Monument to Holodomor victims unveiled in Warsaw

President Viktor Yushchenko of Ukraine and his Polish counterpart Lech Kaczy ski took part in the ceremony of unveiling a monument in Warsaw to commemorate victims of the 1932–1933 Holodomor. The two heads of state laid flowers and honored the memory of the dead by a minute of silence. The memorial sign was blessed by Metropolitan Savva, primate of the Polish Autocephalous Orthodox Church.

“I am convinced it is a significant event for our fraternal — Ukrainian and Polish — peoples. Organized by the criminal Stalinist regime, the Holodomor was one of the greatest tragedies in the history of humankind. It claimed the lives of 10 million of our compatriots,” Yushchenko said. He also noted that the world community had marked the Holodomor’s 75th anniversary last year, when the entire world, including Poland, saw the Inextinguishable Candle action under the slogan “Ukraine Remembers, the World Recognizes.”

Yushchenko also said he was proud that Ukraine and Poland are a model for this kind of attitude to difficult common history. “We have gone down the road of national reconciliation, and we regard the pain of the other people as our own,” he said. In his words, the reopening of a Ukrainian necropolis in downtown Warsaw is an important indication of Ukrainian-Polish friendship and mutual respect.

During his two-day visit to Poland, Yushchenko pointed out the importance of Polish support for Ukraine’s European integration course. Addressing the Polish people, Yushchenko said he is certain that Poland should continue to play an active role in shaping European policies in view of its colossal potential.

In his turn, Kaczy ski emphasized that Ukraine and Poland are undoubtedly fraternal countries bound together with strategic partnership. He especially stressed the important need to further develop the two countries’ political cooperation, in particular in the context of Ukraine’s European integration course. Kaczy ski said he is certain that Europe should be “a Europe of cooperation, not domination,” and rest on the principles of partnership. In this framework Polish-Ukrainian relations are “very important and subject to expansion and reinforcement.”

In the course of Yushchenko’s official visit, the Ukrainian and Polish heads of state signed a road map of Ukrainian-Polish cooperation in 2009—2010. Yushchenko and Kaczy ski also signed a joint statement on cooperation in the field of energy.