The Holodomor (derived from морити голодом, "to kill by starvation") was a man-made faminein Soviet Ukraine in 1932 and 1933 that killed millions of Ukrainians. It is also known as the Terror-Famine and Famine-Genocide in Ukraine, and sometimes referred to as the Great Famine or The Ukrainian Genocide of 1932–33. It was part of the wider Soviet famine of 1932-33, which affected the major grain-producing areas of the country. During the Holodomor, millions of inhabitants of Ukraine, the majority of whom were ethnic Ukrainians, died of starvation in a peacetime catastrophe unprecedented in the history of Ukraine. Since 2006, the Holodomor has been recognized by Ukraine by and 15 other countries as a genocide of the Ukrainian people carried out by the Soviet government.
It was not until 2006 that the Holodomor, a devastating famine which took place in the Ukraine region of the Soviet Union, was recognized in the Ukrainian parliament as a deliberate act of genocide against the country’s people. The artificially introduced food shortage created under Stalin was at its peak in June 1933, with nearly 28,000 people starving to death every day. Estimates have put the total number of fatalities at approximately 7 million.

Early estimates of the death toll by scholars and government officials varied greatly.  According to higher estimates, up to 12 million ethnic Ukrainians were said to have perished as a result of the famine. A U.N. joint statement signed by 25 countries in 2003 declared that 7–10 million perished. Research has since narrowed the estimates to between 3.3 and 7.5 million. According to the findings of the Court of Appeal of Kiev in 2010, the demographic losses due to the famine amounted to 10 million, with 3.9 million direct famine deaths, and a further 6.1 million birth deficit.

The word Holodomor literally translated from Ukrainian means "death by hunger", or "killing by hunger, killing by starvation". Sometimes the expression is translated into English as "murder by hunger or starvation". Holodomor is a compound of the Ukrainian words holod meaning "hunger" and mor meaning "plague". The expression moryty holodommeans "to inflict death by hunger". The Ukrainian verb moryty(морити) means "to poison somebody, drive to exhaustion or to torment somebody". The perfective form of the verb morytyis zamoryty – "kill or drive to death by hunger, exhausting work".

Historians today believe the genocide was planned by Soviet leaders to quash any attempts at Ukrainian independence and prevent uprising from farmers who resisted collectivization (confiscating all private farms and livestock and making them government-owned) under the Soviet regime.
In 2008, 75 years after the famine-genocide, a memorial to the victims was opened in Kyiv,  recognized as a national museum two years later. Inside the memorial complex is a striking statue named “The Bitter Memory of Childhood,” showing a young girl holding some wheat, a tribute to the most helpless victims of the famine: children. In the Blackboard Alley, boards list the names of the 14,000 villages and towns in Ukraine that suffered, many of whose residents remain nameless to date.

The museum consists of the memorial complex and the underground Hall of Memory that houses permanent exhibitions and artifacts from the famines’ periods. The memorial complex was conceptualized and designed by the Ukrainian folk artist Anatoliy Haydamaka and architect Yuriy Kovalyov. The symbolism of the famines’ events and human sufferings is amply portrayed on the museums’ grounds and in its architecture.

The entrance of the alley to the memorial complex is framed by two statues of angels, referred to as the Angels of Sorrow. The angels represent the guardians of the souls of the starved. In the centre of the alley, 24 millstones (the Millstones of Destiny) are set in a circle and carry a dual meaning. On the one hand, they symbolize the source of food and life. On the other hand, they represent a 24-hour clock, reminding that up to 24,000 human lives were ground to death daily during the Holodomor. A haunting statue of a young girl clutching a handful of wheat stands is in the middle of the alley. This statue, named the Bitter Memory of Childhood, is dedicated to the most vulnerable victims of starvation – children. Picking up wheat left on the collective farm fields after reaping was considered a crime and was punishable by up to 10 years of imprisonment or even death. The paving leading to the centre of the memorial and the Hall of Memory symbolizes the highly fertile black soils of Ukraine. The central part of the memorial is a white, 30-meter high candle-shaped monument, known as the Candle of Memory. The monument is decorated with glass crosses of different sizes arranged in a Ukrainian folk embroidery pattern. The crosses symbolize the souls of the famines’ victims, young and old. The bronze figures of storks soaring from the base of the monument represent the rebirth of the Ukrainian nation.

Below ground is a well-conceived Hall of Memory. In the Hall, visitors have an opportunity to commemorate the famines' victims by lighting a candle and by ringing a bell. A 20-minute educational film about the Ukrainian famines is projected on the walls of the Hall. A collection of artefacts dating back to the famines is displayed. These include period farm equipment, agricultural tools and household items. Visitors also have an opportunity to browse the volumes of the National Memory Book of Famine’s Victims of 1932-1933 and provide information about their relatives who died of starvation in Ukraine.

More about Holodomor:

http://history.org.ua/LiberUA/HolSt1_2009/HolSt1_2009.pdf

http://blogs.bu.edu/guidedhistory/russia-and-its-empires/alexander-babcock/