Opinions & Interviews

MP: Belarusians will always perceive bloody events of the Holocaust as a personal tragedy

Photos courtesy of the press service of the House of Representatives of the National Assembly of Belarus

MINSK, 21 January (BelTA) – Belarusians will always perceive bloody events of the Holocaust as a personal tragedy. Chairman of the House of Representatives of the National Assembly of Belarus Vladimir Andreichenko made the statement during a mourning rally in the Forest of the Martyrs (Ya’ar HaKdoshim) near Jerusalem, Israel on 21 January, the press service of the lower chamber of the Belarusian parliament told BelTA.

The speaker noted that World War Two took lives of one in three of the Belarusians, radically changing the country’s national and ethnic composition that had evolved over centuries. Jewish settlements were no longer part of life in Belarus. The dreadful words “ghetto” and “death camps” were coined instead. “Belarusians will always perceive bloody events of the Holocaust as a personal tragedy that must never be repeated,” Vladimir Andreichenko stressed.

The MP thanked immigrants from Belarus, who live in Israel and take good care of the memory about tragic pages of the common history. The monument in the Forest of the Martyrs contains soil from the Minsk ghetto, from the death camp Trostenets, from Bronnaya Gora and other places where Jews were murdered in job lots such as Berezino, Krasnopolye, and Cherikov.

Vladimir Andreichenko reminded about the immortal deed committed by Belarusians and Jews, who took up arms to resist the Nazi and fought side by side in partisan units and the Red Army. He talked about heroic deeds committed by ordinary Belarusians, who risked their lives to save thousands of Jews from inevitable death. The Belarusian government does everything necessary to perpetuate memory about that time. Over 500 monuments stand solemn watch all over the country to remind visitors of Holocaust victims. Many of the memorials have been created with assistance of Jewish families and public organizations.

The head of the lower chamber of the Belarusian parliament handed over soil from the site where prisoners of the ghetto in the Belarusian town of Glubokoye are buried to the Beit Glubokoye organization. Over 10,000 Jews were killed there. The MP also handed over soil from other places where Jews were slaughtered en masse: the village of Plisa and the agrotown of Prozoroki, Glubokoye District. Apart from that, Vladimir Andreichenko laid a wreath at the memorial on behalf of the Belarusian parliament to commemorate over 850,000 Belarusian Jews, who died during the Nazi occupation of Belarus.

The mourning rally was organized by the Israeli association of immigrants from Belarus. Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Belarus to Israel Yevgeny Vorobyev, representatives of the Israeli association of immigrants from Belarus and the Beit Glubokoye organization also took part in the rally.

On 21-24 January Chairman of the House of Representatives of the National Assembly of Belarus Vladimir Andreichenko is expected to take part in a forum of leaders dedicated to the International Holocaust Remembrance Day and the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. The forum will take place in Jerusalem. The forum is expected to gather representatives of 46 countries: presidents, prime ministers, representatives of royal houses, parliamentary leaders of Europe, North America, and Australia. The forum is meant to perpetuate memory of the Holocaust and other tragic events of World War Two.

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