July 22, 1943. It was evening in the village of Dory

The villagers were watching with fear how the invaders were driving population together to the center, to the Church. The villagers understood that nothing good could be expected fr om the brutal Nazis and their henchmen of the locals. Yes, there were some, and sometimes they were zealous in punitive operations worse than the invaders themselves.

Neither prayers nor caution was able to rescue them. The invaders drew aside those who could work, younger and stronger, to be sent to Germany for hard labor. All the others, weak and defenseless women with children and old men, were driven together to the Church. Who could lift his hand against the lives of vulnerable people in their Church, wh ere they conducted services, offered up prayers, observed the beginning and the end of life, the birth of children? But nevertheless it happened.

The Nazis emptied the weapon into the crowd and without any compassion burned the building with people inside. Only three of them could save, they managed to escape and run away, and later they joined the partisans. The rest 257 people, including 36 children, were burnt alive.

Belarusians could not forget such a case and not honor those who had died in the fire. The composition of the memorial complex in the village Dory is saturated with the feeling of grief, sorrow and loss.

In the process of the monument construction the remains of the Church were literally dug up and raised, and on an uncovered foundation there was placed a memorial plaque. The names of the dead are placed on, the foot of which is the basis for bronze funeral wreaths. A four-meter sculpture of grieving women symbolizes a mother, widow, and indeed any female soul, crying from the inescapable grief. “Widows. The dead are being waited forever”, such is the name of the whole sculptural group. Eternal women's fate is to wait for the unreturned from the war, grieve the losses, but still, not losing hope, to believe the best and wait.

 It is quiet in the memorial complex; only birches are noisy, grieving together with those who came to honor the memory of victims. Everything disposes to conscious grief, recognition of the scales of tragedy, thoughts.

The authors of the complex are Sculptor Nikolaj Ivanovich Kondratiev, Architects Olga Borisovna Vladykina and Stanislav Ivanivich Fedchenko. By the time of construction of this monument they had already been experienced artists, imbibed both national traditions of creating memorials and all the best that had accumulated the art of sculpture with the socialist system.

Initially in the 70s of the last century the women’s figures were small made of food. They were not needed and at the author’s. Then, at the suggestion of the architect Fedchenko, the sculptor Kondratiev agreed to cast them in metal, having increased the size of the figures to enhance the monumentality and grandeur. The sculptural groups are blended with the landscape in such a way that you can see them from any part of the adjacent territory.

The complex in its current version has existed since 1991, and the original wooden pieces were given to the Museum of the Great Patriotic War.

In conclusion it is necessary to say that one of the authors of the memorial S.I.Fedchenko wrote a poem dedicated to his work in the village Dory and to the monument created with his participation.  Such was the degree of empathy that the soul of the artist could not fail to feel the high feeling and not to respond. He tells about general sorrow in simple words.  This mourning brings together people and nature in mourning crying for the dead in the fire. Sadly droop heads and silence falls at the memorial.