OPENING REMARKS

by H.E. Mr. Yuriy Sergeyev,

Permanent Representative of Ukraine to the United Nations at inauguration

of an exhibition, dedicated to the 75th anniversary of the 1932-33 Holodomor

Excellencies,

Dear friends,

Fellow colleagues,

 

Ukraine marks the 75th anniversary of the tragedy of the 1932-33 Holodomor. Over those two years seven to ten millions of Ukrainians were murdered by the criminal Stalin regime.

 

During the long decades of Soviet rule it was dangerous for Ukrainians even to mention their greatest national trauma caused by the Holodomor. To talk of the Holodomor was a crime against the state while the memoirs of eyewitnesses and the real assessments of historians were banned as anti-Soviet propaganda. Yet each Ukrainian family knew from sad personal memory the enormity of what had happened. They also knew that it had been inflicted on them deliberately to punish Ukraine and destroy the basis of its nationhood. Holodomor was the attempt to kill the very soul of nation to carry it to complete spiritual slavery.

 

In recent years Ukraine has opened up the voluminous secret archives, inherited from the Communist party and the secret service (KGB) of the former Ukrainian SSR. We have discovered a horrific truth. We had supposed it, though the genuine history was kept secret by the Soviet regime till its collapse.

 

The exhibition, that contains some of the archival materials, will show you how famine, which affected several regions of the former USSR, was purposefully used against Ukraine as a weapon, through introduction of special punitive measures against the population. This exhibition will walk you through the evolution of the crime – from its conception to implementation.

 

We want the world to know that even nowadays there are attempts to continue to hide the truth and to falsify it. But it is no longer possible to do that as the tragedy, which once became known through the witnesses of foreign diplomats, honest journalists and writers, has now emerged from recently declassified Soviet archival documents.

 

I am confident, that the process that has started will not be stopped by anybody, and the international recognition of the Holodomor will continue to grow.

 

Let us all remember about this tragedy, which was the tragedy of not only Ukraine, but the entire humankind.

 

We count on your solidarity, dear friends.