"Dear friends of Ukraine,

Norway shares the deep and enduring sentiments of grief experienced by the Ukrainian people over the loss of millions of lives during Holodomor.

The bonds between our peoples go deep. The abhorrent brutality of Holodomor stirred up a lasting sense of solidarity between our peoples, exemplified in the relief efforts of Fridtjof Nansen.

Remembering the past is key to ensuring that history does not repeat itself.

We welcome any initiatives that may contribute to raising knowledge and awareness about Holodomor among present and future generations.

Dear everyone.

In Norway, we share the grief with all Ukrainians who today and the rest of the year commemorate the loss of millions of people under Holodomor. Many millions of people perished during the famine in Ukraine in 1932-1933. The story must be told and made known, so that the story does not repeat itself.

Recent research, made possible by the fact that Ukraine has opened its archives to researchers, has helped to document the enormous losses and suffering caused by this man-made disaster. Anne Appelbaums claims in her book "Red Famine" that it can be proven that Holodomor was the result of a conscious desire to crack the Ukrainians' national identity.

We live in a close-knit, multicultural world. Where each unique identity, with its unique background, helps to create the diversity we value. People have a right to take care of their cultural heritage, to the memories of what our ancestors have been through, both good and evil. It is important to gather in this way, so as not to lose the knowledge of what those who came before us went through.

We can never change the past, but we can preserve history and ensure that it is never forgotten. We can learn from the past to ensure that such terrible events never happen again. But this does not happen by itself, history can quickly be forgotten if we do not take care of it. There are also those who not only let the story go into oblivion, but who actively want to forget it, and when it does not allow itself to be forgotten, prefer to cover it up, distort it or deny it. But the past is not changed by writing about history books or destroying archives. What has happened has happened, and we all have a duty to seek the truth in history and to learn from it. We must do this, even though it may be difficult to take care of the painful parts of our history.

Remembering can be painful, but forgetting is dangerous. "

Dear Ambassador, Dear Assembly,

"Unlimited power in the hands of limited people always leads to evil," wrote Alexander Solzhenitsyn, one of the strongest critics of the Soviet Union and communism.

The Holocaust under the Nazi regime has become the prime example of evil put in place by people with unlimited power. But the communist regimes also have millions of human lives on their conscience. For us in Norway, Hitler's atrocities are well known. But we are less aware of the atrocities of Joseph Stalin, the dictator of the Soviet Union for 30 years. Historians believe that the number of Stalin's victims is 20 million. Incredibly high.

Now we are gathered to remember all the millions who lost their lives during the great famine in Ukraine, called Holodomor. In one year, researchers have found that between 7 and 10 million Ukrainians were killed by the Soviet regime. The weapon was food. The crime scene was Europe's granary. It was a man-made famine. This is pure evil.

This is a reminder that we must stand up to regimes such as cynical users as a medium to achieve their goals, or as targets and exterminated people. We must maintain that all human beings are independent individuals with independent value.

Dear Ambassador!

Dear Norwegian friends!

Dear Ukrainian association!

November is a special month for Ukrainians around the world, a time to remember the victims of Holodomor. A memory that is very painful and traumatic for us. But we have no right to forget what happened.

Last year we started an important activity here in Norway. We seek to convey the historical truth to the Norwegian people and to raise a question about it to the Norwegian Storting. It is a question of gaining recognition that Holodomor in 1932-33 was a genocide against the Ukrainian people committed by the Stalinist regime. We admit that this is not an easy process. We are aware of this.

Facts and arguments are needed. Today, I would just like to emphasize some of the most important arguments we have.

First and foremost, it concerns the concept of "genocide", which was introduced by the well-known researcher in international international law, Raphael Lemkin. In 1953, he called Holodomor in Ukraine a genocide organized by the Stalinist regime against Ukrainians.

The second argument is statistics. It is not easy to estimate the exact number of Holodomor victims. Those who organized a system of extermination of Ukrainians also created a mechanism to hide the consequences of the crime from the public and the international community.

In recent years, many researchers and experts have worked on this topic. It is estimated that in 1932-1933, more than 7 million Ukrainians were killed by the Soviet totalitarian regime. But the extensive investigations continue.

In the history of different countries, they have their own examples of mass extermination of innocent people. Violent death can be of different types. For example, people have been tortured, shot, burned in gas chambers and so on. And it's awful. However, Ukrainian history has one of the most horrific examples of violent death. Ukrainian people were sentenced to death a slow death from starvation in their home country. In a country that was "Europe's granary" and was hit by a man-made famine. Can you imagine anything more awful?

Can you imagine parents who had to watch their children die slowly from starvation? Can you imagine people who were put in such horrible inhuman conditions that they resorted to cannibalism? It is impossible for us today to imagine such a thing. But this is a fact. This is a truth that we have no right to remain silent about or forget.

Ukraine is currently continuing its struggle for independence. A struggle that has lasted for hundreds of years. Ukraine has been at war again for the past eight years. However, this is not just a war for Ukrainian independence. This is a war between two worlds - one world with respect for fundamental human rights and another world ruled by a dictatorship without respect for human rights. Just remember that the struggle for European values ​​is going on in Ukraine now. Protecting these values ​​is impossible without restoring the historical truth that Holodomor in 1932-33 was a special genocide to destroy the Ukrainian liberation movement. This is a fact.

That is why we are now raising this question here before the Storting.

Therefore, we ask the Norwegian Parliament to recognize Holodomor in 1932-33 as a genocide of the Ukrainian people.