April 11 - International Day of Liberation of Nazi Concentration Camp Prisoners

According to the decision of the United Nations, April 11 is observed worldwide as the International Day of Liberation of Nazi Concentration Camps Prisoners. This day was established in memory of the international uprising at Buchenwald, as reported by BELTA.

It was on this day in 1945 that the prisoners at Buchenwald, led by the international political center, launched an armed revolt, which resulted in the capture of the camp and its holding until the arrival of the Allied forces.

In 1958, a complex of structures was opened here, dedicated to the heroes and victims of Buchenwald. In April 1945, prisoners from Sachsenhausen, Dachau, and Ravensbrück were also liberated. Auschwitz, Majdanek, Treblinka, Buchenwald, and many other sites across Europe were turned into death mills during World War II— the tools of mass physical extermination and laboratories for medical and other experiments.

The commission established in 1944 to assist the Extraordinary State Commission for the establishment and investigation of crimes committed by the German fascist invaders and their accomplices collected the evidence that fully exposed the bloody crimes of the Nazis.

For their atrocities, the Nazis were held accountable at the international military tribunal in Nuremberg, which took place from November 20, 1945, to October 1, 1946. Open trials for the most heinous war crimes were conducted in the cities of the Soviet republics, including Minsk, Bobruisk, Vitebsk, and Gomel.

The Prosecutor General's Office of the Republic of Belarus, during its investigation into the criminal case regarding the genocide of the Belarusian people during World War II and the postwar period, has interrogated over 19,500 people, nearly 8,000 of whom are victims, including former prisoners of death camps.

According to the data published on the agency's website, 578 death camps operated in the territory of Belarus. The largest camps were located in Minsk—in the areas of Nemiga and Trostenets— as well as in Ozarichi, Gomel, Polotsk, and Bobruisk. Approximately 3 million civilians were exterminated in these camps.

Every year on April 11, commemorative rallies are held throughout Belarus in observance of the International Day of Liberation of Nazi Concentration Camps Prisoners. Flowers and wreaths are laid at memorials across the republic by former prisoners, representatives of regional and local authorities, public organizations, labor collectives, students, and schoolchildren. Monuments have been built at the sites of death camps across the country in memory of the victims. Each death camp is commemorated in the Khatyn memorial.

Trostenets Death Camp

The largest site of mass extermination in Belarus during the Nazi occupation was the Trostenets death camp, which ranks alongside Auschwitz, Majdanek, and Treblinka. The term "Trostenets" encompasses several places of mass killings: the Blagovshchina area, a site of mass shootings; the camp near the village of Maly Trostenets, located 10 km off Minsk along the Mogilev highway; and the Shashkovka area, a site of mass cremation. According to official data, a total of 206,500 people died at the Trostenets death camp.

In 1995, researcher A. Vankevich released different figures, stating that 546,000 people perished in Trostenets. He based his estimates on documents from the Extraordinary State Commission and the Minsk Regional Commission for the Assistance of the Extraordinary State Commission from July 14 to August 13, 1944, which noted: "The commission, considering witness testimonies, the quantity and size of graves, the number of corpses, and the volume of ashes and bones in the graves, concludes that, by the most conservative estimates, 546,000 people were exterminated by the fascist perpetrators in the vicinity of the Trostenets camp, of which the remains (ashes and bones) of 476,000 are buried in 34 graves, 68,000 were burned in the oven, and 2,000 were cremated in barns and on logs."

The Trostenets camp was established in the fall of 1941 in the Blagovshchina area, approximately 11-13 km off Minsk along the Mogilev highway. Occupiers brought not only the local population from Belarus, but also people from other Central and Western European countries.

Eventually, the Nazis implemented a new method of extermination: those destined for death were burdened with grueling labor, and upon becoming utterly exhausted, they were shot. Thus emerged the so-called labor camps. Guards exercised brutal arbitrary power over the inmates: any soldier could beat, shoot, or hang a prisoner at any moment without reason.

An unyielding rule was the immediate extermination of anyone who fell ill or was returned to the camp after a previous escape. Inmates suffered from cold, filth, and severe lice infestations. The food was scarce. The kitchen received scraps from which a semblance of soup was prepared. It was provided once a day: 120 to 250 grams of bread, tea, or a coffee substitute with saccharin made up the meager rations of the overworked prisoners.

The Trostenets death camp continued to function until the end of June 1944. The huge, irreparable human losses inflicted by the war against fascism will never be forgotten. The first mourning ceremony dedicated to the victims of fascism took place in Trostenets on September 3, 1944.

On June 8, 2014, President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko participated in the ceremony of laying a memorial capsule at the site of the future Trostenets memorial complex. The head of state emphasized that the Trostenets memorial should become a site of pan-European significance.

