Execution by Hunger: The Hidden Holocaust

by Miron Dolot

Book Overview

An eyewitness account of the forced collectivization of Russian agriculture in 1929-1931 and the ensuing famine in the Ukraine, brought about by Stalin's command.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393018865
• ISBN13: 9780393018868
• Release Date: January 1985
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 231 Pages
• Weight: 1.07 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Heart-rending

In 1929, Joseph Stalin ordered the collectivization of all Ukrainian farms. During the resulting upheaval, some seven million Ukrainians died of starvation. But, while it ended with mass starvation, the Soviet program of oppression started with property confiscation, arbitrary arrests, judicial and extrajudicial murder, and a whole constellation of unspeakable mistreatment.One of the survivors of this holocaust was a young Ukrainian boy, who survived the conflagration and World War II, and succeeded in escaping to the United States. Written under the pseudonym of Miron Dolot, this heart-rending book tells the story of what he saw throughout the holocaust, and what he felt and thought.I originally picked up this book because my own family, who were Russian Mennonites, left Ukraine before this time, but all of the relatives that stayed were annihilated to the last man, woman and child. Even so, I dare anyone to read this book and not be moved. The author does an excellent job of bringing the heartless insanity of this holocaust home to right where you live.So, if you are interested in Russian or Ukrainian history, then I highly recommend this moving book to you.

Murderous ideology

This book is a first-hand account of the forced collectivization of a Ukrainian village in the 1930s in the USSR.It was a real nightmare for all the victims (alive or death), but also for the reader. One gets cold in the back when one sees what an ideology in a by one party controlled State can do and did with mostly innocent citizens.All free peasants were considered as kulaks. Their farms were confiscated and they became 'State slaves' controlled by an omnipotent totalitarian bureaucracy. Millions of human beings (they were not human for the CP, only enemies) were starved or frozen to death.One thinks of Jheronimus Bosch when one read certain passages in this book, but they portrait a nightmarish reality: "... a heap of frozen human corpses like some discarded woodpile ... Their frozen arms and legs were sticking out from under the snow like tree limbs in an intricate configuration." (p. 187)This book contains even harder scenes.The author stresses also another aspect of this genocide (or was it the principal one): nationalism.The Party members, who imposed the murderous collectivization, were Russians. Miron Dolot sees the organized famine as a deliberate attempt to annihilate the Ukrainians as a people.Apart from its uncontested historical value, this book should be read as a warning against the madness of pure ideologists, who, once in absolute power, implement their insane policies, accepting at the same time millions of human casualties without the slightest form of remorse.For a more general evaluation of the organized famines in the 1930s in the USSR, see Robert Conquest's 'Harvest of Sorrow'.

Powerful

More gripping than any historical narrative. Yet entirely truthful, forthcoming. How the author managed to survive in spite of Stalin is incredible. How he brings himself to write of such horrendous matters is amazing. How governments can do this to their own citizens is unbelievable. Sad. Tragic. Honest. Makes you appreciate how lucky we Americans have it. Hard to imagine these things really happened, but sadly they continue to do so. After this reading, I've stopped whining about my parent's generation's lectures on how lucky we are here. My opinion of Joseph Stalin took another notch lower, perhaps below that of Adolph Hitler. Some of these victims were my ancestors. May he burn in hell.God Bless America.

The Other Twentieth Century Holocust!

Author Miron Dolot has my gratitude for writing a book about his unbelievable experiences in the Ukrain during the great famine of the early 1930's. My own father also lived through this famine, escaped to Germany and finally made his home in the United Staves. While my father retold some of his experiences, they were usually too painful for him to discuss. This book, therefore, provided me with the missing pieces of my family's history. Also, it acknowledged to the world that there was more than one holocaust during the twentieth century. Dolot's well written book, while autobiographical,was objective and amazing in its detail. Finally, this book was a lesson in good and evil. The Communists were relentless in their goal to destroy, humiliate and torture the Ukrainian farmers. In spite of this, the ordinately farm family found it in their hearts to help their fellow man whenever their physical strength and meager resources allowed them to do so.

I recommend this book, brief but well written:

Upon first reading the diary of Anne Frank, I have become interested in other "similar" types of narratives. Miron Dolot certainly gives us a captivating and sometimes heartwrenching account of when Stalin and his henchmen in Moscow carried out this policy against the poor Ukrainians during the early 1930s. This famine did not only effect Ukraine but Kazakhstan and possibly other areas as well. The story of the famine told by a young teenage boy is very insightful. Such a sorrowful chapter of history."Harvest of Sorrow" by Robert Conquest is another good book on the same subject. This one, however, is briefer compared to Conquest's book and can be read in the course of a weekend.Dolot's book should be read by all interested in European history. I also agree, that it should be used in schools.