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This document does not meet current format guidelines Graduate School at the The University of Texas at Austin. of the It has been published for informational use only. Copyright

by Michael Guthrie Dorman

2017

The Thesis Committee for Michael Guthrie Dorman Certifies that this is the approved version of the following thesis:

Khatyn and the Myth of Genocide in Lukashenko’s Belarus

APPROVED BY SUPERVISING COMMITTEE:

Supervisor: Charters Wynn

Oksana Lutsyshyna

Khatyn And The Myth of Genocide In Lukashenko’s Belarus

by

Michael Guthrie Dorman

Thesis

Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of

The University of Texas at Austin

in Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements

for the Degree of

Master of Arts

The University of Texas at Austin August 2017

Abstract

Khatyn And The Myth of Genocide In Lukashenko’s Belarus

Michael Guthrie Dorman, MA

The University of Texas at Austin, 2017

Supervisor: Charters Wynn

During the German occupation of Soviet Belarus, punitive actions against the local population were a common occurrence. Often these actions included the destruction of villages along with part or all of their inhabitants. In March of 1943 the village of Khatyn was burned to the ground along with all of its inhabitants by Nazi troops, many of whom were from Western Ukraine. Though more than 600 Belarusian villages met a similar fate, the site of the Khatyn massacre was chosen for the construction of an expansive memorial complex in 1969. Over the course of its existence, the Khatyn memorial has become one of the most important symbols of the tremendous loss of life and suffering the Second World War inflicted on Belarus. Additionally, it has become an integral part of the Belarusian identity. During the rule of the country’s first and only president to date, Alexander Lukashenko, the Khatyn memorial’s centrality to the Belarusian identity has been used to expand the republic’s war narrative. In Lukashenko’s Belarus, the story of the Khatyn village massacre and the memorial complex that stands in its commemoration have played key roles in revising the suffering experienced in Belarus during WWII. Moreover, Khatyn has been one of the main sources of evidence used to prove what the Lukashenko government describes as the “genocide of the Belarusian nation.”

1

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Introduction 3

Chapter 2 The Great Patriotic War in Belarus: An Overview 15

Chapter 3 The Khatyn Massacre 23

Chapter 4 The Khatyn Memorial 29

Chapter 5 Khatyn In Lukashenko’s Belarus: The Policy of Genocide 35

Chapter 6 Conclusion 53

Bibliography 56

2 Chapter 1: Introduction

Belarus’s first and only president to date, Alexander Lukashenko, was elected on June

24th, 1994, after winning a massive 80.3% of the votes in the republic’s first and only free and open election in accordance with all international standards.1 Lukashenko’s ascension to office marked the beginning of what has become one of longest reigns of any non-royal national leader currently in power.2 Over the course of his presidency, Lukashenko has ruled Belarus in an authoritarian style that has earned him the title of “Europe’s last dictator.” As part of insuring the stability of his position as president and his concentration of power, Lukashenko’s government has tightly controlled the media in Belarus as well as the curriculum taught in the republic’s educational system. In both of these areas of Belarusian society the history of the Second World

War is given a level of hyper-visibility that exceeds even that of the Soviet era. Moreover, for the

Lukashenko regime, the ability of a particular historical narrative to create a political climate conducive to the longevity of Lukashenko’s leadership far outweighs the accuracy of the version of history being propagated. As such, the Lukashenko regime has approached the details of the history of the Second World War in Belarus as malleable, engaging in historical revisionism in the name of politically expediency. The narrative of the “Great Patriotic War” promoted in

Lukashenko’s Belarus emphasizes the extreme wartime suffering endured by ethnic Belarusians, while ignoring and dismissing details that draw the state-sanctioned version into question.3 In

1"Biografiya Prezidenta Respubliki Belarus." Biografiya Prezidenta Respubliki Belarus Lukashenko Aleksandra Grigorevicha | Oficialnyj internet-portal Presidenta Respubliki Belarus. Accessed April 24, 2017. http://president.gov.by/ru/biography_ru/. 2 As of June, 2017 3 The Great Patriotic War refers specifically to the Soviet’s involvement in WWII between the years of 1941-1945 and is part of a Soviet war narrative promoting a single handed Soviet victory and the war as a uniquely Soviet experience. In present-day Belarus, the term Great Patriotic War tends to be used interchangeable with the terms “WWII” and “Second World

3 propagating its version of the history of the Great Patriotic War in Belarus, the Lukashenko regime has gone to great lengths to avoid acknowledging the extent to which Belarus’s prewar population was multiethnic and the disproportionate rate at which Belarus’s minority ethnicities account for the republic’s wartime losses.4 Thus, the Lukashenko government portrays the history of the Great Patriotic War in Belarusian lands as a tragedy carried out intentionally and specifically against ethnic Belarusians, resulting in the “genocide of the Belarusian nation.”5

Lukashenko’s relationship with the specifics of the past are most readily visible through his approach to the details of his biography. In 2009, Lukashenko decided to change his date of birth from the 30th of August to the 31st so that he and his favorite son, Nikolai, would have the same birthday. Russian and Belarusian news channels reported on their birthday celebration without noting the change in date. Another and bolder example of the leader reworking the particulars of his biography happened in 1996 when he told a group of veterans in Volgograd, “I really understand you. You know, my father was also killed during the Second World War.”

Being from Belarus, the territory that suffered the highest per capita losses during the war, this would have been an entirely believable story had Lukashenko not been born in 1954. In an interview with BelSat TV, Valer Karbalevich, a political scientist and author of a non- governmental sanctioned biography on Lukashenko, stated that ‘Lukashenko’s (official)

War.” All three terms are regularly used in the Belarusian media and by the country’s president in reference to what the Belarusian government portrays as a primarily bilateral Nazi-Soviet conflict lasting from 1941-1945. 4 Bohdan, Siarhei, “Belarus of Jews And Muslims,” Accessed June 20, 2017. http://belarusdigest.com/story/belarus-jews-and-muslims-7540. 5 Litskevich, Oleg, "Genocid Belorusskogo Naroda," Beldumka.belta.by, Accessed April 25, 2017, http://beldumka.belta.by/isfiles/000167_845710.pdf.

4 biography is similar to that of all authoritarian leaders, especially those of the Soviet Union, it is written like a beautiful myth rather than a factual life history.’6

As is often the case with totalitarian regimes, in Lukashenko’s Belarus the government has the ability to control which parts of history are remembered and which parts are forgotten.7

The government’s extensive media oversight sharply limits accessibility to alternative versions of history for those living within Belarus’s boarders. In its effort to crystallize the genocide myth in Belarusian memory, the Lukashenko regime has used the republic’s state-run media to build a narrative of victimhood and tragedy beyond what historians have generally attributed to the territory of present-day Belarus.8 In doing this, there has been an extensive focus on the frequently repeated mantra that “Belarusians suffered the largest losses of any nation,” a statement justified by pointing out that half of Belarus’s population of approximately 9 million had been killed, moved, or deported by the end of the war.9 The fact that the Holocaust was responsible for more than forty percent of Belarus’s (civilian) losses is excluded from the

6 "Zachem Lukashenko perepicavaet svaio biografiio," "BelSat TV," Accessed April 25, 2017. http://belsat.eu/ru/news/zachem-lukashenko-perepisyvaet-svoyu-biografiyu/. 7 Kotljarchuk, Andrej, "World War II Memory Politics: Jewish, Polish and Roma Minorities of Belarus," Accessed April 25, 2017, http://belarusjournal.com/article/world-war-ii-memory- politics-jewish-polish-and-roma-minorities-belarus-205; The term “totalitarian” is used here rather than “authoritarian” due to the fact that as ruler of Belarus, Lukashenko has gone far beyond merely securing and maintaining power. Since becoming president, Lukashenko has sought to shape all aspects of social life in Belarus, stifling organizations with ideologies in opposition to his own and controlling the flow of information in Belarus through its state-run media and educational system. 8 Kasmach, Lizaveta, "Victory Day: Between Remembrance and Militant Memory," Belarus Digest, Accessed April 25, 2017, http://belarusdigest.com/story/victory-day-between- remembrance-and-militant-memory-25683. 9 Snyder, Timothy, Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler And Stalin (New York: Basic Books, 2012), 250

5 republic’s official history.10 With the Lukashenko regime using the term “Belarusian” to denote citizenship rather than ethnicity in calculating wartime losses, German atrocities committed against Jews, Roma, and other minority ethnic groups in Belarus have been written into the republic’s official history of the Great Patriotic War as Belarusian losses.11 This has allowed for the death camps, ghettos, and other sites of mass murder in Belarus that are widely accepted as part of the Holocaust to be included in the Lukashenko government’s Great Patriotic War narrative as evidence of a Belarusian genocide.12

The practice of placing all wartime losses under one collective identity harkens back to the Great Patriotic War narrative of the Soviet era. The Soviet Union exclusively used the term

“Soviet” to describe the identity of victims of Nazi crimes in its state-sanctioned war narrative.

Doing this “masked the fact that the Germans had singled out Jews for total extermination” and created a narrative that underscored a collective Soviet victimhood.13 The term Soviet is a non- ethnic-specific identification that first and foremost denotes citizenship. Belarusian, however, can refer to citizenship or ethnicity, and most often invokes an ethnic connotation. This aspect of the Belarusian war narrative appears to be intentionally misleading. By basing Belarusian losses on citizenship rather than ethnicity, the Lukashenko government has created a narrative that implies that the wartime suffering of specifically ethnic Belarusians was uniquely severe in

10 Marples, David R, “Soviet Identity and War Myths in Belarus,” Belarus Digest, Accessed June 20, 2017, http://belarusdigest.com/story/%E2%80%98soviet-identity%E2%80%99-and- war-myths-belarus-14695 11 Laputska, Veranika. "World War II Criminals in Belarusian Internet Mass-Media: The Cases of Anthony Sawoniuk and Vladimir Katriuk," Belarus Journal (2016), Accessed June 20, 2017, http://belarusjournal.com/sites/default/files/Laputska_2016.pdf 12 "Koncentrasionnye Lagerya, Getto." Khatyn Memorial Complex, Accessed April 25, 2017, http://khatyn.by/ru/genocide/ccs/. 13 Simon Lewis, “Overcoming Hegemonic Martyrdom: The Afterlife of Khatyn in Belarusian Memory,” The Jouranl of Soviet And Post-Soviet Politics and Society, vol. 1, no. 2 (2015).

6 comparison to that of other nations and ethnic groups. In accentuating the wartime suffering of

Belarusians, the Lukashenko government relies heavily on portraying Nazi crimes directed specifically at non-Slavic ethnic groups, mainly Jews, as proof of the “genocide of the Belarusian nation.”

In using citizenship to determine Belarusian wartime losses, the Lukashenko regime has copied a key feature of the Soviet war narrative. However, the modern Belarusian war narrative departs from that of the Soviet Union in that it highlights ethnicity, something the official Soviet narrative downplayed. In addition to this, the Lukashenko regime’s Great Patriotic War narrative has primarily been devised by replacing the term “Soviet” with “Belarusian,” and expanding the suffering component of the Soviet era war narrative. Scholars of Belarus have described

Lukashenko’s method of revising Belarus’s Great Patriotic War history, through the rebranding and emboldening of Soviet narratives the recycling of Soviet history. And though the

Lukashenko regime’s war narrative consists largely of revisions to official Soviet history, the genocide myth is an entirely new component.

