As was reported on our pages earlier this month, the Ukrainian World Congress and its member organizations worldwide are conducting an international action called “Light a Candle of Remembrance” to mark the solemn 85th anniversary of the Holodomor, the Famine-Genocide perpetrated by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin that killed millions in Ukraine in 1932-1933.
The UWC explained: “Over 85 days until International Holodomor Memorial Day on November 24, a candle will be lit daily in a different part of the world, uniting Ukrainians and friends of Ukraine in remembrance of the innocent victims of the genocidal policy of the Stalin regime, while raising awareness of the issues of human rights, respect and tolerance.”
Recently the “Light a Candle of Remembrance” action even made its way to Dubai, where Ukrainians honored the memory of the Holodomor’s victims with a moment of silence and a reading of the names of 85 children who were among the genocide’s innocent victims. The Ukrainian World Congress informs us that, since the beginning of this month, candles were lit in Ukraine, Turkey, Jordan, Iraq, China, Egypt, Mozambique, Belarus, Senegal, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Singapore, the Russian Federation and Australia.
Here in the United States, the candle will be moving from east to west, across four time zones, on October 1-4. On October 4 it will be on the Eastern Seaboard, including New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. In our immediate area here in northern New Jersey, a remembrance ceremony is scheduled for Thursday, October 4, at 7 p.m. at the Ukrainian American Cultural Center of New Jersey in Whippany.
The candle will, of course, make its way that same day to our national Holodomor Memorial in Washington, where the first such candle-lighting remembrance ceremony was held on November 29, 2015 – three weeks after the memorial was dedicated. (In prior years, such ceremonies were held at the Embassy of Ukraine.)
The aim is to inform the public and to promote broader community involvement in this solemn commemoration of a genocide that until relatively recently was hidden from the world. It is a worthy follow-up to the work that many of our communities have done to secure recognition on the state level of the Holodomor as a genocide committed against the Ukrainian nation under the Soviet regime. According to the Embassy of Ukraine in the United States, as of June 27 a total of 12 states had made such recognition official via resolutions, proclamations, etc. Those states are: Washington, Wisconsin, Illinois, Kansas, Massachusetts, Missouri, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Ohio. We’re sure that number will continue to grow as our community activists in other states make the case that this genocide must be recognized along with others worldwide.
This international action – the virtual sharing of a candle of remembrance – began in Kyiv at the Holodomor Victims Memorial National Museum; it will also conclude in the Ukrainian capital on November 24, Holodomor Memorial Day. Project partners in Ukraine include the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance and the Holodomor Victims Memorial, which is the state memorial-museum dedicated to preserving the memory of this genocide’s victims.
Readers can follow the worldwide journey of the candle of remembrance online at https://holodomor85.com/.