Ambassadors of EU countries visited Kurapaty (Photo)

November 2, the day of on Dziady (the day when Belarusians commemorate their deceased forefathers), ambassadors of European countries and of the US visited the the Kurapaty memorial site. Diplomats from Poland, Latvia, Slovakia, France, Sweden, Malta and the US gathered at the place of mass executions. First they took part in the Holy Mass near the Belarusian Martyrs’ Cross, laid flowers and lit candles near the so-called Belarusian Golgotha.

U.S. Ambassador to Belarus Karen B. Stewart opened the renovated “Clinton’s bench”, a present of the former US President, which was destroyed by vandals several times, Radio Racyja informs.

Israeli Ambassador Zeev Ben Arie said that he is probably the one head of a diplomatic mission in Belarus whose family had suffered from repressions. In 1953 a grandfather of Mr Arie was arrested in the notorious “doctors’ case”. He was saved by Stalin’s death.

Ambassadors of Poland, Henryk Litwin, said that many Poles were executed in Belarus, and in Kurapaty in particular. But it is impossible to find out how many of them had been shot, as the Belarusian KGB still does not declassify repression archives.

And in the end of the ceremony Swedish Honorary Consul Stefan Eriksson attracted attention of policemen standing nearby that the authorities do not have a moral right to tolerate acts of vandalism in that sacred place.