How we preserve history – on the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Belarus

cc. The following text reproduces a lecture given on 15 July 2024 to a group of readers of Zeit-Fragen in Eastern Switzerland. The subtitles were added by the editors.

The year 2024 is a special year for the Republic of Belarus. We are celebrating the 80^th anniversary of liberation from the German fascist occupiers during the Second World War.

Operation Bagration and
the liberation of Minsk on 3 July 1944

The first place on the territory of Belarus – Komarin in the south-east – was liberated by Soviet troops in September 1943. But the decisive role in the final liberation of Belarus came into play by Operation Bagration – one of the largest strategic offensive operations of the Second World War, which began at the end of June 1944. The development of this successful operation is associated with the name of our outstanding compatriot, Army General Alexei Antonov.
  In the first days of the Bagration offensive, the German Army Group “Mitte” suffered a catastrophic defeat, its main forces were surrounded and defeated. In the late evening of 3 July 1944, the Red Army, supported by partisans, liberated the Belarusian capital Minsk.
  In 1996, this day was declared the national holiday of the Republic of Belarus – Independence Day (Republic Day).
  The liberation of the entire country was completed with the capture of Brest on 28 July 1944. During the Operation Bagration, the front line was moved 600 kilometres to the west. The defeat of the German-fascist troops in Belarus went down in history as one of the most important battles of the Second World War.
  During the Operation Bagration, the German army lost over 500,000 men killed and wounded. The Belarusian people fought bravely for the liberation of their country and made an important contribution to the victory over fascism and Nazism.
  In the years 1941–1945, 1.3 million Belarusians and other compatriots fought in the ranks of the Red Army, side by side with representatives of the fraternal peoples of the Soviet Union.
  Another 400,000 partisans and underground fighters resisted the occupying forces in the hinterland.
  The partisan movement and the activities of the Belarusian underground organisations are unprecedented in world history in terms of the scale of the armed resistance. At the beginning of 1944, 148 large partisan organisations controlled 60 % of the territory.
  The admission of the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic to the circle of founding states of the United Nations in 1945 was proof of the international community’s recognition of this heroic deed.

‘The Great Patriotic War
affected practically all families’

The long-awaited day of liberation from the occupation has cost our people enormous sacrifices. The Great Patriotic War affected practically every Belarusian family, i.e., every inhabitant of our country is in one way or another connected with this tragedy.
  According to a recent opinion poll conducted in Belarus, almost half of Belarusians have grandfathers and grandmothers who took part in the Great Patriotic War (49.5 %), one in five other relatives (uncles/aunts, brothers/sisters) (20.9 %), great-grandfathers and great-grandmothers (20.7 %). 14.5 % of respondents reported that their fathers and mothers had taken part in the war. Only 12.7 % of the country’s inhabitants stated that none of their relatives had fought in the war.
  The remains of millions of people rest in the Belarusian soil. They died not only on the battlefields but were also killed cold-bloodedly in the course of the genocide of the civilian population. During the Great Patriotic War more than three million inhabitants of Belarus – practically every third person – lost their lives. More than half of our national wealth was destroyed, 209 out of 270 cities and district centres, almost 12,000 villages were destroyed. Over 200 villages shared the terrible fate of Khatyn – they were burned together with their inhabitants and could not be rebuilt after the war.

Over 580 concentration
camps, death camps and
ghettos of the Nazis in Belarus

The names of more than 580 concentration camps, death camps and ghettos established by the Nazis are etched in bloody letters in the history of Belarus:

• Trostenets, the largest concentration camp in the entire occupied territory of the Soviet Union, according to the latest figures from the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Republic of Belarus, no fewer than 546,000 people were killed there, including tens of thousands of Jews from Berlin, Hamburg, Cologne, Bremen, Vienna, Theresienstadt and other European cities;

• the Minsk Ghetto (at least 90,000 jews killed);

• the Ozarichi death camp in the Gomel region (several tens of thousands of people were infected with typhus, shot, died of cold, hunger and exhaustion);

• the Koldychevo concentration camp in the Brest region (22,000 people were exterminated);

• Krasny Bereg (where thousands of children, mainly girls, were abused as blood donors for wounded German soldiers).

During the war years, over 380,000 people from Belarus were deported into German slavery, they were mercilessly exploited, many of them died from the unbearable living conditions. Children were also deported en masse for forced labour.
  In preparation for the attack on the Soviet Union, the Nazis planned to leave only one in four people in Belarus as forced laborers. The remaining 75 per cent were to be exterminated or expelled. The special powers of the Wehrmacht’s Chief of Staff allowed the extermination of the civilian population and ensured that the soldiers’ actions towards the civilian population were not prosecuted. Part of the population, especially the leaders of the Soviet and party organs, intellectuals and all Jews were to be exterminated from the fall of 1941. The plan for the future was Belarus to be populated with Germans and to be integrated into Nazi-Germany.

