Problems of xenophobia and anti-Semitism in modern Belarus

1. National policy of the state and anti-Semitism

"The shadow of the Jewish people" called anti-Semitism Albert Einstein. Indeed, anti-Semitism as a special, specific form of national xenophobia has always been, is and will be everywhere where there are Jews, and sometimes where they are not.

So the problem is not whether he is in this or that region of the world, but how strong and aggressive he is. It's about the "quantity".

The modern world community is sick with militant nationalism, which in one form or another accompanies the process of disintegration of empires and other world communities into mono-national states. In this regard, the modern Belarusian state is no exception, although the tension of interethnic relations here is much less than in other regions of the former Soviet Union.

Belarus is a multinational and multi-confessional state, but the centuries-old relations between peoples and confessions are still distinguished by their tolerance, which is surprising for other regions of the former USSR. And if xenophobic sentiments still manifest themselves in one way or another, then this is not the result of processes naturally occurring in society, but one way or another, the result of the activity of political forces that escalate tension in the country.

In the last decade, the vector of application of these forces has changed in the post-Soviet space, which has led to the development of Caucasian phobia and the retreat of anti-Semitism into the background. And although the majority of the population of Belarus does not have a serious experience of communicating with representatives of the Caucasian peoples (except for "bazaar"), Caucasian phobia takes place. According to a poll conducted in the fall of 2002 by the Zerkalo sociological service, about 48% of Minsk residents surveyed consider it likely that Chechens could commit terrorist attacks on the territory of Belarus. Neo-Nazi groups are also infected with anti-Caucasian sentiments. In particular, on the night of November 8, the walls of the Tatar mosque in Slonim were painted: next to the words "Time to kill" there was a swastika, which directly points to the authors of the graffiti. According to the head of the local Muslim community, S. Bayrashevsky, this is not the first act of vandalism directed against local Muslims.

Jews currently make up no more than 1% of the population of the republic (according to the 1999 census - 0.3%), but the "Jewish question" as a system of relations between the Jewish national minority and the state continues to be quite relevant. The rise of national self-consciousness, which is characteristic of our days, has also affected the Jewish population, but the Jews do not have the conditions for the realization of their national aspirations. In this regard, the current situation is not much different from the situation that was characteristic of the USSR. Most of the distortions and abuses that were characteristic of the period of totalitarian communist rule have not been corrected to this day.

Today, Belarus is a classic example of an extremely centralized bureaucratic state, in which all distribution of national goods occurs "from above". However, national communities practically do not receive support from the state to preserve their national identity. This is how it affects the Jewish population.

There are no state Jewish schools and preschool institutions in the republic, and those classes and groups that exist exist only thanks to the financial support of the Israeli Ministry of Education. In 2002, another request to allocate the Jewish classes of secondary school N132 in Minsk to an independent school (gymnasium) was not satisfied by the authorities.

There are no Jewish newspapers on the budget, there is no state subsidization of the Jewish press published by public and religious associations. There is not a single minute of radio and television broadcasting for the Jewish national minority, not only in Jewish, but even in Russian or Belarusian. There are no Jewish theaters and concert ensembles, except for amateur ones, which exist on private donations.

There are no Jewish cultural and charitable centers, except for those built or existing at the expense of foreign sponsors. There is no state publishing activity in the Jewish language and on Jewish topics.

Due to the lack of a law on restitution in Belarus, most of the former religious buildings have not been returned to the Jewish population, as a result of which religious communities are forced to rent premises for themselves. Until now, not a single building, which previously belonged to Jews and was built in the past with Jewish money, has not been returned to Jewish public organizations. Moreover, without the consent of the Jewish community in 2002, the building built in the 1990s was demolished. nineteenth century cult knowledge on the street. Dimitrova (formerly Tatarskaya), construction began on the site of the demolished in the 20th century. the oldest stone building in Minsk (1611) - the so-called "Cold" synagogue on Nemiga street.

The result of this attitude towards former Jewish property is the fact that the Union of Jewish Organizations and Communities, which has existed for 12 years, still does not even have its own office space, although even before the start of World War II in Minsk, 42% of the population was Jewish and owned significant real estate.

