Meeting in memory of Jews banned in Mozyr

• 29.08.2011, 10:53

The Mozyr city executive committee did not permit to hold a meeting in memory of Jews, who committed an act of self-immolation during the Nazi occupation of the town.

The President of the US-based World Association of Belarusian Jews, Mozyr-born Yakob Gutman, told this Radio Svaboda.

The meeting was scheduled for August 31, the 70th anniversary of the self-immolation. According to Gutman, the municipal authorities offered to carry out a meeting on January 27, the International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

On August 31, 1941, ten days after the beginning of the Nazi occupation of Mozyr, over 20 town dwellers committed an act of self-immolation repeating the heroic deed of Masada fortress defenders in 73 A.D., who preferred freedom to Roman slavery and killed themselves.

On November 18, 2003, the International Association of Belarusian Jews set a memorial sign on the place of this heroic deed – a stone with a memorial plaque. A month later, the memorial sign was removed on a decision of the Mozyr city executive committee. The city authorities erected a new memorial sign on this place in May 2010.