Lev Romanyshyn For NP-UN.
Around the world, November is a month for Remembrance – most often it is ceremonies remembering the victims of the various wars that have occurred, primarily, but not exclusively, in the 20th century. These include Remembrance Day in the 54 Commonwealth countries (Canada, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Kenya, India, …); Veterans Day in Romania and in the USA; Armistice Day in France and in Belgium, remembrance ceremonies in Croatia, Poland and South Korea and Volkstrauertag in Germany.
But, Ukrainians have a special remembrance ceremony – on the 4th Saturday of November we commemorate the millions of victims of the artificial famine of 1932 and 1933, the Holodomor. This was a man-made, politically motivated famine, decreed by Josef Stalin and put into operation and overseen by his henchmen, notably Vyacheslav Molotov and Lazar Kaganovich, and was meant to destroy the culture and spirit of Ukraine and Ukrainians, i.e., using starvation as a genocidal weapon against a nation and its citizens.
And so, in Vancouver, we gathered at the Holy Trinity Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral to remember the Holodomor and the victims of its horrors. Maryann Pylypchuk, a member of Vancouver's Holodomor Committee, presided over the solemn proceedings, first calling upon Most Reverend Michael Kwiatowski, Bishop of the Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of New Westminster and Reverend Father Roman Tsaplan of the Holy Trinity Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral to lead the attendees in prayer. Then introducing the dignitaries attending, which included: Elvira Mruchkovska, President, Ukrainian Canadian Congress (UCC) Vancouver; Iryna Shyroka, President UCC BC, Natalie Jatskevych, member of the Executive Committee of UCC Canada; Lubomyr (Mir) Huculak, Honorary Consul of Ukraine to British Columbia; Susie Chant, provincial Member of the BC Legislative Assembly (MLA) as well as members of the Vancouver City Council, Mike Klassen and Lenny Zhou.
Iryna Shyroka, in her address to the attendees, drew strong parallels between the Holodomor genocide of 1932-1933 and the renewed, current russian attempts to weaponize food and starvation against Ukraine. Examples we've seen include burning farmland and burying landmines in farmers' fields. russia's policy of trying to destroy Ukraine, Ukrainians and Ukrainian nationalism has been continuing off and on for some 300 years, but, in more recent times, it started up again in 2014, with the invasions of Crimea and the Donbas, then sharply escalated in February, 2022 to include full scale invasion and using mass murder weapons such as rockets, cruise missiles, cluster and thermobaric bombs and kamikaze drones. Unlike the events of 1932-1933, today, the world knows about the atrocities committed by the russian state and its lapdogs. And, these days, it is Ukraine itself that is exporting badly needed farm products to those in need on other continents: farm products which the russians unsuccessfully tried to deny to the world by means of naval blockades and bombing of grain exporting facilities on the Black Sea. Such is the depraved mentality of Ukraine's perennial tormentor.
During the program, we viewed recorded video interviews with a number of Holodomor survivors who recounted the terrors that they, their families, their friends and neighbours faced: Soviet soldiers confiscating all harvested grain; the penalties for hiding grain or other food products (livestock, garden produce, …) typically was being shot, or, if they were “lucky”, deportation to Siberia; NKVD guarding villages so that people couldn't escape to find food elsewhere and to keep others out, so as not to have outsiders bear witness to the villagers' suffering and have the stories leak out; no leaves left on plants or trees; no birds in the sky because people ate them and their eggs; people dying in the streets. These stories are available for viewing on the Internet at sharethestory.ca. While it is difficult to listen to these stories and even more difficult to imagine that civilized(?) people could commit such acts upon fellow human beings, it is vital that these accounts be kept alive for the world to learn and to understand what inhuman atrocities were inflicted on our ancestral homeland and its citizens. And who did it and why.
Honorary Consul Huculak, addressed the government officials directly by recounting his many attempts at convincing government officials to allow the Holodomor statue, Bitter Memories of Childhood, to be placed in a highly visible location where the general public could learn about the devastation wrought upon the Ukrainian nation over 90 years ago. So far, he, and we, have been rebuffed in these efforts and we don't understand why that is the case, especially with the renewed genocidal acts now being inflicted on Ukraine and Ukrainians. Perhaps, with the officials in attendance having heard the survivors' stories we will finally get some action.
The a capella quintet, Lyrika, in the spirit of the sombre Holodomor commemoration, performed a number of songs which included Свічки (Candles) and the very soulful and haunting Степом Степом (the Steppes, the Steppes).
The program also included a special dedication to retired MLA Bruce Ralston who, on several occasions while he was in Opposition, tabled a Private Member's bill for the BC Legislature to recognize the Holodomor as an act of genocide against the Ukrainian nation and its people. Finally, a few years later when he was in Cabinet, and in concert with the leader of the Green Party, Dr. Andrew Weaver (whose mother was born in Berdiansk, Ukraine), they were successful in having the Legislature pass the bill, which received royal assent and proclaimed into law in October, 2019:
“Ukrainian Famine and Genocide (Holodomor) Memorial Day
To memorialize those who perished as victims of the Holodomor, the fourth Saturday in November in each year is Ukrainian Famine and Genocide (Holodomor) Memorial Day throughout British Columbia.”
To show our community's thanks to Mr. Ralston for his perseverance and dedication to honouring the victims of the Holodomor, and also for his broader work on behalf of the Ukrainian community in BC, Iryna Shyroka and Natalie Jatskevych presented him with a beautiful вишита сорочка, a Ukrainian, hand-embroidered shirt.
Bruce Ralston with Vyshyvanka
To close the ceremonies, Lyrika sang the prayer, Боже Великий. (God is Great).
Вічна їм Пам'ять
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