Victory over the enemy in World War II was achieved at the cost of great sacrifice and\r\nhuge loss of life amongst the Belarusian people. The Nazi German invaders left behind them\r\nbloody trails of murder, unprecedented destruction and suffering. They planned both the\r\ndeliberate extermination of the people, the plundering of the national wealth and the\r\nliquidation of Belarusian political system. The Nazis totally ignored international law in\r\nthe occupied territories. Their crimes have no parallels in the modern history of Belarus.\r\nNo crimes equal their cruelty and universality. In the estimation of many historians &\r\nscholars, Belarus suffered more in this war than any other European country. <\/p>\r\n\r\n
The Extraordinary State Commission was specially created to investigate the crimes of\r\nthe Occupation and to calculate the extent of the war damage. The commission drew its\r\nconclusions from documentary sources. In Belarus this work was conducted from the\r\nbeginning of 1944. Research, cultural and educational institutions were deliberately destroyed or\r\nbarbarically plundered.<\/strong> The statistics indicate that, if before the war 9.2 million people lived within\r\nBelarus’s modern boundaries, by the end of 1944 – only 6.3 million remained. According to\r\nthe Extraordinary State Commission data, 2,219,316 civilians and prisoners of war were\r\nkilled in Belarus. Later, however, it was discovered that fatalities in a number of\r\ndistricts were underestimated and the data on some POW camps were incorrect. This figure\r\ndoes not include the people who were deported to Germany and died there, those lost\r\nwithout trace, or those Belarusian Red Army soldiers who were taken prisoners and died in\r\ncaptivity. At the present time, many researchers believe that between two and a\r\nhalf to three million people<\/strong> – every third resident of Belarus – perished\r\nduring the Great Patriotic War. <\/strong><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Victory over the enemy in World War II was achieved at the cost of great sacrifice and huge loss of life amongst the Belarusian people. The Nazi German invaders left…","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":104476,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-509213","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archives.gov.by\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/509213"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archives.gov.by\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archives.gov.by\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archives.gov.by\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archives.gov.by\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=509213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archives.gov.by\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/509213\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archives.gov.by\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/104476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archives.gov.by\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=509213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\r\nFinancial damage attributable to the Occupation is estimated at 75 billion rubles\r\n(as of 1941 prices), a sum which is 35 times greater than the entire Belarusian budget in\r\n1940. <\/strong>
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\r\nThe German invaders burned down, destroyed and plundered 209<\/strong> out of 270 towns\r\nand district centers<\/strong> (Minsk, Gomel and Vitebsk were 80-90% destroyed) and 9,200\r\nvillages<\/strong> in the territory of Belarus.
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\r\nThe total losses in industry<\/strong> amounted to 6,225 million rubles (as of 1941\r\nprices). The country’s national economy in terms of industrial power was thrown back to\r\nthe levels of 1913. The occupying forces burned down and destroyed 100,465 industrial\r\nmanufacturing buildings. 10,338 industrial enterprises were destroyed or brought to\r\nGermany, including all big power stations (85% of their prewar number).
\r\nThe Extraordinary State Commission for Investigation of the Nazi German Crimes ascertained\r\nthat property damage to agriculture <\/strong>amounted to 22,471,900 million\r\nrubles. 10,000 collective farms, 92 state farms, 316 machine and tractor stations, and\r\n1,200 rural buildings including 421,000 dwelling houses of farmers, were destroyed.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
\r\nAccording to the data presented by the Extraordinary State Commission, 10 museums were\r\ndestroyed in the period from 1941 to 1944, the damage totaling 163.4 million rubles. Eight\r\nBelarusian museums were plundered. Many works of Belarusian, Russian and Western European\r\nart, which had been preserved at the State Picture Gallery of BSSR, were stolen from\r\nBelarus and removed to other Central and Western European countries. They included about\r\n1,700 paintings and icons, more than 50 sculptures, numerous sketches, engravings, musical\r\ninstruments and items of furniture. Among them were the works of the famous artists: I.\r\nAivazovsky, K. Bryullov, V. Byalynitsky-Birulya, M. Vrubel, I. Levitan, I. Repin, V.\r\nSurikov, and also Michelangelo, K. Rastrelli, and more. Only a small part of this was\r\nreturned to Belarus.
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\r\nThe disappearance of the Cross of Euphrosyne of Polotsk, a national symbol of unique value\r\ncreated in 1161, is considered the most significant loss for the Belarusian people. The\r\nfamous collection of Slutsk sashes which vividly depicted the originality and skilful\r\nartistry of the Belarusian people was also lost during the war.
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\r\nThe country’s system of libraries was almost completely destroyed. The library stock of 10\r\nmillion copies was plundered. The State Library of Belarus named after V. I. Lenin, which\r\nnumbered 2 million volumes in 1941, lost more than 1.5 million volumes during the war,\r\nincluding some unique antique manuscripts. Today about 1 million volumes are still\r\nmissing.
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\r\nFive thousand theaters and club-houses were destroyed.
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\r\nThe Belarusian Academy of Sciences and 24 research institutions were entirely obliterated\r\nby the occupying forces.
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\r\nDuring the war, 8,825 out of 12,294 schools were destroyed and burned down. Economic\r\nlosses suffered by the educational establishments of the country totaled 4.6 billion\r\nrubles.
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\r\nAlthough damage to property was very extensive, the most painful and bitter loss was the\r\nloss of life<\/strong>.
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\r\nDuring the Occupation, the Nazis carried out more than 140 punitive expeditions, when they\r\ndestroyed 5,454 villages, either partially or completely. The village of Khatyn, burned to\r\nthe ground with its all residents, became a terrifying symbol of Nazi crime on Belarusian\r\nsoil. Khatyn’s fate was shared by other 618 rural localities, 188 of which have never been\r\nrestored.
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\r\nIn Belarus, there were about 250 camps for Soviet POWs and 350 places of forced detention.\r\n206,500 people were killed only in the village of Trostenets, where one of the biggest\r\ndeath camps was located. And unlike Auschwitz, Maidanek and Treblinka, Trostenets held\r\nmainly local people as prisoners. Jewish ghettos were created in 186 localities. About\r\n100,000 people were held in the Minsk ghetto; only a small number of them survived.\r\nBelarusian scholars state that 715,000 Jews perished in the territory of modern Belarus\r\nduring the war.
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\r\nIt is believed that during the Occupation, about 400,000 people (including 24,000\r\nchildren) were taken to forced labour in Germany. <\/p>\r\n\r\n