On the morning of March 22, the partisan detachment attacked the autocolonna with punishers from the 118th Battalion of Schuzmanshaft 6 km from Hatney. In one of the cars, the chef commander of the first company was driving the police captain Hans Velka, who was heading at the airfield in Minsk. The partisans opened fire in the Germans, as a result of which the punishers lost three people, including Velka. The partisans went to the hutney. The Germans were treated by the Welk's death, which became the Olympic champion of the 1936 games and was personally familiar with Hitler. Calling a reinforcement from the Dirlenewinger battalion, the Nazis began to fake the forest in search of the partisans and soon surrounded the village of Khatyn.

Residents of the village knew nothing about the morning attack partisans on the column. But the Germans, in violation of all rules and customs of war, decided to apply the principle of collective punishment for peaceful residents to help partisans. All residents of the village - women, old people, children, men - the fascists drove out of their homes and drove into a collective farm bar. Among the inhabitants there were many large families: 9 children in the Baranovsky family, 7 - in the family of Novitsky, as much as the IOTKO family. The Germans did not spare anyone, even raised patients or women with infants. In the barn, Zaskevich was driven and faith with a seminal son. Those who tried to run, the Nazis shot.

Only three children managed to hide from the Germans in the forest. When the punishers gathered all the inhabitants, they locked the barn, laid him out and set fire to it. Under the pressure of human bodies, the walls were collapsed and dozens of people, in burning clothes, burned rushed to run. But the fascists finished all. In this terrible tragedy, 149 inhabitants of Khatyni killed, 75 children under 16 years old.

Joseph Kaminsky

Some miracle managed to survive two children from the burning shed. When the walls collapsed, the mother of Viktor Zheobobovich ran out with him and covered it with his body, the fascists did not notice that the child was alive. Anton Baranovsky was injured in the leg of the discontinuous bullet and the Nazis took him for the dead. Of the adult witnesses, the tragedy survived only the 56-year-old Joseph Kaminsky. When the Kaminsky came to himself, the punitive squad had already left the village. Among the corpses of the fellow village, he found the burnt and wounded son of Adam. The boy died in his arms. This tragic moment is based on the sculpture "uncompressed person" of the Memorial Khatyn complex, which was opened on the place of the village in 1969.

Those who found the lessons of history in Soviet schools, the tragedy was explained exactly as follows: the Germans in it are punishers, the SS. The pain and mountain of Khatyn, who became the symbol of the brutal violence over the civilian population, fully and completely fell on their conscience.

However, the publishing house "Fifth Rome" is preparing to enter the book "Killer Khatyni", which will make the point of view on those tragic events. The collection of documents from 5 archives 4 countries - Belarus, Russia, Ukraine and the USA - has a subtitle: "The 118th Ukrainian battalion of the police police in Belarus, 1943-1944." We talked with one of the authors of the collection - Director of the Historical Memory Foundation and the Researcher of the Institute of Russian History, Alexander Dukov.

"The cries were terrible"

- Why in the USSR, where did the memory of the Ukrainian policemen treated in the destruction of the Hutin, the role of Ukrainian policemen in the destruction of the hutni was taken out of her brackets?

- In Soviet times, about participating in the destruction of the Khatynian of the 118th Ukrainian Shuzmanshfbatalon really tried not to speak. You just imagine how much the situation does not fit into the Soviet view of the war: Ukrainian collaborators destroyed Belarusian villages! Where is the political correctness, where is the friendship of peoples? But the propaganda car is one thing, and the search and punishment of criminals is another. The creation of a memorial in Khatyn in 1969 motivated the investigative authorities of the USSR on the search committed this crime of punishers - and in the end they came to the 118th battalion. It must be said that the investigation was carried out carefully: the punishers were interrogated not only for what happened in Khatyn, but also for other crimes, witnesses were wanted, archival documents were revealed. Of course, not only the servicemen of the 118th Ukrainian battalion were pursued. Pursued Lithuanian punishers from battalion Impulance and Latvian from the team Arais., and Russians from the brigade Kaminsky. But, alas, few criminals were punished from the total number of criminals. Someone ran away to the West, how to live to deep old age in Canada machine gunner of the 118th battalion Vladimir Katrek(He personally killed Khatyn residents), someone simply could not find.

