The world history knows no examples of such targeted genocide as our ancestors experienced during the Great Patriotic War, when entire nations were ordered to be destroyed, cities were swept off the earth's surface, villages were burned to the ground together with residents.
The fate of Khatyn during the Great Patriotic War was shared by thousands of villages in our country. According to recent studies, 209 cities and regional centers, and more than 12,000 villages were destroyed and burned by the Nazi invaders in Belarus.
The result of the Nazi policy of genocide and scorched earth was 2,230,000 Belarusians killed during the three years of occupation. And this figure is not final. As part of the investigation of the criminal case on the genocide of the Belarusian people, hundreds of new facts of the extermination of civilians have already been established.
Analyzing archival data, the cynicism of Hitler’s ideology becomes clear: the people of Belarus were to be practically wiped off the face of the earth. It was planned to expel and destroy 75 percent of the population from our territory. Those who survived were divided into two categories: the first, the largest, was to be evicted to Siberia, the second, the smaller, remained in place to perform the most difficult work and service for immigrants from Germany.
At a meeting on March 30, 1941, Hitler declared, "We are obliged to exterminate the population - this is part of our mission to protect the German population. I have the right to remove millions of an inferior race that breeds like vermin."
One of the points of the "Check-list of the German soldier" said, "You have no heart or nerves; they are not needed in war. Destroy in yourself pity and compassion - kill every Russian, do not stop, if you it is an old man or woman, girl or boy, kill, you will save yourself from death, secure the future of your family and become forever glorified."
It would seem that history is not subject to oblivion, all historical facts are fixed for centuries, and any sane politician will never push his people to new trials and tragedies.
Despite this, attacks on the outcome of the Second World War have intensified in recent years in a number of European countries, and especially among our neighbors. A number of falsifiers, fulfilling the political order of certain revanchist forces, deliberately distort history in people's minds and level out the role of the Soviet people in the victory over fascism, allowing a new wave of Nazi sentiments in the world to rise. And this is despite the tragedy of the peoples of Europe, where the fascists devastated entire countries, reduced towns and villages to ruins, and killed millions of people. In fact, during the Second World War, at least 6 million Polish citizens, 6 million Jews, 1.7 million Yugoslavians, and 1.2 million Romanians died.
That is why it is especially important to firmly defend the truth about the events of the war years, cherish the memory of the feat of our fathers and grandfathers, and continue the work that has begun to identify the facts of the genocide of the Belarusian people.
Decades of peace and creation have allowed us to turn the wounded Belarusian land into flourishing fields and gardens, to build a prosperous state in which we can live in peace, study, work, and build a decent future together.
Peace is the main state–forming value of Belarusians.
