Belarusian Authorities Banned to Stand in Memory of Victims of the Slutsk Ghetto

Laying floral wreath at the Holocaust victims monument was regarded as an "unauthorized rally".

In the evening of 21 October, a small group of Slutsk residents barely managed to lay floral wreath at the monument to the victims of the Slutsk ghetto. The police appeared and declared them guilty of an offence, writes journalist and social activist Zinaida Tsimoshek for Novy Chas.

The chief of the Slutsk district police department Aliaksandr Holikau assessed the meeting to commemorate the 77th anniversary of the liquidation of the Minsk ghetto and the 79th anniversary of the October shooting of Jews in Slutsk as an unauthorized meeting. As a former history teacher, I would like to tell young Slutsk residents about the tragic events of October 1941 in Slutsk. However, I had to leave the place when a paddy wagon arrived. None of those present understood why the police dispersed the people who came to stand in memory of the Holocaust victims. People had no political symbols.

The extermination of Jews in Slutsk was so terrible that no one was going to mix it up with modern politics. There were only flowers and a story about the atrocities of the Nazis. In 1941, even the commissioner of the Slutsk district Karl told in his report to Gauleiter Kuba about the extermination of Slutsk Jews and the sadism of Sonderkommando.

People cannot gather to commemorate the victims without authorization. One cannot recall without the authorization how fascists line up covered trucks near the city council building and began to grab Jews and drive them into cars in late October 1941. The shootings were heard everywhere, and the bodies were lying in the streets. Five thousand people (adults and children) were taken to the Gorovakhu tract a few kilometres from the city. There were excavations there. People were completely undressed. Young girls were raped. Some people were buried alive and tried to make it to the surface through the dead bodies and ground.

In just two years, 18, 000 people were killed in Slutsk because the Nazis did not like their nationality. The last extermination of Slutsk Jews in the second ghetto, the centre of modern Slutsk, was even more disastrous. On 8 February 1943, living people and buildings were burnt with flame guns so that no one could escape. Burned people rushed to the barbed wire and burned out there. Those who accidentally witnessed those events suffered from psychological trauma for many years.

I'd like the policemen to approach us and listen to what I was telling. At some moment, police chief Aliaksandr Holikau came up to the people and stood nearby for a while. Then he turned away and went to defend his law on mass events. He ordered to the paddy wagon to arrive.

By the way, the day before, one of Slutsk residents announced floral offerings. The chief read the information and warned the telegram channel that all participants would be subject to Art. 23.34. Therefore, only 14 people came.

By the way, many chat participants disagreed with such threats and even had a debate.

Another participant of the telegram chat Slutskaya Telega, Natallia, thought that "the chief is playing a hero. However, the heroism looks shady".

- I have never laid flowers. However, this year, like many Belarusians, I do many things for the first time." says the woman.

"If everyone starts organizing events, there will be chaos," says the chief of Slutsk Regional Department of Internal Affairs.

Halina Mikhailauna Tychina heads a public association of Slutsk Jewish Community. She came to the monument when people had left.

"I am so grateful to the people who came to honour the Holocaust victims! Thank them so much! Thank them for such beautiful flowers and memory!" It is how Halina Mikhailuna appreciated the deed the police chief called "chaos". According to Halina Mikhailauna, state delegations lay flowers only on big holidays.