Today Ukrainians around the world commemorate victims of an artificial famine of 1932-1933 known as the Holodomor, the result of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin’s order to force peasant households into collective farms.

The exact number of Ukrainians who perished during the Holodomor genocide is unknown but scholars say at least 3.9 million people were starved to death in Ukraine as the Soviet government seized their property and crops, closed off the borders and denied any outside aid.