Executive Summary

Thanks to the initiative of Commission member Dr. Myron Kuropas, curriculum
development became a major focus of Commission efforts. Commission members
and stiff attended various teachers’ conferences in Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan,
Colorado, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Arizona. Dr. Kuropas, in addition
to organizing the first teachers* conference on the Famine in Chicago, also
participated in the Detroit conference and conducted conferences in Wisconsin and
Colorado. In order to better provide information to educational institutions, the
Commission produced a teachers’ guide to the Famine. It was written by Dr.
Kuropas with staff assistance and published in cooperation with the Ukrainian
National Association. This guide was first introduced in 1986 at a teachers’
conference in Chicago and has been widely used elsewhere. In addition, the
Commission worked with curriculum officials interested in developing their own
units on the Famine in California and Pennsylvania. Similar guides were published
by the New York State Department of Education and by the Connecticut-Western
Massachusetts Branch of the National Council of Christians and Jews. Unlike the
soft bound New York guide, the Kuropas curriculum package used a folder format
to facilitate the addition or deletion of materials. The guide prepared in
Connecticut under the auspices of the National Council of Christians and Jews also
adopted this flexible format.

Findings

Based on testimony heard and staff research, the Commission on the Ukraine
Famine makes the following findings:

1) There is no doubt that large numbers of inhabitants of the
Ukrainian SSR and the North Caucasus Territory starved to death in
a man-made famine in 1932-1933, caused by the seizure of the 1932
crop by Soviet authorities.

2) The victims of the Ukrainian Famine numbered in the millions.

3) Official Soviet allegations of “kulak sabotage,” upon which all
“difficulties” were blamed during the Famine, are false.

4) The Famine was not, as is often alleged, related to drought

5) In 1931-1932, the official Soviet response to a drought-induced grain
shortage outside Ukraine was to send aid to the areas affected and to
make a series of concessions to the peasantry.

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2 Myron Kuropas, The Forced Famine in Ukraine, 1932-1933: Curriculum and Resource Guide for
Educators (Washington and Jersey City, Commission on the Ukraine Famine and Ukrainian National
Association, 1986).

3 Walter Litynsky and JoAnn Larson, compilers, Case Studies: Persecution/Genocide, The Human
Rights Series: Volume HI (Albany, Bureau of Curriculum Development of the State Education