Shunevka. The Curse of Fascism Memorial Complex

The partisans of the local settlement carried out actions against the occupiers: they destroyed bridges, sabotaged railway trains. In response, the Nazis brutally massacred the local population, burning the elderly and throwing children into wells. The village of Shunevka was completely destroyed. Only three residents managed to escape. Residents of Shunevka are also buried in the cemetery of the burned villages of Khatyn.

The memorial complex was opened on July 3, 1983. It repeats the layout of the old village of Shunevka. The memorial is located right by the road and is marked on both sides by large road signs depicting the name of the village engulfed in flames and the date 1943.

The places where 22 destroyed houses stood are marked by concrete bases with white steps. The names of the dead residents are immortalized there on bronze flames.

The central element of the memorial is a bronze statue of a woman about 5 meters high. She is depicted with her arms raised and standing in the opening of a stylized gate. It is written on the monument in the Belarusian language: "Yak matsi, I kill..."

Three bells are attached to the broken end of the crossbar: two of them are ringing, and the third, split, symbolizes that every third inhabitant died in the war on the territory of the Dokshitsky district — more than 20 thousand people.

The author of the sculpture "The Curse of Fascism" is the national artist A. A. Anikeichik together with architects Y. M. Gradov and L. M. Levin. Nearby there is a concrete well into which the Nazis dumped children alive. There is also a plaque with texts about the memory of the victims of the war.

At the end of the memorial, near the border of the forest, there is a memorial sign informing about the tragedy that occurred on May 22, 1943.

In 2010, the memorial was reconstructed and renovated. A granite stone with an image of a stork flying over a fire and an inscription about the losses of the population of the Dokshitsky district appeared here, and a backlight was installed for the dark.

Today, the memorial is an important part of the cultural heritage and the concentration of memory of the great tragedy that occurred in the region. A place of great pain and sorrow! Eternal memory of the innocently murdered people…

The central part of the memorial is a bronze figure of a 4.75-meter-tall woman standing with her hands raised in a curse in the opening of a stylized 11.5-meter-high gate. Three bells are fixed on the broken end of the horizontal crossbar of the gate: two of them are ringing, and the third, split, symbolizes the death of every third resident of the Dokshitsky district during the war — more than 20 thousand people.

Next to the central monument there is a concrete log house of a well where the Nazis threw live children. It depicts a bronze kite with the names of the dead children, symbolizing a childhood cut short by the war. There are 22 memorial signs on the site of former peasant estates — foundations with a three-stage porch. On the upper steps there are bronze compositions in the form of flames with the names of the former owners, which symbolizes the eternal memory of the dead.

At dawn on May 22, 1943, the Fascist invaders surrounded the village of Shunevka, herding its inhabitants into a barn, where they were burned alive. Since August 1942, Pyotr Semyonovich Rudkovsky, previously chairman of the Vitunichi village Council, was engaged in replenishing the Zheleznyak partisan brigade. The partisans actively destroyed the occupiers' plans, undermining trains and bridges. In retaliation, the Nazis brutally massacred civilians — the families of the partisans. The tragedy of Khatyn has not spared Shunevka either. In Khatyn, in the cemetery of 186 Belarusian villages burned down together with the inhabitants, there is also a grave of the village of Shunevka.

66 people died in Shunevka. Only three managed to survive, avoiding bullets and fire. This day, May 22, remained forever in their memory as a terrible memory. Eyewitnesses from the surrounding villages saw and heard how Shunevka burned. Old people were burned in a barn, and children were thrown into a well. Gray boulders symbolizing the cruelty of fascism are laid at the edges of the well. There was a broken kite lying nearby, which would never fly into the sky again.