Ukraine commemorates Holodomor Memorial Day

Ukrainians commemorated Holodomor Memorial Day on November 26 by spending one minute of silence and lighting a candle in remembrance of the victims of the artificial famine in 1932-1933.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko addressed the public near the Memorial to Holodomor Victims national museum in Kyiv, according to an UNIAN correspondent.

Survivor of the famine Mykola Onyshchenko also addressed those who came to honor the victims on that day.

People brought wheat spikes and lamps with candles.

After his address, Poroshenko announced the campaign "Light a Candle in Memory" of the Holodomor victims by putting a candle at the Memorial. Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman, First Deputy Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Iryna Gerashchenko and Onyshchenko lit their candles.

Ukrainians light candles at 16:00 local time on the fourth Saturday of November and place them on window sills in memory of millions of Ukrainians who starved to death during the famine.

In 1932-33 the totalitarian regime of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin sentenced the Ukrainian nation to death by starvation. Millions of children, women and men were condemned to death because of the Ukrainian peoples' aspiration for independence, their desire to speak their language and maintain their culture and traditions.