Declared “Untermensch” (subhuman)

The policy of the “Third Reich” towards the Soviet population differed considerably from the approach in other European countries (France, Denmark, the Netherlands, etc.), where there was initially a semblance of civilisation. Soviet citizens were immediately declared “Untermenschen” against no punitive measures could be applied.
  In April 2021, the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Republic of Belarus initiated criminal proceedings and is currently investigating the facts that Nazi criminals, their accomplices and criminal groups committed genocide against the civilian population on the territory of Belarus during the Great Patriotic War and in the post-war period. It can be said that Belarus was subjected to all forms of genocide mentioned in the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (9 December 1948).

Genocide against
the civilian population

The mass extermination of people was carried out using barbaric methods and means: Firing squads and gallows, gas chambers and incineration, starvation and the spread of epidemics. The aim was to instil fear and suppress resistance to the occupation regime.
  Not only the German occupiers were involved in the genocide of the civilian population, but also their European allies from Italy, Romania, Hungary, France, Slovakia and Finland, as well as collaborators from the Ukrainian, Polish, Lithuanian, Latvian, Estonian and other nationalist groups. Military units from Austria and the Czech Republic, at the time part of the Third Reich, also took part in punitive actions against Soviet citizens in Belarus. A Lithuanian battalion alone killed more than 10,000 civilians in the Minsk region in 1941.
  The Prosecutor General’s Office of Belarus knows the names of several criminals still alive who are hiding on the territory of foreign states and claiming their protection. Efforts will be made to bring them to justice. To date, Belarusian authorities have information about the whereabouts of at least 400 of these people. In the course of the investigation, the Prosecutor General’s Office has sent more than 80 requests for mutual legal assistance to dozens of states (Lithuania, Latvia, Canada, USA, United Kingdom, Argentina, Brazil, Australia, etc.), including requests for interrogation of persons who were members of the criminal battalions. Unfortunately, these requests for mutual legal assistance were simply ignored by a number of states.

Propaganda measures trivialise
the significance of the Soviet Union’s victory

During the Cold War, as part of the ideological confrontation, historical and propaganda measures were used to trivialise the significance of the Soviet Union’s victory over Hitler’s Germany. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the leading Western countries intensified their efforts in Eastern Europe to revise the history of the Second World War. These processes became more extensive with the “westernisation” of the states of the former socialist camp and the former Soviet republics. The most radical approaches are being practised in Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Ukraine and Estonia. For example, Polish President Duda ordered the demolition of Soviet monuments by law back in 2017. While there were still 561 monuments to Soviet soldiers’ liberators in 1997, only 112 monuments remained in their original form at the beginning of 2021, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation. It is known that more than 600,000 Soviet soldiers died during the liberation of Poland and around 700,000 Soviet prisoners of war were killed by the Nazis on Polish territory.

“Hypocritical and
cynical revision of history”

Today, the main aim of foreign falsifiers of history is to solve domestic and foreign policy issues by falsifying historical facts. The hypocritical and cynical revision of the history of the Second World War is a strategic ideological task of the ruling circles of a number of Western countries, for whom the victory over Nazism cannot be the basis that unites today’s generations; because among the countries of the European Union there were no victors, but at best liberated, at worst the allies of Germany (Italy, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Finland, Slovakia, Croatia), the “neutrals” and the defeated of the Third Reich, who did not fight against the Nazis, but allowed themselves to be occupied and worked for the German economy.
  The inhabitants of most European countries did not really experience what the peoples of the Soviet Union had to suffer in the occupied territories. This is why there is a tendency here to exaggerate the importance of the Anglo-American allies in the victory over fascism and to play down the Soviet efforts.
  Other forms of historical falsification include, for example, the following:

• blaming the Soviet Union for unleashing the Second World War;

• National Socialism is equated with communism;

• traitors, collaborators and henchmen of the Nazis are rehabilitated or even glorified;

• the liberating mission of the Red Army on the European continent is denied;

• the significance of the partisan movement on the territory of Belarus is minimised.

“Defeated Nazism
must not raise its head again!”

The Republic of Belarus unwaveringly preserves the memory of the liberators, the heroism and tragedy of the Belarusian people, does not tolerate any revision or distortion of the results of the Second World War and actively opposes the rehabilitation and glorification of Nazism. The Constitution of our country states: “The preservation of the historical memory of the heroic past of the Belarusian people and patriotism are the duty of every citizen of the Republic of Belarus.”
  At the international level, we are supported in this honourable struggle not only by Russia and other post-Soviet countries, but also by Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and other states, to whom we are sincerely grateful.
  On 9 May 2024, the 79^th anniversary of the victory over Nazism in the Second World War, delegations of the nine countries at the OSCE again adopted a joint declaration, which states, among other things:
  “We categorically refuse to accept attempts to reassess or distort the outcome of the Second World War, to rehabilitate and glorify the Nazis and their accomplices, or to deny the war crimes and crimes against humanity that they committed. […]. We call upon all countries and peoples to honour the memory of those who fought against fascism and Nazism during the Second World War and to show respect for what they heroically accomplished. Having been defeated, Nazism must not be allowed to raise its head again!”

