WHIPPANY, N.J. – Lubomyr Luciuk, professor of political geography at the Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston, Ontario, addressed a special event organized by Ukrainian National Women’s League of America Branch 75 on November 9. His topic was “The Holodomor: What We Need to Remember (And Do About It)” – essentially, he said, a preview of the talk he was scheduled to deliver later that month in Kyiv at an international conference dedicated to the 85th anniversary of the Famine-Genocide of 1932-1933.
The professor challenged his audience at the Ukrainian American Cultural Center of New Jersey to really think about how we remember the genocide of our nation and what we are doing to increase worldwide awareness about it. He asked: Is having a national day of memory and mourning in Ukraine enough?
Furthermore, he asked: “Why do we continue to claim international recognition” of the Holodomor as genocide, “where there is not such thing?” Yes, he said, there are proclamations by local authorities, acknowledgements by state and provincial legislatures, or even federal/national bodies, but these “do not constitute international recognition.” He reminded the group of listeners that “Nothing of the sort has taken place at the United Nations – undeniably a consequence of the behind-the-scenes meddling of the Russian Federation.”
Prof. Luciuk acknowledged that Canada has recognized the Holodomor as genocide, but the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Israel and others have not. And the reason for such non-recognition, he explained, is that many Western governments were in fact complicit in covering up the Holodomor. They knew people in Ukraine were starving but did nothing for fear of jeopardizing relations with the Soviet government.
Prof. Luciuk also discussed what Ukrainians should be doing to commemorate the Holodomor. His answer: “expose the deniers” (for example, Walter Duranty); “honor the righteous” (among them Gareth Jones and Raphael Lemkin, who have been honored with memorial plaques, respectively, at the University of Wales in Aberystwyth and at the Ukrainian Institute of America in New York; Malcolm Muggeridge and Rhea Clyman); and “hallow the memory of the dead” (Why have there been no exhumations of mass graves and reinterment of the victims in consecrated ground? Why has the Ukrainian government not installed multilingual plaques at all known mass burial sites of Holodomor victims? Why aren’t diplomatic delegations that arrive in Kyiv brought first to the Holodomor Memorial?).
He underscored that a most important tool that should be used by Ukrainians worldwide is education. To that end, a banner commissioned by the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association and prepared by Prof. Luciuk (see The Ukrainian Weekly, September 9) was made available earlier this year to communities and organizations in order to provide basic information about the nature and consequences of the Holodomor in an easily understood and accessible manner. The banner, which is 3 feet wide and six feet tall, also includes a map of famine losses in Ukraine and quotations from key eyewitnesses to this genocide.
Following his presentation, Prof. Luciuk answered a number of questions from the audience, which that evening was provided with much food for thought about how the Ukrainian community is promoting knowledge about the Holodomor worldwide.