Belarus celebrates one of most important holidays in its history, Victory Day

Today Belarus celebrates one of the most important holidays in the history of the country - Victory Day. For Belarusians it is not just a holiday, but also a day of remembrance, deep respect and gratitude to Soviet soldiers, home front workers, partisans and underground fighters - to all those who brought the victory closer.

78 years ago, on May 9, 1945, the Great Patriotic War was won, which lasted 1418 days and nights. The Soviet people played a decisive role in the fight against fascism and bore the burden of the war on their shoulders, deciding the future of the entire world civilization.

Belarus was the first republic of the Soviet Union to take a massive strike of the Nazi invaders, becoming the scene of the largest battles. Frontier guards and front-line units of the covering troops were the first to repulse the enemy offensive. The enemy aviation bombed the railway junctions, airfields, as well as Brest, Grodno, Volkovysk, Baranovichi, and other Belarusian cities.

After the beginning of the occupation in Belarus unfolded unprecedented in its mass and persistence resistance to the enemy. The main form of national struggle became the partisan movement, in which during the Great Patriotic War were involved over 374 thousand partisans, and more than 70 thousand anti-fascist underground. The representatives of the different peoples of the Soviet Union and the anti-fascists from European countries fought together with the Belarusians in the partisan detachments. During the war there were about 30 partisan zones, the territory of which the Germans failed to occupy.

During the war the enemy destroyed on the territory of Belarus at least 216 settlements and over 9.2 thousand villages. The fascists destroyed over 100 thousand enterprises, destroyed thousands of educational and medical institutions. The Nazis carried out more than 140 punitive operations in Belarus. The village of Khatyn was a tragic symbol of the mass destruction of the civilian population.

In the territory of Belarus there were about 250 camps for Soviet prisoners of war and no less than 580 death camps. Among them was Trostenets, the fourth largest death camp in Europe, where 206,500 people were exterminated.

During the war 34.4 million Soviet servicemen, including over 1.3 million Belarusians and natives of Belarus, participated in military actions. According to modern researchers, during the Great Patriotic War from 2.5 to 3 million and more people from Belarus died.

In the annals of Belarus there was no battle more cruel than the Great Patriotic War, no feat more significant than that of the Soviet soldier, who defended the homeland from the enemy, who saved humanity from Nazism. The memory of the terrible war and the Great Victory cannot fade away: it is forever inscribed in the history of the Fatherland and of every Belarusian family. The tragedy and the Victory are an eternal source of pain and bitterness, pride and glory of the Belarusian people.