Rallies were held in the Vitebsk region as part of the international memorial event 'For the Glory of the Common Victory'
In a solemn ceremony, earth collected from the burial sites of soldiers, partisans, and civilians was poured from 19 small bags into a special capsule.
In the near future, it will be kept at the Begoml Museum of People's Glory. On May 9 next year, it will be placed in the crypt of the capital's Church-Monument in honor of All Saints. Thus, all those who fought shoulder to shoulder to achieve the common Victory in the Great Patriotic War will be reunited in the people's memory.
– Participation in the event confirms our gratitude to those who fought fearlessly, defended their native land at the cost of their own lives, and granted us a peaceful sky, – noted the Chairman of the District Executive Committee, Oleg Pinchuk. – And we, the descendants of the victors, will not let anyone rewrite history and erase the immortal feat of our grandfathers and great-grandfathers from it.
During the war, about 20,000 people died in the territory of the Dokshytsy and Begoml districts, which were later merged. The younger generation helps adults maintain 18 military burial sites where heroes rest. Another place on the district map has great historical significance – the "Shunevka" memorial complex.
On a May morning in 1943, Nazi invaders surrounded the village, drove 66 local residents into a barn, and set it on fire. Those who tried to escape the fiery captivity were finished off with machine-gun fire. And small children were thrown into a deep well. The village was never revived after the war.
– Shunevka is one of the three thousand villages of the Vitebsk region destroyed during the Great Patriotic War, – emphasized the Head of the Main Department of Ideological Work and Youth Affairs of the Regional Executive Committee, Gennady Egorov. – This is our indelible pain and eternal memory of those who suffered innocently in those harsh years.
Rallies as part of the international campaign "In Glory of the Common Victory" were held for a week at memorials located in five rural councils, as well as in the district center.
A kind of final chord of the work done took place in Shunewka at the monument "Curse of Fascism," which rises above the recreated foundations of burnt houses. Representatives of the district military commissariat, public associations, and the district council of veterans attended the commemorative event.
In a solemn ceremony, Great Patriotic War veteran Valentin Ivanovich Yakushevsky, Oleg Pinchuk, and Elizaveta Linnik, a student of the Krulevshchyna Secondary School awarded a first-degree diploma for participating in the republican conference "And the Saved World Remembers," took soil from the memorial site.
Clergy performed a prayer for the fallen, consecrated the bags with soil, after which the military commissar of the Dokshitsy district, Lieutenant Colonel Vitaly Lesnichenko, poured it into a capsule.
Rally participants honored the memory of the fallen with a minute of silence and laid flowers at the monument.
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A similar event took place in Glubokoye, in Victory Park. Representatives of all rural councils marched in a solemn procession to the mass grave of soldiers and partisans who participated in the liberation. The day before, soil was collected from 32 burial sites, five of which are located within the city limits.
Representatives of labor collectives, public associations, youth, and, of course, Great Patriotic War veterans were invited to the event. The capsule with sacred soil will be stored in the Glubokoye Historical and Ethnographic Museum until the spring of next year.
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Sharkovshchina residents also took an active part in the international campaign. Lyudmila Stoma, head of the Department of Ideological Work, Culture, and Youth Affairs of the District Executive Committee, noted that about 2.5 thousand people were buried in the district during the war. These were mainly civilians.
As part of the "In Glory of the Common Victory" campaign, soil was collected from 11 military burial sites, six of which are mass and individual graves of Red Army soldiers.
After the rallies, the capsule with soil will be stored for some time in the museum of the Great Patriotic War of the Germanovich Secondary School.