MINSK, 9 November (BelTA) – The scale of the genocide of the Belarusian people during the Great Patriotic War is so big that the investigation will take more than one year, Prosecutor General Andrei Shved told reporters prior to an open dialogue with students and teachers of International University MITSO, BelTA has learned.
“This matter is very important. It is a kind of cement, the foundation that, in my opinion, underpins our contemporary ideology. This is the reason why the president of our country constantly warns us at many official events, including mournful ones, that if we forget what happened during the war, if we forget what the Nazis, fascists did during the Great Patriotic War, we will have a really hard time and the future of our country will be put on the line. Therefore, when investigating the genocide case, we try not to miss a single fact of atrocities, a single fact of crimes committed by the Nazis and their accomplices against civilians during the Great Patriotic War,” Andrei Shved said.
He stressed that “the scale of the tragedy is so big and terrible that it will take more than one year to ascertain everything and wrap our head around what happened here.”
The prosecutor general noted that all verified information is communicated to the public. “Practically every day we receive new pieces of evidence. We systematize and generalize it and are going to put everything out. People should know the truth. And especially our youth,” Andrei Shved said.
According to him, almost every day investigators come across new indisputable evidence indicating that fascists and nationalists of Ukrainian, Lithuanian, Latvian, Polish units, other punitive services killed civilians on the territory of the BSSR. As of today, at least three million people are known to be killed. “In fact, the number of settlements that were destroyed, including those villages that were burned down together with their inhabitants, is much bigger than it was previously documented in official chronicles: at least 10,215 settlements were burned,” the prosecutor general specified. “The number of death camps on the territory of the BSSR was much bigger than the official historiography told us. We identified another 50 death camps and I think the figure will grow significantly. Moreover, the most barbarous ways and methods of killing people, including children, were used,” he added.
Andrei Shved noted that it took a lot of time and effort to determine the amount of material damage, and this figure is really big. The public will be told about it later.