In the current Law on National Minorities, adopted in 1992, there is not a single item that would regulate the obligations of the State in maintaining the identity of the peoples living on the territory of Belarus.

In contrast to the era of communist rule, when such a policy was the result of quite legal state anti-Semitism, today this situation has developed solely due to the absence of a state program (even just at the level of a concept) to prevent the assimilation of small peoples inhabiting Belarus.

And, nevertheless, one can note the presence of a subjective factor in solving many issues related to the satisfaction of national needs. In particular, over the past ten years, Christian denominations have received back a significant amount of real estate previously owned by them and requisitioned (more precisely, confiscated) by the Soviet authorities. Huge buildings of former cathedrals have been liberated in many cities. At the same time, archives, gyms, cultural centers (for example, the Cinema House in Minsk, planetariums in Gomel and Lida) were evicted to other premises (sometimes even outside settlements), or even completely liquidated. However, when it comes to buildings of former synagogues, the authorities cannot vacate small houses with 6-7 windows along the facade (for example, sports halls in Minsk, Bobruisk, Mogilev).

2. The peculiarity of state anti-Semitism in the post-Soviet era

The absence of the most odious forms of state anti-Semitism of the recent past (prohibitions on the profession, percentage rates for the admission of Jews to educational institutions, denial of the right to freedom of choice of the country of residence, discrimination in many other issues - coverage of Jewish history, refusal to recognize the positive role of Jews in the state and cultural construction of the USSR, in the fight against Nazism, the refusal to commemorate the victims of the Nazi genocide, restrictions on career advancement, in international tourism, etc., etc.) does not yet indicate his departure from the political realities of today, because on the ground cases of outright anti-Semite phobia on the part of government officials are still not uncommon.

State anti-Semitism has ceased to be one of the main elements of social policy, but some of its manifestations still exist. The most serious among them are the actual refusal of the authorities to provide social protection for Jews and manifestations of ideological anti-Semitism in the state media.

Three years have passed since the publishing house "Orthodox Initiative" published the book "War According to the Laws of Meanness" in a 30,000th print run, which soon received the name "encyclopedia of anti-Semitism" in the press. The book republished the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion", "The Catechism of the Jews of the USSR" and other anti-Semitic fakes that had already received appropriate evaluation in the past. But so far, neither the administration of the President of Belarus, nor the Orthodox diocese, under whose auspices the book was published, have given the necessary assessment not only to the materials included in it, but even to the very fact of the publication of the book. On the contrary, in the autumn of 2001, anti-Semite S. Kostyan, a member of the House of Representatives, distributed this book as a gift among parliamentarians on the opening day of the first session of Parliament.

The authorities refuse to give a fundamental (that is, political, ideological) assessment of the existing facts of inciting interethnic and interfaith hatred in the republic. The inquiries of Jewish public organizations are either simply not answered, or all the facts are reduced to manifestations of simple hooliganism. There are still enough government officials in the republic who profess anti-Semitic views and display them when considering problems related to the solution of the "Jewish question." The authorities not only do not fight against them, but, hiding behind the President's opinion that there is no anti-Semitism in the country, they pretend in every possible way that any talk about bureaucratic subjectivism is slander.

On July 24, 2002, the Union of Jewish Organizations and Communities sent an appeal to the President of the country with a request to take measures in connection with the outbreak of criminal anti-Semitism in Belarus. The appeal was accompanied by a photo essay, in which three pages were occupied by images of neo-Nazi graffiti on the streets of Belarusian cities and three - vandalism in Jewish cemeteries. As the news agency later reported, on the same day, “Lukashenko answered: there is no anti-Semitism in Belarus, the desecration of graves was “accidental hooliganism.” In addition, he suggested that the act of vandalism could have been committed “not by Belarusians, but by foreign tourists.” .

That is why, dealing with the facts of manifestation of neo-Nazism, anti-Semitism and aggressive nationalism, none of the officials can take the liberty of writing about what, in the opinion of the head of state, does not exist in Belarus.

As for the perpetrators, here the bodies of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, without the slightest shadow of embarrassment, signed their own impotence: out of 10 (ten!) Criminal cases initiated on this topic, not a single (!) Was brought to trial.

