EU, UK diplomats visit Kurapaty massacre site on Night of Executed Poets

October 30, Pozirk. Germany’s chargé d’affaires in Belarus, Katrin aus dem Siepen, has visited Kurapaty with other foreign diplomats to pay tribute to the victims of Josef Stalin’s terror, according to the German embassy.

The visit was timed to coincide with an anniversary of the night of October 29–30, 1937, when the Soviet secret police shot dead more than a hundred of intellectuals, including prominent poets and writers.

Their bodies were buried in the Kurapaty wood on the outskirts of Minsk. This event, known as the Night of Executed Poets, was the tragic culmination of a series of crimes committed against Belarusian intellectuals. It is estimated that between 1937 and 1941, Soviet secret police executed up to 250,000 people at Kurapaty alone, the embassy said.

“Every year, many Belarusians commemorate the Belarusian cultural figures murdered on the night of October 29–30, 1937.

Yesterday, for example, the Literary Colloquium Berlin hosted the Night of Unshot Poems, dedicated to the cultural and literary history of Belarus, the German embassy said.

According to the EU Delegation in Minsk, EU and UK diplomats accompanied the German charges d’affaires.

European diplomats visit Stalin-era massacre site before Belarus’ ancestors remembrance day