Cara Brady Vernon Morning Star - 11 May 2008 http://www.bclocalnews.com/okanagan_similkameen/vernonmorningstar/community/18819254.html The Holodomor was not the first time food was used as a weapon of war and it was not the last. Ukrainians around the world are marking the 75th anniversary of the 1932/33 famine/genocide against their people by the Soviet government as a way to remember the victims and create awareness of current famine/genocides. The Holodomor Remembrance flame made a stop in Vernon on its way across the world to finish in the Ukrainian capitol of Kiev in November. Stefan Horlatsch, a survivor of the Holodomor, which means hunger suffering, who is escorting the flame in Canada, carried the torch from the Vernon court house to city hall. He was joined by representatives of the local Ukrainian community and clergy from Ukrainian churches in Vernon, Kamloops and Kelowna. Roman Chez, president of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, Vernon Branch, was the master of ceremonies and Miron Balych read the history of the Holodomor. “In the early 1930s, in the very heart of Europe — in a region considered to be Europe’s breadbasket —Stalin’s Communist regime committed a horrendous act of genocide against up to 10 million Ukrainians.... The Holodomor was geographically focused for political ends. it stopped precisely at the Ukrainian-Russian ethnographic border. The borders were strictly patrolled by the military to prevent starving Ukrainians from crossing into Russia in search of bread.... The Ukrainian population was reduced by as much as 25 per cent.... The Soviet government refused to acknowledge to the international community the starvation in Ukraine and turned down assistance offered by various countries and international relief organizations.... “We hope that when this flame finds its last resting place in Kiev the world will proclaim the Holodomor of 1932/33 as a genocide.” About 50 people, including an honour guard of young members of the Sadok Ukrainian Dancers, watched and listened as Michael Zozula and Katherine Zozula, children of the late Antonina Zozula of Vernon, read from her memories of the famine written when she was 90. “It is very hard for me to talk about those two years, because I still clearly see the faces of the suffering people and their dying words ring in my ears. Seventy years later, I remember this famine and I can’t sleep.... Death was everywhere. No family escaped the horror,” she wrote in part. Vernon Mayor Wayne Lippert and Andrea Malysh, of the Ukrainian Community Civil Liberties Association of Canada and leader of the Sadok Ukrainian Dancers, accepted the flame on behalf of the community. “The whole point of the flame is to bring this out into the open as part of history to be acknowledged, as all genocides should be. We want to make people aware that food is still being used as a weapon today and genocide is happening. We need to care about it and help make sure it is stopped,” said Malysh. Bobbie Catt brought her children, Madison, eight, Hayden, five, and Jorja, three, all members of the Sadok Ukrainian Dancers to the ceremony. “It’s good for them to learn this, as much as they can understand. Andrea (Malysh) is excellent in teaching them the history and culture as well as dance,” she said. Horlatsch, a retired teacher now living in Toronto, was a child during the Holodomor, and lost many family members. He has dedicated his life to promoting the cause of freedom. “Nowhere in the world should anyone ever go hungry again,” he said. For more information visit www.ucc.ca.