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Author : A. Dyukov
Director, Historical Memory Foundation, Member of the Board of Trustees, Allied Initiative of Memory and
Harmony Association
THE MASS REPRISALS of 1937-1938 are among the most painful
pages of the domestic history of the 20th century. Although 80 years
have passed since the tragic events of the Great Terror, the memory of
them is still alive. This fall, a monument to victims of political repres-
sion, the Wall of Grief, will be erected in Moscow. A memorial will also
appear in the Kuropaty forest in Belarus.
It is impossible to disagree with this approach, especially considering
that the graves of victims of Soviet executions in Kuropaty are
shrouded in a veil of myths and speculation that the Belarussian "op-
position" uses for unseemly political purposes. This concerns primarily
the number of people buried in the forest on the northeastern outskirts
of Minsk. The Belarussian "opposition" claims that as many as 250,000
people executed by the NKVD (People's Commissariat for Internal Af-
fairs) were buried in Kuropaty. However, is that really so?
Information about mass graves in Kuropaty first came to light on June 3, 1988, when an article entitled
"Kuropaty: doroga smerti [Kuropaty, the road of death]," written by engineer E. Shmygalev and arche-
ologist Z. Poznyak, was published in the Belarussian newspaper Litaratura i mastatsva. The authors
said that mass graves of victims of Stalin's political repression had been discovered north of Minsk's
Zeleny Lug neighborhood. On the basis of the testimony by local residents, the authors asserted that
the executions in Kuropaty were carried out by NKVD almost every day from 1937 through 1941. The
article had a bombshell effect.
Unfortunately, the exact number of those buried in unmarked graves in Kuropaty is still shrouded in
the mist of assertions and outright lies.
The real number of people executed by firing squad in the republic during the time when that "special
zone" was in operation is 28,500. And they were buried not in one place but in 11 different "special
zones." However, how many bodies were in fact buried in the forest near Minsk? We will not have an
accurate answer until access to the Belarussian KGB's Central Archive is opened. Nevertheless, a well-
substantiated assumption may still be made.
No matter how badly the persons seeking to politicize the Kuropaty tragedy would like to exaggerate
its scale, not hundreds of thousands and not even tens of thousands of people executed by firing squad
were buried in the forest near Minsk. That, however, does not mean that the memory of victims of
Stalin's repression should not be honored. The recent statement by Belarussian President A.G.
Lukashenko regarding the planned erection of a memorial in Kuropaty is an eloquent testimony that
Belarus remembers the 1937-1938 tragedy and its numerous victims. They are also remembered in Rus-
sia.
http://interaffairs.ru
The Death Toll in the Kuropaty Massacre