English

KGB rejects calls for forming state committee to commemorate Stalin terror victims

The Committee for State Security (KGB) has described as inexpedient the establishment of a state committee that would organize a large-scale campaign to commemorate thousands Belarus residents executed or imprisoned during Stalinist purges in the 1930s-1950s.

A group spearheading the work to honor Stalin terror victims petitioned governmental agencies, including the KGB, to establish the committee.

In his reply to the group, KGB Chairman Stsyapan Sukharenka says that the establishment of the committee would entail extra expenses.

The official notes that the names of Stalin terror victims were included in "chronicles of memory" books published in each district of the country before 1994.

Two state holidays, Radunitsa and Dzyady, can be used for commemorating people executed during Stalinist purges, according to the KGB head.

In an interview with BelaPAN, historian Ihar Kuznyatsow condemned as "immoral" the government's reluctance to mark the 70th anniversary of the bloodiest purges of Stalin's rule. At least more than 300,000 Belarusians were executed in 1937.