The creation of a memorial
In the course of the 2000s, the public debate about a memorial site project in Maly Trascjanec increasingly became the focus of media reporting, which led to the topic gaining political relevance and increasing international attention. The resulting project transformed Maly Trascjanec into a place that was increasingly perceived as a place of remembrance.
The "Forest of Names"
For the Maly Trascjanec memorial project, a national competition called by President Alyaksandr Lukashenka was held in 2010 for the implementation of the central monument, from which the sculptor Konstantin Kostjučenko emerged as the winner with his design for the "Gate of Remembrance". The growing civil commitment regarding the desire for a memorial in the Blahaǔščyna forest led to the establishment of the IM-MER Association (Initiative Malvine – Maly Trascjanec in Erinnerung/Malvine Initiative – Maly Trascjanec in Memory) in 2009 under the direction of Waltraud Barton from Austria.1 In 2010, the association started the large-scale "Forest of Names" project. In order to make the victims of the extermination site visible, their names and life stories were printed on signs and placed on trees at Blahaǔščyna. The project is still running today.
The “Path of Death” Memorial at Blahaǔščyna
In March 2013, the architect Leonid Levin presented the "Path of Death" model at the conference "The Trascjanec Extermination Site in European Memory".2 The area of the former extermination site was divided into different sections for the transformation into a memorial site. On 22 June 2015, the memorial site with the "Gate of Remembrance" and information boards was opened on the grounds of the former labour camp.3 Construction work on the Blahaǔščyna Memorial Cemetery and the "Path of Death" began in August 2017 and was completed in 2018.
Bird's-eye view of the Blahaŭščyna Memorial
During the creation of the memorial at the former execution site, civil actors such as citizens' initiatives had fewer opportunities to get involved in the planning. This memorial was planned by state actors. The sketch made by the Extraordinary State Commission of the Soviet Union in 1944 served as a template for today's complex. At Blahaǔščyna there is now a well-kept lawn, which was superficially examined by researchers for finds during the renovation phase. The inauguration of the memorial took place in 2018 with international guests from Belarus, Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic and Poland. Today, the complex not only embodies a place of remembrance, but also a place of historical learning.4
The "Massif of Names"
The "Massif of Names" memorial was inaugurated on 28 March 2019. Since then, the memorial has stood near the "Gate of Remembrance", bearing almost 1,000 first names of deported Jews from Vienna to Maly Trascjanec. The implementation was made possible by the research work of the IM-MER association, which helped find the names of many prisoners. Among them are primarily names of Jews from Austria. The names of Belarusian Jews are hardly represented and are largely unknown to this day; the main reason for this is that no deportation lists or other named documents of the murdered people from Belarus have been preserved.5 Anna Aksjonowa, scientific project manager of the Maly Trascjanec memorial, describes the project as follows:
"At the international level, it [the memorial] is part of the common European culture of remembrance and commemorates the National Socialist policy of genocide against the civilian population of Europe. In terms of the number of victims, Trascjanec is the fourth largest extermination site of the Nazi era after Auschwitz, Majdanek and Treblinka. At the national level, Trascjanec is a part of national history, an epitome of the struggle and challenges of the World War II. – At the individual level, Trascjanec is a place of overall social and personal remembrance for contemporary witnesses, numerous descendants of the prisoners and all people who follow humanistic values and good will."6
In 2018, a memorial stone was placed in the "Forest of Names" during the expansion of the memorial site.
Responsible for content: Charlotte Vöhl
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1 Cf. Initiative Malvine- Malyj Trostenic erinnern. URL: http://www.waltraud-barton.at/immer/de/home.html [last accessed on 06.03.2022].
2 Cf. Internationales Bildungs- und Begegnungswerk, Der Lern- und Erinnerungsort Trostenez. und die Konderenz "Gedenken für eine gemeinsame europäische Zukunft", p. 5.
3 Cf. Dalhouski,Transformation, p. 125.
4 Cf. ibid., p. 126.
5 Cf. ibid., p. 128.
6 Junge-Wentrup, Der Vernichtungsort Trostenez in der Europäischen Erinnerung. Materialien zur Internationalen Konferenz vom 21.-24. März 2013 in Minsk, p. 46.