Commission on investigation of the criminal case of genocide proposed by Prosecutor General's Office

The previously unknown facts of the Nazis’ atrocities on the territory of Belarus during the Great Patriotic War have become the prerequisites for a proposal to create an interdepartmental commission

The scales of the tragedy are actually more significant than it was previously believed.

As part of the investigation of the criminal case on genocide of the Belarusian people, prosecutors additionally identified more than a thousand completely or partially destroyed villages. According to preliminary data, at least 35 of them experienced the same fate as Khatyn.

In order to fix the information obtained during the investigation of the criminal case and to develop common approaches to their historical assessment, the Prosecutor General's Office proposed to the Council of Ministers to create an interdepartmental commission of employees of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, the National Archive of Belarus and the supervisory authority. As planned, the results of the work will be used to perpetuate the memory of the BSSR victims of the genocide, including during reconstruction of the Khatyn State Memorial Complex.

Based on official information, at the time of the initiation of the criminal case on genocide, 9,200 Belarusian villages were completely or partially destroyed during the occupation. At the same time, 186 settlements were burned to the ground together with their residents.