Crosses in Kurapaty broken again

On the eve of Radunitsa, a day of commemoration of the departed, the unknown vandals committed an act of vandalism at the site of Stalin-era executions.

It is not the first incident in Kurapaty wooded area near Minsk, where from 40,000 to 200,000 victims were executed between 1937 and 1941 by NKVD, the Soviet secret police, Radio Svaboda reminds.

In the end of 1990ies the plaque on the Cross of Suffering was broken.

As for the memorial sign “From the US nation to the nation of Belarus for the sake of memory”, there have been 12 cases of vandalism against it. In 2002 the bench of Clinton was repaired once again and mounted by the US Ambassador to Belarus Michael Kozak.

In December 2005 the unknown vandals two times desecrated Kurapaty crosses, the monument to the Jews killed in Kurapaty, and the icon of Our Lady of Kurapaty by Alyaksei Marachkin, by Nazi swastikas and Satanist slogans. The crosses were broken many times. Criminal cases were initiated several times on the facts of vandalism in Kurapaty, however the criminals were never found.

Community representatives addressed the authorities with a call to provide policing of the wooded site Kurapaty, which is a historical-cultural object of the first category. However the internal affairs directorate of Minsk region offered the organizing committee for commemoration of Stalin-era repressions victims to pay for security services in the wooded area.