A subject book exhibition "The 41st shall never fade..." timed to the 70th anniversary of the beginning of the Great Patriotic War and the Heroic Defense of the Brest Fortress runs at the National Library of Belarus (3rd floor, circular hall) from 26 May to 5 July.
70 years have passed since the dawn of 22 June, 1941, when the Nazi Germany traitorously attacked the Soviet Union. The War had started to ruin lives of generations of Soviet people and to leave its ineffaceable trace in the land of Belarus. The Belarusians, along with other peoples of the Ex-USSR, consider this date as the Day of Memory and Sorrow.
The War had caused unprecedented miseries, grieves and devastations. During the Nazi occupation in Belarus, about 2.7 million people were tortured and killed; about 380 thousand people were deported to Germany for forced labor. 9.2 thousand villages were burnt down, dwellers of 5 295 villages were burnt alive. At the end of the War all cities and towns of Belarus had been totally ravaged, almost all research, educational, cultural and public health institutions had been ruined.
The initial period of the War was particularly tragic. Numerous complex issues of foreign and internal policy, the traitorously attack of the Nazi Germany against the Soviet Union, the foe’s superior forces on principal sectors had predetermined the Red Army’s fail at the beginning of the War.
In summer 1941 the foe occupied Belarus. However, in the first days, weeks and months of the summer 1941 the first germs of the forthcoming Victory had emerged. The Nazis’ “Blitzkrieg” started to collapse in the first battles in Belarus.
The land of Brest had made a great contribution to the hard Victory. The unfading feat of the Brest Fortress is well-known the world over. During almost one month, the assaulted Fortress repulsed the attack of the Nazis’ 45th elite infantry division and other units reinforced by aviation and large-caliber artillery. In spite of hard bombing and gunnery, the Hitlerites’ steady attacks, famine and thirst, the defenders of the Fortress didn’t surrender. Almost all defenders had perished, but they managed to contain the enemy’s attack for a month and to cause them enormous tolls. The Brest Fortress had become the symbol of the feat of arms and the heroism of our warriors.
The National Library of Belarus dedicates the subject book exhibition “The 41st shall never fade...” to the 70th anniversary of the beginning of the Great Patriotic War and the Heroic Defense of the Brest Fortress. More than 200 books about one of the bloodiest wars in the history are on display. A particular exhibition presents sources on the Brest Fortress: biographies of the heroes, fiction, monographs, albums, schemes and maps.
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