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22 August 2016, 19:38

Participants of European rabbis congress visit Belarusian Liozno

VITEBSK, 22 August (BelTA) – The town of Liozno, Vitebsk Oblast welcomed participants of the large-scale Congress of Rabbis of Europe on 22 August, BelTA has learned.

The Congress of Rabbis of Europe is scheduled to take place in Russia on 18-26 August. About 500 Jewish religious figures from 30 countries arrived in Liozno where Commissioner for Religious and Ethnic Affairs of Belarus Leonid Gulyako read out the Belarus president's welcome address to the guests. The rabbis visited the Adamenskaya Gorka Memorial where they took part in a collective prayer in memory of the Jews, who died in Liozno during World War Two.

A Jewish ghetto was established by the Nazi in Liozno as part of the Nazi's program on eradicating the Jews. One of the largest mass executions of civilians took place in February 1942 when the Nazi invaders shot dead about 1,500 people. Relatives of the famous painter Marc Chagall also died in Liozno during the war.

Several Liozno residents have been awarded the honorary title Righteous Among the Nations for saving Jews while risking life and limb.

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