Belarus: Khatyn Memorial

Khatyn Memories is somber reminder of what Belarus went through in WWII. The country lost 25% of population or over 2.5 million people, a staggering and unimaginable number. With the objective of total extermination, Nazis burned a total of 5295 Belorussian settlements together with their residents in mass killings. The village of Khatyn was one of them. There are several monuments at Khatyn – a set of 3 birch trees with an eternal flame burning instead of the the fourth (to indicate every fourth citizen of Belarus killed),  a wall with niches for those who died in concentration camps, chimney-like statues with bells ringing in the wind, and a statue of elderly Kaminsky with his dead son – the only survivor at Khatyn.