GATCHINSKY DISTRICT (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 21st June, 2021) The foundation stone of the memorial complex dedicated to the Soviet civilians who perished during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945 was laid in the Gatchinsky district of the Leningrad region on Monday, a Sputnik correspondent reported from the scene.
"What happened to the civilians here has only one name � genocide. And here today we are installing the foundation stone for the future memorial dedicated to the genocide of the Soviet people during the Great Patriotic War. Genocide as a purposeful, deliberate and everyday policy of the military and civilian authorities of Nazi Germany towards our people," chairman of the Russian Military Historical Society Vladimir Medinsky said at the memorial ceremony.
The future memorial complex will be located in the Gatchinsky district, which hosted numerous prisoner of war camps, as well as donor camps where Soviet children were held to transfuse blood to Nazi soldiers. About 82,000 people were tortured to death and 6,000 were hanged in concentration camps in the territory of the Gatchina region alone.
In March, the Russian Investigative Committee chief, Alexander Bastrykin, told Sputnik that the state body had decided to combine several cases on the persecution of the Soviet civilians during World War II into one large genocide case. Among cases that investigators are looking into is a massacre in the village of Zhestyanaya Gorka, where at least 2,600 people were killed; the killing of 214 residents of Yeisk orphanage; killings of camp prisoners in the village of Moglino; and killings of civilians in Rostov.
