The heads on the West and the East

Kobrin → Creativity of fellow countrymen → Marchuk Nina Grigoryevna

The obelisk, on irony of history, was established to guerrillas one on winners and won. In three kilometers from the village of Belsk of Kobrin district in the wood there is a mass grave on which in post-war years the obelisk is established to soldiers and guerrillas of the Great Patriotic War.

For the first time in these regions I was in the seventies. And incidentally heard from locals that here not only ours are buried, but also Germans – one heads on the West, others on the East. Those years preferred to speak about it in a whisper. And here twenty years later I decided to investigate history of that unusual necropolis at last.

It was not really simple to reach to the Shouting (where burials). From the divinsky route we curtailed on the village of Lipovo to meet those who remember war. However nobody was found by houses: who grazed cows, who mushroomed. And sixty-year-old women advised to make still heels of kilometers on the wood and to get on the farm the Shouting: there live witnesses of terrible years. So we also made.

The forest road brought us in the field, on the left and to the right how many it is visible to a look, weeds grew. Only in one place two old men mowed a grass. Having driven in the wood and propetlyav couple more of kilometers, saw two lonely old houses on both sides of the road. Stopped the car and went to one of huts. There it was populous. And old, and middle age, and children. The owner of the farm accepted us kindly, and we at once got to talking. Conversation was entered also by two elderly women. We spoke about the last war.

Kulikovich Grigory Konstantinovich, when war began, was a sixteen-year-old guy. Today to it 75. It is mobile, with fine memory. Told about burials so:

– Yes, it is valid, on one pogork also ours lie, and Germans. Somewhere in zhnivo, in the forty first came on one local farm whether guerrillas, Red Army men also spent the night roofing felts. What forced the owner of the neighboring farm to declare to Germans, it is still unknown. Germans stood in Belsk, in three kilometers from here. At night chasteners came and killed all lodgers without resistance. Buried them then here, at this height. The place was open, light, beautiful. Around wood.
And the subsequent burials on it to a pogorka – both in the forty second, and in the forty third, and in the forty fourth. Forest firefights of guerrillas and invaders happened more than once. Losses were on both sides. However, Germans tried to send the officers to Germany. But their ordinary soldiers, and also Magyars who were at war on the party of Wehrmacht, Romanians, Croats found the graves on our earth.

And in Belsk, too on a sandy hillock, – my interlocutors continued the story, – Germans buried not one ten soldiers. And these graves with wooden crosses remember many. Already at construction hozpostroyek in collective farm "For the Homeland" from this hillock began to take sand in the sixtieth. Dug out both bones, and the remains of uniforms, and fragments domovin... But especially tried at the beginning of the 80th when built school in the village of Belsk. Chose from that hillock sand and the soil so that now there instead of a height – an artificial pond with water. And the school was built for the children, bringing the earth with human remains...

The elderly peasant on the farm the Shouting told also the following. Germans did not love either the Magyar, or the Romanian, nor Croats. And those well got on with local population. And so, when in one of skirmishes with guerrillas it was killed several Magyar, local girls furtively cried as they managed to make friends. In what degree, it is known only to them. All this is seen and remembered by my interlocutor. At that time she was twelve years old...

However I will return to how burned the Shouting. Nobody wrote about it also anywhere. In Aura there were 45 yards with big families. And once in 1943 to the Cover there arrived to the Shouting the German wagon train to fill up quantity stolen to Germany. But while the wagon train lasted, the village became empty – nobody! Without thinking twice, Germans set fire to all houses. Also left. So all also burned down. People then located who where could.

Separate lodged in dugouts. But the main events were developed in March of the forty fourth. Snow was on a belt. Germans receded. They were restricted by regular army. Guerrillas held a crossing via the Nizovsky channel before approach of the main parts. The success of fights in this marshy and woody district was variable, losses were available on both sides.

And here is how time on it to a pogorka in the beginning Germans of the killed buried, and at night guerrillas buried the. One laid down the head on the West, others – on the East. That March there was many snow and it poured every day. The earth was frozen. Therefore guerrillas dug where it is easier, here and put the on an eminence near Germans...

In the spring still found corpses in the wood, especially without sorting, the or the enemy. Prikapyvali on the place. Knew, as God will reckon such act and about ecology thought how my fellow traveler noticed.

And in 1946 there were reburials. Took the died our soldiers and guerrillas – and all on this py fate. However, from corpses remained little and did not try to dig out especially, however reburied that could, And then on a common grave established an obelisk. Around burial – a fencing on which corners shot up four fir-trees. And slightly aside, as one more witness of that time, the former forester Andrey Andreevich Kulikovich told me, he personally where Germans lie, put birches.

And still Andrey Andreevich dobadit that if whom burials of 1812 interest, then it will show this place. It about it was told by the grandfather, and to his grandfather of grandfathers the grandfather …

Brestsky Kuryer newspaper, No. 34 (494), August, 2000.

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