30 June 2008
More than 50 people remember 1941 massacre near Cherven

More than 50 people on Sunday commemorated thousands people executed by the NKVD secret police near Cherven, Minsk region, days into Nazi Germany’s June 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union.

As local history enthusiast Uladzimir Darahush told BelaPAN, NKVD staff executed many prisoners, mostly victims of Stalin purges and foreign-born people, as the Soviet army was retreating, unable to check the advance of German troops.

A few thousand prisoners were shot to death in a forest some two kilometers off Cherven. “Among those killed was Belarusian Jewish writer Zelik Akselrod. A two-kilometer stretch of a forest trail was covered with bodies,” Mr. Darahush said.

The ceremony took place near a cross erected at the massacre site. The crowd heard speeches by Syarhey Papkow, deputy chairman of the Conservative Christian Party, Maya Klyashtornaya, a daughter of poet Todar Klyashtorny who was executed in 1937, and others.

The ceremony was observed by some 10 police officers and local government officials who filmed the entire event. //BelaPAN