The population of Melnyk village of Chyhyryn district of Cherkassy region suffered from the Holodomor-genocide of 1932-1933 – about 300 people died. Surnames and names of 185 died of hunger were established. In the village there are three places of mass burial of victims of the Holodomor-genocide of 1932-1933. One of them is located on an old cemetery.
In spring of 1932, there were no seeds to sow the fields. Local communists started to fulfill the sowing funds by the wheat from individual peasants’ farms. In summer of 1932, people called “heardressers” (they were cutting the spikes by scissors) appeared on the fields. So-called “thefts of the socialist property” began.
Taking into account that in autumn of 1932 the grain procurement plan was not completed, special groups, which were taking away even the last grains from people’s houses, came again in the village. People who were doing this in Melnyky village were especially cruel. In each part of the village, different groups were rummaging the houses. They were Dmytro Lukianenko, Hryhorii Zadoia, Vasyl Vitko, Denys Marchenko, Mykola Atamas, Yulym Vsevolodovych Samofal, Pavlo Semenovych Kholod, Nychypir Pylylas, Hryhorii Lukovych Krasota, Semen Mykhailovych Khyzhniak, and others. These were people who took away everything from their co-villagers, even neighbors. This condemned people to hungry death. They were searching everywhere: in pantries, hutches, pots, gloves, and pockets. They took even cooked dishes. Yard, garden, and straw ricks were checked by metal rods.
The responses about each member of grain procurement campaign were different. For example, Vasyl Vitko was going around, because he was forced to, he was not speaking on someone. When Kyrylo Sarafiyonovych saw that people had been left with nothing, he was interceding for the peasants and was asking to leave something for them. In contrast, there were no good responses about Denys Marchenko, Hrytsko Krasota, and Ivan Panteleimonovych. Everyone who remembers these people cried and said that they were monsters.