On June 22, 2015, in the presence of Belarusian leader, the first phase of the memorial was unveiled, featuring a central 10-meter monument titled "Gates of Memory" (sculptor K. Kostyuchenko). The bronze doors depict intertwined figures of 29 tortured inmates of the death camp, ensnared in barbed wire.

On June 25, 2018, a ceremony was held at the Blagovshchina memorial cemetery for the reburial of the remains of victims found during the complex’s construction.

Ozarichi Death Camps

In 1944, the Wehrmacht command widely implemented the practice of using civilians as cover for the advancing Soviet troops.

In early March 1944, in the occupied territory near the front lines, close to the villages of Ozarichi, Dert, and Podosinnyk (now in Gomel Region), the Nazis created three death camps, where over 50,000 people were brought under the pretense of evacuation from the Gomel, Mogilev, and Polesie regions of Belarus, as well as from the Smolensk and Orel regions of Russia. These three camps became known as the "Ozarichi Death Camps."

The camps consisted of barbed wire-enclosed marshy areas, surrounded by minefields. People were kept outdoors without shelter. They were strictly prohibited from building huts or digging earth shelters, collecting firewood for bedding, or lighting fires. Prisoners were provided no food or drinking water. The Nazis brought the sick with typhus and other infections from nearby settlements to spread diseases among the local population and, subsequently, among Red Army soldiers.

On March 18-19, 1944, troops of the 65th Army (Lieutenant General P.I. Batov) of the 1st Belarusian Front liberated 33,480 people from the Ozarichi camps, including 15,960 children under the age of 13, 13,072 women, and 4,448 elderly individuals. The liberators encountered a horrifying scene: thousands of emaciated individuals lay in a typhus stupor on the marshy ground, exposed to rain and snow. Those inmates who could still move rushed to meet the soldiers.

The implementation of the inhumane directives of the Third Reich by Wehrmacht generals led to no fewer than 20,000 human lives lost in the Ozarichi concentration camp. In 1965, a memorial was built on the site in remembrance of the prisoners. Every spring, people gather here to honor the memory of the innocent victims. In 2023, a major reconstruction of the memorial took place, expanding the area and introducing new thematic zones, pathways, memorial markers, and an information center.

Minsk Ghetto

Three weeks after the occupation of Minsk on July 19, 1941, the Germans, executing Hitler's program for the extermination of Jews, made the decision to establish a ghetto.

Minsk Ghetto was one of the largest in Europe, and during its 800 days of existence, approximately 100,000 people from various countries of Europe perished there.

A specific area comprising about 40 streets and alleys in the southwestern part of Minsk was designated for the ghetto, where, under the threat of death, all Jews had to relocate within five days. Forced labor of Jews at certain enterprises and for the clearing of destroyed streets was a secondary task; the primary goal was the "final solution to the Jewish problem," meaning the mass extermination of people.

Throughout the existence of the ghetto, the Nazis maintained an extraordinarily high population density: as many as 100 people lived in a one-story building with 2-3 apartments, and up to 300 in a similar two-story one.

The unbearable overcrowding, hunger, and unsanitary conditions led to rampant disease and epidemics within the ghetto. Additionally, the Nazis subjected the imprisoned Jews to cruel torments: they were robbed, tortured, stabbed, and thrown alive into flames. Those sentenced to death were forced to sing songs and dance before being shot.

Initially, the Nazis executed those who could not work; then, large-scale pogroms began. By the summer of 1942, the Nazis had exterminated nearly all inmates in the ghetto, with only 2-3% managing to survive.

On March 2, 1942, the Nazis executed around 5,000 inmates of the Minsk Ghetto in the Rakovsky suburb. There, 200 Jewish children from an orphanage, along with their caregivers, were buried alive. In 1947, a modest obelisk was erected at this horrifying site in memory of the brutally murdered victims, which became the beginning of the "Pit" memorial.

In 1989, an alley of the Righteous Among the Nations was established near the memorial at the initiative of former inmates of the Minsk Ghetto. This alley, located in the "Righteous Among the Nations" park, features memorial plaques with the names of Belarusians who saved Jews during World War II.

In 2000, a bronze sculptural composition titled "The Last Path" was installed at the "Pit" memorial, positioned along the steps leading to the center of the memorial. It consists of 27 intertwined figures of doomed martyrs descending into the pit. The monument took eight years to create, with all work done by hand.

On November 29, 2021, ten new memorial plaques with the names of the Righteous were installed along the alley, honoring those who saved Jews during the Holocaust.

In March 2024, a commemorative plaque was ceremonially unveiled at the entrance to the Minsk ghetto. It was installed by the Union of Belarusian Jewish Communities to commemorate the memory of surviving and deceased prisoners. Every year, mourning rallies are held here, featuring wreath-laying ceremonies and moments of silence.