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08 November 2007 10:42

Executed by Famine: the Unknown Genocide of the Ukrainians Exhibition Unveiled at the Geneva Municipal Library

November 7, 2007, the Executed by Famine: Unknown Genocide of the Ukrainians exhibition was unveiled at the Geneva Municipal Library.

The exhibition was prepared by the Ukraine 3000 International Charitable Fund as part of its History Lessons: Manmade Famine of 1932-1933 program. The co-organizers of the exhibition are the Ukraine 3000 Fund, Geneva City Council, and Ukraine’s Permanent Representation at the UN and other international organizations in Geneva.

Among the participants of the unveiling ceremony were Head of the Supervisory Board of the Ukraine 3000 International Charitable Fund Kateryna Yushchenko, Mayor of Geneva Mr. Patrice Mugny, Permanent Representative of Ukraine at the UN and other international organizations in Geneva Mr. Yevhen Bersheda, members of the Government of Geneva, members of public organizations and the media.

Addressing the audience, Mrs. Yushchenko tendered her thanks to all the exhibition organizers. “By creating this exhibition we wanted to familiarize the European audience with this tragic page of Ukraine’s history,” she said. “Today, the issue of the Manmade Famine has evoked a wide response from the global community.”

Mrs. Yushchenko mentioned that the US, Canada, Australia, Estonia, Italy, Lithuania, Georgia, Poland, Hungary, Argentina, Spain, Peru, and Ecuador had recognized the Manmade Famine in Ukraine as genocide on the state level. A few days before, a resolution on recognizing the manmade famine in Ukraine was passed by the UNESCO General Assembly. “We hope that the next step will be recognition of the Ukrainian national tragedy by other countries and most influential international bodies, like the United Nations Organization,” Mrs. Yushchenko said.

“I am certain that if the global community had displayed an adequate reaction to the Holodomor famine 75 years back, the humanity would have been able to prevent later genocides and massacres taking a heavy toll of many a million human lives in all continents,” Mrs. Kateryna said.

This event is continuing a series of educational exhibitions at the capitals of the leading countries, carried out as part of a joint program by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine and Ukraine 3000 Fund. The program’s goal is revealing the truth about Holodomor to the global community, seeking its recognition as genocide against the Ukrainian people on the international level.

The Executed by Famine: Unknown Genocide of the Ukrainians exhibition is based upon documentary archive sources corroborated by eyewitness accounts of the famine survivors.
 
The exhibition has already been displayed in Brussels and Berlin and demonstrated to the diplomatic corps in Kyiv. In the near future it will travel to New York, Vienna, Copenhagen, Strasbourg, Paris, Bratislava, Budapest, etc.

During one year, electronic versions of the display will be given to all Ukraine’s diplomatic representations abroad and also to the Ukrainian Diaspora organizations and Ukrainian communities.

The exhibition will stay in Geneva till November 21, 2007. A public discussion on the Manmade Famine of 1932-1933 will be held November 22, 2007, at the Geneva Ethnographic Museum.