The origins of the Belarusian genocide myth can be traced to a 2004 speech by

Lukashenko in which he stated, “during the three years of occupation, Hitler’s forces exterminated our people with cynical orderliness. They shot and burned alive not only those who rose arms, but also children, women, and the elderly.”14 While the term genocide was not used in the speech, the framework for what would develop into the myth of the genocide of the

Belarusian nation was being forged. In 2009 the government-run journal, “Belaruskaya Dumka,”

14 Kotljarchuk, Andrej. "World War II Memory Politics”

7 published two articles that for the first time explicitly described in detail the Belarusian government’s thesis of the genocide of the Belarusian nation. Both articles were written by

Belarusian historian, Oleg Litskevich, who based his claims on the work of prominent government-sanctioned Belarusian historians. The first of the two articles was entitled “The

Genocide of The Belarusian Nation” and began by addressing the sudden emergence of the

Belarusian genocide as part of the republic’s official history, stating that it had previously been trapped in the “shadows of the Holocaust” and thus ignored. The article repeatedly used sites of

Holocaust atrocities as proof of a Belarusian genocide without mentioning the Jewish murders carried out by Nazi’s at these locations. Litskevich’s second article in “Belaruskaya Dumka” during 2009 was entitled, “The War Against Myths.” In this article Litskevich stated that during the war “thirty million Slavs were killed in the Soviet Union by the Nazis,” an exaggerated figure that ignores that the Soviet Union was a multi-ethnic country. The article claimed that its purpose was to debunk the western propaganda surrounding the history of the Great Patriotic

War and devoted much of its attention to disputing what it refers to as a “Western war narrative” wholly focused on the Holocaust while ignoring other genocides committed by the Nazis, specifically that of the Belarusian nation. Since their publication, the history of the Second

World War in Belarus as portrayed in these two articles has reverberated throughout Belarusian media at an ever-increasing rate.15

As part of the Lukashenko regime’s effort to recycle and expand Soviet-era war narratives and myths, the long standing and heavily quoted war statistic that “every fourth

15 Ibid; Litskevich, Oleg . "Genocid Belorusskogo Naroda," Belaruskaya Dumka, Accessed April 25, 2017, http://beldumka.belta.by/isfiles/000167_845710.pdf; Litskevich, Oleg. “Vojna Protiv Mifov,” Belaruskaya Dumka, Accessed June 20, 2017, http://beldumka.belta.by/isfiles/000167_47779.pdf

8 Belarusian died during the war” has been increased under Lukashenko to “every third

Belarusian.”16 The myth that every fourth Belarusian died during the war was created by Piotr

Masherou during his first speech as leader of the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic (BSSR), a position he held from 1965 until 1980 when he died in a suspicious car wreck after failing out of favor with leadership in Moscow.17 During the speech Masherou stated that “the war claimed the lives of almost every fourth inhabitant of the republic.”18 Masherou had been the commander of a partisan brigade during the war and in 1944 received the Gold Star of the Hero of the Soviet

Union. Under Masherou, both Brest (1965) and Minsk (1974) were granted the status of “Hero

City,” and a landscape of monuments and memorials was created across the BSSR reminding its citizens of their heroism and sacrifices during the Great Patriotic War. Moreover, it was

Masherou who commissioned the Khatyn Memorial Complex’s construction, a project he took a personal interest in, with the intention of “conveying through the tragedy of Khatyn the tragedy of the entire Belarusian nation.”19 This is a legacy that the policies of Lukashenko have sought to continue. Including the construction of Khatyn, four of the five largest and most visible Great

Patriotic War memorials in Belarus were built during Masherou’s rule.20 Thus, the elaborate

Belarusian war narrative that has grown into the myth of a genocide under Lukashenko, can be

16 The statistic that one out of every four Belarusians died during the war includes, the deaths of 800,000 prisoners of war, many of whom were not citizens of the republic; Kotljarchuk, “World War II Memory Politics: Jewish, Polish and Roma” 17 Shevchuk, Igor. “25h Let Nazad Razbilsya Petr Masherov.” Accessed June 20, 2017 ttps://news.tut.by/society/58548.html; The BSSR was established in 1919 and lasted until 1991. When the Soviet Union was dissolved in 1991 the former BSSR became the Republic of Belarus. 18 Kotljarchuk. "World War II Memory Politics" 19 Simon Lewis. “Overcoming Hegemonic Martyrdom” 20 Masherou initiated the construction of the Khatyn Memorial (1969), the Brest Hero-Fortress Memorial (1969-1971), The Mound of Glory to the Soviet Army (1969), and the “Breakthrough” Memorial (1974).

9 traced to the extensive war commemoration projects of the Masherou era. As historian Andrej

Kotljarchuk has noted, Lukashenko looks to be in “competition” with Masherou as he stretches his predecessor’s myth of every fourth Belarusian dying during the war into an all-out genocide that claimed the life of every third Belarusian.21

In developing the Belarusian genocide myth, the Lukashenko regime has centered much of its attention on the Khatyn memorial complex. The memorial complex stands at the site of the former Khatyn village, and commemorates the destruction of the village and its inhabitants during the German occupation of Belarus. Though the Belarusian landscape is filled with war monuments and memorial complexes, few rival the scale of Khatyn (the outdoor complex covers an area of 32 hectares). Moreover, it is the only memorial of its size in Belarus where the sole emphasis of its theme is tragedy and suffering. Since its construction in 1969, the Khatyn memorial complex has become a prominent and widely recognized symbol of Belarusians’ wartime loses and an integral part of the Belarusian identity.22 Thus, it is fitting that the Khatyn memorial has come to function as one of the primary channels through which Belarus’s state-run media propagates what it refers to as the “German policy of genocide against the Belarusian people.”23 Additionally, the Lukashenko regime’s capacity to reshape the Belarusian war

21 Kotljarchuk, "World War II Memory Politics”; Marples, David R. "'Soviet Identity' and War Myths in Belarus." Belarus Digest. Accessed April 25, 2017. http://belarusdigest.com/story/%E2%80%98soviet-identity%E2%80%99-and-war-myths- belarus-14695. 22 Rudling, Per Anders, "The Khatyn Massacre in Belorussia: A Historical Controversy Revisited," Holocaust and Genocide Studies 26:1 (2012): 29-58." Holocaust and Genocide Studies. Accessed April 25, 2017. http://www.academia.edu/1498430/The_Khatyn_Massacre_in_Belorussia_A_Historical_Contro versy_Revisited_Holocaust_and_Genocide_Studies_26_1_2012_29-58, 45. 23"Pamyatniki Velikoj Otechestvennoj Vojny V Belarusi." Memorialy Velikoj Otechestvennoj Vojny V Belarusi. Belarus.by. Accessed April 25, 2017. http://www.belarus.by/ru/travel/military-history-tourism/memorials-great-patriotic-war; "Pilitika

10 narrative via Khatyn extends well beyond the limitations of the physical memorial and its individual monuments. The Lukashenko government has designed the Khatyn Memorial

Complex website to function as an online museum, disseminating the myth of a “genocide of the

Belarusian nation” and expanding the overall war narrative far beyond that which the physical site of the Khatyn memorial would be capable of alone. The information presented on the Khatyn website is reinforced throughout the Belarusian media as well as by government-sanctioned historians. With the Belarusian government exerting tight control over information, the country’s war memory is shaped according to which events the Lukashenko regime chooses to publicize and which events it allows to be forgotten.24 This takes place through the republic’s education system, state-run media, and the physical representations of memory in the form of monuments and memorials placed throughout the republic. Moreover, with the government directing the outflow of information within the republic, it is able to revise and strengthen the collective meaning assigned to its memorials and monuments.

Belarus is an extremely understudied county in eastern European studies, receiving perhaps even less attention than Moldova. As a result, the number of scholarly works on the republic are few in number, though attention does appear to be on the rise. Two historians who have written specifically on the revision of the Belarusian WWII narrative under Lukashenko are

Per Anders Rudling and David R. Marples.25 In particular, their writings on the role of the

Khatyn myth and memorial in the expansion of Belarus’s WWII myth by the Lukashenko regime have been quite influential in the formulation of this work. In a 2011 article on Khatyn, Rudling

Genocid Belaruskogo Naroda," Khatyn Memorial Complex. Accessed April 25, 2017. http://khatyn.by/ru/genocide/. 24 Kotljarchuk, “World War II Memory Politics.” 25 Marples, David R, Our Glorious Past: Lukashenka's Belarus and the Great Patriotic War (Stuttgart: Ibidem-Verlag), 2014.

11 focused on the details of the massacre, and in particular, the involvement of Ukrainian collaborators; a previously suppressed aspect of Khatyn history due to the Soviet Union’s fear that transparency regarding Nazi collaboration amongst Soviet citizens would create hostility between Soviet republics. Rudling addresses in the article the importance of Khatyn in the

Belarusian national identity as defined by the Lukashenko government.26 Marples has written numerous article on the topic of the Second World War’s portrayal in present-day Belarus, several of which have been used in the coming pages. Additionally, in 2014 Marples published

Our Glorious Past, which explores the war’s representation in works by Soviet and Belarusian government-sanctioned historians as well as the textbooks of both regimes. The primary focus of

Our Glorious Past is on demonstrating the evolution of the “Great Patriotic War’s” presence in the Belarusian national narrative over the course of Lukashenko’s rule, pointing out that the enormity of the war in myth, legend, and memory has grown well beyond that of the actual event. The work at hand, however, is focused specifically on the use of the Khatyn massacre and the Khatyn Memorial Complex as mechanisms for propagating the Belarusian genocide myth in

Lukashenko’s Belarus; a topic which has yet to be explored in depth.

In a 2013 article entitled, “World War II Memory Politics: Jewish, Polish and Roma

Minorities of Belarus,” the historian Andrej Kotljarchuk touches briefly on the topic of a

Belarusian genocide.27 And though it is not its primary focus, the article does include several passages dedicated to discrediting the Lukashenko government’s position that a Belarusian genocide occurred during the German occupation. In addition, over the course of Lukashenko’s rule there have been a wide range of publications from various disciplines exploring the use of

26 Rudling, "The Khatyn Massacre in Belorussia” 27 Kotljarchuk, "World War II Memory Politics”

12 government media in shaping public opinion in Belarus, especially with regards to socio- economic issues. While these works range in focus and many do not mention WWII’s presence in the republic, they have provided a framework within which the modes of promoting government sanctioned narratives in the Belarusian state-run media apparatus can be better understood. 28

Belarusian government sources, beginning with the Khatyn memorial website, have provided the majority of the primary source information found in the following pages. The

Khatyn website lays out the most comprehensive case in support of the Lukashenko regime’s position that a Belarusian genocide occurred during the Second World War. Additionally, broadcasts from Belarusian state-run television channels and journal articles have been a key source in developing this work as they represent the wartime narrative the state intends to be understood by the Belarusian people.

The vast majority of sources used in this project were published in the Russian language.

Over the following pages, several passages have been transcribed from Russian. The translations were done by the author with great attention placed on ensuring that the precise meaning of the original Russian language text was captured. The fluidity with which these translations read in

English has been of secondary importance. In several of the recorded interviews used, the interviewees were quite elderly and physically ill. This resulted in parts of their testimonies being inaudible or unclear. These parts of their interviews were omitted entirely in order to

28 Rudling, "The Khatyn Massacre in Belorussia."; Kuchinskaya, Olga. The Politics of Invisibility: Public Knowledge About Radiation Health Effects After Chernobyl. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2014; Bekus, Nelly. Struggle Over Identity: The Official And The Alternative "Belarusianness." Budapest: CEU Press, 2010.

13 ensure that details were not erroneously added to their stories based on guesswork or author biases.

Of the multitude of wartime atrocities that occurred in Belarus, the myth of Khatyn has been one of the most visible and most important in the process of developing a Belarusian wartime narrative focused on victimization, suffering, and genocide. In order to place Khatyn within the framework of the overall war effort in the territory of present-day Belarus, this work will begin with an overview of the Second World War in the territory of Belarus and its current portrayal in schools and the media. Following this, the third and fourth chapters will narrow their scope by focusing first on the Khatyn massacre and then the memorial that was constructed in its commemoration. With the third and third fourth chapters establishing Khatyn’s place in

Belarus’s Great Patriotic War experience and memory, the fifth chapter will examine the use of the Khatyn Memorial Complex, particularly its website, as a venue through which the Belarusian genocide myth is brought to reality and propagated to the Belarusian public.

