New Database of Holodomor Rescuers on Our Website

We are happy to announce that a new database has appeared on our website, dedicated to people who saved others during the terrible years of the Holodomor. These benefactors, including Vonberg, Haydamaka, Yefremov, Zaplyusvichka, Ivanova, Kolesnychenko, Morozovsky, Piddubny, Tsymbalista, Schardt and many others, helped many Ukrainians to survive, risking their own lives. From Khmelnytskyi to Luhansk, from Odesa to Sumy - everywhere they did good.

Historical Truth

The Holodomor is one of the worst tragedies in the history of Ukraine. In those days, few people had a chance to survive. However, even in these conditions there were people who helped each other. A miracle, parental love or caring people - this is what helped many survive those terrible years.

Work on this database was started in 2009 by the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance (UINP) as part of the all-Ukrainian campaign "Humanity in Inhuman Times". Historians received numerous letters with memories of survivors and eyewitnesses of charity.

"Those who in the midst of chaos, endless deaths and fear did not get scared, did not lose their human dignity and extended a helping hand to the doomed, were among different strata of the population," says historian Volodymyr Tylishchak, one of the compilers of the list. "These are teachers, doctors, and priests."

Special mention should be made of local leaders: heads of collective farms, village councils, foremen, directors of enterprises and schools, who did everything possible to save fellow villagers. Often the consequences of their actions were fatal for themselves. However, their courage was preserved in the people's memory, and the inhabitants of Ukrainian villages still remember their saviors.

Our database is, of course, incomplete. In the memories of readers, there are mentions of benefactors who are not on the list of the National Union of People's Organizations.

Search page for the list of rescuers from the famine in Ukraine