Memorial at the site of the burnt barn (1961)

In the 1960s, just over 15 years after the liberation of Minsk, the first hesitant changes were made to Maly Trascjanec's culture of remembrance. In the meantime, farming had resumed on the former camp site and a rubbish dump had been set up in the immediate vicinity of Blahaǔščyna.

The charred bodies of hundreds of people near the burnt barn

Gedenken am historischen Ort der Scheune (GE Minsk).jpg

Memorial stone in the former Maly Trascjanec camp during Soviet times (now removed)

Explanatory plaque at the historical site of the burnt barn

The barn full of people, in which the German occupiers shot about 6,500 people shortly before retreating from Maly Trascjanec and burned them together with the building, was carefully examined by the ČKG.¹ The meticulous recording of the impressions is related, among other things, to the fact that the first units of the Soviet army found the barn still burning.. The traces of National Socialist crimes were therefore "fresh". According to their protocol, the case officers of the commission stayed here the longest.²

In 1961, a memorial stone was erected at the historical site of the burnt barn to commemorate the people murdered there.³ The inscription on the stone reads: "Here lie Soviet citizens who were tortured and burned by German fascists in June 1944."⁴

Next to the memorial stone there is also an explanation board informing visitors about the site in several languages (Belarusian, Russian and English).

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^{1 Cf. Dalhouski, Zur Geschichte der Wahrnehmung, p. 140.}

^{2 Cf. Kohl, Vernichtungslager bei Minsk, p. 20.}

^{3 Cf. Dalhouski, Zur Geschichte der Wahrnehmung, p. 144.}

^{4 Transl.: Evgeny Yuriev.}