14 Chapter 2: The Great Patriotic War in Belarus: An Overview

On June 22, 1941 Nazi Germany invaded the USSR, with their main route of attack taking them directly through the territory of Belarus.29 The Germans crossed into Soviet territory with a speed and precision for which the Soviet Union’s central government was not prepared.

Making matter worse, Moscow was extraordinarily slow in giving orders on how to respond.30

As a result, many Belarusian cities were completely under German control within hours after the invasion began. Brest was said to “no longer exist” after the first day of the war, and Minsk suffered a similar fate. Belarus had been of little significance to the Nazis at the start of the war, being a land of “Jews and Slavs marked for extermination, labor camps, or starvation.”31 The

German’s occupation began a “period of the most devastating losses in Belarus’s history.”32 In today’s Minsk, nearly every street has a monument or plaque commemorating the sacrifices of the “Hero City” and its citizen during the war.33

Belarusian historians have largely described the role of Belarus in the early days of the war as having been the “main impediment blocking the Germans’ road to Moscow.” However, it was not until the Germans reached Smolensk, well beyond the Belarusian border, that its advance was met with fierce resistance. The battle of Smolensk began only sixteen days after the initial invasion of the Soviet Union and lasted three months (from July 10th to September 10th).

However, the battle is typically ignored in its entirety in official textbooks in Belarus as it would accentuate just how fast Belarus fell. Under Lukashenko, Belarusian textbooks have an alternate

29 Wilson, Belarus, 108; Bazan, Lubov. History of Belarus: A Non-Literary Essay That Explains The Ethnogenesis of The Belarusians. London, U.K: Glasgoslav Publications, 2014, 325. 30 Marples, Our Glorious Past, 58. 31 Wilson, Belarus, 108. 32 Zaprudnik, Jan, Belarus: At A Crossroads In History, (Boulder: Westview Press), 1993, 95. 33 Wilson, “Belarus,” 110; Marples, Our Glorious Past, 41

15 version of events that present resistance to the Germans in the territory of Belarus as having been the most significant factor allowing Russia, especially Moscow, to prepare for the Germans. In actuality, Belarus was a completely occupied territory by June 28th, a mere six days after the onset of the Nazis’ invasion.34

Within the republic, government-sanctioned historians have portrayed Belarus as putting up such a fierce fight against the invading army that German commanders had to rework their tactics against the Soviet Union. Of course, this is only believable in absence of the fact that

Belarusian Soviet commanders were executed for cowardice during those first six days and that

300,000 of their troops were taken as prisoners as well as large amounts of equipment and supplies sieged. Moreover, few Soviet troops on the Belarusian border actually experienced

“genuine” fighting because the invasion was so quick that there was no time to put up a defense, and even if they had, they were “miserably unprepared.”35

The wartime devastation in Belarus was extreme and Soviet resistance came at an enormous cost in human lives. Of Belarus’s 270 cities in existence at the start of the war, 209 would be reduced to rubble by its end. Moreover, according to Soviet records, by May 1945

9,200 Belarusian villages were in ruins.36 5,229 of those villages were destroyed in what the

Germans described as anti-partisan operations. Adding to the German’s destruction of Belarus,

628 of its villages were burned to the ground with all or most of their inhabitants still inside. Of

34 Marples, Our Glorious Past, 26-55; David Stahel, Operation Barbarossa, 271-348 35 Marples, ‘Our Glorious Past,’ 26-55 36 Marples, David. Belarus: A Denationalized Nation. Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1998, 16; Himka, John-Paul, and Joanna B. Michlic, Bringing The Dark Past To Light The Reception Of The Holocaust In Postcommunist Europe, (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press), 2013, 61

16 the thousands of Belarusian villages demolished by the Germans, 511 would never be restored.37

In total, there were 1.2 million buildings destroyed throughout Belarus between 1941 and 1945, leaving the majority of the republic’s villages, towns, and cities either in ruins or completely erased from the map.38 The estimated official total loss of life in Belarus during the war ranges from 2.2 to 2.7 million, roughly a quarter of the population. In total, by the war’s end, nearly half of the population of Belarus had been either killed or displaced, and an additional 380,000 of its inhabitants sent east to work as forced laborers, of which only about half returned.39 The republic’s capital city of Minsk was nearly completely razed to the ground. Today the remnants of prewar Minsk are scarce, primarily consisting of a tiny “Old City” section off of Nemiga

Street and the nearby Minsk Opera Theatre which was built in 1933 and miraculously managed to survive the war intact. As a result of the wartime destruction of Minsk, its design and architecture are the “most Soviet of the former Soviet cities.”40

The war also came with an economic cost for Belarus, as the newly formed Soviet republic lost half of its “natural wealth.” By 1944 Belarus had 1,500 collective farms lacking seeds for Spring sowing. Moreover, much of the local livestock had been taken by German troops (and partisan fighters as well in some cases).41 Additionally, the staggering loss of life took quite a toll on the work force of Belarus. In Brest, the population was reduced from 69,000 to 15,000. As was the case with the village of Khatyn, the Nazis and their collaborating forces

37 "Karatelnye Operacii," Khatyn Memorial Complex, Accessed April 25, 2017. http://www.khatyn.by/ru/genocide/expeditions/. 38 Wilson, Belarus, 110; "Karatelnye Operacii," Khatyn Memorial Complex, Accessed April 25, 2017, http://www.khatyn.by/ru/genocide/expeditions/. 39 Marples, Our Glorious Past, 61; Snyder, Bloodlands, 250. 40 Wilson, Belarus, 110. 41 Marples, Our Glorious Past, 69.

17 massacred entire rural populations, often by putting them in a single communal building (a barn or church) and then setting it on fire. Bullets were spent only on those who tried to escape. By the war’s end, the devastating losses in Belarus had pushed its economy to below first five-year plan levels.42

At the onset of the war the total number of Jews in Belarus is estimated to have been

900,000, of which approximately 100,000 were located in the Minsk ghetto.43 Timothy Snyder states that, Belarus “was home to one of Europe’s densest population of Jews, doomed to destruction.” Almost every town and city in present-day Belarus had, at least for a short period, a ghetto as its urban populations were in large part comprised of Jewish residents. In the larger cities of Belarus, it was not unusual for Jews to outnumber Poles, Russians, and Belarusians combined. Unlike in central Europe, the Jews of Belarus were not murdered in concentration camps, but were killed by bullets or burned to death in or near their native shtetls, towns, and cities.44 By 1945 an estimated 800,000 of Belarus’s 900,000 Jews had been murdered by Nazi forces, and, though to a much lesser extent, by the Soviet’s NKVD as well.45

Belarus was one of the epicenters of the Holocaust, though unlike in neighboring territories, Jews and Belarusians had fairly good relations and worked together closely in the fight against the Germans.46 Hersh Smolar speaks of Belarusians as having been crucial to Jewish survival during the war, and the close coordination of the Minsk ghetto underground and the

Minsk city underground in the fight against the German occupation.47 Moreover, it was through

42 Ibid., 72. 43 Wilson, Belarus, 112 44 Snyder, Bloodlands, 250 45 Laputska, Veranika,“World War II Criminals in Belarusian Internet” 46 Snyder, Bloodlands, 28-29 47 Wilson, Belarus, 112

18 cooperation from the Minsk city underground and Belarusian partisan columns that the Minsk ghetto had an unusually high survival rate (possibly as high as 20 percent). Members of the

Minsk underground provided cover for Jews to leave the ghetto and assistance for finding partisans in the forests. Once in contact with partisans, nationality and ethnic background tended to have been far less important than one’s willingness to fight. As a testament to the close relations between Belarusian Jews and Belarusian Slavs, Smolar, a Polish Jew, wrote in his memoirs that one of the many ways in which the Minsk city underground assisted Jews was by arranging for the Minsk children’s home to take in Jewish children under the auspice that they were “Aryan” children who had been displaced or orphaned by the war. These children were also given new documents by the Minsk city administration. Smolar states emphatically and repeatedly throughout his memoir that it was only possible to leave the ghetto with the help of

Belarusians.48

Belarus was home to the largest partisan movement of World War II and for Jews escaping the ghetto it was the partisan brigades that most often provided the greatest chance for survival.49 Partisan columns began forming during 1941 and by the end of that year had an estimated 12,000 participants. By the end of 1942 partisan numbers had grown to 50,000 and controlled 30% of Belarusian territory. According to Timothy Snyder, partisan organizations in

Belarus were so advanced that they were operating collective farms to feed those fighting.50

Snyder remarks that, “Western Europeans would generally be surprised to learn that Belarus was

48 Smolar, Hersh, The Minsk Ghetto: Soviet-Jewish Partisans Against The Nazis. (New York: Holocaust library), 1989; Epstein, Barbara Leslie, The Minsk Ghetto 1941-1943 Jewish Resistance And Soviet Internationalism, (Berkeley: University of California Press), 2008. 49 Smolar, The Minsk Ghetto 50 Snyder, Bloodlands, 233-277

19 both the epicenter of European mass killing and the base of anti-Nazi partisans who actually contributed to the victory of the allies.”51 Moreover, Jews played a key role in resistance to the

German occupation of Belarus. The Minsk ghetto underground and the Minsk city underground regularly worked in concert to carry out joint operations against the city’s German occupiers, with their most notable feat the successful assassination of Wilhelm Kube, General

Commissioner of Nazi occupied Belarus. Moreover, in the Oktyaber Factory, Jewish workers would intentionally hammer so many tacks into the bottoms of shoes that it would be

"impossible for anyone to wear them for any length of time." Jewish tailors at the factory would sew a left sleeve into a right arm, or, "by mistake," sew the sleeve shut altogether. Additionally, any clothing that could safely be taken out of the factory was removed and given to partisan groups. The Oktyaber factory's boiler was operated by a member of the ghetto resistance who

“was a master at setting off short circuits or fouling up heating systems.”

Perhaps the largest contribution made by Belarusian Jews in the fight against the German occupation of the Soviet Union was in the partisan brigades. The Smolar memoir describes how from the Fall of 1942 to January 1943 a young Yiddish speaking Belarusian woman named

Bronye brought enough Jews from the ghetto to the forest to form three Jewish partisan units. By the end of the war the number of Jews that would survive the Holocaust through escaping the ghetto and fighting in Smolar’s partisan brigade would be approximately 10,000.52

At the onset of the Great Patriotic War, Belarus was the most Jewish republic in the

Soviet Union. The contributions of Jews in the wartime efforts to defeat Nazi Germany have, however, gone largely unrecognized, especially in the current government’s official version of

51 Wilson, Belarus, 110-112. 52 Smolar, The Minsk Ghetto

20 history. Additionally, under Lukashenko, the Holocaust in Belarus has been included in the state- sponsored narrative of a “genocide of the Belarusian nation.” And though the Belarusian landscape is covered with WWII monuments, Holocaust monuments are rather rare. However, since Lukashenko took office in 1994, the Belarusian government in conjunction with Jewish interest groups from the U.S. and the state of Israel have funded the building of several highly visible Holocaust monuments in Minsk as well as in other cities where mass murders of Jews took place. Though this could be interpreted as a move in the direction of transparency regarding the Holocaust in Belarus, it can more appropriately be attributed to international pressures and perceived financial incentives on the part of the Lukashenko regime.53 Additionally, it appears that the Holocaust’s increased visibility is also beneficial for its incorporation into the myth of a

Belarusian genocide.54

The hardships Belarus endured during the Great Patriotic War are of enormous importance to the Belarusian identity as a defining trauma through which their nation endured.

The tragedies inflicted on the Belarusian people during the war are repeatedly reinforced in the republic through the state-operated media’s campaign to reinforce the Great Patriotic War’s place in the forefront of the Belarusian collective memory. On May 9th (Victory Day), the city of

Minsk is decorated more elaborately than for any other event of the year, while the artillery of the Belarusian military is paraded through the city’s main streets. The event is broadcasted simultaneously on the state-operated channels with a level of visibility that no other holiday celebrated in Belarus receives. In day-to-day life throughout the republic, reminders of the

53 Marples, Out Glorious Past, 10 54 "Karatelnye operacii." Khatyn Memorial Complex. Accessed April 25, 2017. http://www.khatyn.by/ru/genocide/expeditions/; Laputska,"World War II Criminals in Belarusian Internet Mass-Media: The Cases of Anthony Sawoniuk and Vladimir Katriuk.”

