The only officially recognized place of mass executions in the 1930s near Vorša is the tract Kabylackaja Hara. But relatives of the repressed argue that they know other places of death of innocent citizens arrested and thrown in jails. In these places, relatives are offered to put memorable signs. They write about this in letters to the regional executive committee.
The company for the perpetuation of the memory of the victims of Stalinist repressions was initiated by native Orshi Igor Stankevich. He returned from oblivion about two dozen names of his relatives, giving a lot of time to work in the archives. And he managed to unite the descendants of the repressed in the initiative group.
The meeting of the initiative group. Igor Stankevich – on the left
One of the last campaigns to perpetuate the memory of the victims of Stalinist repressions is appeals to the Vorša regional executive committee with a request to determine the place for the monument or memorial.
"More than a dozen letters have already been sent to the chairman of the district executive committee, not only from Vorša. The memory of their repressed relatives is ready to take care of the residents of Viciebsk, Minsk, as well as relatives of the murdered from Russia, Italy, Sweden. All of them tell different family stories, according to which Stalin's shootings took place in different places: not only on Kobyljatsky mountain, but also under the surrounding villages, in the Kharkov forest along the Mogilev highway ... Therefore people offer different places for monuments, "says Igor Stankevich.
People honor the memory of their tortured relatives. Kobyljatsky mountain
A 95-year-old Zinaida Pashkevich, daughter of the famous Matruny Markevich, who wrote the ornament on the flag of the BSSR, also addressed the Vorša District Executive Committee. In honor of the creator of the ornament in Senno in 2015, a memorial sign was erected. "The flag with my mother's ornament has been in space, and her husband is lying somewhere in the thickets," wrote Ms. Pashkevich, who asks to install a commemorative token in memory of her father in the Kobylyatka mountain.
Fragment of the letter Zinaida Pashkevich
The memorial sign in this place was once: in the late 1980s, on the orders of the Vorša authorities, a boulder monument with a memorial plaque was erected there. However, the vandals stole a sign, and local authorities refused to take care of perpetuating the memory of those shot. The search of this place became a matter for activists who come there on remembrance days together with relatives of innocently murdered ones.
The monument, which was installed in memory of the murdered villagers Voršanets Anatoly Bulasov (archive photo)
Boulder of Dnieper granite today remained the only reminder of the long-standing tragedy. In recent years, relatives of the repressed by their own forces put around crosses and monuments to relatives killed here. They are waiting for a response from the district executive committee to their appeal, in order to be able to make an official memorial here – even at their own expense. But local authorities have not yet given their consent.
BS, svaboda.org