MINSK, 22 June (BelTA) – The Brest Hero Fortress Memorial Complex has hosted a commemorative meeting dedicated to the Day of the National Remembrance of the Victims of the Great Patriotic War, BelTA has learned.
The commemorative meeting on Ceremonial Square began as usual - at 3.30 in the morning, half an hour before the roar of shells broke the pre-dawn silence in the city on 22 June 1941. The border guards were the first to take on the enemy's fire and they stood to death. Wreaths with candles lit from the Eternal Flame were lowered onto the waters of the Western Bug River to commemorate those who perished in the first minutes and hours of the war and to pay tribute to their extraordinary courage.
For many years Brest has not slept this night. The city dwellers consider it their duty to meet the dawn in the fortress to commemorate those who did not hesitate to rise up to defend the Fatherland 80 years ago. More than forty delegations arrived in the border town the day before. These are representatives of the government bodies of Belarus, the CIS, the EAEU, the Union State, movements and public associations from Russia, France, Germany, Serbia, participants of patriotic campaigns, and the clergy led by Metropolitan Veniamin of Minsk and Zaslavl, Patriarchal Exarch of All Belarus.
White balloons were released into the sky to pay tribute to the feat of the fallen heroes. Members of the delegations laid baskets of flowers and wreaths at the Eternal Flame and the necropolis. All in all, 1,038 defenders of the fortress are buried under the slabs of the memorial; 277 names have been immortalized, including representatives of 21 ethnicities of the former Soviet Union. The ceremony participants honored the memory of all those who did not return from that war with a minute of silence and a gun salvo.
“Today at noon Belarus will observe a common minute of silence. And we will recall everyone who died in that terrible war. This memory is our strength. The strength of Belarusian people who survived, preserved peace on their land, built an independent country,” Brest Oblast Governor Yuri Shuleiko said. He gave his special thanks to the foreign delegations. “Your presence in the Brest Fortress on this day is the best proof that the unity manifested during the Great Patriotic War continues today. Together we will do everything so that our land will never again experience the horrors of war and all dawns will be peaceful,” the governor said.
State Secretary of the Union State Dmitry Mezentsev noted that this day offers an opportunity to comprehend the scale of the feat of the Fatherland defenders who saved the world from the brown plague of fascism. The words left by an unknown soldier on the wall of the fortress “we are dying without shame' represent the moral choice between life and death, between the commitment to fulfill one's duty and stay faithful to the oath and acting as a coward and retreating. “It is particularly significant that the presidents of Belarus and Russia invariably stand united in defending the historical truth about the Great Patriotic War, about the feat of the Soviet soldier, home front workers, partisans. This stance of the heads of state consolidates nations, helps us feel more confident and stronger. The strategic choice of our peoples, leaders, millions of compatriots is to live in peace and to be guided by the moral compass that shows us a sense of direction particularly clearly on the day of the 80th anniversary of the beginning of the Great Patriotic War on the sacred land of the Brest Fortress,” he added.
The rally ended with a solemn march of the troops of the Brest garrison. A new peaceful day continued with a historical re-enactment event at the Kobrin fortification of the fortress.
