The candle of our memory cannot be extinguished

Ukrainians from 32 countries worldwide appeal to Viktor Yanukovych to give up his denial of the Holodomor of 1932-33 as genocide

Unlike the campaign “The Unextinguishable Candle of Memory” of 2008, which is annually held to commemorate the victims of the Holodomor, the international action “Let Us Not Let Them Extinguish the Candle of Our Memory,” initiated by the World Congress of Ukrainians and the Ukrainian Institute for National Memory, was not backed by the authorities. Moreover, this action, which started on June 19 at the Memorial of the victims of man-made famines in Ukraine, rose first and foremost as a response to the treatment of the tragedy of 1932-33 by the current regime which, according to Yevhen Cholii, president of the World Congress of Ukrainians, is based on Moscow’s interpretation of those events. There is more than enough evidence to prove this. They range from purely symbolic gestures, like the elimination of the chapter on the Holodomor from presidential web-site, to more tangible, like the registration of the draft bill suggesting the elimination of the statement about the Holodomor being essentially an instance of genocide, from the Law of Ukraine “On the Holodomor of 1932-33 in Ukraine”; here also belongs the claim made by Dmytro Tabachnyk, Ukraine’s minister of education and science, to the effect that this information will be eliminated from curricula as well.

This paradoxical and essentially absurd situation, when the regime backed in the issue in which Ukraine had been supported by 14 nations worldwide, gave rise to the necessity of reminding all Ukrainians and the world community about the true causes, consequences, and the masterminds of the genocide. Thus last Saturday, on June 19, the top hierarchs of the Ukrainian churches gathered at the Memorial to the victims of man-made famines in Ukraine. They came there with a mission to celebrate a mass, together with a couple of hundreds of their fellow compatriots, for the innocent victims of the Holodomor.

The memorial candles, blessed during the mass, will tour all the oblasts of Ukraine, the residences of the European Parliament and the United Nations, as well as 32 countries worldwide, where the faithful of various religious denominations will pray for the victims of the genocide together with politicians and the representatives of the Ukrainian diaspora.

Unlike the authorities, who totally ignored the action, the vast majority of Ukrainian TV channels covered the event in the news releases on Saturday night, but not on the First National Channel. Instead, the state-run channel gave us taxpayers an opportunity to learn of the happy marriage between the Swedish princess Victoria and her fitness instructor…