The State Archives of Gomel Region took part in the dialogue platform “The Genocide of the Belarusian People during the Great Patriotic War”

On 6 April 2022, the Irininsky Gymnasium in Gomel hosted a dialogue platform “The Genocide of the Belarusian People during the Great Patriotic War”.

The experts were:

Yury Bulynko, Prosecutor of Gomel; Andrey Sushchevich, Director of the State Archives of Gomel Region; Svetlana Chikunova, Deputy Director on Educational-Methodical Work of the Center for Children and Youth Creativity of Novobelitsky District of Gomel; Evgeny Kostyushko, teacher of history and social science of the Gomel Irininsky Gymnasium.

The experts shared the materials about the most tragic events related to the genocide during the Great Patriotic War.

Yury Bulynko noted that in the course of the criminal case on the genocide of the Belarusian people during the Great Patriotic War dozens of previously unknown burial sites were revealed, numerous testimonies were obtained that significantly complemented the picture of the crimes, places of mass extermination of the population were established. The work continues.

Andrei Sushchevich spoke about the horrors of the war in the Gomel region. According to archival documents, during the occupation in the Gomel region, the Nazi invaders shot, hanged and burned 53,630 civilians, including more than 3,000 children, 114,476 prisoners of war. 18,745 civilians were taken into German slavery.

The participants of the dialogue platform not only shared the materials connected with the genocide of the Belarusian people during the Great Patriotic War, but also raised the question of the necessity of keeping the memory of the heroic past of the Belarusian people, the importance of preventing the distortion of history, delivering and passing the truth to the next generations.