‘Stop Exactions From Aid To Victims Of Holocaust, Return Amounts Paid’

President of the World Association of Belarusian Jews addressed to Lukashenka with an open letter.

After it was reported about the Belarusian authorities’ attempt to collect taxes from the humanitarian aid intended for the citizens of Belarus who had survived the Holocaust, President of the World Association of Belarusian Jews Jacob Gutman wrote an open letter to Lukashenka.

The website Charter97.org publishes the text of the letter with insignificant shortenings.

“Aliaksandr Ryhoravich!

These days, Belarus lives between two dates. On June 22, 1941 Germany attacked the USSR, and July 3 is the day of liberation of Belarus from the Nazi invaders.

In the last decade of June this year, the mass media reported that hundreds of elderly Belarusian Jews had been ordered by the state to pay tax for the help received in kind: for medicines, diapers, wheelchairs, food sets and the necessary household appliances.

No one will ever find out how many heart attacks, strokes occurred after the authorities decided to take money from recipients of humanitarian aid. The people, unable to pay the new tax, have to deny themselves food sets, diapers. We are speaking about the Jews who miraculously survived the Holocaust and about the help that comes to Belarus for free.

At the same time, excavations began at the Jewish cemetery in Homel. The object is called: "18-storeyed residential building in Sozhskaya, 5 ". The 10-storeyed house is being built in the Jewish cemetery in Mazyr. The beginning of the works was the second day of Hanukkah in December of last year.

Adolf Hitler wrote on the day before his suicide in May 1945: "Above all, I oblige the leaders of the German nation and their adherents to strictly protect racial laws and counteract without pity the poisoner of all nations - the world Jewry."

Hardly having had time to get used to the presidential armchair, you declared the following to the German newspaper Handelsblat:

"At one time, Germany was raised from the ruins thanks to a very tough power. Not only bad things are connected with famous Adolf Hitler in Germany. Recall his reign in Germany. The German order had been formed for centuries. Under Hitler, this formation reached its climax. This is what corresponds to our understanding of the presidential republic and the role of a president in it. "

Over the years of your leadership, the republic has destroyed synagogues in Minsk and Luban. Construction was carried out in Jewish cemeteries in Hrodna, Homel, Mazyr, Vaukavysk. In the years of the Soviet power Jewish, Catholic, Orthodox cemeteries were destroyed. In modern Belarus, only Jewish ones are selectively destroyed. You, the law enforcement agencies received dozens of appeals with hundreds of signatures from people, organizations of Australia, Israel, the United States with the demand to leave the remains of our fathers and mothers, grandparents, brothers and sisters, relatives and friends in peace.

The termination of construction in Jewish cemeteries in Homel and Mazyr, carefully conducted excavations to determine the boundaries of the cemetery, improvement of their territory will allow to begin restoration of the international authority of Belarus. I do not think that the interests of several businessmen and government officials can be placed above the interests of the whole country.

I am asking you to stop exactions from the humanitarian aid provided to the victims of the Holocaust, and to return the amounts paid.

God saves you from seeing how a person rots alive because they cannot pay a "tax" for the diapers given to them; or from seeing pits on the roads being filled with the bones of close people.

Belarus has a chance to stay in the family of civilized states. The second option is to take a seat next to the Islamic state and the Afghan Taliban. In the twenty-first century, only they destroyed cemeteries."