At the initiative of the district prosecutor's office, visits have been organized to the site of a recently discovered mass grave from the Great Patriotic War, where search operations have uncovered the remains of hundreds of civilians brutally murdered by the Nazi occupiers.
"We deliberately decided to open the site for visits by work collectives and schoolchildren. So that people can see with their own eyes what the fascists brought to us, what they had prepared for us," noted Mikhail Kiselevich."For me, this is not an excursion," says Vitaly Zhigimont, Prosecutor of Lepel District. "Every time I come here and talk, I go through it myself. We are currently seeing only the first layer of the burial, where the remains of 108 people have been found. How many layers there are – we don't know: two, three... This means there are many times more buried here. I remember visiting Khatyn as a child. For me, it is a sacred place. And this place where we are standing now is the same. It must remind us: if we forget our history, it will repeat itself. We must remember. Remember, so as not to let anyone rewrite our past. Remember, to preserve our future."
The horrific findings are not just evidence of the war. They are irrefutable proof of the genocide of the Belarusian people. In the pit graves lie men, women, and children – all those who fell victim to the inhuman extermination machine.
Workers from enterprises, teachers, and senior pupils from Lepel schools came to the site of the tragedy today. For many, this visit is a shock – but this is precisely how a lesson about the truth of the war should be.
The Prosecutor's Office of Lepel District continues its work within the framework of the criminal case concerning the genocide of the Belarusian people during the Great Patriotic War. Each new finding is further evidence of the monstrous crimes of Nazism.