Fipadoc Grand Prix for a documentary on the Holodomor, “the famine in Ukraine”, in 1933

RFI : This 1933 famine in Ukraine was kept secret for a very long time. Even today, despite its millions of deaths, it is very little known and your film is the first French documentary on the subject. What sparked your desire to bring this crime to the general public? ?

I came across this subject when I was investigating in Ukraine with a foundation on the Jewish genocide in that country. An old lady, at the end of the interview, off camera and obviously still very afraid of the shadow of the Soviet secret police, told us: ” You know, back home in the 1930s, Stalin killed us all. My grandparents died of starvation, many people in our village died of starvation. This is something that really struck me. Little by little, I asked myself, how can we talk about this subject that has never been treated? It really had to be made into a documentary.

Even back then, Ukraine was known to be a breadbasket. Why and how did Stalin decide in 1933 to starve the Ukrainian people to death ?

Stalin had a very particular vision of Ukraine which was very important for the Soviet Union. Stalin absolutely refused to be resisted. And the Ukrainian people, initially the Ukrainian peasantry which was extremely attached to its own land, was resistant to the collectivization of the countryside. From the fall of 1932, Stalin then decided to punish them, by increasing the collection quotas. Very quickly, from January 1933 – and this is one of the reasons for the intentionality of this famine – he decided to collect, or rather steal, the seeds as well. And when you steal the seeds, there’s no harvest to come, so people were doomed to die. Then, Stalin decided to break the resistance of Ukraine and their nationalism which was very strong and which still explains many things today. Stalin decided to close Ukraine, that is to say, we could no longer leave the cities and Ukraine. People were condemned by Stalin to starve to death – to punish their resistance and nationalism.

Despite the gigantic scale of this crime, almost no visual evidence exists of these millions of deaths. Only 26 photos certified by historians are known. Nevertheless, you decided to make your documentary only from period documents, but also including fiction films shot at that time. How do you explain this choice of a very particular mixture for a documentary film ?

First of all, not to let the dictatorship win. However, it is a crime without images: there are 4.5 million deaths in Ukraine alone, and only 26 photographs attested by historians. So these photographs are very important. They were taken by an Austrian engineer, Alexander Wienerberger – he photographed dead people in the streets, queues in front of shops, starving children, mass graves, deserted villages… He was working at the time in Kharkiv , and he had managed to get these photos out, at the risk of his life, by the diplomatic bag and to transmit them to the Archdiocese of Vienna, in Austria, and then to the Vatican. That is why these photographs exist. Unfortunately, to make a documentary film, this is not enough. I then asked myself the question a lot: what remains to prove that there was a famine and to show it to the public? There were these 26 photographs, but also the Soviet cinema which says a lot, even if it’s fiction. So I used reality in fiction. Because, in this fiction, there were very important elements, such as the poverty of the peasants, the collection of cereals, etc. So, I used Soviet propaganda to dismantle this same propaganda.

During the debate that followed the screening of your film at Fipadoc, you explained that there were very serious consequences of this famine, especially in the Donbass, a Ukrainian region today particularly claimed by the Russians. What consequences and repercussions are you talking about ?

This history allows us to understand the present. So it’s not about making comparisons. In history, comparison is not reason. But all areas of Donbass, especially in the south, were the areas most affected by famine. These areas were emptied of their inhabitants, by death, during this genocide. At that time, Stalin had done what he had often done: he moved Russian-speaking populations to those areas. Which explains why, historically, these people had ties to Russia, because Stalin had planted them here. It was the Western chancelleries which, as early as 1933, were aware of this mass murder. They wrote it in their reports. In May 1933, the Italian consul in Kharkiv wrote: Soon there will be no more problems in Ukraine, because there may be no more Ukrainians. We are witnessing a Russification of this area. Thus, history can sometimes shed light on some of the news.

The Holodomor (“ extermination by starvation in Ukrainian), that is to say the genocide caused by an intentional hunger decided by Stalin, was recognized only very recently by Germany and the European Parliament. Is the recognition of this genocide today an issue for historians demanding historical truth or is it part of the issues of the war waged in Ukraine by Russia ?

This genocide is now recognized by some thirty countries (United States, Canada, Poland, Hungary, Baltic States, Spain, several Latin American countries, etc.). In November and December 2022, the German Bundestag and the European Parliament in turn recognized the Holodomor as genocide. The recognition of the memory of this genocide is part of today’s war. An example: today, in the occupied region of southern Ukraine, in the city of Mariupol, the Russian army dismantles all the memorials in memory of the Holodomor. And this is not happening only in Mariupol. After having razed the city, the Russians deal with memory, because this memory continues to disturb Russia. At the same time, this memory united the Ukrainian people, the Ukrainian nation. This is an extremely important element. I urge France to reflect on the recognition of this mass murder as genocide.

It is both a documentary on a state lie, but also on a media lie. In 1933, the young Welsh journalist Gareth Jones managed to secretly collect testimonies in the Ukrainian countryside that clearly affirmed this organized famine. And he wanted to tell the truth, no matter what. But he failed to alert the world, because Walter Duranty, a colleague of the New York Times in Moscow, Pulitzer Prize winner in 1932 for his articles on Stalin’s policies, had peddled and validated the Soviet lies. What is the lesson for today’s media ?

Gareth Jones was the first whistleblower of the 20th century. And the link with the press today is very strong. At the risk of his life, Gareth Jones investigated in Ukrainian villages after giving way to the Soviet authorities. Driven by the desire to tell the truth, he returns to the United Kingdom, and the same day of the publication of his article in The Evening Standard, an article by Walter Duranty appears in the New York Times saying that Gareth Jones is a liar . Since the New York Times was such a big newspaper, everyone believed him. Therefore, the New York Times has a strong responsibility, because Walter Duranty only relayed the official propaganda of the Soviet Union to keep his position and his many advantages.

And there was also a French politician, Édouard Herriot [ministre d’État entre 1934 et 1936, NDLR] which accredited the lie of the Soviet Union. The latter had organized a Potemkin visit for him, that is to say with completely artificial villages and kolkhozes, totally staged. The link with today is that we have to be careful with the Internet and social networks, fake news of Donald Trump, etc. A lie can easily win for decades. The Holodomor was unknown until 1991, until the archives of the USSR were available and accessible to historians.

►Bloody harvests – 1933, famine an Ukraineby French director Guillaume Ribot, Grand Prix du Fipadoc 2023. Next broadcast on France 5, Sunday February 19 at 10:30 p.m.