By Arsen S.

“This was the first genocide that was methodically planned out and perpetrated by depriving the very people who were producers of food of their nourishment,” said Andrea Graziosi, a professor at the University of Naplesi. He was talking about the Holodomor, which is one of the largest genocides in the world, yet most people have never heard of it.

From 1932 to 1933, the Soviet Union engineered a famine in Ukraine, killing about 3.9 million people. It was not a natural disaster. It was an act of brutality by a government trying to crush resistance to collectivization, the consolidation of land and labor into state-owned farms. Joseph Stalin’s regime imposed incredibly high grain quotas, confiscated food from homes, and prevented people from fleeing famine-stricken areas. He starved Ukrainians until they submitted.

As a Ukrainian immigrant, I feel deeply about the silence surrounding the Holodomor. It is not just a part of history—it is a part of my family. Seven of my great-grandmother’s children died in the genocide. I have heard stories from my grandmother many times about how they demolished the floor of the house, dug up the gardens, and even patted them down in search of a few grains. My family doesn’t throw away food, because we remember how our relatives once lacked it. 

In New York State, students are not required to study the Holodomor, unlike the Holocaust; in my school, we also study the Rwandan genocide. The Holocaust took the lives of six million Jews over four years. It’s the largest genocide in history, and it’s important that we learn about it to understand what genocide means. But it’s also essential that we study other genocides, like the Holodomor.

The genocide in Ukraine has been officially recognized by 34 countries, including the United States. So why isn’t it required in our curriculum? One reason is that the Soviet Union covered up the truth for decades. The world looked away—perhaps because the victims were just “peasants,” or perhaps because other countries continued to buy cheap Soviet grain selected from Ukraine. Today, as Russia commits yet another genocide against Ukrainians, we no longer have an excuse to ignore it. This shows a lasting problem: Nearly 100 years ago, Russia tried to destroy ethnic Ukrainians, and now, ninety years later, they’re doing it again. They did not change their stance; maybe they will not stop after this. 

Some may argue that comparing tragedies is unfair. But recognizing one genocide does not mean forgetting another. In fact, studying the Holodomor helps us understand how governments can destroy populations not only with weapons, but by controlling food, borders, and the truth itself — and how easy it is to do under a communist regime. 

If we only teach about well-known tragedies, we leave room for others to be forgotten or repeated. Silence around the Holodomor is not just an oversight. It is a danger.

References:

https://cla.umn.edu/chgs/holocaust-genocide-education/resource-guides/holodomor 

https://www.nysed.gov/sites/default/files/sscore2.pdf