The 150th anniversary of Cardinal Theodor Innitzer’s birth
On 25 December 1875, Cardinal Theodor Innitzer (1875–1955), Archbishop of Vienna from 1932 to 1955, was born. He was one of the few representatives of the Western clergy who stood on the side of truth during the Holodomor and were not afraid to oppose Stalin’s criminal policies openly.
On 20 August 1933, the cardinal openly appealed to the international community to organise aid for people starving in Ukraine. His appeal, entitled ‘Cardinal Inzitzer calls on the world to fight famine in Russia’ (at that time, Russia meant the entire USSR), was published in the press and spread throughout the world.
“No objections can refute the fact that hundreds of thousands, even millions of people in Soviet Russia have died of starvation in recent months. Hundreds of disturbing letters from famine-stricken areas of the Soviet Union, primarily from Ukraine and the North Caucasus, report this, and eyewitnesses testify to the same thing,” the cardinal’s appeal stated.
On his initiative, the Interfaith and International Committee for Aid to the Famine-Stricken Territories of the Soviet Union was established. Donations came in from all over the world.
He also organised several international events aimed at drawing attention to the tragedy in Ukraine and aiding its victims. Notably, it was Cardinal Innitzer who was approached by engineer Alexander Wienerberger, who, in the autumn of 1933, had returned from Ukraine, which was dying from starvation. He managed to secretly bring significant evidence: photographs of the Holodomor, which are still among the few photographic documents of that time. It is likely that, with the cardinal’s assistance, these photos appeared in Ewald Ammende’s book Should Russia Starve? (1935).
In 2019, a memorial plaque in honour of the cardinal was unveiled in the Archbishop’s Palace in Vienna. It is designed in the shape of a millstone and commemorates Theodor Innitzer’s role in trying to convey the truth about the Holodomor to the world and help the Ukrainian victims.