Mr. Speaker, 84 years ago, the horror of the Holodomor, the genocide of Ukraine's rural population, began. Stalin decreed food illegal for Ukrainian farmers. The Kremlin's red brigade scoured the countryside confiscating grain and livestock. Farmers who were caught hiding food, even as little as five stalks of wheat, were shot on site. Ukraine's lush countryside was transformed into a denuded and silent darkness as people ate grasses and anything living. The eerie silence that engulfed villages was only broken by the sound of death wagons transporting starvation-bloated bodies.
Let us also contemplate how was it was possible that in the west, with the exception of a few brave journalists and politicians, so many chose to look away? Eighty-four years hence, once again, we confront the darkest of evils, genocide. Collectively, let the House have the moral strength of conviction to give meaning to the solemn pledge of “never again”.
Vichna yim pamyat.