Historical awareness
as part of the immune system
against self-abandonment

Belarus is working purposefully on the patriotic education of the younger generation. The state’s history policy is consistently implemented. The Belarusian state is committed to popularising historical knowledge. In May 2021, on the initiative of the Public Prosecutor General’s Office, a law on the prevention of the rehabilitation of Nazism was adopted in order to prevent all forms and manifestations of Nazism, the justification of its teaching and practice, and the glorification of Nazi criminals and their accomplices. In January 2022, the law “On the Genocide of the Belarusian People” was adopted. It envisages the legal recognition of the genocide of the Belarusian people and at the same time establishes criminal liability for its denial. The two laws represent a legal obstacle to attempts to disguise the results of the Great Patriotic War.
  The Republican Council for Historical Policy in the Administration of the President of the Republic of Belarus, established in 2022, is actively working. The interdepartmental working group formed at the government level is finalising its work on calculating the damage caused to the Belarusian economy during the Great Patriotic War. The work of the commission for the identification, restitution, joint utilisation and introduction into scientific and cultural circulation of cultural property located abroad has been intensified under the leadership of the Ministry of Culture. The implementation of the cultural and educational project “Train of Memory” has become a good tradition between Belarus and Russia. In 2023, participants from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Armenia took part for the first time alongside young people from Belarus and Russia. The number of stops on the train was increased: In addition to Brest (Brest Fortress), the project participants visited Polotsk, the Khatyn Memorial and other places of interest in Belarus.
  The Republican Centre for the Patriotic Education of Youth is currently being built in Brest. It is planned to open this centre next year, on the 80^th anniversary of the victory in the Great Patriotic War. The Belarus Today publishing house and the National Archives of Belarus have launched the online project “Partisans of Belarus” to immortalise the memory of the Belarusian partisans. The database on the website https://partizany.by/ contains documents of partisan units that fought against fascism in Belarus, Russia, Ukraine, Poland and other countries. New names and archive documents are added every day.
  Museums and libraries in towns and villages have organised exhibitions dedicated to the memory of the victims of the genocide and hold themed literary events. Educational programmes are being updated at all levels. An anthology of analytical materials and documents entitled “The Genocide of the Belarusian People” has been published under the lead of the Office of the Prosecutor General.
  Why is the topic of the Great Patriotic War and the struggle of the Belarusian people still so important?

The spirit of freedom
of the Belarusian people

The memory of the sacrifices and heroic deeds of our ancestors is the spiritual foundation of our society and an example for us. In the most difficult period of the war, millions of Belarusians took an active part in the defence of the independence of our state. It was a voluntary patriotic impulse that expressed the spirit of freedom of the Belarusian people and their readiness to selflessly defend their national and state interests.
  The overwhelming majority of the Belarusian people did not accept the Nazi ideology and the system of the occupying regime and selflessly took up the fight against the aggressors. Basically, the Belarusian people were faced with the choice of whether they had a right to exist at all. And the people made their choice.
  The investigation of the genocide of the Belarusian people during the Great Patriotic War is a tribute to the victims, it contributes to the investigation and preservation of the historical truth and serves to implement the anti-fascist guiding principle: “Never again!”
  The care of war veterans has traditionally been one of the most important priorities of state social policy. Today, the average age of participants in the Great Patriotic War is 96–97 years, with the youngest (partisans, underground fighters) being 90 years old. On 1 May 2024, 1,100 veterans of the Great Patriotic War were still living in Belarus, including more than 500 invalids and participants in the war; 7,300 citizens who suffered from the consequences of the war, including 6,500 former prisoners of fascism.
  Every year, surveys are conducted in all regions of the country on the living conditions of all veterans of the Great Patriotic War and citizens affected by the consequences of the war. Taking into account the needs identified, the necessary social support is provided and safe living conditions are ensured. War veterans are entitled to free annual sanatorium and convalescent stays. Disabled persons and war veterans who have not exercised their right to a free sanatorium course will receive cash assistance for preventive health care. By presidential decree, financial aid will be paid annually on Victory Day from 2021 to veterans and people who have suffered from the consequences of war.
  Unfortunately, we are experiencing new forms of aggression on the international stage in the 21^st century. The West does not tolerate the unwanted and the weak and cynically exerts economic pressure, political blackmail, lying and slandering techniques, the propagation of neo-Nazism and the cultivation of “fifth columns” in various areas. The loss of mutual trust between global players, the unwillingness to compromise and the return to elements of bloc confrontation have indeed brought the world to the brink of a new war. Our country, which finds itself at a crossroads in Europe and knows the price of peace very well, has risen to these challenges. That is why our country is taking all necessary measures to strengthen national security.  •