Rochdale commemorates 90th anniversary of the Holodomor

Date published: 01 December 2023

Members of the Ukrainian community in Rochdale and from further afield gathered in Rochdale’s Memorial Gardens to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the enforced Ukrainian famine – Holodomor – on Saturday 25 November.

The service, which is held every year in Rochdale, commemorates the millions of men, women and children who were barbarically and systematically starved to death in the manmade famine between 1932 and 1933.

 

 

The commemoration began with a requiem service for the victims of the Holodomor, the blessing of the Holodomor Memorial Stone, a minute’s silence and the laying of wreaths.  

The service was led by Rev. Bohdan Lysykanych (Ukrainian Catholic Church) and Deacon Volodymyr Dobrianskyj (Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church) with the Vicar of Rochdale Rev. Anne Gilbert and a minute’s silence.

 

 

The event was attended by local dignitaries as well as current and former councillors – who were instrumental in the recognition of Holodomor as genocide and the installation of the Holodomor Memorial – members of the Ukrainian community both locally and from other towns and cities, and other members of the public who wished to join in commemorating the tragic event.

 

 

Wreaths were laid by the Mayor of Rochdale Mike Holly, local MPs Sir Tony Lloyd and Chris Clarkson, and Olga Kurtianyk from the Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain (AUGB) Rochdale Branch. Individual wreaths were also laid.

 

 

The commemoration continued after the ‘Prayer for Ukraine’ hymn with a memorial service at St Chad’s Parish Church.

 

 

Ms Kurtianyk welcomed everyone before a requiem was led by Rev. Bohdan Lysykanych, joined by Deacon Volodymyr Dobrianskyj and Rev. Mark Davies, the Bishop of Middleton.

After the service, very moving prayers, poems and readings were read by members of Rochdale's Ukrainian community together with recently arrived Ukrainian refugees.

 

 

The Mayor of Rochdale Mike Holly, Sir Tony Lloyd MP and Chris Clarkson MP concluded the service with speeches linking the Holodomor with recent atrocities committed by Russia against Ukraine.

The final blessing was given by Rev. Mark Davies before the service drew to a by singing ‘Ukraine, I Pray for You’ in Ukrainian, as videos of survivors’ stories were shown on screen.

 

 

The Holodomor or ‘death by starvation’ was a state-engineered famine imposed by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.

Approximately seven to ten million innocent people were brutally starved to death in the Holodomor; at the height of the enforced famine, 17 people died every minute, with 25,000 people dying each day.

 

 

Whole villages were wiped out from starvation as Soviet leader Joseph Stalin attempted to force the Ukrainians to adopt Soviet ways.

 

 

In 1932, there had been enough grain harvested to adequately feed the Ukrainian population. But under Soviet law, this was to be supplied to the rest of the Soviet Union, forbidding it to be used locally until a quota was met. This led to a serious grain shortage in Ukraine and harsh action was taken against anyone caught hiding or stealing food.

 

 

This caused starvation to set in rapidly – people ate anything – grass, tree bark, pets or whatever they could find for food. 

Archive documents uncovered in Ukraine show that Stalin deliberately targeted Ukraine, known as the ‘breadbasket of Europe’, for the harshest treatment, in the full knowledge that millions were starving and dying.

 

 

Although the crimes were hidden away from the Western world, British journalists Gareth Jones and Malcom Muggeridge did secretly visit, witnessed it for themselves and reported on this genocide to the British press.

Jones had kept diaries of the man-made starvation, which were published in March 1933 after leaving the country.

He was the first person to bring the famine to the attention of the general population – and the first to blame the Soviet Union for the part they played in causing the famine.

He was later shot dead in Manchukuo, on the eve of his 30th birthday, after being captured by bandits.

 

 

There were strong suspicions Jones was murdered as ‘revenge’ for his publications, which did not look favourably upon the Soviets.

Rochdale, which is twinned with the Ukrainian town of Lviv, became the first town in the UK to recognise the Holodomor as genocide in 2008 – a motion yet to be acknowledged and followed by the UK government – and the first town to honour the victims with a memorial stone the following year.

 

 

Worldwide, the Ukrainian population commemorates the horrific genocide each year on the fourth Saturday in November.

The Ukrainian community continues to campaign for the UK government to acknowledge the Holodomor as genocide.