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Monument to Frankfurt Jews unveiled in Minsk

 

A monument to Jews from Frankfurt who were brought from the German city to Minsk by Nazis and executed there was unveiled in the Belarusian capital on March 22.

The monument was put up at the site of a former Jewish cemetery, meters away from similar monuments commemorating other Holocaust victims.

"Today in Belarus one more monument will appear," Barys Hersten, deputy chairman of the Union of Belarusian Jewish Associations and Communities, said at the ceremony. "At this very time a ceremony is being held at a different memorial in what once was the village of Khatyn to mark the anniversary of the destruction by Nazis of this village and its inhabitants. This old Jewish cemetery and the village in the Lahoysk district have become the symbol of our memory's geography. Today I have a remarkable feeling - it's good that we erect new monuments and memorials, but it would be one thousand times better if history gave no grounds to us to build such sad monuments, so that we don't have to mark the anniversaries of events relating to Holocaust, xenophobia, terrorism."

A delegation representing Frankfurt attended the ceremony. //BelaPAN