Belarusians have paid tribute to the memory to victims of repressions

Members of the Public Committee for honoring legacy of victims of Stalin era repressions have paid tribute to people shot in the Chelyuskintsy Park and in Kurapaty site. It is the last but one action in 2007 which takes place in the framework of the Memory Year announced by the Belarusian community.

Members of the Public Committee lit candles near the memorial cross and held a one-minute silence as a tribute to victims of Stalin repressions, Radio Svaboda informs.

The co-chairman of the Public committee, a writer Vasil Yakavenka has started to sum up the results of the Memory Year.

“Those who are resting in this ground were probably thinking nobody would remember them even by a word, not mentioning an attempt to change this situation. The Memory Year has come to it send. There will be one more action like this,” Vasil Yakavenka said.

It is expected that next memorial action dedicated to Stalin repressions victims will take place on December 29 this year.

The childhood of the secretary of the committee Uladzimir Ramanouski was spent in GULAG, so the issue of Stalin era repressions is a personal anguish for him.

“Just imagine you are a child of 5, 6 or 7. Some people have come to you and took off mother and father for jail. After many years you received a document saying it was a mistake. But where are remains of my parents? We must answer this question,” Uladzimir Ramanouski said.

The childhood of the chairman of the Belarusian Association of the political repressions’ victims, Zinaida Tarasevich, was spent in camps as well.

“I go to Kurapaty and to the Chelyuskintsy Park, and always recall my Okhtama, where I was born, as they are places where Belarusian peasants were executed. Only a few have survived. I come to such meetings hoping to meet some of them,” Zinaida Tarasevich said.

After the Chelyuskintsy Park activists of the public association went to Kurapaty wooded area, where in 1937-1941 NKVD chastener assassins shot from 40,000 to 200,000 people according to different estimates.

People lit candles near the Cross of sufferings, Clinton’s bench, Kurapaty rock and other memorial signs in the wooded area. A white-red-white flag was lifted.

When people started to sing “Oh Mighty God”, policemen in mufti ordered to fold up the flag. However the people sang the anthem till the end and hadn’t folded up the flag.

A politician Vyachaslau Siuchyk said that next year their public committee will pay tribute to the memory of Stalin repressions as well.

“I will do everything to make actions on the 29th day of every month continue next year. We’ll try to organize literary evenings, as the subject of Bolshevik crimes in our land is still of current interest.

The main objective is not only pay tribute to the repressions’ victims, as the 70th anniversary is just a climax of repressions. We should concern oneself with that all the time. As those crimes in our land, they were real. And until our people won’t understand that, we won’t have good future,” Vyachaslau Siuchyk said.

On the initiative of the Public Committee for honoring legacy of victims of Stalin era repressions the year 2007 was announced the Memory Year. On October 29, 1937 many representatives of Belarusian intelligentsia were executed in Minsk. In the NKVD internal prison, about 100 persons were killed, 22 of them were writers.

The Organizing Committee visits places of mass executions on the 29th day of every month.