Browsing: Holodomor

KYIV – During a series of events here on November 28, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and First Lady Olena Zelenska paid tribute to the millions of victims who perished as a result of Stalin’s Famine-Genocide – the Holodomor of 1932-1933.

In the morning, the president and first lady arrived at the memorial to the victims of the Holodomor in St. Michael’s Square, where the president and his wife put a composition of wheat ears and viburnum near the memorial and paid tribute to the Holodomor victims.  They then visited the National Museum of the Holodomor Genocide, where other participants in the ceremony put woven sheafs of grain near the statue “The Bitter Memory of Childhood.”

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Committee for Ukrainian Holodomor-Genocide Awareness (U.S. Holodomor Committee) announced the establishment of the Holodomor Descendants Network to bring together the descendants of the Soviet famine-genocide against the Ukrainian nation in 1932-1933. Its goal is to remember and share the personal family stories of this horror during which 10 million people, including children, died of starvation in the country known as “The Breadbasket of Europe.”

“The Descendants Network is a natural evolution of the work of our organization, whose mission is to promote and spread the truth about one of the least-known genocides in the world. I am pleased to announce that Olya Soroka, a member of our committee, whose mother, grandparents and aunt survived the Holodomor, will chair the newly formed network,” commented Michael Sawkiw Jr., chairman of the U.S. Holodomor Committee.

OTTAWA – The late Stefania Krikun’s memories assumed a quiet poignancy as part of this year’s somber National Holodomor Commemoration ceremony in Canada.

A video of the Edmonton woman, born on February 14, 1923, in the Ukrainian village of Hrynivtsi in the Zhytomyr region, has been online for the past seven years, but was again highlighted as part of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress’s pandemic-prompted virtual commemoration on November 22.

“A lot of people died. I saw this,” Ms. Krikun recalled of the genocidal famine, perpetrated by Joseph Stalin’s Soviet regime, which between 1932 and 1933 claimed the lives of nearly 4 million Ukrainians, according to the findings of the Kyiv Court of Appeal in 2010.

NEW YORK – Ukraine’s Holodomor, the 1932-1933 genocide by famine of 7-10 million Ukrainians committed by Joseph Stalin, ranks among the worst cases of man’s inhumanity towards man. In memory of the innocent victims of this Soviet genocide, 3 million of whom were children, the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America (UCCA), annually co-organizes an ecumenical commemoration at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City on the third Saturday of November, which regularly attracts thousands of attendees from across the tri-state metropolitan area.

This year, the organizers of the annual event advise our community not to travel to St. Patrick’s Cathedral on November 21. Case reporting of COVID-19 continues to spread in New York City, with increases in recent hospitalizations concerning local authorities enough to begin limiting non-essential gatherings in certain neighborhoods. On November 15, the UCCA encouraged the public to instead watch the livestream from St. Patrick’s Cathedral to mark the 87th anniversary of the Holodomor.

TORONTO – HREC Education, of the Holodomor Research and Education Consortium (HREC), a project of the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta, announced that its national panel of education adjudicators has selected the winners of this year’s HREC Educator Award for Holodomor Lesson Plan Development. Presented annually to recognize outstanding educators in the field of Holodomor teaching, the award fosters excellence in the development of innovative, creative and interactive lessons for grades K-12 that develop students’ critical thinking skills while addressing the topic of the genocide in Ukraine in the early 1930s.

WASHINGTON – The National Council of Social Studies (NCSS) partnered with the U.S. Committee for Ukrainian Holodomor-Genocide Awareness to host a national webinar on September 17 on the Ukrainian Holodomor titled “Stalin’s Cover-Up of the Ukrainian Famine Genocide, 1932-1933: The Original Fake News.”

Speakers in the webinar were Doris Duzyj of Michigan, Dr. Christopher Mauriello of Massachusetts and Michael Sawkiw Jr. of Washington.

The webinar began with a PowerPoint presentation by Ms. Duzyj explaining the vulnerability of Ukraine’s geographic location, its history of dominance by numerous empires and subsequent suffering, and persecution under Stalin’s regime. Statistical data about population losses was reviewed from the Harvard MAPA project.

WASHINGTON – For nearly fifteen years, the U.S. Committee for Ukrainian Holodomor-Genocide Awareness (U.S. Holodomor Committee) has worked diligently to raise the awareness of the American public about one of the least known tragedies in the world – the 1932-1933 Famine-Genocide in Ukraine, or Holodomor. The quintessential accomplishment was the dedication of the Holodomor Memorial in Washington on November 7, 2015, attended by Ukraine’s First Lady Maryna Poroshenko, hierarchs of the Ukrainian Catholic and Ukrainian Orthodox Churches, members of Congress, and thousands of community activists from throughout the country.

MINEAPOLIS – For the second consecutive year, the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies (CHGS) at the University of Minnesota partnered with the Ukrainian American Community Center (UACC) in Minneapolis to educate teachers and the public about the Holodomor. “This valued partnership provides the UACC with a platform to raise awareness and promote Holodomor recognition,” stated Luda Anastazievsky, UACC programming director, who leads the  center’s outreach and education efforts.

In August 2019, CHGS had invited the Ukrainian center to present at a summer workshop for middle and high school teachers from the Twin Cities and around the country. This week-long educator for educators provided an introduction to the legal and social concepts of genocide, as well as historical and contemporary examples of genocide, including the Holocaust and the genocides in Armenia, Bosnia, Cambodia and Ukraine.

WASHINGTON – The University of Maryland School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation began a five-month exhibition and associated events focusing on the process of creating a public U.S. memorial and, in particular, the work of one of its prominent graduates: the designer, architect and sculptor of the National Holodomor Memorial in our nation’s capital – Larysa Kurylas.

The Holodomor was Stalin’s infamous Famine-Genocide that killed at least 4 million Ukrainians in 1932-1933.

MONTREAL – The Montreal restoration project of Holodomor resource material for educators and the general public, undertaken by Yurij Luhovy and Zorianna Hrycenko, provides additional resource materials on the Holodomor.

Filmed in 1983, the final two phases of a major three-part project which began in May 2018 and was completed by January 2020, has now been posted online. The Holodomor project, which commemorated the 50th anniversary of the 1932-1933 Great Famine in Soviet Ukraine, leaves an important record of the work done in the diaspora to safeguard historical memory for future generations.

MINNEAPOLIS – Ukrainian community members recently gathered at the University of Minnesota for a reception marking the official transfer of materials from a recently completed oral history project, titled “Holodomor Impact on Minnesota’s Ukrainian Community,” to the institution’s Immigration History Research Center Archives (IHRCA). The event took place on November 20, 2019.
Professionally recorded video files and written, annotated transcripts of 11 interviews with Holodomor survivors, and children and grandchildren of survivors, will be permanently housed at the IHRCA, located at the University’s Elmer L. Andersen Library.

Below is the text of remarks delivered by Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) on November 16 at the Holodomor commemoration at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York.

Good afternoon, everyone. It’s an honor and a privilege to be here with you.
I’d like to thank Andriy Futey, Tamara Olexy and the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America for organizing this meaningful remembrance.
I also want to recognize the Ukrainian ambassador to the United Nations, Volo­dy­myr Yelchenko, and the consul general, Oleksii Holubov, for being here with us today.
And if you can see close-up, I’m wearing yellow and blue in honor of the Ukrainian flag. May it wave forever!