A citywide requiem meeting and flower-laying ceremony dedicated to the Day of National Remembrance of the victims of the Great Patriotic War and the genocide of the Belarusian people was held in Trostenets.
The requiem meeting brought together thousands of Minsk residents at the Trostenets memorial complex on the site near the Gates of Memory monument. Representatives of the Minsk City Executive Committee, district administrations, the public, youth and labor collectives, including the Press House, took part in the event.
As part of the requiem meeting, participants laid flowers at the foot of the Gates of Memory monument. At its foot a mountain of red flowers grew as a symbol that no one is forgotten, that Belarus remembers and honors everyone who brought the long-awaited Victory with arms in hand, who gave their lives for the peaceful sky above each of us, for our bright future.
During the war years, the Nazis turned Minsk into a death factory. It is impossible to establish how many people were destroyed by them. More than 80 thousand prisoners of war became victims of the Stalag-352 camp, the memorial in Trostenets indicates that 206.5 thousand people became its victims, and more than 30 thousand civilians were killed in the area of the 9th kilometer of the Moscow highway in Uruchya. These are just some of the known places of mass extermination of people. Unfortunately, it is impossible to know the true figure. Anticipating imminent defeat, the Nazis tried to cover up the traces of their crimes. More than 25 thousand Minsk residents were killed on the Petrashkevich farm near the prisoner of war camp in Masyukovshchina. The bodies were dug up and burned. Only ashes remained.
