Holodomor was a genocide of my people. I fear it is happening all over again.

Guest contributor:

Iuliia Mendel

(Spokesperson to PresidentVolodymyr Zelenskyy 2019-2021)

My great-grandfather was a very rich man. He owned a lot of land and, most importantly, a windmill, which was crucial for flour production.

When the Communists fought for power, he convinced people to accept this new politics, so that Ukraine would be part of the USSR and not part of the Russian Empire. He considered this his contribution to the collapse of the Russian Empire.

Years later, the Bolsheviks confiscated his land and property and declared him an enemy of the people, the worst accusation one could expect at the time. He, a father of four, was sent to concentration camp.

I don’t know how long he stayed there, but he survived and came back broken. He returned to see that his eldest daughter Zina had been taken by the Nazis to Berlin to work. My grandmother, her sister, has been looking for Zina all her life. She asked me to find out something about her. But I didn’t have that opportunity. I don’t know if Zina made it to Berlin, if she is alive, and if she died, then how.

His youngest son Lev froze to death after the Nazis took away his sheets in the winter and he was left lying on the metal.

My grandfather taught me German when I was a child, which boiled down to two phrases:
Hände hoch und gute Nacht.

Even after that, my grandmother kept saying all her life that the Russians were worse than the Germans.

Controversial statement, but understandable. She recalled with horror the artificial famine organized by Stalin in Ukraine in the early 1930s. People ate dogs, even their own children, or simply died of starvation in the streets.

She was 5. Her name was Lyubov, which means Love. And she had a friend of the same age and with the same name. Perhaps this is how girls were named in the hope of a different life.

Because of the severe famine, people sent small children to steal ears of grain at night so that they would not be noticed. That’s how many people in their village survived. One night, a rumor spread through the village that there was a Chekist raid, so it was dangerous to go to the field. My great-grandmother did not let my grandmother go that night. And her friend was sent to the field, apparently they had no food at all. There was shooting at night. The girl was brought home wounded in the morning. My grandmother never saw her friend named Love again.

When my mother wanted to go to university, she was rejected. Because she was the granddaughter of an enemy of the people. She sat down on the stairs at the entrance to the university and sat there as a protest against this attitude. One professor asked her why she was sitting there. She replied that she would sit on the stairs until she was allowed to study.

Then my grandmother received a call from the KGB. My grandmother was shaking when she was telling me this story. And she had to go to the city to meet the KGB. She was afraid for herself and even more so for her rebellious daughter.

But it was 1980s, and the KGB knew that the USSR would soon collapse. They had a serious conversation with my grandmother and told her that new times were coming, and gave my mother permission to study.

That’s how my mother became a doctor. At the university, she met my father, who was from the same village, but they hadn’t crossed paths before they met at the university.

Iuliia Mendel, former spokesperson to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, shared her family’s history at the hands of the Soviets. She believes another genocide of her people is underway while the world watches on.

I was born when my mother was in her last year of studies. So she took me to my grandmother’s house, where I grew up for the first years of my life. My parents were unable to register me in Zaporizhzhia, where I was born and where they studied. Therefore, I was registered in the city of Henichesk, Kherson region, where my parents stopped to show me to my father’s relatives.

I was not born and have never lived in Henichesk, but that’s what my passport and Wikipedia say. When I became the press secretary of the President, every newspaper in Henichesk proudly wrote about me. Although none of these people had ever seen me.

My grandmother used to say that there is nothing worse than war. I am glad that she does not see what Ukraine is going through now.

There was so much pain in my family, so many transgenerational traumas that they are still a burden.

I have a large tattoo of ears of wheat on a Ukrainian embroidery on my back. Bread has always been important to my family. And I understand why my grandmother disliked the Russians so much.

But Ukrainians have always fought. And we deserve to finally start building a future where meritocracy and equality will prevail, where there will be opportunities and security. Building a career in my country is much more difficult than in Western countries. But so many windows have been opened, so many connections made and so much sacrificed. Ukraine has to become a country of success, and democracy has to win. I #StandForUkraine to keep the memory of my family alive, to correct their mistakes, to heal their suffering, and to create the future.

This is my Granny and me 6 months old in our house that you see now on the second photo. R.I.P.

Now, after writing this, I have a feeling that the story of my people is not told at all. Have you seen many stories about Soviet concentration camps? Holodomor is just being recognized around the world as a fact of genocide. But this is the history that explains Russian mindset and the reason for the attack: Kill the freedom and human dignity to establish the rule of power