Gatin (Khatyn in het Engels, Chatyn in het Duits) is een monument voor
de Tweede Wereld oorlog:
Tolling of Katyn's bells.
Mournful, alarming, invoking...
It sounds over a quit valley, over forests and coppices fading away in
the boundless blue of the sky. You will not hear a scythe cutting dewy
grass here in the morning or a draw-well creaking under the weight of
a pailful of cold water.
A wicket-gate will never open again and nobody will go out to meet you.
On March 22, 1943, the hangmen of the Nazi butcher Dirlewanger burned
alive 149 inhabitants of this forest hamlet - children, women and old men.
The bells of bitter memory sound over the sites of 26 burned peasant
houses. Over the common grave. Anna and losif Baranovskys with their
nine children, the family of Alexandre Novitsky with seven children are
buried here. The merciless fire burned old losif Rudak, Roman Zhelobkovich,
Stepanida Mironovich, two-year old Lena Mironovich and Misha Zhelobkovich,
one-year old Yuzik lotko.
The murderers did not spare the life of 19-year old Vera Yaskevich with
her seven-week old son. 75 Khatyn's children were martyred in fire.
A foot-path of grey concrete slabs runs along the former Village street.
Concrete wicketgates of households are wide open in silence but they
will never see their steles crowned with bells burned houses' chimneys.
The tocsin of everlasting memory resounds over the cemetery of 186
Byelorussian villages which shared Khatyn's fate: Asavina, Bratki,
Ladelevo, Shunevka....
The words beat in the heart, "Good people - remember! We loved life
and our motherland, and you, dear people. We were set afire, alive.
Our request to you is: let grief and sorrow be transformed into
courage and strength so that you might secure peace and quiet on
the Earth, so that life will not have died forever."
Near the memorial cemetery of villages there stand metal-cast trees
bearing the names of settlements which were razed to the ground by the Hitlerites.
A hard concrete road leads to the Wall of Remembrance. "The world has
not seen for all time such heinous crimes...", reads an inscription
on it. Concrete niches hold memorial plaques listing concentration
camps and number of victims.
The Nazis created 260 death camps in Byelorussia to annihilate the
peaceful population, prisoners of war, all those who had risen to
struggle against the bearers of the "New Order". Dozens of camps,
hundreds of thousands who were tortured to death, suffocated in
gas chambers, incinerated in crematoria.
Figures and human destinies... A concentration camp in Maly
Trostenets -206,500, in Koldychevo - 22,000, in Shirokava
Street in Minsk - 20,000, in Ozarichi - 9,000... Byelorussia
lost 2,230,000 people, every fourth person.
These figures are cast in metal by the Eternal Flame. Three birch
trees keep watch around the flame. The birch trees symbolize
Byelorussia's living, the flame, its dead.
An endless stream of people: war and labour veterans, children and
grand-children of those who gave their lives for freedom and
independence of their motherland; among the visitors there are
peace fighters from Europe, Africa, Asia, America - from all
continents of our planet. They pass in mournful silence leaving
the Memorial deeply shocked and convinced of the necessity not
to allow new Khatyn and Lidice, Dalva and Oradour, Trostenets
and Buchenwald.
The bells toll, --People, bow low to the memory of those who
stayed unvanquished, who loved life and clear peaceful blue
of the sky People, be vigilant!-- The bells keep tolling.
Terug naar top
De weg en de schoorsteen met klok. De klok geeft
(net als alle klokjes in alle huizen) elke halve minuut een tingel
Het huis van ...
De verwoeste dorpen.
Rechts de drie berken en de eeuwige vlam. Een symbool dat
laat zijn dat slechts drie van de vier wit-russen de
oorlog overleeft heeft.
|