In response to what seems to be a gap between admitting the legitimacy of the Jewish Holocaust and the reality of the extermination of millions of Christians, the Christian CEO of a growing company said that such persecution against a Christian majority group should not be quickly forgotten.
Andrew Torba, the CEO of Gab and a Christian entrepreneur, published a post titled "Never Forget: Holodomor Memorial Day" on Saturday. According to his research, this happened between 1923 and 1933, when the Bolshevik government organized a genocidal famine that killed an estimated 7 million Ukrainians, many of whom were Christians.
He decried the fact that students are not taught about the Holodomor in school, that there aren't hundreds of big Hollywood films describing the terrible events that occurred, and that politicians would not even mention the Holodomor, much alone visit Holodomor Museums. It's no surprise then that most Americans have no clue what the Holodomor is.
"American students grow up inundated with Holocaust movies, books, and education from grade school on up. American states like Florida even pass laws mandating Holocaust education for our children. So why are we not learning about the Holodomor?" he asked.
"Perhaps even worse: why is Holodomor Denial allowed while if you question any part of the Holocaust narrative you could land in jail across many European countries. In particular why are prominent members of the Jewish community, who know the realities of genocide in the 20th century, among some of the most prominent Holodomor denialists?" he posits.
But arguably the most pressing issue is why does Israel not acknowledge the Holodomor as a genocide?
According to a Jerusalem Post article published in January 2019, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko pushed Israel to recognize the Holodomor, the reportedly man-made famine in Soviet Ukraine in 1932-1933, which killed millions of Ukrainians.
"Ukraine, as a state that suffered from the Holodomor of 1932-1933, when millions of Ukrainians were tortured by the communist Stalinist regime that committed genocide against the Ukrainian people, reverently keeps the memory of the Holocaust victims [alive] as well," Poroshenko said at the time.
In spite of this, Efraim Zuroff, the director of the Jerusalem office of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, replied by declaring that the Holodomor, while similarly perpetrated by the Nazis, was "definitely not a genocide" because it was not "ethnically" motivated. Because of this, he urged Israel to deny that the Holodomor constituted genocide.
Torba also called attention to the fact that Abe Foxman, the former leader of the Jewish Anti-Defamation League, met with Ukraine's President around a decade ago to urge the administration to deny reports of mass starvation during the Holodomor.
He cited Russian President Vladimir Putin as saying on June 13 during a visit to Moscow's Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center, "I thought about something just now: The decision to nationalize this library was made by the first Soviet government, whose composition was 80-85 percent Jewish."
A strong advocate of historical learning, Torba hopes that Americans be knowledgeable about significant events in history in order to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past.
"Christians must never forget the genocide of millions of our Christian brothers and sisters," he solemnly said. "We must hold to account those who seek to deny, hide, or downplay this atrocity. We must educate our children about the horrors of what happened and we must not be afraid to "offend" people in the process of discussing the truth about these important matters. Objective truth is only offensive to those who hate and wish to hide objective truth."
