The Soviet authorities tried by all means to destroy traces of the Holodomor and mass artificial famines in Ukraine. But despite all the efforts of the KGB, a lot of material survived. Part of this array has not yet been fully studied; it is stored in the archives of the SSU. Therefore, in the future, Ukraine and the world community can learn new significant facts about this genocide of the Ukrainian people.  

This was stated by the Director of the SSU Sectoral State Archive Andrii Kohut in an interview for KP in Ukraine on the occasion of the Holodomor Remembrance Day.

‘After the Holodomor, the archives were cleansed. Documents that could testify to the artificially created famine were massively destroyed or changed so that it was impossible to establish what really happened. Today, nothing remains secret, but not all stocks have undergone full research and technical processing. So, perhaps we will see new significant findings,’ Andriy Kohut underscored.

The Archive has now prepared detailed catalogues on the Holodomor history. At the same time, analytical processing of this information by historians and researchers is the next step. ‘That is, the whole set of tasks has not yet been completed, if we are talking about research processing,’ the Director of the SSU Archive adds.

He reminded that the SSU’s Sectoral Archive houses one of the largest documentary complexes that directly or indirectly testifies to artificially created famines.

According to Andrii Kohut, they can be divided into at least two categories. On the one hand, these are cases that testify to repressions against those who tried to prevent the Holodomor, spread information that the Soviet government wanted to kill Ukrainian peasants by starvation, rebelled against measures taken by communists in rural areas.

The second category is the so-called archival and criminal cases that were opened later: including against those who had various evidence of the Holodomor.

The SSU not only ensures their free and impartial studying. For the most part, the Service is the initiator of extensive efforts of archivists to process and rethink the available documents together with scholars, researchers and journalists.

It should be reminded that the SSU State Archive is one of the most open among all post-Soviet countries. Anyone interested in the period of the totalitarian communist regime can access it.