Comprehensive Study Guide: Interwar Global Conflicts, the Holodomor, and Canada in WWII

The Holodomor: The Genocidal Famine of 1932-1933 in Ukraine

The Terror-Famine of $1932$ to $1933$ is characterized by historians and witnesses as a dual-purpose by-product of Soviet collectivization. It was strategically designed by the Stalinist regime to suppress Ukrainian nationalism and destroy the most significant concentration of prosperous peasants simultaneously. According to Norman Davies in Europe: A History, the Ukrainian people were viewed by high-ranking Soviet officials as unsuitable material for building communism due to their profound religious beliefs, individualism, and strong attachment to private property and their ancestral plots of land. As a nation, Ukrainians were subject to systematic destruction; those who survived were intended to be integrated into a "new historical society" known as the Soviet people, which centered on Russian population, language, and culture.

Description of the Famine's severity by Malcolm Muggeridge and other observers depicts two starkly different worlds: on one side, millions of starving peasants with bodies swollen from malnutrition, and on the other, soldiers and members of the GPU executing the orders of the dictatorship of the proletariat. These forces covered the countryside like a "swarm of locusts," seizing all edible resources, shooting or exiling thousands of peasants, and turning some of the world's most fertile soil into a melancholy desert. Nikita Khrushchev noted in his memoirs that while exact figures were not kept, hundreds of thousands, and perhaps millions, lost their lives as people died in enormous numbers. Stanislav Kosior, writing in $1934$ , explicitly stated that local Ukrainian nationalism was considered the "principle danger" in Ukraine at that time.

The Human Toll and the Legacy of the Holodomor

Vasily Grossman's Forever Flowing provides a harrowing account of the impact on children during the Holodomor. He compares their appearance to photographs from Nazi camps: their heads were like heavy balls on thin, stork-like necks, with skeletons visible through skin that resembled yellow gauze. Their faces appeared aged and tormented, looking as if they were seventy years old. By the spring, many no longer had human faces, instead possessing birdlike heads with beaks, frog-like wide lips, or open mouths like fish. Historian James Mace argues that this physical destruction of the Ukrainian peasantry and intelligentsia, along with the erasure of the Ukrainian language and history, constitutes genocide in the classic sense. The logic was to eliminate the people to eliminate the "problem" of a separate country. Successive Soviet regimes worked to ensure silence regarding the Holodomor, pressuring survivors and their descendants to keep the genocide unknown to the world.

Residential Schools in Canada during the 1930s

Residential schools in Canada were established by Christian churches and the federal government with the primary goal of erasing Indigenous cultures, languages, and identities. This process of assimilation aimed to force Indigenous peoples to adopt settler, Euro-Canadian culture and traditions. By January 1, $1930$ , there were more than $80$ residential schools operating across Canada with an enrolment exceeding $17,000$ students. Despite being called schools, only $3$ percent of students progressed beyond Grade $6$ in $1930$ , and many left Grade $12$ without basic reading skills. The curriculum focused on "practical skills" intended to create a subservient workforce: boys were taught farming and carpentry, while girls were instructed in cooking, sewing, and laundering.

Health conditions in these schools were dire, particularly with the rise of Tuberculosis (TB). As a contagious disease affecting the lungs, TB spread rapidly in the crowded environments of the schools and reserves. Reporting indicates that death rates for children in these institutions were as high as $8,000$ deaths per $100,000$ children. The system gradually declined after the $1930s$ , with $72$ schools remaining in $1948$ and only $12$ by $1979$ . The Gordon Indian Residential School in Punnichy, Saskatchewan, was the last to close in $1996$ . On June 11, $2008$ , the Canadian government formally apologized for its role in the system, which caused lasting intergenerational trauma by breaking families apart and destroying cultural knowledge.

Global Conflicts and the Rise of Aggression in the 1930s

The $1930s$ were marked by a series of international aggressions by Japan, Germany, and Italy. In $1931$ , Japan seized Manchuria and turned it into a puppet state. By $1937$ , they controlled most of eastern China, including Beijing and Nanking. In $1935$ , Fascist Italy invaded Ethiopia. Canada generally maintained a policy of non-intervention, even disagreeing with proposed trade sanctions against Italy. During the Spanish Civil War ( $1937$ ), approximately $1,600$ Canadians joined the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion to fight against Fascism despite the Canadian government passing the Foreign Enlistment Act of $1937$ to make such participation illegal.

