Freeway - Memorial monuments in Belarus

Memorial monuments in Belarus

During our visit to Belarus we got the opportunity to see some memorial monuments after for example The Second World War, the war against Afghanistan and the Soviet Union in 1980´s.

The first monument we saw the "Island of tears", which is a monument of the war against the Soviet Union and Afghanistan in 1980’s. During this war many young Soviet men died.
This monument show their mothers in tears, crying after their young sons death.
Almost everyday people come to the "Island of tears" and leave some flowers in memory of the victims in the Afghani war.

An other monument we were at was "The square of independence". That’s a memorial monument after the Second World War, when the Nazis treated Belarus so brutally. They turned Belarus into a slaughterhouse. 2 230 000 people were killed in Belarus during the second world war, every fourth Belarusian died.

In this picture you can see "The square of independence". In front of the pillar there is a fire which burns every day of the year to honour the people that died.
Under this square there is a subway and on the walls there are some names of people who were killed during all years of suffering.

We took a trip to a small village called Hatin, at the last day of our visit in Belarus. That’s one of many villages which was burned down by the Nazis.
In 1943 the Nazis came to Hatin and set the whole village on fire and all the inhabitants were left there to die.

In Hatin 209 persons died, 75 of them were young children.
There were only three persons who survived. One was a man, about 50 years old, the other two were two young boys. Their whole families died.
In this picture you can see the statue of the old man, holding his dead son in his arms.
In the background you can see a big white "gravestone". That’s the place where the Nazis buried the people in the village.

To honour all the villages which were burnt, "graves" have been made graves for each and every village.
The graves are all black because of sorrow and there are some red stones that stand for fire. Which is the reason why so many people died. In these graves there are ashes from all villages.

All the houses that were in Hatin are marked out with a square and a chimney. Every 30 second a bell in every chimney rings a strange and rather mysterious sound to honour all the persons who were killed.