[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 165 (Friday, November 6, 2009)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E2735]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   REMEMBERING VICTIMS OF UKRAINIAN HOLODOMOR ON THE 76TH ANNIVERSARY

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                          HON. SANDER M. LEVIN

                              of michigan

                    in the house of representatives

                        Friday, November 6, 2009

  Mr. LEVIN. Madam Speaker, this year marks the 76th anniversary of the 
famine that was deliberately and systematically inflicted upon the 
Ukrainian people by Josef Stalin's brutal regime. I rise today in 
solemn memory of the Ukrainians who were killed between 1932 and 1933.
  The Ukrainian famine, referred to as Holodomor or ``Death by 
Starvation,'' remains one of the least known human tragedies. An 
estimated 7 to 10 million Ukrainians perished when the Soviet 
government, using food as a weapon to suppress the nationalism and 
identity of the Ukrainian people, seized the country's 1932 grain crop 
and executed thousands who resisted. The country's borders were sealed 
to prevent starving Ukrainians from fleeing and to prevent any outside 
relief efforts from reaching the people.
  In its effort to suppress the Ukrainian nation, the Soviet Union 
perpetrated a famine so brutal that it ranks as one of the starkest 
examples of inhumanity in modern history.
  For generations, the Soviet Union tried to ban discussion of the 
famine, deceptively portraying the millions of deaths as the result of 
drought, food shortages, or unavoidable circumstances. We know this is 
false. The recently opened Soviet archives show the premeditated, 
political nature of the famine. The commendable work of Ukrainian 
scholars and the Ukrainian-American community is helping to bring these 
horrors to light and to ensure our collective memory of this terrible 
act.
  I am proud that Congress has supported efforts to recognize the 
Holodomor, particularly legislation allowing Ukraine to donate a 
memorial in the District of Columbia honoring the famine's victims. The 
Ukrainian Government, the Ukrainian-American Community, and the 
Department of the Interior have identified a site for this memorial and 
the Ukrainian Government is now working toward a design. This memorial 
is deeply significant to the 1.5 million Ukrainian-Americans, indeed to 
all of us, and will serve as a tangible reminder of the horror tyranny 
can inflict.
  I urge all of my colleagues to join me in remembering the victims of 
the Ukrainian Holodomor on its 76th anniversary and in renewing our 
commitment to ensure events such as this are never repeated.

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