On the holding by employees of the institution «Zonal State Archive in Orsha» within the framework of the action «Archives for School» lectures on the topic «Khatyn. Tragedy and Memory», dedicated to the 80th anniversary of the Khatyn tragedy

Within the framework of the «Archives to School» campaign and events dedicated to the Year of Peace and Creation, the archive employees held an information hour on the topic «Khatyn. Tragedy and Memory», dedicated to the 80th anniversary of the Khatyn tragedy.

Khatyn has become a symbol of eternal memory and sorrow, the tragedy of the Belarusian people during the Great Patriotic War. Murders of people took place throughout the republic – from executions to the complete destruction of settlements. The Nazi invaders believed that mass executions, the destruction of cities and villages, along with people, should have sowed fear among the population of the occupied territories. During this event, the children got acquainted with archival documents and photographs reflecting the policy of the Nazi invaders towards the civilian population, learned about the events that took place in the village of Khatyn and the fate of its inhabitants, as well as about the memorial complex created on the site of the tragedy.

In addition, the students were shown a film about the village of Ola, in which at dawn on January 14, 1944, 1,758 people were killed, including 950 children. There were 12 times more victims than in the well-known Khatyn. Almost nothing was written about this settlement in books, documentaries were not made about it, and the eyewitnesses of these distant events are no longer alive…

It is important to remember that it depends on us, living now, what the idea of war will be in the future – how much life and truth will be in it. We have no right to betray, forget, allow to distort or belittle the sacrificial feat of the people who gave the world the Great Victory, the sacrificial feat accomplished by them in the name of the future, in the name of us!