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First example of hoax in 1933 Nazi Press propaganda. Note soldiers in white smocks are wearing Tzarist-era style army caps, long out of issue by the 1930s. Source of the Nazi press fakes were the 1921-1922 Russian famine.

Cover photo of ‘The Great Famine in Ukraine: the unknown holocaust’ is, in

actuality, from the 1921-1922 famine.

Another fake from the Hearst Press, 1935. The girl is Russian and the photo is stolen from a 1922 emigre Russian Red Cross booklet published in Europe.

The harvest despairs as hoax uncovered

Award winning ‘documentary’ on Ukrainian famine rewrites history

Special to the Tribune

An internationally award-winning film designed to expose Soviet “‘disinforma- tion’’ has itself been challenged as an elaborate hoax.

Harvest of Despair, an emotionally charged hour-long documentary, is sup- posed to depict the deliberate genocide by famine of 7 to 10 million Ukrainians between 1932-33 by the Soviet govern-' ment. The film also charges the Soviets with a deliberate cover up of the events, supported by Western diplomats and journalists.

The film’s producers, backed by a number of right wing Ukrainian national- ist groups, have been on the hustings lobbying for the *‘famine”’ to be included in school courses. They were in Toronto

— November 17, to sponsor a special meet- ing at Toronto Board of Education to acquaint trustees and educators with their allegations.

However the filmmakers, along with a panel of anti-Soviet ‘“‘experts’’, were left scrambling to explain why virtually none of the visual props from the film actually portray 1932-33 ‘‘famine’’ scenes in Uk- raine.

Doug Tottle, a Winnipeg journalist and researcher, called the film ‘‘a poorly re- searched collage of largely fake ma- terials’’. He pointed out that an accom- panying book, compiled by the editors of the Ukrainian Weekly, a U.S. publica- tion and suggested school reading, is also based on spurious materials.

The cover photo of The Great Famine in Ukraine: The Unknown Holocaust, showing a line of emaciated children, is taken from a 1922 bulletin, published in Geneva by the International Committee for Russian Relief. The remainder of the book is also traceable to 1922 sources, Tottle told the meeting.

‘Virtually all of the starvation pictures and footage used in 1932-33 deliberate famine propaganda are traceable to ma- terials recorded from 1917-1922. This in- cludes five decades of right-wing books published on the subject’, he charged. At least 90 per cent of the photographs from the film date to this period, Tottle said.

The 1921 famine occurred mainly along the Volga River, hundreds of miles from the Ukraine and is attributed to nat- ural causes including the Civil War and persistent drought.

Orest Subtelny, a history professor at York University tried to defend the use of the earlier photos to the meeting.

**You have to have visual impact’’, he said. ‘*You want to show what people starving from a famine look like. Starving children are starving children’’.

Following Tottle’s exposure, all of the 1932-33 footage in the film was itself later admitted to be fraudulent by one of its researchers who claims he originated the idea for the film.

10 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, DECEMBER 3, 1986

Marco Carynnyk, who was “‘let go”’ from the project, is quoted in the Nov. 20 issue of the Toronto Star saying “very few photos from °32-33 that appear in the film are authentic as well.

The Star article goes on to say that Carynnyk is suing in the Supreme Court of Ontario for breach of contract and in- fringement under the Copyright Act.

Made in 1983, Harvest of Despair, has won seven international awards and is rumored to be nominated for an Oscar. It

was made under the auspices of the

Ukrainian Canadian Committee and the World Congress of Free Ukrainians, and produced by the Ukrainian Famine Re- search Committee of the St. Vladimir In- stitute of Toronto with National Film Board support.

In a subsequent press release, Tottle who has researched the faking of the °32-33 famine propaganda for the past three years and whose work is to be pub- lished in the new year, charged that the misrepresentation of materials in the film is not an isolated incident.

PRO-NAZI SOURCES

In addition to the film and the book, a course outline of suggested famine ma- terials for the schools turns out to include similar misrepresentations.

The recommended list includes publications by a Ukrainian fascist organization, the Ukrainian National Association which had measures taken against it during World War II by the FBI for its pro-Nazi stance. The UNA’s jour- nal Svoboda was once banned from entry into Canada during the war because of its Nazi sympathies.

The remaining materials in the dis- tributed course outline are basically writ- ten by right-wing Ukrainian nationalist groups themselves or by professional anti-communist academics.

The most extensively cited ‘‘Ameri- can’’ witness in the outline is ‘“Thomas Walker’? the man who never existed, says Tottle. Walker was the alias of a professional swindler and escaped con- vict from Fort Leavenworth, who faked a series of accounts of non-existent trav- els to the Ukraine in 1934.

They first appeared in a British news- paper the same year. According to the newspaper accounts some of the photo- graphs were taken by a British tourist in Belgorod. Belgorod is in Russia, not Uk- raine. :

The pictures actually came from Rob- ert Green, who later sold his faked arti- cles along with a series of pictures he stole from 1921-22 sources, to the pro- Nazi Hearst newspapers in the United States, including the Chicago American which printed his stories in Feb. and March of 1935.

