MINSK, 22 June (BelTA) – BelTA, the State Border Committee and the Brest Hero-Fortress Memorial Complex have launched a joint project titled “Bordering the impossible” timed to the 80th anniversary of the beginning of the Great Patriotic War.
The project is meant to highlight the feat of the border guards who were the first to take the blow of Nazi Germany at dawn on 22 June 1941. In the first days of the war, 16,000 people were killed in the border troops of Belarus.
The project cites unique facts about individual frontier outposts which commanders and soldiers showed incredible courage and strain on the edge of the possible to stop the advance of the enemy on their native land. The Nazis were shocked at the heroism of the fighters. They did not expect such fierce resistance. For example, the first outpost of the 86th Avgustov Border Squad and its commander - Senior Lieutenant Sivachev fought for 10 hours and all perished. No one retreated. Terrible ordeals befell on the soldiers and commanders of the 17th Border Squad, that was on the way of the offensive of the Army Group Center, which, according to Operation Barbarossa, was to deliver the main blow on the USSR.
The garrison of the Brest Fortress fought in the rear of the Germans for a month. Nine batteries of "nebelwerfers" fired 2,500 incendiary and high-explosive mines at the citadel in a matter of minutes.
The joint project features unique archival photos which captured the first hours of the war, soldiers and commanders of the border squads of the Belarusian District and the advancement of the German army on the territory of the BSSR. The documentary photos create a sense of the immersion in what was happening.
The project also presents photos and stories of the exhibits of the Defense Museum, the exposition “Defense of the Eastern Fort” of the Brest Hero Fortress. Each of the artifacts represents the fate of a person or a whole squad.
