Who executed people near Homel: Stalin or Nazi? Prosecutors are reluctant to probe the case
Historians are surprised, because the battalion normally digs the WWII sites to sear for the remains of the fallen soldiers. Hisrotian Igar Kuzniatsou maintains that this is the site where the Stalin's secret police (NKVD) executed “people’s enemies”.
“This site was exactly identified as far back as in 1998. The office of the prosecutor probed this matter. But all has been still and quite until the 52nd battalion started digging. Either they started digging the pre-war burial sites or it was a mistake of the authorities. Local residents allegedly pointed to this site as the place where partisans were killed,” Kuzniatsou said.
The historian admits that the Nazi would often execute people at the same sites where NKVD had done their killing job before. But some civil activists in Homel say that according to local residents all of the executions in this wood took place before the war broke out.
“We have traveled around and questioned the locals. There are people who say: “I won’t tell you anything”. They still have fear from the Soviet times. The rest are saying that people from across Belarus and even some parts of Ukraine were taken there for execution from 1932 through 1938. There are witnesses who said that,” Kastus Zhukouski told the European Radio for Belarus.
Vadzim Grazheuski, the deputy chief of the military enlistment office in Homel, says that they only filed a request for the diggings in the Schakatou woods. When the diggings started, the matter was taken over by other government agencies.
“I have already been asked: “Who was executing people there?” But I am not an expert in this issue. This is the jurisdiction of the office of the prosecutor. They say some empty cartridges were found there. But during the war, it was often the case when the Belarusian police collaborators (Polizei) used the Soviet guns to shoot their victims. So experts should be involved here,” Grazheuski said.
The European Radio for Belarus posed the same question “Who executed people here?” to Valery Trakhanau, the district prosecutor. It turned out that his office was the least interested in this matter.
“”Who?” or “Who is guilty”, we are simply not touching on these questions, given the time elapsed. This is not because we do not look back into the past, but because there are no witnesses,” he said.
Historian Igar Kuzniatsou says that actual witnesses are not necessarily required in this case. Their testimonies to their relatives would be sufficient. Local activists found many people who heard their words about the executions from their late kin. Historian Igar Kuzniatsou believes that the authorities are trying to replace the history and disguise all of the victims of the Communist regime as the victims of the Nazi crimes against humanity.
“The same happened during the Kurapaty investigation. Initially, they said that Jews from Hamburg were executed there. Now again, they are trying to put all the blame on the war, because the war writes off everything,” Kuzniatsou said.
The European Radio for Belarus called the Ministry of Defense to find out what exactly the 52nd battalion is doing at the pre-war burial sites.
“The battalion is digging the remains of fallen soldiers in order to perpetuate their memory. When we find other burial sites during our diggings, we dig them as well. But it is not the business of neither the 52nd battalion nor the Ministry of Defense to investigate who did the executions,” defense agency spokesman Viachaslau Ramenchyk told our radio over the phone.
The Homel district administration is to decide where the new burial will take place. Yet, it is still unclear who – the victims of the Stalin’s repressions or the Nazi – are to be reburied
Photo by photo.bymedia.net
