Ten million died but not one shall be forgotten |
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| Written by Adriana Willson |
| Monday, 30 June 2008 19:00 |
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On Monday May 26, 2008, the President of Ukraine, Victor Yushchenko, embarked on 3-day state visit to Canada. The first of his stops, and arguably the most important, was Ottawa. The day’s events started with the address to Senators and Members of Parliament in the House of Commons. Addressing a joint session is a rarely-given distinction and recently reserved for such leaders as President George W. Bush and Afghan President Hamid Karzai. It was a long-awaited visit with one very important item on the agenda – one that strikes a deep and somber chord in the hearts of the 1.2 million Ukrainians in Canada. On President Yushchenko’s agenda was the story of great crime that has gone unpunished and unrecognized.  The Holodomor, based on the two Ukrainian words, holod – ‘hunger, starvation, famine’ and moryty – ‘to induce suffering, to kill,’ was an act of genocide against the Ukrainian people, committed by the Soviet Communist regime in 1932-33. It is estimated that seven to ten million Ukrainians starved to death, three million of which were children. Enforced starvation reached its peak in the winter/spring of 1933 when 25,000 persons died every day. As a result, 20-25% of Ukraine’s population was exterminated.In 1932-33, less than twenty years after Ukraine was forcibly incorporated into the Soviet Union, the brutal Communist regime of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin embarked on a campaign to exterminate the Ukrainian people. It confiscated all the grain produced by Ukrainian farmers, withheld other foodstuffs, executed anyone trying to obtain food, and punished those who attempted to flee. The result: in the land called the ‘breadbasket of Europe,’ millions starved to death. Awakened by a national revolution in 1917-21, Ukraine, with its 1000-plus-year history and a rich cultural heritage, strived for independence and autonomy from Moscow. Consequently, Ukraine began to pose a serious threat to the integrity of the Soviet empire and its geopolitical aspirations. Thus, the objective of the Soviet-engineered famine was to destroy the Ukrainian national idea by wiping out national elites and their social support base. After millions of Ukrainians died in their own native land, the authorities resettled tens of thousands of families from Russia, Belarus and other parts of the USSR to the depopulated lands of the Soviet Ukraine.  President Yushchenko’s address focused on key current issues in Ukraine, including membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance; request for investment support for the 2012 Euro Cup (that Ukraine and Poland will jointly host); and most importantly, the recognition of the Holodomor as a genocide. “In this brutal, inhumane way, the Communist authorities were trying to deal a mortal blow to the very foundation and heart of our nation, to the peasants and farmers, and thus eliminate the future possibility of reviving and growing as an independent Ukraine,” said the President in his speech. On the steps of Parliament Hill, some 300 people, along with President Yushchenko, commemorated the 75th anniversary of the Holodomor in a somber ceremony. Jason Kenney, Secretary of State for Multiculturalism and Canadian Identity, who spoke on behalf of the Canadian government, recently stated in an interview that the Holodomor “is, sadly, unknown outside of the Ukrainian community”. “We all rightfully remember the Holocaust, its history and its lessons. We shouldn’t be ignorant about other mass killings that constitute an essential part of the 20th century.” Standing side by side with the President, he then announced that the cabinet decided to support a private member’s bill, introduced by Manitoba Conservative MP James Bezan to recognize the Holodomor as genocide. It was at this moment that the crowd cheered and Holodomor survivor Stefan Horlatsch, whose eleven family members perished during the famine-genocide, clasped his hands in prayer and bowed his head. The International Remembrance Flame was also part of the commemoration ceremony, which has been traveling around Canada and was making its last stop before embarking on a 30-country tour. President Yushchenko then addressed the crowd and reiterated that this brutal, deliberate act by Communist authorities killed ten million innocent lives in the most senseless and horrific way, and that it was the Ukrainian’s community’s duty to commemorate and honour the victims. In 2006, the Ukrainian parliament declared the Holodomor to be a genocide. Shortly thereafter, 14 countries passed similar resolutions including the United States, Australia, Hungary, Mexico, Poland and Latvia. In 2003, the Canadian Senate passed a resolution recognizing the Holodomor as an act of genocide but the House of Commons never matched the 2003 decision — until now. On Tuesday 27 May 2008, the House of Commons passed the private member’s bill introduced by MP James Bezan to set aside a day to mark the Holodomor as genocide.
The goal of bringing the Holodomor to international attention is to pay tribute to the millions of innocent victims, to condemn the crimes of the Soviet communist regime, to restore historical justice, and to obtain broad recognition of the Ukrainian genocide.
© 2008 Adriana Wilson; licensee (Cult)ure Magazine.
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Comments (1)
Holodomar knew no boundaries
I recently participated in an art exhibition at Carleton University that celebrated artists of Slavic heritage. My grandparents were born in the Ukraine in the early 1900's, but were of Swedish descent. While I cannot claim a true Ukrainian heritage, my background has a close association with this country. My grandparents lived in a Swedish community in the Ukraine and worked as farmers. During the Holodomar, they managed to escape with their one infant daughter. The people in their community were being starved, and my grandmother saw her cousin shot and killed. The Holodomar was a genocide that knew no boundaries. Articles such as this help to bring this heinous part of history into the light. |
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