Ukraine famine heroic writer to be celebrated
WELSH journalist Gareth Jones, who made his reputation exposing the Holodomor – Great Famine – in Ukraine is to be remembered at a special event at the Senedd.
Gareth Vaughan Jones (1905–35) was also a famous researcher and author who also reported on the tensions in Europe in the mid-1930s and the rise of the Nazi Party in Germany.
The former Western Mail journalist met his death at the hands of supposed Chinese ‘bandits’ in Inner Mongolia.
On Thursday The National Library of Wales will hold a special event in the Senedd to mark Mr Jones’ dramatic life.
Sponsored by Mick Antoniw MS, the event will include presentations by Lubomyr Luciuk and the Western Mail’s political editor-at-large, Martin Shipton, together with readings of extracts from Mr Jones’ diaries and letters by actor Julian Lewis Jones.
The Gareth Jones exposé on the famine in Ukraine (which was made deadlier by a series of political decrees and decisions) was based on his own witness testimony after travelling in the region and revealed the scale and horror of the Holodomor to an international audience.
The Senedd event will honour the contribution made by Mr Jones to journalism and international affairs, and celebrate the conclusion of the digitisation of much of his archive, held at the National Library of Wales.
Key to completing this digitisation project has been the generous financial support provided by the Ukrainian National Women’s League of America, Temerty Foundation, the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Foundation, the Holodomor Research and Education Consortium (HREC) and Russ and Karen Chelak.
Pedr ap Llwyd, chief executive and librarian of The National Library of Wales, said: “I am very grateful for the financial support we received to digitise Gareth’s archive as part of the library’s digitisation strategy. It is an extremely important archive and can now be shared with historians and researchers across the world. We also owe a great debt to Gareth’s family for depositing the papers with us in the library.”
Lubomyr Luciuk, professor of political geography at the Royal Military College of Canada, added: “Gareth Jones paid with his life for being a truth-teller, one of the first journalists to break the story about the genocidal Great Famine of 19321933 in Soviet Ukraine, the Holodomor.
“This brave Welshman’s commitment to reporting on the horrors of what was happening, even as the Soviets, their fellow travellers, and even Western governments covered up the truth, needs to be remembered and hallowed, particularly at a time when Ukraine is again a victim of war, invasion and the genocidal agenda of Vladimir Putin and his KGB confederates.”
Oksana Lodziuk Krywulych, officer-at-large of the Ukrainian National Women’s League of America (UNWLA), said: “The UNWLA is honored to be a sponsor of the digitisation of Gareth Jones diaries. The UNWLA remains steadfast in its commitment to be a vehicle of awareness and education about the Ukrainian genocide, known as the Holodomor.
“The Ukrainian nation owes a debt of gratitude to Gareth Jones, a great man, who was not afraid to accurately report on the horrors of the Holodomor. He deserves to be honored and remembered for documenting the truth when it was denied by many in the West. His reporting is especially telling today as Ukraine is once again suffering a genocide at the hands of the same perpetrator, while the world watches in real time.”
The archives include the famous “Hitler diary” kept by Mr Jones during his visit to Germany in the spring of 1933.
The digitised collection can be viewed at https://www.library. wales/garethvaughanjones
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