From the remaining testimony of Knap, the serviceman of the 1st company of the 118th battalion:

- We all made to shooting ... Translator Lukovich Troil the torch of the barn. People in Saraj began to shout, cry. The cries of the people who were burning and crumbling people were scary. They could not be heard. They became terribly. I remember today, which personally shot the head of the village of Battalion's headquarters Vasura., deputy commander of the first company Meleshko, as well as a lacuer, beekeeper, Pankov, Katrak, Kmitry, Lukovich ... "

- You enter into scientific turns of new documents related to the history of this punitive division. Is there reason to believe that Ukrainian historians will consider these new facts?

- Alas. The first company of the 118th Ukrainian battalion, which destroyed the Khatyn, was formed from the servicemen of Bukovinsky Kureny. And this is the division of the Melnikovsk faction of the organization of Ukrainian nationalists. OUN members announced in modern Ukraine heroes, freedom fighters. In the 118th battalion, the Soviet prisoners of war plus volunteers from Kiev were also served from the camps. Bukovinsky Kunny is Western Ukrainians, Kiev-Volunteers - also Ukrainian nationalists, and the prisoners of war were selected by Ukrainians. So the official name of the 118th battalion - "Ukrainian" - corresponded to ethnic. However, Ukrainian historians sometimes reach that they generally deny the participation of the 118th battalion in the destruction of Khatyn. Say, then this battalion has not yet been in Belarus. This is contrary to many dozens of documents testifying to the opposite! Or another lie: supposedly the village was destroyed during the battle. Contrary to the testimony of the victims, contrary to the testimony of punishers, contrary to the footprints of the partisan documents. No, of course, in modern Ukraine, an objective statement about the tragedy of Khatyn and her executions is simply impossible. By the way, some of the documents were obtained in the archive of the SBU long before the 2014 state coup. Now, we, of course, would not get - our books prohibit in Ukraine, and I am sure that when you try to enter the country, I will be simply arrested.

From the interrogation protocol of the commander of the 2nd Rota of the 118th Battalion Nikolai French:

"After the punitive operation of the 1st and 3rd mouth of the 118th battalion in the village of Khatyn ... the 2nd company was assigned the protection of the Jewish camp. Stated next to this camp, part of the police of this company went to the camp to rape women. In one of the days, the living quarters of the camps were abandoned with grenades, running out of the premises shot. Minko, Zalizko, Mironyuk, Ivasyuk, Kozacchuk Went to the room and the rifles were worth the living ... "

"The 118th Schuzmanshft battalion", which carried out a punitive operation, was formed in Poland in 1942 from the former Soviet officers (except Russian). The formation of the 118th and 115th Shuzmanshft battalions was continued in Kiev mainly from ethnic Ukrainians. # Khatyn pic.twitter.com/0cidyc2qmj.

- Katyanka Platov (@iprupru) March 22, 2018

"Worse than the beast"

- Most punishers of the 118th battalion escaped punishment, and many of them calmly lived in emigration. Why in the West attitude to obvious Nazi criminals and their accomplices so different from our?

- During the cold war, the US intelligence agencies tried to use any anti-Soviet forces against the USSR, not paying attention, or not the criminals or not. Only in the 90s, the Ministry of Justice began to investigate cases of possible involvement in the Holocaust of former Nazi accomplices that received American citizenship. But the cases themselves did not start - the defendants were deprived of American citizenship and sent to their native country. Well, there ... here they sent to Lithuania from the USA Alexandra LilakisaDuring the war, the head of the Lithuanian Police of the Vilensky District. On a man a lot of blood and Poles, and Jews, and the Soviet Lithuanians. But the Lithuanian authorities did everything so that he died inappropriate, in his own bed. As for the Hutyn's executioner who lived in Canada Vladimir Katraki, That attempts to deprive him of Canadian citizenship came up to oppose the local Ukrainian diaspora. And for purely political reasons it was decided - not to touch, although there are many testimonies about his crimes.

From the protocol of a survey of a witness M. K. Flying (resident burned by the punarers of the 118th battalion of the village of Osov):

"We recent people like small and old closed in the sap. After set fire to the sap, where there were live people. My brother's wife was burning and two children all burned 50 people in Sora and three children were shot fledging from sauy ... And the rest people took away 12 people and chose the tops. Over the people mocked as any animal and then they are not mock, but these were worse than the beast. "

- How well now remember the tragedy of Khatyn? Maybe there are such collections to produce large circulations?

