The memorial complex on the site of the concentration camp in the village of Krasny Bereg

This memorable and horrible place is also called “children’s Khatyn”. In 1943 in Krasny Bereg village of Zhlobin district the Nazis set up a donor concentration camp for children. Now on its place there is a memorial, leaving which most visitors can't stop crying...  

Innocent victims 

The Nazis occupied Krasny Bereg on July 5, 1941. In the village they created a large transit point. Here, in the former manor estate, was also located a military hospital, needed in large amounts of donor blood.  

In 1943 on the territory of the local educational enterprise the Nazis organized a donor children’s camp, through which passed about 15 thousand people, including 12 thousand children fr om different corners of Belarus and the USSR.

They were mostly girls of 8-14 years old with the first blood type and positive RH factor.

To the last drop…

According to information of the official website of Zhlobin district Executive Committee, the camp was a collection point, wh ere children were examined and sent to Germany as donors for the wounded. It is known that about 2 000 children of Rogachev, Dobrush and Zhlobin districts were sent in such a way.

The historian and tour guide of the memorial complex Alexander Mankewich asserts that only a part of the prisoners was taken to Germany. In his opinion, Nazi “doctors” took blood “to the last drop” directly in Krasny Bereg concentration camp, moreover they brutally experimented and used special methods, the description of which is shocking in their inhumanity. In total, over 5 thousand people died in the concentration camp.

The Sun Square

The memorial complex was opened on the site of the former children’s concentration camp only in 2004, though the project of the memorial had been ready to be implemented in the 1990-ies. It was designed by the Belarusian architect Leonid Levin, first of all known as one of the authors of the memorial complex “Khatyn”.

The complex, dedicated to the victims of fascism in Krasny Bereg, represents the Sun Square with eight alleys-rays radiating along an apple orchard. The main objects of the memorial are:

  • The sculpture of a girl at the entrance to the complex. The girl, exhausted and thin, in despair raises up thin hands, as if trying to protect herself from all the nightmares and horrors of the Nazi “death factory”.

  • "A white classroom". The composition consists of empty school desks of white colour. This classroom is also called dead. It is located on the main alley (“Ray of Memory”).

  • Katya Susanina’s letter. The text of a real letter of the 15-year-old girl to her father is reproduced on the blackboard in front of the “Dead class”. The letter was found in 1944 in Liozno as “the last will of a dying daughter”. The girl wrote it before committing suicide not to go to Germany.

  • The Shiplet of Hope. This symbol-monument is in the center of the composition. Children’s names are inscribed on the snow-white sails.

  • Children’s paintings. More than 20 art works in stained glass are located behind the Shiplet of Hope. They are also imbued with bright emotions, banishing the darkness of death.  

  • The apple orchard as an important part of the memorial composition. It is a symbol of shed blood, memory and hope. 

The memorial complex in the village Krasny Bereg is located 20 km from Zhlobin and 105 km from Gomel. It is a monument national importance. Among the 8 improvised “rays” of the memorial complex only one is black. Everything is imbued with the light of hope, however, it is really hard to hold back tears during the tour.