Archival Bulletin: The Incinerated Lives of the Village of Brusy

On September 27, 1943, the village of Brusy in the Myadel District was reduced to ashes. Hundreds of civilians perished in the fires of the punitive operation. Today, a monument stands on this spot: a woman-mother, frozen in a silent scream. Her upturned face is an eternal denunciation of fascism, and her clenched fingers are an attempt to hold on to what can never be returned.

But this episode is more than just a chronicle of tragedy. It is a story about how women pass on memory through generations, like the baton of life. The project’s host, Vasilisa Dvoretskaya, stands at the memorial plaque and finds her great-great-grandfather’s name on it. This episode is permeated with women’s lives. What her great-grandmother once cherished is now preserved by her mother, an archivist, herself, and her sisters.

«Stone is a scream. A document is a witness», says the host.

Watch the new episode of «Archive Herald». History speaks here. Memory lives here.