On the lesson «Echo of Flame: Burnt Belarusian Villages» held by the State Archives of the Gomel Region as part of the national «Archives for School» campaign

On March 26, 2026, the lesson «Echo of Flame: Burnt Belarusian Villages» was held in the reading room of the State Archives of the Gomel Region for sixth-grade students of the Gomel Irininskaya Gymnasium.

Senior researcher Maya Valentinovna Vaschenko spoke to the students about the genocide of the Belarusian people, using the example of the Belarusian village of Khatyn, burned by Nazi occupiers and symbolizing more than nine thousand burned villages.

Maya Valentinovna also told the students that the Khatyn memorial complex was ceremoniously opened in 1969 in memory of the burned villages.

«At the center of the memorial is a six-meter bronze sculpture, ‘Unconquered Man,’ holding a dead child. The bronze sculpture is a prototype of the surviving 56-year-old village blacksmith, Iosif Kaminsky. Wounded, he regained consciousness only late that night, after the punitive detachments had left the village. Among the corpses of his fellow villagers, he found his son, Adam. The boy had been fatally wounded in the stomach and suffered severe burns. He died in his father’s arms. Thanks to the few survivors, the world learned of the tragedy. More than forty million people from one hundred countries visited the memorial complex», said Maya Valentinovna.

In class, students also discussed the importance of studying the history of their native land and preserving its memory to prevent recurrences. At the end of the lesson, students watched the video, «Burnt Villages – Sisters of Khatyn».

A tour of the archive was organized for the students.

1-2. High school students in the archive’s reading room.

3. Lead archivist M.V. Bortnovskaya with high school students during a tour of the archive’s storage facility.