As for the facts of inciting interethnic and interreligious hatred in literature and the mass media, the authorities found a rather curious reason to refuse claims for the protection of honor and dignity of discriminated peoples and religious groups: provocative works are recognized as scientific, that is, not subject to litigation. This happened, in particular, during the trial with the publishers of the book "War under the laws of meanness." As a result, the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" (!) were recognized as scientific works. And the statements of Jewish leaders to the prosecutor's office that this book incites ethnic hatred were rejected. The statements of the publisher of the book, given in the preface, that by the end of the 20th century the Jews swore to take over the world, and other equally odious thoughts, were simply ignored by the prosecutors.

As for the fight against radicalism in matters of interethnic relations, a number of important points should be noted here.

Firstly, there is no serious legal basis in the country: intent is required to prove the fact of inciting ethnic hatred and insulting national dignity, and this subjective factor simply cannot be proved without the recognition of the defendant himself.

Secondly, one should take into account the "baggage of the past" with which society entered the post-Soviet space. For example, Belarus has strong ties with its Arab Middle Eastern partners, whose anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish sentiments the authorities must take into account. Therefore, even if there is a serious evidence base, it is almost impossible to win a case against anti-Semites. So, even with a strong desire, things cannot go beyond the declarations of the authorities about the need to combat anti-Semitism.

3. Public (spontaneous) anti-Semitism

Everyday anti-Semitism due to the long-term racist policy of the CPSU is one of the most persistent prejudices in the public mind of the population of the countries of the former USSR, but from the point of view of public danger, it is the least significant form of anti-Semitism.

Today, everyday anti-Semitism is almost invisible. Conflicts associated with it and arising on everyday grounds, as a rule, are not of an aggressive nature and end happily. 86% of mixed marriages among the Jews of Belarus is a rather serious indicator of positively developing events in this area. Domestic aggression occurs only in extreme conditions. In 2002, there were no mass outbreaks of domestic anti-Semitism. There were several in 2001. The most serious occurred on June 30 in Minsk during a football match for the UEFA Cup - Intertoto between the teams "Dinamo" (Minsk) - "Apoel" (Haifa), when in the stands, at the sight of the Israeli flag, there were unanimous cries of "Crush the Jews!", "Beat Jews!"

But cases of individual manifestations of anti-Semite phobia are often recorded. Most often, these are leaflets that are thrown into mailboxes or hung out in porches. During the year, such leaflets periodically appeared in the South-Western microdistrict of Minsk. In some of them (received from residents of one of the elite houses in the center of Minsk), typed on a computer, there were such threats: "Jews are discrediting Russia", "There are a lot of Jews in this entrance - they should be shot."

The year 2002 was marked by a serious outbreak of criminal anti-Semitism in Belarus. The escalation of this kind of crimes became possible due to the fact that the police, the prosecutor's office and the courts for many years refused to qualify them as having arisen on the basis of aggressive nationalism and anti-Semitism. Over the past 14 years, there has not been a single case where an incident has been seriously analyzed in the state media, and those responsible have been punished.

The most frequent manifestation of criminal anti-Semitism is vandalism at Jewish cemeteries. The mass destruction of monuments in cemeteries has become so commonplace that the authorities in many cases refuse not only to restore gravestones, as provided by law, but even to respond to these incidents.

In 2002, for the first time in many years, cemetery pogroms took place in Minsk: on the night of July 13 and 14, more than 40 tombstones were destroyed at once in the Moscow and Northern cemeteries. It should be noted that these cemeteries are guarded, they are surrounded by high fences, well-groomed. There is no doubt that this is a well-planned action carried out by marginal groups. The authorities once again pretended that this was the work of "random hooligans."

There are separate cemeteries that are constantly vandalized, year after year, or even more often. These include Jewish cemeteries in Vitebsk. Local authorities do practically nothing to break this "tradition". In April 2002, another pogrom took place at the Staro-Ulanovsky cemetery: 1 Jewish tombstones were stolen and 7 were damaged. (In 2001, 38 tombstones were destroyed simultaneously). In December 2002, the pedestal was once again (3rd time in 4 years) destroyed at the Staro-Semenovskoye cemetery and a bust of the famous Jewish artist, Marc Chagall's teacher Yudel Pan was stolen.

