SVETLOGORSK DISTRICT, 21 June (BelTA) – Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko is on a working trip to Svetlogorsk District, Gomel Oblast today, BelTA has learned.
Aleksandr Lukashenko will take part in the opening of the memorial complex Ola. The complex was erected at the site of a village the Nazi invaders burned down during World War Two. In Svetlogorsk Aleksandr Lukashenko is expected to visit the local railway station where the development of Belarusian Railways and railway electrification prospects will be discussed. There are plans to open regular electric passenger train service along the line Svetlogorsk-Zhlobin-Minsk.
As he met with students and professors of medical universities on 13 December 2019, Aleksandr Lukashenko backed the Gomel Oblast administration's initiative to reconstruct a communal grave at the site of the burned-down village. The initiative was mentioned by a student of the Gomel Medical University during the meeting.
Prior to the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945 the village of Ola was home to 168 residents in 34 households. The German army occupied the village in late July 1941. Residents of the villages of Chirkovichi, Zdudichi, Rakshin, Rudnya, Iskra, Kakal (Svetoch), and Dednoye of what is Svetlogorsk District at present as well as the villages of Korotkovichi, Plesovichi, Selnoye, Mormal of today's Zhlobin District were relocated to the village by January 1944. The people had to build pithouses and live in outbuildings.
In the morning of 14 January 1944 a German punitive force assisted by an army unit of about 1,000 troops surrounded the village of Ola. People were herded into the houses, which were then set ablaze. Those trying to run away were gunned down. Still alive, some were dragged into the fire. As many as 1,758 civilians were shot and burned like that, including 950 kids.
The village of Ola was not revived after the war. In 1958 a monument was erected at the communal grave where the civilians and Soviet soldiers are buried (a total of 2,253 people).
The communal grave has been recently reconstructed to create the memorial complex Ola. It includes an entrance zone, a commemorative zone (in the area adjacent to the existing communal grave) and a footpath to connect the two areas along a former village street. A symbolic cross and a bell have been placed in the center of the commemorative zone. There is a bell tower nearby. It has been stylized as a village barn and contains a number of bells to match the number of villages, whose residents died there.
