The "Path of Death" (2017)
Architect Leonid Levin had already been responsible for the design of several monuments when in March 2013 he presented his project for a future memorial in Maly Trascjanec near Minsk entitled "The Path of Death".1 Levin's aim was to start with the monument to erect a Holocaust memorial in Maly Trascjanec2, because Jews, as the largest group of victims in Maly Trascjanec, were not present in the Soviet culture of remembrance for a long time.3
The concept of the "Path of Death" memorial
Wagon walls on the "Path of Death"
The suitcases that were dismantled shortly after the opening
The "Path of Death" is the result of cooperation between the International Centre for Education and Exchange (IBB) Dortmund, the IBB Minsk, the History Workshop in Minsk and civil initiatives from Belarus and Austria.4 In the Blahaǔščyna forest area, Jews from the Ghetto in Minsk, partisan fighters, inmates from the Minsk detention centers and Jews from the German Reich were murdered from May 1942.5
The concept of the memorial includes showing visitors the path of the deported Jews from Europe, from their arrival by train to their shooting in the Blahaǔščyna forest. In this way, Levin wanted to achieve an emotional and individual confrontation of the visitors with the fate of the victims.6 In his design, Levin planned a 500-meter-long path on which visitors could be taken through replica wagon walls over the "Square of Life" and the "Square of Paradox" to the "Square of Death".7
Construction work on the facility began in August 2017 and was completed in less than a year. When it was officially completed, however, essential elements that Levin had actually planned were missing: a suitcase sculpture, which was intended to symbolize the personal belongings of the deportees, was dismantled immediately after the inauguration; the names of the Jewish victims, which according to Levin's concept should be visible on the wagon walls, were not incorporated. Benches that were set up along the way and were supposed to symbolize the benches inside the trains remained without explanation. A planned composition of objects standing upside down, such as a house or a tree, was also not implemented.8 The Belarusian historian Dr. Aliaxandr Dalhouski nevertheless considers the approval of the "Path of Death" memorial by the city of Minsk as a clear success for the international actors in their efforts to establish a culture of remembrance around Maly Trascjanec.9
1 Cf. vom Büchel, IBB startet Initiative.
2 Cf. Novikau/von Saal, Gebremstes Gedenken, p. 403.
3 Cf. Dalhouski, Zur Transformation des sowjetischen Gedenkortes, p. 124.
4 Cf. Novikau/von Saal, Gebremstes Gedenken, p. 403.
5 Cf. IBB Dortmund/IBB Minsk, Vernichtunsgsort Malyj Trostenez, p. 109.
6 Cf. Rentrop-Koch, Landgut als Vernichtungsstätte, p. 162.
7 Cf. vom Büchel, IBB startet Initiative.
8 Cf. Novikau/von Saal, Gebremstes Gedenken, p. 404f.
9 Cf. Dalhouski, Zur Transformation des sowjetischen Gedenkortes, p. 126.