Memorial to WWII victims unveiled
More than 1,500 people have gathered today in Stasino of the Stolin District to honour the memory of civilians who died during the Great Patriotic War
After reconstruction, a memorial has been unveiled on the site where 12,500 people were shot by the Nazis. Among the guests of honour were the Deputy Head of the President Administration – Igor Lutsky, the Director – Editor-in-Chief of the Belarus Segodnya Publishing House – Dmitry Zhuk, the Chairman of the Brest Regional Executive Committee – Yuri Shuleiko, the Chairman of the Stolin District Executive Committee – Grigory Protosovitsky, as well as veterans, representatives of public organisations, schoolchildren and villagers.
“This is a memorable place. The tragedy that occurred on the Belarusian land during the Great Patriotic War is felt here," Sergei Sidorevich, the Deputy Chairman of the Stolin District Executive Committee, stressed.
In 1942-1944, the Nazis killed 12,500 people in Stasino. Of them, there were 8,000 Jewish ghetto prisoners and the others were Belarusians, Ukrainians, Russians, people of other nationalities.
The Stolin ghetto was fully destructed on September 11th-12th, 1942. All Jews were herded to the square, lined up and led to the death to Stasino. On the eve of the war, a huge pit was dug there for hangars of the future airfield; it was 300 x 100 metres and up to 10m deep. The Nazis mercilessly killed those people – including children and the elderly.
Until recently, there were two monuments in Stasino. One of them – in the form of an open book – was unveiled by order of Kiev’s Jewish community at the site of the mass murder of 8,000 Jews. Another monument – featuring a woman and a child – was erected on the grave of 4,500 people, including Belarusians, Ukrainians and Russians; it was made by order of the Stolin District Executive Committee. The monuments have been preserved.
In 2021, the site was landscaped and new architectural elements were added: an entrance arch and stands thanks to which the memorial got a finished look, primarily from a compositional point of view.
Today, the commemorative event participants have walked the road along which the Nazis drove people to death... A rally and laying of flowers then followed under the accompaniment of the combined choir of the Stolin House of Culture and the Pinsk border guard’s orchestra.
