On the 90th Anniversary of the Holodomor we the undersigned urge our President, Joseph R. Biden, Jr., to issue a proclamation declaring the Holodomor of 1932-1933 a genocide of the Ukrainian people.

The Holodomor was a man-made famine in the USSR in which millions of Ukrainians died from 1932 to 1933 as a result of policies of the Kremlin. The Communist Party and Soviet state targeted the Ukrainian peasant farmers, who resisted Soviet policies of forced collectivization that stripped them of their property and rights. Tens of thousands were sent to Siberia. The state imposed impossible grain requisition quotas, leaving the peasant farmers with nothing; brigades were sent house to house seizing all grain and often all foodstuffs. This assault occurred in the context of a campaign against Ukrainian intellectuals, writers, artists, religious leaders, and political cadres, who were seen as a threat to Soviet ideological and state-building aspirations. Farms, villages, and whole towns in Ukraine were placed on blacklists for not fulfilling impossible grain quotas, which meant that they were cut off from receiving even basic products such as soap and fuel.

Millions of Ukrainians perished from starvation.

Recognition is a crucial step in preventing such atrocities in the future. Ukraine has been known for centuries as the “breadbasket of Europe,” and the world still depends on Ukrainian grain. Russia's current war on Ukraine is threatening global food security, a stark reminder of the dark history of the Holodomor.

Article 2 of the United Nation’s Genocide Convention defines genocide as being the:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction
in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
The Soviet regime committed all these actions against Ukraine and Ukrainians in 1932-1933. In fact, "the father of the Convention on Genocide," Raphael Lemkin, who coined this term, said in 1953 that the "annihilation of the Ukrainian nation" is a "classic example of genocide."

In 2006, Ukraine's parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, officially recognized the Holodomor of 1932-33 as genocide of the Ukrainian people. In 2010, the decision of the Appellate Court of the city of Kyiv proved the genocidal nature of the Holodomor.

The Holodomor has officially been recognized as genocide by many countries, and in the United States, both chambers of Congress have acknowledged the Holodomor as a genocide of the Ukrainian people.

We are also grateful to the 22 states of the United States of America that have signed proclamations at the state level.

Today, as Ukrainians again defend themselves against the Kremlin's genocidal aggression, it is more important than ever before that the United States acknowledge officially and publicly that the Holodomor was, indeed a genocide. History must not repeat itself. We entreat you to support this petition and recognize the Holodomor as a genocide.

Respectfully yours,

The Undersigned