The article analyses the Holodomor and the instruments the authorities employed during the famine, through the prism of testimonies and memoirs about the famine by witnesses and survivors. The author focuses on how the authorities organised rural communities and their way of life before and during the man-made famine, and the perception by the survivors of this social engineering and the activities of the perpetrators of the Holodomor at the level of ordinary people. Archival and oral history data are used, and the source criticism method is applied. The author shows its limitations, and suggests options for further research on the perpetrators.