News & Events in Belarus

Lukashenko to attend dedication ceremony for monument to burned villages of Mogilev Oblast

An archive photo

KIROVSK DISTRICT, 20 June (BelTA) – Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko will take part in a ceremony to unveil a memorial complex in memory of the burned villages of Mogilev Oblast, which is located in the village of Borki, Kirovsk District on 20 June, BelTA has learned.

It is planned that the head of state will get familiar with the memorial complex, pay tribute to the victims of Nazism and talk with the participants of the event.

The opening of the memorial complex commemorating the burned villages of Mogilev Oblast is one of the main events in Mogilev Oblast in the year of the 75th anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War and the 78th anniversary of the tragedy of the village of Borki when the Nazis shot and burned more than 2,000 civilians in one of the largest punitive operations. One of the storylines of Elem Klimov’s Come and See movie was based on these events.

In memory of the residents of the village of Borki and the burned villages of the region a monument was erected in 1964, in the run-up to the 20th anniversary of the liberation of Kirovsk District from the Nazi invaders. The monument features a warrior and a girl who lays flowers. Sixty-two years after the tragedy, a chapel was built in honor of the Icon of the Mother of God "In Search of the Perishing". A wall of remembrance of the burned villages of Mogilev Oblast was unveiled a bit later.

In 2019, the regional authorities decided to renovate the commemorative signs in the village and build a memorial on the site showing the full extent of the atrocities committed by the Nazis.

The project of the memorial in the village of Borki was designed by a group of young sculptors and architects. They suggested the elements of the complex embodying the horror of that tragedy: a street with fragments of burned walls of the houses showing the places where they once stood.
The things left behind symbolize the suddenly interrupted peaceful life and defenselessness against inhuman cruelty. The charred logs features the testimonies of the people who survived that terrible tragedy.

Several sculptures have been set up, namely “Belarus - a grieving mother” - a figure of a frozen mother grieving at the empty cradle, deprived of children and the future by the Nazis, the “Flame” - the image of people dying in the flames, and the "Well" - a place of mourning and remembrance of tortured children thrown alive into wells.

The makeshift street ends with a stone with a message to descendants and a new park representing life.

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