TORONTO – In recent days, the TCDSB noted a sad page in history. “Holodomor is a Ukrainian word that means ‘death by starvation’ – says the trustee Teresa Lubinski: between 1932 and 1933, the government of the Soviet Union deliberately deported and starved millions of Ukrainians, 31% of which were children”.
The term derives from the Ukrainian expression moryty holodom combining the Ukrainian words holod (hunger, famine) and moryty, (to kill, to starve): the combination of the two words means the intention to bring about death by hunger.
“We encourage staff and students to remember that the millions of dead have been victims of an ideology that has deliberately excluded God from public life, adds Teresa Lubinski. Gilbert Keith Chesterton asserted that, ‘When we deny God, it is only a matter of time before that the State becomes God”.
In these days, religious issues are being discussed at the Toronto Catholic District School Board (TCDSB). Trustee Lubinski took the opportunity to remember what happens when we fail to heed God’s teachings in our lives.
In Ukraine, the Holodomor is officially commemorated every year on the fourth Saturday of November. Remembering these dead, according to Lubinski, is a must.
“It is a reminder of the importance of the fundamental value of our Catholic school system, which teaches that our dignity as human beings, and indeed all true human rights in the end, come from a single conviction. In the words of our cardinal, Archbishop Collins, the conviction that “We are all children of God”.
Teresa Lubinski: "Remember millions of starving Ukrainians"
