Lukashenko on memorial in Gatchina District: each such monument is a witness, accuser and judge
The President of Belarus, Aleksandr Lukashenko, and the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, have taken part today in the opening ceremony of a memorial complex in memory of Soviet civilians – victims of the Nazi genocide during the Great Patriotic War in the village of Zaitsevo, Gatchina District, Leningrad Region
Addressing the participants of the ceremony, veterans, children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the heroes of the siege of Leningrad, as well as representatives of the public, Aleksandr Lukashenko thanked for the invitation to this event, “It’s very important for me to be here on these days – sacred for our nations. Today, on the day of the complete lifting of the siege of Leningrad, we are immersed in the thoughts and feelings of people who experienced hell on earth. Even eighty years later, the memory of these events makes hearts clench, again experiencing the bitterness of loss, the joy of liberation, and the incredible intensity of the struggle for life, for our Victory.”
According to the Belarusian leader, the price of the Great Victory is our common pain, “It’s common to all peoples sentenced to death by Hitler’s Germany. Belarusians feel it like no one else. This pain is cast in bronze and engraved in stone on thousands of mass graves of unknown soldiers, in places of mass executions of civilians and selfless heroic deeds of the Red Army soldiers, partisans, and underground fighters: from Moscow to Brest and to Berlin. Each such monument is a witness, accuser and judge. Each monument is irrefutable evidence of the genocide of the Soviet people. This is a sentence for the ages. No matter how much someone doesn’t want it today.”
Aleksandr Lukashenko underlined that the memory of the victims of that war and the heroism of our fathers and grandfathers today harasses, ‘first of all, the ideological henchmen of murderers and traitors’, “It is they who today honour the executioners in their parliaments. It is they who started the war with graves and monuments in Poland, the Baltic States, and Ukraine. They are completely crazy! How is it possible to think that by destroying a monument they will destroy the memory that lives in the hearts of the people? People who have found the strength to build new peaceful relations with those states that just yesterday brought suffering and death to our lands.”
The President of Belarus stated, “The memory of the heroism of the winners and their spiritual feat will be preserved forever, including here, in this poignant image of the mothers and children of Leningrad, Khatyn, Baby Yar and tens of thousands of Soviet cities and villages, destroyed and depopulated. It’s important for us, Belarusians, that this mournful monument will preserve a piece of our wounded soul, the memory of the tragedy of our nation.”
The Belarusian leader accentuated that there are thousands and thousands of monuments in both Russia and Belarus, “The overwhelming majority of these monuments is dedicated to those heroes, Red Army soldiers, partisans, and people who defended their land with weapons. And somehow we, perhaps not intentionally, did not forget, but we did not pay proper tribute to our workers of the rear – those who accomplished the feat in the rear. We talked about this a lot, but most of the monuments are devoted to those who defended their Motherland with weapons and could defend themselves. The greatness of this decision [erecting a memorial in Gatchina] is that we pay tribute to those people and children who could not defend themselves. The last drop of blood was squeezed out of them to give to the fascist soldiers. It probably makes sense that we are now ‘compensating’ for what we may have missed during Soviet times.”
Aleksandr Lukashenko thanked everyone who implemented this project and supported the initiative: the President of Russia, the Leningrad Region leadership, the Russian Military Historical Society, and the team of authors of the memorial, “Thank you all from all the long-suffering Belarusian people! We cannot change the past, but we can protect the future. Let this memorial protect our common historical memory, the brotherhood of peoples and the strength of the indestructible unity of nations that united in the fight against world evil and defeated it. This is very important for us today.”
The Belarusian Head of State wished everyone peace, goodness and happiness.
