Burial times of repression are about 50-100 meters deep into the forest from the place where the July 29, 2007 was set a symbolic cross in memory of the victims of Stalinism in the side of the road from Viciebsk on Liozno, and 400 meters from the village of Palai, Viciebsk district.
In the thirties of the twentieth century, this place was among several others in the vicinity of Viciebsk, where the destruction of individuals occurred over several years, which the Soviet government considered "enemies of the people."
67-year-old villager Palai Hodkin Anatoly Leonidovich, which we arrived at the scene of the murder of citizens repressed by Stalin's regime, told us that he learned from his paternal grandfather, a member of the First World War, Gregory Fedotovich Hodkin. In the sixties, he showed his grandson the place of executions and said: "Remember that hill." Hill and considerable stretches of ten hectares, resting on the lake Biernickaje. All he says Mr. Leonid, according to his grandfather, was pitted with holes where the throwing of dead people.
After the murders of the pit filled with sand, cover the top with turf and masked young fir trees by planting assumed that the killer hide the traces of their crimes. Crimes committed by the NKVD Viciebsk. I think they were convinced that none of their names, nor their cases nobody will ever know. But all the secret sooner or later becomes apparent. Out of print, it became known that the human rights center "Memorial" published a reference book with the names of NKVD 1930. The handbook - forty thousand names.
Work continues.
About burial field repressed village in the vicinity heard from older villagers also Vasily Samarosenko Stanislav Starikovich Irina Krotov.
Says a Palai resident Samarosenko Vasily Pavlovich: "On the burial of victims of repression in the vicinity of the village first learned somewhere in the sixties years from the elderly. This was stated Jacob Dorozhkin and Alexander Starovoytov. At that time it was already past fifty years. They said that before the war, people were brought and shot, according to them, somewhere in the area specified in the memory of the repressed of the cross, but I did not think too much about the exact location."
Says Stanislav S. Starikovich: "Truly, I was born in 1932, but during the war, my mother pomolodila and recorded 1933, that the Germans are not taken to dig trenches. And so it remains.
My father worked in the thirties of the local forester. One day, he came with his dog to cordon NKVD. Those turned his back and warned that in the near future more here did not appear. He told his father and that he was surprised: on the hill, where he used to collect the strawberries and mowed, were planted Christmas trees, as if to mask. There were shot more than once. The location is just above the set crosses. Now it runs high-power line. I was there with my father, and he showed me the exact location of executions. It is above 100-200 meters, but now I go bad and to show you I cannot."
A resident of the village of Varony Irina I. Krotova told about the memories of Galina Kucher, who once told her about the time of repression and attempted to accurately convey her words: "In the 37th year Galina Kucher was fourteen years old. One day she had a very sick tooth, and to somehow pacify the pain, she walked along the highway. I noticed that under Bernitskoy mountain in the forest rolled up as she spoke, "government vehicles". She is very interested in, and she and her friend decided to find out what they do there. They came to the mountain, but the shepherd herded a flock, they started shouting and whip shuganul there. Later, from the villagers learned that to bring people, forced to dig a grave, shot, filled the pit and that was not visible, planted spruce top. There have been cases, people saw how rain washes the floor coat or some other clothes."
If you count the Stalinist crime news from the symbolic 37th year, next year will be eighty years since the torture and humiliation of the people who were guilty of nothing before the law and the people, either then or now, but the memory of them is forgotten today. Bitter to realize that the local citizens and the power of these parts does not take any effort to really rehabilitate these people. What does this show? About the power of degradation and degradation of society. In this connection I want to recall a large pile of debris that left a not immortalized cemetery on the site of repressed youth group after riotous spree - quite an eloquent symbol of our present and of our relationship to the past.