There were cases of vandalism at Jewish cemeteries in Borisov, Gomel, Berezino and other cities. In May 2003 there were cases of vandalism at the Jewish cemeteries of Gomel, Bobruisk, Timkovich (Minsk region). These cemeteries are not guarded anywhere, there is no control over them, burials are carried out chaotically, on the site of abandoned old Jewish burials, burials of the dead, who have nothing to do with Jews, are carried out uncontrollably, that is, the integrity of the national ranks of the cemetery is violated (Mogilev, Borisov). In Borisov, tombstones on the same graves were destroyed for two years in a row.

Monuments to the victims of the Nazi genocide are often destroyed or vandalized. For three years in a row, the monument standing in the center of Brest was desecrated four times: a gallows with a hanging Star of David was painted on it with oil paint, and next to it was written: "Kill a Jew." Nobody was looking for the perpetrator. When, after another act of desecration of this obelisk, he was nevertheless detained, it turned out that many knew him, and he boasted of his deed to many. The offender disappeared from Brest. He escaped punishment, but almost immediately, at the beginning of November 2001, in Minsk, the monument to the Jews of Hamburg, exterminated in the Minsk ghetto, was desecrated in the same way: the same gallows with the Star of David was painted and the same words were written - "Kill the Jew" .

On August 17, 2002, the monument to the victims of the mass death of Jews in the city of Lida was damaged.

Often vandalism is extremely cynical. The gallows with a "suspended" Star of David on the obelisks in memory of the victims of the Nazi genocide is a relatively new type of street graffiti. This drawing in Minsk on the memorial to the Jews of Germany, deported to Belarus for extermination in 1941, is only slightly painted over and is clearly visible. His image was overshadowed by the celebration on the day when the Belarusian and German public opened another memorial stone of this memorial - in honor of the Jews of Bremen exterminated in Minsk.

Anti-Jewish graffiti on the streets of Belarusian cities began to appear in the last three or four years. Images of swastikas, inscriptions "Beat the Jews!" and "Death to the Jews!" may not be painted over for months, while the inscriptions "Long live Belarus!", which are considered anti-presidential, are removed immediately. In the summer of 2002, the inscription "Beat the Jews!" appeared in the very center of Minsk, on Masherov Avenue, on the poster of the concert dedicated to the 115th anniversary of the birth of Marc Chagall. The inscription "Death to the Jews!" appeared on August 1, 2002 in Vitebsk, in the very center of the city, on the wall of the city bank building. The authorities paid no attention to them.

The Star of David, hung on the gallows, appeared on the days of Christian Easter 2002 on the building of the synagogue in Pinsk. In the same place, in Pinsk, on the same days, a swastika appeared next to a memorial plaque in honor of the first President of Israel, Chaim Weizmann. Stylized swastikas can be seen in many cities of Belarus. Especially a lot of them were drawn in 2002 in Gomel, Minsk, Vitebsk. The walls of a number of houses in Minsk are painted with swastikas even today. There are separate courtyards where all the walls of fences and entrances are painted with neo-Nazi graffiti (for example, Gikalo and Yesenin streets in Minsk).

4. Organized anti-Semitism

This form of anti-Semitism is characteristic of the activities of political parties, religious or public organizations that use human prejudices for their own purposes, most often to seize and hold power.

In Belarus over the past few years, there have been no facts of religious anti-Semitism, that is, the use of anti-Jewish Christian myths to incite anti-Jewish sentiments. But this kind of literature, published in Russia, comes to the republic. It lies on the shelves in the stalls of Orthodox churches and kiosks selling religious literature. One of these kiosks is located in the lobby of the main building of the National Academy of Sciences. In addition, there is a Pravoslavnaya Kniga store in Minsk, where you can also buy such literature, as well as issues of anti-Semitic newspapers published in Russia. Today the Russian Orthodox Church is one of the main publishers of anti-Semitic literature.

