Holodomor Remembrance Day, 25 November 2006
A remembrance message, and a note on the difference between a monument and an evening.
Today Ukraine remembers those who died in the famine of 1932 and 1933.
Commemoration usually takes one of two forms. There is the monument, which is permanent, public and visited occasionally. And there is the recurring evening, which exists only on one date and only if people do it.
A monument can be built by a decision. An evening cannot. It requires several million separate small acts on the same night, repeated annually, with nobody checking.
Ukraine has both, and the evening is the one that tells you the memory is actually held rather than merely marked.
My respect to everyone lighting a candle tonight.
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