Press releases

MINSK, 12 April (BelTA) – A ceremony to mark Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) and award the Righteous Among the Nations with diplomas and medals took place in Minsk on 12 April, BelTA informs.

It is important to remember the World War II victims, said Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Israel to Belarus Aron Shomam. Millions of people died during the genocide of Jews, including in Belarus. Back then, many Belarusians risked the lives of their families to rescue Jews from the fascists. “We want to collect as much information as possible about those events and the people who helped rescue Jews. Time goes by, but future generations should keep memory of that horrible time alive,” the diplomat stressed.

He gave diplomas and medals to the descendants of those Belarusians who saved Jews during the war and were named Righteous Among the Nations by the special commission Yad Vashem (the World Holocaust Remembrance Center). Yadviga Petrovskaya, a daughter of rescuer of Jews Piotr Kisel, and Alla Kuzkova, a granddaughter of another righteous gentile Olga Goncharova, went on stage to receive the awards for their ancestors. The Righteous Among the Nations title was also bestowed upon Tatyana Loseva and Lyubov Dyakova.

The ceremony was attended by officials, foreign diplomats, members of the Belarusian Union of Writers, Jewish organizations and communities based in Belarus. They visited an exhibition headlined Mirror of Generations. The event was organized by the Israeli Embassy in Belarus and its Cultural Center in Minsk and took place in the House of Writers.

The Holocaust Remembrance Day is a national day of mourning in Israel and outside Israel declared by the Knesset in 1951. This day, people across the globe commemorate the Jews killed in Nazi persecution.