Khatyn massacre
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This article is about the 1943 massacre of Belarusian civilians. For the 1940 massacre of Polish officers, see Katyn massacre.
Khatyn, Chatyń (Belarusian and Russian: Хаты́нь, pronounced [xʌˈtɨnʲ]) was a village in Belarus, in Lahojsk district, Minsk Voblast. On March 22, 1943, the population of the village was massacred during World War II by the 118th Schutzmannschaft battalion, formed in July 1942 in Kiev, mostly from Ukrainian collaborators, prisoners of war and deserters [1] [2] and Special SS battalion "Dirlewanger".
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[edit] The massacre
On 22 March 1943, a Nazi motor convoy was attacked by partisan guerillas near Koziri village just 6 km away from Khatyn, resulting in the deaths of four military police officers of 118th Schutzmannschaft battalion, a police battalion made up chiefly of Ukrainian collaborators, prisoners of war and deserters.[3] [2] Among the dead was 1936 Olympic Games champion Hauptmann Hans Woellke, the battalion's commanding officer.[4]That afternoon, the 118th Schutzmannschaft battalion, reinforced by troops from the 36th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS,[4] or Dirlewanger Brigade, a unit mostly composed of criminals recruited for anti-partisan duties, entered the village and drove the inhabitants from their houses and into a shed, which was then covered with straw and set on fire. The trapped people managed to break down the front doors, but in trying to escape, were killed by machine gun fire. 149 people, including 75 children, were killed. The village was then looted and burned to the ground.[5]
Viktor Zhelobkovich, a seven-year-old boy, survived the fire in the shed under the corpse of his mother.[5] Another boy, 12-year-old Anton Baranovsky, was left for dead due to a leg wound.[5] The only adult survivor of the Khatyn massacre, 56-year-old village smith Yuzif Kaminsky, also wounded and burnt, recovered consciousness after the Germans had left. He supposedly found his burned son who later died in his arms. This incident was later artistically honored in the form of a statue at the Khatyn Memorial.[5]
At least 5,295 Belarusian settlements were destroyed by the Nazis and some or all their inhabitants killed. In the Vitebsk region 243 villages were burned down twice, 83 villages three times, and 22 villages were burned down four or more times. In the Minsk region 92 villages were burned down twice, 40 villages three times, nine villages four times, and six villages five or more times.[6] Altogether, 2,230,000 people were killed in Belarus during the three years of German occupation, about a quarter of the country's population.[7][8]
The commander of one of the platoons of 118th Schutzmannschaft Battalion, Ukrainian Vasyl Meleshko, was tried in a Soviet court and executed in 1975. Chief of Staff of 118th Schutzmannschaft Battalion, Ukrainian Grigory Vassiura, was trialed in Minsk in 1986, was found guilty of all his crimes and by the verdict of the military tribunal of the Belorussian military district was sentenced to death. The case and the trial of the main executioner of Khatyn was not acquired adequate publicity in the media. The leaders of the Soviet republics worried about the inviolability of international unity between the Belarusian and Ukrainian people.
[edit] The Khatyn Memorial
Khatyn became a symbol of mass killings of the civilian population during the fighting between partisans, German troops, and collaborators. In 1969 it was named the national war memorial of the Byelorussian SSR. Among the best-recognized symbols of the memorial complex is a monument with three birch trees, with an eternal flame instead of a fourth tree, a tribute to the one in every four Belarusians who died in the war.[7] There is also a statue of Yuzif Kaminsky carrying his dying son, and a wall with niches to represent the victims of all concentration camps, with large niches representing those with more than 20,000 victims. Bells ring every 30 seconds to commemorate the rate at which Belarusian lives were lost throughout the duration of the Second World War.
Among the foreign leaders who have visited the Khatyn Memorial during their time in office are Richard Nixon of the USA, Fidel Castro of Cuba, Rajiv Gandhi of India, Yasser Arafat of the PLO, and Jiang Zemin of China.[11]
