From the Houston Chronicle: Working to shine a light on a dark period for Ukrainians: Efforts under way to mark man-made famine that left up to 7 million dead

Many Americans have never heard of the holodomor —” the estimated 7 million people who starved to death in the Ukraine when Joseph Stalin turned farms into collectives in the early 1930s.

Even while the famine was ravaging parts of the Ukraine, few in the West knew of it. Journalists such as Walter Duranty of the New York Times, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the Soviet Union in 1932, reported there was no evidence of starvation or an artificially created famine, which was the position of the Soviet government.

In Russia, the holodomor, viewed as genocide by many Ukrainians, gets scant or no mention today in some high school history books.

Local Ukrainian-Americans, along with others of Ukrainian heritage worldwide, are rankled that so few know of the mass deaths. During this year, the 75th anniversary of the holodomor, they are holding vigils and working to raise awareness of what happened in the Ukraine in 1932 and 1933.

“The Ukrainian farmers grew the food, but they were not allowed to eat it,” said Larisa Scates, chairwoman of the famine committee at the Ukrainian-American Cultural Club of Houston. “The Soviet government never acknowledged that it was happening. They hid it. The deaths need to be commemorated. Lessons need to be learned, or we’re bound to repeat the past.”

A vigil was held outside City Hall last month to mark the holodomor, which means “death by hunger.” Ukrainian-Americans persuaded the Houston Public Library to put up displays on the tragedy at one of its downtown buildings. One of the displays includes copies of paintings by Houston artist Lydia Bodnar-Balahutrak that were inspired by the deaths…

For more on the holodomor see: The man-made famine of 1933 in Soviet Ukraine: What happened and why by Dr. James E. Mace.