PHOTO // Famine in Moldova of 1946–1947 years brought to Europe’s attention through exhibition in Brussels

Archive images from the period of the famine in Bessarabia in 1946–1947 are on display at the European Parliament, as part of an exhibition organized at an initiative by Romanian MEP Eugen Tomac, in cooperation with the National Archives Agency of Moldova. The exhibition is titled, The Great Famine in Soviet Moldova, 1946–1947: Perpetrators, Victims, and Scale.

The event aims to bring to the attention of the European public one of the most dramatic tragedies in the history of the region, through photographs, documents, and testimonies that show the scale of the humanitarian disaster in the postwar period.

At the same time, on April 24, starting at 18:30, at the European Parliament in Brussels, the Mihai Eminescu National Theatre of Chisinau will present the documentary performance, Children of the Famine. Testimonies, at an invitation of Eugen Tomac.

“I believe it is important that such dramatic episodes of our past become known. The 1946–1947 famine was not a natural tragedy, but the result of brutal policies imposed by the Soviet regime. Hundreds of thousands of people died without guilt. And today, 80 years later, we have the duty to speak about these crimes of totalitarianism and to keep alive the memory of the victims,” said the MEP.

According to the National Archives Agency of Moldova, the famine of 1946–1947 was one of the most severe humanitarian catastrophes to affect the territory of today’s Republic of Moldova in the 20th century. Although drought contributed to reduced harvests, the tragedy was worsened by the authoritarian and repressive policies of the Soviet regime.

Data put out by the institution shows that, in just a few months, more than 123,000 people died of hunger, which represented about 5 per cent of the population of the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic. Proportionally, the region was the most affected in the entire Soviet Union, with a mortality rate ten times higher than in Russia and five times higher than in Ukraine.