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Bus tour teaches P.A. students about Ukrainian genocide

Oct 7, 2016 | 6:00 AM

The Holodomor Ukrainian Genocide bus tour visited the St. Mary High School in Prince Albert on Thursday.

The bus tour, sponsored by four Ukrainian Canadian organizations, takes place all across Canada to educate people about Holodomor, the once covered-up Ukrainian genocide which happened from 1932 to 1933 under Joseph Stalin’s reign and caused millions of deaths.

Students of St. Mary were taken into the bus during their class time. In the bus, they watched a documentary about the great famine purposely caused by Soviet Union government and were shown historical documents and photos. They were then assigned into groups to discuss and present in front of the class.

History teacher Dennis Ogrodnick said it’s important for people today to realize how horrible leaders in the 20th century exercised their power.

“It’s a genocide that has been inflicted upon huge groups of Canadian citizens’ ancestors. Saskatchewan has a huge Ukrainian population.” he said. “So (learning of it) has a lasting impact I think.”

Coming from a Polish-Ukrainian background, Ogrodnick said he felt proud to pass knowledge of the genocide to his students.

The primary sources shown in the bus, Ogrodnick said, was the key to make students feel related to events happened before their time.

“By engaging in primary sources, whether it be photographs, writings, reflections from people that experienced those periods of history, that’s how you engage students,” he said. “Our students were then able to look at those sources, and draw their own conclusions from reading those sources…that’s really really good when students were able to do that.”

Rebeca Durand, a Grade 11 student, said reading copies of the historical documents helped her understand the whole process and made her more aware of how people can avoid things like Holodomor to happen in the future.

Another student Tristan Anderson-Woodsworth, said he likes how the history was presented to them.

“I thought it’s gonna be lots of, almost like a display case of relics, but more or less it was interactive,” he said.

During the group work, students were all assigned tablets where they can both read primary sources and write down their own understanding of Holodomor. Their notes would then be shared and shown on the screen together with their assigned primary source for all students to read.

The bus tour will come back to Prince Albert next spring.

 

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