Minsk honoured former prisoners of Nazi camps with medals to mark 80th anniversary of Great Victory
Twenty former prisoners of Nazi concentration camps residing in Minsk’s Zavodskoy residential district were awarded commemorative medals during solemn ceremony
The ceremony took place at the military commissariat of Minsk’s Zavodskoy residential district. Local and military authorities gathered to honour the pensioners ahead of Victory Day.
“First and foremost, we owe these individuals our deepest words of gratitude,” Colonel Andrei Pukhalsky, Military Commissar of Zavodskoy residential district, noted. “No one should ever experience what they have survived. We live under peaceful sky today and with no fear for tomorrow thanks to their resilience. We understand and remember the feat that they accomplished clearly. These medals are the least we can do for this heroic generation.”
Following the solemn award ceremony, artists performed wartime songs on stage for the veterans. After the event, Dmitry Rusetsky, who survived the Ozarichi concentration camp as a child, talked with sb.by.
“The Germans came to us almost immediately after the war broke out,” Dmitry Rusetsky said. “Soon, partisan units began to form and almost all my brothers and sisters provided their help to the units. I was too young to remember the war’s outbreak. Only after a while, my mother told me how our family and almost the entire village were sent to the Ozarichi concentration camp for the reason of assisting partisans. Only the war’s end is dimly stuck in my memory. I recall the SS soldier who pushed me into the fire, the fire around which my whole family were keeping warm. Thank God, I had only minor burns that still mark my legs.”
After the war, the life of Dmitry Rusetsky turned out well for him, as he stated. He married, worked as a driver for 40 years and raised two sons.
“Thank you for remembering those times and the feat of those people, who gave their lives fighting fascism. This medal belongs more to them than to me personally,” he added.
