Address to compatriots on occasion of National Remembrance Day of Victims of Great Patriotic War and Genocide of Belarusian People
Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko has sent an address to compatriots on the occasion of the National Remembrance Day of Victims of the Great Patriotic War and the Genocide of Belarusian People.
“22.06.41 are the numbers burned into the memory of the Belarusian people as the most terrible date in history. The date when the country was invaded by Hitler’s army assembled from all over Europe in order to conquer living space for the Nazis who declared themselves a ‘superior race’. This was the beginning of a large-scale cleansing of the Eastern European territory with experiments on humans, executions, torture, and mass murders of defenseless residents – the elderly, women, and children,” the address reads.
Aleksandr Lukashenko reminded that the war, which came to our land 85 years ago, claimed the life of every third resident and broke the destinies of millions of Belarusians. “Year after year on this June morning we remember how the Brest Fortress, fortified areas, and cities stood to the death, throwing a wrench into the plans for a lightning-fast offensive by fascist Germany. We remember how the occupied republic fought for long 1,132 days, bleeding with the blood of unconquered and unbroken heroes - underground resistance fighters, partisans, and civilians,” the Belarusian leader noted.
“Our memory is a shield with which we restrain the aggression of militant revanchism. The investigation of the criminal case into the genocide of the Belarusian people is an act of fair trial of the crimes that have no statute of limitations,” the President emphasized. “We, the heirs of the victors, have a duty to always protect the historical truth, preserve the memory of the heroes of that war, instill in our children an immunity against ideologies of exclusivity and superiority of nations, and teach them to be proud of the great heroic deed of the Soviet people who gave the current generations life, peace, and freedom.”
