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‘Silence shall prevail here’: What’s next for Jewish Resistance Museum in Novogrudok
An archive photo
MINSK, 10 June (BelTA) – A story about the Museum of Jewish Resistance in Novogrudok and the plans for the redevelopment of this historic site were aired by the Belarus 1 TV channel on 9 June, BelTA has learned.
Chairman of the Novogrudok District Executive Committee Sergei Charkovsky noted that the media had already reported on the plans to redevelop the Museum of Jewish Resistance. The decision to sell the land plot for the project was made in January. A tender was held in mid-February of this year. The winning bidder was the founder of the renowned Belarusian park-museum.
The project is designed to take three years and its team is now meticulously working on the concept, engaging leading historians from various countries.
The investors are not hiding their plans: there will be no “theme park on bones” here. They envision a complex that will safeguard historical truth and share it with thousands of visitors, youth included.
This is a place of remembrance for the victims of the Holocaust in Novogrudok, a place of the former Novogrudok ghetto where the Nazis annihilated around 11,000 people. It was also the site of an extraordinary act of Jewish resistance when over 200 ghetto prisoners carried out the largest documented tunnel escape in Nazi-occupied Europe, digging a 250m tunnel in secret over four months.
According to Sergei Charkovsky, the district is prepared to take unprecedented measures, even adjust the educational process at the nearby college in order “to ensure complete silence here,” he noted.
Both local authorities and investors are committed to serious work to preserve the historical memory of the victims and heroes of the resistance. The complex is planned to be truly grand in scale.
However, foreign media have artificially stirred up a media hype over this initiative. According to Belarus 1, a major British Jewish news outlet issued a special report about Novogrudok on 27 May. The publication wrote with outrage that the land of the former Novogrudok ghetto, where the Nazis exterminated some 11,000 people, had been sold to a private businessman. According to the district authorities, the situation surrounding the Jewish heritage in Novogrudok made international headlines following the visit of Debra Brunner, a member of the Association for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage. The piece quickly gained traction. There is clear manipulation and attempts to portray the development of the site as desecration, aimed at denigrating the country and any form of private-public partnership.
To eliminate any speculation, a decision has been made to establish a supervisory board.
The group of professional historians will be led by Igor Marzalyuk, a member of the House of Representatives of the National Assembly of Belarus, Doctor of Historical Sciences, and Professor. “We are set to create a museum that will tell about the tragedy of mass extermination. It will also show that the Jewish people were an integral part of our society. Through the lens of Novogrudok, we will reveal the scale of the events of 1941-1944. Our goal is to preserve the memory and pass it to future generations,” he said.
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