Victor and Kateryna Yushchenko have attended a ceremony to open an exhibition of the Security Service archives on the Holodomor “The Declassified Memory”, according to the President`s press-office.
In his speech, the President urged the world community to recognize the Holodomor as Ukrainian genocide.
“We need it to restore dignity in every human soul and forewarn posterity of irreversible mistakes of the past,” he said.
On the part of Ukrainians, he thanked those who “have been preserving the memory of the Holodomor for decades.”
“We would not be exploring and publishing the archives today if you had not preserved the memory of that dreadful period,” he said.
Mr. Yushchenko called on Ukraine’s MPs to “have the courage to approve” his bill to recognize the Holodomor as genocide. He said discussions about the expedience to impose fines on those who publicly deny the Holodomor were “senseless” and added that in some European countries people could be jailed for up to fifteen years for denying the Holocaust.
“We have no right to forget the dead. Pope John Paul II once said, ‘Admitting mistakes of the past helps build the future.’ We are obliged to honor the innocent victims,” he said.
Verkhovna Rada Speaker Oleksandr Moroz, Security Chief Ihor Drizhchany, Culture Minister Yuriy Bohutsky, Youth and Sports Minister Yuriy Pavlenko and First Deputy Chief of Staff Ivan Vasyunyk attended the ceremony.
