About the joint project of the Belarusian State Archive of Scientific and Technical Documentation and the «Museum of the Castle Complex «Mir»

From June 22 to July 20, 2024, an exhibition of photographs dedicated to the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Belarus from the Nazi invaders will be held in the information and cash room of the «Mir Castle Complex» museum. This is a joint exhibition project of the Federal State Budgetary Institution of Culture «State Scientific Research Museum of Architecture named after A.V. Shchusev», the institution «Belarusian State Archive of Scientific and Technical Documentation», private archives and the Institution «Museum «Castle Complex «Mir».

The start date of the exhibition was not chosen by chance: June 22, 1941 is one of the saddest dates in our history, the beginning of the Great Patriotic War. This day reminds us of all those who died, were tortured in fascist captivity, and died in the rear from hunger and deprivation. On the sixth day of the war, June 27, 1941, the village of Mir was occupied. Three years of occupation, genocide and heavy fighting left no trace of the once prosperous town. At the time of the liberation of Mir, only 20% of the buildings from the pre-war period had survived, and the population of the village had decreased by 70%, leaving a deep mark in the memory of the survivors.

The exhibition «There Was War Here…» will present for the first time unique photographs of the village of Mir and the Mir Castle from the Great Patriotic War, and the central place in the exhibition will be taken by recently acquired photographs showing the first days of the war in the village of Mir. They will provide an opportunity to assess the condition of the village and the atrocities of the Nazi invaders, as well as see the reality of the war through the eyes of eyewitnesses.

Free admission.