21 magnitude of the loss and suffering that occurred on Belarusian soil during the Great Patriotic

War are nearly unavoidable. The war’s hyper-visibility creates a political atmosphere in the republic where the success of the president is measured by his ability to avoid military conflicts and maintain relative domestic stability. This prevents the republic’s lack of economic growth and social progress during Lukashenko’s rule from being a primary concern for much of the population. Since Lukashenko’s election, the narrative of heroism that dominated the Great

Patriotic War memory throughout the Soviet period has shifted towards an increased emphasis on suffering and victimhood. In redirecting the focus of Belarus’s Great Patriotic War narrative from heroism to victimhood, there has been an extensive and ever-increasing focus on the

Khatyn massacre in the Belarusian state-run media. Moreover, the memorial complex commemorating the massacre has been one of the primary tools for supporting the Lukashenko regime’s myth of a Belarusian genocide.

22 Chapter 3: The Khatyn Massacre

As many Belarusian historians have noted, the history of Khatyn seems to begin not in

Belarus, but during the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. During that year’s Olympics, the first German male to win a medal was Hans Woelke, a track and field athlete who would also set a world record in shot-putting that summer.55 Woelke’s Olympic performance had made him a national hero in Hitler’s Germany where he became a symbol of the athletic might of the aryan race.56

Seven years after the Berlin Olympics Woelke, now an officer of the infamous 118th Police

Battalion, would find himself in the partisan swarming regions of rural Belarus. Here, Woelke’s fame was of little significance, and on the morning of March 22 he and several Ukrainian police were killed by partisan fire. 57

Woelke’s unit, the Schutzmannschaft 118th Battalion, was formed in Kiev in 1942. The battalion was led by German commander Erich Körner, and was comprised largely of western

Ukrainians who were members of the Bandera wing of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalist

(OUN).58 Rudling notes in a 2012 article on Khatyn that according to one of the battalion’s members, “the western Ukrainians were considered the elite of the battalion.” 59 In addition to

55 "Khatyn: A Chto Zhe Bylo Na Samom Dele?" Virturalnyj Muzej Logojska, Accessed April 25, 2017, http://museum.logoysk.info/ru/logoysk-district/122-villages/2092-khatyn-what-really- happened.html; Rudling, “The Khatyn Massacre in Belorussia” 56 "Khatyn: A Chto Zhe Bylo Na Samom Dele?" Virturalnyj Muzej Logojska, Accessed April 25, 2017, http://museum.logoysk.info/ru/logoysk-district/122-villages/2092-khatyn-what-really- happened.html. 57 Rudling, "The Khatyn Massacre in Belorussia” 58 Carlsten, Jennie M., and Fearghal McGarry, Film, History and Memory, (Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan), 2015, 95 59 Rudling, “The Khatyn Massacre in Belorussia: A Historical Controversy Revisited," 34; On the topic of collaboration, Ukrainian historian Orest Subtelny states in his 1988 book Ukraine: A History (471-472), “In Western Europe, where loyalty to one’s state was taken for granted and the Nazis were the one and only enemy, collaboration with the Germans was generally viewed as a form of treason. But in Ukraine, collaboration was a much more complicated issue. It was, first

23 OUN(b) fighters, the battalion included Ukrainian Red Army deserters, criminals, and prisoners of war. In December 1942, shortly after its formation, the 118th Battalion was sent to Belarus where Woelke served as company commander. It seems that Woelke’s assignment was intended to keep the Olympic champion away from the dangers of the front, “allowing him to earn his wartime medals by fighting in the rear.”60

On the morning of the Khatyn massacre, the 118th Battalion came under fire from local partisan fighters. Caught in the attack, Woelke was shot several times in the arm while inside his car. And then, in what was likely a frantic attempt to escape, “jumped out of his vehicle and was shot again in a failed attempt to run for cover.”61 A Ukrainian commander in the 118th Battalion and former Red Army lieutenant, Vasily Meleshko, informed Körner of the death of Woelke (as well as two Ukrainian fighters) along with the details of the attack. With Woelke’s star status in

Germany and favoritism with Hitler, news of his death aggravated German officials, who subsequently “ordered a collective punishment of the local population.”62 The tracks left by the partisans leading towards the village of Khatyn, Körner sent for ‘reinforcement from Oskar

Dirlewanger’s infamous SS-Sonderbataillon, a unit including hardened criminals, some of whom

of all, unclear as to how much loyalty Ukrainians owed to Stalin’s regime or to the Polish state that had mistreated them. Who was the primary enemy? Was it the Stalinist system, which inflicted such great suffering in the 1930s, or the Nazi regime, which was currently (but perhaps only temporarily) in power? Finally, given the extreme ruthlessness of both regimes in Ukraine, collaboration was often the price of survival for many Ukrainians.” Though this author dissents with Subtelny on the extent to which survival was dependent on collaboration with the Germans, the topic of Ukrainian collaboration is indeed one of great complexity well beyond the scope that this essay is prepared to address. 60 "Politika Genocida: 118 Policejskij Batalon," Khatyn Memorial Complex, Accessed April 25, 2017. http://khatyn.by/ru/genocide/expeditions/polic118/. 61 Rudling, "The Khatyn Massacre in Belorussia"; Hatyn. Tragedia I Pamat Dokumenty I Materialy. Minsk: NARB, 2009. 62 Rudling, “The Khatyn Massacre in Belorussia”

24 were mentally ill,’ and ordered the village’s destruction.63 Troops from the 118th Battalion and

SS-Sonderbataillon surrounded the village from all sides, and drove Khatyn’s residents, including women, children, and the elderly, into the collective farm’s barn. Once the entire village was inside the barn, the doors were locked and the structure was packed with hay from the collective farm, doused with gasoline, and set ablaze. Within moments the gasoline drenched wooden building was completely engulfed in flames. Inside, the villagers were suffocating in the smoke, while making futile attempts to save the children as they cried in fear. Under the pressure of the flames and the weight of human bodies, the barn’s roof began collapsing and its doors flung open. With their clothes on fire and terrified for their lives, the villagers rushed through the breeched doors of the barn, only to be shot by the occupying forces’ machine guns.64 In total 149 people died in the Khatyn massacre, including 75 children. Before leaving, the collaborators and their German commanders plundered the village and burned it to the ground.65

Of the village’s more than 150 residents, only five children and one adult are thought to have survived. One of the survivors of Khatyn frequently featured in the Belarusian media is

Viktor Zhelobkovich. He was eight years old at the time of the tragedy.66 Zhelobkovich and his mother were locked in the barn with the other villagers. When the doors of the barn collapsed

63 Golovko, Sergej, "Khatyn: Nashi Gorest I Bol," Xronika Pobedy, Accessed April 25, 2017. http://peramoga.belta.by/ru/Rubeji?id=272554; Hatyn. Tragedia i Pamat Dokumenty i Materialy. Minsk: NARB, 2009; Rudling, “The Khatyn Massacre in Belorussia” 64 Golovko, Sergej, "Khatyn: Nashi Gorest I Bol," Xronika Pobedy, Accessed April 25, 2017, http://peramoga.belta.by/ru/Rubeji?id=272554; "Viktor Zhekobkovich O Tragedii Khatyn," YouTube, June 23, 2012, Accessed April 25, 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Coy6brHjt4Q. 65 Golovko, Sergej, "Khatyn: Nashi Gorest I bol," Xronika Pobedy, Accessed April 25, 2017, http://peramoga.belta.by/ru/Rubeji?id=272554. 66 "Tragediya Khatyn," Khatyn Memorial Complex, Accessed April 25, 2017, http://khatyn.by/ru/tragedy/trage/witne/; As of April, 2017, Viktor Zhelobkovich (1934) is one of only two living survivor of Khatyn.

25 they ran out into the Nazi’s gun fire. Before dying, Zhelobkovich’s mother pushed him to the ground telling him to “be still... Don’t get up.” Zhelobkovich recalls laying on the ground long after the occupiers had left; arising only to realize his native village had been burned to the ground along with all but six of its inhabitants.67 In a 2013 report on the Belarusian government channel “ONT,” commemorating the 70th anniversary of Khatyn, Zhelobkovich recalled the events of that day; “Imagine, it was as if they had built a bonfire out of human bodies. (After having run out of the barn with my mother) I felt a startling jolt. A bullet grazed my shoulder. I said to my mother that they wounded me, but she was already quiet. This is a memory that never fades.”68

Sofia Yaskevich (1934) also managed to survive the massacre. In an interview taking at the site of the memorial during the 71st anniversary of Khatyn, Yaskevich recalled her experience to reporters:69

Around 4:30 they came. There were 150 police and another 50 Banderivtsi. They encircled the village and started calling for people to come out. (stops to cry) They said there was going to be a gathering. People believed them because we never had anyone from the police or partisans and they thought the occupiers would sympathize with us. But the Nazis never planned to take pity on us. We heard at the last moment that they had an order to liquidate the villages near the forests. Our village was the last one in the forest. So, people believed them and went along. And those who stayed at home, like people with children or invalids, were shot on the spot. The people who had gathered were herded into the barn. The barn door was sealed closed, and the barn was set ablaze. Everyone ran to the doors, and broke the door and started to run away. The Nazis started shooting as soon as they began to run.

67 Rudling, "The Khatyn Massacre in Belorussia" 68 "Den Skorbi: 70 Let Nazad Byla Sozhzhena Khatyn," YouTube, March 22, 2013, Accessed April 25, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fff6PC2WGZo; "Viktor Zhekobkovich O Tragedii Khatyn," YouTube, June 23, 2012, Accessed April 25, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Coy6brHjt4Q. 69 As of April, 2017, Sofia Yaskevich (1934) is one of only two living survivor of Khatyn.

26 Sofia Yaskevich avoided the fate of her fellow villagers by hiding in a cellar. At the time of the interview Yaskevich appears to have had a stroke and is quite difficult to understand, though her account indicates that not every house in the village was burned, as other sources typically indicate. Yaskevich says that she ran to her aunt’s after the barn had burned. Her aunt had been shot in the chest, and told Yaskevich, “run, hide. They will kill you.” Yaskevich ran home and remained there. From Yaskevich’s account it appears that the Nazis did go house to house and shoot those who had not gathered outside, but at least her home, as well as her aunt’s, can be said to have not been burned.70

While the fact that not every house in Khatyn was burned to the ground does not change the brutality of the crime. It does, however, point to the tendency to exaggerate the scale of Nazi crimes against the local Belarusian population. The Belarusian government’s pattern of embellishing details in their official war myth is also readily observable in the inclusion of

Jewish deaths in the total losses of what the Belarusian government describes as the “genocide of the Belarusian nation.”71 Additionally, the Lohoysk regional museum reports that “according to one version of events, the order to destroy the village of Khatyn came directly from Hitler after learning Woelke’s death.” Though the website does state this is merely one version, it does not provide an alternative version, thus implying its factuality.72 The accepted version of events, however, states that it was Körner who ordered the attack. While attributing the destruction of

70 "Sviditel Tragedii V Khatyn Rasskazyvaet O Samom Strashnom Dne - 22 Marta 1943 Goda," YouTube, March 22, 2015, Accessed April 25, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ne_L8rD6Fk. 71 Litskevich, Oleg, "Genocid Belorusskogo Naroda," Belaruskaya Dumka, Accessed April 25, 2017, http://beldumka.belta.by/isfiles/000167_845710.pdf. 72 "Khatyn. A Chto Zhe Bylo Na Samom Dele?" Virturalnyj Muzej Logojska, Accessed April 25, 2017, http://museum.logoysk.info/ru/logoysk-district/122-villages/2092-khatyn-what-really- happened.html.

