MINSK, 11 April (BelTA) - By resolution of the United Nations, 11 April is observed as the International Day of the Liberation of Nazi Concentration Camp Prisoners. It was established to commemorate the uprising at the Buchenwald camp.
On this very day in 1945, the prisoners of Buchenwald launched an armed uprising, as a result of which they seized the camp and held it until the arrival of the allied forces. In 1958, a memorial complex dedicated to the heroes and victims of Buchenwald was opened there.
In April 1945, the prisoners of Sachsenhausen, Dachau, and Ravensbrück were also liberated. Auschwitz, Majdanek, Treblinka, Buchenwald, and many other places on the map of Europe were turned during the years of World War II into mills of death, instruments of mass physical annihilation, and laboratories for conducting medical and other experiments.
The commission established in 1944 to assist the Extraordinary State Commission for the Investigation of Crimes Committed by the German-Fascist Invaders and Their Accomplices gathered evidence that fully exposed the bloody crimes of the Nazis.
The fascists answered for their atrocities at the international trial in Nuremberg, which took place from 20 November 1945, to 1 October 1946. Open trials for the most brutal war crimes were held in cities across the Soviet republics, including Minsk, Bobruisk, Vitebsk, and Gomel.
The Prosecutor General's Office of Belarus has been investigating the criminal case regarding the genocide of the Belarusian people during the Great Patriotic War since April 2021. During the investigation, over 21,300 people have been interrogated, nearly 8,000 of whom are victims, including former prisoners of death camps established by the Nazis both in occupied Belarus and beyond its borders. The Supreme Court of Belarus has handed down six convictions for the genocide of the Belarusian people.
According to data published on its website, 578 death camps operated on the territory of Belarus. The largest of these were located in Minsk, in the Nemiga area, and in Trostenets, an also in Ozarichi, Gomel, Polotsk, and Bobruisk. During the Great Patriotic War, Belarus lost approximately 3 million people or every third resident of the republic.
Every year on 11 April, rallies are held across Belarus in commemoration of the International Day of the Liberation of Nazi Concentration Camps. Former concentration camp prisoners, representatives of regional and local authorities, public organizations, labor collectives, students, and schoolchildren bring wreaths and flowers to memorial markers throughout the country. Monuments have been erected on the sites of death camps across the nation in memory of those who perished there. Every death camp is commemorated in the Khatyn memorial complex.
Follow us on:
