FOR THE RECORD: UCCA president's letter to the editor of The New York Times

Below is the text of a letter to the editor of The New York Times published in that paper on February 11. It was written by Michael Sawkiw Jr. president of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America on February 5.

To the Editor:

You quote Abraham Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League, as saying in response to a remark by Mel Gibson about the Holocaust, "He doesn't begin to understand the difference between dying in a famine and people being cremated solely for what they are" ("Gibson to Delete a Scene in 'Passion,' " Arts pages, February 4).

Mr. Gibson had said in an interview: "The second world war killed tens of millions of people. Some of them were Jews in concentration camps. ... In the [sic] Ukraine several million starved to death between 1932 and 1933."

Comments like Mr. Foxman's undermine the gravity of the atrocities committed against the Ukrainian people. Between 7 million and 10 million Ukrainians were systematically starved to death in 1932-1933 simply because of who they were and because of their resistance to Soviet dominance.

To play down and deny that shows a blatant disregard and insensitivity to a nation that suffered under an oppressive regime.

Mr. Foxman should realize that all genocides should be reviled rather than categorized.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, February 29, 2004, No. 9, Vol. LXXII

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