Paraphrasing Assign – Activity

Working with Quotations about the Holodomor

Paraphrasing

[Excerpt From Holodomor in Ukraine, The Genocidal Famine 1932-­33: Teaching Materials for Teachers and Students – By Valentina Kuryliw]

Appropriate for students:

Grades 8-12

Curriculum Fit / Specific Expectations / Learning Outcomes:

Please select outcomes you wish to cover from either English language arts or so- cial studies or history and prepare an assessment to share with the students at the outset.

Materials Required:

Copies of 3.2.8, Activity 1

Set-up Required:

N/A

PRE TASK AND POST TASK  ACTIVITIES.

This activity may be either a pre-task or post-task activity to viewing a film on the Genocidal – Famine or the reading on the historical background of the Ho- lodomor Section 2, pp? Students paraphrase quotations about the Holodomor and suggest the purpose or aim of the speaker.

Paraphrasing  Quotations on Holodomor

The quotations before you are statements made by participants, observers, researchers, and victims of the Ukrainian Genocide. On the lines provided try to paraphrase – that is, restate in your own words, what the person was trying to say about the seriousness of the situation in Ukraine in the 1930’s. Identify the role of the individual making the statement – participant, observer, victim, researcher.

  1. Walter Duranty helped to turn the monster Stalin into a world figure and a hero of the leftist Western intelligentsia by defending the bloodbath of the Soviet Union from its critics in the now famous: “You can’t make an omelet without breakingeggs.”
    Lance Morrow – journalist

    1. Role:
    2. Paraphrasing:
  2. “Farmers present by themselves the basic force of the national movement. Without farmers there can be no strong national movement. This is what we mean when we say that the national question, is actually, the farmers’ question.”
    Joseph Stalin, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union 1922-1952

    1. Role:
    2. Paraphrasing:
  3. “I remain convinced that for Stalin to have completely centralized power in his   hands, he found it necessary to physically destroy the second-largest Soviet  republic, meaning the annihilation of the Ukrainian peasantry, Ukrainian    intelligentsia, Ukrainian language, and history as understood by the people; to do away with Ukraine  and things Ukrainian as such. The calculation was very simple, very primitive: no people, therefore, no separate country, and thus no problem. Such a policy is Genocide in the classic sense of the word.”
    James Mace, Holodomor Scholar

    1. Role:
    2. Paraphrasing:
  4. Q. “Among writers, some say that the (genocide) famine of 1933 was deliberately organized by Stalin and the whole of your leadership.” A. “Enemies of communism say that! They are the enemies of communism! People who are not politically blind… I twice travelled to Ukraine…Of course I saw nothing of the kind there. Those allegations are absurd. Absurd.”
    Viacheslav Molotov, one-time foreign ministers of the Soviet Union

    1. Role:
    2. Paraphrasing:
  5. “The famine was brought about in Ukraine in order to reduce the number of Ukrainians, resettle in their place people from other parts of the USSR, and in this way kill all thought of independence.”
    Prokopenko, Party member, government plenipotentiary

    1. Role:
    2. Paraphrasing:
  6. “…[Our reporting] served Moscow’s purpose of smearing the facts out of recognition and declaring a situation which, had we reported simply and clearly, might have worked up enough public opinion abroad to force remedial measures. And every correspondent each in his own measure, was guilty of collaborating in this monstrous hoax on the world.”
    Eugene Lyons – Moscow United Press correspondent from 1928-1934

    1. Role:
    2. Paraphrasing:
  7. “The Terror-Famine of 1932-33 was a dual-purpose by product of collectivization, designed to suppress Ukrainian nationalism and the most important concentration of prosperous peasants at one throw.”
    Norman Davies, Historian

    1. Role:
    2. Paraphrasing:

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