[vc_row][vc_column][vc_video link=”https://youtu.be/cZZHGLA-nGo”][vc_column_text]The historical memory of the state of this place has been for decades symbolized by the city dump.
On the 75th anniversary of the mass execution of political prisoners by the Soviet NKVD near Minsk social activists visited the scene of the crime – Trastsyanets near Bragau. It was here that on the night of June 24-25, 1941 some of more than three thousand victims of Stalinism were killed here, and the rest were killed in the nearby Cherven which was then called Ihumen.
“When we talk about the shootings before the war – yes, it’s sad. But if we are talking about executions after when the war started, when it was not the Nazis who shot and killed but Soviets killed their own people – that is simply inexplicable! And so it is a sacred place for the Belarusian people,” said Ihar Kuznetsou, a historian at the “Memorial” International Society.
Traststyanets is much better known as a Nazi death camp which appeared here in autumn 1941. Meanwhile, the Soviet citizens who were shot here by thousands by Soviet NKVD have not been mentioned wither during the Soviet era or by the government today. For many decades around here the historical memory of Trastsyanets in the official sense has been symbolized by the city dump, where garbage is dumped today.
“Every time we celebrated here the memory or set the crosses, the KGB workers or police officers monitored the event. This time everything happened peacefully. Let’s hope that the cross will also stand,” said Anna Shaputska of the “Return of Memory” society organizing committee.
According to Kuznyatsou, there are 18 settlements in Belarus in the vicinity of which the NKVD committed the killings.
But whether the memory of Stalin’s victims is remembered will probably also depend on the death of the Soviet empire ghost which is still haunting Belarus.
Valer Ruselik
