Joint project of BGAMLI and the publishing house «Aufbau Verlag» Germany

To mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, the Berlin publishing house «Aufbau Verlag» together with the Belarusian State Archive-Museum of Literature and Art (hereinafter referred to as BGAMLI) at the end of 2024 published a collection of documents «Ales Adamowitsch, Janka Bryl, Uladsimir Kalesnik «Feuer Dörfer. Wehrmachtsverbrechen in Belarus – zeitzeugen berichten» («Ales Adamovich, Yanka Bryl, Uladsimir Kolesnik «Burning villages. Crimes of the Wehrmacht in Belarus – testimonies of contemporaries)».

This is the first German-language translation of the book by Ales Adamovich, Yanka Bryl, Uladsimir Kolesnik «I am from a fiery village», containing photo documents from the collection of Uladsimir Kolesnik, stored in BGAMLI. «I am from a burning village» is a documentary collection of memoirs about the destruction of Belarusian villages by Nazi invaders and about partisans during the Great Patriotic War, collected and compiled by Belarusian writers Ales Adamovich, Vladimir Kolesnik and Yanka Bryl.

The book includes testimonies only from those people who personally experienced the tragedy of burned villages, the murder of relatives and fellow villagers. To interview eyewitnesses, the writers traveled with a tape recorder to 147 villages in 35 districts of the BSSR during 1970-1973 and recorded the memories of more than 300 direct participants in the events.

BGAMLI identified and provided digital copies of more than 80 documents for publication.