Even 17 persons per minute was the Ukrainian population’s fatality rate at the peak of the Great Famine (1932–1933), artificially generated by the communist authorities of the Soviet Union. Left unpunished, that genocide, as well as how today’s Russia is seeking to annihilate the Ukrainian nation are the themes of the exhibition “The Holodomor and Now More Genocide” shown at the Open-Air Gallery of the Royal Baths Museum until 30 November.

The exhibition has been prepared by the National Museum of the Holodomor-Genocide in Kyiv in cooperation with the Polish History Museum and the Polish Institute in Kyiv. The opening ceremony was attended by Ukrainian Ambassador to Poland Vasyl Zvarych, Polish History Museum Director Robert Kostro and Maryna Pryn from the National Museum of the Holodomor-Genocide in Kyiv.

‘This is the second time in the last few months that the Polish History Museum has supported the delivery of an exhibition mostly executed by an Ukrainian partner of ours. This is our response and expression of solidarity with the Ukrainian colleagues who are working under extreme conditions. They not only work hard, but risk their lives every single day. Our small contribution and support for them is to help promote their activities and true knowledge of Ukraine. We know that this war is not only about land and people, but also about the attempt to impose an imperial Russian vision of history on Ukrainians,’ said PHM Director Robert Kostro at the opening of the exhibition.

On 18 panels, the authors depict the course of the crime against the Ukrainian people committed by the Soviet authorities in the 1930s, imposing exorbitant, impossible-to-fulfil grain supply quotas on the peasants of the then Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.

‘The keynote of this exhibition is also how Polish families who lived in what was then Soviet Ukraine suffered as a result of the Great Famine,’ – emphasised Maryna Pryn from the National Museum of the Holodomor-Genocide in Kyiv.

The exhibition also shows the efforts of the Soviet authorities to erase the memory of the tragedy of the Ukrainians, led by repressions against people who kept testimonies of the Great Famine. The creators of the exhibition draw attention to the similarities between the criminal policy of the USSR and the conduct of Putin’s Russia of today. They point out the consequences of impunity for Soviet crimes and warn of the potential consequences of a possible failure to hold Russia accountable for the policies it is now pursuing.

‘The Soviet Union once, and the Russian Federation today, deny its causal role in the Holodomor tragedy, although almost all historical sources testify to it as one. The Holodomor was to be forgotten, the place of its Ukrainian victims was to be taken by the immigrant population from Russia, disobedience to the authorities was to be punished, the descendants of the victims intimidated and foreign observers stupefied by Soviet propaganda,’ says Professor Michał Kopczyński of the Polish History Museum, the exhibition’s consultant.

‘The famine in Ukraine was one of the most horrendous crimes in history, so horrible that people in the future will find it hard to believe it happened,’ wrote the British journalist Malcolm Muggeridge, one of the few foreigners providing a true picture of the crime of genocide committed by the Soviet authorities in the spring of 1933. The immediate cause of the Holodomor was not a crop failure, but the deliberate confiscation of excessive quantities of grain from Ukrainian kolkhozes ordered by the authorities in 1932. On the surface, the aim was to increase exports from the USSR, but in reality to cruelly punish the Ukrainian peasantry resisting the collectivisation of agriculture.

In the spring of 1933, famine broke out in the countryside. It was impossible to escape it, as the authorities forbade people to leave their homes. The only way out was to flee illegally to the cities, work in one of the Donbass mines or sell off what was left of one’s belongings in a special chain of shops offering food for foreign currency or the Tsar’s gold coins. Few, however, could afford to do so.

‘This exhibition shows that we need to know our history in order to be able to stand up to the evil of today, which is Russia and the Putin regime. Russia, which actually wants to kill the Ukrainian people, is committing genocidal crimes by destroying energy infrastructure, stealing Ukrainian grain, causing a food crisis around the world. Having knowledge of these crimes, including those committed against the Polish nation, we as the world must know this history so that we do not commit the biggest mistake – leaving it unpunished.

On the eve of the 90th anniversary of this great crime of genocide, 19 countries, including the Republic of Poland, have already recognised the Great Famine as a crime of genocide. And we thank you very much for this, because we must call evil by its name, and then it will be easier for us to fight this evil,’ Ukrainian Ambassador to Poland Vasyl Zvarych pointed out.

The number of victims of this deliberately caused famine has still not been established, with estimates of the number of victims varying between 4 and 12 million. Research has been hampered by the secrecy or deliberate destruction of natural population movement registration books.

The contemporary scenario written in the Kremlin was supposed to be similar. However, when the plan to quickly capture Kyiv collapsed, instruments aimed at the Ukrainians were resorted to. The bombing of cities, crimes against the civilian population, including the theft of crops, the destruction of crops, the blocking of food exports – all this is intended to intimidate not only Ukrainians, but almost the entire international community, with a prospect of famine.

Warsaw, 3–30 November 2022

“The Holodomor and Now More Genocide” exhibition 

The Open-Air Gallery of the Royal Baths Museum (at Aleje Ujazdowskie)

Promoter: The National Museum of the Holodomor-Genocide in Kyiv

Partners: The Polish History Museum and The Polish Institute in Kyiv

Photography by PHM/Maciej Cioch