On the holding of lessons for students of comprehensive secondary schools of Gomel in the framework of the republican campaign «Archives – to school» in the institution «State Archives of the Gomel Region»

On January 16, 2025, in the State Archives of the Gomel Region, senior researcher Maya Vaschenko held a series of lessons «Youth spent in slavery» for students of the State Educational Institution «Secondary School No.75 of Gomel» and the State Educational Institution «Secondary School No.34 of Gomel». She told the students about the plans of Nazi Germany to Germanize the youth of Belarus and the mass forced deportation to slave labor in Germany. Maya Vaschenko showed the students the filtration files of young people who were deported to Germany in their youth, slave labor and difficult living conditions. Young people worked in mines, dug defensive trenches and structures, and did backbreaking labor cultivating the land. Slave labor was paid insignificantly and many were forced to live with farm animals and eat waste. Letters from young people driven into German slavery were shown. The letters were in the form of postcards and the content of the letters was subject to strict censorship. It was only allowed to write about how well Belarusians lived on German soil. The students examined the letters and documents with interest as indisputable evidence of the monstrous historical events taking place on Belarusian soil during the Great Patriotic War.

1. Senior researcher M. Vashchenko shows students letters from people driven to Germany

2. Students examine filtration cases