Brest to host Belaya Vezha theater festival on 5-12 September
On the 81st anniversary of the liberation of Vitebsk from the Nazi invaders, wreaths and flowers were laid at the Eternal Flame on Victory Square.
The ceremony was attended by city leaders, representatives of labor collectives, educational institutions, and public organizations.
At the solemn rally, the Chairman of the Vitebsk City Executive Committee, Alexey Geroev, noted that the celebration of City Day is associated with one of the most important dates in its history – June 26, 1944. The liberation from the Nazi invaders was preceded by three years of oppression, hunger, violence, torture, and humiliation. From the very first days, the Nazis established a bloody order, dooming the residents to extinction. Many became victims of the Holocaust and genocide. Five death camps were created in Vitebsk; the most famous, the 5th Regiment, became a mass grave for over 80,000 people. Vitebsk residents were driven into forced labor in Germany and sent by train to concentration camps in European countries. Cries of pain and suffering emanated daily from the basements of the German Gestapo. According to incomplete data, from July to December 1942 alone, over 3,000 people passed through the torture chambers of the SD prison.
Despite the might of the German war machine, terror, and mass killings, the townspeople did not lose faith in Victory for a moment. The first underground groups began to be formed as early as July 1941. Vitebsk patriots established connections and assisted partisans and special reconnaissance groups, saved young people from being driven into penal servitude, and carried out sabotage on the railway and airfield.