ASTANA, 8 June (BelTA) – Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko gave the copies of the archive documents concerning women convicted in the BSSR at the end of the 1930s for political reasons and convoyed to prison on the territory of Kazakhstan to the president of that country Nursultan Nazarbayev, BelTA has learned.
The documents will be kept at the museum and memorial complex commemorating the victims of political repressions and totalitarianism. It has been opened at the location of the biggest Soviet women's camp – the Akmolina camp for wives of traitors to the Homeland of Karlag, a Gulag labor camp in Karaganda Oblast, a.k.a. ALZHIR.
Alexander Lukashenko remarked that Nursultan Nazarbayev pays much attention to restoring the objectivity of history and the historical process. “I know that you value the historical truth, that you have done a lot for the opening of a museum at the location of the Akmolina camp for wives of traitors to the Homeland,” the president said.
The Belarusian head of state added that when he learned about the implementation of the project to open a museum and historical complex at the location of the former camp near Astana, he instructed Belarus' KGB to find and study archive materials because people from all over the USSR were sent to that prison. “We have revealed interesting materials. I think that they will serve as a foundation for the Belarusian exposition in this museum,” Alexander Lukashenko noted.
In his words, these are the copies of documents concerning the wives of Belarusian writers, letters from the relatives of imprisoned women. One of them was the mother-in-law of the People's Poet of Belarus Petrus Brovka.
Nursultan Nazarbayev thanked the Belarusian president for the archive materials. He said that the museum workers tried to restore the living conditions of prisoners in the elements of the exposition. “People were tortured and died there. Some of them had children, other women were pregnant. They gave birth to children, and children died,” the president of Kazakhstan said.
BelTA learned from Belarus' KGB that law enforcement bodies work with archive materials on a regular basis. As a result, they revealed and studied archive criminal cases involving 63 wives of political prisoners of 1937 from Belarus. These women were transported to the ALZHIR camp from the BSSR.
These are unique materials of scientific and historical value featuring the story of a concrete person and a family.
The memorial complex commemorating the victims of political repressions and totalitarianism was opened on 31 May 2007 upon the initiative of Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev and is located near Astana.
