COMMEMORATING THE VICTIMS OF HOLOMODOR
Updated 2007-11-30
Yesterday the Permanent Representative of Lithuania to the EU Ambassador Rytis Martikonis, responding to the invitation by the Mission of Ukraine to the EC (EU), took part in the religious service dedicated to 75th Anniversary of Holomodor in the Ukraine. The religious service was held in St. Michael and Gudula Cathedral in Brussels.
The Ukrainian Ambassador to the EU Roman Shpek explains in his invitation letter that Holomodor is artificial hunger of 1932-1933, organized by the regime of Joseph Stalin, what led to approximately 10 million deaths in the Ukraine. This policy was aiming to eliminate any manifestation of Ukrainian national idea, which survived in the minds of Ukrainians, in particular, among well-educated and wealthy Ukrainian peasantry and intelligentsia.
“We believe that Holomodor is not only Ukrainian tragedy – it belongs to the tragic pages of our common European history. We are confident that Europeans must remember the crimes of the past in order to prevent them in the future,” says the Ambassador Roman Shpek in his letter.