For almost a year, the Jewish community fought to stop the newspaper Russky Vestnik, published in Moscow, from coming to the republic for sale at the kiosks of Belsoyuzpechat. In all issues of this newspaper, one can find materials that offend the national and religious feelings of Jews, articles inciting ethnic hatred. The last statement of the leaders of Jewish public and religious associations to the Republican Prosecutor's Office was sent after issues of the Russkiy vestnik appeared on newsstands, in which on the eve of Orthodox Easter the question of human sacrifices necessary for Jews for religious purposes was again raised. At the same time, it was stated that the war in Iraq and the terrorist attacks in New York on September 11 were provoked by Jews.

As for Belarus, among the events of the Orthodox diocese there is a religious holiday associated with whipping up anti-Jewish sentiments - the day of the Infant Martyr Gabriel of Bialystok, which is celebrated on May 3 in memory of a child "tormented by the Jews" in the Bialystok district (then in Poland) in 1690. Despite many critical articles that nowhere is evidence of the participation of Jews in his violent death, the Orthodox Church does not try to decanonize this saint (which Father Alexander Men called for in his time). The day of this martyr is included in the Orthodox calendar, published in the government newspaper Narodnaya Gazeta on January 3, 2003.

Political anti-Semitism, that is, the use of anti-Semitic themes in the activities of political parties or during the period of election campaigning, has not been observed in Belarus in recent years. Most likely, this is due to the fact that there is practically no active party life and political struggle in the republic. In a totalitarian society, nothing can happen at all without a command "from above", and during the reign of A. Lukashenko, the president himself has not been noticed in any anti-Semitic actions or statements. On the contrary, he always emphasizes that "Jews will no longer be outcasts on this earth." He is the only one of the officials who, in his speeches, could talk about the role of Jewish partisan detachments during the Second World War.

However, the "Jewish question" is often addressed in the party press. In the articles of the communist newspaper "We and Time", as well as in the speeches of the communist leaders, as in past times, the existence of the "Jewish question" is completely denied. But since the communists are quite close to the leaders of the Russian Communist Party, known for their anti-Semitic sentiments, one can expect that at critical moments anti-Semitism can become a weapon in the political struggle, especially since the names of active anti-Semites are known among the leaders of the Belarusian communists.

5. Ideological anti-Semitism

Until 1992, Belarus was one of the most active regions of the USSR in the manifestation of ideological anti-Semitism - the form of anti-Semitism that performs the main function of agitation and propaganda of anti-Jewish myths and the emergence of anti-Jewish sentiments in the country.

The main generator of anti-Semitic books and articles in those years were employees of the Institute of Philosophy and Law of the National Academy of Sciences. The name of the philosopher Vladimir Begun, the author of numerous anti-Semitic books disguised as anti-Zionist literature, has become synonymous with the vicious and aggressive Black Hundreds. Nowadays, new figures have come to replace him. Some of them occupy a rather serious place in society. Among them are MP Sergei Kostyan, editor-in-chief of the literary magazine "Neman", former radio journalist Nina Chaika, editor of the Bulletin of the President of the Republic, writer Eduard Skobelev.

E. Skobelev at one time (working in the apparatus of the Central Committee of the CPB) was one of the most active authors of the magazine published in Belarus until 1992, published by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Belarus, "Political Interlocutor", in which anti-Jewish propaganda was purposefully carried out. It was E. Skobelev who, back in 1990, on the pages of this magazine, suggested "taking up machine guns" when solving the Jewish question.

After the closure of this journal and until 2002, not a single publication was published in Belarus in which anti-Semitic works were published. However, with the emergence in mid-2002 of a media holding, which for some time was headed and recruited by the already mentioned S. Kostyan, it became clear that ideological anti-Semitism would flare up again. These symptoms appeared already in 2002. Here are a few quotes from the Belarusian press in 2002.

Here is one of the well-known chauvinistic authors N. Sergeev, having forgotten the sad experience of the Nazis, seriously considers the issue of the Aryan origin of the Slavs. ("Modern science quite definitely shows that the ancient Aryans and the ancestors of the Slavs spoke the same language ... In Slavic mythology, the "Aryan trace" has also been preserved in the form of the name of the legendary progenitor "Grandfather Orius" ... See "Where did the Slavic clan come from ?" Newspaper "7 days", N24, 06/15/2002).

