Home > News

Words Uniting All Generation

Four memorials to Holocaust victims were open in July on the territory of Belarus: in the villages Medvedichi and Ostrov (Brest region), Daraganovo (Mogilev region) and Baranovichi city.

All the memorials are built on the initiative of the Committee for the Preservation of the Victims of Holocaust in the Republic of Belarus. The Committee was initiated by the heads of the biggest Jewish communities and organizations of Belarus and supported financially by the Simon Mark Lazarus Foundation (Great Britain), Miles and Merelin Kletter Family Fund (USA) and Warren and Beverly Geisler Family Fund (USA). Local authorities helped a lot in territory improvement.

The memorial in Ostrov village (Brest region) was open in July, 26 2009. Representatives of the Miles and Merelin Kletter Family Fund (USA) and Warren and Beverly Geisler Family Fund (the USA) participated in the consecration ceremony. Unfortunately, Michael and Diana Lazarus weren't able to arrive to the official ceremony; but this is the Lazarus family that started a close work with the Representation Office of AJJDC and the Belarusian Jewish Community more then five years ago, and thanks to this family there were thirty seven memorials to the victims of the Holocaust erected across the country.

Resident Representative of AJJDC Yoni Leifer, Mikhail Treister, Chairman of Former Ghetto and Concentration Camp Prisoners and representatives of local authorities took part in a mourning ceremony together with foreign guests.

A survived witness of the tragedy from Ostrov village took his word during the opening ceremony. All day long it was pouring, sounds of rain echoed Jewish grieve melody and words of Kaddish full of deep respect to those who were massacred. Grigoriy Abramovich, Rabbi of the Religious Union for Progressive Judaism, read the prayer. Ostrov inhabitants laid flowers on a memorial, tears filling their eyes.

Miles and Merelin Kletter Family and Warren and Beverly Geisler Family laid wreaths on the memorial near Medvedichi village (Brest region).

They also visited Baranovichi city, where in July, 8 there was an opening of the memorial plague to commemorate 3400 Jews massacred near the railroad during WWII. Region of Zelenyi Most became the first place of Baranovichi ghetto prisoners mass killing. Leonid Levin, Chairman of the Union of Belarusian Jewish Organizations and Communities, is the author of the memorial plague project. A memorial inscription in the red marble is made in Hebrew, Belarusian and English.

An opening of the monument to the victims of Daraganovo village (Mogilev region) took place in July, 27 2009. Jews of Daraganovo were massacred in May 1942.

“…No matter how many memorials have been erected, every time we feel sorrow, because the whole nation was deprived of its right to live. As long as we remember the victims, they won't utterly disappear” — these words unite generations.

30.07.2009

Printable version