- The main circulation will most likely 1.5-2 thousand copies. This, by the way, is much - in 2009 a collection "Khatyn. The tragedy and memory "was released in Minsk with a circulation of 50 (!) Instances. Alas, in Russia we replace the educational work in the field of the history of the mass establishment of monuments of dubious artistic value. There is no e-database burned by the Nazis during the occupation of the villages - although it takes much less money to create it than any of the dozens of monuments established in recent years.

• © Photo: Anna Sotnikova
• © Photo: Anna Sotnikova
• © Photo: Anna Sotnikova
• © Photo: Anna Sotnikova
• © Photo: Anna Sotnikova
• © Photo: Anna Sotnikova
• © Photo: Anna Sotnikova
• © Photo: Anna Sotnikova
• © Photo: Anna Sotnikova

Khatyn - the former village of Logojsky district of the Minsk region of Belarus - was destroyed by the fascists on March 22, 1943.

On the day of the tragedy, the autocolonna of the fascists was shelled not far from Khatni, and a German officer was killed as a result of the attack. In response, the punitives surrounded the village, drove all the inhabitants in the barn and set fire to it, and those who tried to escape were shot from automatons and machine guns. 149 people died, of which 75 children under the age of 16. The village was looted and burned down.

In memory of hundreds of Belarusian villages destroyed by the German-fascist invaders, in January 1966, it was decided to create a Memorial complex "Khatyn".

In March 1967, a competition was announced to create a memorial project, in which the team of architects defeated: Yuri Gradov, Valentin Zankovich, Leonid Levin, Sculptor - Sergey Selikhanov.

Memorial complex "Khatyn" is included in the state list of the Historical and Cultural Heritage of Belarus.

Material prepared on the basis of RIA news and open sources

Khatyn - History of tragedy

Each people holy choirs the memory of the terrible losses incurred during the past wars. The Ukrainians have a kieteners, the French - Oradurgsur-Glah, in Chekhov - Lidice, from Vietnamese - Songmi. But the symbol of the immortal tests of Belarusians is Khatyn, destroyed during the war years with its inhabitants ...

Belarusian village destroyed Ukrainian nationalists?

Until recently, any schoolboy could say that German punishers burned. It was them that they were considered the culprits of the tragedy. For example, in the text of the "Khatyn" photo album, published in Minsk in 1979, the punishers are called "Nazis, who have broken the manic ideas of the" exclusiveness of the Aryan race ".

It is also represented by Khatyn and in the Big Soviet Encyclopedia. It says the following: "Khatyn is a memorial architectural and sculptural complex on the site of the former village of Khatyn (Minsk region of the BSSR). Opened on July 5, 1969, in memory of the inhabitants of Belarusian villages and villages completely destroyed by the fascist invaders. "

Forgotten mark

One of the most pressing issues of the Ukrainian history of the last time - an attempt to understand who was actually the division of the OUN UPA: fighters for freedom of their people or the servants of the occupying regime? And here the unequivocal answer is not foreseen.

So, about the battalions of "Roland" and "Naotigal", many people know about the role of the SS division "Galica". But about the acts of the 118th police battalion of the organization of Ukrainian nationalists (OUN), created to combat partisans, know a few.

Having lost the battle near Stalingrad in early 1943, the German government changed its policies against the residents of the occupied countries, and after the creation of two Latvian and one Estonian division on April 28, 1943, the Ukrainian SS "Galica" division was formed.

And a year before the formation of the SS division "Galicina" in July 1942, the 118th battalion of the Security Police was formed from among the former members of the Kiev and Bukovinsky Kureni OUN. True, almost all of them were previously prisoners of war of officers or ordinary red army, which, apparently, captured in the first months of war. This is seen from the fact that at the time when the 118th police battalion was formed in Kiev, most of these prisoners of war had already agreed to serve the fascists and to pass military training in Germany. Grigory Vasura, a native of the Cherkasy region, who almost only supervised the actions of this unit was appointed chief of the headquarters of this battalion.

First, the 118th police battalion "Good" showed himself in the eyes of the invaders, taking an active part in mass executions in Kiev, in the notorious Babi Baby. After that, the battalion was replied to the territory of Belarus to fight the partisans, where the terrible tragedy occurred, as a result of which Khatyn was destroyed.

Champion's death

The position of the trial in each of the divisions of this battalion necessarily served as a German officer who was, thus, an unofficial curator of the overseer for the activities of the police unit. It is not surprising that Hitler's petler - Hauptman Hans Velka turned out to be one of the German officers at a similar position.

