Round table Tragedy of Belarusian Villages to mark 70th anniversary of the Victory in WWII
On 24 April 2015 the National Archives of the Republic of Belarus held a round table “…Tragedy of Belarusian Villages” to mark 70th anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War.
The event was opened by the director of the Belarus Department for Archives and Records Management of the Justice Ministry V. Adamushko.
The main report was delivered by the chief archivist at the National Archives of the Republic of Belarus V. Selemenev. He informed the audience about the creation of data base “Belarusian Villages Burned in the Great Patriotic War 1941-1944”. Currently the database contains data on 9,060 settlements.
Attendees at the discussions on the topic were academic secretary of the humanities and arts department at the Belarus National Academy of Sciences A. Kovalenya; director of the History Institute of the Belarus National Academy of Sciences V. Danilovich; Belarusian architect, the Republic of Belarus State Prize winner G. Levina, dean of the history faculty at the Belarusian State University S. Khodin, assistant professor at the history faculty of the Belarusian State University M. Shumeiko; member of the Central Archives of the State Security Committee of the Republic of Belarus Yu. Zverev and more.
The eyewitnesses of the events, Z. Levanets and E. Fedko, shared their reminiscences about the destruction of Skirmuntovo village in Dzerzhinsk district and Fedka village in Chashniki district.
The round table presented a new book of published documents “The Khatyn Trees of Life” illustrating the fate of Belarusian villages that were burned during the Great Patriotic War. The book was prepared by the National Archives of the Republic of Belarus in collaboration with the Central Archives of the State Security Committee of the Republic of Belarus, the State Archives of Brest Region and the State Archives of the Russian Federation.
The book narrates of 433 Belarusian villages that shared the tragedy of Khatyn and were rebuilt after the war. These are commemorated in the symbolic “Trees of Life” at the Memorial. These include 111 settlements in Vitebsk region, 96 Mogilev, 93 Brest, 60 Minsk, 54 Gomel and 19 Grodno. The largest number of villages were burned in the districts of Liozno (28), Verkhnedvinsk (26), Ivatsevichi (17), Kirovsk (15), Soligorsk (15) and Chausy (14).
The book includes 353 documents: reports, diaries of combat activities of partisan units, certificates, reports and transcripts of interrogation of survivors from burned villages, eyewitnesses and members of the punitive squads, etc.
The book illustrations include photos of the Khatyn State Memorial Complex, monuments erected at the sites of burned settlements, and other materials.
