Ambassador: Great Victory has laid the foundation for modern statehood of Belarus, Israel

The Chaim Herzog Museum of Jewish Warrior of World War II in Latrun near Jerusalem, Israel held a solemn event “Heroism of the Liberator Nations and Preservation of Historical Memory”. The event was co-organized by the Belarusian Embassy in Israel, BelTA learned from the press service of the Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The event opened with a minute of silence and a ceremony of laying wreaths at the monument in honor of Jewish participants of the partisan movement, ghetto and resistance fighters. Among the participants of the ceremony was veteran of the Great Patriotic War, participant of the Bagration operation Abram Gutkovich, who liberated Vitebsk, Grodno and reached Berlin. Among the guests of honor were Yefim Gimelstein, a survivor of the Minsk ghetto, and Aleksandr Gelfand, a native of Belarus, former chairman of the Jerusalem branch of veterans, who has devoted many years of his activities to perpetuating the memory of war heroes. In total, about 200 people took part in the event.

In his welcoming remarks, Belarus’ Ambassador to Israel Yuri Yaroshevich emphasized that the Great Victory became a common spiritual heritage that laid the foundation for the post-war world order and modern statehood of Belarus, Israel and other countries.

He paid special attention to the memory of the victims of the Holocaust in the territory of Belarus, including the prisoners of the Minsk ghetto, Trostenets and Ozarichi camp, expressing gratitude to the Righteous Among the Nations and to the heroes-partisans, in particular the fighters of the legendary detachment of the Bielski brothers.

Russian Ambassador to Israel Anatoly Viktorov also addressed the participants with a welcoming speech, recalling the contribution of one and a half million Jewish soldiers who fought in the Red Army and Allied armies during the Great Patriotic War and World War II.

The documentary dilogy of the Belarusfilm national film studio “Burnt Villages” and “Death Camps” dedicated to the tragedy of the Belarusian people during the Nazi occupation was presented at the event.