Belarusians encouraged to find out names of all Motherland defenders

GOMEL, 9 May (BelTA) – Belarusians have to recover names of all those, who fell in the name of freedom and liberation of the Motherland. There must be no unknown soldiers. Chairman of the Gomel Oblast Executive Committee Ivan Krupko made the statement during a solemn rally held at the Eternal Fire in Gomel on the occasion of Victory Day, BelTA has learned.

The Gomel Oblast governor reminded that about 200,000 liberators-soldiers are buried in the region after sanguinary battles. “Places of victory on the way towards full expulsion of the Nazi from our Motherland have become truly sacred for us. Over 2.5 million Red Army soldiers took part in the battle for the Dnieper River. The battle became the last one for every seventh of them. The offensive Operation Bagration was a triumph of Soviet art of war. It freed the people of Belarus from the Nazi occupation and brought the downfall of fascism much closer,” the head of the oblast administration mentioned several historic examples.

Ivan Krupko told participants of the rally: “They get it right when they say that there would be no heroism without heroes. The name of every one of them should be forever kept in our hearts and our memory. I'll tell you more: we have to restore names of all those, who fell for the sake of our freedom and independence. Every one of them. There must be no unknown soldiers in our territory.”

Heroes are both history and the future, Ivan Krupko is convinced. “It is our unbeatable argument against fascism, which is now trying to show its beastly muzzle in various parts of the planet. It is also our apparent advantage over those, who are trying to rewrite history today. We are strong as long as we remember,” he stressed.

The official pointed out that the Eternal Fire as a symbol of everlasting memory was lit in Gomel's Truda Square in 1950. Another Eternal Fire was lit at the Mound of Glory 17 years later. There are a total of nearly 1,900 memorial complexes, communal graves, obelisks, and monuments in Gomel Oblast. “The immortalization of the memory of heroes and victims of the past war continues – Ola, the Partisan Wellspring, Ozarichi. I am convinced that everyone, who is present here, has been to these places that are sacred for every Belarusian. It is there that one can feel the pain and suffering of the nation in his or her heart again and again,” the Gomel Oblast governor said.

Ivan Krupko summarized: “We've inherited Belarus from the careful hands of our parents and grandparents and we have to pass on this baton to our kids. In order to do it with calm hearts and with full confidence that the sovereignty of our country will be preserved, it is necessary to step up patriotic upbringing. And, first and foremost, it is necessary to find the time to say thanks to veterans. There are not many of them left now. We will remember and tirelessly thank soldiers of the Victory as we pass the baton to the next generations. Because no one but us can do it.”

Participants of the rally spent a minute in silence in memory of the heroes, who courageously fought for the freedom of the Motherland. They laid flowers and wreaths at the Eternal Fire and a communal grave of Soviet soldiers and underground resistance fighters. Army units solemnly marched by at the end of the rally.

BelTA – News from Belarus