The Red Deer Advocate picked up a story on the Holodomor Remembrance Flame in Red Deer, Alberta yesterday:

“He (Stalin) didn’t want them to fight for independence,” Horlatsch said. Among the millions killed were Horlatsch’s cousins. The family of 11 all starved to death.

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The Toronto man told students how officials would prevent people from getting food. “They would tear down the walls of your house or dig up your gardens looking for hidden food,” he said.

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“We would get two spoonfuls of bread crumbs with water and it kept us alive,” he said. By January 1933, Horlatsch was too weak from hunger to go to school. When he returned the next year, a third of his class had died. Grade 12 student Robyn Holitski said she was not aware of the famine before Friday’s presentation. “I’m surprised more people don’t know, it sounds like something that should be part of our textbooks somewhere.”

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“So many people died, we want people to know about it and recognize it,” Horlatsch said.

The tour returned to Edmonton this morning and will be in Vancouver this evening before heading to the US.