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Senate Co-Sponsorship Memoranda
Senate of Pennsylvania
Session of 2017 - 2018
Regular Session
MEMORANDUM
| Posted: | October 31, 2017 03:20 PM |
|---|---|
| From: | Senator Stewart J. Greenleaf |
| To: | All Senate members |
| Subject: | Ukrainian Genocide Remembrance Month |
| I plan to offer a resolution designating November 2017 as “Ukrainian Genocide Remembrance Month” in Pennsylvania. Eighty-five years ago, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and his totalitarian regime committed an act of genocide through the implementation of an engineered famine, confiscating land, grain and animals from the Ukrainian people resulting in deaths of up to 10 million innocent men, women and children. This genocide, Holodomor, meaning “Murder by Starvation”, was specifically designed by the Soviet regime to punish independent-minded Ukrainians for their resistance to its economic, political, and social oppression. At the height of the Holodomor in 1933, Ukrainians died at the rate of 25,000 a day with nearly a third of its victims being children less than 10 years old. Even as the Soviets continued to export Ukraine’s grain to the rest of the world, Ukrainian farmers, who tended to the farms in the “bread basket of the U.S.S.R.”, were tragically starved to a slow and painful death. Hundreds of archival KGB documents created during this genocide detailed and described the Soviet regime’s actions and intention to destroy Ukraine’s national identity by deporting and executing Ukraine's religious, intellectual and cultural leaders, prosecuting or executing any others who dared to speak of the famine or to speak against the Soviet authorities publicly, further destabilizing Ukraine’s political structure. Under the global theme “Ukraine Remembers, the World Acknowledges,” it is necessary that the Ukrainian Genocide, Holodomor 1932-1933, be officially recognized by the global community as a tragic and heinous crime against humanity in order to prevent similar tragedies from occurring in the future. The resolution urges all individuals, groups, organizations and institutions to remember the Holodomor with appropriate activities designed to honor its victims and educate the world about this tragic episode in the world’s history. Throughout this 85th anniversary year, let us recommit ourselves to reflect upon the historical truth of the heinous crimes of totalitarian regimes so that we may one day eliminate tyranny from our world. |
Introduced as SR244