Last week, the Legislative Assembly of Alberta (Canada) with the attendance of Speaker and MLAs, Ministers, leaders of Ukrainian organizations, paid tribute to victims of the Holodomor, a man-made famine of 1932-33 in Ukraine.
Ukraine’s Consul General in Edmonton, Oleksandr Danyleiko, posted a message on Facebook telling that the Consulate General together with the Ministry of Education of Alberta and comprehensive secondary schools of the province had conducted a two-week joint project dedicated to the Day of Memory of Holodomor victims. The project was called “A Flower of Memory”. “We conducted lessons in dozens of schools. Hundreds of students of different ages from the Ukrainian Bilingual Program came to know more about hideous crimes perpetrated by the Stalin regime against the Ukrainian people. They commemorated innocent victims by attaching ‘a flower of memory’ to the map of Ukraine”, Danyleiko told.
To honor the Holodomor victims, commemorative events were held at the Arc de Triomphe (the Triumphal Arc) and the Church of Saint-Sulpice in Paris as well as in Lyons, Senlis and Liège (France). A liturgy and a service to the dead were held at the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church in Rijswijk, the Western Netherlands.
Last weekend, the Ukrainian tragedy of 1932-33 was remembered at the St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New-York. Volodymyr Elchenko, a special envoy of Ukraine to the United Nations, wrote in Twitter, “It is a great honor for me to speak at the memorial service to commemorate victims of the Holodomor at the St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York. Be yourself, be Ukrainians, honor your roots and history. Spread information about the genocide and be pride of your Ukrainian heritage. Build a better future for your children so that this crime will never happen again”.
Last Saturday and Sunday, memorial services were held in the capital city of Kyiv with the attendance of the leaders of Ukraine. Commemoration was also held in many cities throughout the world: in Central Washington D.C. at the Holodomor Memorial, in Lisbon (Portugal), Canberra (Australia), Utrecht (France) to name but a few.
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Ukraine would never forget and forgive the crime of the Holodomor committed by the Stalin regime. He said this at a commemorative event in the capital city.
“Today we honor victims of the Holodomor, a crime of genocide committed by the totalitarian regime against our people, against the people of Ukraine”, said the President.
According to results of different studies, from four to eight million Ukrainians died of hunger within 1932-33, the President went on to say.
“These losses can be compared to our losses in human life during the Second World War. We Ukrainians and everything is possible for us. But there are things that we will never be able to forget and forgive”, said Zelenskyy.
On November 23, Ukraine marked the Day of Memory of Holodomor victims.
The newspaper Holos Ukrainy
