Black Flag installations raise awareness across Canada
Black Flag Installation at Winnipeg’s Holy Family Home
Throughout Canada installations of 33 black flags
Grade 8 and 9 students at Balwin Public School in Edmonton commemorate 80th anniversary with black flag display
at prominent city locations pay tribute to the millions of children, women and men who were victims of the Soviet regime’s ruthless genocidal policy.
A total of 33 installations can be found
throughout the country in the cities of
New Westminster, BC; Edmonton and
Calgary, AB; Saskatoon, SK; Winnipeg, MB;
St. Catharines, Hamilton, London,
Windsor, Toronto and Oshawa, ON.
Join the Google Doodle campaign
To gain international recognition of the Holodomor we are asking Google to create a doodle marking Holodomor Memorial Day.
But we need your help. Please send an e-mail to Google in support of this proposal, emphasizing the significance of this genocide. They receive hundreds of proposals daily so every voice counts.
Some highlights from National Holodomor Awareness Week
November 20 – Holodomor presentation by Brenda Kocur at Mohyla Institute, Saskatoon
November 20 and 21 – Researching the Holodomor of 1932-33: based on the example of the Sumy Oblast, Presented by historian Hennadiy Ivanushchenko, Winnipeg
November 21 – Film screening: Genocide Revealed, University of Saskatchewan campus; Holodomor Awareness display continues on campus through Nov. 24
November 21 – Ps and Bs dinner meeting – Status of Current Research on Holodomor with Dr. Bohdan Klid, Danish Canadian Club, Edmonton
The logo selected for the80th commemorative year, designed by Ukrainian Canadian artist Oleh Lesiuk, depicts five stalks of wheat delicately bound with a black ribbon. While serving as a reminder of the famine’s devastation, the wheat symbolizes the Ukrainian nation’s determination to live and prosper; the nation’s future.
“Five Ears of Grain” Law
On August 7, 1932, Joseph Stalin authored a law with a sentence of death or 10 years’ imprisonment for the misappropriation of collective farm property. This law led to mass arrests and executions. Even children caught picking handfuls of grain from fields were convicted.
THE NUMBERS
* The 1931 harvest was 18.3 million tons of grain.
* The 1932 harvest was 14.6 million tons of grain.
* The 1933 harvest was 22.3 million tons of grain
* The Soviet regime dumped 1.7 million tons of grain on
the Western markets at the height of the Holodomor.
* At the height of the Holodomor Ukrainian villagers
were dying at the rate of 25,000 per day or 1,000 per
hour or 17 per minute.
* Children comprised one-third of the Holodomor
victims in Ukraine. Large numbers of children were
orphaned and became homeless.
* The Ukrainian population was reduced by as much as 25 percent.
