“Then bread saved us and now our memory will”

Last weekend Ukraine commemorated the victims of Holodomor of 1932-33. That day millions of Ukrainians all over the country and beyond its borders lit mourning candles to commemorate their ancestors, innocent victims. “Then bread saved us and now our memory will,” is a saying that 80 years after the terrible tragedy became a core for thousands of people who participated in the mourning procession in Kyiv. Over 10,000 people walked to the Memorial in Commemoration of Famines’ Victims under the common sorrow flag. Most of the participants were children, youth, and elderly people and most of them were holding ears of wheat tied with black bands, yellow wax candles, and some people were holding fresh white bread.

When asked why they had decided to take part in the procession, many people of advanced age relied with tears in their eyes that they wanted to light a candle and pray for their relatives, acquaintances, and friends who had starved in 1932-33. At the same time young people showed that they know the truth about the terrible crime of Stalin’s regime that was hushed up for years and they came to declare their beliefs. However, all of them unanimously assured that one of the main reasons why they had come was the unwillingness of the government to publicly acknowledge the Holodomor tragedy as the genocide of the Ukrainian nation.

One of the organizers of the procession, member of the Public Commemoration Committee of the Victims of the Genocide Holodomor, historian Volodymyr Viatrovych remarked: “This procession is exclusively a public initiative and the absence of help from the authorities makes it only stronger.”

It is significant that the procession in Kyiv happened without any party symbols and only blue and yellow national flags with black bands were occasionally seen above the heads of the participants. Some people were carrying posters reading that Holodomor of 1932-33 was the genocide and at the head of the column the participants stretched a large poster with Vasyl Symonenko’s words “My nation exists and always will.”

Also young people were holding a poster made of the messages from the people from different regions of Ukraine and addressed to our compatriots that will commemorate the Holodomor victims in 20 years, on the 100th anniversary of the tragedy. The live column was headed by the politicians of three non-faction opposition parties and non-faction MPs. Instead, there were no government representatives in the procession.

Near the Memorial in Commemoration of Famines’ Victims the first Ukrainian president Leonid Kravchuk, the leaders of the opposition and members of the initiative group “December 1” joined the action. All of them, as well as thousands non-indifferent Ukrainians took part in the memorial service led by the Patriarch of Kyiv and whole Rus’-Ukraine Filaret and the hierarchs of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic, Ukrainian Orthodox, and Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Churches.

The participants of the action placed the candles at the Memorial to commemorate the Holodomor victims. The action was joined by other Ukrainian cities, diplomatic missions, representatives of different confessions, the Congress of the Ukrainian Nationalists, and other political forces.

Vadym Skurativsky, the representative of the initiative group “December 1” spoke in front of the community and remarked that “the Ukrainians live as a nation as long as they remember the terrible events of 1932-33.” “When we forget we will die,” the publicist emphasized.

The commemorative events of the 80th anniversary of the Holodomor finished by the all-national minute of silence and the start of the all-Ukrainian action “Light a Candle.” According to the organizers, in twilight in Kyiv about 10,000 candles were lit simultaneously. At the same time millions of candles and lampions were lit all over Ukraine and in dozens of other countries all over the world. “We remember about this tragedy and the world acknowledges it. The nation that survived cannot be destroyed,” the organizers added.