About the museum

The Museum’s highest mission is to warn society about the crime of genocide by collecting and disseminating knowledge about the Holodomor.

The Holodomor Museum teaches people to resist hatred and human rights violations. It promotes the protection of human dignity and democratic values. It prevents genocide by fostering tolerance and a sense of moral responsibility among citizens in the face of challenges to all norms of law and freedom.

The museum plays an essential role in the civic education of the younger generation, shaping awareness of the need to preserve the Ukrainian state as one of the main ways to protect against genocide.

The Holodomor Museum’s essential role is to preserve Ukrainian identity, which the Soviets attempted to replace with a Soviet identity. The museum acts as a mediator in the process of passing on memories and information about the Holodomor, demonstrating the connection between generations of the Ukrainian nation and preserving the memory of the attempt to destroy it.

The knowledge about the history of the Holodomor provided by the museum raises ethical questions, including fostering respect for the memory of the victims, empathy, and reconsidering one’s views on life as the greatest value.

The basis of the Museum activity includes:

• organisation of the research of historical sources about events of that time to reveal documentary evidence about Holodomor, and creating conditions to introduce them in scientific circulation;
• composing the unified register of documentary evidence, creating databases and arranging the testimonies of the Holodomor witnesses;
• conducting scientific conferences, forums, workshops, podium discussions, seminars, round tables, etc., informing the public about the crime of genocide, committed by communist authorities against the Ukrainian people, through lectures, lessons, multimedia lectures, and film screenings related to the Holodomor;
• organisation of events to perpetuate the memory of the Holodomor victims;
• Development and organisation of other museum communication forms through expositions and exhibitions with the implementation of information technologies;
• Creation of permanent expositions and exhibitions.

Even after the ban on the truth about the Holodomor was lifted, there are still denials of the fact of genocide against Ukrainians. Strong denials come from the Russian Federation, which is the successor to the USSR, showing disrespect for the memory of millions of innocent victims, the feelings of Ukrainians who lost their loved ones, Ukrainians who survived the genocide, and democratic rights and freedoms. Such denial poses a threat of genocide being repeated. And the Russian Federation did just that on 24 February 2022, launching a large-scale invasion of Ukraine. The genocidal war continues to this day.

While spreading information about the Holodomor, the museum draws attention to the issue of ‘terror by starvation,’ which is still used in various countries around the world in the 21st century.

The National Museum of the Holodomor Genocide is a state-run scientific research, cultural, educational, and scientific-methodological institution. The museum is under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Culture and Strategic Communications of Ukraine.

Statute of the National Museum of the Holodomor Genocide