Statement by UCCA President Tamara Olexy for the 76th Anniversary of Ukraine's Genocide of 1932-33
14 November 2009
Remarks by the UCCA's President, Tamara Olexy, on November 14, 2009 during the Requiem Service dedicated to the victims of the Holodomor on the 76th anniversary.
“Your Eminences,
Your Excellencies,
Reverend Clergy,
Distinguished Government Officials,
Esteemed Ambassadors,
Dear Holodomor Survivors,
Honored Community Representatives,
Ladies and Gentleman:
Today we gather within these sacred walls to honor the memory of millions of innocent men, women and children – all victims of Ukraine’s Genocide of 1932-1933– casualties of a brutal war waged against humanity by the god-less Soviet regime. The torment that these victims suffered is now over, their crying has ceased… yet their story endures.
76 years ago, the world was a very different place. Ukraine strained under the yoke of the oppressive Soviet regime, which subjugated and violated this freedom-loving nation. The brutal communist regime of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin sought to wipe out the Ukrainian nation as a whole, and with it, any hope of freedom. He unleashed his henchmen to do the unimaginable –to carry out the starvation of millions. Through a meticulously orchestrated mass collectivization campaign the Soviet regime imposed unreachable grain quotas, confiscated all foodstuffs and even sealed Ukraine’s borders, trapping Ukrainians within their own country, with no food and no chance of escape.
It is unthinkable, that in the very heart of Europe, in a country that boasts some the world’s most fertile soil and has often been referred to as “The Bread Basket of Europe”, Ukrainians were dying at the rate of 25,000 per day --- or 1,000 per hour --- or 17 per minute. Nearly a quarter of Ukraine’s rural population - the backbone of the nation - was mercilessly starved to death. And as if this picture could not be more grim, approximately 3 million of those murdered were children.
This godless act was a crime beyond most people’s comprehension. In fact, for decades the Soviet Regime had little difficulty covering up their gruesome deeds. Thanks to the help of such journalists as Walter Duranty of the New York Times, who served as their mouthpiece in the west, they were able to convince the world that there was no famine in Ukraine! Yet despite their lies, the voices of the victims were not silenced.
In his book “I Chose Freedom”, Victor Kravchenko, a Soviet official who in 1944 escaped from the Soviet Embassy in the U.S, describes his life during the years of Ukraine’s Genocide. In 1933 he was one of the Communist agents assigned to safeguard the new harvest, or, the “harvest in hell” as he terms it. He writes…
"Although not a word about the tragedy appeared in the newspapers, the famine that raged ... was a matter of common knowledge.
"What I saw that morning ... was inexpressibly horrible. On a battlefield men die quickly, they fight back ... Here I saw people dying in solitude by slow degrees, dying hideously, without the excuse of sacrifice for a cause. They had been trapped and left to starve, each in his own home, by a political decision made in a far-off capital around conference and banquet tables…
"The most terrifying sights were the little children with skeleton limbs dangling from balloon-like abdomens. Starvation had wiped every trace of youth from their faces, turning them into tortured gargoyles; only in their eyes still lingered the reminder of childhood. Everywhere we found men and women lying prone (weak from hunger), their faces and bellies bloated, their eyes utterly expressionless."
This week we marked the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall – the first crack in the Iron Curtain, the first step to the demise of the Soviet Union. With communism’s subsequent collapse, formerly classified KGB documents are now slowly becoming available to the world, allowing us all to finally grasp the magnitude of this genocide committed against the Ukrainian people. The voices are no longer silenced – their words, their memories, their testimonies, remind us of how precious the gift of life is and how scared the idea of freedom. It is in honor of the heroic survivors and the innocent lives lost that, after many years of hard work, the Ukrainian American community was fortunate enough to bless the ground where a monument dedicated to the victims of the Holodomor will stand in the heart of our nation’s capitol very soon. This is only the beginning of our answer to their calls for justice.
On this 76th anniversary year, let us pledge here, within this great Cathedral, to continue our work on behalf of the innocent victims of Ukraine’s Genocide of 1932-33, and in their name and memory educate the public about this heinous crime against humanity. Perhaps that is their message to us today – to continue to spread the truth to the world in the hope that such crimes will never happen again!
Vichna Yim Pamyat! (Grant Them Eternal Memory)
