The following excerpts are from my book, The Seventh Power, detailing my visit with Hanna Soroka in 2017.
The odds that Hanna Soroka would survive the winter of 1932 in Ukraine and live to see her eighth birthday were too small to calculate.
Her parents were dead. Her younger brother and sister were also dead. In fact, in every house Hanna knew, people were dead, and were it not for her nine-year-old-sister, Marina, Hanna herself never would have survived.
“There was no medicine anywhere,” Hanna told me from her wooden chair. “The doctor had little hope when he saw me. I could tell he expected me to die, but I survived. Stalin and the Bolsheviks tried to kill me, but I survived.”
In the spring of 1933 as many as 28,000 Ukrainians were dying of starvation every day on some of the most fertile farmland in all of Europe. That’s 1,168 deaths per hour, 20 every minute.
Meanwhile, on the docks in Crimea to the south, huge reserves of fresh Ukrainian grain sat waiting for tanker ships to be exported. The Soviets had an industrial revolution to finance, and Ukrainian grain was among the most valued commodities. It turns out the new Communists were among the most self-serving capitalists on Earth.
What happened in 1932 and 1933 would become known by Ukrainians as the Holodomor, or “forced starvation.” By the time it was over, somewhere between 4.5 and 7 million Ukrainians had died of hunger, many in or near their own fields.
“I was born on February 11, 1925, in central Ukraine,” Hanna told me. “As a young child I saw many, many people die. Both my parents starved to death during the Holodomor. Only my sister and I survived. I remember holding my sister’s hand as we walked to the orphanage, because there was no one left alive in our house. There was no food, even at the orphanage. How can you have an orphanage without food? After that we ate only grass, flowers, and bark.
“You must understand that everything that happened to my family was deliberately organized by Moscow,” Hanna continued. “Why? Because of only one reason: because we were Ukrainians.
“When Stalin died [in 1953], everyone cried,” Hanna said. “Why? I didn’t cry. I was happy. I was happy, but it was impossible to show your happiness publicly. That would have been dangerous, so I had to keep my happiness hidden. But I survived. Stalin and the Soviets tried to kill me, but I survived. In the end, Stalin lost. The Soviet Union is gone but Ukraine still lives. Stalin could not erase the Ukraine. We are still here.”
I will never forget my visit with feisty and lovable Hanna Soroka in her dilapidated Soviet-era housing complex on the outskirts of Kiev. At ninety-two years old, her voice was still strong, defiant, and free.
Overreaching has consequences.
What’s happening in Ukraine today is not a new story. Millions upon millions have died in Ukraine’s century-long struggle for freedom. The loss of a free voice anywhere impacts the stability of freedom everywhere. What we expect for ourselves, we must also give to others.
