People in Belarus Remember Stalin's Terror

(Memorial Rally in Kurapaty, Minsk, October 28, 2007)

The memorial rally and meeting dedicated to Dziady - the day of commemoration the ancestors - took place in Minsk on October 28, 2007. From 1.500 to 2.000 people participated in this rally. The column of demonstrants under the white-red-white national flags went along Nezalezhnasti Avenue and commemorated the memory of the Belarusians repressed in 1920-1930-th in Kurapaty - the place where tens of thousands victims of the Stalin's terror were killed and buried. The memorial rally participants demanded to release the today's political prisoners - Aliaksandr Kazulin, Zmiter Dashkevich, Artur Finkevich, Andrey Klimov and other prisoners of conscience.

Mass execution of the Belarusian intellectuals took place in Minsk on October 29, 1937. About 100 people, among them 22 writers were killed in inner prison of People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs. Events of those bloody days were documentary restored in the book "Only One Night" by the writer-researcher Leonid Moryakov.

The writers shot in that night were, certainly, best and talented people of that time: the favourite pupil of the great belarussian poet Yanka Kupala - Valeriy Moryakov, the founder of literature group "Youth" Mikhas' Charot, poet Ales' Dudar', prose writer Mikhas' Zaretsky, the honored painter of Belarus Anatol' Volniy, critic Makar Shalaj, journalist Pavel Shestakov and many many others.

Destiny of people which were tragically united with this terrible night, very different. Ananiy Dyakov was the Pro-Rector, and then Rector of the Belarussian State University. Together with him was Alexey Kuchinsky who acted as Rector at the moment of arrest Hatskel Dunets was just a factory worker. Ivan Zhivutsky taught the Belarus and Russian languages in Zaslavl. Zakhar Kovalchuk at the moment of arrest was a director of a fish-canning factory. Solomon Kantor - director of BelPromTorg.

The most widespread charges - "a member of the anti-soviet terrorist-espionage organization", "a member of the national-fascist organization", "the figure of the anti-soviet organization". By the way, for you (the reader) to know, all those organizations were not real and existed only on paper.

Practically right after arrests and execution of these people their wives and children have been arrested. With an identical verdict ("a member of family of the traitor of the native land") all of them have sent in Kazakhstan, to the notorious Algeria (the name of the camp) - or Akmolinsk Camp Branch of Wives of Traitors of the Native Land.(The city of Akmolinsk since 1997 refers to as Astana.)

Here are just some numbers from those terrible times:

- 200 - 230 persons were killed on the average in a day by Belarusian KGB during from August 1937 to November 1938.

- About 10 thousand people have been shot in the internal prison of People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs in Minsk, USSR during so called "socialism".

- More than 600 thousands of Belarusians have been subjected to repressions for all time of Stalin cleanings.

- The average court time was 10 - 12 minutes by commissioners of People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs who were sent to Minsk from Moscow.

On 70-th anniversary of the tragedy, public members attended the grave sites of communisns' terror victims in Minsk. Without any doubt the authorities did not permit a meeting-requiem in Kurapaty.

"Certainly, every Belarusian should visit the places in Minsk, where the communism's martyrs are buried. Because we can feel the breath of communism even today. Stalin's Line, veneration of Lenin by the authorities in 2007 (21st century!) show that the struggle in Belarus has not finished", - Pavel Severinets said.