Maly Trascjanec in the post-Soviet culture of remembrance

Up until the 1990s, the Maly Trascjanec camp and the Blahaǔščyna execution site were virtually unknown in Western Europe. In 1998, only the memorial sites that had been created in the 1960s were listed.

In the 1990s there was a military training area and a garbage dump in the immediate vicinity of the former shooting site in Blahaǔščyna; the forest clearing where thousands of people had been murdered was almost overgrown.¹ It was only in the course of the decade that German-speaking tourists discovered the place, which had been transformed beyond recognition, as a historical destination. The publication of the book "I'm surprised that I'm still alive (Ich wundere mich, daß ich noch lebe)"² by Paul Kohl in 1990 had an influence on this development. In his work he describes the Maly Trascjanec camp as the "Auschwitz of Belarus".³

Due to the public interest abroad and the examination of their own history, the Minsk authorities decided to designate monument protection areas for the preservation of the camp complex. The citizens' initiative "History and Remembrance Foundation Trascjanec" founded in 1993 is also noteworthy for the transformation of Maly Trascjanec into a place of remembrance.⁴ Its chairman, Jauhen Cumarau, was a member of the Supreme Council of the Republic of Belarus between 1990 and 1996. The initiative was committed to the establishment of a historic preservation area with a museum and a memorial complex. They received assistance from the Supreme Council, as well as financial support from Germany and Israel.⁵ The Organizing Committee for the Blahaǔščyna Memorial, established in the late 1990s, helped transform the area into a place of remembrance. In cooperation and exchange with foreign agencies, the location of the extermination site was determined and an attempt was made to specify the disputed number of victims.⁶