Press releases
Tragedy of Ozarichi camps highlighted by new exposition at Great Patriotic War Museum
MINSK, 5 March (BelTA) – A temporary exposition “Ozarichi: Tragedy of Belarusian Civilians” timed to the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Ozarichi death camps will open at the Belarusian State Museum of the Great Patriotic War History on 20 March, BelTA learned from leading research associate of the research department Maria Gorelikova.
The Ozarichi death camps are among the most tragic episodes of the Great Patriotic War. “In March 1944 the Wehrmacht command set up death camps in the close vicinity to the frontline in Polesie (now Gomel) Oblast. Over several days the Nazis brought about 50,000 civilians into these camps. Those were elderly people, children, women, the disabled and people with typhus. The barbed wired camps were surrounded by mined fields. The Nazi command tried to halt the offensive of the Red Army by using civilians as a human shield and spreading typhus among the Red Army troops. On 19 March the Red Army liberated the Ozarichi camps: a total of 33,480 people, including 15,960 children under 13, 13,072 women and 4,448 seniors. However, not all of them survived. People kept dying in hospitals of typhus, ice burns, dysentery, and injuries. Many were left disabled for their entire life,” Maria Gorelikova said.
The exposition is based on the museum’s collection of the war-time photos depicting the three camps near the villages of Ozarichi, Podosinnik and Dert with bodies all over the territory of the camps on 18-19 March 1944 and the evacuation of the prisoners and provision of medical help to them. “The photos are unique. They display the true nature of Nazism. The collection features over 60 photos. It is important that they have descriptions on the reverse side made by the photo correspondents. This helped identify many prisoners.
The exposition will also present the efforts of the Belarusian State Museum of the Great Patriotic War History to find out more about the Ozarichi tragedy and the fate of its inmates. In the 1990s the museum received many letters requesting the evidence of captivity from the former prisoners of the Ozarichi camps. Each letter carried pain and suffering of a person, a family and an entire village. All the letters were processed. The museum keeps 148 letters from the former Ozarichi camps prisoners from all over the Soviet Union.
On 20 March the Belarusian State Museum of the Great Patriotic War History will screen the movie by German historian, Professor Christoph Rass about the military crimes in Ozarichi. It will be the first time the movie will be screened in the Russian language.
The exposition will stay open through 22 April.
print version
make home page
add to bookmarks
