REMARKS FROM PAUL GROD, NATIONAL PRESIDENT, UKRAINIAN CANADIAN CONGRESS AT THE INTERNATIONAL HOLODOMOR REMEMBRANCE TORCH EVENT IN SEATTLE, WASHINGTON, MAY 4, 2008

In this 75^th year since one of the greatest genocide’s of human history, Ukraine Remembers and the World Acknowledges.  That is the slogan of this year’s commemoration of the Ukrainian Holodomor where the lives of millions of innocent men, women and children were suddenly eradicated by forced starvation in the very heart of Europe’s breadbasket.

The objective of the Holodomor was to destroy the Ukrainian national consciousness and to quash the aspirations of the Ukrainian people for independence, thereby eliminating a serious threat to the integrity of the Soviet empire.

The suffering of the Ukrainian people during the Holodomor is reflected in a great many publications and documents, as well as innumerable oral histories of survivors.  With the opening of archives in both Ukraine and Russia the overwhelming body of evidence continues to grow.  The Holodomor was, undeniably, an act of genocide.

It sadness and angers all of us when we hear from the Russian Federation and other apologists for Stalin’s atrocities their denial of the genocidal nature of the Holodomor.  Although the Holodomor reached beyond the borders of Ukraine into Kuban, the North Caucases in Russia and Kazakhstan – the Holodomor was geographically focused for political ends - those regions outside the Ukrainian SSR where the Holodomor was most severe were populated predominately by Ukrainians.  It stopped precisely at the Ukrainian-Russian ethnographic border and that border was strictly patrolled by the military to prevent starving Ukrainians from crossing into Russia in search of bread.  Let us be very clear to the world – the Holodomor was a genocide targeted at the nationalistic pro-Ukrainian peasantry.

In this 75^th year since the Holodomor, we must learn from history and stand on guard to ensure that the heinous crime of using food as a weapon against a people is no longer used by despots in other parts of the world. 

As National President of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, I am honoured to be in Seattle today with: Holodomor survivor Stepan Horlatsch who has just completed a 12 city tour across Canada with the Remeberance Torch educating Canadians about the Holodomor; and with H.E. Ihor Ostash, Ambassador of Ukraine to Canada to pass on this torch to our colleagues, Mr. Michael Sawkiw Jr. President of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America, H.E. Oleh Shamshur, Ambassador of Ukraine to the USA and the American people.  As this International Holodomor Remeberance Torch has delivered its flame of truth from province to province, city to city, town to town and school to school throughout Canada, it has left a valuable message with Canadians – we must have a world without genocide. 

The flame has also touched legislators as it traveled throughout Canada with virtually every province in which it was welcomed either having adopted or pledging to enact legislation recognizing the Holodomor as a genocide against the Ukrainian people and declaring the 4^th Saturday of every November as Holodomor Memorial Day.  We hope that the Remembrance Torch can have a similar impact as it travels the United States of America.

Let us all commit today that we must do all in our power to educate and raise awareness among our fellow citizens about the Holodomor, thereby ensuring that similar tragedies are never repeated in the history of mankind!

Ukraine Remembers - the world acknowledges!

Thank you