Jewish group objects to ‘Great Famine’ case

KIEV, Ukraine (JTA) -- A Jewish group in Ukraine is objecting to a criminal case brought over the "Great Famine" committed in the 1930s.

The nation's security service is pressing the case against a list of former Soviet officials accused of committing the Holodomor, which caused the deaths of millions in Ukraine in 1932-33. Most of the names on the list were Jewish.

Ukrainian lawmaker Aleksandr Feldman, leader of the Ukrainian Jewish Committee, said last week that it was "a farce" to press the case.

“All organizers of the Great Famine are dead," he said.

Last July, the Ukrainian Security Service released a list of high-ranking Soviet state and Communist Party officials -- as well as officials from NKVD, the police force of Soviet Russia -- that essentially blamed Jews and Latvians responsible for perpetrating and executing the famine because most of the names on the list were Jewish.

The Ukrainian Jewish Committee called on the secret service to revise the list, which incited interethnic hatred, in order to clear up the “inaccuracy.”

Feldman believes there is a danger that the “Holodomor Affair” materials are being used for political purposes.

In late May, security service head Valentin Nalivaychenko claimed at a meeting with representatives of the World Congress of Ukrainians that “Ukraine has collected enough evidence to bring a criminal case regarding the famine, which was artificially created by the Bolshevik regime and caused mass death of citizens.”

Through the World Congress of Ukrainians, Nalivaychenko turned to leading foreign lawyers with a request to help find out the circumstances connected with preparing and committing the genocide.