By Goya Dmytryshchak
A Williamstown woman has recounted the harrowing story of her late mother for a project collecting stories of Australian Ukrainian survivors of the Holodomor genocide.
Holodomor – which means death by starvation – was the forced famine imposed on the people of Ukraine by Josef Stalin in 1932-33 that killed up to 10 million Ukrainians.
Survivors and their descendents in Australia are contributing their stories ahead of a photographic exhibition in Melbourne next month commemorating the 85th anniversary of the man-made famine.
Williamstown’s Janet Ferris said her late mother, Katerina Procko (nee Siwcowa) was born in Donetsk, in Ukraine’s east, in or shortly before 1922. She arrived in Australia in late 1949.
Her mother’s parents were farmers who scraped out a meagre survival from the small land which they owned.
“My mother could not read or write Ukrainian as under Stalin’s regime the possibilities of her education were denied,” Ms Ferris said.
“I vividly recall the years of the Holodomor that my mother remembered as a young girl and the horrific stories which still haunt me to this day.
“She remembered how hungry she was and how in the mornings soldiers would come and prod the land with huge poles to see if anyone had hidden food. If this was found to be the case people were either shot dead or sent off to Siberia.
“My mother also remembered seeing the bodies of the dead who died of starvation lying in the streets.”
The Holodomor: Genocide by Famine exhibition highlights 26 living survivors who resettled in Australia with large-scale photo portraits.
Curator Halya Kostiuk said the project acted as a memorial to people’s experiences.
Holodomor: Genocide by Famine is at SpACE@Collins, 278 Collins Street, Melbourne, from November 8-17.
