The Soviet Union was already quite isolated from the outside world in the 1930s, and it was difficult to obtain reliable information from there.
Although several foreign journalists stayed in Moscow at that time, sources of information about mass starvation were usually foreign experts involved in industrialization and some travelers.
One of them was Austrian engineer Alexander Wienerberger, who made those few pictures of the Holodomor process, having documented this crime against humanity by the Soviet authorities.
Father Yuriy Kolasa, who familiarized himself in the Diocesan Archive of Vienna with the original photos of Wienerberger and his figure, said that Viennese chemist Wienerberger had lived and worked in the Soviet Union for about 20 years. In 1932, he held the position of technical director of a plastic manufacturing plant in Lyubuchany, a village in the south of the Moscow region. Subsequently he moved to work in the then capital of Ukraine, Kharkiv, on the streets of which he was struck by a terrible famine.
Most of the pictures he shot on a Leica camera were taken in the Kharkiv region. In October 1933, with the help of Austrian diplomat Heinrich Pacher, they were transferred to Vienna by diplomatic post.
There, Wienerberger managed to get to the Archbishop of Vienna and provide him with 26 photos with captions about the famine tragedy in Ukraine.
The copies of photographs taken by Viennese engineer Alexander Wienerberger in Ukraine in 1933. The copies were made on the basis of the original photos in the Diocesan Archive of Vienna by the Vicar General of the Ordinariate for the Faithful of all Eastern Catholic Churches in Austria, Father Yuriy Kolasa, and provided to Ukrinform.
© 2019 Ukrinform News
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Most likely the saddest chapter in world history and it came to Ukraine because Ukraine wanted freedom and independence. We shall not forget this great famine inflicted by one of the world’s most notorious villains and the current KGB office boy that continues Stalin’s murderous policies.
A sad part of the country’s history. This infamous event is one reason why it’s very important to keep the rabid Ruskie thugs at bay.
“…Wienerberger managed to get to the Archbishop of Vienna and provide him with 26 photos with captions about the famine tragedy in Ukraine.”
Why did this tragedy not get more publicity back then like the Holocaust a few years later?
Very likely it did at least here in the UK, we were beginning to get Refugees from Ukraine, the few lucky ones that could escape and get this far.
The build up to WW2 soon overshadowed it though and because of that and the greater numbers that were able to tell about the Holocaust it has become forgotten by most except those of us who have found out one way or another.
I have known about it for many years, I can’t remember when or who told me, but so far as I know had not met anyone affected until I met my Lyubov. Her Family were directly affected, losing a large Business and some Family members.
It still upsets her, recently we were on the Train from Lviv to Kyiv and a Guy started talking to her about it, brought tears to her eyes so it is still very real to Ukrainians as much as the Holocaust is to others.