Belarusian Activists Appeal To Presidents Of Germany, Poland, Austria And Israel

On June 29, the presidents of Germany, Poland, Austria and Israel intend to visit Belarus.

Belarusian public figures have appealed to the leaders of Germany, Poland, Austria and Israel with a call to include a visit to Kurapaty in the program of the nearest official visit to Belarus.

Honorable gentlemen – Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Andrzej Duda, Van der Bellen, Reuven Rivlin!

According to the official Minsk, your visit to Belarus to open the Memorial in Trastsianets, the Nazi death camp, where more than 206,000 people were killed in 1941-44, is scheduled for June 29.

Near the Trastsianets Memorial there is a tract of Blahaushchyna, a burial place of the Bolshevik regime’s victims. However, you’ll find not a monument or crosses there, but a city dump. And this is not accidental: the Belarusian authorities are still hiding the fact of the communist genocide, the scale of Stalinist repressions. There are hundreds of such burials in Belarus, and only Kurapaty has become a place to commemorate the victims of the communist regime, which is legally recognized state. But even here, acts of vandalism regularly occur.

In early June, in the protected zone of the largest Belarusian national necropolis Kurapaty, where in 1937-1941, Stalin's executioners shot up to 250,000 innocent people, a restaurant and an entertainment complex were opened with the permission of the authorities.

Kurapaty, one of the largest in Europe and the world necropolis of totalitarian regimes’ victims, stands alongside Auschwitz, Majdanek, Katyn. The construction of the restaurant and entertainment complex in the security zone of the memorial aroused indignation of the Belarusian society. But the official authorities did not react to the vandalism. Moreover, they started to persecute not those who are guilty of insulting the memory of the tortured, but the people who had organized an indefinite protest campaign with the demand to close the restaurant and entertainment complex in Kurapaty.

We ask you to pay close attention to the situation around Kurapaty.

We appeal to you, as well as to the official leaders of your delegations, with a call to include Kurapaty in the program of your visits to Belarus. We ask you to lay flowers on the graves of the nameless victims of communist terror.

Nazi and communist crimes against humanity must be condemned so that they do not happen again.

Svetlana Alexievich, Nobel Prize laureate for Literature

Iryna Veshtord, Belarusian Social Democratic Party (Hramada)

Yuras Hubarevich, Movement For Freedom

Anatol Liabedzka, United Civil Party

Alena Makouskaya, Association of Belarusians of the World "Batskaushchyna"

Volha Nikalaichyk, European Belarus

Uladzimir Niakliayeu, Belarusian National Congress

Ales Pashkevich, Union of Belarusian Writers

Barys Piatrovich (Sachanka), Union of Belarusian Writers

Pavel Seviarynets, Belarusian Christian Democracy

Viachaslau Siuchyk, Solidarity Movement "Razam"

Nina Shydlouskaya, Association of Belarusians of the World "Batskaushchyna"

Aliaksei Yanukevich, Belarusian Popular Front