Khatyn Massacre - The Khatyn Memorial

The Khatyn Memorial

In the Brezhnev era USSR, much attention was paid to this Nazi crime, possibly with the intention of diverting attention from the Katyn massacre of Polish officers. According to Norman Davies, of Wolfson College, Oxford, the village was chosen and the memorial created by the Soviet authorities in a calculated policy of disinformation.

Khatyn became a symbol of mass killings of the civilian population during the fighting between partisans, German troops, and collaborators. In 1969 it was named the national war memorial of the Byelorussian SSR. Among the best-recognized symbols of the memorial complex is a monument with three birch trees, with an eternal flame instead of a fourth tree, a tribute to the one in every four Belarusians who died in the war. There is also a statue of Yuzif Kaminsky carrying his dying son, and a wall with niches to represent the victims of all concentration camps, with large niches representing those with more than 20,000 victims. Bells ring every 30 seconds to commemorate the rate at which Belarusian lives were lost throughout the duration of the Second World War.

Among the foreign leaders who have visited the Khatyn Memorial during their time in office are Richard Nixon of the USA, Fidel Castro of Cuba, Rajiv Gandhi of India, Yasser Arafat of the PLO, and Jiang Zemin of China.