject of his various publications-from the memoir "My Attempt on Herriot's Life in 1933" (1948) to The Ukrainian Holocaust of 1933 (1978). The latter is included in the present book, in a slightly revised form, as its second part.
The first part of this book deals with the hitherto almost untouched subject of the genetic connection between the anti-national and anti-peasant aspect of Marxism and the Soviet practice of genocide against the Ukrainian "peasant nation." Thus this part provides a background to the events described in the second part, since they can be fully comprehended only in their ideological context and against their historical background. This is especially important for the reader
who may be unfamiliar with the Soviet totalitarian system, which is based on a theory anti-human in its nature and in this respect essentially similar to that of Nazism.
This book is published through the efforts of the Bahriany Foundation, Philadelphia, the Ukrainian Association of Victims of Russian Communist Terror (SUZHERO) in Canada, and the Democratic Organization of Ukrainians formely persecuted by the Soviet Regime (DOBRUS) in the United States. Hryhory Moros (Toronto) and Professor Michael Voskobiynyk (New Britain, Connecticut) were of great assistance in bringing the book to publication, and Alex and Helen Woskob (State College, Pennsylvania) gave generous financial support. Equally important was the professional help of Marco Carynnyk (Toronto), who translateq and edited this book. The author is also grateful to Simon Starow (Monterey, California) for his free translation of Mykola Rudenko's poem The Cross. It is with great pleasure
that the author expresses his profound gratitude to these organizations and persons.
W. H.
Canadian-American Slavic Studies - Holodomor The Ukrainian genocide 1932-1933
William Luther Pierce - The Genocide at Vinnitsa
Robert Conquest - The harvest of sorrow
Ukrainian famine research committee - Holodomor
Miron Dolot - Execution by hunger The hidden holocaust
Holodomor - La famine inconnue
Ukraine - Holodomor : pourquoi les Ukrainiens combattent les juifs et les russes
