CMHR Shines Light on “Stalin’s Secret Files” from Ukrainian Genocide

Winnipeg, November 15, 2012 - The Canadian Museum for Human Rights (CMHR) is bringing to light new research into Stalin’s secret-police files on the 1932-33 genocide in Ukraine.

Secret State Archives in Ukraine – including hundreds of thousands of Soviet secret-police orders and case files – have only come to light in the past few years. The documents, many still difficult to access, are adding hard proof about the deliberate nature of atrocities that survivors and their families (many in Canada) have long struggled to bring to public attention.

Under a memorandum of understanding signed this year with Ukraine’s national Holodomor museum, and in collaboration with the Ukrainian Canadian Congress (Manitoba), CMHR is hosting lectures and public events in Canada to coincide with Holodomor Awareness Week, November 19 to 25, 2012. The genocide was conducted to crush Ukrainian resistance as the Soviet Union moved to collectivize agriculture 80 years ago. Millions of Ukrainians died of starvation – a fact denied by Soviet authorities right into the 1980s. At the same time, thousands of scholars, journalists and teachers were thrown in jail.

Canada in 2008 officially recognized the Holodomor as genocide and designated the fourth Saturday in November as “Ukrainian Famine and Genocide (Holodomor) Memorial Day”.

The CMHR’s special guest lecturers from Ukraine are Stanislav Kulchytskyi, the Deputy Director of the Institute of History of Ukraine, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine; and Lesya Onyshko, First Deputy of the General Director of Ukraine’s National Memorial in Commemoration of Famines’ Victims in Ukraine.

Dr. Clint Curle of the CMHR has organized the lecture series with the assistance of Canadian researchers such as Dr. Myroslav Shkandrij of the University of Manitoba and Dr. Bohdan Klid of the University of Alberta.

The events were planned with the help of many Canadian organizations, including the Ukrainian Canadian Congress (Manitoba Provincial Council), Canadian Institute for Ukrainian Studies, Shevchenko Scientific Society of Canada, Ukrainian Canadian Research and Documentation Centre at the University of Alberta, Oseredok Ukrainian Cultural and Educational Centre,  Honorary Consul of Ukraine in Winnipeg, University of Winnipeg’s Global College, and the University of Manitoba’s Central and East European Studies Program and Department of German and Slavic Studies.

A schedule of the upcoming public events can be found on the CMHR Website: http://humanrightsmuseum.ca/about-museum/news/cmhr-shines-light-“stalin’s-secret-files”-ukrainian-genocide