FOR THE RECORD: Holodomor memorial in Kyiv should be our holy place (07/17/05)

FOR THE RECORD

Holodomor memorial in Kyiv should be our holy place

Following is the full text of a June 28 letter delivered to President Viktor Yushchenko of Ukraine. It is written by survivors of the Famine-Genocide of 1932-1933 in Ukraine.

Dear Mr. President:

We are survivors of the Holodomor. We are survivors of the Ukrainian Genocide. We are the last of the living witnesses to the largest planned, organized and deliberate killing of human beings in the history of mankind.

To this day we are not able to erase from our memories the pain and horror we suffered personally and witnessed among our dearest parents, our brothers, our sisters, our families, friends and neighbors. When we saw the bodies of strangers, we did not know who they were, but we knew how they had suffered, how they must have been grateful to finally be free of the pain.

Not even the Love of God can take away memories of the faces of the soon to be dead children - so innocent, so helpless in the hell that such evil men had brought upon them.

Close your eyes, Viktor Andriyovych, and you will see them before you - not one of us can escape those children, their faces, their eyes, their cries. Those memories have been forever seared into the collective conscience of all Ukrainians.

After these tragic events, we were forbidden to talk or mourn. We were forced not to remember. We learned not to cry. Some of us have not cried for almost three-quarters of a century.

Today, there is only a handful of small statues scattered around the world to remember our 10 million dead.

We have for decades prayed for the miracle of a memorial to our suffering, to our 10 million dead - a memorial that would be more than a statue, but a place for us to come and pray, cry and be together. We prayed for a place that would also have a museum, a library, archives and scholars to research the Holodomor - still the least known and understood genocide in history. Such a place could only be in Kyiv.

When we heard that a Holodomor memorial was to be built in Kyiv, our hearts rejoiced. After more than 70 years, we would finally have a place to go - to remember and to be remembered. We would finally have a place of our own - to be with our own and to cry with our own.

This would be the place where our hearts could finally bury our dear parents, our brothers, our sisters, our families, friends and neighbors - all those whom we were never allowed to bury, or were too weak to bury, all those for whom there was no one left to bury them.

This would be the place where we could come to pray for their souls as we would at their graves. We need such a place - we don't know their graves.

This would be the place where we could come to cry those rivers of tears that need to be cried. This would be the place for us finally to cry with our own.

This would be the place where we can teach our children and our children's children to remember what happened to us, to remember and honor all those who died in the horror of the Holdomor.

This would be our holy place, for us and for ours. We need such a place. Our suffering warrants such a place. Such a place can exist only in Free Ukraine. We thank God that we can finally have such a place.

We are grateful for your support for the Holodomor memorial in Kyiv. We hope and pray that you will have the courage and wisdom to protect the memorial as our place.

We understand you are under pressure to convert the Holodomor memorial into a general memorial dealing with other genocides and totalitarianism. While this is a worthy cause, it is not the same as our cause and such a memorial must not be allowed to replace our Holodomor memorial. Our place must remain our place.

To dilute the memory of the victims of the Holodomor with the suffering of others, no matter how worthy, sends the message to the world that on our own, we are not worthy of singular recognition, that somehow our sacrifice was not enough, that it must be augmented by the memory of others to be worthy of a memorial.

Throughout the world there are numerous memorials and museums dedicated exclusively to the victims of other genocides. In Armenia, there are memorials dedicated exclusively to the Armenian genocide. In Cambodia, there are memorials dedicated exclusively to the Cambodian genocide. In Rwanda, there are memorials dedicated exclusively to the Rwandan genocide. There are many dozens of memorials around the world dedicated exclusively to the Holocaust.

There is no place on earth dedicated exclusively to our genocide, to our suffering, the Holodomor. We need such a place, and we deserve such a place. In the name of the 10 million innocents who died in the Holodomor, we ask that the memorial in Ukraine be kept dedicated exclusively to the Ukrainian Genocide.

There must be a memorial in Ukraine where we can be alone with our own, where we can remember and be remembered, where we can pray for our own and with our own, a place where we can finally cry with our own.

We pray you will keep the Holodomor memorial our own place.

Respectfully,

Nicholas Mischenko, president
Ukrainian Genocide Famine Foundation
Chicago

Peter Borisow, president
Hollywood Trident Foundation
Los Angeles

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