German MPs equate Holodomor with Holocaust in resolution to be voted on by Bundestag
Next Wednesday, the German Bundestag will vote to recognize the Holodomor as genocide of the Ukrainian people.
Spiegel reports, referring to the draft resolution.
Parliamentarians from the Social Democratic Party, the Greens, the Free Democratic Party, and the Christian Democratic Union have prepared a non-partisan resolution that supports the recognition of the Holodomor as genocide.
The application must be discussed and approved in the Bundestag on Wednesday, November 30.
"Famine and repression affected the whole of Ukraine, not only its grain-producing regions. From today's point of view, the historical and political classification as genocide is obvious. The German Bundestag shares this classification," the draft document says.
Through violent collectivization, the Soviet leadership wanted to suppress the peasants and the Ukrainian way of life, language, and culture. As noted in the inter-party document, forced starvation was also aimed at "political suppression of Ukrainian national consciousness." Mass deaths from starvation were not the result of crop failure but were the responsibility of the political leadership of the Soviet Union led by Joseph Stalin.
"Thus, the Holodomor is a crime against humanity," the parliamentarians declare.
"The Holodomor coincided with the most massive crimes against humanity on the European continent, the brutality of which was unimaginable at that time. These include the Holocaust of European Jews in its historical uniqueness, the war crimes of the Wehrmacht, and the planned killing of millions of innocent civilians as part of the racist German war of extermination in the East, for which Germany bears historical responsibility," the draft resolution reads.
MPs called on the federal government to remember the victims of the Holodomor and promote its international publicity, for example, through educational offers. The government should also oppose "any attempts to launch one-sided russian historical narratives." In addition, parliamentarians draw a line from the past to the present of war-torn Ukraine and call for "political, financial, humanitarian and military" support.
Earlier, Ukraine's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dmytro Kuleba, announced the intention of the Bundestag to vote for recognition of the Holodomor as genocide.
Reference
In past years, the German Foreign Ministry opposed the recognition of the Holodomor as genocide.