27 the village and its inhabitants to the Fuhrer himself certainly makes the event more dramatic, this detail can be considered part of the myth of Khatyn rather than the history. Moreover, including this version of events as part of an official history on a Belarusian government-operated website, is part of a larger campaign to popularize the idea of a Belarusian genocide by insinuating that the killing of Belarusians had been ordered by Hitler in a similar way that the murder of Jews and Roma had been. In Lukashenko’s Belarus, a historical narrative’s potential to advance a preferred version of history takes precedence over the accuracy of the history which is being recorded and espoused. Such is the case with Khatyn and the myth of a Belarusian genocide.

28 Chapter 4: The Khatyn Memorial

Today, there is not a single map on which you will find this Belarusian village; it was destroyed by fascist in 1943.73

-From The Khatyn Memorial Website

Considering the extent to which Belarusians suffered during WWII, the extensive visibility of the war’s effects is perhaps of reasonable proportions. Throughout Belarus reminders of the country’s wartime experience are inescapable. The republic is said to have approximately nine thousand WWII monuments, ranging in size and elaborateness from plaques posted onto stones or buildings, to enormous and overpowering concrete structures and expansive outdoor complexes.74 Belarus’s monuments and memorials are often placed along main city avenues, though they are also readily visible along village roads, and even along forest footpaths.75 Of the republic’s overwhelming number of WWII monuments and memorials, few are of the size and detail of the Khatyn memorial complex.

The direction of BSSR leader Piotr Masherou, in January 1966 the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Belarus set in motion the creation of the Khatyn memorial complex, and on July 5th, 1969 it was opened to the public. In March of 1967 it was announced that there would be a competition for choosing the team of architects that would design the memorial. The winning architects initially planned a memorial intended to invoke imagery of the scorched

73 "Khatyn Memorialnyj Kompleks." Khatyn Memorial Complex. Accessed April 25, 2017. http://www.khatyn.by/ru/. 74 "Paamyatniki Velikoj Otechestvennoj Vojny V Belarusi." Memorialy Velikoj Otechestvennoj Vojny V Belarusi Belarus.by. Accessed April 25, 2017. http://www.belarus.by/ru/travel/military- history-tourism/memorials-great-patriotic-war. 75 "Pamyatniki Goroda Lida: Informacionij Sajt Goroda Lida." Glavnaya. Accessed April 25, 2017. http://www.lida.info/pamyatniki-goroda-lida/

29 village; however, the project’s final design as seen today places emphasize on the absence of

Khatyn and its inhabitants. In speaking of the designing process one of the memorial’s architects commented that the group first “thought of placing the tops of village huts on the sites of former houses and obelisks in the shape of chimneys, but something was missing. I thought of the grassy field that had witnessed the tragedy and its dead silence. Suddenly, out of the silence a lark began to sing. This was the inspiration for Khatyn's bell.”76 The Khatyn bell sits atop an obelisk and rings every thirty seconds to commemorate the rate at which the inhabitants of Belarus died during the war.

In addition to the bell, the memorial features the Khatyn cemetery with a large stone statue in the form of the number “186” placed at its entrance. According to the Khatyn website, the cemetery is a memorial to the 186 (Belarusian) villages, including Khatyn, which were burned with their inhabitants trapped inside and never rebuilt. Each village has a headstone featuring its name and region. The Khatyn memorial also features three birch trees and next to them is an eternal flame. To the side of the eternal flame is a stone that has been etched with the words, “two million 230 thousand. Every fourth person died.” This certainly points to the involvement of BSSR leader Masherou’s involvement in the memorial’s design and construction.

Perhaps the most recognizable feature of the memorial is the large bronze statue of an emaciated

Yusif Kaminsky carrying his dying son in his arms. Kaminsky was one of the massacre’s few survivors.77 The statue’s design depicts pain and sorrow, and seems to embody the message intended to be relayed by the memorial as a whole. The Yusif Kaminsky statue is often featured in reports and articles produced by the Belarusian government-operated media, functioning as a

76"Memorialnyj Kompleks Khatyn: Istoriya Sozdaniya Memorialnogo Kompleka." Khatyn Memorial Complex. Accessed April 25, 2017. http://khatyn.by/ru/about/. 77 Kaminsky was born in 1887 and died in 1973.

30 stand-alone reminder of the suffering the Second World War brought to Belarusian lands.

Moreover, the statue has in many ways become a visual representation of the Belarusian identity.78

However, with Khatyn being just one of the hundreds of Belarusian villages torched to the ground, with the overwhelming majority of its inhabitants murdered in the process, the question as to why this particular village has been memorialized to such an extent that it has become one of the defining features of the Belarusian identity and war narrative is unavoidable.

According to historian Norman Davies, the answer to Khatyn’s extensive memorialization project during the Soviet period lies in the Katyn forest massacre. It appears that the construction of the Khatyn memorial may not only have been intended to commemorate the village that once stood in its place.

Approximately twenty-two thousand Polish political and military prisoners being held by the Soviet Union disappeared on March 5th, 1940. Soviet authorities had believed that if released, the imprisoned Poles would inspire uprisings in the Soviets’ western territories, particularly western Belarus with its large Polish and Catholic minorities. In an NKVD operation to eliminate any threat of a Polish-organized rebellion, 14,587 prisoners were sentenced to death.

Just under 4,500 of the murders took place at an NKVD complex located on the edge of the

Katyn forest. The bodies were hauled into the forest and disposed of in a mass grave.79 In April,

1943 German radio channels announced that 11,000 Polish officers, a grossly overstated figure,

78 "Memorialnyj Kompleks Khatyn: Istoriya sozdaniya memorialnogo kompleka." Khatyn Memorial Complex. Accessed April 25, 2017. http://khatyn.by/ru/about/; "Tragediya Khatyn." Khatyn Memorial Complex. Accessed April 25, 2017. http://khatyn.by/ru/tragedy/trage/witne/. 79 Snyder, “Bloodlands,” 135-137

31 had been discovered in a mass grave in the Katyn forest.80 The Germans realized the negative impact their discovery would have on Polish-Soviet relations; moreover, it distracted from Soviet claims of Nazi atrocities. During the Nuremberg Trails the Soviets accused the Germans of having carried out the massacre, something they categorically denied. With evidence pointing towards the Soviets being the guilt party, their claims against the Germans were dropped and a

“strategy of denial” was adopted.81 Only after the fall of communism were NKVD files definitively proving the USSR’s guilt in the Katyn massacre released to the Polish government.82

With the Soviets’ crimes against Poles in the Katyn forest and elsewhere certain to greatly worsen Polish-Soviet relations, an elaborate Soviet effort to deny their involvement certainly seems plausible. Davies suggests that the selection of Khatyn as the location of a memorial dedicated to a massacre of Belarusian civilians was likely part of a “great cover-up.”83

Adding weight to Davies’s claim is the fact that in the context of the Belarusian World War II experience, Khatyn is not at all unique. Thus, while this theory lacks conclusive evidence, it does seem probable and even likely. However, if Khatyn was intended to function as a cover-up for the Katyn forest massacre is largely a moot point in Lukashenko’s Belarus. The mass killing of

Poles that took place at Katyn was acknowledged by the Russian government well before

Lukashenko took his post as Belarusian president. Moreover, Katyn now has its own memorial complex, thus further distinguishing the two events.

80 "Memorial Khatyn." Istoriya. Accessed April 25, 2017. http://memorial- katyn.ru/ru/istoriya.html. 81Davies, Norman. Heart of Europe: The past in Poland's Present. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2001. Print. 58-59; Snyder, “Bloodlands,” 286-287; Rudling, “The Khatyn Massacre in Belorussia,” 43. 82"Memorial Khatyn." Istoriya. Accessed April 25, 2017. http://memorial- katyn.ru/ru/istoriya.html. 83Davies, Heart of Europe, 58-59.

32 In 1970 the Belarusian SSR published a dual language (Russian-Belarusian) booklet entitled Khatyn. The opening passage of the booklet states, “even if Khatyn is not your final destination, when riding on highway 54 near the Khatyn memorial, one should stop, even if just for a minute, so that they may take off their hat and pay their respects to the victims of fascism.”

This booklet is constructed as a photo album of the memorial, with an introductory text and short captions accompanying the photos. In line with the politics of the period, the Khatyn booklet emphasizes that the Khatyn massacre was perpetrated by German fascists, giving no indications that collaborators from Soviet territory were involved. Moreover, there is no mention of the

Khatyn massacre as part of a larger plan intended to exterminate the Belarusian people as

Belarusian government publications on Khatyn have often suggested during the Lukashenko period. With the distribution of 335,000 copies of the Khatyn booklet, it can be thought of as having served a similar function as the Khatyn website, only 35 years prior.84

While Khatyn has long played an important role in the identity of Belarusians, symbolizing the “biggest disaster ever experienced by the civilian population of Belarus,” the narrative to which it contributes has greatly expanded since the publication of the 1970 Khatyn booklet.85 In one of the most candid articles available regarding the role of Khatyn in the expansion of Belarus’s national memory, director of the Khatyn Memorial Complex, Artur

Zelsky told Belarus Today, “it is necessary to increase the cultural and historical potential of the complex, raise new layers of national memory, open new pages of our common past. This is the aim of a memorial specialist’s work.” The article was appropriately titled “To Know Grief, You

84 Khatyn. Minsk: Belarus, 1970. Print; “Otkrylsya Veb-Sajt Memoriala Kompleksa Khatyn.” Tut.by. Accessed June 21, 2017. https://news.tut.by/culture/51081.html; The Khatyn website went online on March 22, 2005 in commemoration of the Khatyn Massacre anniversary. 85 Kotljarchuk, "World War II Memory And Politics"

33 Must Visit Khatyn” and was published in 2015 on the anniversary of the Khatyn massacre.86

Zelsky’s comments speak to a larger trend in Lukashenko’s Belarus in which one of the primary functions of memorials, monuments, and even historians is to actively create memory.87

Over the nearly five decades of the Khatyn memorial complex’s existence, it has become a symbol of Belarusian suffering and endurance. In writing on the importance of the Khatyn memorial for Belarusians, historian Marples referred to it as a “Mecca for pilgrims and travelers to Belarus.”88 And while it is not obligatory for Belarusian school children to visit Khatyn, the republic’s state-funded schools usually organize trips to the memorial complex at least once during each child’s education.89 Moreover, at school-organized talent shows, the song, “Khatyn,” is often performed by students in commemoration of the massacre.90 Additionally, the image of the Yusif Kaminsky monument is featured frequently in Belarusian media as a symbol of the atrocities that Belarus endured during the Nazi occupation, and the memorial as a whole has become one of the main channels through which the war narrative has grown during the rule of

Lukashenko. Serving as an archetype of Belarusian wartime suffering, the Khatyn massacre and memorial have been two of the most important components in the Lukashenko government’s promotion of its Belarusian genocide myth.

86 "Chtoby Uznat Gore Nado Pobyvat V Khatyni," Belarus Segonya. Accessed April 25, 2017. https://www.sb.by/articles/chtoby-uznat-gore-nado-pobyvat-v-khatyni.html. 87 Lane, David, and Stephen White, Rethinking the 'Coloured Revolutions,' London: Taylor and Francis, 2013, 219 88 Marples, Our Glorious Past, 232. 89"Memorialnyj Kompleks Khatyn: Opasnie, Istoriya, Ekskursii, Tochnij Adrec,” Accessed April 25, 2017, https://tonkosti.ru/. 90 "3 klass B Na Koncerte, 9 Maya Pesnya Khatyn Shkola 1223.avi." YouTube, June 07, 2012, Accessed April 25, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dgea4f1B2I8.

