Memorial complex "Khatyn"

The Khatyn Memorial Complex is a reminder of the tragedy of the Belarusian people, who were subjected to genocide by the Nazis during the Great Patriotic War. The complex is located on the site of the village of Khatyn, destroyed along with its inhabitants, in the Logoisk region, approximately 60 km from Minsk. The Khatyn State Memorial Complex was inaugurated in July 1969.

Story

On March 22, 1943, the Nazis massacred the residents of the village of Khatyn. The reason was an attack by partisans on an enemy convoy, which occurred 6 km from the village. As a result of the attack, a German officer was killed, which infuriated the Nazis. The occupiers chose a nearby village as the object of revenge. All residents, young and old, were forced into the barn; those who tried to escape were shot in cold blood in front of their relatives. People were locked in a barn, which was doused with gasoline and set on fire. In panic, people tried to escape, some managed to escape from the fiery captivity, but they were mercilessly finished off with shots. The two girls were able to get out of the barn and run into the forest, where they were found by residents of a neighboring village. After some time, this village was burned, so they could not survive.

Miraculously, two boys survived - seven-year-old Viktor Zhelobkovich and twelve-year-old Anton Baranovsky. The first was saved by his mother, under whose lifeless body he lay wounded in the arm until the Nazis left. The second was wounded in the leg, and the aggressors considered him dead. Of the adults, only the blacksmith Joseph Kaminsky survived, waking up after the attackers left. Among the dead neighbors, he found his mortally wounded son, who died in his arms. This sad story served as the plot for a sculptural composition installed in the memorial complex.

The Khatyn tragedy claimed the lives of 149 innocent people, approximately half of them were children under the age of 16.

Structure of the memorial complex

The bright architectural and artistic memorial, through simple and understandable images, tells about the tragic period in the life of the Belarusian people, makes us think about the destructive power of fascism, about the triumph of fortitude. The complex was built on an open area in accordance with the plan of a destroyed village; on its territory there is one sculptural composition, majestic and very strong in meaning. It is based on the tragedy of Joseph Kaminsky - a father holds his dead son in his arms, but the man’s head is held high, he has not internally submitted to the enemy.

On the territory of the complex you can see elements of village buildings recreated using artistic and architectural means that were once here, but now have a symbolic meaning. Here is the roof of that same barn, log houses, part of the open gates (a sign of the hospitality of the residents), wells. Inside the log houses there are obelisks with memorial plaques, with the names of the victims who lived in these houses carved on them. At the top of the obelisks there are bells that ring every 30 seconds in memory of the victims.

At one of the sites, a so-called village cemetery was created - graves with the names of settlements that, like Khatyn, were forever destroyed by the Nazis. In contrast, a composition was created from symbolic trees, on the branches of which the names of villages that were destroyed, but eventually restored, are listed. The information that every fourth resident of Belarus died during the war is symbolically reflected in the composition of three birch trees; the fourth niche is empty. On the square of the complex there are also memorial plaques with the names of concentration camps that operated in the country.