Crowd rallies at Washington Monument (10/09/83)

18,000 attend famine memorial events in D.C.

Crowd rallies at Washington Monument

by Roma Hadzewycz

WASHINGTON - Thousands of Ukrainians gathered in the shadow of the Washington Monument on Sunday morning, October 2, to mourn those of their kinsmen who had perished in the Great Famine of 1932-33 and to renew their pledge to always remember and to never allow the world to forget the holocaust inflicted upon the Ukrainian nation by the Soviet regime.

They began arriving shortly after 9 a.m. in preparation for the 10 a.m. rally. By the time the program began, the grounds near the Sylvan Theater were filled with a sea of placards and banners, some identifying the hometowns of the groups in attendance or the organizations present, others scoring the USSR for crimes against humanity such as the artificially created famine, and still others warning the free world to beware of the ever-present Soviet threat.

During the two-and-a-half-hour rally, the participants heard speakers - including a representative of President Ronald Reagan and Rep. Don Ritter of Pennsylvania - expressing sympathy for the loss of 7 million lives and lauding the Ukrainian nation's courage and continued resistance to Soviet Communist subjugation.

As the rally progressed and buses carrying Ukrainians from throughout the United States continued to arrive, the crowd of 6,000 tripled in size to an estimated 18,000, according to Washington police.

The rally and the subsequent march, demonstration and memorial concert at the Kennedy Center, were the culmination of a series of events held during the Great Famine Memorial Week in the nation's capital.

The rally got under way with the singing of "The Star-Spangled Banner" by Jarema Cisaruk, a member of the Ukrainian Bandurist Chorus of Detroit, and brief welcoming remarks by Dr. Peter G. Stercho, chairman of the National Committee to Commemorate Genocide Victims in Ukraine, a community organization that sponsored the week's events.

Invocations were then delivered in Ukrainian by Metropolitan Mstyslav of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, and in English by Pastor Wladimir Borowsky of the Ukrainian Evangelical Alliance of North America.

Metropolitan Mstyslav was accompanied that day by three other Ukrainian Orthodox hierarchs: Archbishop Mark of New York, Archbishop Constantine of Chicago and Bishop Wolodymyr Didowycz of Germany.

Metropolitan Mstyslav noted in his prayer that the purpose of the rally was "to bow our heads before the known and unknown graves of the millions of Ukrainian martyrs who died 50 years ago in the agony of death by starvation."

Three symbolic black coffins, each marked "7,000,000 Ukrainians murdered," were carried onto the stage, as members of the Plast and ODUM Ukrainian youth organizations formed an honor guard.

Pastor Borowsky then delivered the English-language invocation, stating: "we are here to redeem from oblivion" the 7 million who died in the Great Famine.

Conduct of the rally program was then assumed by Dr. Myron B. Kuropas, former special assistant for ethnic affairs to President Gerald R. Ford.

Dr. Kuropas welcomed the representative of President Reagan, Morton Blackwell, special assistant for public liaison. Mr. Blackwell proceeded to read a message from the president, the full text of which follows.

President's message

"I am pleased to join those gathered for this ceremony honoring the memory of the millions who died in the Ukrainian Famine of 1932-33.

"This event provides an opportunity to remember those who suffered and died during the farm collectivization and subsequent forced famine and period of severe repression. That attempt to crush the life, will and spirit of a people by a totalitarian government holds important meaning for us today.

"In a time when the entire world is outraged by the senseless murder of 269 passengers on Korean Airlines Flight 007, we must not forget that this kind of action is not new to the Soviet Union.

"That the dream of freedom lives on in the hearts of Ukrainians everywhere is an inspiration to each of us.

"I commend your participation in this special observance and the moral vision it represents. May it be a reminder to all of us of how fortunate we are to live in a land of freedom."

Congressman Ritter's address

Next to address the rally was Rep. Ritter, who is chairman of the Ad Hoc Committee on the Baltic States and Ukraine and a member of the Congressional Helsinki Commission.

Rep. Ritter began his remarks in Ukrainian, saying: "Today, my dear friends, I honor the 7 million who died in the famine/holocaust and the millions who lived through those terrible years. But that is not enough. Today, I devote myself with all my heart and soul to the cause of freedom for our oppressed brothers and sisters living in Ukraine."

"We are here to tell the story to the world of the people who suffered, the victims, the survivors," he said. "Yes, we want the world to know about this crime against humanity, not that they may feel sympathy towards the victims. That is given. But, even more important is that the world better understand that the disease of totalitarian control over people longing to be free is what creates holocausts."

He concluded his speech, too, in Ukrainian. "May the memory of those who died live on in our hearts and in the hearts of all Americans so that the flame of freedom for Ukraine will never die. Long live the flame of freedom. Glory to Ukraine," he said. (The full text of Rep. Ritter's address appears on page 6.)

A message of sympathy was delivered by Rabbi Andrew Baker, Mid-Atlantic regional chairman of the American Jewish Committee.

"We share memories of suffering in the Soviet Union. We also share the hope that our brethren, locked behind an iron curtain, will one day be free," he said.

