This day, Ukraine and the world commemorate the victims of the Holodomor. This genocide became a tragedy for Ukraine and humanity. It is also a painful family memory of many Ukrainians, in particular the employees of our Museum, about the death of relatives and friends in those terrible times.
The Holodomor of 1932–1933 was a consequence of the campaign for the collectivization of agriculture, the “disenfranchisement” of peasants, grain harvesting and other manifestations of Stalin's economic policy in Ukraine. Collective farms and entire villages were blacklisted by the state for failure to implement the plan for grain procurement, with the seizure of all industrial goods and the cessation of their further importation. The victims of the Holodomor artificially created by the communist authorities, according to various estimates, were from 3 to 7 million Ukrainians, who made up more than 80% of the victims, as well as Jews, Poles, Bulgarians, Germans, Russians and representatives of other ethnic groups who lived in national areas on the territory of the USSR. Documented facts of death from starvation in the Jewish national districts – Stalindorf (Dnipropetrovsk region), Novozlatopol (Zaporizhzhia region), Kalinindorf (Kherson region).
For decades, the mass murder of people by artificial starvation was not only deliberately hushed up by the Soviet authorities, but also the mention of this event was prohibited in every possible way. The horrors experienced left a deep trauma in several generations of Ukrainians. As a result of the Holodomor, active, and even more so, mass resistance to the Soviet regime was stopped.
The publication of information about the crimes of the Soviet regime and commemoration of the Holodomor victims began only during the time of independent Ukraine. In 2006, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine officially recognized the Holodomor of 1932–1933 as genocide of the Ukrainian people. Today, except for Ukraine, two dozen of the UN member states recognize the Holodomor as an act of genocide at the international level. And this process will continue, it can even be guaranteed to predict its acceleration, because over time the aggressive essence of Russian state policy is becoming more and more obvious.
Museum “Jewish Memory and Holocaust in Ukraine” considers the Holocaust, the main theme of the Museum, in the context of other genocides. Therefore, the topic of the Holodomor history was developed in our Museum, as an integral part of the common memory of all Ukrainians, regardless of ethnic or religious affiliation. In 2016, one of the first exhibitions dedicated to the Holodomor of 1932–1933 was opened in Ukraine.
Nine decades later, genocidal methods are again being used against Ukrainians.
Today, you and I are witnessing how the aggressor state, unable to win on the battlefield, is trying to create unbearable living conditions in Ukrainian cities with the help of missile strikes - leaving residents without water, electricity, heating, and communications. With such actions, the enemy hopes to break the will of Ukrainians to resist, sow chaos and despair.
However, the reaction of Ukrainian society is completely opposite: people realize that the enemy aims to destroy not only the armed forces, the political elite, but the country's population as such. Ukrainians unite in mutual aid. They are equipping points of invincibility in the cities, increasing support for the Armed Forces, because they rightly see them as a guarantor against the continuation of the inhumane practices of the russian federation.
Tomorrow at 4:00 p.m., wherever we are – at home, in any region of Ukraine or abroad – we will light a memory candle in our window.
Let's remember. Let's unite We will win.
Olena Ishchenko