34 Chapter 5: Khatyn in Lukashenko’s Belarus: “The Policy of Genocide”

In 2004 the Belarusian government began a project to restore the Khatyn memorial as part of its preparations for the 60th anniversary of the country’s “liberation from German fascist.” On the Khatyn website there is an article describing the restoration as having been carried out at the instruction of the president. The article emphasizes Lukashenko’s involvement throughout the process and features several photographs of him lifting what look to be large cement blocks while wearing the uniform of a government employed manual laborer.91 The website’s portrayal of the president’s involvement in the restoration of Khatyn points to the memorial’s importance as a symbol of Belarus’s wartime experience. Moreover, it reinforces the

Khatyn massacre’s memory and strengthens the Khatyn memorial as a focal point of Belarusian identity.92 The Khatyn massacre’s centrality in the Belarusian Great Patriotic War narrative has facilitated the memorial complex’s function as one the most active components in propagating the Lukashenko regime’s myth of a “genocide of the Belarusian nation.”

As we have seen with Lukashenko’s biography, the degree to which a particular version of history advances the president’s agenda takes precedence over its factuality. As such, historical revisionism in the name of political expediency tends to be a common practice within the current Belarusian government. This has been quite evident with its treatment of the myth of

Khatyn. During Lukashenko’s rule, the Khatyn memorial has grown beyond a symbol of mere

Belarusian suffering, as it has become a reminder and proof that a Belarusian genocide did indeed take place during the Second World War. The term genocide in Belarus is also used by

Lukashenko’s opposition, but in a much different context. For Belarus’s opposition and

91 "Rekonstrukciya Gosudarstvennogo Memorialnogo Kompleksa Khatyn," Khatyn Memorial Complex, Accessed April 25, 2017. http://khatyn.by/ru/about/rebuild/. 92 Rudling, “The Khatyn Massacre In Belorussia”

35 nationalist parties the term genocide is more often connected with Stalinism. The opposition organizations in Belarus focus their claims of genocide on the Kurapaty mass grave on the edge of Minsk, where approximately thirty thousand Belarusians and Poles were murdered during the

Great Terror. 93 The Kurapaty mass grave has always been a point of contention for Lukashenko as it was discovered and made known by one of his staunchest opponents and Belarusian nationalist, Zainon Pazniak.94 Moreover, Kurapaty draws attention to the crimes of Stalinism, something Lukashenko has been reluctant to condemn. In speaking to a group of Russian journalists in 2016, the Belarusian president stated, “we must look carefully at his (Stalin’s) policy before cringing at it... You should not throw stones at the past... There is nothing perfect, and we must try to see history objectively.” A year later in March of 2017 when questioned about the possibility of building a memorial at Kurapaty, Lukashenko responded, “people were killed there. They died. The opposition thinks Stalin shot them. Other people say fascists did it. I say, what’s the difference who shot whom?”95

While the crimes of the Stalin period have been wholly dismissed by the Lukashenko government as tools of the opposition, Khatyn has become the most visible representation of a

Belarusian genocide. In making its case for the genocide having occurred, the Lukashenko regime regularly cites the Germans’ “Generalplan Ost” as proof. On the Khatyn website there is a “public scholarship exhibit” titled “The Genocide of The Belarusian Nation.” The exhibit includes the following statement about the Ost plan:

93 "Zenon Pazniak: Kuropaty - Eto Simbol Belaruskoj Naci." Beloruskij Partizan, Accessed April 25, 2017, http://www.belaruspartisan.org/politic/348055/; "Genocid Belaruskogo Naroda: 75 Let So Dnya Massovoj Deportacii Belarusov," Belaruskij Partizan, Accessed April 25, 2017. http://www.belaruspartisan.org/life/301446/. 94 Zapridnik, “Belarus: At A Crossroads In History,” 87-88. 95 "Lukashenko O Kurapatax: Kakaya Raznica, Kto Tam Kogo Rasstrilival?" YouTube, March 25, 2017, Accessed April 25, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x52hN8oohW4.

36 In the 1940's the Generalplan Ost was developed. The plan was part of one of the main goals of the German leadership. Its intent was to capture the "living space" necessary for the prosperity of the Third Reich through the liberation of "living space" from the "surplus" indigenous population. Hence, the military strategy of the Germans on the East front was to engage in a war of annihilation. It was not enough to win in the East. It was necessary to destroy the army, the country, and the people... In accordance with the Generalplan Ost, 120-140 million people were to be destroyed on the territory of the USSR and Poland... A terrible fate was prepared for the Belarusian people. The chief of the colonization department in the Ministry for the Affairs of the Occupied Eastern Areas, stated in the Generalplan Ost documents that “25% of the Belarusian population was to be Germanized, and the remaining 75% exterminated.96

While the details of the Ost plan as described on the website appear to be void of exaggerations concerning its intent and scale, there is one important piece of information omitted. The Generalplan Ost was never implemented. The plan had only been intended to take effect after Germany defeated the Soviet Union. When the Nazis’ success began waning at the

Battle of Stalingrad, the very idea of the Ost plan was abandoned in its entirety.97 Moreover, according to historian Timothy Snyder, under Generalplan Ost the local population was not to be exterminated until well after the war. The Germans had intended to use the locals’ labor to harvest food for Germans who were to move into the area after their victory over the Soviet

Union.98 However, in Lukashenko’s Belarus the Ost plan is cited as hard evidence that the catastrophically large number of wartime deaths that occurred in Belarus resulted from a premeditated German plan to exterminate Belarusians.99 Though it is widely agreed that the Ost

96 "Akty Genocida V Istorii Chelovechestva," Plan Ost (Generalplan Ost), Accessed April 25, 2017. http://www.genocide.ru/lib/genocides/generalplan-ost.htm. 97 "Generalplan Ost," Yad Vashem, Accessed April 25, 2017. http://www.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%206247.pdf. 98 Snyder, Bloodlands, 162 99 "Genocid Belorusskogo Naroda," Khatyn Memorial Complex, Accessed, April 25, 2017, http://khatyn.by/ru/print/?brief=a56516f993146cec.

37 plan was never realized, this is out of line with the war narrative of the Belarusian government, thus ignored entirely.100

In building its case for Plan Ost having been put into effect in the territory of Belarus, the

Khatyn memorial website’s “Policy of Genocide” exhibit features an article entitled, “Punitive

Actions.” The article begins with a quote from the diary of Johannes Herder, a Germans soldier active in the territory of Belarus who wrote,

It is the 25th of August. We throw grenades into houses with the people inside. The houses burn so quickly. Then the flames spread to other houses. What a beautiful sight! While the people are crying we laugh at their tears. We have already burned ten villages in this way. We should not and cannot take mercy on the Slavs.101

The soldier’s diary entry is used as part of a larger claim made elsewhere in the Belarusian press that Hitler had secretly instructed his commanding officers in Belarus to begin Generalplan Ost.

Herder’s writing is intended to show that the crimes against the civilian population of Belarus were driven by a policy to eliminate Slavs, and were not merely part of the collateral damage of warfare. Midway through the article there is a link labeled, “Plan Ost In Action.” The link downloads video footage of German actions against locals in what is said to be Belarus. The picture quality is low, but the assertion is that this video clip provides empirical evidence that

Genralplan Ost had indeed been underway in Belarus during the war. The narrator of the “Plan

Ost In Action” video states emphatically that “the Hitlerites had already begun the implementation of the Generalplan Ost.” The video shows German troops using flame throwers against the straw roofed houses of the local peasantry while stating that “for the Nazis, eastern

100 Laputska, Veronika, "World War II Criminals in Belarusian Internet Mass-Media” 101 "Politika Genocida," Khatyn Memorial Complex, Accessed April 25, 2017, http://khatyn.by/ru/genocide/expeditions/.

38 Europe was merely a large field upon which an experiment was to be carried out, creating a new

European society through the extermination and Germanification of the local populations.”102

Like in other sections of the Khatyn memorial complex’s “Policy of Genocide” exhibit, the descriptions of Nazi war crimes in Belarus are powerful and horrid; however, explicit evidence in support of the Generalplan Ost having been initiated in the territory of Belarus is nowhere to be found.

Within the Khatyn memorial website’s “Policy of Genocide” exhibit, there is a section titled, “The Genocide of the Belarusian Nation.” Under this tab the claim is made that, “the

Nazis' implementation of their policy of genocide against the Belarusian nation began in the first days of the war. Shootings and mass executions became widespread.” Below this line there are several photographs of publicly hanged partisan fighters.103 Among the photographs is the well- known image of Masha Bruskina taken shortly after she was hanged in Minsk. Around

Bruskina’s neck is a large sign reading, “we are the partisans who shot German troops.”

Bruskina was a Jew from Minsk who had been part of the city’s underground resistance and is often mentioned in connection with the Minsk ghetto underground in scholarly works and

Holocaust survivor accounts.104 The details of Bruskina’s ethnic background or the fact that she was involved in partisan activities are not included on the Khatyn website. Moreover, of the many photos of Bruskina’s hanging which are available, the website feature two that were shot from such an angle that the writing on her sign is not visible. Lukashenko has often accused historians who have taken views of history in opposition to his own of being historical

102 Ibid. 103 The fact that these are photographs of partisan fighters as opposed to civilians is not included in the website’s text. 104 Epstein, The Minsk ghetto 1941-1943

39 revisionists, yet the government operated Khatyn memorial website has used the photographs of a hanged Jewish partisan as evidence of a Belarusian genocide.105

The fact that Bruskina’s Jewish identity was left out cannot be dismissed as mere oversight. In fact, the only place the words “Jew” or “Jewish” are mentioned on the Khatyn website is under a tab labeled, “The Minsk Ghetto.” It seems that in writing on the fourth largest ghetto in Europe it became impossible to continue identifying Jews as merely “citizens;” however, there is not a single mentioned of the Holocaust in the Minsk Ghetto article, nor anywhere else on the website. While the Minsk Ghetto section is brief, it does make the claim that the Minsk ghetto was the largest in Europe. The Minsk ghetto was indeed the largest in the

Soviet territory, at about twice the size of the Vilna ghetto. However, the Warsaw ghetto was in fact the largest in Europe, and with a population of approximately 400,000, it was four times the size of the Minsk ghetto.106

The use of the Holocaust by the Lukashenko regime as evidence of a Belarusian genocide is quite common in government publications and even in speeches by the president.107 Within the

Khatyn website’s “Policy of Genocide” exhibit there is a lengthy multi-part article titled

“Concentration Camps and Ghettos.” The caption at the top of the article states: “More than 260 death camps and places of mass destruction of humans were created by fascists in the occupied territory of Belarus... And while the data is far from complete, the fascist’s death camps in

Belarus destroyed over 1,400,000 people.” As the article continues, the assertion is made that the

105 "Genocid Belorusskogo Naroda," Khatyn Memorial Complex, Accessed April 25, 2017, http://www.khatyn.by/ru/genocide/; Marples, “Our Glorious Past,” 327. 106 "Warsaw," United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Accessed April 25, 2017, https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005069. 107 "Rech Lukashenko Na Prazdnovii Dnya Pobedy, 9 Maya 2016 Goda," YouTube, May 09, 2016, Accessed April 25, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJ7VS8hRy0I.

40 “Trostyanets” death camp is one of the sites of Belarusian genocide.108 The Trostyanets death camp is widely written about in Holocaust literature as it was the largest camp of its kind in the

Soviet zone. Only Auschwitz, Majdanek, and Treblinka facilitated the deaths of more people than Trostyanets.109 It is generally agreed that at the site of the Trostyanets death camp, 206,500 people were killed; however, there is little data available showing what percentage of those deaths were Belarusian or Roma and not Jewish.110 The primary connection the article makes between Belarusians and the Trostyanets death camp is that laborers from the Minsk prison were used in an effort to cover-up evidence of the mass murders that had taken place at the site as the

Nazis became less confident in their victory. The exhibit’s inclusion of Trostyanets is made possible only by the fact that the Lukashenko regime has included all inhabitants of wartime

Belarus under the classification of “Belarusian” despite the term’s ethnic connotation.111

Moreover, the use of “Belarusian” to denote citizenship rather than ethnicity is particular to the promotion of the Belarusian genocide myth, and not the term’s typical meaning within the republic.

