Growing need for remembrance
In the 1990s - after the fall of the Iron Curtain - the demand for a public culture of remembrance and appreciation of the victims of the Maly Trascjanec extermination site became louder and louder.
Memorial stone at Blahaǔščyna in the mid-2000s
In the early 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the proclamation of the Republic of Belarus, the city of Minsk decided to create monument protection areas. In response, civil activists came forward and demanded that the former camp grounds in Maly Trascjanec and Blahaǔščyna also be protected - with success. In 1993, the citizens' initiative "History and Remembrance Foundation Trascjanec" was founded with Jaŭhen Camaraŭ as chairman.1 He specifically promoted Belarusian-German-Israeli cooperation. Despite the efforts of the citizens' initiative and its proximity to the Belarusian parliament, only a draft concept for a memorial could be completed between 1994 and 1999.²
With the publication of the book "Ich wundere mich, dass ich noch lebe" ("I'm surprised that I'm still alive") by Paul Kohl in 1990, European interest in the former extermination site also grew. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, it became possible for survivors of the victims of the Maly Trascjanec extermination site to learn more about the history of their relatives.
From 1999 the city administration had its own organizational committee for the Blahaǔščyna memorial site.3 This committee implemented the relocation of the landfill, defined the protection area of the memorial and intensified international cooperation in order to be able to specify the number of victims of the extermination site. In 2002, the first memorial stone was erected in Blahaǔščyna. It commemorates the Jewish people deported from Central Europe as well as inmates of the Minsk ghetto.4 By the mid-2000s, several memorial plaques in honor of the victims already exist on the site.⁵
Building of the Leonid Levin History Workshop in Minsk
Six years later, in 2008, the Minsk History workshop project was launched. The founders are the International Centre for Education and Exchange (IBB) Dortmund, IBB Minsk and the architect Leonid Levin. The project is still based in one of the few remaining buildings in the former Minsk ghetto and since its founding has primarily dealt with the Trascjanec extermination site and the Minsk ghetto.6
Responsible for content: Charlotte Vöhl
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1 Deputy in the Belarusian parliament, in whose constituency Trostenets was located.
2 Cf. Dalhouski, Transformation, p. 122.
3 Cf. Belarussisches Staatliches Museum der Geschichte des Großen Vaterländischen Krieges, Trostenez, p. 12.
4 Cf. Dalhouski, Transformation, p. 124.
5 Cf. IBB Dortmund/IBB Minsk, Der Lern- und Erinnerungsort Trostenez und die Konderenz "Gedenken für eine gemeinsame europäische Zukunft", p. 189.
6 Cf. Geschichtswerkstatt Minsk, "Warum eine Geschichtswerkstatt in Minsk". URL: http://gwminsk.com/de/http%3A//gwminsk.com/ru/about/why [last accessed on 06.03.2022].