Khatyn, Chaty? (Belarusian and , ) is a village in Belarus, in Lahojsk district, Minsk Voblast, all of whose inhabitants (149 people) except one, Yuzif (Josef) Kaminsky, were burnt alive by the Nazis, with participation of Ukrainian and Belarusian collaborators^[1] from the 118th Schutzmannschaft battalion, on 22 March 1943.

In the Soviet Union, Khatyn became a symbol of mass killings of the civilian population during the fights between partisans, German troupes, and collaborators. Hundreds of similar settlements shared the fate of Khatyn in Belarus during World War II. In 1969 it was named the national war memorial of the Byelorussian SSR. Among the best-recognized symbols of the 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. ^[2] There is also a statue of Yuzif Kaminsky carrying his dying son. The site also contains a wall with niches to represent the victims of all concentration camps with large niches representing concentration camps with victims of greater than 20,000 people and bells ring out every 30 seconds to commemorate the rate at which lives were lost of Belarusian people throughout the duration of the Second World War.

According to Benjamin B. Fischer, of the Central Intelligence Agency, Khatyn was selected in 1969 because its name was similar to Katyn.^[3] According to Norman Davies, of Wolfson College, Oxford, the village was chosen and the memorial created by the Soviet authorities in a calculated policy of disinformation,^[4] designed to create confusion with the Katyn massacre. Among the foreign leaders who visited Khatyn Memorial during their time in office were Richard Nixon of the USA, Fidel Castro of Cuba, Rajiv Gandhi of India, Yasser Arafat of the PLO, and Jiang Zemin of China.^[5]

At least 5,295 Belarusian settlements were destroyed by the Nazis and some or all their inhabitants killed (out of 9200 settlements that were burned or otherwise destroyed in Belarus during World War II). 243 Belarusian villages were burned down twice, 83 villages three times, and 22 villages were burned down four or more times in the Vitebsk region. 92 villages were burned down twice, 40 villages three times, nine villages four times, and six villages five or more times in the Minsk region.^[6] Altogether, 2,230,000 people were killed in Belarus within the three years of German occupation. All told, a quarter of the republic's population died in WWII.^[2][7]

See also

• Occupation of Belarus by Nazi Germany
• Consequences of German Nazism
• German war crimes
• List of massacres

Notes and references

External links

• Official website of the Khatyn Museum

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