Opinions & Interviews

Hell on earth in Last Witnesses project by BelTA, Prosecutor General’s Office

Irina Akulovich

MINSK, 23 June (BelTA) – The joint art project by BelTA and the Prosecutor General’s Office – the book Last Witnesses – was presented in the Belarusian State Museum of History of the Great Patriotic War, BelTA has learned.

BelTA Director General Irina Akulovich remarked: “All of you are reporters and understand perfectly well how difficult it is to work with such materials. It is truly very difficult: people talk about hell on earth. They talk about how their mothers, sisters, and sons were killed, how babies were burned.”

Irina Akulovich stressed that it is extremely necessary to talk about tragic events of the war in order to prevent their repeat.

The book includes a collection of stories told by underage prisoners of Nazi concentration camps. The stories were written down by investigators as part of the Prosecutor General’s Office’s criminal case into the genocide of the Belarusian nation. Materials published by reporters on BelTA web resources for an entire year represent the core of the book. The book’s publication is timed to the Year of Historical Memory.

BelTA will present another project very soon. Archives: Nothing But the Truth has been prepared together with the Justice Ministry.

Irina Akulovich remarked: “This work with the Prosecutor General’s Office, with the Justice Ministry was very important for us, very complicated, and extremely necessary.”

In her words, a great deal of work has yet to be done to preserve historical memory. “A lot of people still don’t know where their relatives are, this is why search operations will continue while we will keep talking about it although someone in the West may not like the truth. We have no right to betray our forefathers, forget names of heroes, forget very dreadful pages of our history. By talking about them, we will stir up our souls and the souls of our children. I am confident it will not pass unnoticed. It will stay in our memory, in our hearts, and in our genes. We will live as a country, as a nation. A nation that is proud of its heroes and that follows their example,” the BelTA director general noted.

Irina Akulovich thanked the Information Ministry for assistance with publishing the book Last Witnesses. She pointed out that such projects are supported by the state due to the significance of this work and quite a lot of them get published.

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