Louis Fischer, a writer for the Nation, and the New Republic, immediately ob- served the fraudulence of Walker’s al-

leged travels and pictures, and exposed Walker in an article appearing in the March 13, 1935 issue of the Nation.

Walker was later extradited back to the States by the U.S. government in the summer of 1935. The July 13 and 16 New York Times revealed Green’s alias of Thomas Walker and covered his trial for passport fraud noting that he was re- turned to Leavenworth. prison to finish the sentence interrupted by his 1921 jail escape.

‘Walker’ was never heard from again. According to Tottle, his most prominent fake, a picture of a young girl, holding a starving child on her lap, is taken from a 1922 emigré, ‘‘Russian Red Cross’ bul- letin.

This picture he states, along with Walker’s entire series, has been used since 1935 to falsely illustrate famine genocide interpretations of the Soviet difficulties of 1932-33.

During the 1930s, Walker’s fakes were sometimes claimed by German and other right wing ‘‘famine writers’’ as having been taken by totally different photo- graphers in totally different years and season.

A frequently cited ‘‘famine expert’, Dr. Ewald Amnende in his 1935 book, Human Life in Russia, used many Walker fakes in the book’s own collec- tions of contrived materials.

Human Life in Russia was recently republished in 1984 by Ukrainian nationalists in Montreal as supposed ‘evidence’ for the current cold war famine genocide campaign.

At the Toronto meeting, Subtelny, forced to admit the fraudulent material in Harvest of Despair, countered Tottle’s allegation by citing Amnende’s book as an example containing bonafide pictures.

Tottle also points out in his release, that a significant number of the -film’s witnesses have questionable credentials. They include former German Nazis anda key Ukrainian Nazi collaborator.

‘‘Witness’’ Hans von Herwarth re- mained in German service when the Nazis. took over in 1933. According to the American historian, Dallin, Her- warth’s former ‘‘Russian experience”’ was utilized by Hitler. He served as a recruiter in occupied Soviet territories for the fascist military.

‘Similarly the film’s witness, Andor Henke became a Nazi diplomat and was involved in attempts to recruit Belorus- sian nationalist exiles to aid in Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union.

UKRAINIAN COLLABORATOR

Metropolitan Mystyslav, head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the United States, another witness, served the Nazis during their occupation of Po- land initially as the editor of the Nazi funded propaganda organ, Volyn.

When the Nazis later wanted to set up

~ and almost all the still used in Harvest

a controlled ‘‘church’’, Mystyslav, whose real name is Stepan Skrypnyk —4@ newphew of the ‘‘pogromchik’’ leader Simon Petliura of 1918-20 infamy — was authorized by the Nazis as leader of the new Autocephalous Orthodox Church, — in their‘General government. He entered a monastery as a lay man emerging 4 ‘‘bishop”’ in a history making record of @ few weeks! x Furthermore some of the ‘evidence given by the film’s witnesses appears 10 have been tampered with. For example Carynnyk’s original tape of his intel views with Malcolm Muggeridge and Soviet defector Lev Kopylew wer shown at the St. Vladimir’s Institute 12 the spring of 1983. In the original Kopylew denied the famine was deliberately planned, al though he claims incidents of over exu erant grain collecting by lower officials: This portion of Kopylew’s interview with Carynnyk was slashed from Har vest of Despair, to avoid upsetting the producers’ famine genocide applecatt. Can this be related to Carynnyk’s suit against Harvest of Despair’s produce! for copyright infringements? Not only is all the ‘1932-33’ foota

Despair fraudulent, not to mention the suggested “famine book”’ given out freé to teachers, but the film’s official bf” chure has also been challenged. | |

Evidently trying to distance himself u from the production’s scandalous | predicament, Carynnyk admitted in the . same issue of the Star that even the film > } brochure photo does not portray 1932 | 33. According to Tottle’s release it pot trays a Russian girl from the 1921-22 | events. :

The Toronto School Board will decide within the next two months whether! include teaching about the famine as of the schools’ regular curriculum. charge is expected to be headed by N Crewe who attended the Nov. 17 ™ ing along with Alex Chumak W chaired.

The Ukrainian Canadian Com failed to get their proposal past the nipeg School Board when_ ee approached it in 1983. The famine 1S co 8 tained as part of a pilot world studi 2 program which uses both the famine ate legations and Soviet govern™ sources. ine

However the real story on the fare : is yet to appear. When Tottle he proached both the Toronto Star 200 4. 7 Globe on Nov. 20 to offer further does | mentation of fraud in the film, the paren, q said they weren't interested. They 3.5 | however, published excerpts of 4 P ee | statement by the film’s produc defending their fraud. Are we exe : iencing a 1986 coverup of the fam genocide hoax?

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