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Holodomor: Reading Recommendations

| By | News,Resources,Staff Picks

Exhibit in libraryDedicated to our Ukrainian series, Books We Read is pleased to share reading recommendations in November, typically a month of Holodomor commemoration in Ukraine and within Ukrainian communities abroad. Initiated by our friends at the Ukrainian National Women’s League of America (UNWLA), several commemorative events were held at Rutgers last year. Books We Read had the privilege to share our thoughts online about the Holodomor exhibit in Douglass Library. For those who didn’t have a chance to visit, our online exhibit replicated the experience on a smaller scale.

The tireless efforts of the women at UNWLA have also been extended to bringing Ukrainian books to libraries in New Jersey and elsewhere in the United States. The UNLWA Toolkit fosters the common goal of raising awareness with a special focus on libraries. Designed to help librarians who wish to advocate purchasing Ukrainian books for their local library, it features Resources for Supporting Ukrainian Language Communities (created at Washington State University) and a list of Ukrainian Language Books spreadsheet to assist with ordering non-English titles for Ukrainian Communities.

  • Read more about their various initiatives to bring Ukrainian books into libraries in our interview: Part 1, Part 2.

The most current updates, provided by the UNWLA, include book recommendations on the Holodomor in English. Here are a few examples from the full list with links to purchasing options.

cover artTwo Regimes (A Memoir): The Holodomor and the Holocaust in Ukraine by Lucianne Vanilar
From the Author Luci Vanilar “My grandmother, Teodora Yefremovna Verbitskaya, lived a difficult and tragic life in Ukraine, enduring the loss of family, the Holodomor, and the Nazi invasion. She raised me and passed on her knowledge of traditional Ukrainian life. Her memoir, written with deep emotion, reflects her strength and resilience as a mother trying to protect her children during political turmoil. Though not a political analyst, her story offers a personal glimpse into the horrors she faced. I’ve added simple footnotes for context, encouraging further exploration into the historical events she lived through.”

Red Famine: Stalin’s War on Ukraine by Anne Applebaum
Red Famine, by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Anne Applebaum, explores the devastating famine in Ukraine during 1932-33, where nearly four million Ukrainians died due to deliberate starvation. Drawing on newly available archival material and survivor testimonies, the book details how the Soviet regime used propaganda and suppression to turn people against each other and erase Ukraine’s history. It also highlights the courageous efforts of individuals who tried to alleviate the suffering. Red Famine serves as a crucial account of this tragedy and how its memory continues to shape Ukraine’s present.

covert artMore than a Grain of Truth: The official true story behind the film Mr. Jones, starring James Norton by Margaret Siriol Colley and Nigel Linsan Colley
More Than a Grain of Truth by Margaret Siriol Colley tells the true story of Gareth Jones, the Welsh journalist who exposed the Soviet famine in 1933. Despite revealing the truth, Jones was ostracized by the media, blacklisted by the Soviets, and shunned by the British establishment. In 1935, at just 29, he was mysteriously killed in Inner Mongolia. Using Jones’s letters, articles, and diaries, Colley crafts a compelling biography of a man who fearlessly sought the truth. This revised edition offers both a personal account of Jones’s life and a broader look at the political landscape of the early 1930s.

Famine in Ukraine, 1932-1933 (The Canadian Library in Ukrainian Studies) by Bohdan Krawchenko and Roman Serbyn
The Soviet man-made famine of 1932–1933 in Ukraine claimed millions of lives but was long shrouded in obscurity. This pioneering volume, predating Robert Conquest’s Harvest of Sorrow and the US Congressional Committee on the Famine, was among the first scholarly analyses of the tragedy. It features ten essays on the famine’s causes, population loss, available sources, its societal impact, and the Western response. Contributors include James Mace, Andre Liebich, Wsewolod W. Isajiw, Frank Chalk, Kurt Jonassohn, Roman Serbyn, and others.

cover artBloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin by Timothy Snyder
Often dubbed “The Good War,” World War II began with Josef Stalin, America’s ally, killing millions of his own citizens, while Adolf Hitler murdered six million Jews and countless others. Following the war, both the German and Soviet killing sites fell behind the Iron Curtain, obscuring their histories. Bloodlands reframes European history by connecting the mass murders of the Nazi and Stalinist regimes in the region between Germany and Russia. Meticulously researched and deeply humane, this essential work sheds light on the tragedy of modern history. Bloodlands has won 12 awards, including the Emerson Prize and the Leipzig Award, and has been translated into over 30 languages, becoming a bestseller in six countries.

cover artStalin’s Genocides by Norman Naimark
Between the early 1930s and his death in 1953, Joseph Stalin oversaw the execution of over a million citizens, while millions more suffered from forced labor, deportation, famine, and massacres. Stalin’s Genocides tells the chilling story of these atrocities, arguing that the mass killings were acts of genocide orchestrated by the Soviet dictator. Norman Naimark, a leading authority on the Soviet era, challenges the belief that Stalin’s crimes do not meet the United Nations’ definition of genocide. He explores key events, such as the liquidation of the kulaks, the Ukrainian famine, and the Great Terror, and compares Stalin’s actions with those of Adolf Hitler, illustrating how Stalin evolved into a ruthless mass killer.

Resources from Rutgers University Libraries