A monument to the victims of genocide, created by a Vitebsk sculptor, will be erected in Senno

A monument to the victims of genocide will be erected in Senno. This was announced by the author of the composition, Vitebsk sculptor Ivan Kazak.

"The model of the cultural object is ready and has been approved by the leadership of Senno District. It will be unveiled in the district center on the eve of the City Day, which falls on June 10 this year," said Ivan Kazak. The monument to the victims of genocide is a combination of several symbolic zones. On the slab to the right, a settlement is depicted with wooden houses and barbed wire fences hanging over them. The center of the composition is a steep descent, down which people are walking. They are going to be shot, and in each figure, there is a sense of doom and the realization that this descent leads to the grave with no return. To the left of the monument, a part of an ordinary house is depicted – a fragment of a roof, a window with a candle, and in front of it, a stool on which an elderly mother sits hunched over, mourning the children and acquaintances taken away to certain death by the fascists. In the corner above the window, an icon of the Kazan Mother of God will be placed as a symbol of God's help to all mothers who have lost loved ones in the war.

The monument is planned to be made of composite materials. It will be approximately 2.7 meters high and over 3 meters wide. This will be the first object to introduce visitors to the thematic exhibition at the District House of Crafts.

An exhibition on the tragedy of the genocide of the residents of Senno District will be located in the basement of the building, which housed a spirit rectification warehouse at the end of the 19th – beginning of the 20th century. During the Great Patriotic War, the fascists set up a prison here for prisoners of war and those detained for collaborating with partisans. In the upper floors of the warehouse, the occupiers organized a sabotage school where they trained saboteurs, mainly women and adolescents, for work in partisan detachments.

Currently, in the basement, which until recently housed a shop, work is underway to clear the walls, ceiling, and floor down to the authentic red brickwork. According to cultural workers, the old brick is very strong and well-preserved, but it will need to be conserved to prevent crumbling.

On City Day, an exhibition consisting of two zones – historical and interactive – will be opened here. The first zone will feature a fragment of a prison, while the second, modernized zone, will host classes for schoolchildren. The exhibition will be complemented by replicas of photo documents, archival photographs, including those of the destroyed town and of Sennno residents killed or taken into slavery, as well as some personal belongings of those executed. Iva Shubko, Director of the Sennno Historical and Local Lore Museum, stated that before the war, the district center housed a Catholic church, two Orthodox churches, and six synagogues. At the end of December 1941, 965 people – prisoners of the local ghetto – were executed here.

Source: vitebsk-region.gov.by