Transgenerational genocidal trauma of the Holodomor: Mental-health–relevant motifs in public testimonies

Abstract

The Holodomor (1932–1933) persists in family narratives, household rules, and commemorations that may shape community health across generations. Using an open-source intelligence (OSINT) approach, we compiled and froze a unique-heavy corpus of public, non-academic testimonies in English and Ukrainian (N = 163) from the National Museum of the Holodomor-Genocide, the Ukrainian Canadian Research & Documentation Centre, and institutionally hosted YouTube interviews. We coded 10 motifs (presence or absence) and analyzed frequencies, pairwise co-occurrences, and descriptive transmission-motif associations (Fisher’s exact test/χ²). Identity and collective memory and explicit storytelling were most prevalent (n = 106 and n = 163), followed by food-security behaviours (n = 75), distrust/institutional mistrust (n = 64), and scarcity mindset/thrift (n = 48). Food-security behaviours co-occurred more with storytelling and identity/memory than with ritual/commemoration (food × story = 75; food × identity = 19; food × ritual = 0). Food-security also showed a directionally positive association with hypervigilance/anxiety (OR = 2.05; a = 13, b = 62, c = 8, d = 80; two-sided Fisher p = .16). Associations involving parenting/discipline and ritual/commemoration were small or unstable due to very low marker-present denominators (n = 4 and n = 2). The co-occurrence hub centered on storytelling, identity/memory, food-security, and hypervigilance, with distrust and scarcity as neighbours. Public testimony, handled ethically and systematically, can serve as a pragmatic indicator system to inform trauma-aware community practice and guide mixed-methods follow-ups.