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We appeal to you to use your influence with the American Red Cross that it may investigate the famine conditions in Soviet Ukraine as it did in 1921. We ask for your help to enable us to get in touch with our suffering sisters . . . contact is denied to all by the Soviet Government and all its agencies. We appeal to you as to a mother and friend to do your utmost in helping to alleviate the death pangs of millions of Ukrainian mothers and children doomed to die if a helping hand is not extended to them, and for your part in this, may God Bless You. Respectfully submitted Emergency Relief Committee Nellie Pelecovich, Chairman A reply came from the office of the First Lady, signed by her secretary, who noted that she would bring the matter to the First Lady’s attention. Much later, a response addressed to L. Margolina, member of the Committee of Honor, arrived. In this letter, the First Lady wrote that she was unable to help in any way. The memorandum was also sent to all U.S. Congressmen and Senators. From December 5 to 27, 1933, the committee received numerous replies, most expressing regret that nothing could be done. While the congressmen and senators expressed sympathy for those affected, they wrote, the United States government was not in a position to discuss the matter with Stalin at this time. The committee also sent the memorandum to numerous humanitarian agencies, such as the American and International Red Cross, and to numerous religious and social institutions. No one was willing to help. In spite of this almost universal rejection of the appeal to aid the suffering people of Ukraine, the women of the UNWLA did not give up. They pressed for official recognition of the famine and for a congressional resolution, a statement of support for the starving Ukrainians. In May of 1934, Republican Hamilton Fish of New York proposed the desired resolution (#399) to Congress. The committee held fundraisers to help the famine victims in Ukraine and began sending financial assistance. Discovering that the Soviet government was confiscating the money rather than allowing it to reach those intended, the committee stopped this effort, and the remaining funds were donated to people in flooded areas along the Mississippi River. The UNWLA was the only organization to create and sustain a unified relief effort on behalf of the famine victims. The organization’s archives are filled with documents showing the UNWLA’s numerous appeals to government officials, relief organizations, and charitable institutions that refused to help. The archives are evidence of the UNWLA’s persistence in the face of this indifference. On the 50th anniversary of the Famine, copies of the documents from UNWLA archives were sent to U.S. Congress Commission on the Ukrainian Famine. In its 1988 Investigation of the Ukrainian Famine of 1932-1933, the U.S. Con gress Commission on the Ukrainian Famine concluded that "Joseph Stalin and those around him committed genocide against Ukrainians." At the height of the Famine, Ukrainian villagers were dying at a rate of 25,000 per day. One in three children perished as a direct result of collectivization and famine. According to one source, "No fewer than three million children born between 1932 and 1933 died of hunger." Eighty percent of Ukrainian intellectuals were liquidated because they refused to collaborate in the extermination of their countrymen. By the end of 1933, approximately one-fourth of the population of Ukraine had perished from starvation.
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