RE: An Act Requiring Instruction on the Ukrainian Genocide
House Bill Number 475 Senate Bill Number 267
Dear Representative / Senator:
We the undersigned would appreciate your affirmative vote to send the above Bills, filed by Honorable James E. Vallee and Karen E. Spilka in the House and Senate respectively, to the full House and Senate for consideration and enactment.
The Bills direct the Board of Education to formulate instruction of the Ukrainian Genocide / Holodomor within its curriculum material and guidelines and to add the subject to the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System.
In 1932 - 1933, the government of Moscow needed all the grain exports it could gather to enhance its balance of payments and to evolve from an agrarian to an industrial economy. This was combined with the program of Russification where the assimilated countries of Eastern Europe were forced to give up their own language and culture in order to be melded into a centralized political economy under Moscow.
The Ukrainian famine was the result of these brutal policies and millions of Ukrainians died of starvation. It is unfortunately among the genocides that history has neglected. However, it has been recognized by the national legislatures of 15 countries as a deliberate genocide; including the United States, which donated land across the Capitol for a Holodomor Memorial.
Your careful attention to the evidence and testimony presented and your support of the Bills would be sincerely appreciated.
Sincerely,