The love of Fuhrera to him was not random. It was he, Hans Velka, the first of the Germans won the Gold Medal in the pushing of the core at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, which thoroughly strengthened the thesis of Fuhrer about the primacy of the Aryan race. And it was Hauptman Hans Velka who was in ambush, killed Soviet partisans, who stopped on the eve of spending the night in the village of Khatyn.

Of course, the killing of Fuhrer's favorite made all the policemen worry hard for the safety of their own skins, and therefore the need for "worthy of gangs" for them became a "honor of honor". Politsa, failing to find and capture the partisans, went out on their footsteps to Selu Khatyn, surrounded him and began an execution over the local population in retaliation for the dead Hauptman.

The entire population of Khatyni from Mala to Great - men, women, old people, children - kicked out of the houses and drove into the collective farm shed. The grooves of the machines were raised from the bed of patients, did not spare women with small and chest children. When all the people were collected in the barn, the punisors locked the doors, laid out the shed straw, poured gasoline and set fire to it.

Wooden structure quickly caught fire. Under the pressure of tens of human bodies, they could not stand and collapsed. "" Doors. In burning clothes covered by horror, choking, people rushed to escape, but those who broke out of the flame shot from the machine guns.

149 inhabitants of the village burned down on fire, 75 children under 16 years old. The village itself was completely destroyed. From adults only 56-year-old village blacksmith Joseph Kaminsky survived. The burnt and wounded, he came into consciousness only late at night, when punitive detachments left the village. He had to survive another heavy blow: among the corpses, fellow villagers, he found his son. The boy was mortally wounded in the stomach, got strong burns. He died on his hands at his father.

Different versions have existed about the number of dead villages. Only in 1969 were finally calculated by the names of the victims. Witness Joseph Kaminsky recalled that the punitives spoke among themselves in Ukrainian and Russian, some of them were in German form, and others - in gray chinels, similar to the mines of Russian soldiers. "I realized that we would shoot and said to the residents who were held with me along with me:" Pray to God, because everything will die here, "the Kaminsky told. The punisher-Ukrainian's punisher stood at the door answered: "About the CE icon trampled, the icons are paled, we will sleep you now."

Fair retribution

The commander of the 118th punitive battalion of Grigory Vasura was for a long time for a long time and will be unharmed. When his battalion defeated, Vasura continued his service in the 14th gragador division of the SS "Galiche", at the very end of the war - in the 76th infantry shelf, which was crushed in France.

After the war in the filtration camp, he managed to check the traces. Only in 1952, for cooperation with the occupiers during the war, the Tribunal of the Kiev Military District sentenced him by 25 years of imprisonment. At that time, nothing was known about his punitive activity. On September 17, 1955, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR accepted Decree "About the amnesty of Soviet citizens who collaborated with the occupiers during the war of 1941-1945". Vasiara was released. Returned to himself in the Cherkasy region. The KGB staff later found and arrested the criminal again. By that time, he worked as deputy director of one of the state farms in the Kiev region, very much loved to speak in front of the pioneers in the image of a war veteran, the front line, and was even called an honorary cadet in one of the military schools in Kiev.

According to some researchers of this topic, the highest party leaders of Belarus and Ukraine and Ukraine have "put the case of atrocities in Khatyni". The leaders of the Soviet republics took care of the inviolability of the international unity of the Belarusian and Ukrainian peoples and were afraid that the relatives of the victims would try to revenge the culprits of the tragedy.

"Khatyn" processes over Vasiura and other collaborators continued until December 1986. By the decision of the Military Tribunal of the Belarusian Military District, Grigory Vasura was recognized as guilty of crimes and sentenced to shooting. During the trial, it was established that more than 360 peaceful women, old people and children were destroyed. Together with the main punitive, other accomplices of the fascists, policemen, headers, participants of the battalion of punishers were convicted: Stopchenko, Syvsky, Vinitsky and others.

During the occupation, fascist communities only in the central regions of Ukraine destroyed about 300 villages.

Alas, the silence of these facts and other events of the past is as destructive, as well as alteration of them in favor of changing ideological postulates.

Magazine: History Mysteries, August 2015
Category: Secret Operations

Modern historians and politicians were more interested in the so-called "Katyn shooting", rather than the crime of fascist thugs and their accomplices from the number of collaborators.

Such people want to recall: The Great Patriotic War was the general war of the Soviet people against the invaders, and those sacrifices that we suffered in a terrible battle cannot be removed on national apartments, as unclean politicians then touched the country.

