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Promise to Preserve Memory about Holocaust

On January, 27 International Holocaust Remembrance Day was held in the Republican Veterans' Palace of Culture in Minsk. As during many years already, the UN Office in the Republic of Belarus and the Holocaust Republican Organization initiated the event.

Representatives of the diplomatic corpses of Israel, Lithuania, Moldova and Ukraine, as well as Antonius Broek, UN Resident Representative in Belarus, arrived to commemorate Shoah victims. While lighting 6 candles symbolizing 6 million massacred Jews, each diplomatic official was making a speech about the most horrible tragedy of the 20th century. Mikhail Treister lit a candle on behalf of all former ghetto and concentration camp prisoners.

“This memory day is the time for us to think what consequences will occur if we stop fighting racism, prejudice and hatred. This is the chance to solve controversial issues, to think back so to be able to build better future”, — stated Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Israel to Belarus Eduard Shapira.

Within the framework of the event the book “Abyss' Number” by Vardvan Varzhapetjan was presented.

This book contains neither pictures, nor words. On its pages one will find numbers only: from 1 to 5,820,960 without space, hyphenation or any other separators; numbers going in continuous lines. Each number signifies one life taken away by Nazis… In a prologue to his book Varzhapetjan says: “It might look like an obsessional idea, delusion, but I know that the number of Shoah victims doesn't exist. We should create a special number, the number of abyss. If someone would try to write the number of victims, ABYSS' NUMBER, he would have to write down a number of 5,820,960 figures. As is known for today it is the real number of Jews massacred. Now this number is in front of you, you hold it in your arms; for the first time in your life you can see it, feel its heaviness. Well, people are not numbers. But I couldn't find a better symbol… Each number in this book was an alive person. Each… Remember it”.

Each number of the book was written by Vardvan Varzhapetjan by hand. There are 999 copies of the book, one of them Vardvan presented to the Museum of Jewish history and culture. Inna Gerasimova — the Musem's Director and a Chairperson of the Holocaust Republican Organization — treats the edition as a unique monument to Shoah victims.

Another book — “On the Survivors Skiff” by a former Minsk ghetto prisoner Valentin Skoblo — was also presented during the International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Valentine was 11 years old when he got to the ghetto, his parents and a younger brother died there. The boy managed to escape and got to an orphanage. At the end of 1943 Valentin Skoblo was evacuated to Poland. By the end of the war appeared to live in Leipzig. Then he moved Moscow, graduated from conservatory and worked as an audio operator; during that period he met many outstanding musicians and cultural workers: Dmitri Shostakovich, Mstislav Rostropovich, Yehudi Menuhin. In his book Valentin Skoblo touches upon socializing with these famous people, but the largest part of the book is dedicated to the war period from 1941 to 1944. The author gathered much documentary information, he talked a lot with the participants and witnesses of those events. At present Valentin Skoblo lives in Canada. All his archives Mr. Skoblo decided to present to the Museum of Jewish History and Culture.

One more exciting event of a long–lasted history took place during that evening. In 2008 the Minister of Defense issued an order to award a posthumous jubilee medal “60 Years of the Victory in WWII” to 21 Minsk ghetto prisoners who participated in Nazi resistance movement. For two years the authorities couldn't find any relatives of the underground group leader Canaan Gusinov. One day before the event the Museum of Jewish History and Culture got a phone call from Canaan's nephew Gusinov Ilya. At the event he was invited to the stage. When the participant of the Minsk ghetto underground group Vladimir Rubezhin handed the medal to him, Ilya pronounced: “…I knew, I believed that the feat of the person won't be forgotten. People will remember it, they must remember it…”

The event was held with the support of JDC, Jewish Student Organization “Beit Hillel”, Welfare Jewish Fund “Hesed–Rakhamim&rdq uo;, Jewish Community Center “Emunah” and Israeli Cultural Center.

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