The emergence of a culture of remembrance
It was not until the 1960s, almost 20 years after the German troops were pushed back from Maly Trascjanec, that the place began to change in terms of culture of remembrance. While the site had previously tended to be forgotten – for example, the establishment of a landfill in the immediate vicinity of Blahaǔščyna – memorial stones were now hesitantly erected at sites directly connected to the mass murders during the occupation.
Memorial stone at Šaškoŭka
Memorial stone by the barn
At the beginning of the 1960s, the village of Maly Trascjanec was only partially associated with the murder of thousands of Jewish people from all over Europe. While the Belarusian-Soviet culture of remembrance concentrated on the heroes of the resistance, the victims of the occupation period tended to be pushed into the background.
A few kilometres further on, in the village of Vjaliki Trascjanec, occasional commemorative events were held for the victims, but this also created a problem: more and more, Vjaliki Trascjanec appeared to be the historical place and commemoration shifted geographically.1 This impression was reinforced in 1963, when an obelisk was erected in Vjaliki Trascjanec to commemorate the victims of Nazi crimes. It was not until 1961 and 1966 that memorial plaques were erected at the historical site they were meant to commemorate: the first one in Maly Trascjanec and the second one at Šaškoǔka. They both memorialise the occupation period in Belarus and the fascist regime and commemorate the murder of Soviet citizens. The mass murder of Jewish people from Western Europe was left out, as it was in the investigation protocol of the Extraordinary State Commission.
Albert Saukitens pointing to the Blahaǔščyna forest clearing in 1962
The investigations against Albert Saukitens also fall in the 1960s. Soviet authorities located him in 1962 as a member of a Latvian unit employed in Maly Trascjanec and involved in the mass killings there.2 On 25 September 1962, Soviet investigators went back to the extermination site together with Saukitens. Here he had to show them, among other things, where the mass shootings had taken place, where he had had to stand guard and how the former SD camp had been constructed. Saukitens' photograph in front of the forest clearing near Blahaǔščyna shows that the forest cleared during the occupation has not yet grown back.
Responsible for content: Tatjana Rykov
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1 Cf. Dalhouski, Transformation, p. 121; Novikau/Saal, Gedenken, p. 401.
2 Cf. Eulenburg/Kerpel-Fronius/Neumärker, Vernichtungsort, p. 174.