Washington area Ukrainians recall Famine-Genocide of 1932-1933 (12/10/06)

Washington area Ukrainians recall Famine-Genocide of 1932-1933

by Yaro Bihun
Special to The Ukrainian Weekly

WASHINGTON - The Ukrainian American community of the capital area and the Ukrainian Embassy marked the anniversary of the 1932-1933 Famine-Genocide in Ukraine with a memorial religious service, a discussion of the tragic event and the showing of the documentary film "Harvest of Despair."

The memorial service for the estimated 10 million Ukrainians who died in the Holodomor was concelebrated on November 26 at the St. Andrew Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral, with the pastors of the two Ukrainian Catholic churches in the Washington area - the National Shrine of the Holy Family and Holy Trinity - participating.

Afterwards, in the hall adjoining the cathedral, Ukraine's ambassador to the United States and leaders of Ukrainian American organizations discussed the Famine and stressed the need to have it recognized as a genocide.

Ambassador Oleh Shamshur said that the Holodomor must be recognized as an "act of genocide against the Ukrainian nation." He also noted that the suffering of the Ukrainian people at the hands of the "brutal totalitarian regime" was not limited to the Famine. There were other periods of heightened repression in the early 1920s and just after World War II, which also brought about great losses.

The ambassador noted the efforts of the Ukrainian diaspora to bring the tragedy of the Famine to the world's attention and singled out the work done by the late James Mace, who was the director of the U.S. Commission on the Ukraine Famine, and British historian Robert Conquest, the author of the seminal work on the subject, "The Harvest of Sorrow." He also thanked the Congress and President George W. Bush for making it possible to have a Holodomor monument erected in Washington.

Michael Sawkiw Jr., president of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America, noted that while millions of Ukrainians were dying in the Holodomor and as a result of other acts of repression, the Soviet propaganda machine was convincing its citizens and - with the help of such Western journalists as Walter Duranty of The New York Times - the West that it was not happening. Many Western nations were establishing diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union during what he characterized as the "worst act of genocide in the history of mankind."

Mr. Sawkiw called on the U.S. government and the United Nations to recognize the Holodomor as an act of genocide. "The world community should be aware of what happened in Ukraine in those years, so as not to allow the repetition of a similar tragedy," he said.

Ihor Gawdiak, president of the Ukrainian American Coordinating Council (UACC), picked up on the "never again" theme in his remarks, adding that Ukrainian Americans must protest any and every attempt at genocide in the world today.

"Recently, almost 200 American citizens' and academic organizations signed an appeal to the U.S. government to react more forcefully to the genocide now in Darfur," he said. "The appeal was signed by leading Jewish organizations, including the Holocaust Museum; Armenian organizations signed it as well."

"So far only one Ukrainian organization signed it," he added (not mentioning that it was the UACC).

Also addressing the gathering were Nadia K. McConnell, president of the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation; Adrian Pidlusky, president of The Washington Group; Petro Matula, a Holodomor survivor who read excerpts from an article by Alen Bezanson on Soviet totalitarianism in Ukraine; Valentyn Zabijaka, head of the St. Andrew Parish Council; and Slavko Nowytski, who introduced the documentary film he produced for the 50th anniversary of the Famine, "Harvest of Despair: The Unknown Holocaust." The program was directed by Anya Dydyk-Petrenko.

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