Bozhena Olshaniwsky named to N.J. Ethnic Advisory Council (09/19/04)

Bozhena Olshaniwsky named to N.J. Ethnic Advisory Council

by Walter Bodnar

NEWARK, N.J. - Bozhena Olshaniwsky once again has been appointed to serve on the New Jersey Governor's Ethnic Advisory Council. She had served from 1991 to 1993 under New Jersey Gov. James Florio and in June she was appointed to this position by Gov. James McGreevey. (During Gov. Christine T. Whitman's term of office the Ethnic Council was terminated.)

Ms. Olshaniwsky joins fellow Ukrainian American Camilla Huk, who was named to the Governor's Ethnic Advisory Council by Gov. McGreevey in 2003. Ms. Huk was recently elected vice-chair of the council and serves on the council's Education Committee. She previously served on the Ethnic Advisory Council in the late 1970s under Gov. Brendan Byrne.

It was on August 24, 2002, during ceremonies marking the 11th anniversary of Ukraine's independence that Gov. McGreevey pledged that he would restart the Ethnic Council.

Ms. Olshaniwsky is a well-known activist in the defense of human rights in the United States and in Ukraine. She headed Americans for Human Rights in Ukraine (AHRU) and the Ukrainian National Center: History and Information Network (UNCHAIN) since 1986.

Ms. Olshaniwsky actively and vigorously propagated the defense of human rights by speaking publicly in the United States and Canada and at international conferences in Europe, including Ukraine.

She visited major Ukrainian communities in New Jersey, New York, Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia, Washington, Hartford, Minneapolis, Toronto and other cities to disseminate information and raise funds for the defense of the persecuted.

Some of the international conferences she attended and participated in were: the Vienna review meeting of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe in 1986; the first human rights meeting in Moscow in 1987; a meeting with members of the Israeli government in 1986 in Jerusalem on the issue of war crimes trials and the Walk for Peace from Odesa to Kyiv in Ukraine in 1988.

In 1991 she attended the month-long CSCE Human Dimension Conference in Moscow which was held after the attempted coup in the USSR, actively lobbying delegations of the Helsinki Accords signatories to recognize the independence of Ukraine.

After the Moscow conference Ms. Olshaniwsky traveled in Ukraine through the major cities of eastern-central Ukraine, encouraging people to vote for independence in the December 1, 1991, referendum.

Ms. Olshaniwsky attributes her success to massive letter-writing campaigns to legislators, parliamentarians, presidents, etc. Ms. Olshaniwsky worked in the framework of a PAC (political action committee), namely the League of Ukrainian Voters (LUV). Thus, she was able to support political candidates who were positively inclined toward Ukraine and Ukrainian issues, among them Rep. Millicent Fenwick, President Jimmy Carter, Sen. Bill Bradley, Gov. Florio, President Bill Clinton, Gov. McGreevey and State Sen. Ronald Rice.

Ms. Olshaniwsky met Gov. McGreevey in the chambers of the New Jersey Senate during a commemoration of the Great Famine of 1932-1933 in Ukraine. This event was sponsored and introduced by N.J. State Sen. Rice. Later Sen. Rice introduced an amendment to a Holocaust education bill in the New Jersey Senate which states that, in addition to the Holocaust, the Ukrainian Famine of 1932-1933 and the Armenian and Cambodian genocides should be part of the curriculum in New Jersey's public schools.

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