Belarus was in the flame of the war from its first days. Residents of this Soviet Republic had to be held to the bottom to eat the bowl of occupation and "new order", which brought with them the Nazis.

Resistance to invaders was desperate. The partisan war in Belarus continued in fact continuously. The fascists, being not able to cope with the guerrillas and underground workers, turned their anger to the civilian population.

Champion-punitive

On March 22, 1943, the division of the 118th police battalion went to eliminate the damaged link between the Pleshchenitsy and Logoński. Here, the policemen were asked to the partisan ambush, the "Avenger" team "Uncle Vasi" by the squad "Avenger". In the shootout, the punishers lost three people and caused reinforcement.

Among the killed fascists, it turned out the first company commander Hauptman Hans Welk.

In this character, it is necessary to stop in more detail, for it is his death called one of the reasons for the punitive action in Khatyn.

Hans Welk became the Olympic champion at the 1936 games in the pushing of the nucleus, winning the competition with the global record. Hitler personally congratulated Welk, who became the first German who won in competitions in athletics.

Meanwhile commander of the security platform punisher Muleleko ordered to arrest the inhabitants of the Village of the Trumps, which were engaged in the rustling of the woods. They were accused of amendment to partisans. Additional divisions of the 118th battalion, as well as part of the dirlylevger battalion, pulled into the place of clash with the partisans.

Detained loggers, deciding that they will be shot, began to scatter. The punishers opened the fire by killing 26 people, the rest were sent to the peregnitsy.

Police and Sosovtsy moved toward the village of Khatyn, where the partisans moved away. On the outskirts of the settlement, the battle was started, in which the partisans lost three people killed, five injured, and were forced to move away.

The fascists did not pursue them because they had a different plan. In retaliation for killing a pet Hitler, the former pusher of the nucleus, and during the war of the ordinary punisher of Hans Velka, and also as an intimidation of the local population, the Nazis decided to destroy the Hatyn village along with all its population.

Balays-traitors

The main role in the monstrous crime, perfect in Khatyn, played the 118th police battalion. His backbone was the former military personnel of the Red Army, captured near Kiev, in the infamous "Kiev Cotelet", as well as residents of Western regions of Ukraine. Commanded a battalion former Major Polish Army SMOVSKY, headquarters was the former senior Lieutenant of the Red Army Grigory Vasura. Already mentioned former lieutenant of the Red Army Vasily Melesko was a platoon commander. The German "chief" of the 118th punitive battalion was the Shturmbannfürer SS Erich Kerner.

In the post-Soviet time, individual historians are trying to give the fascist accomplices of the halo of fighters with the Stalinist regime, although their acts speak about in the other. The forces similar to the 118th battalion were the gatherings of the villains, who, saving their own life, willingly performed the most dirty work on the destruction of civilians for the Nazis. The punitive stocks were accompanied by violence and robbery, and they acquired such a scope that they were disgusted even among the True Aryans.

By order of Kerner, the punishers under the direct leadership of Grigory Vasura beat the entire population of Khatyn in the collective farm shed and locked in it. Those who tried to escape were killed in place.

The stupid shed fell straw, poured gasoline and set fire to it. In the glowing barn, burning alive of people rushing. When the door was collected under the pressure of the bodies, driving out of the fire from machine guns.

In total, 149 people were destroyed during the punitive action in Khatni, 75 children under 16 years old. The village itself was erased from the face of the earth.

I miraculously managed to survive units. Mary Fedorovichand Yulia Klimovich It was possible to get out of the barn and get to the forest, they were sheltered by residents of the village of Hivorn. But soon this village divided the fate of the hutney, and the girls died.

Of those who were in the barn, children were left alive seven years old Viktor Zheobobovichand twelve-year-old Anton Baranovsky. Vitya hid under the body of his mother, who covered her son. The child, wounded in his hand, lay down under the corpse of the mother before the careers from the village. Anton Baranovsky was injured in the foot of the bullet, and the SSEsov took him for the dead. The burned, wounded children were picked up and residents of neighboring villages.

Anton of the Baranovsky, who survived in Khatyn, fate did not spare - a quarter of a century later he would die in a fire in Orenburg.

The only surviving adult became the village of Kuznets Joseph Kaminsky. The burnt and wounded, he came into consciousness only late at night, when punitive detachments left the village. Among the corpses of the fellow villagers, he found his deadly son, who died in his arms.

It was the fate of the Kaminsky formed the basis of the monument "Evalious Man", established after the war in the Memorial Complex "Khatyn".

