Vatican City, Dec 3, 2003 / 22:00 pm
Pope John Paul II has sent a message to Ukrainian Cardinal Lubomyr Husar, Archbishop of Lviv of the Ukrainians, and Cardinal Marian Jaworsky, Archbishop of Lviv of the Latins, to mark the 70th anniversary of the Great Famine of 1932-33, instigated by Joseph Stalin in the Ukraine aimed at killing Catholics.
The Soviet regime took control of all agricultural production and foodstuffs in order to impose forced collectivization in the country. This method provoked the genocide of entire populations.
Although the regime hid the information, it is now known that millions of people, mostly Ukranian Catholics, died during the famine.
With his message, written in Ukrainian, the Pope wanted “to spiritually join everyone in the Ukraine in recalling the victims of this tragedy and inviting young people to remember past events so that similar suffering is never repeated again.”