Ukrainians on P.E.I. mark 90th anniversary of famine and genocide, as war continues back home

WARNING: This story contains graphic and disturbing content.

P.E.I.'s Ukrainian community is about to solemnly remember one of the darkest periods of the country's history, called the Holodomor, a Ukrainian word that means "death inflicted by starvation." 

This Friday's commemoration will be the first in a string of such ceremonies. From now on, after Prince Edward Island legislators unanimously voted on Tuesday, the fourth Saturday of each November will be a day to officially recognize the genocide in Ukraine in 1932 and 1933.

Millions of Ukrainians died when the Soviet Union confiscated their farms and their food, leaving people to starve. 

"Ukraine at the time was considered to be the bread basket of Europe," said Elina Lialiuk, president of the P.E.I. branch of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress. "The food was taken from people who actually produced it, and this act of genocide is known as Holodomor."

Back in 2008, the Canadian government recognized the Holodomor as an act of genocide against the Ukrainian people. Prince Edward Island this week became the 8th province to designate a memorial day. 

Lialiuk said Ukrainians wear a forget-me-not, a pale blue flower with a yellow centre, to commemorate Holodomor victims, similar to how the poppy is worn on Remembrance Day. 

"Taking into account the genocidal war happening in Ukraine right now, it is very important to educate the global citizenry about the horrors of this genocide," she said of what happened in the 1930s. "Historical lessons like this must be learned, because history tends to repeat itself."

Lialiuk said P.E.I.'s passage of the Holodomor bill will help raise awareness about the genocide in Ukraine. 

"Not a lot of people know about this tragic age in the history of humankind, since it was prohibited to talk about Holodomor till the 1980s. So for 50 years people didn't know about this crime," she said.

"If you tried to talk about it, you could be exiled. You could be killed. And all the witnesses who knew about [these] atrocities, they actually had to cover it up, to just save their lives."

The Ukrainian community on P.E.I. will hold a memorial event on Friday at the Beaconsfield Carriage House in Charlottetown, including a display of foods that would have been eaten during the famine. 

"People used everything that was edible to survive, and sometimes they even prepared soup using leather boots or leather belts," Lialiuk said. "Just the tiniest scrap of food. Even kids could be shot or imprisoned just for the attempt to steal, let's say, a little stalk of green from the fields.

"Food was used as a weapon, right? And people were not even allowed to leave the country, so they couldn't flee the starvation. They were either shot, or returned back to starve to death."