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Ukraine no longer silent about famine - a topic long smothered by forced Soviet silence
latimes.com ^ | June 3, 2008 | Megan K. Stack

Posted on 06/03/2008 10:56:16 AM PDT by Tailgunner Joe

Hryhory Haraschenko tells the stories feverishly, in a voice that brooks no interruption, gesticulating wildly with veined hands. He hauls out his stash of carefully bundled newspaper clippings, witness' tales and pencil-drawn maps. ...

At 89, Haraschenko is among a dwindling number of Ukrainians who survived the Soviet-era famine of the early 1930s. Like other survivors and some historians, he regards the starvation -- known here as the Holodomor, or "death by hunger" -- as an act of genocide engineered to wipe out the Ukrainians.

He wants it discussed, and he wants it recognized by the world.

"Russia is afraid we'll accuse Moscow of creating this genocide and eliminating Ukrainian villages," he says. "They try to say that Russians were killed in this famine, but don't listen to them." ...

This is what Haraschenko remembers: Coming home from Young Pioneer camp and helping to harvest the grain, only to watch the all the kernels be carted off toward Russia. The day the soldiers came through his house and confiscated every last bit of flour and milk. The hunger that grew relentlessly until the widow who lived next door killed her 4-year-old daughter and cooked the corpse to survive.

In the beginning he helped to bury the other students' bodies, but soon the villagers got used to the sight of death, he said, and left the remains to litter the streets. By the time it was over, at least 3.5 million Ukrainians were dead, and the survivors were ordered by Soviet officials to keep their memories to themselves.

"The agents went through the houses and said, 'There was no famine. Forget it. Don't say a word,' " Haraschenko said. "If you talked about it, if you even said the word 'famine,' you went to Siberia." ...

(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs
KEYWORDS: garethjones; malcolmmuggeridge; pulitzerprize; robertconquest; starvation; ukraine; walterduranty

1 posted on 06/03/2008 10:56:18 AM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
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To: Tailgunner Joe

I think an essential key for the world to start recognizing this would be for the NY Times to return Walter Duranty’s Pulitzer and say “W’re sorry that Duranty duped us and our readers”.

But I don’t see that happening any time soon.


2 posted on 06/03/2008 10:58:29 AM PDT by MplsSteve
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To: Tailgunner Joe
And we have politicians in America who think communism and the USSR were/are pretty good systems...
3 posted on 06/03/2008 11:05:10 AM PDT by 2banana (My common ground with terrorists - they want to die for islam and we want to kill them)
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To: 2banana
And we have politicians in America who think communism and the USSR were/are pretty good systems...

And some even sit in certain "churches" that preach the gospel of communism for 20 years and think they're a shoe-in to become the next POTUS.

4 posted on 06/03/2008 11:15:11 AM PDT by bassmaner (Hey commies: I am a white male, and I am guilty of NOTHING! Sell your 'white guilt' elsewhere.)
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To: Tailgunner Joe

Has the NYT ever conceded that this actually happened? I imagine Putin and the MSM will remain in denial.


5 posted on 06/03/2008 11:15:42 AM PDT by ozzymandus
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To: Tailgunner Joe

Communism... the greatest evil of the modern world.

And Fauxbama is one of em.


6 posted on 06/03/2008 11:22:12 AM PDT by HamiltonJay
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To: Tailgunner Joe

We tried communism in the US in the 1930’s under FDR.

Now we call it “the Great Depression.”


7 posted on 06/03/2008 11:37:01 AM PDT by <1/1,000,000th%
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To: Tailgunner Joe

I don’t think it was just targeted at the Ukranians. People were starved all over the place, even Stalin’s native Georgia was not spared.

It was the extermination of a “class.” The supposed “Kulaks.” Any landed peasants who resisted forced collectivization were to be starved to death.


8 posted on 06/03/2008 11:37:41 AM PDT by sinanju
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To: ozzymandus
Photobucket

If Duranty were alive today he would undoubtedly be one of little pinch's favorite leftist propagandists.....and don't forget it was another Times correspondent, Herbert Matthews that helped bring the cuban communist dictator to power back in 1959.

The NYT has promoted communists, fellow travelers, and other assorted useful idiots since the founder of the dynasty, Adolph Ocks passed from the scene.

9 posted on 06/03/2008 11:51:17 AM PDT by AdvisorB (Baraq is the Arabic name of the winged horse that took mohammed to paradise from the DomeoftheRock)
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To: Tailgunner Joe

"Communism: This time, we'll get it right!"

"Our individual salvation depends on collective salvation.

Our collective service can shape the destiny of this generation." ~~Barack Obama

"From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs." ~~Karl Marx

"Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism. That you put down your divisions. That you come out of your isolation, that you move out of your comfort zones. That you push yourselves to be better. And that you engage. Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed." ~~Michelle Obama, 2008

She sounds just like Mao's wife Jiang Qing, leader of the "Gang of Four."

10 posted on 06/03/2008 11:51:30 AM PDT by Travis McGee (--- www.EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com ---)
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To: Tailgunner Joe

In the preface of “Harvest of Sorrow” by Robert Conquest, he states that for each LETTER in his book, 20 died in the collectivization famine. The book is 440 some pages long.


11 posted on 06/03/2008 11:53:25 AM PDT by Tijeras_Slim (Play that Funky Music Typical White Boy!)
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To: Tailgunner Joe

Putin and his KGB past can’t stand to see the truth aired.
Too bad.


12 posted on 06/03/2008 11:58:44 AM PDT by romanesq
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To: Tailgunner Joe

bump


13 posted on 06/03/2008 12:04:04 PM PDT by VOA
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To: sinanju

The famine was spread all over the USSR, but was worst in Ukraine, because there was a strong independence movement there when the Russian Empire fell. Moscow decided to starve out the Ukranians to conquer them.

Actually, famine and starvation were always frequent in Russia, even after WW2 when lend-lease ended and the food-producing areas of the USSR were ruined and de-populated. One reason so many Axis POWs died was that the guards stole their food to feed their own hungry families.


14 posted on 06/03/2008 12:10:55 PM PDT by ozzymandus
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