Thousands of people attended a requiem rally held during the night of June 22 at the Brest Hero-Fortress Memorial Complex, BelTA reported. The event was dedicated to the Day of Nationwide Remembrance of the Victims of the Great Patriotic War and the Genocide of the Belarusian People.
Aliaksandr Lukashenka did not attend the event.
Ahead of the commemorative events, a new memorial zone, “Sorrow”, was opened at Brest Fortress. It was created as part of a three-year Union State restoration and conservation program at the memorial complex.
“The image for the sculptural composition depicting a woman in mourning was inspired by a photograph of the widow of one of the defenders of the legendary citadel on the Bug River. Alena Kuzniatsova, together with her two children, managed to escape from the burning ruins of the fortress,” the newspaper Kultura reported.
On both sides of the sculpture is a memorial wall bearing the names of defenders of Brest Fortress who died in Nazi captivity.
It was recently announced by Belarusian Culture Minister Marat Markau that Russia and Belarus had signed a joint memorandum on submitting a shared application to include the Mamayev Kurgan memorial complex and Brest Fortress on the UNESCO World Heritage List.
