English

Lukashenka suggests strengthening memory of victory over Nazis in people's minds

 

It is necessary to strengthen the memory of the Soviet Union's victory against Nazi Germany in the 1941-1945 Great Patriotic War in people's minds, Alyaksandr Lukashenka said Tuesday in Minsk, speaking to a group of youths following a ceremony marking the start of the construction of Mahistr (Magister), a housing estate for research and art workers.

"As for Victory Day [May 9], it is sacred for me as a politician and the president," the Belarusian leader said. "I must strengthen the memory of the great victory in people's minds so that our children and grandchildren don't forget it."

He also said that the Museum of the History of the Great Patriotic War, which is currently under construction in Minsk, would become a sort of monument to the heroic deed of the nation.

"At the beginning of the 1990s, in those hard years when nationalists were in fact in power, people were afraid of wearing their [combat] awards," Mr. Lukashenka claimed. "I had to break that situation."

"It is important for me that life should go on naturally and we should forget those who gave us all that we have now," he said. "If there had not been for that victory, we would not talk about democracy today. We would have been slouching slaves in our country, if we had survived at all.” //BelaPAN