Mr. Chair,
Your Eminence Metropolitan Yurij,
Reverend Fathers,
Dear Holodomor survivors,
Honourable Minister Kenney,
Your Excellency Ambassador Ostash,
Honourable Leader of the Opposition,
Members of Parliament and Senators,
Mr. President of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The renowned Italian poet Dante gave the following chilling description of hell:
“When I awoke, before the dawn, amid their sleep I heard my sons …
weep and ask for bread …”.
In 1932-33, Stalin created such a hell to suppress Ukraine’s independence movement by starving Ukrainians to death in a country then known as the breadbasket of Europe.
As a result, statistics of a previously purged census reveal that in 1937 there were 26 million Ukrainians in the USSR, whereas there should normally have been 36 million.
Ce génocide fut vraiment sans merci. Il frappa sans distinction hommes et femmes, en commençant évidemment par les plus faibles et les plus démunis, les malades, les handicapés et les vieillards, et, pire encore, les plus innocents, les enfants et les nouveau-nés. Crever de faim n’est pas une mort facile. Elle vient lentement et péniblement.
Incredibly, for most of the 20th century, the Holodomor was a hidden genocide.
As of 2010, 14 countries in the world have recognized the Holodomor as a genocide against the Ukrainian people.
The Ukrainian World Congress wishes to acknowledge today the Prime Minister of Canada for having honoured the victims of the Holodomor and for having stated publicly that Canada adopted in 2008 the Ukrainian Famine and Genocide (“Holodomor”) Memorial Day Act during his October visit to Ukraine.
Вічна пам’ять всім жертвам Голодомору.
Ottawa, November 30, 2010
Eugene Czolij
