A national touring exhibit designed to raise awareness of the Holodomor Ukrainian genocide is in Saskatchewan for the next three weeks.
The Holodomor mobile classroom was parked outside the Legislative Building for its first stop. Education Minister Don Morgan toured spoke with Regina high school students visiting the customized RV that provides interactive displays and information on the man-made famine that devastated Ukraine in the early 1930s.
“The Holodomor was a cruel, horrific time in our world’s history, and we must never forget that dark period,” said Morgan. “Saskatchewan’s Ukrainian community has been instrumental in raising awareness in our province of this tragedy and this new national resource will help educate students and citizens across the country about the evils perpetrated decades ago on innocent families.”
Holodomor, which means “extermination by hunger” in Ukrainian, is regarded by historians as a deliberate campaign of terror by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. It claimed the lives of seven to 10 million people from 1932 to 1933. Saskatchewan was the first jurisdiction in North America to recognize this genocide when the Legislative Assembly passed The Ukrainian Famine and Genocide (Holodomor) Memorial Day Act in 2008.
The government has hosted annual Holodomor commemoration services at the Legislative Building every November, and a bronze statue, “Bitter Memories of Childhood”, donated by the province’s Ukrainian community, stands just east of the building as a permanent reminder of this tragedy.
Morgan noted that the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, Saskatchewan Provincial Council is developing Holodomor educational resources for use in Saskatchewan school divisions.
The mobile classroom is a project of the Canada Ukraine Foundation, in partnership with the Ukrainian Canadian Congress (UCC) and other national Ukrainian organizations. The UCC’s Saskatchewan Provincial Council is coordinating its visit to Saskatchewan.
The arrival of the touring exhibit in the province comes just ahead of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress’s 25th Triennial Congress of Ukrainian Canadians, which takes place September 29 to October 2 in Regina. The exhibit will be on display at the congress.
The provincial government has designated 2016 as the Year of Saskatchewan Ukrainians in recognition of the many and varied contributions of citizens of Ukrainian descent to our province. More than 13 per cent of Saskatchewan residents trace all or part of their ancestry to Ukraine, according to the last census.
For more information on the travelling exhibit, visit www.holodomortour.ca.
