The word "holodomor" derives from a combination of two Ukrainian words: holod (hunger) and mor (extermination). This term is used to describe one of the least-known events of state-sponsored mass starvation: the Great Famine of Soviet Ukraine in 1932-1933.

Around four million Ukrainians died during the famine, and yet, the extent of this human catastrophe was virtually unknown in the West. Up to 1991, the Soviet Union refused to acknowledge that any famine had taken place in Ukraine at all and absolutely denied that such an event might have been deliberately orchestrated on the orders of Joseph Stalin and the Politburo. Even afterward, it was discovered that important records had been destroyed or altered.

So what really happened in Ukraine from 1932 to 1933? And was it genocide? This is the story of the Holodomor, the great Ukrainian famine.