A requiem rally was held in Vitebsk in memory of the victims of the Great Patriotic War
This date is a symbol of the courage of Soviet soldiers who were the first to meet the enemy on the border with Poland. The resilience of a people who survived the brown plague. The heroism of ordinary soldiers and generals, nurses and military doctors, paratroopers, tankmen, infantrymen, partisans, and civilians. Every third Belarusian joined the mournful lists of the fallen. Every person experienced the hardships of the war years in those years.
Today, remembering the exploits of the entire nation and individual heroes, one cannot fail to note that all of them were committed in the name of the Motherland, its bright future. People under fire craved one thing – peace: for themselves, their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. They fought the enemy for a clear sky, sparing no effort or their own lives.
The bloodshed was stopped at a high price. And the duty of the current generation is to honor, cherish, and preserve the memory of the heroes, to pass on the stories of those times to children. So that they do not forget, hear firsthand what it is like to stand face to face with the enemy, look into the barrel of a punitive automatic rifle, be almost buried alive, miraculously survive, fight for life, and win!
They say that if the memory of the people is alive, then disaster will not happen again. As long as at least one veteran is still able to tell how difficult it was in battle, what sacrifices war takes, and how quickly children grow up who have endured the trials of war, no one will want to take up arms.
Those who survived the Great Patriotic War cannot recall without a shudder how terrible and hungry it was, how they lost relatives and friends. And although it is not easy to relive those events time and again, people of the war generation share their stories so that their Victory was not in vain. For example, the grandmother of Alexander Zayats, a student at Vitebsk State Technological University, who stood among those honoring the memory of the fallen at the requiem rally, served in a medical unit during the Great Patriotic War.
– It was hard, as she told it, to see the death of soldiers and officers, but even harder to realize that she could do nothing to help the dying, – said the young man. – I believe that young people are obliged to know all this and understand what destruction war brings, how ruthless it is.
The Day of National Remembrance is a date of sorrow that unites generations and people of different professions. Wreaths were laid at the military burial site in the Heroes of the Patriotic War of 1812 Square by representatives of the regional and city executive committees, public associations, law enforcement agencies, human rights defenders, clergy, veterans and juvenile prisoners, and members of the BRSM. All together paid tribute to the courage and inflexibility of the heroes who died pushing the enemy back from their native land.
– This peculiar pantheon of heroes is a place of glory, memory, one might say, a starting point where the first event in the region began, – emphasized Vladimir Terentyev, Chairman of the Regional Council of Deputies. – On this tragic date, we remember those who did not surrender a single border post without a fight, and we pay tribute to the defenders of the Belarusian land.
Remembering the feat of ancestors and preserving peace – this thought ran like a red thread through all events dedicated to the 79th anniversary of the beginning of the Great Patriotic War.
"Vitebskiye Vesti", photo by Pyotr CHIMKOVSKY.