While Belarusians were certainly killed at the Trostyanets death camp, it is well documented that the camp’s main function was the extermination of Jews. In testimonies of survivors from the Minsk ghetto, Trostyanets is remembered as a place of certain death. Perhaps the Trostyanets death camp’s relationship with the Minsk ghetto is best put into context through

108 "Trostenec," Khatyn Memorial Complex, Accessed April 25, 2017. http://www.khatyn.by/ru/genocide/ccs/trostenec/. 109 "Dokumenty O Khatyni," Arxivi Belarus, Accessed April 25, 2017. http://archives.gov.by/index.php?id=973276; Epstein, “The Minsk ghetto 1941-1943,” 106 110 "Dokumenty O Khatyni," Arxivi Belarus, Accessed April 25, 2017, http://archives.gov.by/index.php?id=973276. 111 "Trostenec," Khatyn Memorial Complex, Accessed April 25, 2017, http://www.khatyn.by/ru/genocide/ccs/trostenec/.

41 the testimony of Minsk ghetto and Holocaust survivor Mikhail Treister. Treister recalled during

September of 1943 being pulled away from his work making shoes in the October factory and trucked out of the Minsk Ghetto. Treister was aware that his trip out of the ghetto lead to one of two destinations: Trostyanets or the Shirokaya concentration camp. Treister knew the road well, recalling, “had the truck gone in the direction of Trostyanets, I would have jumped out. It was better to risk being shot than go there.”112

While the Trostyanets site has been well established in numerous scholarly works as part of the Holocaust and not part of a plan to exterminate Belarusians, the details of the Ozarichi death camp are far from well documented. Scholarly research on the Ozarichi site is sparse and available almost exclusively in the Russian language. However, there are a substantial number of survivors’ accounts and witnesses’ testimonies recorded by Belarusian news networks as well as the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.113 Ozarichi witnesses and survivors generally include in their testimonies that the local Jewish population was completely destroyed during a series of mass shootings prior to the establishment of the Ozarichi death camp. The length of time that passed between the two events is not entirely clear, though the fact that they are consistently told as one story suggests that the exclusion of the mass murder of the local Jewry from the Belarusian government’s official version of events is not accidental.114

112 Walke, Anika, Pioneers and Partisans: An Oral History of Nazi Genocide In Belorussia. (New York, NY: Oxford University Press), 2015, XI; Epstein, The Minsk ghetto 1941-1943, 106- 107 113 "Pravda Pro Konclagr "Ozarichi" (Belarus)," YouTube, March 19, 2012, Accessed April 25, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5motGmLPTVA; "Ozarichi." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Accessed April 25, 2017. https://www.ushmm.org/search/results/?q=ozarichi. 114 "Nemeckii Lager "Ozarichi" Zabyt Nevozmozhno," Konosomolckaya Pravda, August 23, 2016, Accessed April 25, 2017, http://www.kp.ru/daily/26218.4/3101501/.

42 With the local Jewish community eliminated, the prisoners of the Ozarichi camp, especially in Belarusian media portrayals, were predominately ethnic Belarusians and

Russians.115 As a result, the prevalence of the Ozarichi death camp in Belarus’s state-run media has steadily increased over the Lukashenko period as the camp has become one of the government’s primary examples in support of its Belarusian genocide myth. Leading up to

Ozarichi’s 70th anniversary, a 2013 Belarus Today article was published under the dramatic title,

“He Who Forgets Ozarichi Is No Longer Human.” The article was insistent that Ozarichi was indeed a death camp, not a concentration camp, and had been established on direct orders from

Hitler. The article goes on to state, however, that Hitler’s order to create the camp and deport the locals was “destroyed after its execution and does not appear in archival documents.”116

One of the first online Belarusian news articles covering German actions at the Ozarichi death camp was published April 2009 and entitled “It Was a Real Hell.” The article was printed in the government-run newspaper, Belarus Today and was primarily an account of one survivor with historical details added for contextualization. Though the article does not make claims of genocide, it does call the Ozarichi camp “one of the Nazi’s most inhuman.” Overall, the article adheres closely to the narrative seen in other government-sanctioned publications, emphasizing the camp’s atrocities as having been perpetrated specifically against Belarusians, while no other nationalities are mentioned.117

115 "Pravda Pro Konclagr "Ozarichi" (Belarus)," YouTube, March 19, 2012, Accessed April 25, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5motGmLPTVA. 116 "Tot Ne Chelovek, Kto Zabudet Ozarichi," Glavnaya, Accessed April 25, 2017, https://www.sb.by/articles/tot-ne-chelovek-kto-zabudet-ozarichi.html. 117 “Eto Byl Nastoyaschij Ad,” Belarus Segodnya, Accessed April 25, 2017, https://www.sb.by/articles/eto-byl-nastoyashchiy-ad.html.

43 While the murder of Jews in connection to Ozarichi is out of step with the official

Belarusian version of events (as described on the Khatyn website and in other government- sanctioned publications), the Russian Federation is not invested in the narrative of a Belarusian genocide. In an April 2014 article in the Russian newspaper “Konsomolskaya Pravda,” Ozarichi camp survivor, Valery Stashkevich describes Nazi actions against the local Jewish population:

The fascists drove the vehicles up and began to load (the Jews) into them. Those who could not get in where thrown in by their hands and legs like bags. One woman who had already been loaded begged for her little son. A little boy no more than four was also crying and calling for his mother. The German grabbed his legs and struck the body. The small body twitched. Already dead, the German threw the boy’s body to his sobbing mother. Then, all the Jews were brought to an excavated ditch, forced to go down, and lie down, and then shot. On top of their bodies a new row of prisoners was laid, and again machine gun fire. And so on for several rows... Some of them got out of the mass grave at night and found refuge in the partisans. Some who escaped died from their wounds in the forest. 118

The exclusion of Jewish deaths in connection with Ozarichi is unique to Belarusian publications. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Steven Spielberg video archive features the testimonies of eight Ozarichi witnesses and survivors. In each interview, the interviewee describes a mass murder of the local Jewish population just prior to the camp being put in place.119 As is often the case, the specifics of the interviewees’ memories of the event vary.

However, it is clear that the local Jews were murdered while the local Slavs were imprisoned.

The fact that Jews were murdered while Belarusians were imprisoned does not support the

118 "Nemeckii Lager "Ozarichi" Zabyt Nevozmozhno," Konsomolckaya Pravda. August 23, 2016. Accessed April 25, 2017, http://www.kp.ru/daily/26218.4/3101501/. 119United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Accessed April 25, 2017, https://collections.ushmm.org/search/?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=ozarichi&search_field=all_fields; "Sviditel Tragedii V Khatyn Rasskazyvaet O Samom Strashnom Dne - 22 Marta 1943 Goda," YouTube, March 22, 2015, Accessed April 25, 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ne_L8rD6Fk.

44 official Ozarichi myth of it having been part of a Belarusian genocide and likely the reason for its absence in Belarusian government media sources.

Since the 70th anniversary of Ozarichi’s liberation in 2014, its visibility in Belarusian media has experienced a significant increase.120 The rise of Ozarichi’s prominence in the

Belarusian war narrative has largely been intwined with the propagation of the Belarusian genocide narrative in state sanctioned articles, reports, and documentaries.121 In reporting on the

70th anniversary celebration of the camp’s liberation, the government-operated channel Belarus

1 reported, “The death camp was in existence for just ten days, but during that period 20,000

Belarusians died... The camp was part of a secret operation said to have been devised by Hitler himself.”122 Connecting war crimes committed against Belarusians directly to Hitler is also seen in the official Khatyn narrative as written on the Lohoysk Regional Museum’s website.123 The inclusion of historical details in official reports and publications which are “said to have” happened or are “according to one version,” indicates that the government's interests is not in

“protecting history” as Lukashenko has suggested, but rather in the creation of new memories and the expansion of the Great Patriotic War’s mythology.124

120 "Ozarichi Novosti," YouTube, March 24, 2016, Accessed April 25, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkWDleFJdCM. 121 Litskevich, Oleg," Genocid Belorusskogo Naroda," Belaruskaya Dumka, Accessed April 25, 2017. http://beldumka.belta.by/isfiles/000167_845710.pdf; "Tot ne chelovek, kto zabedet Ozarichi," Belarus Segondnya, Accessed April 25, 2017, https://www.sb.by/articles/tot-ne- chelovek-kto-zabudet-ozarichi.html. 122 "Lagr Smerti Ozarichi," YouTube, March 19, 2014, Accessed April 25, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9g8oFITHMU. 123 See page “29” 124 "Lukashenko Podcherkivaet Vazhnost," YouTube, January 25, 2016, Accessed April 25, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2epjILfInA; Kotljarchuk, "World War II Memory And Politics"

45 In 2015 the Belarusian government channel “ONT,” broadcasted a thirty-minute documentary on the Ozarichi concentration camp. The documentary consisted primarily of witness and survivor testimonies accompanied by the voice of a narrator providing a historiography of the camp consistent with that found in other government-sanction publications.

Perhaps in an effort to reinforce the validity of the material presented, the documentary begins and ends with “expert testimony” from University of Osnaburg history professor, Christopher

Rass. The inclusion of Rass in the documentary is likely due to the fact that his 2013 book,

Human Material: German Soldiers on the Eastern Front, is one of the few (perhaps the only) books published since the 1970’s which discusses the Ozarichi camp in detail. The German history professor’s book was published exclusively by a Russian publishing house and printed only in the Russian language. Moreover, it is part of a larger series entitled, The War’s Secret

History; a fitting label for works involved in the creation of new historical narratives.125 Rass’s contributions to ONT’s Ozarichi documentary largely confirmed the official Belarusian narrative of Ozarichi as being part of a much larger German plan to eliminate the “local Belarusian population.” Additionally, Rass states that he is exposing the unknown history of Belarusian wartime suffering to the rest of the world; reiterating a common theme found throughout the

Khatyn website and in other Belarusian government-sanctioned works. While the term genocide is not used in the documentary, its plot focuses on the Ozarichi death camp as proof that a planned action devised by Germany’s top officials was being carried out by regularly enlisted

German soldiers to eliminate the (non-Jewish) Belarusian civilian population. The documentary ends by showing footage from the Ozarichi camp gathered from German archives featuring large

125 Rass, Christoph, Chelovecheskij Material: Nemeckie Soldaty Na Vostochnom Fronte. (Moskva: Veche), 2013.

46 numbers of dead bodies lying in the snow. As these images are played across the screen the commentator states, “sooner or later, the truth comes to light. The importance does not lie in whether Germany and other countries acknowledge what happened. The most important thing is that it did happen.” Even without the use of the term genocide, there is a clear implication that the Ozarichi site was part of a concerted effort on the part of the Germans to exterminate ethnic

Belarusian civilians.126

On the Khatyn website, there is an article in the “Policy of Genocide” exhibit titled,

Ozarichi, Kalinkovichskij region. The article claims that Ozarichi represents one of the “tragic pages of the Belarusian people’s history as 50,000 people from Belarus and Russia were put in the Ozarichi camp and then deprived of food, water, and medical assistance.” Like other publications on Ozarichi coming from Belarusian government sources, the Khatyn memorial article does not mention any mass murders taking place at the site, nor does it include any mentions of Jewish deaths, nor does it mention the Holocaust. Moreover, as with other articles on the Khatyn website, the assertion of humanitarian crimes seems to be the primary evidence presented in support of Ozarichi being part of policy of genocide against the Belarusian people.127 The use of the Ozarichi camp in the creation of a Belarusian genocide myth is perhaps more convincing than the use of sites such as Trostyanets, especially with such little information available on the camp, beyond that published by various arms of the Belarusian government during the Lukashenko period. However, the existence of the site and the fact that its prisoners

126 "Obratnye Ochet Ozarichi Film," YouTube, February 09, 2015. Accessed April 25, 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuWub5l_fxM. 127 "Politika Genocida: Ozarichi," Khatyn Memorial Complex, Accessed April 25, 2017. http://www.khatyn.by/ru/genocide/ccs/ozarichi/.

