Excursion to Khatyn

Brief overview

• Type of excursion: war-historical
• Duration: 03.30
• Distance: 126 km
• Subject matter of excursion: war, for pupils

Prices for excursion to Khatyn
(prices are in Belarusian rubles)

Tour route

Khatyn tragedy

You will not find this belarusian village even in the most detailed geographical map. Fascists destroyed it in the spring of 1943. That happened on 22th March, 1943. Cruel fascists rushed in the Khatyn village and blockaded it. In the morning 6 km away from the village a fascist convoy was attacked by fire by guerillas and as a result a german officer was killed. Village inhabitants didn't know about it, but the fascists have already sentenced harmless people to die. All the Khatyn dwellers, big and small — old, women, children — were turned out of the house and urged them in a shed.

The fascists whipped the sick, the old with the help of the butt of the riffle, they didn't  have mercy even on children and women. A families of Iosif and Anna Baranonovsky with 9 children, of Alexandra and Alexander Novitsky with 7 children were there; the same amount of children was in the Kazimir and Elena Iotko family, the smallest child only turned 1 years old. Vera Yaskevich and her 7-weeks-old son Tolya were also brought to the shed. At first Lena Yaskevich hid in the yard and then decided to hide in the forest. Bullets of the fascists didn't find their mark, so a fascist broke into a run. He caught her and shot in front of her father, who was frantic with grief.

An inhabitant of the Yurkovichi village Anton Kunkevich and of the Kameno village Kristina Slonskaya, who were in the Khatyn village at that time, were herded into the shed together with all the Khatyn dwellers. Adults couldn't pass undetected. Only 3 children — Volodya Yaskevich, his sister Sonya Yaskevich and Sasha Zhelobkovich — were able to escape from the German soldiers. When all the inhabitants were in the shed, the fascists fastened the door, covered the shed with straw, doused with petrol and set it on fire. Children cried and were stifled by smoke. Adults tried to save them. Under the pressure of human bodies the doors broke down.

Horror-stricken people in burning clothes broke into a run, but those who got out of the fire, were shot by the fascists in cold blood. 149 people were killed, 75 of them were children under 16. The village was ravaged and burnt to ashes. Two girls from the Klimovichi and Fedorovichi families — Mariya Fedorovich and Yulia Klimovich — got out of the shed by a miracle and got to the forest. The inhabitants of the Khvorosteni village of the Kamensky local council picked up the burnt, more dead than alive girls. But soon this village was also burnt by the fascists and both the girls died.

Only two children, from those who were in the shed, survived — 7-years-old Victor Zhelobkovich and 12-years-old Anton Baranovsky. When horror-stricken people in burnt clothes run out of the burning shed, Anna Zhelobkovich was with the other village inhabitants.  She firmly held her son's arm. The gravely wounded woman covered the son with her body when she fell. The child wounded in an arm lay under his mom's dead body until the fascists left the village.

Anton Baranovsky was shot in the leg by an exploding bullet. The German soldiers took him for the dead. The burnt and covered with wounds children were picked up and taken care of by inhabitants of the neighboring villages. After the war the children were brought up in an foster asylum of the urban-type village Pleshchenitsy. The only adult eyewitness of the Khatyn tragedy was a 56-years-old village blacksmith Iosif Kaminsky, who returned to consciousness burnt and wounded late at night, when the fascists had already left the village. He overcame one more blow: among the fellow villagers bodies he found his wounded son. The boy was gravely wounded in the stomach, suffered bad burns. He died in his father's hands. This tragic moment of the Iosif Kaminsky's life is taken as a basis of the „Khatyn“ memorial complex single monument - „The Unbowed Man“.