On the presentation of the exhibition «Youth spent in slavery. Letters to the Motherland» by the institution «State Archives of the Gomel Region»

On January 30, 2025, in the institution «State Archives of the Gomel Region» within the framework of the project «Archives – to school» a presentation of the exhibition «Youth spent in slavery. Letters to the Motherland» was held for students of the State Educational Institution «Secondary School No.34 of Gomel».

Senior researcher Maya Valentinovna Vashchenko presented the children with documents from the regional archive on the mass abduction of young people to Nazi Germany from the territory of Belarus – lists of abducted schoolchildren, statements of witnesses about the mass abduction of teenagers, filtration files of young men and women and other historical documents. She told the students that during the Second World War, about 50 thousand children and teenagers were taken from the territory of Belarus to Germany, losing their childhood forever. Maya Valentinovna drew the students’ attention to archival documents about the hard labor of young people in military factories, mines, defense work, and agriculture in Nazi Germany. The exhibition features letters from young people taken away to their homeland from the collection of letters from the regional archive, in which they informed their families only that they were still alive. The German authorities strictly censored letters from Ostarbeiters to their homeland, and writing about hardships was prohibited. Many archival documents at the exhibition are presented in the form of photographs of young men and women sent to Germany.

The students looked at the archival documents with interest and asked questions.

 

1. Exhibition of documents «Youth spent in slavery. Letters to the homeland»
2. Letters presented at the exhibition
3. Senior researcher M.V.Vashchenko talks about archival documents
4. Participants of the presentation