It's time to stop denying the Holodomor was a genocide and let the truth come out, said the keynote speaker at the official start of the Edmonton Ukrainian community's commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the 1932-33 famine in Soviet Ukraine.

"The people of Germany, those who were responsible, but even those who were not, took stock of their tragic contribution to 20th century European history. They took stock, they looked truth in the eyes, and asked forgiveness from the people they enslaved, especially from the Jews, and they began building a new history," said Rev. Prof. Dr. Borys Gudziak, Rector of the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv.

"Nobody has asked forgiveness for the Holodomor. No ideology has accepted responsibility. A policy that was planned in Russia, in Moscow, a policy that was meant to be confined to the borders of the Ukrainian republic remains an abstract fruit of evil minds for which nobody takes responsibility," he added.

"The point is not to find those to blame to seek revenge. Even people of good will, like Christians realize, or should realize, that we need to forgive to build the future. Today we have difficult geopolitical tensions, mounting tensions in Eastern Europe through the continued denial of past suffering, which allows people to build on past ideologies to repeat the tragedies again. And that's why this commemoration is so important." Dr. Gudziak noted there's only one approach to the horrors of the famine and that is the truth.

"To speak the truth with love, to speak the truth with forgiveness, but to speak the truth."

Over 500 attended the commemoration service at Edmonton's City Hall. While the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, Edmonton Branch, organizes such a commemoration every year on the fourth Saturday of November, this year's program was special as it also marked the beginning of a year-long commemoration of the greatest mass murder in European history.

Between 7 and 10 million Ukrainian peasants starved to death during the months that followed November 1932, when shock troops sent from Moscow confiscated their grain supplies. At the height of the famine in the spring of 1933 up to 30,000 people were dying per day.

"Millions of people dying of hunger in the breadbasket of Europe -- in a matter of months," said Dr. Gudziak.

"A million per month. Over 30,000 per day, more than 1,000 per hour, 20 per minute. Somebody every three seconds. Day after day, week after week, and the government not only does not extend the hand of support, not only does not come to aid, but does everything possible to keep the starving people from getting food, or getting to food. People arrested for saving, for hiding three potatoes under the wooden floor. People arrested for a small bag of wheat hidden to make a pancake, people marshaled back from highways leading to cities to keep them in the village. To keep them out of sight. To keep their bloated bodies in the land that should have been giving them life."

During this period, the New York Times, one of the most influential newspapers in the Western world covered up this crime against humanity, he added.

"And then there was silence. The screams were ended. The groan, the grind. There were no more words left to express the agony, the pain, the disbelief. There were no more words for the mothers of children, the fathers and sons who died, and those who survived were forbidden to speak. If you lost a brother or five siblings, for decades, in the Soviet Union, you went through life acting as if you had no brothers or sisters, because the famine did not happen. For the Holodomor was in the imagination of those bourgeois capitalists in places like Edmonton, Alberta," said Dr. Gudziak while commending the community for erecting the first monument to victims of the famine in the world, in 1983, despite all the diplomatic efforts of the former USSR to keep it from getting unveiled.

Noting that psychologists and educators recognize that one act of violence can have a serious effect on a child, Dr. Gudziak wondered about the wages of such wanton violence where a death occurs every three seconds.

"The black faces next to the black earth from the most fertile ground on the globe. What does this do to the soul, to the psyche, to spend your whole life denying that you had brothers and sisters. Blotting out the scene or at least the story of that mother who in desperation cooked the child to feed those who had remained. For more than half a century, the Communist Party in the Soviet Union kept people from speaking about the famine. Those who were close had to remain silent, but you spoke. Today Ukraine is finally dealing with its denial. I cannot tell you what the outcome will be. The tragedy is that it's people living precisely on the lands where the famine was worse, that today disbelieve. Because the backs of the Ukrainian peasants were broken, and through ideology, the mind was brainwashed. So today the tragedy of the famine, of the Holodomor is not only the historic events of 1932 or 33 -- it's the personal drama of millions whose lineage was violated, whose lives were distorted, and who denied their own suffering."

Speaking on behalf of the provincial government, Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach noted that even though the famine was a painful tragedy, it needs to be remembered.

"What makes the Ukrainian famine-genocide all the more tragic, is that this was an intentional act. Ukraine was, and is today, a place of incredible bounty. It was through the acts of the Soviet government through Stalin that this bounty was torn away, torn away from the people leading them to suffer and to starve," he added.

Edmonton Mayor Stephen Mandel also stressed the need to make people, especially young people, aware of this tragedy.

"When events like this do occur, we need, across the world, to stand up to say as people of the world, we can't tolerate that kind of destruction," he said.

The commemoration began with a prayer service conducted by clergy from both the Ukrainian Catholic and Ukrainian Orthodox Churches. Responses were sung by the Ukrainian Male Chorus of Edmonton. MC was Liliya Sukhy.

Thirteen survivors of the genocide living in Edmonton -- Fedir Horobec, Wira Horobec, Mykola Korba, Ludmyla Lytviak, Dusia Marych, Raisa Macewko, Marija Prokopchuk, Anastasia Roll, Lena Shewchuk, Natalka Talanchuk, Yar Slavutych, Rev. Fr. Pavlo Zmiyiwsky and Dobr. Anna Zmiyiwsky -- were recognized.

The program ended with a laying of wreaths by the famine monument, by dignitaries, survivors, representatives of organizations, youth group members, students and the public.