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Commemorative rally held at Kurapaty

About 500 people attended an annual commemorative rally held Sunday at Kurapaty, the unofficial memorial at a Stalin-era massacre site just outside Minsk, on the occasion of Dzyady (Remembrance of Ancestors Day).

Displaying historically national white-red-white flags, participants put up about 20 new memorial wooden crosses in addition to dozens of crosses erected earlier, laid flowers, lit oil lamps, and sang “Mahutny Bozha” (Oh, Lord Almighty), a Belarusian-language religious anthem.

Government-controlled newspapers insist that the current Belarusian authorities are not to blame for the Stalinist terror and atrocities, but “by putting up a Stalin bust at the dummy Stalin Line, they hit with actions, words, and attitude, destroying people’s souls,” Yuras Belenki, deputy chairman of the Conservative Christian Party (CCP), the official organizer of the rally, said in his speech.

CCP Executive Secretary Valery Buyval read out a letter from Zyanon Paznyak, the émigré leader of the party.
The Soviet regime killed more than two million Belarusians in the period between 1919 and 1953, Mr. Paznyak, formerly a historian and archeologist, noted in his message. “The Soviet occupation of Belarus should be recognized as a regime of genocide against the Belarusians,” he stressed.

“Ten crosses have been put up today at Kurapaty by the Conservative Christian Party,” Uladzimir Ramantsow, an activist of the party, told BelaPAN. “Initially, we encountered obstacles from authorities, who prevented us from bringing equipment here. But we believe that everything has passed off well because many people, who remember and respect their ancestors, have come. There exists a very simple history-tested formula: ‘A nation without memory is a nation without future.’”