Mr. Kononenko, thank you very much for your testimony. We will proceed now to the business portion of our meeting. Mr. KONONENKO: Thanks so much for listening to me. I feel something has been contributed for human society all over the world. Thank you. Ms.

MAZURKEVICH: Thank you.
Jim, you’re going to lead the discussion of the progress report, summary of hearings? Dr.

MACE: Yes. I think we have a lot of material to cover and a limited amount of time in which to do so. We have produced a number of very brief reports on where we are in terms of meeting our mandate. We’ve, including today’s short hearing, had seven hearings in toto and have had a total of now 48 witnesses testify before the Com¬mission at various hearings across the country. This, in and of itself, I think, repre¬sents the collection of an impressive body of material which will be utilized in the Commission’s final report

Moreover, since this testimony is immediately translated into English or is given in English, it’s much more accessible to members as well as to the public-at-large.

I also think these hearings have met a number of basic goals. One, they’ve col¬lected this body of eyewitness material. Two, they’ve enabled members of the Com¬mission to gain an understanding of the living human dimension of the famine, in addi¬tion to a purely factual understanding of what took place. Thirdly, they’ve served to focus greater public awareness on the Ukrainian famine through the public’s attention and also through press coverage that’s been generated by these hearings. And four, they’ve served to forge a link between the Commission and the Ukrainian-American community, particularly with that segment of it which personally survived the famine.

Now, what I would like to do at this point is to review with you very briefly some of the themes that have been dealt with in some of our hearings.

Now, in the hearings, the Commissioners have played the role essentially analogous to that of an interviewer taking oral histories. In Chicago, there’s a great deal of infor¬mation gathered around the theme of cannibalism, which at the time of the famine, in my opinion as a historian, indicates a total breakdown of the norms which usually govern a society.

Now, in other hearings, witnesses were asked, for example in Warren, to underscore the role played by the Soviet regime in creating the famine and the creation of a real conspiracy of silence among the victims of that famine. I think one of the most poig¬nant exchanges occurred in the Phoenix hearing where Senator DeConcini presided, when the witness Nadia Harmash was asked why people didn’t revolt and Mrs. Har¬mash replied, “How can you rise when you’re dying of hunger?”

I think the centerpiece of each hearing has been a written statement. Usually, these are produced either by the witnesses themselves or, as is often the case with in¬dividuals who do not feel familiar in English or people who do not even feel that they can write a statement in Ukrainian.

We have conducted interviews with witnesses, on the basis of that, produced a text in Ukrainian, checked it with them, made sure that it was accurate, that the individual was saying what they wanted to say, and then translated that into English and presented this to the hearing through an interpreter.

A number of our witnesses have chosen to withhold their real names, citing fear of reprisals against relatives still resident in the Soviet Union.