Do you know about the Silent Holocaust?

Question

1932-1933 in the Ukraine

Answer 1

Okay, so I'm half Ukrainian, and my grandparents consider this to be one of the worst tragedies in history, so I know quite a bit about this. Additionally, I wrote a paper on American silence towards this tragedy for a foreign policy class, so my research has been very thorough.

The Silent Holocaust was a result of the Russians controlling food distribution in the Ukraine. Although the Ukraine was considered to be the "breadbasket of europe" because it had fertile soil and farms that produced a lot of food, the people who lived there saw little of that produce. The Russians had imposed a tax that took away a certain percentage of each farm's produce, and kept raising that tax, which caused the ukrainians to starve. Most estimates for the amount of dead range from 10-20 million, which, if true, would make it higher than the number of Jews killed in the holocaust.

The Ukrainians were also subjected to many random acts of violence, in which entire villages were razed and the residents shot. One such violent incident involved the small village of Vinnytsia, where 9000 residents were put to death by firing squads.

I used the following website as a springboard for my research when I was writing a final paper about the American government's inaction when faced with the news of what happened during the "Great Purge" in the Ukraine during 1936-1938. I found it fairly helpful:

http://www.faminegenocide.com/resources/unknown.html

Additionally, if you have access to JSTOR, this is a very informative abstract:

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0037-6779(199224)51%3A4%3C812%3ATTOVMO%3E2.0.CO%3B2-E

EDIT: one last thought - I forgot to mention the US government passed a resolution in Oct. 2003 officially recognizing the "man-made famine" in the Ukraine as a genocide.

Answer 2

Where to start?

The savageries of mass extermination are scattered throughout history. Unfortunately, the last century is not immune. What you are touching upon is part of the horror that Stalin inflicted in his efforts to create the Soviet Union.

Stalin was responsible for more than just the Ukranian deaths. It's a much bigger picture. Stalin, being a communist, wanted to destroy what he felt were cultural differences that kept the Union from being solidified. His methods were brutal. He picked on all religions, unique cultures, specific language groups, as well as anyone he suspected was plotting against him.

As for your term "silent holocaust." This term is used for many things, and it's fairly popular phrase by antiabortionists, and by certain jewish groups that feel that the jewish religion is being compromised through intermarriage.

The depth of cultural / political / religious dispute to eliminate what is seen as the enemy is a complex subject that scholars spend lifetimes researching. Persecutions of smaller varieties are discovered all the time. Remember Kosevo? Cambodia? That's why there's so much concern about North Korea now and the fact that it doesn't have a lot of food.

I encourage you to keep learning, and don't forget to keep asking questions. Also, don't forget to look at the entire world, such as Asia, Latin america, the middle east and the african continent.

Keep up the discovery.

Answer 3

Wow, thanks for bringing this up. I've never heard about the "Silent" Holocaust...now, time to look into it. But hey, if you like the real holocaust (LEARNING about it, I mean) then why won't you give me a message sometime?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Holocaust

Answer 4

Nope- Its clearly not a very large one or I would know about it, as only several months ago at my HS we had a "genocide awareness" day.

Are you perhaps thinking of the WWI Armenian Genocide?

EDIT:
I don't consider starvation a genocide, Chairman Mao did not kill his people with a famine, they were idiots that replanted their food hoping to look good....

Answer 5

Yes, seven million people were starved to death.

Answer 6

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Holocaust
http://www.iheu.org/node/1121

Answer 7

no.