And here is what an apologist for the forced assimilation of the peoples inhabiting Belarus, the writer E. Skobelev, writes: "It is time for each people to return to their territory or voluntarily lose the right to national identification" (See "Lights in the darkness of delusions", "Neman", N7 / 8, 2002, p. 80).

And now the same E. Skobelev is escalating the situation, talking about how hard it is for the fighters for "historical truth" because of the pressure of "dozens of officially registered Jewish organizations in Belarus", because of the flow of "spontaneously flooding from abroad" "outraged telegrams from Jewish and pro-Jewish centers", due to the fact that "the Council of Ministers of the Republic was subjected to pressure by pushers and lobbyists", whose names the "top layer of the country's administrative elite" does not yet know (See "Everyone has the right to evaluate everyone ", "Narodnaya Gazeta", November 23).

All this is happening with the tacit consent of the authorities. The same magazine "Neman" (2003, No. 4) published E. Skobelev's novel "Stalin's Testament", in which the author, using the possibilities of a work of art, fills the thoughts of his characters with the most incredible anti-Jewish insinuations.

As E. Skobelev himself explained the concept of his novel in the author's preface, he wrote "about the Jews, one of the most ancient peoples, who for centuries supposedly was the" last ", and now became" the will of fate "the first - in terms of accumulated financial capital, political influence and special technology of continuous expansion of the space of its power. According to E. Skobelev, it is in Belarus that the Jews "unrestrictedly develop the infrastructure of their influence." The novel is dedicated to exposing the "crimes" of the Jewish people against the Russians and the collective responsibility of the entire Jewish people for the crimes of its individual representatives.

6. Activities of neo-Nazi groups

The actions of neo-Nazi groups speak best of all about the threat of fascisation of the country.

The existence of such groups is denied by the authorities in every possible way. However, the chronicle of events shows that this is not the case. The actions of these groups are accompanied by many details that clearly indicate their neo-Nazi content.

On November 22, 2001, during a concert of the Dutch rock band "Third Stone" in the Minsk club "Reaktor", a skinhead "team" of about 20 people demonstrated their political predilections by shouting "Sieg heil!" and throwing up their hands in a Nazi salute. The police present in the hall were silent.

One of the many graffiti left by skinheads in 2001 in the center of Minsk: in one of the words, the letter "x" was replaced with a swastika.

On November 7, 2001, a group of football fans who arrived from Minsk to Brest for the game of their team visited the Brest Fortress. With cries of "Heil Hitler!" young people tried to take away the machine gun from the sentry, who was on duty at the eternal flame.

The streets in many Belarusian cities are decorated with images of swastikas, next to which are the letters "RNE", indicating who exactly painted these swastikas. The authorities deny the existence of active groups of this organization - "Russian National Unity", but from time to time there are criminal cases in which RNU members are actors. In particular, just a year ago, former special forces soldier Valery Ignatovich was sentenced to life imprisonment. He and a group of his accomplices were found guilty of a number of serious crimes, including premeditated murder. Ignatovich himself was a hand-to-hand combat instructor in RNE groups.

In Borisov, on the eve of Pesach (2002), young hooligans tried to attack the office of the youth Jewish organization Ezra, throwing threatening notes at them. In the same days, the entrance to the Borisov Jewish charitable organization "Chesed" was set on fire.

In 2002, many images of the swastika appeared in the center of Gomel. One of them was applied to the sidewalk. A German text was written next to the swastika: "Gott mit uns" ("God is with us") - a sacramental phrase for the German army during World War II (2002).

All these phenomena are not seriously assessed in the state media, on radio and TV, and sociological studies on this topic are not published (if they exist at all). On the contrary, there are cases when the activities of such groups are practically justified. For example, when in December 2002 a group of skinheads was convicted in Vitebsk for violence against students of a medical university who came from Asian and African countries, the same E. Skobelev spoke out in the government press with a frank refutation of the verdict.

