Holodomor (Голодомо́р), a Ukrainian term meaning “extermination by hunger,” refers to the Stalin-directed, Soviet-implemented starvation of millions (the exact total is unknown, and estimates vary from 2.5 million to over 14 million) of ethnic Ukrainians and other residents of the region. Readers can find far more informative accounts of the genocide in the resources listed below; suffice it to say for now that, in response to continued Ukrainian resistance to Soviet rule, the Stalin goverment chose to extinguish Ukrainian nationalistic ideals by exterminating those who held them. The Soviets laid the foundation in the last years of the 1920s and the first few years of the 1930s; the majority of the people died in the space of just a few years: 1932–1933.
The Soviet weapons in this fight were several. First, privately owned land was siezed and organized into collective farms; the rural peasantry thus became employees (or slaves) of the state. Second, the taxes (generally paid in produce, not currency) due on the land of a particular area were increased to the point that an entire year’s harvest (or more) was due to the Soviet state, leaving little or none for the residents of that place. Third, when harvests did produce an excess, it was piled within a secure compound—left there to rot instead of being distributed to the starving peasants who had produced it. Fourth, the Soviet authorities banned all travel and emigration, forcing the peasantry to remain in the country to die. Fifth, Stalin’s officials also rejected any international aid initiatives that would have alleviated the suffering and saved innumerable lives; the point, after all, was to kill a people. Sixth and last, many individuals were imprisoned and many families exiled to Siberia and similar regions on charges imagined or real. The outcome of these measures was not surprising: the destruction of an independent way of life, the desolation of the Ukraine, and the death of millions of residents of the Ukraine.
The horror of the Holodomor is best captured by Robert Conquest, who wrote the definitive account of this genocide. The preface of his 411-page book begins as follows:
The task of the historian is the notoriously difficult one of trying to represent clearly and truly in a few hundred pages events which cover years of time and nations of men and women. We may perhaps put this in perspective in the present case by saying that in the actions here recorded about twenty human lives were lost for, not every word, but every letter, in this book. (1986, 1)
At twenty lives lost per letter, the paragraph above represents approximately six thousand deaths. As horrific as this clearly is, one may wonder why this is a particular concern of this blog. The answer is simple: the Mennonites of the Molotschna who had remained behind when others emigrated to North America were in the heart of the Holodomor. Many of these Mennonites no doubt died during Stalin’s genocide.
But the Holodomor is even more personal for Buller Time. It raises the haunting question: Whatever happened to Katja Buller?
Katja is the little girl marked with an arrow on the right end of the front row. This photograph, which was reproduced in John A. Harder’s From Kleefeld with Love (see here, here, and here), pictures the students and teacher of Kleefeld’s 1930 school.
If you recall, Peter D and Sarah Siebert Buller lived in Kleefed with Sarah’s parents before they left for Nebraska in 1879. Obviously, other Bullers lived in Kleefeld in the decades after they left, if not at the same time. Given what we know about the Mennonite Bullers—that we are all part of a single extended family— it seems reasonable to conclude that Katja Buller (and her brother Abraham and her sister Neta, the other two arrows) was part of our larger family.
Here we see Katja and her Kleefeld schoolmates in 1930. Farm collectivization was in place, and in all likelihood Stalin’s policy of dekulakinization had begun to be felt, with some landowners already arrested and/or forcibly removed to distant work camps. The Holodomor itself was just beginning. One wonders how many of these children were still alive three years later, how many still lived in Kleefeld.
One wonders: Whatever happened to Katja Buller? Thus far we have not uncovered any evidence of her life or death apart from this photograph. We will continue looking, but for now, on 26 November, we remember Katja and the other victims of the Holodomor.
Additional Resources
The documentary Harvest of Despair (55 min.) can be viewed online here. Although some of the images are disturbing, the documentary is worthwhile for placing the Holodomor in its historical perspective.
The Wikipedia article on the Holodomor is full and informative (here), although the usual cautions about Wikipedia’s reliability apply.
Alexander Wienerberger’s photographs (here) of the Holodomor are mostly of urban areas, but they still convey the horrific nature of the genocide.
The Holodomor Education website provides a variety of resources, including a brief overview essay here. The website also offers a section on International Recognition of the Holodomor here.
In that vein, the White House website offers here President Obama’s 2009 Holodomor Remembrance Day statement.
A monument memorializing the Holodomor was erected in Washington, DC, in 2015 (here).
Works Cited
Conquest, Robert. 1986. The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine. New York: Oxford University Press.
Harder, John A., ed. and trans. 2003. From Kleefeld with Love. Kitchener, Ontario: Pandora Press.
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