By the trail of Judah

The crime in Khatyn became known immediately - and from the readings of the survivors, and from these exploration of partisans. The dead residents buried on the third day on the place of their former village.

After the war, the State Security Committee of the USSR, investigating the crimes against the civilian population committed by the Nazis and their accomplices, led by the participants in the punitive shares in Khatyn. Many of them were identified and appeared before the court.

We must pay tribute to former punishers: they were skillfully hid, changed documents, embraced into a peaceful post-war life. It helped and the fact that until some time, according to the official version, it was believed that the convicts of the Khatyni residents were exclusively the work of the Germans.

In 1974, Vasily Meleshko, who served in the 118th battalion before the company commander was arrested and devoted. In 1975, he was sentenced to the highest punishment and shot.

It was the testimony of Meleshko that the Gregory Vasuru fully comprehended. This man retreated with the Germans to France itself, after which he returned to his homeland, giving himself to the Red Armyman, freed from captivity. But he could not fully hide their cooperation with the Germans.

In 1952, for cooperation with the occupiers during the war, the Tribunal of the Kiev Military District sentenced him by 25 years of imprisonment. At that time, nothing was known about his punitive activity. On September 17, 1955, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR adopted a decree "about the amnesty of Soviet citizens who collaborated with the invaders during the war of 1941-1945," and Vasore was released, returning to his Cherkasy region.

The fact that Vasiara is one of the main executioners of Khatyni, the KGB officers were able to prove only in the mid-1980s. By that time, he worked as deputy director of one of the state farms, in April 1984 he was awarded a medal "Veteran of Labor", his pioneers congratulated him from May 9. Very loved to speak in front of the pioneers in the image of a veteran of war, the front-line contest, and was even called the Honorary Cadet of the Higher Military Engineering twice of the Red Banner School of Communications by Kalinin.

For everyone who knew Vasura in a new life, his arrest became real shock. However, on the process, which was held in Minsk at the end of 1986, terrible facts sounded: a former officer of the Red Army officer Grigory Vasura personally destroyed more than 360 women, old people and children. In addition to the atrocities in Khatyni, this dislike personally headed the fighting against partisans in the village of Dalkovichi district, led the punitive operation in the village of Osovi, where 78 people were shot, organized the village of Vileyk, commanded the destruction of residents of Makovye and cleaning, executing 50 Jews Seals the Kaminskaya Sloboda. For this, Vasura's fascists were produced in Lieutenants and was awarded two medals.

By the decision of the Military Tribunal of the Belarusian Military District, Grigory Vasura was convicted and sentenced to shooting.

Live and remember

The last of the participants of the massacre over the residents of the Khatyn is still alive. Vladimir KatrekHe now served in the 118th battalion, personally shot the most detainees in the forest residents of the Village of the Village of Kozyri, and in the Khatyn himself drove the doomed people in Shed. Then the swirl shot those who managed to escape from the fire. The testimony of the former collargers of the rock, the same Vasily Meleshko, suggest that this punisher participated not only in the shares in Khatyn, but also in other atrocities of Nazi accomplices.

After the war, the Katrayuk settled in Canada, where she lives under Montreal, spreading bees. About his role in the murder of civilians in Khatyni in Canada has learned relatively recently, in 2009.

However, caring relatives and lawyers, the entire system of Canadian justice does not give a blessing old man offense. Vladimir Katrajuk is unlikely to overtake the retribution, which caught up with his accomplices Melleshko and Vasura.

The Memorial complex "Khatyn", in memory of hundreds of Belarusian villages that divided the fate of Khatyn, was opened in July 1969.

The created memorial repeats the layout of the burned village. On the place of each of the 26 burned houses - the first crown of a gray concrete church. Inside the obelisk in the form of a chimney - everything that remained from the burned houses. Obelisks are crowned with bells that call every 30 seconds.

Next to the monument "unlocked man" and the fraternal grave of the dead residents of Khatyn, there is a "Cemetery of non-citizens". It is buried by urns with Earth 185 Belarusian trees, who, like Khatyn, were burned by the Nazis together with their inhabitants, and never revived.

433 Belarusian villages who survived the tragedy of the Khatyni were restored after the war.

The exact number of Belarusian villages destroyed by the invaders and their accomplices to this day is not established. To date, it is known about 5445 such settlements.

During the Great Patriotic War on the territory of Belarus, the German fascist invaders and collaborators were destroyed every third resident.