Number of Belarusians killed during WWII amounts to 3 million. That we must not forget

Today the West is tolerant of fascists in Eastern Europe. They march with torches, proclaim their ideas, propagate hatred. All this happens at the borders of a country that was literally wiped out from the ground, where every third person died.

But the end in the history of the occupation of Belarus will not be put for a long time, no matter how they try to forget, to keep silent. The descendants of those who, at the cost of their own lives, brought victory closer both at the fronts and in partisan detachments, participate in the action "Memory of the Heart". It takes place in sites associated with the Great Patriotic War, where the Nazi destroyed, burned, killed hundreds of thousands of Belarusians. The young generation of compatriots lays flowers to those, who passed away almost 80 years ago. It is impossible to forget about concentration camps, ghettos, punitive actions against civilians.

The memory of the people who won the victory is sacred. Thanks to them, we received the right to life and freedom. And this fact cannot be disputed, no matter how anyone would like to revise the results of the WWII. There are memorials and obelisks practically in every settlement of Belarus - from megalopolises to small villages - as a reminder of the terrible tragedy. We have almost 7 thousand military graves alone. And each of them is carefully preserved by Belarusians. They also cherish the common memory of the Great Patriotic War.

The Nazi genocide had its own extermination economy. It was a thoughtful and elaborated plan for the elimination of the civilian population in the occupied territory. People were poisoned with carbon monoxide, like patients in a psychiatric colony in Novinki.

They were destroyed after the visit of one of the main and most influential figures of the Third Reich, Heinrich Himmler. The largest ghetto in Europe was created in Minsk. Jews from Western Europe - Poland, Czechoslovakia, Germany and Austria were brought here for extermination. 10 thousand Austrians stayed in Blagovshchina forever.

At the end of 1943, when part of Belarus was already liberated from the German fascist invaders, the so-called operation 1005 began to cover up the traces of the mass destruction of the civilian population. Special teams were removing corpses from the ground and burning the remains of people. And ashes from human bodies were used to fertilize the fields in the labor camp. And in 1944, when an extraordinary state commission was in Trostenets, they found only ash and bone mass in the ditches of Blagovshchina.

Immediately after the occupation, power in the cities was handed over to the military and field commandant's offices. Executionwas established for violation of the new order. One hundred people were killed for 1 killed Wehrmacht soldier.

Soviet symbols were banned. New ones were introduced. A widespread phenomenon during the years of the occupation was collaboration: complicity and cooperation with the Nazi authorities. Hundreds of people moved to the side of the enemy. A distinctive feature was a white-red-white armband. And the flags of the same color were raised on the buildings of the occupation authorities. For people who miraculously escaped death, this is a symbol of tragedy.

During the Great Patriotic War, Belarus was occupied longer than all the republics of the Soviet Union. We have the largest number of destroyed civilians, burned cities and villages. Therefore, like no one else, we must maintain immunity against Nazi aggression.Even Germany has a law prohibiting Nazism.

In Belarus, the Nazi authorities created about 300 ghettos and about 260 concentration and death camps. They operated in almost every region and town. In the first few months of the occupation alone, more than 30 ghettos were liquidated. Over the years of the war, more than 9.5 thousand villages were destroyed together with the inhabitants. And this figure is not final.

There is practically no information about the tragedy of the village of Rasokhi. It is not included in any official list of burnt settlements in Belarus. The houses here remained intact. But here several dozen people were killed alive: the local population and residents of nearby villages. They were fleeing in Rasokhi from the Nazis out the punitive operation "Baklan". It meant mass destruction of the civilian population. They called it the fight against partisans.

Only in LogoiskDistricts about 200 settlements were destroyed. Only one action turned 4 villages to ashes and killed 575 people, 185 of whom were children. Khatyn became a monument to all the burned villages. But there are memorials in every district.

The death squads wanted to intimidate local residents for their help to the partisans. Hundreds of men, women, childrenwere killed. The youngest was one and a half years old. More than one and a half thousand people were left without a roof over their heads in winter.

On the day of the burning of villages in Otminovo, a republican action "Memory of the Heart" was held. The grandchildren and great-grandchildren of those who survived the punitive operation honored the memory of their fellow villagers with a minute of silence, lit candles and laid wreaths. And according to local tradition, white bread was distributed as gratitude for salvation.

Nobody will name the exact number of Belarusians who died during the Great Patriotic War. There is an approximate figure of 3 million.