47 were placed in horrid conditions resulting in the deaths of thousands falls well short of proving that a genocide took place against the Belarusian people.

In 2009 the Belarusian government’s news agency, Belta, published an article in the journal Belaruskaia Dumka, titled, “The Genocide of the Belarusian Nation.” This publication gives one of the most clearly stated descriptions of the Lukashenko government’s claim that a

Belarusian genocide occurred during the Nazi occupation. The article cites Khatyn and the 629 other Belarusian villages that suffered a similar fate as proof of a deliberate and “premeditated” effort to destroy the Belarusian nation. The article also contends that the West has not accepted that there was a Belarusian genocide because of “ignorance,” stating bluntly that, “Belarusians, too no less degree than the Jews, suffered during the war;” adding to this point that Belarusian researchers must be more prolific in publishing on the subject so that they may bring it to the attention of the rest of the world. In reaffirming, there having been a Belarusian genocide, the author goes on to write that, “the expansion of truthful knowledge about the genocide of the

Belarusian people should in no way be perceived as an attempt to belittle the tragedy of the

Holocaust.” Much of the seven-page article is devoted to the work of Alexei Litvin, head of the

Department of Military Policy and Interstate Relations at the Belarusian Academy of Sciences’

Institute of History. Litvin is quoted as being “sure that during the Great Patriotic War against the Belarusians, the Third Reich carried out a purposeful, carefully planned state policy of genocide.” Litvin goes on to say that on October 6, 1939, the Fuhrer emphasized at a meeting with the Wehrmacht’s command personnel that “after the defeat of the USSR in the upcoming war, the extermination of the Slavic population would be carried out on such a large scale that the annihilation of the Jews can be considered a mere experiment for the future.” Litvin goes on to discuss the wartime death total of the Belarusian genocide, and like other official sources, he

48 includes Jewish victims in his figures. Moreover, Litvin points to death camps and ghettos, sites of the Holocaust, as evidence of a Belarusian genocide.128

Litvin’s points are based on Generalplan Ost, something historians widely agree never was initiated. This does not, however, detract from the persuasiveness of the article, especially in the hands of the average Belarusian reader who has had decades under Lukashenko of indoctrination into a Belarusian war myth emphasizing suffering and victimhood. Additionally, the style of the article is such that it reads as if there is a consensus amongst Belarusians that a

Belarusian genocide indeed occurred. This gives the article the appearance that it is more of public service to outsiders who are not yet aware of this atrocity rather than an information piece for Belarusians; and while one cannot know for sure whether this was intentional, it does add a sense of validity to the Belarusian genocide narrative.129

Adding credence to the integrity of the research behind government-produced reports such as Belta’s “The Genocide of the Belarusian Nation,” Lukashenko portrays the Belarusian government as a protector of the integrity of research concerning the republic’s wartime history.

During a 2016 press conference with Russian president Vladimir Putin, Lukashenko told journalists that Belarusian scientists and historians were working tirelessly to “prevent falsifications and revisionisms” to the history of the Second World War. He added to this statement that, “who could think that amongst the people of the former Soviet Union, the people who went to fight against the enemy, would appear those who, frankly speaking, do not understand and do not know the history of the Great Patriotic War. It is because of these people,

128 Litskevich, Oleg," Genocid Belorusskogo Naroda," Belaruskaya Dumka, Accessed April 25, 2017. http://beldumka.belta.by/isfiles/000167_845710.pdf. 129 Rudling, "The Khatyn Massacre in Belorussia"

49 we (the government) must protect the history of the war and prevent falsifications.”130 This statement gives the appearance of infallibility to government-sanctioned research and reports regarding the history of the war. And while much of the wartime narrative in Lukashenko’s

Belarus is questionable at best, the regime has brought details of the war to light that the Soviet

Union had locked away in archives.

According to the Belarusian press, during the Soviet period the trials of those involved in the punitive action at Khatyn as well as documents and interviews reviling the extensive involvement of Ukrainians at Khatyn were not made public at the request of the Ukrainian

SSR.131 In speaking to a group of journalists on the 71st anniversary of the Khatyn massacre

Lukashenko stated that “the actions of Ukrainian nationalists in Belarus during WWII can be summed up in one word; Khatyn.” Lukashenko goes on to acknowledge that in the Soviet period it was unacceptable to openly research and discuss the involvement of Ukrainians and other

Soviet nationalities in war crimes against other Soviet nations. Lukashenko then gives a quick one-minute rendition of the Khatyn massacre, followed by him declaring that “if the those in the

Ukrainian government today affiliate themselves with these same organizations which were responsible for Khatyn, what kind of relationship are we Belarusians expected to have with them?” The state operated channel Belarus 1 which broadcasted the speech added intermittent images while the president spoke, providing visual reinforcements to his points. As the segment ended, a video clip of the Khatyn memorial was shown followed by footage of what were said to be Jews in a German work camp. In the footage of the work camp emaciated bodies struggling to

130 "Lukashenko Podcherkivaet Vazhnost," YouTube, January 25, 2016, Accessed April 25, 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2epjILfInA. 131 "Den Skorbi: 70 Let Nazad Byla Sozhzhena Khatyn," YouTube, March 22, 2013, Accessed April 25, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fff6PC2WGZo; Rudling,"The Khatyn Massacre in Belorussia"

50 move were shown while the voice of a newscaster stated that “Khatyn was one of the worst tragedies of the 20th century.” The report goes on to say that:

Ukrainian fascists operating in the territory of Belarus did not stop with Belarusians. Throughout Belarus Jews were also sent to their death by Ukrainian collaborators, colloquially referred to as soul robbers. Belarusian Jews were sent to a site near Minsk where up to one hundred a day were executed by Ukrainian nationalists. After the mass killings, they would pose for the camera in front of their achievements with great pleasure.132

The site near Minsk where ‘up to one hundred Belarusian Jews were executed a day’ is not mentioned by name in the report because they are referring to Trostyanets; a death camp the government uses to support is claim of a genocide of the Belarusian nation.

As presented in the third chapter, Ukrainians were heavily involved in the Khatyn massacre, many of whom had previously been members of nationalist organizations, most notably the OUN(b). The open discussion in the Belarusian media of the involvement of

Ukrainians in the Khatyn massacre and other crimes against the inhabitants of Belarus focuses on their ties to nationalism. When discussing Khatyn, Lukashenko frequently refers to its perpetrators merely as Ukrainian nationalists, Ukrainian fascists, or Banderivtsi with no mention of German involvement (a reversal of the Soviet Union’s policy).133 By emphasizing Ukrainian collaboration with the Germans in the territory of Belarus, Lukashenko strengthens the narrative of victimhood and the myth of genocide by reminding Belarusians that during the war they even fell victims to Nazi troops hailing from their “brotherly nation” of Ukraine.134

132 Mikolaevich, "Lukashenko O Khatyne I Upa," YouTube, March 27, 2014, Accessed April 25, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VUL0ILYVjo. 133 Laputska, "World War II Criminals in Belarusian Internet Mass-Media;” "Lukashenko O Pogonya," YouTube, May 13, 2016, Accessed April 25, 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i43Wriq2TQ8. 134 Lukashenko: Segodnya Vayut Nasha Bratskaya Ukraina,” Youtube, January 27, 2017, Accessed June 20, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42wVgMzD3_E; "Lukashenko O

51 While the suffering of ethnic Belarusians during World War II is one of the great atrocities of the 20th century, based on the current evidence available, scholars widely agree that it does not appear to constitute a genocide as defined by the United Nations legal definition of the term.135 However, as the preceding pages have demonstrated, this is of little significance to the government of Belarus. On the official website of the Khatyn memorial complex it is written that "the Khatyn tragedy is one of thousands of facts that testify to the purposeful policy of genocide against the population of Belarus, which the fascists carried out throughout the period of the occupation."136

Khatyn i Upa," YouTube, March 27, 2014, Accessed April 25, 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VUL0ILYVjo; The term “bratski narod” (brotherly nation) is regularly used by Lukashenko when discussing Russia and Ukraine and implies a special bond existing between Belarusians, Ukrainians, and Russians. 135 Kotljarchuk, “World War II Memory Politics” 136 "Genocid Belorusskogo Naroda," Khatyn Memorial Complex, Accessed April 25, 2017, http://www.khatyn.by/ru/genocide/.

52 Chapter 6: Conclusion

During the 2016, May 9th Victory Day parade in Minsk, Lukashenko told his country that, “we never have, and never will, allow the truth of our victory to be distorted, falsified, or taken away from our children and our grandchildren. We will do everything to ensure that they live in a peaceful and independent country.” The speech ends with Lukashenko listing off the number of concentration camps, ghettos, and burned villages, calling them part of the Germans’ plan to “feed the Belarusian people into its conveyer of death,” adding, “we will never forget those who perished.” In the just over ten-minute speech given in celebration of the Soviets’ Great

Patriotic War victory, just four minutes were devoted to honoring veterans while more than six minutes were entirely focused on the suffering Belarusians endured during the war; moreover, there is no mention of the Holocaust, Jews, or Roma anywhere in the speech.137 The focus on the wartime suffering of the Belarusian people rather than their heroism at an event as widely viewed as Belarus’s Victory Day parade is a significant break with the Soviet Union’s Great

Patriotic War narrative. Moreover, it reaffirms the myth of a Belarusian genocide in one of

Belarus’s most publicized and widely viewed events of the year.

During his rule, Lukashenko has presented himself to the Belarusian people as “fighting the falsification of history” on their behalf. At least with regards to the history of the Second

World War in Belarus, the Lukashenko government’s protection of history can more accurately be described as the selective promotion of a well-crafted historical narrative in line with the regime’s political agenda. As demonstrated in the second chapter, details of the war that show the Red Army as less than brave, heroic, and resilient are left out of government-sanctioned

137 "Rech Lukashenko Na Prazdnovii Dnya Pobedy, 9 Maya 2016 Goda," YouTube, May 09, 2016, Accessed April 25, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJ7VS8hRy0I.

53 history books while the narrative of victimhood and suffering is simultaneously expanded. This is in large part made possible by the incorporation of the Holocaust into the Belarusian genocide myth. As shown in the third and fourth chapters, the memorialization of the suffering of war at the Khatyn Memorial Complex has been developed into form of information infrastructure through which memory can be shaped and created. The Khatyn memorial was built in commemoration of a particular set of events; the burning of 629 villages along with their inhabitants, and more specifically the 186 of these villages that were never rebuilt. Under

Lukashenko the memorial’s meaning has been extended to its present state, representing the wartime suffering of the Belarusian people as a whole and functioning as a central point from which the genocide myth can be propagated to the masses. Over the course of its existence, all of which has been under regimes that have exercised tight control over the flow of information, the

Khatyn memorial has grown into one of the most widely recognized symbols of Belarusian identity and an icon to be revered. With the Khatyn Memorial’s central place in the Belarusian identity, the Lukashenko regime has advanced the memorial complex’s role to its current state of functioning as a wide-reaching tool for the dissemination information about the “genocide of the

Belarusian nation” via the internet. Additionally, as part of a well-orchestrated historical revision project, the history of Belarus’s wartime experience as found on the Khatyn website is corroborated in all government controlled media. The Belarusian media’s constant and vivid reminders of the carnage the Great Patriotic War brought to Belarusian lands has overshadowed the grave economic and social problems that have occurred over Lukashenko’s rule. As a result, for many Belarusians, even those far too young to have a living memory of WWII, the absence

54 of a military conflict under Lukashenko is the defining feature by which his success as a president is determined.138

138 20 Hod Z Lukashenkam: Shto B Vy Yamu Skazali? YouTube, July 09, 2014, Accessed May 25, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WG3HSUvks7s.

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