Cannibalism during the Holodomor – unique documents made public

The Holodomor was recognized as genocide of the Ukrainian people by 31 states, 14 of them after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine has published unique criminal cases of cannibalism during the Holodomor of 1932-1933.

IN state archive The Ministry of Internal Affairs stores 1022 criminal cases of cannibalism opened by the Soviet police. The documents were made public in the “Real History” project. Inna Yashchuk, State Secretary of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, says:

“I would really like the materials that are discovered today to give impetus to serious historical legal and other scientific research. This is a very serious layer for research by physiologists and psychiatrists. This is bringing a person to cannibalism. I would really like our society to “This is the prism taken by these facts. People who resorted to cannibalism are victims of the Holodomor.”

One of the documents is the file of Storcheus Anna Ivanovna. Her husband and three children died of hunger. The last, fourth child, a girl named Nadezhda, was killed and eaten by a desperate woman.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs notes that the peculiarity of all cases is their politicization and falsification. At first glance, they complied with the law, a formal investigation was carried out and the fact of the crime was established, and the perpetrators were identified. But victims driven to cannibalism by the regime were convicted of committing murder.

The mechanisms of artificial hunger, the facts of driving people to despair and insanity were not documented in the case materials. Almost no psychiatric examinations were carried out, but doctors wrote in their conclusions: “he looks dull, his eyes are shiny.” This is exactly how, for example, it was recorded in the case of May 1933 on charges against the woman Marcelina Antonovna.

Among the archival files there are many that relate to corpse eating. This was the case in the case of Yarovaya M.K. The materials indicate that after the death of a young child from hunger, the fact of corpse eating was discovered. The Ministry of Internal Affairs notes:

“The phenomenon of cannibalism became widespread at the peak of the Holodomor, but in the cases the famine as such is hushed up. But in the case materials, the obvious focus of the regime can be seen – people who are accused of cannibalism did not want to join collective farms or did not have enough workdays. Ukrainians also became victims of the regime, who were of “inappropriate” class and social background.”

Documents often contain the following wording:

“Has 30 workdays, declassed, decomposed, defective element. Ukrainian, non-party, illiterate, quitter.”

Out of more than a thousand cases, there are only isolated cases where a person was sent for psychiatric treatment. The absolute majority were sent to NKVD camps for the construction of the White Sea-Baltic Canal.

The 90th anniversary of the Holodomor was celebrated in Kyiv. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky said that the world must punish the crimes of the past and present. The Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine handed over to the Holodomor Museum digitized copies of more than a thousand criminal cases with evidence of genocide from Ukrainians during Holodomor of 1932-1933.

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