He continued: "We are, of course, gathered here to recall a very specific event of unspeakable horror - the enforced famine and the intentional death of millions of Ukrainians. As one reads the first-person historical accounts, as one examines the photographic evidence, the shock and revulsion are nearly overwhelming. But it is not only the monstrous crime at which one recoils. It is the willingness of so many to look the other way, of governments to carry on with 'business as usual,' and of people quick to relegate such events to the dusty corners of distant history.

"We Jews share with you the experience of such horrors in our own recent history and the experience of a world quick to close its eyes, quick to forget what had taken place. We join with you in the firm belief that only through remembering can we hope to ensure that such evil deeds will not recur."

Rabbi Baker then noted: "We share in your memories on this day and in your hopes that we all may learn from them. For our sake and the sake of our children we can do nothing less."

Keynote address

The keynote Ukrainian-language speaker was John O. Flis, newly re-elected chairman of the Ukrainian American Coordinating Council and supreme president of the Ukrainian National Association.

"When they were dying - the bells did not toll. And no one wept over them ... And there were millions of them. At least 7 million, but there may have been 10 million or more. Millions of children, women and men, our sisters and brothers by blood - Ukrainians.

That is why, he said, "it is our sacred duty to ourselves remember and to make others aware of history's greatest crime, its perpetrators and its victims."

He then went on to point out that Ukrainians should recall "this dark night" of Ukrainian history with the hope that "a new morn" will bring with it a better fate for the Ukrainian nation.

In the memory of those millions of Ukrainian martyrs of the Great Famine, Mr. Flis urged, "let us pledge that we will do all that is possible to see to it that Ukraine does indeed get its own Washington with his righteous law."

Former Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky and Marek Czyselczyk, a representative of the Solidarity trade union, also spoke at the rally.

The KAL incident represents "just a drop of blood into the ocean of misery caused by the Soviets," said Mr. Bukovsky, referring to the recent downing of a Korean passenger jet. Millions of others died in the collectivization campaign during the famine, the purges, the show trials, he noted, adding to this list of Soviet horrors the tragedies of the Baltic States, Ukraine, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Afghanistan and Nicaragua.

The Solidarity representative expressed his sympathy for the famine victims, and, speaking as a Pole, noted that it is his sincere hope that both the Ukrainian and Polish nations will one day live in democracy.

"May the free flag of Poland fly over Warsaw, and may the free flag of Ukraine fly over Kiev," he said. "Long live free Poland, long live free Ukraine."

Other speakers who addressed the rally participants were: Chris Gersten, chairman of the Freedom Federation, a coalition of 19 ethnic organizations; Dr. Mario Lopez Escobar, Paraguayan ambassador to the United States and chairman of the Organization of American States; Maj. Gen. (ret.) George Keegan, former chief of intelligence of the U.S. Air Force and current chairman of the Congressional Advisory Board; Mykola Plawiuk of the World Congress of Free Ukrainians; Ulana Mazurkevich of the Ukrainian Human Rights Committee of Philadelphia; and Stephen Procyk, executive member of the National Committee to Commemorate Genocide Victims in Ukraine and chairman of its Washington branch.

Messages were received from many members of Congress, among them the following senators: Rudy Boschwitz (R-Minn.), Dave Durenberger (R-Minn.), John Glenn (D-Ohio), Mark O. Hatfield (R-Ore.), John Heinz (R-Pa.), Frank R. Lautenberg (D-N.J.), Carl Levin (D-Mich.), Charles McC. Mathias Jr. (R-Md.), Daniel P. Moynihan (D-N.Y.), Charles H. Percy (R-Ill.), Donald W. Riegle Jr. (D-Mich.), Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) and Edward Zorinsky (D-Neb.).

The following representatives also sent messages: Glenn M. Anderson (D-Calif.), Frank Annunzio (D-Ill.), Sherwood L. Boehlert (R-N.Y.), Philip M. Crane (R-Ill.), Brian J. Donnelly (D-Mass.), Hamilton Fish Jr. (R-N.Y.), Bill McCollum (R-Fla.), Henry J. Nowak (D-N.Y.), Mary Rose Oakar (D-Ohio), Frank R. Wolf (R-Va.) and Gus Yatron (D-Pa.).

Messages were later received from Reps. Joseph P. Addabbo (D-N.Y.), Mario Biaggi (D-N.Y.), Edward F. Feighan (D-Ohio) and Samuel S. Stratton (D-N.Y.).

In addition, Gov. Dick Thornburgh of Pennsylvania, and Canadian Member of Parliament Jesse P. Flis sent greetings to the rally participants.

At the conclusion of the rally Dr. Stercho once again took the podium, this time to thank all the participants. Msgr. Walter Paska, who appeared at the rally in the name of Archbishop-Metropolitan Stephen Sulyk who is in Rome at the World Bishops Synod, offered the benediction.

The program concluded with a performance by the Ukrainian Bandurist Chorus directed by Hryhory Kytasty, which presented two selections, a Ukrainian patriotic song and "God Bless America." The rally was formally closed with the singing by all present of the Ukrainian national anthem.

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