In Germany, the Nazi party rose to power in $1933$ , fueled by resentment over the Treaty of Versailles and the Great Depression. The Treaty had required Germany to accept responsibility for WWI, pay reparations, limit its military, and cede territory. Adolf Hitler used propaganda to project an image of strength and targeted Jewish people as the source of Germany's problems. Even world leaders like Canadian Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King were initially misled; King recorded in his diary in June $1937$ that Hitler had an "affectionate look in his eyes" and seemed to truly love his fellow man. However, the Nazi regime systematically implemented anti-Semitic policies, beginning with boycotts in $1933$ , expanding to the Nuremberg Laws in $1935$ (which stripped Jews of citizenship), and culminating in the violence of Kristallnacht in $1938$ . Between $1933$ and $1945$ , Canada restricted Jewish immigration, admitting fewer than $5,000$ refugees, often under the pretext that they would not be "good farmers."

The MS St. Louis and Canada's Reaction to Jewish Refugees

In June $1939$ , the MS St. Louis arrived within two days of Halifax, Nova Scotia, carrying $937$ Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany. Despite appeals from Canadian citizens, the government refused the ship entry, following similar denials from Cuba and the United States. The ship was forced to return to Europe, where many passengers were eventually killed during the Holocaust. Canada's refusal was influenced by anti-Semitism within the country and political concerns that accepting Jewish immigrants would threaten national unity, particularly in Quebec where there was strong opposition to immigration.

Phases and Stages of the Holocaust

Historian Doris Bergen divides the Holocaust into four distinct phases:

Planning and Propaganda ( $1933$ - $1939$ ): The isolation of "inferior" races and rebuilding of the German military.
Expansion and Violence (September $1939$ -June $1941$ ): The invasion of Poland and the establishment of ghettos and concentration camps. Mobile killing units (Einsatzgruppen) began mass shootings in eastern Europe.
Dedication to Mass Killing ( $1941$ - $1944$ ): The implementation of the "Final Solution," where millions were murdered in gas chambers at centers like Auschwitz.
Death Marches (January $1945$ -May $1945$ ): As Germany lost the war, guards forced prisoners to march toward Germany; hundreds of thousands died from exhaustion, disease, or execution during these forced movements.

Isolation occurred in four stages: basic stripping of rights (firing from jobs, banning from schools, forcing the use of ID cards with a "J" stamp), segregation (creation of $356$ ghettos across Poland and the USSR), concentration (transport via cattle freight cars to slave labor camps), and extermination (mass murder in factories of death and the Nazi euthanasia program aimed at eliminating "life unworthy of life").

The Start of World War II and Alliances

World War II began following a period of appeasement, where Britain and France agreed to Hitler's demands (such as the Munich Agreement in $1938$ regarding Czechoslovakia) to avoid conflict. Britain declared war on Germany on September 3, $1939$ , following the invasion of Poland. Due to the Statute of Westminster ( $1931$ ), Canada had autonomy over its foreign policy and declared war independently on September 10, $1939$ , exactly one week after Britain. Prime Minister King promised no conscription for overseas service to maintain national unity. The war featured the Allied Forces (Great Britain, France, Soviet Union, United States, Canada, China) against the Axis Powers (Germany, Japan, Italy).

Major Battles and Canadian Involvement

Battle of the Atlantic: The longest continuous battle of WWII ( $68$ months), focused on protecting shipping routes between North America and Europe. The Allied forces used a convoy system and small warships called Corvettes to fight German U-Boat "wolf packs" in areas like "The Black Pit." In May $1942$ , U-boats even entered the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
Battle of Britain ( $1940$ ): An air conflict where the RAF and Canadian pilots defended Britain against the German Luftwaffe's Blitzkrieg tactics.
Battle of Hong Kong ( $1941$ ): Canadian units (Winnipeg Grenadiers and Royal Rifles) attempted to defend the colony against Japanese invasion but were overwhelmed. Survivors faced brutal conditions in POW camps, suffering from disease and starvation.
Dieppe Raid ( $1942$ ): A "hit and run" raid involving over $80$ % Canadian troops that resulted in heavy casualties but provided vital lessons for the later D-Day invasion.
Burma Campaign ( $1941$ - $1945$ ): Canadians fought in mountainous jungle terrain against Japanese imperialism. This included the "Mule Skinners" who escorted mules used for transport in areas vehicles couldn't reach.
Italian Campaign ( $1943$ - $1945$ ): Canada's longest army campaign. Notable for the Battle of Ortona, where soldiers used "mouse-holing" (blasting through walls of connected houses) to avoid open streets.
D-Day (June 6, $1944$ ): Codenamed Operation Overlord, the largest seaborne invasion in history. Canadians landed at Juno Beach, breaching German "pill-boxes" under heavy machine-gun fire. This success helped turn the tide of the war toward an Allied victory in $1945$ .