Flowers laid at Stalag 352 Memorial in Minsk

The flower-laying ceremony at the memorial to the victims of the Stalag 352 concentration camp on the territory of the former Masyukovshchina death camp on International Day of Commemoration and Dignity of the Victims of the Crime of Genocide and of the Prevention of This Crime gathered members of the Council of the Republic, representatives of the city authorities, clergy and the public who came to pay tribute to the memory of the people mercilessly tortured and killed during the Great Patriotic War.

Metropolitan Veniamin of Minsk and Zaslavl, the Patriarchal Exarch of All Belarus, noted that the people who died there did not bow their heads or kneel, but preserved human dignity in circumstances, in which it seemed to be impossible to survive. “We are now sad in thinking of how this could happen on our land. German and other peoples came to us during the Great Patriotic War. How did it happen that the people famous for their poets and writers generated the ideas of fascism and performed the actions that it is hard to think about? Being guided by pride, self-exaltation, the desire to put themselves above other, they fought – including against the civilian population. Even now, genocide is allowed in other lands. Our people stood ground and won. In order to survive in the future, we need a firm reliance on the spiritual heritage. Eternal memory to those who died but not submit,” he said.