Here is how E. Skobelev assesses the current situation in Belarus: “Belarusian society ... overcomes great and IMPOSED ON US FROM THE SIDE [highlighted by E. Skobelev - Ya. B.] difficulties. Some people would very much like to drag us into an endless trial of far-fetched, provoked political "issues", including national ones..." (See E. Skobelev, "To judge is also to manage", "Narodnaya Gazeta", March 3). E. Skobelev does not think that he himself provokes such proceedings with his articles and novels.

The neo-Nazi orientation of hooligan youth is evidenced by the numerous images of the swastika, which can be found on fences, walls of buildings, in underground passages, in porches, in the arches of houses, at bus stops. The activity of these youth groups is growing. Moreover, they perform in places connected not only with Jewish life. Here is a chronicle of recent events over a short period of time: from May 1 to June 10, 2003.

Beginning of May. Concerts in 4 cities of Belarus by the Russian punk-rock group "Civil Defense" (abbreviated as "GrOb") under the direction of Yegor Letov. The program of the group consists of songs of frankly national-Bolshevik content (in the past there were songs of anti-Christian and anti-Semitic persuasion). The group is no longer allowed into the Baltic countries and many cities in Russia. The attempt of the Jewish community and the democratic youth movement of Belarus to prevent the concerts was not successful. No response was received to the application of the Jewish community to the Presidential Administration, the Republican Prosecutor's Office and the Committee on Nationality and Religions.

May 15. Vandalism at one of the Jewish cemeteries in Gomel. Several headstones were destroyed.

May 15. Vandalism on the graves of victims of political repressions in Kurapaty (outskirts of Minsk). 10 crosses were destroyed, the memorial sign "From the people of the United States of America" ​​was damaged.

May, 23rd. Vandalism at the Jewish cemetery in Timkovichi, Kopyl district, Minsk region. A week before, the cemetery was visited by a delegation of Canadian Jews - doctors who arrived in Belarus with a humanitarian program.

May 25th. A memorial bench (a gift from US President B. Clinton, 1994) in Kurapaty was desecrated. This is not the first act of vandalism at this memorial. In 2000, a criminal case was opened. The investigation turned up nothing.

26 of May. The Pit, a memorial to the victims of the Nazi genocide in the center of Minsk, was desecrated. On the obelisk, right on the Jewish text, a large swastika is drawn in white oil paint, below which is the inscription "Holocaust 2003", and above - "Beat the Jews." On the menorah, installed at the entrance to the memorial, there are three images of a swastika. A criminal case has been opened.

26 of May. Vandalism at the Jewish cemetery in Bobruisk. 4 headstones destroyed. The portraits of the deceased are smeared with yellow (!) paint. On one of the graves in large yellow letters is written: "Death to the Jews."

May 30. The city of Borisov, Minsk region. The monument to the victims of political repressions on the high bank of the Berezina River (Borisovskie Kurapaty) was desecrated. A 4-meter birch cross was stolen. Previously, this commemorative sign had already been desecrated: it was felled, painted with five-pointed stars and swastikas.

2 June. The US Ambassador expressed concern that the gift of the US people to the people of Belarus is not protected by anyone and is subjected to desecration.

June 3rd. The ambassadors of the countries of the European Union (Germany, Great Britain, France and Italy) held an action of solidarity with the Jewish people in connection with the desecration of the national shrine of the Jews - the memorial on the Pit. Memorable places in Minsk connected with the history of the Jews of Belarus and the Holocaust were visited.

June 6th A monument to soldiers who died during World War II in the Chelyuskintsev Park (Minsk) was desecrated. The monument is flooded with black paint, wreaths laid earlier have been burnt.

All of the above indicates that

a) in general, the threat of vandalism exists to places of value either to the Jewish people or to the democratic public;

b) the authorities do not try to prevent the activities of radical groups: concerts, newspaper and magazine publications that provoke such actions are not prohibited;

c) the state underestimates the danger of anti-Semitic manifestations for the stability of the social situation and national harmony in the republic;

d) the state does not carry out work to prevent interethnic conflicts, prevent manifestations of aggressive xenophobia and anti-Semitism, and social protection of the Jewish population.

** Yakov Basin,

Vice President of the Union of Belarusian Jewish Public Associations and Communities**